The Four-Night Run

by William Lashner

  “Mrs. Brummel—”

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Mrs. Brummel, I—”

  “Get the hell out of my house. Out. Out. Get out.”

  It was a quiet ride back through the center of the beach towns, across the bridges, along the parkways into the city. Scrbacek wasn’t talking, and Dyer, after her few conversational gambits fell flat as a drunkard over a stoop, was tactful enough to maintain her quiet. Dyer offered a cigarette, and Scrbacek accepted, and they smoked in silence as they headed north.

  Without asking for directions, Dyer found her way to the side street just a block off the boardwalk where sat J.D. Scrbacek’s building. The bottom floor was a storefront office with his name painted on the plate-glass window in gold. The second and third floors were a duplex apartment with exposed brick, thick beams of old-growth wood, and a wide sleeping loft with a bed, a huge flat-screen, and a skylight that leaked during heavy rains but through which at night, after sex, you could see the glister of stars.

  “Thanks for the ride,” said Scrbacek.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t so bad as you may think,” said Dyer. “It’s a hard thing when a child dies. It can’t but seem that everything you say is wrong.”

  “It was worse than you could imagine.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  “I tried to quote the Constitution to Mrs. Brummel.”

  “Oh.” Dyer turned to stare out the windshield without saying anything more.

  Scrbacek got out of the car and then leaned back through the open doorway. “But even so,” he said, “I appreciate you taking me. Sometimes I forget the things I should be doing, forget what’s important.”

  “I saw the way you were with the kid in court,” said Dyer. “You never bossed him. You listened to what he said. Some people are better at the eulogies than at being with the living.”

  “I suppose.”

  “In the Bureau they say you aren’t worth the shit we wipe off our shoes, but from here on I’ll stand up for you.”

  “Thanks, Stephanie, I think. You going to be at the hearing tomorrow?”

  “I’m testifying against your scum client.”

  “So I get to cross-examine you. Won’t that be fun.” Scrbacek glanced up at the bright neon glow of the casinos and then turned to face the darkness in the west. “This thing Surwin was talking about, the Furies, what the hell is that all about?”

  “Some Crapstown gang,” said Dyer. “One of a half dozen or so, though this one seems to rule the rest. We can’t get a handle on them, but they’re bad eggs for sure, pure killers. So scary we hear even your client is worried.”

  “Nasty enough to blow up cars?”

  “Nasty enough to blow up towns. Be careful, Tenderfoot. There’s still danger out there. Stay home tonight.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m serious now. To keep your street safe, we cleared away the reporters who were camped out here looking for a quote, but we can’t do anything if you don’t stay put.”

  “Don’t worry, Stephanie. I’m too exhausted to do anything other than sleep, even if I wanted to.”

  As Scrbacek was opening the front door of his building, Dyer called out through the car window. “Is Scrbacek really a Dutch name?”

  Scrbacek shook his head. “Flemish.”

  “Flemish?” said Dyer. “I never would have guessed.”

  Inside his office the answering machine was blinking like an idiot, soundless but full of fury. He dropped his briefcase and played the first few messages, all from reporters asking about the Breest trial and the bomb. Scrbacek loved talking to the press, was an unabashed publicity hound, glad to howl to even the lowliest members of the fourth estate, but tonight he simply wasn’t in the mood. Tomorrow. He’d give them all the choicest of quotes tomorrow.

  But tonight the office was dark as a hole and felt like work, and so instead of hanging around, he climbed the spiral stairwell to his apartment. He turned on the light and took off his raincoat, threw his shirt into the hamper, carefully hung his suit pants and jacket on a hanger, placed his tie upon the tie carousel in his closet. He took a drink of water, brushed his teeth, flossed, gargled, climbed into his loft, and turned off the light.

  Then he sneaked down the loft stairs, peered out the window, and watched as Dyer sat in her car for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, before driving off.

