Devil's Arcade

by Robert Bucchianeri

  I didn’t ring an immediate bell. He looked confused. “I’m not…” he mumbled.

  “Paula sent me,” I said, softly.

  “What?”

  “Your daughter, Bobby. You remember me, don’t you? Max Plank?”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Paula?” he said. “How did she…how did you…”

  “I just want to talk for a few minutes. Paula is very worried.”

  “Is that okay with you, Mr. Fenderdale?” Frank asked, his voice gentle, concerned.

  Bobby stood there looking lost for another twenty seconds or so and then he reached up and released the chain link.

  Nine

  Frank let us be, and I joined Bobby inside.

  He sat on one of the double beds, his hands in his lap, his eyes to the floor.

  If he was using coke, he hadn’t had a hit for a while.

  I sat nearby on a chair with a rickety leg.

  The room was outfitted in standard circa 1970s decor—shag carpeting, particle board furnishings, the Magic Fingers, flowered print bedspreads, faded watercolor painting of a family at the beach replete with a beach ball and sand bucket. All the classics of yesteryear. The owners were fond of nostalgia or perhaps short of funds.

  “How is Paula?” he murmured, not looking at me.

  “She’s worried about you. She told me about your problem.”

  “I don’t want her involved. She can’t be. It’s too…”

  “Too what?”

  “They’ll kill me and…”

  “Who?”

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “Did Paula really ask you to find me?”

  “Your brother did first. But I said no. Paula convinced me to try it.”

  “I don’t see how you found me. I didn’t tell…” His voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him.

  “You went to Fred’s casino. You found Karin. Jesus. She promised not to tell anyone.” He got up, went to a little counter near the bathroom, and fiddled with a coffee machine. He tore open a packet, put it in place, and pressed the brewer button. “You want coffee?”

  “I’ll take whatever’s left after you get yours.”

  He came back and sat down on the bed as the coffee maker burst into a loud pop, snap, and crackle. It sounded like Rice Krispies on amphetamines.

  “Karin’s nice,” he murmured. “She was nice. I invited her here after we went to the movies. First time I’d been out of this dump for four days. We talked. That was stupid.”

  “What are you doing here? You can’t hide out forever. Maybe I can help.”

  “How can anyone—” He stopped. His eyes bounced around the room.

  I didn’t know how much he knew about me. But he’d met Marsh and knew the kinds of things I consulted on. We’d chatted occasionally, and I remember him being interested, thinking what I did was pretty exciting.

  It was. But you had to be a wee bit crazy, and a tad infused with a Dionysian spirit.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  He shook his head and muttered, “Nobody can help. It’s too late. They’ll kill me if they find me. And worse yet. And if they don’t, my brother will. I know him. I’ve been sitting here thinking for the past few days, and there’s no way out. Except one. Do everybody a favor.”

  “Have you been using?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes, plunged his thumb and forefinger into them, and his face cracked, threatening to break into a sob. But with a long draw of breath, he recovered. He sighed. “I ran out. Maybe that’s it. Use the rest of my money and buy a dose that’ll make all this go away.”

  I didn’t think he was imminently suicidal. He was talking about it too much. But I played his game. “What about Paula? She’ll be devastated. She loves you, Bobby. Think about her.”

  He closed his eyes as the coffee machine sputtered into an uneasy silence. He rose, filled up his cup, poured in two packets of sugar and one of powdered milk.

  I followed him, filled a paper cup with the remains, and kept it black. I like a little half-and-half but refuse to put powdered chemicals into my coffee, primarily because they taste like powdered chemicals.

  When we settled back down, he downed a big gulp and, with a weary melancholy in his voice, said, “That’s the only thing that’s stopped me. My daughter. She’s always had faith in me even when I didn’t deserve it, which is mostly.”

  I waited, sipping the weak brew. I reached out and tapped him on his knee and said, “Tell me everything, Bobby. It’s your only chance.”

  “Damn it,” he said. “I’m a coward.” He lifted his paper cup up and downed the rest of the coffee and then, slowly, hesitantly, told me the story.

  It surprised me how little he knew, but I guess it shouldn’t have.

  He hadn’t known most of the people involved in the scams and didn’t realize the extent of the sting while it was going on.

  Only afterward, when Poe filled him in before his brother realized that Bobby was involved, did he understand the scale of the operation.

  And he didn’t even understand the methods they used to steal from Pirate’s Cove. How they did what they did.

  It was likely that only the conspirators knew the extent and precise details of the fraud.

  Poe probably knew most of it and was already hunting the violators down.

  Bobby knew that cheating was going on.

  And shockingly, he let it happen.

  And actively aided in the theft.

  Ten

  Her name was Jewel.

  And Jewel Allen, which Bobby now thought wasn’t her real name, had a story.

  Bobby was involved with lots of women. On the face of it, that seemed unlikely. He was a schlumpy character, flabby, out of shape, hapless. But maybe his perplexed, boyish demeanor appealed to a certain kind of woman. I doubted they all slept with him, but many probably felt sorry for him, harbored delusions of saving him.

  I’m being too harsh. Sometimes a woman saves a man, despite the overuse of the cliché in fiction.

  Bobby met Jewel when she was a blackjack dealer at Fred’s casino. When he mentioned that, I immediately asked, “Could Karin be working with Jewel? That makes little sense since she sent me here, but…” I stopped, thinking about the implications.

