Fake I.D.

Six

The next morning I drove to Chinatown. It wasn’t hard finding a pawn shop down there—the hard part was finding a Chinese guy who spoke English. After walking in and out of a couple of places, I finally found an old guy who seemed to understand me at a place on Hester Street, off the Bowery. I cut a deal with him—he’d give me three hundred bucks for the jewelry and I could buy it back for three-fifty. He originally wanted to give me four hundred, but we made it three if he wouldn’t put the stuff out for sale until tomorrow. The place closed at eight o’clock so I’d have plenty of time to buy the jewelry back before I went to work. Then I’d call Janene, figure out some way to explain why I took off last night, and find a chance to slip the jewelry back into her jewelry box.

From the Bowery, I hopped on the Manhattan Bridge to the BQE and about forty-five minutes later I was in the Aqueduct Racetrack parking lot in Ozone Park, Queens, sitting in my car, waiting for the gates to open. Leaving my apartment building this morning, I’d picked up a copy of the Racing Form and today nobody came over to bother me. I handicapped the whole card, letting the motor run to keep the inside of the car warm.

Walking into the track, I felt lucky.

I took the escalator up to the third floor. I once hit an exacta on the third floor for two Gs so I knew I had a much better chance of winning up there than on the first or second floors.

I won four hundred-plus dollars on the first race. I hit the second race and the daily double. Suddenly, I was up over a G. I lost the third race, hit the fourth and fifth, lost the sixth, and hit the seventh. I didn’t like anything in the later races so I left the track with a little over three grand in my wallet.

It was a great ride back to the city—blasting The Stones and The Who, banging out the beat on the dashboard.

Now I only needed seven grand to join the syndicate. Seven grand. I could make that in one or two more bets. I just had to be patient—wait for my spot. The key was I couldn’t just start betting wildly—I had to use my head. Over the next week I’d find a couple of solid bets—sure things. If I doubled my money two times that would give me more than enough to join.

It was a little after four o’clock when I crossed the Manhattan Bridge and arrived in Chinatown. The neighborhood was still packed with shoppers, but I found a parking spot right away, across the street from the pawn shop, proving that things were definitely going my way.

The old man was busy helping another customer so I hung out, looking at some Swiss Army knives in a display case. When the customer left I told the old man I was ready to buy back my jewelry.

I knew something was wrong when he acted like he couldn’t speak English.

“Look,” I said as slowly as I could. “I want my jewelry. Jew-el-ry. Can you un-der-stand what I’m say-ing?”

“Sorry, no jury,” he said. “Jury sold. Sorry, you leave.”

“Sold?” I said. “I think you must be making a mistake. I was the guy in here this morning—”

“No mistake,” he said. “Jury sold. You leave.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Don’t you remember me?”

The old man yelled something in Chinese.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Why’re you yelling? I just want to know where my jewelry is.”

“What’s going on here?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw a young Chinese guy pointing a gun at my face. I didn’t know much about guns, but this one was big and silver and it looked like it could put a very big hole in my head.

“There seems to be a little misunderstanding here,” I said. “See, I dropped off some jewelry here this morning—”

“We sold your jewelry to some lady,” the young guy said.

“Why’d you do that?” I said. “Your boss promised me he wasn’t gonna sell it.”

“Well, he did. So why don’t you just get the hell out of our store before I call the cops or shoot you. You decide which.”

I stood there for a few seconds thinking, then I walked out. I kicked the side of my car as hard as I could, adding a new dent. I thought about hanging out until the kid went home, then going back into the store to talk to the old man again, but what good would that do? It wouldn’t get me Janene’s jewelry back.

I still had over an hour before I had to be at work so I went downtown to the OTB Teletheater on Water Street.

The Aqueduct card was over so they were showing races from Hollywood Park. It had to be an omen—the place I was going to wind up someday as a horse owner was on the TV screen. I bought a program. There was a horse going off at three to one, and it looked unbeatable. This was it, the spot I’d been waiting for. I bet the whole three grand, figuring when it won I’d get back twelve.

The race went off and I thought I must’ve bet on the wrong horse. The horse I bet on always went to the lead, but this pig was dead last. Then the announcer said that the jockey had pulled my horse up on the backstretch.

I couldn’t believe it—I was broke again. The money didn’t even have a chance to get warm in my wallet.

When I got to work I was still numb. I had no idea what I’d say when Janene came asking about her jewelry.

I poured a Sam Adams and sat at the bar. Jerry, one of the old cronies who came to O’Reilley’s every afternoon, was sitting next to me. He reeked of alcohol so I knew he was lit.

“Hey, Tommy,” he slurred, just noticing me next to him, even though I’d been sitting there a couple of minutes already. “How’s it goin’?”

The last thing I was in the mood for was to get into a conversation with some old drunk. I just nodded, staring straight ahead.

“I’m doin’ all right,” he said. “Seen better days, but who hasn’t? I guess that’s what getting older’s all about. But I can’t complain. I’m not dead—that’s one good thing.”

I didn’t say anything. I was still thinking about that race at Hollywood Park and how I had screwed everything up. Then Jerry said “So did you buy your box yet for the Super Bowl pool?” and I said to myself: the Super Bowl pool. Of course, the Super Bowl pool.