The Pen is Mightier

by J. A. Cipriano

“I thought of a solution to that whole cash flow problem.” Marty pulled out some cash. He handed me a stack of ones. “There’s a reason I asked for change in singles.”

  “What do I do with these?” I asked, taking the dollar bills and staring at them in confusion.

  “Turn them into hundred dollar bills.” He made a writing motion with his hand. “Like you did with the vodka.”

  “Hmm,” I mumbled, turning my eyes to the ones. His logic was sound, so I decided to go for it. Pulling out my pen, I quickly wrote two extra zeros after the one on the first bill. In an instant, the bill changed into a crisp one hundred dollar bill, and I smiled. “Wow, you’re a lot better at this than me.” I rolled my eyes. “You know I could just write something like ‘find a million dollars in a suitcase under the seat,’ right?”

  “That’s no fun at all,” he said, smacking me on the shoulder. “Sure, you could exploit your power, but you should have fun with it.” He shook his head. “You can have anything, do anything. If I had that pen, this limo would be filled with naked starlets.” He smirked. “But I’d still be coming here to have fun.”

  “Maybe,” I said, thinking back to the midget. After what had happened in the parking lot, something told me I’d be better off keeping my head down even if I hadn’t felt like I was being watched for a while.

  Besides, maybe Marty was right. I’d spent so much time being kicked down by the man. Maybe it was time to have some fun. To really cut loose for a while. You know, start small and progress to having bigger, better things.

  An hour later, I was back in the limo clad in a five thousand dollar suit and drinking a bottle of Dom even though I didn’t like it. The tailor had just given it to me after I’d written paid in full on the bill for our two suits.

  “This is just insane,” Marty said, taking a deep breath as he met my eyes. “Like I didn’t even know suits could feel like clouds.” He held out his fist, waiting for a bump.

  I returned the bump as the driver pulled in front of the Cosmopolitan and parked our limo. Jesus, I couldn’t even believe I had a limo. Yesterday, I’d been praying my car would start so I could go to my shitty job and now? Now I was pulling up to the Cosmopolitan in a fucking limo.

  “I’ll wait over there for you, sirs,” the white-gloved driver said, gesturing to a parking area to the left after he helped us out of the vehicle. “If you need anything, please call.”

  “Sure thing,” Marty said before throwing his arm around my shoulder, his bottle of Dom clasped in his other hand. “What game do you want to play first? I’m thinking roulette.”

  “Roulette?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Do you know anything about roulette?”

  “No, but I assume you can just write where the ball lands. It’ll be easy peasy.” He nodded to me as we stepped inside, and the overwhelming sound of the place hit me like a hammer blow. There were lights and whistles, and a million other things all slamming into my brain at once. Women dressed to the fucking nines with huge tits and pretty smiles filled my eyes, and as I stared at them, I realized I could have any of them.

  No. I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. If I did, I’d go down a path I didn’t want to go down. Besides, I had plenty of time for that later. Now, it was time to make money. Only as I had that thought, I wondered if I needed to do that… Maybe I could just write myself into the owner of this place? Of this city?

  Still, that would be suspicious. And people were looking for the pen. That was exactly the thing that would tip them off. Or would it? Hell, how would I even go about it? Write myself finding the deed or something?

  “You’re totally thinking about fucking all these chicks, aren’t you,” Marty said, glancing at me, and the look in his eyes scared the fuck out of me. It was hungry in a way I’d never seen before.

  “I was,” I admitted because it was easier than explaining I’d thought about writing myself into owning the casino. “Among other things.”

  “Me too.” He smacked me on the back. “Me too, bro. Me too. It’s human fucking nature.” He thrust his bottle into the air. “But for now, we party like fucking rock stars.”

  “Yes!” I clinked my glass against his bottle, trying to force myself to be excited. I couldn’t help but think we weren’t going about this intelligently since I could just write myself into a billionaire. Or at least I thought I could.

