Playmates

7

LENNIE Seltzer still had the back booth in the Yorktown Tavern on Mass. Ave. He was normally there from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, sipping beer, reading newspapers, taking bets, getting up to use the pay phone on the back wall next to the rest rooms. His hair was shiny slick and parted in the middle. His face was pale and smooth. His three-piece suit had a fine windowpane plaid in pale blue running through the gray sharkskin fabric. He was getting plumper as time passed and a lot of the plumpness settled as he sat each day sipping beer. On the table in front of him were the New York Daily News, the Globe and the Herald. To his right, on the table against the wall, a portable computer screen stared grayly at me.

Lennie was tipping his beer glass delicately toward his lips when I slid into the booth opposite him. He held the glass with his thumb and first two fingers. His ring finger and pinkie were extended. He drank only a little of the beer and set the glass back down.

"Spenser," he said and made a gesture to the bartender.

"Lennie, you've moved into the age of tomorrow," I said.

The bartender brought over a shot of whiskey and a draft beer in a tall thick glass. I hated a shot of whiskey, but every time I saw Lennie he ordered it for me. Over the years the shot had upgraded. Now it was Irish whiskey, at least. When I first knew him it was Old Thompson.

"Computer's a wonderful thing, buddy. Got all my files in there, plug it into a phone jack, dial up everything I need. I have to close quickly, I just unplug it, fold it up and off I go."

"You think it's immoral, Lennie, to take a nap during the day?"

Lennie shook his head. "Hell, no. I take one every afternoon. I get home about four thirty, lie down for an hour, on my back, peaceful, get up, take a shower, couple a highballs, sets you up for the night, you know? Take the old lady to Jimmy's, maybe, Doyle's in JP, fish dinner, bottle a wine. The nap's the key to it."

"I need to know the line on every Taft basketball game this year," I said. "And the final score."

Lennie looked at me for a little longer than was comfortable.

"You think somebody's been dicking with the spread over there?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to find out."

"You know something you got to tell me," Lennie said. "It's business, you know. I mean if something's not kosher I could get flushed on one of those games."

"I know. All I got now is rumors. Everybody connected with the team denies it. I come up with anything, I'll tell you. In confidence."

"Confidence is part of being a bookie, buddy, you know that. I don't talk about anything I don't need to."

"Can you get me the line?" I said. "I can get the scores from the newspaper file at the library if I have to."

"You come to the right place," Lennie said. "I can get you both in about ten minutes." He tapped the gray screen. "I used to have it all on slips of paper."

"Hard to flush that thing down the toilet," I said.

"No need. Unplug it and there's nothing on me. No evidence unless they search my home and access the computer." Lennie grinned. "Besides, cops don't try too hard with me."

He turned on the machine and punched in a few codes. The screen turned black and printing came up on it in star wars green. Lennie gazed at it for a moment, took another delicate sip of beer, put the glass down carefully and punched some new keys.

Lennie reached under the table and came up with a slim, tan briefcase. He opened it, took out a yellow legal-sized pad, selected a pen from among the several that were clipped to one of the pockets. He put the pen on the table top beside the pad, closed the briefcase, put it back under the table and punched some more keys. This time he copied down the information on display, punched some more, wrote some more. After about fifteen minutes, Lennie had a couple of columns of dates and numbers on his pad. He put the cap on his pen, put it down, punched away the display, turned off the terminal, and the computer screen went gray.

"Okay," Lennie said. "This column the date of the game. This column the point spread. This column the score."

A bartender came over with a fresh glass of beer for Lennie and took away the empty glass. Lennie took the cap off his pen and ran down the columns of numbers like an accountant scanning a tax form.

"Here," he said, and put a check mark next to one of the dates. "And here," he said, "and here." When he was through there were six games checked.

"Here's the games where they beat the spread," Lennie said. "Could happen, and be legit. Basketball's hard to handicap."

"I know," I said. "The Nets beat the Celtics at the Garden this year."

Lennie nodded vigorously. "Exactly," he said. I finished off my whiskey and stared at the beer. My head was beginning to feel thick and my face felt a little separate from the world, as if there were a transparent layer of insulation on it. Be a nice title for a novel, I thought, Boilermakers in the Afternoon. I took the sheet of yellow paper and folded it and put it into my shirt pocket.

"You still with that Jewish broad?" Lennie said.

"Susan," I said. "Susan Silverman."

"You gonna get married?"

"You never know," I said.

"You marry a Jew, and you and me be like kinsmen."

"Oy vay," I said.