by Kendric Neal
He'd seen the children differently after that. He'd imagined before what all white people headed to the casino did, that the tribemembers shared in the wealth and the Injuns had had the last laugh after all. Now he saw them as a lost people—no hope, no future, an identity subsumed by a more dominant one. It had somehow eased the sting of his losses—knowing the money was going to right an ancient wrong. The knowledge it was just lining rich Injuns' pockets and the poor were still poor made it all worse. Even in their revenge they were being cheated. Almost as bad as seeing a member of the doomed generation flattened on the highway by a tree his own tribe used to own (oh wait, they didn't go for that owning crap, did they?). Almost as bad as seeing it happen because a white dude wanted to know if his team was winning and couldn't wait til his car had stopped somewhere safe. Almost as bad as a bunch of other white dudes letting him get away with it because, hey, he was a white dude. Would it have made a difference if he'd squashed a well-liked white person instead? He tried to say no, it was just an accident, but some other voice inside him wasn't buying it. It sure as hell would.
He forced himself to shut this stream of thought off but the images lingered. He thought of her again, the woman at the funeral, the woman he had come to think of, to know, was the tribe's shaman even though no one had ever told him that. Wise eyes in wrinkled skin, a feather in her wiry gray hair. All her teeth missing except for one canine, blue and dead and cockeyed, and eyes sunken with age. The hiss from her lips, the dry crackle of her hands, the beady intense look in her eyes. It was meant to haunt him—How? How could anyone know? Did he give it away? Was it in his eyes? His guilt? Or did she know for some other reason? Were the movies right, did old Indian medicine men and women know something the rest of us didn't? Could they read the signs?
Ambien cleared the cobwebs. A weekend away with a 7:0 football win ratio felt pretty good indeed. He enjoyed being at work and had to tamp it down a little when people started to notice. After all, realist as he was, he knew the streak couldn't last forever and he didn't want anyone noticing a difference when he lost. He hung his head, pretended to get bored in meetings and tried not to smile too much. Heck, that was hard to do when his Schwab was green again, green on top of more green. His stocks were on a tear today, and by the time he broke at 1, he was up $9,385. He tried to control himself at lunch, but splurged on a steak anyway accompanied by two Elephant Stouts. Life was good when you were winning, no doubt about that. It cast everything in a cheery light, he tipped generously, chatted with a pleasant old guy at the valet station, traded a couple of new jokes with the building doorman and had to restrain himself from kissing Marcia when she told him Hugh Donaldson was waiting in his office.
Donaldson had been out when the Jepp announcement went down and they hadn't had a chance to speak. Neely had been looking forward to it, Donaldson had dangled the possibility of Neely being laid off not too long ago and Neely hadn't forgotten it. The old man had made jabs all along about the time and money pursuing a lost cause, so this was a vindication Neely meant to savor. He would have preferred it occur with witnesses, but he knew that was expecting too much—Donaldson was too savvy to let that happen. He'd prefer his humble pie in private, thank you, and by the weekly status sit-down Wednesday, Neely knew he'd be throwing up roadblocks just to take the shine off. Donaldson always had been smart about such things. Never kid a kidder.
He was waiting with just the right degree of good-natured charm and aw-shucks self-effacement. “Well done, well done, solid job there, Neely. That was truly a coup.”
“Oh, thanks. Been a long time coming.”
“And early reports are strong, that was great you were able to get Falk on the job so soon, he got them up and running in two hours.”
“Yeah, he's been updating me. Looks like Pedott-Carey left it a mess.”
“Yes, and that's what's funny, isn't it? I've never known them to struggle on a job like this, they've done networks twice this size with the same configuration.”
“Guess it just wasn't their day.”
Donaldson looked at him, steadying his coffee cup. “There isn't anything we need to know there, is there, Neely?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I'm as fierce a competitor as you'll find, you know that. If I happened to smell an opportunity, say a freelancer I knew doing a gig for another company…for a client I coveted. It's not outside the realm of possibility—”
“You're asking if I had something to do with it? Good lord, Hugh, that's like, a Federal crime or something.”