  In the darkness of his apartment, lit only by the city light drifting through his windows, he put on a pair of jeans, his boots, a white shirt, his raincoat. He grabbed his wallet and keys, his last pack of cigs, his lighter, and his phone, which he placed into his raincoat pocket. Then he slipped down the spiral stairs and out the back door leading to the alley where they picked up the trash. On the horizon, rising above the tops of the low buildings, he could see already the bright glow, the herald of a night where there was more than the agony of a lost child, where there was glitter and laughter and risk and the possibility, no matter how dim, of real possibility.

  He took a quick look around to be sure there was no one from the State Bureau of Investigation watching over him for his own damn good, and then, with a spring in his step, headed off toward the dazzling neon lights of Casinoland.

  7

  CASINOLAND

  The casinos on the boardwalk stood bright as silver dollars and high as pipe dreams on a line fronting the utter blackness of the sea. The Castle. The Seaside. Diamond’s Alhambra. Diamond’s Pyramid. Parade Parade. LondonTown. How Fat’s House of Luck. And in the middle, higher than the others, grander, lit brighter, topped by twin domes of shimmering gold surrounded by full-color statues of Greek gods, rose Diamond’s Mount Olympus.

  Mount Olympus had the largest casino floor space, the greatest number of rooms, the most slot machines, the biggest jackpots, and the highest table drop and table win of any casino east of the Rockies. It was a palace of profit and pleasure, with gold trim on every fixture and gold rims on every glass, with air cooled by Freon and doped with oxygen, with cocktail waitresses in black high heels and little gold tops that covered just the bottoms, with second-rate singers in the lounges and first-rate acts on the main stage, and a soundtrack like the voice of Daisy Buchanan on speed, overdubbed a hundred thousand times. Diamond’s Mount Olympus.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Scrbacek,” said a greeter at the first of two sets of doors.

  “Way to go, Mr. Scrbacek,” said one of the men brushing cigarette butts into a dustbin in the foyer.

  And then he was past the second set of doors, into the impossible flash of the casino. Every time he stepped inside Mount Olympus, he couldn’t help the quickening of his pace, the jiggling of his fingers, the sense of expectation that stole upon him like a burgeoning erection. He was always after something in the casino—sometimes luck, sometimes money, sometimes the thrill of losing more than he could afford, sometimes a quiet drink, sometimes a noisy drunk, but most times, like tonight, Dolores.

  Even late on a Tuesday night, the floor was mobbed with gamblers, and the minimums were jacked high. Scrbacek stood amidst the sea of gaming tables, examining the waitresses as they paraded by with their full trays and skimpy tops. As he searched, he sidled up to one of the blackjack tables.

  “Hey, Chris,” he said.

  The dealer, short and thin with hands quick enough to hide his boredom, glanced up from the table for just an instant. “J.D.” The table was full, all except one place with a clear chip over its betting spot. Chris continued dealing while he talked. “Heard there was some excitement down at the courthouse.”

  “Some,” said Scrbacek.

  “Congrats, dude.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I thought the bastard was finally cooked. You’re some kind of a magician, you are.”

  “My client was innocent.”

  “Not since the day he was born. But I’ve been telling everyone for a long time now—I ever get in trouble, I’m going straight to J.D. Scrbacek.”

  “Have you s
een Dolores?”

  “She’s on tonight, somewheres. And how about that car blowing up like that?”

  “How about it?”

  “Kaboom. I heard someone was inside.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Son of a bitch. Tough way to go. Whose car was it, anyways?”

  “It wasn’t a car, it was a Ford Explorer. And it was mine.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “And the guy inside was turning the key instead of you?”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  Chris paid the winners, scooped up the cards still on the table, and looked straight at Scrbacek. “You want to sit, there’s a seat open. I’ve been saving it for some joker who’s been gone past his time.”

  “No, thanks. I’m just looking for Dolores.”

  “Hey, J.D., I don’t know about you, but if I won a case with the DNA against me and then my car blew up with someone else inside, I’d figure it was my lucky day.”

