Now dig this. She loses a grand, not me. She comes up to the room and holds out the card. I say, with no sarcasm at all, Maybe you need to cool it for the night. Take a rest. And she up and hits me right in the face. So I hit her back, not too hard, but just to let her know not to do that. And she calls the cops on me. Tells them that I got rough with her.
Can you believe this crazy girl?
So they take me downstairs to the hotel manager’s office. What’s this all about? We can’t have this here, they warn. We like you, P, you’re a good guest, but you need to learn to control your woman, they explain.
I will, I will, I promise them.
They offer coffee. I take the coffee.
Then I tip everybody a hundred. The cops get two.
A half hour later I open my door, and she’s trying to stash the bread knife in her pants after picking at the safe with it. You can see the nicks in the metal around the dial.
I take the bread knife away, put it in the drawer with the other utensils, pick up the phone, and load two grand on her cash card. C.L. says, Sorry, I’m so sorry, then kisses me tenderly. I kiss her back. I want to hold her in my arms a little bit longer, but she’s out the door. Gone downstairs to her real lover, the machines.
But life is fabulous. Just fabulous. Really, it is. These days, two grand doesn’t set me back at all. It hurts nothing. I’m still up. Way up. Let her have it, I tell myself. You know how it is. You’ve been there. Stop treating her like a child. I am at the window looking down on the night, at the fluorescent lights on the strip, at the people crowded shoulder to shoulder. My ex-wife calls.
Hey.
Hey.
Good to hear from you.
Yeah.
How you doing?
Fine. You?
Fine. Fabulous. The boys?
Fine. Your girl there?
I got lots of girls. What girl?
The white girl.
She’s downstairs.
I saw y’all on TV.
Yeah. That spot. They run it on cable.
She looks good … I got a good look at her. I recorded it.
Erase it. You look good.
In case I need to kick her ass one day, I need to know what she looks like.
Ha-ha. Go on with your bad self.
Well, good luck to you.
Don’t hang up. Don’t go.
I just called to wish you luck on the tournament.
Thanks. I should have won last year. But it’s tough.
Even for you?
Yeah. I’m running out of chips. I don’t think I’m gonna win this year either.
I wasted my good luck wish, then.
Luck is never wasted.
You should know. You’re a lucky gambler.
Hon … I had a dream about you.
Hmmm. Was I naked?
Hmmm … hmmm … Hey, you know, if you need anything, just say.
I don’t need anything.
I miss you.
Come home.
Come to Vegas. Bring the boys. Bring ________ (allergy boy).
No. Hell no.
Let’s not fight. Please. I’m just kidding.
I’m not bringing them to Vegas. Ever. Bye!
When C.L. comes back up, it’s like 3 in the morning. I am prepared to load her card again if she wants me to. Instead, she crawls into bed beside me. She holds me for a while, then tells me to roll over on my stomach. I do and she gives me the back rub massage kind of thing she does. Her tongue is on my neck a lot while she’s doing it. Pretty soon we’re going at it hot and heavy. I hear a noise, and I freeze. We are not alone in the room.
Did this crazy bitch sneak some guy in here to kick my ass and steal my money?
C.L. giggles, and the girl who has been sitting in the dark listening to us make out turns on the light. She is the redhead dealer from one of the other casinos who we met when we played there last week. She is C.L.’s way of making it up to me. She is still in her uniform. My favorite kind. Bow tie. Tuxedo top. Cummerbund. Tuxedo pants. Black spit-shined wingtips. But underneath: big breasts and a black velvet thong. C.L. knows I had my eye on this girl, who had dealt me really, really good cards. It is a great make-up gift. The redhead climbs in between us. Everybody kisses everybody.
There’s lots of giggling. C.L. is stoned. The redhead is way stoned. C.L.
takes her first. Then afterward, they both take me.
Ping. Ping.
Ping!
The next morning, I give them a couple grand each to go blow in the casino. I head downstairs and try my best. I’m good, but the cards are too fickle. I go all-in on a pair of kings. I get beat by trip deuces. I am out of chips.
After I am eliminated, I check with the judges to see how I did. This year I end up in 40th place.