Donaldson looked at him curiously, not quite believing him at first, but then believing him and thinking the less of him for it. “No, of course not. I'd be tempted, sure. Crossing the line, though, isn't it?”
Neely suddenly felt an urge to throw up that steak and double Stout. Crossing the line, that's what the Highway Patrol woman said. Neely was on a gurney, his injuries deemed non-life-threatening. She was taking her initial report, just pad and pencil, he was surprised they still used those. She'd made her observations based on the skid marks and the impact. The young guy in the Jeep, spun round, crossed the line, straight into the path of what remained of a tree that had stood since the days of Columbus. God's wrath…? Mother Nature's fury…? But had it been meant for one of her native sons or a heretic like Neely? Checking scores while unscrupulous lumber companies took cowardly bites out of forbidden forests—turning history into fast food wrappers while poor boys from the tribe died gruesome deaths—while a proud people spun into dissolution as white men chased straights on their sacred burial grounds?
“Neely?”
“Sorry! Little too much celebration at lunch. No, nothing like that, Hugh. Nothing immoral or unethical, sorry to disappoint you. No exposure to the company. Just another client that recognized we could give them what they needed for less cost and with better service.”
“You sound like your pitch.”
“I've made it often enough, it's hard-wired to my brain now.”
“Well, worked like hell this time. Congratulations, Neely. You were right and I was wrong on this.” He stuck out his hand and Neely shook it. He had to suppress the shudder; he didn't trust Donaldson as far he could kick him. “Bill and I are going out for drinks tonight, you should join. We're all going to have Merry Christmases this year thanks to you.”
“Good, then you won't mind buying.”
“No, we were going to offer. Had you been a gentleman—”
“I'm not.”
“You'd be boring as hell, I was going to say.”
“Got some new jokes Stewart told me. I swear that guy makes us all look like choir boys.”
“It's always the quiet ones. 7:30.”
“You bet.”
Okay, 7:30. That meant they'd be there when the Monday Night game started. Maybe no bets tonight—if he drank too much he'd check the score and Danning would notice. He didn't drink himself and was a reformed gambler, he knew the signs. Neely was up though, he could let it slide. Though the Cowboys' healthy O-line against the Saints hobbled D and 6 and a half points? That was juicy.
Lucky…
The word was in the back of his mind when he made his final call. Without stopping to think any further, he increased his bet to $12,000 and let it go. He hardly had to check and Danning didn't notice. Cowboys won by 27.
CHAPTER 7
She grabbed his wrist in an iron-like grip and brought her face up to his. She hissed the word again, only this time he didn't hear it. No sound came out of her mouth as there was no tongue there, just that single rotted tooth. He felt himself falling and reached for something to grab…a hand, an arm that grasped his hand as it let Neely pull it down. The old woman's eyes rolled up in her head and went round in their sockets as she turned into a sideshow freak. In their place were only two blurs of movement and her mouth kept working, only now it was a payout slot and her eyes stopped on the same word: Lucky. He watched the face machine work itself up again, looking like a dog abo
ut to vomit as its bells and alarms rang out the jackpot. Coins dropped and the mouth opened wide so they could gush out over Neely. He screamed as they swallowed his face and tumbled into his mouth until it was stuffed full.
He spat them out but the woman machine bent over him further, pinning him to the floor while she spat out her vile stream. He couldn't breathe and had to push the thing off. He turned to run from her and found his way barred by a black figure staring him down. The empty eyes riveted him as the arm went up and he recognized the movement—the lazy, flailing arm of a final, useless act seen only by the human who'd made it happen.
