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locked, steel-reinforced door. An electric lock buzzed to admit me. I stepped in and found Zerilli hunched over his keyhole desk. He was clothed in a light gray suit jacket, a white dress shirt, a green-and-yellow tie with red parrots on it, and clashing sky-blue boxer shorts. As always, he’d draped his suit pants over a hanger on the office clothes rack to preserve the crease.
    Shortstop, who looked like a cross between a bull mastiff and a Tyrannosaurus, was half in and half out of the office’s only visitor’s chair, his rump planted on the seat and his front paws braced on the floor. That was as close as he could get to wedging his bulk into the solid oak Windsor. Whoosh tossed a Beggin’ Strip into the corner by his black floor safe to coax the beast down. Shortstop slid off the chair, lumbered over, and snatched the treat in his jaws. Then he locked eyes with me and growled like a muscle car. The hair he’d shed on the chair was enough to make another dog. I brushed it off and sat.
    â€œSo what’s up?”
    â€œHold on a sec,” Whoosh said. He reached up with his left hand, the one without the tremor, and closed the blinds on the long, narrow window that looked out over the grocery shelves. “Anita? The new cashier? I think she reads lips.”
    â€œThis must be serious.”
    â€œHell, yeah, it’s fuckin’ serious. You know what your favorite nun’s up to, right? You coulda warned me, asshole.”
    â€œYou mean the governor?”
    â€œLike you ain’t already heard.”
    â€œSorry, Whoosh, but I’m clueless.”
    â€œWhat the fuck, Mulligan. I thought you was always on top of things.”
    â€œExcept nuns,” I said. “Besides, my new boss doesn’t let me out much.”
    â€œWell, from what I hear, the bitch is gonna introduce legislation to legalize sports betting.”
    â€œYou’re shitting me.”
    â€œI am absolutely goddamned fuckin’ not. You really ain’t heard about this?”
    â€œNo. Where did you get it from?”
    â€œCoupla statehouse lackeys on Arena’s pad.”
    â€œCan she do this? I mean, isn’t there some federal law prohibiting sports betting?”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Been the law since 1992. Four states including Nevada, where sports betting was already legal, were grandfathered in, but it’s against federal law everywhere else.”
    Zerilli couldn’t have named the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but he knew more about gambling laws than the Harvard Law School faculty.
    â€œThe NCAA, the pro leagues, and the Vegas casinos all lobbied to get it passed. Between you and me, a few heavies from my side of the tracks lent a hand by twisting arms and spreading goodies around on Capitol Hill.”
    â€œLike who?”
    â€œBetween us?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œThe Outfit in Chicago and the Gambino family in New York did the grunt work, but Kansas City, New Orleans, St. Louis, Detroit, Philly, and the rest of the New York families all chipped in. Once it passed, we figured that was the end of it. Now it’s comin’ up again all over the fuckin’ country.”
    â€œBecause so many states are in financial trouble?”
    â€œYeah. That fat fuck Chris Christie got the ball rolling down in Jersey. In 2012, he signed a bill giving Atlantic City casinos the green light to take sports bets so he can tax the action. Ever since, he’s been bullying the New Jersey congressional delegation into tryin’ to get the federal law repealed so the money can start flowing. The NCAA, the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, and Major League Baseball are all working to head him off. The NCAA is fuckin’ pissed. The Prudential Center in Newark will never get another March Madness regional if the cocksucker don’t back down.”
    Zerilli slipped a soft pack from his shirt pocket and