Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
Шрифт:
have to be careful. How many months before you have the kid?"
"Two months," Connie said. "Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't."
Sonny laughed. His face was cruelly intent (полный решимости; пристальный;
погруженный во что-либо [in'tent]) when he said, "Don't worry, I won't make your kid
an orphan before he's born." He left the apartment after kissing her lightly on her
uninjured cheek.
On East 112th Street a long line of cars were double-parked in front of a candy store
that was the headquarters of Carlo Rizzi's book. On the sidewalk in front of the store,
fathers played catch with small children they had taken for a Sunday morning ride and
to keep them company as they placed their bets (делали
Rizzi coming they stopped playing ball and bought their kids ice cream to keep them
quiet. Then they started studying the newspapers that gave the starting pitchers (pitcher
– подающий мяч; to pitch – бросать, кидать; /спорт./ подавать), trying to pick out
winning baseball bets for the day.
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Carlo went into the large room in the back of the store. His two "writers," a small wiry
man called Sally Rags and a big husky fellow called Coach, were already waiting for the
action to start. They had their huge, lined pads in front of them ready to write down bets.
On a wooden stand was a blackboard with the names of the sixteen big league baseball
teams chalked on it, paired to show who was playing against who. Against each pairing
was a blocked-out square to enter the odds.
Carlo asked Coach, "Is the store phone tapped (to tap the line – подслушивать
телефонный разговор; tap – пробка, затычка; кран; to tap – вставлять кран,
снабжать втулкой; вынимать пробку) today?"
Coach shook his head. "The tap is still off."
Carlo went to the wall phone and dialed a number. Sally Rags and Coach watched
him impassively as he jotted down the "line," the odds on all the baseball games for that
day. They watched him as he hung up the phone and walked over to the blackboard
and chalked up the odds against each game. Though Carlo did not know it, they had
already gotten the line and were checking his work. In the first week in his job Carlo had
made a mistake in transposing the odds onto the blackboard and had created that
dream of all gamblers, a "middle." That is, by betting the odds with him and then betting
against the same team with another bookmaker at the correct odds, the gambler could
not lose. The only one who could lose was Carlo's book. That mistake had caused a
six-thousand-dollar loss in the book for the week and confirmed the Don's judgment
about his son-in-law. He had given the word that all of Carlo's work was to be checked.
Normally the highly placed members of the Corleone Family would never be
concerned with such an operational detail. There was at least a five-layer insulation to
their level. But since the book was being used as a testing ground for the son-in-law, it
had been placed under the direct scrutiny of Tom Hagen, to whom a report was sent
every day.
Now with the line posted, the gamblers were thronging into the back room of the
candy store to jot down the odds on their newspapers next to the games printed there
with probable pitchers. Some of them held their little children by the hand as they looked
up at the blackboard. One guy who made big bets looked down at the little girl he was
holding by the hand and said teasingly, "Who do you like today, Honey, Giants or the
Pirates?" The little girl, fascinated by the colorful names, said, "Are Giants stronger than
Pirates?" The father laughed.
A line began to form in front of the two writers. When a writer filled one of his sheets
he tore it off, wrapped the money he had collected in it and handed it to Carlo. Carlo
went out the back exit of the room and up a flight of steps to an apartment which
housed the candy store owner's family. He called in the bets to his central exchange
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and put the money in a small wall safe that was hidden by an extended window drape.
Then he went back down into the candy store after having first burned the bet sheet and
flushed (to flush –
None of the Sunday games started before two P.M. because of the blue laws, so after
the first crowd of bettors, family men who had to get their bets in and rush home to take
their families to the beach, came the trickling (trickle – струйка) of bachelor gamblers or
the die-hards (die-hard – твердолобый человек; консерватор) who condemned their
families to Sundays in the hot city apartments. These bachelor bettors were the big
gamblers, they bet heavier and came back around four o'clock to bet the second games
of doubleheaders (две игры, следующие непосредственно друг за другом). They
were the ones who made Carlo's Sundays a full-time day with overtime, though some
married men called in from the beach to try and recoup (компенсировать, возмещать