Balling the Jack

by Frank Baldwin

  Over her shoulder Dave gives a little shrug, as if to say, “What can you do?”

  “Nice to meet you, Grace. Dave, I’m heading out. I’ll call you Monday. You’ll start in on your part?”

  He gives a thumbs-up.

  Back up on the street, walking home, the night air tastes clean and sharp. Sometimes when you need it most, a chance drops right in your lap. It’s no lock, but Christ, it might work. For the first time since I opened my trap to Duggan I see a real plan taking shape.

  And for the first time in a long time I start thinking like a gambler again. Laying everything out step by careful step. Not getting ahead of myself, not even dreaming of the final payoff. There’s time for that down the road. Crossing the street to my door, I smile to myself and shake my head. They say deliverance comes in a lot of forms. Who would ever think you could find it at Gino’s?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BLACKJACK and I have a history.

  I got my first taste of her at twelve, when we lived on the base in Korea. A buddy led me through the back alleys of Seoul to Ma’s, a dusty gaming parlor below a whorehouse. The tiny place was a family operation. Mom and her three boys, with Grandpa on a box in the doorway. Mom ran the betting window in the back. The smallest boy worked the floor, running beers and shots to the gamblers. The other two, neither any older than ten, dealt blackjack.

  They stood barefoot on crates behind wooden tables, shuffling so fast I couldn’t believe it, calling the American GIs over in a mix of Korean and pidgin English. They didn’t use a shoe to deal the cards, but simply stacked six decks one on the other and dealt through, top to bottom. No chips, either. You put your money right up on the table.

  From the start I felt the pull of the cards. No more video arcades for me. Every chance I could, I made it back to Mas. All I ever had was a little lawn money, but I loved the thrill of betting it. The moment of truth when you had to hit or stick, the jump in my heart when the dealer busted. Best of all, the charge of walking out with more money in my fìst than I walked in with. Then, too, there was the danger. If any of the MPs saw me and word got back to Dad, I was up the river.

  My gambling was strictly nickel and dime, of course. I never had the money on me for a real session. I’d win a little or—more often—tap out, then stand in the back and watch the GIs.

  What a sight they were, rolling into the place in uniform after months along the DMZ. All that pay in their hands. Cocked when they came in, they’d stand at the blackjack table tossing down shots of cloudy Korean liquor, chasing them with beer, shouting and cursing as they bet on the cards.

  When a winner left the place, Grandpa would signal the whores from his box in the doorway and they came down the street like crows. The lucky soldier would pluck three, sometimes four from the crowd and whoop upstairs with them, his hands on their asses, winking good-bye to his buddies. To a kid of twelve it was a hell of a sight. I never forgot it.

  Junior year in college I taught myself to count cards. I learned the basic strategy and count method out of a book, then sat down at my desk with four decks and set to work. I must have dealt ten thousand hands to myself. I dealt with the music up real loud and with the gang playing poker in the room. I dealt with Lisa coming on to me. I learned to keep the count through anything.

  Lisa thought I was nuts, that I’d come to my senses before the year was out, but when I finished my last exam, off I went.

  Grandma had put a little money in the bank for me the day I was born. By the time I hit twenty-one it was three thousand bucks, and that summer I took all of it and boarded the bus for Atlantic City. Told Mom and Dad I’d lined up a job waiting tables. Actually, I was off to become a gambler.

  I took one suitcase and my tape deck and found a room for sixty dollars a week at the Oceanside, a little dive just off the boardwalk, run on her own by Lottie, a young widow with a weary manner and a good figure. That first day she handed me sheets, said the rent’s due each Monday, and showed me to my room. Such as it was. A bed against the wall, a rusty sink, a window that looked onto the gray wall of the next building. No kitchen, the bathroom and shower down the hall. I thought it was perfect.

  The other tenants were young Irish who worked in the pub next door or old Irish who pushed the cart rides along the boardwalk. You could always tell the pub workers from the others. They were legal and pulling in real dough. They wore good clothes and nodded to you when they passed. The old cart pushers never said a word. They made okay money, I heard, some had been at it for years, but they didn’t have green cards, or insurance, or anyone who gave a damn about them or anywhere to go back to when the summer ended. Late at night I’d see them with their flasks of whisky in the soft chairs in the lobby, watching crime shows.