Not bad for my second year in Vegas, but still out of the running.
Life is just fabulous. These days, getting knocked out of a million-dollar tournament doesn’t upset me at all. It’s just another day.
It hurts nothing.
I get back upstairs—C.L. is gone and my room has been cleaned out. She got into the safe, too. Now that I think about it, she and that redhead weren’t so stoned after all. They had been watching me as I opened it to break them off a little cash: 32 left, 23 right, 13 left … All of the petty cash is gone.
Twenty grand.
It hurts nothing. I should have given it to her. I would have.
I don’t see C.L. for three months. My friends tell me she’s up in Reno banging the machines hard. She and some longhaired motorcycle guy. Three months I don’t see her. Then one day she’s outside my door. Back in my bed. Like nothing’s happened. She has lost weight. There is a new tattoo on her hand, a thorny rose. She has a black eye. She smells like unwashed skin and marijuana. She’s back in my bed giving me one of her back rub massage things. She’s crying tears on my neck as she does it. Sobbing desperately into my neck for me to forgive. Now we are making love. She doesn’t explain where and who with. I don’t ask why. It hurts nothing.
It hurts nothing at all.
52.
This is what I write—
Dear __________,
I want to tell you what I did when you sent it back. I got real pissed off and I came this close to calling my lawyer. I am really hurt that you continue to treat me this way after all that we have been through together. What are you trying to prove? I am a changed man, I swear. Do you know who paid for ____’s medical school? And _______’s eye surgery? And saved _______ them’s house? I did. I want to do no less for my sons. That thing that I was, I am not that anymore. That was a long time ago. I have straightened up my act, I swear. I am a professional gambler. A PROFESSIONAL. These days I hardly even gamble at all, maybe fifty hours a week. I’m not bragging, but I am very good at what I do, and you need to understand that. Those boys are my sons. IT WAS A GIFT FROM THEIR FATHER. A CHRISTMAS GIFT! Do not cut me out of their life. Don’t force me to drag you into court because you know you would definitely lose. Oh yes you would. Get some sense into your head, woman. What are you trying to prove? I’ve tried to figure it out and I’ve come to the conclusion that something is just not right with your head. You need serious psychological help. As of right now, I am done with you. I’ve got better things to do with my time. Oh, and to answer your question: I could not be there because I was out of the country at the time for an important tournament. Christmas is just a holiday! Read my lips. It is my job! It is what I do! Stop poisoning my children against me!
—but I don’t mail it.
INVENTORY OF THE MONKEY
53.
One night we’re at our casino and C.L. heads to the blackjack area.
I’m surprised.
This is not her thing. The machines are her thing. She’s not very lucky at cards, she claims. She finds card games slow and unexciting. But here she is laying down a hundred on blackjack. She seems to know what she’s doing. Hit me, hit me, now stay, she says. And bang, bang, the ca
rds fall her way. Soon, she’s up a grand. She sits out a few hands, then she comes back in and lays down the grand she just won. She wins again. Now she’s up two grand. She wins the next three hands—hit me, hit me, stay—now she’s up 16 grand.
I am amazed.
I lean over her shoulder to congratulate her with a kiss, and she recoils. “See? I don’t need anything from you.”
She collects her money and goes over to the machines, where she promptly loses six grand back. She returns to the blackjack table with the remaining 10 grand. Hit me, hit me, stay, she says. Now she’s up to 40 grand.
“Amazing,” I tell her.
She says, “I’m going to be richer than you pretty soon. You’ll see.”
“But we’re not competing. We’re a team.”
“That’s what you call it.”
“Hey now—”
She shrugs away from my arm. “Leave me alone so I can concentrate.”
Hit me, hit me, she says. Stay, stay, hit me.
The cards fall.
Over the next half hour, C.L. loses a few hands, but most of them are winners. She’s grinning and cackling. I’ve never seen her so happy. She’s got $300,000 sitting in front of her. A crowd has gathered. Gamblers like to see other gamblers bet it big. C.L. has placed her entire $300,000 on it. She’s betting it big. Hit me, hit me, she says.
The dealer announces, 21!
