Lay the Favorite Read Free Page B

tip.
    “No, I’ll do it for free,” I said. “I need to learn.”
    “Take the money,” the men sang in unison.
    “Take it,” Dink said. “Chunky’s on a roll. You’re struggling in life. If he wants to give you money, let him give you money.”
    “I’m not struggling in life,” I said.
    “You live in the worst neighborhood in Vegas,” Dink said. “Trust me, you’re struggling.”
    “I live there so I won’t struggle,” I said.
    “That means you’re struggling.”
    I took the money and wrote Chunky’s bet onto the back of my hand so I wouldn’t make a mistake at the window.
    Above us, horses raced on each of the fourteen television screens. Each time Dink began to teach me something about placing a bet, loud cheers and moans interrupted us. After a while, we stopped talking gambling and sipped our Coca-Colas.
    “Do you like music?” Dink asked. “There’s a Dink Inc. office field trip tomorrow. No one else can go. Adult responsibilities.”
    The field trip included flying to San Diego, catching a Mighty Ducks game in Anaheim, and seeing Dink’s favorite band, the Old 97’s. All expenses paid by Dink Inc.
    “Really?!” I shrieked. Then, in a calmer, less eager voice, I said I’d love to.
    “Here,” he said. Using both hands he pulled his wallet from his back pocket. It was as thick as a Big Mac. Money oozed from its corners. He handed me three hundred dollars. “To cover field-trip-related expenses.”
    The next morning I took Otis to the Courtyard animal hospital and spa and paid extra so he could have storybook hour and a suite to himself. Inside McCarran Airport, beside the Megabucks slot machines, I found Dink waiting for me. A New York Knickerbockers duffel bag hung from his shoulder; a white terry-cloth headband pushed his curls away from his face. He held his sports ticker, a beeper-sized gadget which displayed live scores, an inch from his eye. In an effort to bring the text into focus, he cocked his glasses, squinted his left eye shut, and scrunched up his nose. He peered into it with the intensity of a seventh grader looking at his first “tip and strip” nudie-girl pen. From the side of his mouth, his tongue curled upward.
    Only when the captain prepared for takeoff did Dink turn away from his ticker and lower his glasses.
    “Terrible. Dreadful. Horrendous,” he said, heavy-eyed. “Today was not a profitable day.”
    It was my first time flying first class. Not quite believing in my luck, I ordered champagne.

CHAPTER TWO
Dinky
    When Dink Dershowitz was eleven years old his mother, Freda, took him and his friend Howie on a subway ride to the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. Alongside the General Motors Futurama exhibit and the stained-glass windows of the Vatican pavilion was a more modest display that captured Dink and Howie’s attention.
    It was the Minnesota state exhibit. As the two friends admired a large stuffed moose, something caught their eye. Hanging on the wall, above the moose’s antlers, numbers scrolled across a small black screen: the updated scores for the Minnesota Twins game. Twins 4, White Sox 3, bottom of the sixth.
    A sports ticker. Dink was awestruck.
    “Can you believe it?” Dink whispered to Howie. “In the future, no matter where we are in the world, we’ll be able to see baseball scores!”
    Scores. Even as a kid that was what interested Dink most. Not which team was winning or losing, but by how much.
    One morning, on his way to Hebrew school, Dink came upon a group of older kids crouched in a circle. They looked over theirshoulders, making sure the rabbi was nowhere in sight, and then flipped their baseball cards toward a wall. The kid whose card landed closest to the wall won. “Flipping” was a game of skill. But these kids weren’t just playing to see who could win the most cards; they were gambling. And Dink, with his thick eyeglasses, lanky frame, and high IQ—the highest in Hebrew school—joined them.
    From flipping cards,