Bookie: My Life in Disorganized Crime - The Real Story of "Alfred Talcum"

258 pp. At the tender age of nine, Alfred Talcum lost $2.75 when the Red Sox blew both ends of a doubleheader to the New York Yankees. Seven years later, Alfred won $160 in a poker game held in the third-floor boys' room in Commerce High School. Alfred celebrated his twenty-first birthday by losing nine races and $280 at Belmont Racetrack. Now, almost every day of his life, this same Alfred Talcum wins and loses thousands of dollars sitting in a dump on the upper West Side of New York City, having hundreds of very short telephone conversations with some very weird people. Alfred, you see, doesn't play poker or bet horses or sports any more. He finally gave it all up for his true calling. He's a bookie!