  I opened an account at a little bank on the boardwalk. Any money I kept in the room I slept with in a belt around my waist. The door locks at the Oceanside wouldn’t stop a kid, and the block was full of shady characters. If you’ve ever seen Atlantic City you know that once you step off the boardwalk, the place is pretty much a wasteland. Whatever the casinos were supposed to do to that town they hadn’t done.

  The best thing about the Oceanside was that it stood next door to the Irish Pub. I like to think I know a little about bars, and for my money the Irish Pub was the king of them all. Over its door was a quote from Boswell: “There is nothing contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Nobody who went inside would argue.

  Pictures and clippings of famous Irishmen covered the walls. A fine jukebox stood in the corner. Drafts were seventy cents and served in frozen mugs by Irish waitresses so pretty I’d sit in the restaurant section just to order from them. None of that, though, is what made it the best bar in the world.

  The real beauty of the Irish Pub was that it never closed. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year she was open. Beat that.

  Did they ever do a business, too. Inside, you never knew if it was three in the morning or three in the afternoon. The long, circular wooden bar was always jammed with rowdy drinkers, tourists who came back religiously every year, and locals, mainly cops or casino workers stopping in after their shifts. One mick or another was always climbing onto the stage with a guitar, leading the whole bar in a sing-along.

  When I told Jimmy and the guys I lived next to a bar that never closed, they were in awe. One by one they made the pilgrimage, and even after I’d carried them out of there they found it hard to believe. I’d stagger up the stairs of the Oceanside, Bobby over my shoulder, barely conscious, mumbling, “Never closes. Damn place never closes.”

  I went to the Pub in the early evenings, between gambling sessions. Old Artie would put the Mets on for me if I could hold off till eight. At seven-thirty all his buddies from the retirement home lined the bar to play along to Wheel of Fortune. Funniest thing you ever saw. The clue would be fictional characters, the answer would be “Snow White,” Vanna’s turned over everything but the S, and these guys are scratching their heads, trying to work it out on a piece of paper. If anyone actually nailed it he’d strut down the bar like the Godfather. I didn’t mind missing an inning or two for that show.

  I gambled Monday through Friday. Noon to four and again late at night, when the casinos were least crowded. I kept track of every session in my notebook. The casino, the clothes I wore, how much I won or lost. By hitting each place every two weeks, always in a different outfit, I kept the pit bosses from spotting me as a counter. To protect my small stake I played the fìve-dollar tables and put a two-hundred-dollar cap on my gambling each day. Win or lose, I stopped at two hundred bucks.

  I started off like a pistol. Won the maximum each of the first five days. Walking home along the boardwalk that Friday, I couldn’t believe how easy it all was. Just like I’d drawn it up. I leaned on the sea railing with a beer, looking out over the dark ocean, thinking I knew just how those old conquerors felt after reaching the town they sailed for and kicking its ass. Back at the O
ceanside I called Lisa from the pay phone and told her to come on down and bring the gang with her—this weekend was on me.

  I made only two mistakes that summer, but they cost me. The first was living the high life.

  Every gambler works off a stake, and my three grand didn’t leave a lot of room for error. I should have stuck to a tight budget, guarded my early winnings, and kept a fat reserve for the lean stretch that was bound to hit.

  That’s not how I played it. Tight budget? Screw that. I was a gambler, and what was the point of being a gambler if you had to squirrel away money like a librarian? I was winning, I expected to keep winning, and I was going to live like a winner.

  And I did. Spent my money as fast as I made it. Faster, once the winning slowed down. No kitchen in my digs? No sweat. I ate steak or lobster each night, washed down with Heineken. Weekends I road-tripped to Boston or New York, or put up Lisa or the guys in my room, treating them to shows and fights. I felt like A1 Capone, and so long as my luck held out, I lived like him.

  Bet the cards long enough and you’ll hit a dry spell. When my winnings slowed and I made two hundred in a week instead of a day, or in a bad week even lost a hundred, my stake dwindled pretty fast. By mid-July I was down to two grand, even though I was clearing a good profit at the tables. My winning just wasn’t keeping up with my spending. Even then, had I put the brakes on the high life and stuck to my strategy, I could have ridden out the summer and headed back to Ham Tech with a nice chunk of change. I got impatient, though, and that’s when I made my second mistake—the one that did me in.

