Tough Luck Read Free

forever—at least ten years. When was growing up, his father used to take him to the racetrack almost every Saturday; Artie was one of the regulars at Aqueduct, hanging out on the ground floor under the tote board near the Bagel Nook. Artie wasn’t a bookie himself; he worked for a bookie, a guy named Nick whom Mickey had only met a couple of times. In junior high and high school, Mickey hustled football betting sheets for Artie in all of his classes. The sheets had pro and college games with odds stacked heavily in favor of the house. Artie paid Mickey 10 percent on all the profits, which usually meant about fifty bucks a week.
    “Line’s twelve, forty-three,” Artie said. “Been drifting up all day. Everybody loves the ’Skins tonight.”
    Artie said the phone lines were busy and he couldn’t talk long, so Mickey put in Angelo’s bets on the Falcons right away.
    “Who is this Angelo, anyway?” Artie asked.
    Mickey was embarrassed to tell Artie that he barely knew the guy.
    “Friend of mine,” Mickey said.
    “And he has this kind of dough?”
    “Yeah,” Mickey said confidently.
    “If Angelo loses, he knows he’s gotta pay by Friday.”
    “He knows.”
    “You sure?”
    “Sure I’m sure.”
    That night John Riggins rushed for one hundred yards, and the Washington Redskins beat the Atlanta Falcons 27–14. All of Angelo’s bets had lost, and now he owed Mickey’s bookie 470 bucks.
    The next morning Mickey was in a shitty mood. When Mrs. Ruiz came in and said, “You got mussels?” Mickey didn’t feel like playing the game, and he snapped, “Of course we got mussels. How much you want?” Distracted the rest of the day, he screwed up a couple of orders—giving a lady fluke fillets instead of flounder fillets, giving some guy butterfish who’d asked for kingfish, filling a bag with mussels instead of clams. Mickey’s boss, Harry, warned Mickey to get his head out of his ass or he was going to send him on a “permanent vacation.”
    Harry Giordano co-owned Vincent’s Fish Market with his brother Vincent, who lived in Florida. Harry had a huge beer gut, a thick handlebar mustache, and was one of the biggest morons Mickey had ever met. Mickey figured Vincent must have put up the money for the store, because there was no way Harry could have been smart enough to save up the money to start a business on his own. Besides, it was called Vincent’s Fish Market, not Harry’s Fish Market, or even Giordano’s Fish Market.
    When Mickey started working at Vincent’s, he didn’t think he would last at the job for more than a couple of weeks. Mickey was sensitive about the size of his nose— sometimes he would stare at himself in the three-way mirrors in the dressing room at Alexander’s, amazed at how big it was—and Harry always made jokes about it, especially when other people were around. One day, a guy was placing an order, and Mickey was talking to someone else and didn’t hear what the guy was saying. Harry said, “Hey, Pinocchio, take this guy’s order.” Another time the same thing happened, and Harry said, “Hey, Big Bird, get your beak out of the clouds, will ya?” The worst part was that, since Harry was his boss, Mickey could never talk back to him. Mickey was dying to crack jokes about Harry’s big beer gut, but Mickey knew Harry would fire him if he did. Mickey could have found some other job, but he was making decent money at the fish store—seven-fifty an hour—and the location was convenient, only six blocks from his house. So every time Harry insulted him, Mickey just ignored it, hoping Harry would eventually get tired of being a dick and leave him alone.
    Harry had no schedule. Usually he just came to the store to open and close, but once in a while he stuck around all day.
    Today Harry left at about eleven and, since there were hardly any customers in the store, Mickey hung out most of the time, reading the Daily News and talking to Charlie.
    At one o’clock, Charlie left for