  Scrbacek looked at Chris for a moment and then down at the sign on the table. Twenty-five-dollar minimum. He thought a moment more before taking his wallet from his pants, pulling out what he had—six twenties, a five, two ones—and dropping it on the table.

  Chris spread the bills out before him and said loudly, “Change one hundred twenty-seven.”

  Scrbacek stood behind the open seat as Chris jammed the bills down the cash slot and gave him five green chips and two white.

  “Good luck,” said Chris.

  Scrbacek bet a green chip and pulled a three and an eight. Chris showed six. Without a word Scrbacek placed a second green chip beside the first and Chris slipped Scrbacek’s third card beneath his others, facedown. When the deal came back to him, Chris pulled out his bottom card, a jack, dealt a nine on top, and just like that Scrbacek was up fifty bucks.

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Scrbacek. He took off his raincoat, hung it over the chair, and sat. He pulled two greens back into his stack, leaving two for the next hand.

  What followed was uncanny. Whenever he stayed pat with a twelve or thirteen, Chris would bust. Whenever he squinted and took a hit, the right card, like magic, flipped atop his others. With a hand of fifteen, he pulled an ace and a five; with a hand of fourteen he pulled a seven; twice when Chris had a twenty, Scrbacek pounded his hand into a twenty-one. And the pile of greens he placed before him grew until they turned to blacks, and then they grew some more.

  He toked Chris a few chips every couple of hands, first the greens then the blacks, and when Chris was replaced by a woman named Thuy, he tipped her, too, because toking kept the luck moving through him, and it was moving through him like a current. The cocktail waitress brought him a stream of scotches on the rocks and another pack of cigarettes after he ran through his first, supplying as he was not only his own vile habit but the vile habit of the guy sitting next to him, who was cheerily bumming Marlboros even as his losses mounted. Scrbacek drank and smoked and tried to keep his hands steady as he placed his chips before him and signaled his plays. He won with a fourteen when Thuy pulled an eight to her six-jack. She placed three black chips in front of him as he turned his head to the left just in time to spot another cocktail waitress coming toward him, her round tray full of gold-rimmed glasses.

  She had long thin legs, breasts bursting out of her top, black hair falling in waves around her pretty face. She smiled at Scrbacek, and he smiled back and took a long, satisfied drag of his cigarette.

  “When did you get in?” said Dolores.

  “A few thousand dollars ago.”

  “Up or down?”

  “Up.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Farther up since you showed.”

  “How sweet.”

  She searched the glasses in her tray and pulled out a scotch on the rocks. “I’m working craps, but the guy this is for only tips when he’s winning, and the tables have been ice all night.”

  “Not this one,” he said before sucking down a long draw of the scotch.

  “I heard you were having quite a day. You want to celebrate tonight?”

  “That’s why I came. Do you have the kid?”

  “She’s with her father.”

  “That’s good. That’s great. When do you get off?”

  “It’s your play.”

  Scrbacek turned back to the table. He was showing an ace-five. The dealer had a jack. He took a card, another five, and nodded, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

  “I can get there by two,” said Dolores.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Good,” she said, and then she leaned in close to whisper. “But J.D., don’t climb up to your loft before I get there. Pretend I’m worth waiting up for.”

  Before he could answer, she sashayed off.

  He watched as she carried her tray away, the twitch of her rear in that skimpy gold skirt bringing him hard. He had a burning for Dolores that he found inexplicable. Her perfect breasts were false, her red nails were glued on, the lavish frizz of black that framed her face was a fall pinned to her lank brown hair, her pouting lips were injected, her cute pinched nose was carved, her straight white teeth were corrected. Even her orgasms, as she squirmed atop of him and squeezed her own breasts and let out that hungry moan, were false, or at least he hoped so. Somehow he found all this artificiality so erotic he could barely think straight around Dolores until after he twisted inside her and let loose his desire, before lapsing into a sweet and lonely sleep.