Neely moved away from him but he came on, flailing that arm as Neely backed away. The boy stood before him, no longer threatening, his arm at his side. Just beyond him Neely saw the old growth tree trunk rolling toward the impact. It slammed into the ground just beyond the boy's head and bounced (how could anything that heavy bounce?), the boy's empty eyes still on Neely's. The massive log came toward his head, its shadow plunging him into darkness. It was someone else, though, reaching toward him with oily hands. Neely tried to pull back, but the thing held him firmly. A shiver went through him as the mouth came closer and breathed the word, “Uhktena,” and through his leering white-ash grin he said it with the breath of a drunk. “Joke's on you this time, white man. Who could it be but the spirits who want you? What made you think you could get away? You wanted this, you kept going til you got it. Now Tlanuhwa is here and she wants her blood.”
Neely woke in a sweat and crawled out of bed, only to realize it was just past 4. He'd felt sure it was later, but it hardly mattered, it was a dream he was only too happy to be out of. He wasn't one to have bad dreams, even when he was on that odds-defying losing streak. He'd been confident right up to the last $7,000, believing with all he had that it was Time To Turn This Sucker Around. Being an optimist may be healthy in a lot of ways in life (he'd read somewhere they lived longer), but for a gambler it was the worst thing possible. Yet here he was now up a surprising $30,000 and major new account just since last week, but having a horrific nightmare just to screw with his success. Of course, there was that poor Native American boy, but hell, that could be thrown into cold storage, couldn't it? Especially now in the middle of the NFL season and with the EOP Online Stud World Championship around the corner. Things were looking better for the first time in a long time, why not just drop the worry and get on with things? He'd landed Jepp, he'd (re)landed Hope, hell, even if he quit playing cold turkey today he'd likely have nearly half the $300,000 he lost back in the accounts by the middle of next year. That would be a bad argument with Hope but probably not a fatal one. So the kids could go to State, that wouldn't be the end of the world. Their retirement would take a hit but there was still time to make that up. Another Jepp and they might be there.
Even as he said it, the words fluttered in his heart. Jepps didn't come along that often. And he wondered about Donaldson's lurking suspicion that it wasn't him at all that reined that one in but some other kind of intervention. Could the luck extend to this? It might turn the dice his way, but would it affect the business decisions of a company he hardly knew? What was luck anyway when it was cold, hard logic that ran the world and cranked out steady paychecks. Luck was something you couldn't alter or mess with, it was a universal constant, or maybe universal inconstant. Like the wind, you either sailed with it or against it and it could turn at any second. It came from physical forces, all quantifiable, all of a predictable nature, it was their confluence that was chaotic. Luck might ebb and flow but at the end of the night or at the end of the year, the numbers were absolutely consistent.
It was too early to get up and too late to take something. His mind was still reeling, he needed not idle but active distraction, so he went to one of his favorite sites, a poker outfit out of the Caribbean by way of Eastern Europe by way of Luxembourg or Lichtenstein or Lithuania, he forgot which. It had taken two months to register with them, his credit card kept declining the charge due to the suspicious array of locations attached to it. So far, so good, though. The same way casinos and professional gamblers don't cheat, neither did the slippery gambling websites…they didn't have to, there was too much money to be made playing legit. The internet was truly the committed addict's friend. Always there, anonymous as hell, non-judgmental, safe, secure, these days you could lose your children's future without even getting up from your damned chair. No smoky underground card clubs, no threat of being rolled on the way to the car, no chance of getting caught in a con, just a few hands of high-stakes poker before the wife got up and made you breakfast. Another modern convenience.
That there was always someone on the site looking didn't surprise him. Part of the allure of gambling was stepping out of the real world and its rules anyway. It was more fun going all night, it was more fun not knowing what time it was in a casino. Ordering another round from the waitress only to realize it was daylight already. It was another world, one with more exciting dimensions than the constructs of the 9-5 drudge.
He felt the familiar rush as the screen graphic came up of a poker table and a full deck, rife with face cards and combinations, Aces and possibilities. He realized it had been too long. This was good, he'd needed this, this would get his day started. He'd more than once been up all night playing and that wasn't good at all, no, dragging through work was a bore, especially when all he had to show for sleep's sacrifice was a net loss in the thousands.
Terence, K2, Toshi and Alexsi were his opponents now, and not one of them used an icon. Total anonymity, or maybe, like himself, they didn't want to give anything away.
