Sin City

by Wendy Perriam

  St Joseph hasn’t seen me. He’s staring at the floor. He’s been up all night, looking after Mary. He didn’t put his germs in her. She made Jesus on her own.

  I lie down on the carpet. It’s brown and very thick. I don’t want to make a baby. I’m only a baby myself. I’m lying in my manger on a soft brown bed of straw. St Joseph is my mother – my own St Joseph, not the rich and grand one. He’s taking off his robe, tucking it around me. It’s old and warm and shabby; smells of sawdust. He’s smiling now, rocking me to sleep.

  He didn’t want a boy.

  He wanted a girl, a little girl called Norah.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Gamblin’ requires brains, Jan. It requires a lot of work. It requires talent, it requires thought, it requires intellect, it requires foresight, it …”

  If he says “requires” again, I’ll shoot him. Right here in this rotten cocktail lounge. They’re all the same, these gamblers, totally obssessed, like Victor said himself. Except Victor’s just as bad. I only landed myself with this jerk because I was sick of Victor’s poker.

  “Now, listen to me.” (I’m listening. I haven’t got much choice.) “We didn’t invent these games here in Vegas, honey. Absolutely not. The Greeks invented craps, the Italians invented roulette, the Chinese invented Keno, the Egyptians invented slot machines, the French …” The heavily ringed hand (three diamonds, two rubies and a garnet) gropes for its Pepsi glass.

  That’s five “invented”s already and more to come, post-Pepsi. At least I’m good at counting. I might be good at gambling if we ever get around to it. Snake Jake’s been talking non-stop for one and a quarter hours. It’s my own fault for playing truant from the poker room, sneaking off when Victor wasn’t looking. Victor’s not as bad. Nothing like. He didn’t even want to play; said he had enough of cards all year and he’d prefer to take me out. We’ve been out two whole days, in fact; hardly parted since that first exciting drink on Cleopatra’s Barge – except for boring things like sleep. We got on really well, had a ball, as they all say over here, but I was keen to see some poker, watch the guy in action, so to speak. He warned me I’d be bored, but I took no notice, nagged him into playing, simply overrode him like Jake’s overriding me.

  “The first gamblin’ device on this planet was a slot machine. It’s recorded in history, Jan, five thousand years ago.”

  God! History now. We’ve already had geography (the layout of casinos), psychology (the psychology of winning), biology (my tits), cardiology (his heart condition), simple mathematics (counting cards) and religion – his – (gambling).

  The briefest pause, for olives. He starts again, still chewing on a stone. “An Egyptian Pharaoh had a wheel and he used to spin that goddam wheel and whatever symbol it stopped on gave him his horoscope for that day. If it stopped on a diamond, he was gonna find money. If it stopped on a heart, he was gonna fall in love. If it stopped on a club, it meant big trouble, and if it stopped on a spade, it meant hard work. Then he started bettin’ on it. That’s all we’re doin’ today, hon, bettin’ on a slot machine, bettin’ on a wheel – except it’s three wheels – and instead of hearts and diamonds, it’s got cherries, plums and oranges.”

  I try to interrupt. I’ve lost enough on those damned sour fruits already, but his voice submerges mine.

  “The real pros in Vegas play slot machines fifteen hours a day, Jan. And some of them have been doin’ it for thirty or forty years. Thirty years, Jan. And if they’re husbands and wives, they may play teams. He’ll come in and play eight hours or so, then she’ll relieve him while he goes home and sleeps and showers and eats, then he comes back and plays the next eight hours, while she …”

  “Eats and showers and sleeps,” I say, wondering who does the shopping and the laundry. At least there wouldn’t be any kids to take to school – no time to conceive them.

  “Right. You’ve got it, Jan. That’s dedication. That’s professionalism. That’s …”

  “Craps,” I say. I dislike the word. It’s worse than cunt and with Norah’s bowels still playing up … “You promised to teach me craps, Jake.” That’s how all this started. I’d been sitting in that poker room for what seemed like eternity, when I heard a lot of racket just behind me. It was coming from the crap table – a crowd of people cheering, groaning, laughing – a really welcome sound when poker’s so damned silent. (No one says a word except “check” or “raise” and a few mumbled “shit”s and “fuck”s, and they’re afraid to move a muscle or show the slightest flicker of emotion in case they give anything away.)