  When he turned back to the table, something had changed. Where before there had been a current, now there was a dead calm. He bet three hundred and pulled a jack to his twelve and knew that whatever had been with him at the table had disappeared. Normally, he’d try to force it to come back to papa, keep betting against the deadness, waiting for the current to turn live again. Something inside him didn’t like to win, but tonight his luck held. The scotch and the long day with its traumatic coda finally hit him all at once with a sickening weariness. It was time to go. He tossed another black chip at Thuy, gave the man beside him the rest of his cigarettes, slipped on his raincoat, and gathered his chips into a pile to take to the cashier.

  Twenty-one hundred and seventy-five dollars.

  He was too tired to let out a cheer or pump his fist as the cashier counted out the bills. He had thought a win like that would somehow make him happier and was disappointed that it didn’t. He put a hundred seventy-five dollars into his wallet and folded the twenty remaining Ben Franklins in half and stuffed them into the top of his boot. On his way out he stopped at a bar in one of the lounges.

  “I need a bottle of champagne,” he told the bartender.

  “What table you at?”

  “I need it to go.”

  “Sorry, pal. No bottles to go. House rule.”

  “Well, you see, I got this girl coming over.”

  “I know the story.”

  “And she’s been feeling unappreciated lately.”

  “What else is new.”

  “And she’s had the best surgeons money can buy.”

  The barkeep glanced around. “All right, this once. You want the good stuff or the very good stuff?”

  “I want the hundred-and-fifty-dollar stuff.”

  On his way out of the bar, holding the brown paper bag like a football, he heard the man sweeping the foyer say, “Good evening, Mr. Scrbacek.”

  He heard the doorman say, “Hope you had a good run, Mr. Scrbacek.”

  And then he was back outside, surrounded by the cool of the brightly lit night. He walked to the edge of the boardwalk, heard the uneven but steady roar of the waves in the darkness that crouched beyond the reach of the casino lights, breathed in the sweet salty-rot scent of the sea. He turned around and faced the gaudy grandeur that was Diamond’s Mount Olympus.

  Between the two golden domes was a post with a flag flapping in the wind, the word SINGAPORE printed upon the rippling fabric. The owner of M
ount Olympus and three other casinos on the boardwalk, James E. Diamond—billionaire, high-flying jet-setter, author of three ghostwritten books detailing his brilliant business strategies—was such a famous personage that the patrons always wanted to know where he was. Management had taken to putting up a flag each morning to announce his location. Sometimes it was Hong Kong, sometimes London, sometimes Vegas or New York or Hollywood. And then, on those special days when he came to inspect his flagship casino or to work on his grand plan to put a mammoth casino resort on the swath of land on the northern bay of the city, known as the Marina District, they put up a great red flag that simply said IN THE HOUSE.

  So, thought Scrbacek, the great James E. Diamond is in Singapore this evening. Singapore. Sweet. But I’ll bet he didn’t have a day like mine. I’ll bet he didn’t single-handedly whip the government in a court of law with nothing but his wiles and his wit. I’ll bet he didn’t feel death brush past his cheek and land on someone else’s shoulder. I’ll bet he didn’t take all his ready cash and increase it twentyfold in a game of chance with the odds set dead against him. I’ll bet he’s not looking to a long night of champagne and sex with a surgically enhanced cocktail waitress with magic hands and a mouth like velvet.

  He raised his brown paper bag and said out loud, “You might be a billionaire, Mr. Diamond, but tonight I kicked your ass.”

  And then, alone, he headed home.

  8

  FINAL CIGARETTE

  As Scrbacek climbed the stairway from his office to his apartment, he thought about how nice it would be to keep climbing, to shuck off his raincoat, his shirt, his shoes, his pants, to keep climbing and keep shucking until he was in his sleeping loft, naked, feeling the pressure of the blankets on his body as slumber caressed his brow. One of his favorite things in the world was being awoken for sex by Dolores when she came in after her shift, the smoky taste of scotch in her mouth, the urgency of her hands as they kneaded him to wakefulness. It all took place in a hazy netherworld of pleasure. And afterward he would drift back into sleep as if he had just passed through the most perfect of dreams.