From down here in the warm street, he could almost hear his cell phone bleating up in his room. The bettors wanted their money now, tonight, and the bookie was always expected to pay up on the spot. The goddam Dodgers. The goddam lucky Dodgers. Cleveland was a lock, a mortal lock to win the World Series. So what if all the action was on the Dodgers? The more the better, he originally thought, because Cleveland couldn’t lose. They were twice the team the Dodgers were! He violated rule number one for any bookie: never, never, ever let your action get so one-sided that you wind up pulling for that team to win. That’s not what the business is about. Of course, Eddie knew that. He knew he was supposed to even out the betting on both sides, collect from the losers, pay off he winners, then pocket the ten percent juice. Sure, he knew that, but he went ahead and took all that Dodger action anyway, without even moving the betting line! And now, he needed nineteen dimes right away. The damn World Series hadn’t been over twenty minutes and already a stream of sweat had slinked its way down the gully of his spine.