  Snake was fairly dripping with emotion, making prima donna faces, shouting out his numbers, rocking to and fro. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The poker crowd had been a definite disappointment – a bunch of fogies mostly, and mostly overweight, dressed in dreary polyester, or ghastly tasteless tracksuits, not a hat or gun amongst them, save those stupid baseball caps which Americans seem so fond of, and which make them look like pensioned-off schoolboys.

  Snake’s hat was sensational – a wide black stetson with a jewelled python round the brim – ruby tongue, flashing emerald eyes. His own eyes were hidden by dark glasses which themselves looked pretty dashing, and he had this amazing satin shirt (black to match the hat) with dice and chips and cards embroidered on it, all in brilliant colours. Well, of course I was attracted, and the fact he left the game for me (which Victor hadn’t), even though he was winning, and had these high-heeled cowboy boots on …

  The boots are total sham. He was born in the Bronx (Jack, not Jake, and his mother kept a corgi, not a python), and runs a chain of dry-cleaners in New England, so there’s nothing wild or Western about him at all. And he was only wearing glasses because he’s got a touch of conjunctivitis in one weak and watery eye. (We spent a whole ten minutes on his eye problems.) Actually, once he’d taken off his glasses and his hat, his whole image just went phut. He looks ordinary and boring, with floppy sandy hair and funny ears. Victor’s not an Adonis, but at least he’s honest in his dress, honest generally. He’s also very generous, buys me strawberry daiquiris instead of rotten Coke. And he always lets me talk. Snake’s hardly paused for breath.

  “It’s okay, honey, I haven’t forgotten craps. Craps is on our list. Just hold on a moment, will ya? I wanna clear up blackjack first.” He grabs another olive, includes it in the lesson. “Now we’ve covered blackjack, right? You remember about countin’ cards?”

  I nod. We’ve counted cards three times. No – four – I’ve just set him off again.

  “Okay, so it’s a lotta work, countin’ cards. And there’s no damned law that says the deck has to go accordin’ to your count. No, hon. Just because you’ve worked out that a lotta tens are left in the deck, it doesn’t mean that the two cards comin’ off the top are tens. No, no, no, no, no. They may be threes or twos, or eights, or nines, or fours, or …”

  “Fives,” I say.

  “Yeah, dead right, hon. Fives. And if they’re goddamned fives, it’s no good gettin’ mad. You gotta keep your cool. Now remember this, hon: the best time to make money is when the dealer’s got a six showin’. A six, a six, a six, a six, a six. Got that? And how can you make money? I’ll tell ya. Number one, don’t hit a breakin’ hand; number two, you either split or double down. Splittin’s easy. When you’re dealt a pair …”

  We did splitting half an hour ago. (“Always always always always always split a pair of aces.”) I gulp my drink. There’s only ice left now, flavoured ice, but it helps to cool my aggro. “Look, Jake, I asked you about craps.”

  It’s craps I want to play. I don’t know why, except it looks the most exciting game and it doesn’t seem as passive as the rest. You stand instead of sit, and you can throw the dice yourself, change your own luck, whereas in blackjack or roulette, the dealer spins the wheel or turns up all the cards. They’re really neat, those dice. (Neat’s American. They use it all the time for anything they like.) They’re made to even higher precision than a space programme – Jake told me that. An
d that gambling guy on television said craps was the easiest game to play and you could learn it in two minutes (he didn’t know Jake, obviously) – at least the basics, and since it’s an international game, you can play it round the world, or on a boat in the middle of the ocean or in the army or … It all seems less convincing now. I’m not likely to be sailing round the world or joining up. In fact, Victor warned me off craps. He said I’d always lose in the long run because the house percentage works against even seasoned players with mathematical skills, let alone beginners. Actually, all the games are beginning to sound a pain. Jake makes such heavy weather of them, and we haven’t played a card or thrown a dice yet. We’re still sitting in this murky bar, mugging up the “theory”, while Jake draws illustrations on paper serviettes. (He’s got through half a packet.)