  “Drink up,” Marty said, watching me. “It will help with the nerves. Remember, we deserve this.”

  “It’s not really that. I’m just starting to think we’re going about this the wrong way, thinking too small time.”

  Marty took a huge swallow of champagne as he shrugged. “Yeah, maybe we could do more with your pen, but this is fun!”

  “Fair enough,” I said before draining my glass. The bubbly liquid hit me at once, rushing down my throat and bringing a calming wave of pleasure with it. Marty was right. It was time to live, to have a piece of the good life I’d been denied for so long. Reality could go fuck itself in the goat ass. Besides, there would be time to exploit my pen’s powers later.

  Marching forward, I followed Marty toward the closest roulette table with the fewest people.

  “You want to play or want me to do it while you write?” he asked, stopping just short of one that only had a couple players. “I kinda wanna do it, but admittedly, it’s your show.”

  “You play, I’ll write. It’s easier that way.” I nodded to him. If people knew what I looked like, maybe having Marty on camera as the winner would work out better for me. Better to stay out of the limelight.

  “Right on, bro,” he said before breaking into a grin. “Let’s make some fucking money.” With that, he spun around and pressed through the throng of people walking through the aisle before elbowing aside a guy in a much less expensive suit and sitting beside a blonde in a strappy dress.

  “Buy-in is one hundred dollars,” the thin Asian dealer said in clipped tones as my friend settled in.

  “What’s the maximum bet?” he asked, plopping down a grand.

  “Maximum inside bet is one hundred fifty dollars any way to the number,” she said, taking his money and cashing it in for a bunch of multi-colored chips. “Maximum outside bet is one thousand dollars.”

  “Perfect,” he said, taking his stack of chips and holding it in his hands. Then he took a deep breath and looked back at me, making me realize he was nervous.

  Truth be told, I was nervous too. I’d never done something like this, even without the pen, but at the same time, I knew deep down in my gut it would work. And if it didn’t, what did it matter?

  I gave my friend a thumbs up. He nodded back and took a sip from the bottle of Dom. Then he turned back to the table as I leaned in over his shoulder to watch.

  “I think eighteen is lucky,” he said, louder than necessary as he put one hundred fifty dollars in chips on eighteen.

  As he did, I quickly wrote a line on my notepad.

  The ball lands on 18.

  A moment later, the dealer called for final bets, and as she did, the ball began to slow down, bouncing from number to number before landing on eighteen. As it sat there, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. It’d worked. It had fucking worked.

  “Oh my god!” Marty cried, nearly leaping to his feet as the dealer began to pay out. “That’s thirty-five to one, right?”

  “Yes,” the dealer said in a flat voice. “Congratulations.”

  As the dealer pushed five thousand dollars in chips toward him, Marty swallowed hard, his eyes nearly bugging out of his skull. He took a deep breath as he picked up the chips, trying to keep it cool. I knew it had to be hard because I was freaking out.

  “Good job,” the blonde in the strappy dress said, turning to him and pursing her full lips. “Seems lady luck might be with you tonight.”

  “Could be.” He swallowed hard and glanced at me, and when I shrugged, he turned back to the blonde in the strappy dress. “What’s your favorite number, miss?”

  “My fav
orite number?” she asked, raising a delicate eyebrow at him. “Why, eight of course.”

  “Eight it is,” Marty said, putting another hundred and fifty dollars on eight, and as he did, I wrote another line down.

  Make Marty an expert at roulette.

  Marty paused as the magic took hold, looking back at his stack of chips. Then he grabbed some more and placed another three hundred dollars between the seven and the eight before placing a corner bet for six hundred more. Then he dropped a grand on first twelve.

  As everyone watched him, he shrugged. “Go big or go home, right?”

  “I agree, baby.” The blonde grabbed his arm, smiling as the ball spun in the wheel.

  Quickly writing down another note, I looked up in time to see the ball land on eight, and as the dealer stared at it, her eyes found me, and I could feel the press of her gaze. Only before she could say anything, the table erupted in cheers.

