Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

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

79

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 – спускать; бить струей) its ashes down the toilet bowl.

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

[ri'ku:p]) their losses.

By one-thirty the betting had trickled off so that Carlo and Sally Rags could go out and

sit on the stoop (крыльцо со ступенями; открытая веранда) beside the candy store

and get some fresh air. They watched the stickball (stickball – a form of baseball played

in the streets, on playgrounds, etc., in which a rubber ball and a broomstick or the like

are used in place of a baseball and bat) game the kids were having. A police car went

by. They ignored it. This book had very heavy protection at the precinct and couldn't be

touched on a local level. A raid would have to be ordered from the very top and even

then a warning would come through in plenty of time.

Coach came out and sat beside them. They gossiped a while about baseball and

women. Carlo said laughingly, "I had to bat (бить палкой, битой; bat – бита; дубина,

било /для льна/) my wife around again today, teach her who's boss."

Coach said casually, "She's knocked up pretty big now, ain't she?"

"Ahh, I just slapped her face a few times," Carlo said.

"I didn't hurt her." He brooded for a moment. "She thinks she can boss me around, I

don't stand for that (не потерплю этого)."

There were still a few bettors hanging around shooting the breeze (to shoot the

breeze – трепаться, болтать /сленг/; breeze – легкий ветерок; новость, слух), talking

baseball, some of them sitting on the steps above the two writers and Carlo. Suddenly