  “Right, craps.” Jake fiddles with a cheese-ball, puts it down, uneaten. “See this pair of dice, Jan?” He produces them, a conjurer, from the back pocket of his jeans. I perk up a bit. They’re red with bright white spots like those mushrooms which elves sit on in children’s picture books, but which are really hallucinogenic, turn you on. I need a high, for God’s sake. It’s one hour twenty minutes now. I’m timing him. And I haven’t won a cent yet.

  He throws the dice, which come up three and five. He rolls them over so they’re showing one and one. “How many ways to make a two, Jan?”

  “Two,” I say. I’m not really listening. I’m still thinking about Victor, worrying now, in fact. I must go back to him.

  “No – one. Only one way to make a two. I can throw those goddamn dice for ever, but if they don’t come up one and one, there’s no other way to make a two. How many ways to make a three?”

  “One.”

  “No, two, hon. It can be two and one, or a one and a two. There’s two ways to make a three, all right?”

  “All right.” Mind you, he may not even have realised that I’ve gone. That’s partly what upset me – the fact he seemed so engrossed in those damn cards. And poker lasts such hours. For all I know, he could be sitting there till morning – or all week. One guy he knew played three days and three nights without a break, and he was eighty-three. At least he won’t be missing me. If I stayed away till midnight, he probably wouldn’t notice, would still be slumped there, piling up his chips.

  I’ll go back all the same. It’s the least I can do for him when he’s been so good to me. It isn’t just his money (though he does drive a Thunderbird and took me to a restaurant which served twelve-inch steaks on solid gold). He’s a really decent person, doesn’t boss or boast or interrupt like most men do, or have to put me down (like Jon did) just to prove who was top dog. He makes everything I say special and important, almost sacred, as if there’s nothing in the world beyond my mouth and his two ears. Most people never listen. They’re either longing to jump in themselves, or glancing round the room to check they’re not missing something better, or hearing what they want to hear instead of what you’re saying, or working out their schedule for next day.

  I jump. Snake’s just thumped my arm. “You’re not concentratin’, Jan. Now, how many ways to make a four?”

  “Three.”

  “Yeah, great! That’s it. You’re learnin’. Remember, one way to make a two, two ways to make a three, three ways to make a four, four ways to make a five, five ways to make a six, six ways to make a seven …”

  “Seven ways to make an eight,” I say. I could just leave, simply dash away, say I’m feeling sick or …

  “No no no no no no no, no, Jan. Five ways to make an eight. It goes back the other way, see? Five ways to make an eight, four ways to make a nine, three ways to make a ten, two ways to …”

  “Is this craps?” I interrupt.

  “Sure it’s craps. But I wanna make certain you understand the odds. That’s all I’m teachin’ you, Jan – the outline, the basics, the structure of these goddamned games. I’m not tellin’ you how to gamble, hon. No, no, no, no, no.”

  I crane my head towards the poker room. Victor’s not that far away. I could almost see him if there weren’t so many gaming tables filling in the space between us, and all those fancy pillars. This casino’s fairly small – at least compared with giants like Caesars and the Gold Rush. It’s a new one, called Last Chance, pretty grand, but compact. Victor only brought me here because they run these weekly poker tournaments with higher stakes than most. I was keen to see a world-class game like those he’d played Downtown, but there were none on in that league, nothing big at all. This place was just a compromise. Victor warned me all along that weekly tourneys are never all that special, but I didn’t take it in. I was still hyped up on television cameras, players flying in from round the world, crowds of tense spectators; all the things he’d told me about his previous tournament.

  Of course it was a let-down when I found a scene not that different really from Jan’s mother’s little bridge evenings, but it was totally my fault for living in a dream. I feel rotten walking out on him when he tried so hard to scotch the whole idea. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, I could be sitting now in some nice romantic restaurant, or learning to drive that steel-blue Thunderbird, instead of trapped here by a snake.