  What kills me is that I knew better. Every book on gambling warns against drinking at the tables. It’s the one cardinal sin. Nobody knew it better than me, either, because all summer long I’d seen the evidence.

  Must have happened a hundred times. Some guy fresh off the bus from Philly would drop into the seat next to me. First thing he does is flag down the cocktail waitress. “Free drinks, huh, buddy?” he says, nudging me with an elbow. “Can’t beat that.”

  He pounds them down as he gambles. Maybe he isn’t any good, or maybe it just isn’t his night, but he loses the two hundred he brought to play with. Sober, the guy cuts his losses and walks the boardwalk until it’s time to catch the bus for home. He’s got a few in him, though, so he reaches for his wallet. Fuck it, he’s thinking, I can win that back, and before he knows it he’s down four hundred. Now he’s thinking, Christ, just let me get back to the two hundred I was willing to lose to start with, so he stays, and soon he’s out six hundred. He’s drinking even faster now, to kill the panic and because he might as well get something out of this night, and between the drinks and the losing he forgets any strategy he knew when he walked in and any discipline too, and he starts making bigger bets to make it all back. He’s in for so much, the difference between six and eight hundred doesn’t register, or between eight hundred and a thousand, and when finally the dealer rakes in his last chip and he’s blown a grand, the only reason he walks out of there, dazed, is because he’s hit his limit on the ATM and it won’t spit out any more money. Free drinks, huh? The guy just paid a thousand bucks for his.

  And he was one of the lucky ones. Lucky because he didn’t have any credit. The guy with credit, once he’s lost all he came with, signs a marker from the pit boss and loses some more. Even if he mounts a comeback he loses everything in the end, because he won’t let himself walk away until he’s even, and he’s too far under for that. So he keeps drinking and keeps betting and keeps losing until he runs through another marker and another one besides. And every time he signs one he’s on the lookout for his grim little wife, who’s circling the place while he plays, and when she’s round again with her hard eyes on him he lies that he’s doing just fine, honey, right on the verge of a big run. Of course he’s really on the verge of losing it all, and when at last the pit boss won’t sign any more markers for him he’s finished, and the only thing sadder than the sight of him limping off from the table is the thought of what’s in store for him when he finds his wife.

  Like I said, I’d seen these guys all summer. Got to the point I could spot them as soon as they sat down. Then I went and joined the club.

  I still get cold all over thinking about that last night. The evening started innocently enough, me sitting at the Irish Pub watching the Mets. Instead of my usual seltzer, though, I went for the beers. What the hell, I figured—just a few wouldn’t hurt. I’d been good all summer. Maybe a couple cold ones were just what I needed to turn my luck at the tables, where profits had slowed lately. Well, a few led to a few more, as always, the game went to extra innings, and by the time it ended I had a major-league buzz on. Instead of leaving the tables for the morning, though, and heading back to my room, I had a little talk with myself.

  Tom, I said, as I walked along the boardwalk, you’ve been here almost two months and you’ve never taken a shot at the big-money tables. What’s holding you back? The strategy is the same. Why not go for the big payday, just this once? After all, you didn’t come here to tread water and head back to campus with a thousand bucks. You came here to make a killing, to lay in enough beer and pony money to last all senior year.

  I stopped at the ATM and punched up my balance. Two grand. Hmm. One good session with the big boys and I could double that. I left two hundred in the account for emergency money and took out the rest. I chose the Golden Nugget because Julia Roberts was shooting a flick there and I hoped to get a look at her. Maybe she’d even see me raking it in and stop to watch.

  Once inside I headed straight to the high rollers’ table. Fifty-dollar-minimum bet. The alcohol was in me and I felt lucky. Hell, a good run here could make my summer. I took a seat, ordered an Absolut on the rocks, and started in.

  I never got that run. Instead I hit a stretch of cards I hope I never see again. The devil himself couldn’t have dealt them any meaner. If I took a hit, I busted; if I didn’t, I fell short; if I doubled down, I lost. The dealer, meanwhile, turned tiger on me, pulling blackjack after blackjack, going ten hands straight without busting, drawing six cards to a 21 to beat my 20. I lost a thousand bucks in an hour.