C.L. wins again!
She leaves the table with $600,000. Everybody’s applauding like crazy. The girl has instinct for the game, I hear someone say.
Up in our suite, C.L. is elated (and cocky) as she counts out her money.
“You were amazing,” I say. “You took them good.”
“Tomorrow night I’m going to take them even better.”
“You seemed to know when to hit and when to stay.”
“I got good instinct for the game.”
“Do you? You used to hate cards.”
She flips out on me. “You’re jealous! You think only you can get lucky?”
“No, no,” I say. She has taken it the wrong way. I don’t want to fight. I want her to finish her counting, put the money in the safe, and then make love to me. I want to work on our relationship tonight. I want to remove the wedge that is being driven between us by her so-called support group. What do they think I am, her pimp? Is that what they tell her? Her sexist pig black man? It’s not like that with us. I love her. We’ve been together a long time. We’ve been through a lot. She’s not as crazy as she used to be, true, but I am the man, and it is my job to handle the money because C.L. is the only gambler in the world who without a doubt is a bigger degenerate than I am. If C.L. handled the money, we would have been broke and back in Miami a long time ago. She just doesn’t know when to quit. But tonight—tonight I am proud of her. She won and she got up before she lost it all back. That is the key to luck. You have to learn not to abuse it. You have to learn to get up while you’re ahead. Go to your room. Count your money. Make love to your man (make love to your man twice). Come back to gamble another day. “No, no,” I say to C.L., “I don’t think that way at all. I’m proud of you. I am lucky to be with you.”
She’s still a little snippy, but something in her melts.
I lick it all up.
Just the way she likes it.
We’re going at it on the floor surrounded by her many, many stacks of hundred-dollar bills. I’m huffing and sweating and telling her how much I love her, how we are such a great team, how I am the luckiest man in the world because of the day I met her, how I want to make our union a more permanent one, how between the two of us we will win all the money in Vegas, all the money in the whole gambling world, after four years I think I know you, I know I love you, will you marry me, C.L., will you?
And she huffs, Yes, yes, yes, but is it about marrying me or about how deep I am up in her?
The answer remains suspended in the air as the door bursts open and casino management (accompanied by several officers of the law) enters our chamber of love and lucre, all of them waving badges and writs and showing guns.
An officer of the law recites: “C.L., you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one …”
I have draped my body over hers to shield her from their intruding eyes. Beneath me, she begins to sob. I roll off my love, cease to shield her from their greedy eyes, which are not greedy for her at all, but greedy for and amazed at our stacks of money. Yes, officers, it’s real money. We got it like that. We are lucky gamblers.
Well, at least I am a lucky gambler. C.L., casino management is informing me now, is an unlucky gambler. The cheating kind. Her dealer accomplice has already been arrested and has confessed.
The eye in the sky sees all.
Why did she do it? Why? She of all people knows that there are cameras all over the casino. She needed money, all she had to do was ask. That was the game plan. I have all the money she will ever need. She just has to ask. But no, she wants to do it on her own. Some kind of feminist crap I don’t even pretend to understand that her friends have been putting in her head. Why does she need a support group anyway? She has me. Support groups are a crock. They are driving a wedge between us.
A female officer comes out of C.L.’s closet with a shirt and pants for her to wear. They allow me to help her dress. We are looking into each other’s eyes, into each other’s souls, through our tears. She touches my face. I kiss her cheek. No words are necessary when you have an understanding like ours. We are a team. She is led out of the suite in handcuffs.
Casino management and two officers, specialists, remain behind to collect the loot. One officer is making snide comments about the many, many stacks of cash they are fitting carefully into plastic suitcases. So this is how you do it. So this is how you get to live, like this, Mr. Lucky Gambler. You cheat. Ha-ha. Cheating sure is one way to do it. Cheating sure beats luck any old day. Ha-ha.