  “Don’t let anybody tell you how to gamble, Jan. Not your boyfriend, not your mother, not your uncle, not your pastor, not your room-mate, not your …”

  “No, I won’t. I promise. In fact, now you mention my room-mate, I really ought to …”

  “Nobody. D’ya hear me, Jan? Gamblin’s personal, like gettin’ married. It’s your money, your luck, your life, your hunches, your goddamned chips down on that table. Now listen, hon, pair of fives you don’t have to split, because if you get a ten or a jack or a queen or a king or a nine or an eight or a seven or …”

  “… told her I wouldn’t be late. Doesn’t like being left all on her …”

  “Pair of aces? That’s different. Always split a pair of aces. Always always always always …”

  I’m gone. I’ve run. My heart’s beating like all hell, but I’ve got away. He won’t find me in the Ladies’ Room. I’ll stay here fifteen minutes, till he’s buggered off himself, then return to Victor and the poker room. If Victor’s even noticed that I’ve left – which somehow I still doubt – I’ll pretend I just popped out for some air, or was feeling faint and had to have a lie-down.

  I re-do my make-up first. I like to make an effort when Victor’s so appreciative, calls me beautiful, though I’m less bothered now about trying to look older. I told him I was twenty-one and he just accepted it, and no one else has so much as raised the issue. Mind you, I do look quite sophisticated. I’m wearing a tight black skirt with a rather racy slit one side, and a clingy sort of sweater with little buttons down the front, and I washed my hair in True Blonde which made it go fairer and more fluffy.

  I undo my top two buttons, spray my breasts with scent, sling my new cream raincoat round my shoulders. Victor bought me that. It’s the frightfully snobby trench-coat kind with a belt and epaulettes, which très chic females wear in foreign films. I was teasing him about his rapist’s mac – the black one he was wearing when I met him – and he asked me would I help him choose a new one, then bought me one to match. He even suggested buying something for Norah, so I had to explain her horror of new clothes.

  He was really sweet with Norah, concerned about us leaving her alone so long, so yesterday we took her out with us. I was a bit annoyed at first, didn’t want a threesome or a chaperone, but Victor was so kind to her, even made her laugh (which is quite a feat itself), that I was really rather touched. He took us to a chocolate factory, which is one of the attractions here, where you watch the chocolates being made and the squiggles put on top. Norah was confused at first. All the factory workers wore white coats, so she assumed they were doctors and that we’d moved to some new hospital. Actually, he must think Norah’s far worse than she is, because every time she called me Carole, I hissed “Jan” at her and glared, and poor Toomey just went silent and looked hangdog.r />
  I suppose I should confess about the Carole, but he’s called me Jan so many times by now (Americans use your name far more often than we English do, so you begin to feel you really do exist), and anyway, I feel safer being Jan. Jan never lands in trouble (or in psychiatric hospitals), or screws up her own chances. She wouldn’t have left the poker room, to start with, or got involved with Jake, or grabbed that hundred-dollar bill. I was really had, there, wasn’t I? Imagined Jake was giving me a hundred bucks to try my luck at craps, until I turned the damn thing over and found it was a business card, printed with his name the other (plain white) side. “Snake Jake” – that’s all it said. No boring surnames. Well, I was disappointed, naturally, but also quite impressed. I mean, snakes are sheer sex, aren’t they, what with Eve and Freud and everything, and Snake Jake sounds incredibly exotic after standard names like Jon. I felt quite apologetic about my own name, which I had to keep as Jan, since Victor was within spitting distance and for all I knew, the two might know each other.

  God! I’m horrid. Waltzing off with Snake under Victor’s very nose, giving up on him when he’s done everything my way the last two days. Two days? It must be longer. I feel I’ve known him half my life. We talked so much, did so many things. Both days were wonderful, didn’t rush us, let us take our time, spun themselves out into two dramatic sunsets, two dazzling starlit nights. I actually felt happy, not wild or drunken happy, just surprisingly content.

  I stride towards the door. I’m going back to him, not waiting fifteen minutes. If Jake’s lurking just outside, too bad.

  He’s not lurking. He’s not even playing craps again. I squeeze past the wild crowds at the tables into the solemn hush of the poker room, which is not a separate room at all, just a group of tables beneath a carved and gilded ceiling in one corner of the main casino.