  Her eyes flicked back to the table, and she took a deep breath.

  “Congratulations, sir,” she said as she nudged something beneath the table with her hand, causing a light above her head to go off. That wasn’t good.

  As the dealer handed Marty over twenty thousand dollars in chips, three thousand for his outside bet and fifteen thousand for his inside bet on eighteen, I grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the blonde.

  “We need to go,” I hissed in his ear, and as I did, he started to argue with me.

  “Man, we can’t go now,” he whined, looking at me as the blonde practically wrapped herself around his arm.

  “Yeah, you guys can’t go now,” she said, smiling brightly at me. “I’ve barely made your acquaintance.” She looked us over. “And something tells me, you might find my company quite enjoyable.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled as a rather large black man in a suit came over and began to speak to the dealer. As they did, I took a step back and wrote down another note.

  There is absolutely nothing suspicious about us at all. No one in the casino pays any attention to us.

  As soon as I finished, the guy looked over at us and shrugged. Then, with a scowl at the dealer, he walked off, leaving us to exploit the table to our heart’s content. There was just one problem. The bets weren’t high enough at this table to make any real money.

  I mean, if we were gonna game the system, we should really game the system, right?

  As Marty won another round, netting another eighteen thousand in chips, I tapped him on the shoulder. “How about we hit the high rollers’ table?” I pointed across the way toward a roped off section with minimum bets of ten thousand dollars.

  As Marty followed my hand to the section, he smiled, clearly catching my drift. “You’re right, it’s time to stop messing around.” He stood, scooping up his chips before tossing a grand to the dealer. Then he jutted his arm out to the blonde. “Care to accompany us?”

  “Sure,” she bubbled, and I wondered if she was a hooker since I hadn’t seen her place any bets. My gut told me yes, but I knew Marty wouldn’t care. Hell, I didn’t care. She was hot as fuck, and at the end of the day, we had money in spades. Besides, what was she going to do, charge us for her company?

  With that, we strode away from the table like conquering warlords and headed to the high rollers’ section.

  It didn’t take long for me to realize this was a dumb plan because it was still small time. After only a couple throws, we were up almost three hundred thousand dollars and were fast approaching the maximum table limit. Sure, we could go to a new casino and start over, but at this rate, it’d take forever to make even a few million.

  Besides, I had another idea.

  “Bro, I wanna do something else,” the words had barely left my mouth when Skye, the blonde we’d picked up at the last table, smiled at me.

  “I’m kind of bored too.” She batted her eyes at me. “How about I call some of my friends and we go to that suite they comped you?”

  Before I could respond, Marty butted in. “How many friends do you have?”

  “Six.” She met his eyes, and it was as though they were silently communicating. “I’ll call all of them.”

  25

  It was strange. As I sat on the balcony staring out at the lights of the Las Vegas strip, I felt, well, silly.

  Why?

  Because I was worried. I’d had the pen for all of a day, and I was pretty sure people were after me. Sure, this had seemed like a good idea until I realized something. I could do more with less. Way more.

  I glanced at the mint condition Honus Wagner baseball card I’d found under the ashtray. I didn’t know much about baseball or cards or anything, but I’d remembered reading how one in okay condition sold for over three million dollars. This one was mint, and it’d only taken me a second to write find a mint condition Honus Wagner baseball card under the ashtray.

  Sure, selling it would get me some heat, but I could have “found” other things too like all the comic books I’d always wanted as a kid. No wonder it felt like people were after me.

  “Maybe that’s why the midget wrote those words and put this all into motion,” I mumbled, thinking to myself as I fingered the card. “Maybe he realized he could do anything, did it, and just got so bored he wanted something more.”

  It was dumb, but I could see someone doing just that. I mean, okay, I wasn’t going to give up the pen by any means because that was really dumb, and I wasn’t going to bemoan my luck or anything. Still, as I looked down at the pen, I realized a couple things. I could do more, and not only that, I had to do more. Otherwise? Well, otherwise I’d never leave this room full of ridiculously attractive hookers.