He’s mighty pleased with himself. Smart guy. I don’t like him. I’m not in the mood for his smartness, so I let it slip. That is $600,000 you got there, count it carefully or steal it, what do I care? I got like a million right here in my room safe. I got like three million in the casino vault. I got another five or six million somewhere in a couple of banks growing daily interest bigger than what you make in a year plus bribes. No offense, but this is chump change on the floor you’re picking up, buddy. Six hundred thousand dollars. C.L. doesn’t need this pocket change at all, and she is innocent until proven guilty. She can afford an attorney and she will get the best. She won’t spend a day in jail, I promise you.
I can see he wants to smack me, and if casino management weren’t present, he would.
After they leave, I drive down to the jail. My lawyer’s already there, already bailed her out. Twenty thousand dollars. Pocket change. She is still being processed for release while he’s telling me how it’s going to be.
Bad. They got her on tape. She was clumsy. They saw it all. Plus the dealer squealed like a pig. She’s going to have to do some time.
I don’t want her to do any time.
With the kind of money she took them for?
Chump change. You know how much I pay here in rent?
Chump change to you. To regular people, a jury of her peers, it’s five years at least.
No time. I want her to beat this, understand?
Hmmm. Well, the dealer is the pro. C.L. was dragged along for the ride. It’s going to be an uphill battle, but I’ll do my best.
And I’ll pull some strings.
Do your thing.
You do yours. No time, you hear me? I want her to beat this.
So that night, after she is released, we can’t sleep in our hotel suite because she is being sued by their casino, so we go to this other place I own. The people renting it have some furnished rooms in the back with a view of the pool. We stay there for the night. C.L. opens the blinds so she can see the lighted pool, then falls into bed. I fall into bed, too,
and hold her.
I don’t ask her why she did it. That’s not even the point. She did it because we have to work on our relationship. Get rid of the wedge between us. We are a team. A team has to act like a team. It should have been me and her stealing from the casino, not some redheaded dealer woman. I have to get through to her somehow. I have to. Maybe we should go to a casino. Blow some chump change. Relax a bit. Get our minds off this.
In the darkness, she suddenly says, “When I was in college, we had to read this story by Pushkin. I forget what it was called, but it was about gamblers. See, there was this gambler who used to go into the casino all the time and not play at all. He would just study the cards as they fell. Day after day he would do this. He was trying to come up with the perfect method for winning at gambling. But try as he might, he couldn’t do it. He kept bumping into luck. Luck is random. There is no mastering it. There is no method. No trick. Then he heard about this old lady who, when she was young, had found a way. See, she had lost a lot of money gambling, then went to her husband and asked him to pay the debt, but he was tired of bailing her out, so he refused. The husband thought he was teaching her a lesson, but instead he was making her feel like …”
I hold her tight. “Go on.”
“Well, a lecherous old prince heard of the woman’s plight and told her that for a few nights of passion, he would teach her a secret trick to beat the cards. She gave him the nights of passion and he whispered the secret formula to her. Then she went back to the casino and won back all of the money that she had lost and then some. But now she was old and had never told anyone the secret trick. So what the gambler did was, he tricked the old lady’s niece into getting him into their estate and then he went straight to the old lady’s room and demanded to be told the secret to beating the cards. When she refused, he threatened her with a gun—and the old lady dropped dead of a heart attack. Then what happens is, her ghost comes back and tells him that she will give him the secret if he would promise to play it just as she told it to him, and then never to play it again. So he promised the ghost that he would. The old lady’s ghost told him that the cards would fall as 3, 7, and ace. That he was to play one card on each night for three nights and then never play again. So the guy plays on the first night and bets a ton of money on 3, and it comes up. He doubles his money. On the second night, he comes back with his winnings plus most of his life savings, and he bets it on 7. Everybody in the casino is holding their breath as the dealer turns the card. It’s a 7. The guy doubles his money again. He is now richer than a king. Then on the third night, he comes in with all of his winnings, plus every penny in the world he owns. He bets it all on ace. And to his and everyone’s surprise, the card comes up a queen. The guy is freaking out. He can’t believe that he lost every single cent he had in the world. Then he looks down at the card and sees that the queen the dealer turned over did not have the regular queen’s face. Smiling up at him was the face of the old lady he had frightened to death. I remember the name now. The story was called ‘The Queen of Spades.’ I liked it a lot.”
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