He viewed his two hole cards, an Ace and a King, and felt a surge of adrenaline. The others stayed through both blinds and he called at $100. Toshi raised and so did K2, so it came back around to him at $350 to stay. That was pretty rich on two cards, so he figured someone was holding a pair. He'd lost before this way, to a pair of threes as he recalled, but there was no way he was folding on the first hand with an Ace and a King up. The flop turned up a Jack, a 10 and an Ace. That gave him two Aces with a shot at an inside straight, a strong hand with a shot at being a great hand. He called, concerned someone had just made a set, turning the pair into a trip. The turn was a Jack—again he passed, still thinking about that trip. He had enough bad beat stories to write a book—somehow you never got over starting strong and finishing weak and the telling somehow took the sting out of it. The site had a chat room, but it was never the same as commiserating over drinks with other gamblers, each one-upping each other on hard luck stories. He didn't usually have to pay, the others acknowledging his Queen-high straight losing to a back door flush the worst they'd ever heard. It made them feel better, which made Neely wonder if it shouldn't have made him feel worse, but luck was luck and into all lives a little rain must fall. No one felt compelled to bet the final round, which was okay with Neely as a $2,300 pot was plenty high enough for a first hand. He won, though it was closer than he would have liked. Toshi had a pair of Aces too and Neely won on high card.
He suspended himself from the next hand and went to the fridge for an iced coffee. He needed caffeine, but couldn't start the coffeemaker yet as the smell would wake Hope. He sat back at his desk and watched the hand unfold for the others. Everyone folded on the big blind, he was happy to see.
He sipped his iced cappuccino and drew a 2 and 8. Neely meant to fold but somehow found himself hitting the Call button instead, suddenly in for $125 on a weak hand. K2 folded but the others called and the flop was an 8, 7 and 2. Two pair, pulled out of his ass, he thought, and the top at that. Aleksi bet $100 and Toshi folded. Neely and Terence both called. The turn was a 5 and Aleksi went in for $200. That could be bad, Neely thought, but his 8's were stronger and besides, it smelled like a bluff to Neely, a bluff in another language perhaps, but a bluff nonetheless.
When he'd first started playing they used to put the country of origin next to each player's screen name. That had stopped, probably because too many people became
concerned about web anonymity, but while it had lasted Neely had found it an advantage. People from different countries tended to play differently, South Africans were wild bluffers, Swiss were conservative (of course), Germans pessimistic, Brazilians didn't give a damn, Japanese folded if you sneezed, and Egyptians didn't make any sense whatsoever. He guessed he was now locked in with a Middle Easterner or a Russian, they both seemed to bet for shock value first. He raised $200 and Terence folded, giving him a heads-up with Aleksi who called. The river was a 9, which didn't help Neely and might endanger his top pair. Aleksi bet $200 and Neely called. His fears confirmed, Aleksi had an 8-9, giving him a higher top and winning the hand. Neely had had it til the draw-out. Damn.
He needn't have worried. He won six of the next eight and was up $3,600 by the time he heard the shower running. He signed out and was scrolling through the morning news by the time Hope emerged.
“You got up early.”
“4:30, couldn't get back to sleep.”
“Anything I need to know?”
He hesitated for a moment, then realized she was asking about the news. “Woman went to the pound to adopt a dog and found a border collie she'd lost five years earlier.”
“Awwww.”
“Dog remembered her name and everything. Jumped all over her.”
“Good, I love a happy ending.”
Even if there'd been something bad in the news he wouldn't have told her, he hated to erase that sleepy, innocent look she woke up with. By contrast, one of the partners, Sam Tchavitz, liked to emerge from his office to tell everyone about the latest terrorist bombing to enjoy the rippling effect on all the hourlies' faces. If he could get the receptionist to cry his day was complete. Of course, only the boss had time to monitor the news during working hours, but Neely was sure he trolled for tragedy all day long in the hopes he might find something to spring on them. There were two kinds of people in the world—the kind who liked to tell you bad news and the kind who didn't.