  The more I lost, the more I drank. Card counting is concentration, and when you drink you start losing the count and making mistakes. More important even than losing the count is losing your self-control, that part of you that knows when to stop.

  That night I broke every rule I’d lived by for two months. Gambled drunk, blew through my limits, didn’t change casinos or even tables to stop the freefall. Just sat there and took it.

  After I dropped the first thousand, the dealer shook his head at me and said, “Go on home, son. This isn’t your night.” I gave him a wink and pulled out the rest of my money. My luck had to change any minute now. It just had to. The law of averages is a tricky business, though. You think because you’ve lost nine hands in a row you can’t possibly lose the next one, so you put out a fat bet. But of course your chances aren’t any better than they were for the hand before. That’s why you count cards—to take as much of the luck out of the game as you can and get the odds on your side. By that point, though, I was wasted, and I’d even stopped keeping the count. I was betting blind.

  An hour later I’d lost the rest of it. In a fever, I took out the emergency money and bet that, too. Soon I was down to my last chip, feeling in my gut the cold panic of the loser. I stuck on my 18, the dealer turned over his 20, swept my chip into the rack and I was busted. I sat a minute, stunned, then climbed down off the stool and dragged my ass out of there like a million losers before me. How many times had I seen the cycle? Drink, bet, lose; drink more, lose more; drink more, bet everything, lose everything. All summer long I’d shaken my head at the suckers who fell into it. Now I was a sucker too.

  The walk home along the boardwalk was the longest of my life. Some home, too. A dive room in a dive hotel. I was down to the fifty-two bucks in my money belt. I didn’t have the heart to call Lisa and tell her. I looked out over the ocean wond
ering what the fuck I was going to do. School didn’t start for another six weeks, and telling the folks was not an option.

  As I stood there, cursing myself, I looked up to see one of the Irish guys from the Oceanside pushing an old couple along in his cart. I watched till they were out of sight, an idea growing in me. I was bigger than any of those guys. If they could push carts along the boardwalk, so could I. Hell, how tough could it be, wheeling lovers and old folks at ten bucks a pop? A guy could probably bring in $100 a day, maybe more. And it would be honest work. I’d be outside, breathing in the sea air, getting my back into my living, as Townshend would say. Heck, I could work up a little stake again, gamble the right way this time and hang on till the end of the summer. I walked to my room and fell into bed, desperate but determined.

  The next morning I shook off my hangover and reported to the cart warehouse, a hollowed-out space under the boardwalk where a grunt of a man charged twenty-five bucks, cash up front, to rent a cart for the day. He also sold the red bow ties and white-collared shirts each cart pusher was required to wear. The carts themselves had wheels on the bottom, cushioned seating for two (three if you packed them in), and a metal bar on the back for the pusher to lean into.

  I rolled the thing onto the boardwalk and scouted for my first customer. Within minutes I was flagged down by two businessmen coming out of the Tropicana. They’d made a killing in craps and were heading up to Sands to do it again. The fare was ten bucks and they tipped me five more. Dropping them off, I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this earlier. This stuff was a piece of cake.

  I didn’t get my next ride until after lunch. Two wheezers who wanted to go from the Golden Nugget to the Taj Mahal—one end of the boardwalk to the other. Once there, they haggled about the price. By then the sun was pouring down and I could feel the pounds coming off me.

  Turned out there was quite a bit of strategy to this cart-pushing business. The Irish guys had been doing it for years and they knew all the tricks. Knew to be outside the casinos when a big show let out, especially the fading comics and lounge acts that draw the old fogies, the ones who like to ride. Knew when each casino ran its big slot promotions and which exit to wait at when they ended. Knew all the good spots to work, and when any new ones came up, they tipped off the other pushers. Except me, of course. None of them would talk to me. By the time I figured out the prime places there was no getting near them, and it seemed to me they got a special kick watching me wheel my empty cart back and forth. They were quick, too, even the old bastards. I’d spot someone calling for a ride and by the time I got there, one of them would come out of nowhere and beat me to it.