  I had to leave this room. Staying here was going to get me caught by whoever was after me, and I had bigger plans.

  “What’s wrong? Not enjoying the party?” Skye asked, and as I turned, I saw her coming toward me clad in only a pair of thigh-high stockings. Her breasts bounced with each step as she stepped onto the balcony and moved toward me.

  “You’re what’s wrong,” I said with a half-smirk. Then, realizing she might take that the wrong way, I tried to remove my foot from my mouth. “Not that there’s anything wrong with you. You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m not offended. I know I’m hot.” She swept a hand down her nude form before settling down next to me like she didn’t care she was naked on a balcony. Then again, who would see her? “If I weren't, strangers wouldn’t pay a thousand dollars an hour to fuck me.”

  “That is a fair point,” I said, turning away from her and looking out at the lit-up Las Vegas skyline.

  “Let me guess, sugar,” she said, tapping me on the shoulder with one long, slender finger and drawing my attention to her. “You don’t enjoy my company as much as your friend.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “Let me rephrase,” she said, waving off my comment. “I know you enjoyed my company, but you aren’t the drunken debauchery type. It was obvious from the moment I saw you two at the table. Your friend? He’s an enabler, which is probably why you pretend you like him. He gets you in trouble sometimes, but it’s always a little fun even if you get fucked over a bit. He gets you to do things, like, oh, I dunno, spend an evening in a Vegas hotel room with an army of hookers. It’s basic, and it makes sense, but it’s not you.” She looked at me for a long time. “You’ve got way more potential than that.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, meeting her eyes, and I was suddenly surprised by the fact that not only did she seem incredibly intelligent, but she was stone cold sober.

  “But this? It isn’t what you want. Not really.” She gestured down at herself. “Like you have a guy like Marty to be your front man because you want to be the man behind the curtain.” She gestured back at the room. “That’s why you’re not inside, and why you’re out here because you’re already thinking beyond all this.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, surprised at how perceptive she seemed. “It makes me feel and sound ridiculous because everything in me says I should bend you ov
er that railing.” I pointed at the railing separating us from a forty-story drop. “And just fuck your brains out.”

  “You can do it. I’ll let you. Hell, I kind of want you to do it. You’re pretty hot without your shirt on.” She smiled at me and stood before moving toward the railing with slow, sensual steps. Then she leaned against it, arching her back enough to give me a great view of her assets. “But I don’t think you want to do that. Not really, anyway.” Then she smacked her ass with one hand. “It’s a shame because my ass is spectacular.”

  “It is, but, I dunno,” I said with a sigh. “I just, well, part of it is I can do it, right? I could get up, and you’d let me do it. I could do whatever I wanted more or less, and you’d let me do it.”

  “Yeah, for what you’re paying me, pretty much anything is on the table,” she admitted, pushing herself off the rail. “But I get it. You want to work at things, to feel like you earned it.” She swept her hand down her body once more. “And you don’t feel like you earned this.”

  “That’s part of it—”

  “Furthermore,” she continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “You don’t really like me. You might think I’m hot, but you haven’t laid awake in your bed jerking off to me.” She came toward me and dropped down in front of where I was sitting until she was eye-level with me. “I get it.” She kissed me on the forehead, the movement causing her nearly perfect breasts to brush against me. “So, what do you want to do?”

  “Um…” I said, and she laughed. The sound was strangely sweet and comforting.

  “I mean, in general.” She shrugged. “You won a ton of money, but that doesn’t seem to be your thing. It’s fine. For a lot of people, it’s not.” She shifted, sitting down next to me and leaning her head against my shoulder. “But you should figure out what it is you want to do, or you’ll spend your life in an endless haze of hookers, coke, and booze trying to figure out what you should be doing.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “And you won’t even enjoy it.” She made a fist and pumped it once. “If you’re gonna fuck hookers and party, then you need to really be up for it.”