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knew of pitching changes or thunderstorms or injuries.
    “What you got on the Cowboys?” one of Dink’s wiseguys asked him one morning. It was early, not even ten o’clock. Dink had yet to call his colleague. He didn’t know what he had on the Cowboys.
    “I’m not open yet,” Dink said.
    “I gotta get down before I go to my kid’s Bar Mitzvah. Just tell me what you got on the Cowboys.”
    “I’m not prepared yet,” Dink said.
    “Well, what’d ya have ’em at last night? Just gimme that line.”
    Dink turned the pages of his notebook, searching for the odds he’d given out the night before.
    “Thirteen,” Dink said.
    “All right. Gimme the Cowboys minus thirteen for two dimes.”
    Dink hesitated. Dealing a line before checking with fellow bookmakers to see what line they were using was like selling an antique before you had researched the item. He didn’t want to be taken for an amateur, but he also didn’t want to seem rude, didn’t want to lose a customer.
    “Okay,” Dink said. “Cowboys minus thirteen for two dimes.”
    There was no Bar Mitzvah. The customer had learned that the quarterback for the opposing team was injured. The Cowboys were going to win by a landslide. Bookmakers were no longer taking bets on the game.
    … except for that one kid in Queens.
    “I don’t feel good,” Dink said.
    He sat beside a friend, Ernie, on the steps outside the track. Dink had on his signature outfit of jeans, sneakers, and a red satin Montreal Canadiens jacket two sizes too small. The snaps strained to stay closed. Like Dinky, they looked as though they were in pain.
    “I owe out a lot of money,” Dink continued. “And everything I do every day indicates that I’m gonna owe a lot more money.”
    Dink’s “a lot of money” was $120,000.
    “You know, Dinky,” Ernie said, “you can
not
pay people and they’ll let you live. Just tell ’em you’re broke. If you ever get money you’ll give it to ’em. But for now, say you’re broke. Say you quit.”
    “If I quit, what do I do? I’ll owe out money and have no income. I have to pay. I don’t wanna go broke.”
    To most gamblers, going broke is a rite of passage. It’s the only real way to foster a disregard for money. Only after a gambler goes broke, and recovers, does he build the fortitude needed to take bigger risks. This is the knowledge the old-timers had passed down to Dink and his friends, most of whom were already broke. But Dink didn’t buy it. Going broke was his greatest fear. If he went broke it would shatter the one belief that sustained all of his self-esteem: that he was a good bookmaker.
    “You need a lender?” Ernie asked.
    “You know one?”
    “I know one. But you gotta make sure you pay him, Dinky. The guy’s not such a good guy. I don’t really want you to borrow from him unless you have to.”
    “I have to.”
    The transaction took place at a social club in the Bronx. Beneath the low ceilings, in a poorly lit back booth, a Florsheim shoebox slid, slowly, across the vinyl tablecloth. It stopped at the tip of Dink’s fingertips, gripping the table’s edge. His face half shadowed, the loan shark spoke his only words: two percent interest a week.
    Dink settled his accounts with the wiseguys—including one customer to whom he owed one hundred grand—and people took notice. At twenty-eight, Dink may have been too young to fully grasp the gambling market, but he wasn’t some schmoe who disappeared when he lost. He was an honest, reliable bookmaker, and with his reputation in mint condition, Dink found it easy to acquire customers. Wiseguy gamblers passed Dink’s phone number to unwiseguy gamblers who passed the number on to their college buddies who passed the number on to their dentists who passed the number on to their accountants who passed the number on to their colleagues who were serving time for embezzlement. Soon, Dink was no longer susceptible to the risk that came with taking bets from dozens of seasoned