The Twin Towers: Sorkin's field muscle

pivotal · ~ages 18-23 of Gately's life (B.S.)

• When: across the years Gately was "age like eighteen to twenty-three," working for Sorkin (~B.S.)
• What: Fackelmann and Gately were the paid muscle for Whitey Sorkin, a Saugus bookmaker (and titty-club owner) who called the two enormous men his "Twin Towers." Their actual work was mundane and mostly nonviolent: taking bets and phoning them to Saugus, delivering winnings, and collecting debts, dealing with Sorkin by beeper and cell phone rather than standing around him like movie henchmen — the crew frequently changed cell-phones to dodge taps and Pen Registers, Sorkin buying new units and numbers outright (n367). Fackelmann is drawn as a towering, slope-shouldered, potbellied, "oddly priapistic," high-strung Dilaudid addict with a restless walrus mustache "that seemed to have a nervous life of its own." Each Tower took 5% vig on Sorkin's 10%. (Gately-altitude: Gately's timeline (event 10).)