  “No. No way. Karin started after Jewel quit. I talked to Karin about Jewel. They’ve never met.”

  That made me feel a little better, like the odd stroke of luck, a stranger guiding me directly to Bobby, could be just that and not part of some larger conspiracy.

  Bobby told me he never played casino games, but one day he was eating the breakfast special at Fred’s Flapjack Casino and noticed Jewel, who was behind a blackjack table not far away. There was hardly anyone else around, so they got to talking.

  One thing led to another.

  The next night he took her out to dinner, and they ended up back at her apartment and in her bed where she told him her sad story.

  She wasn’t making enough money. Her mother was sick and didn’t have health insurance, and Jewel was supporting the both of them on the meager pay at Fred’s. Big tippers were nonexistent, and business was down.

  Bobby asked her why she hadn’t applied for a job at Pirate’s Cove. They were always looking for experienced dealers, the pay was better, and there were whales, big spenders, and tippers, aplenty.

  But there was a problem, and Jewel had been honest about it. She’d served some time in prison. She made no excuses. She’d been involved with a guy who did drugs, and he disappeared and the police showed up at his apartment, where she was living, and found a stash of heroin and cocaine. They sentenced her to two years, and she served nine months at the Central California Women’s facility in Chowchilla.

  Despite the catchy name, Jewel did not enjoy her time there.

  She knew there was no way a casino like Pirate’s Cove would hire a convicted felon and so, although her dream was to work there, she’d never dared apply.

  It sounded like her story made Bobby trust her
almost as much as his time in bed with her did.

  I’ll cut to the chase because Bobby’s story meandered with lots of unnecessary detail.

  Jewel’s affections flattered and softened him up over the following weeks, and eventually—Bobby wasn’t even sure whether it was his idea or hers—he told her that his brother owned the casino and he could hire anybody he wanted.

  And he wanted her.

  After she’d been hired and working there a few weeks, she continued to complain about her mother’s hospital bills for cancer and how her landlord was threatening to throw her out on her ass. After they’d make love, she’d whisper in Bobby’s ear about how rich his brother was and how little in comparison poor Bobby was paid, how little respect he got around the casino.

  Which was all true. Everybody knew that the only reason he was working there was that he was the boss’s younger brother.

  He was kind of a joke at the casino, and he knew it.

  Then one night, while they were making out, Jewel reached into her nightstand and removed a small packet of white powder. She said she hardly ever used the stuff, but she still had a fair stash from her ex-boyfriend that the police hadn’t found.

  She sprinkled a little of the magic powder into the shadowy cleft between her breasts and asked him if he’d ever snorted cocaine in that sweet spot.

  Bobby said he hadn’t.

  She said you only live once and drew his face down into her cleavage.

  Eleven

  Everything sped up after that. It all seemed like a fantasy to Bobby, a blur of sensation and excitement and living on the edge.

  And lots of fear.

  He knew his brother.

  He knew what his brother would do to him if he found out.

  But the cocaine put a nice glow on everything.

  Jewel explained that with a little help from him, a little information about security and the pit bosses and where the cameras were, that it would only take her a couple of weeks to skim off enough money to take care of all her mother’s cancer treatments, and then there’d be plenty left over for her and Bobby to escape to a Caribbean island where no one would ever find them.

  It was a plan only a hapless cokehead could find plausible.

  But he was jealous of Poe. He felt that he deserved more. He was tired of being taken for a chump.

  Jewel was exciting, like nobody else he’d ever met, and he wanted to run away with her.

  He wanted more titty hits.

  So, with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, he agreed.

  Over the following days, he observed operations at the casino with a more studied, purposeful eye. He asked questions he’d never bothered with before, trying to make them seem innocent, just an employee, the boss’s brother, trying to understand more about how things ran and how they kept all that money safe.

  No one suspected a thing, Bobby thought.

  But, after Bobby disappeared and the scams came to light, security personnel and pit bosses went to Poe and hesitantly recounted his recent and out of character queries.

  At Jewel’s blackjack table, Bobby ran interference, just like she’d taught him. Putting his body in front of the security cameras on her hands at just the right moment. Creating the occasional disturbance by glad-handing a customer or spilling a drink. Nothing too obvious or too frequent.

  Jewel was a pro, and she didn’t need much help.

  What Bobby didn’t know at the time was that she had “associates” working with her, accomplices posing as players, sitting at her blackjack table, and an elaborate signaling system allowing them to know when to hold them and when to fold them.

  He also was unaware that one of the pit bosses was in collusion with her, and there was theft going on at the baccarat tables, the slots, and even the roulette tables, where someone used an electronic device to change the rotation of the spinning silver ball.

  Everything was going smoothly, according to plan.

  Jewel said they had over three-quarters of a million dollars.

  It was almost time to pull out. Make their escape.

  And then, early one wicked cold Saturday night, with the fog rolling over the Golden Gate Bridge like a harbinger, Jewel came home.

  Bobby wasn’t supposed to be there.

  But he’d bought a ring.

  He had it in a box, and the box was in his hand, and the hand was in the little loft you got to with foldaway stairs, just like with the bunk bed he’d slept in as a child. The loft was tiny. Jewel used it for storage—mainly suitcases and extra pillows and clothes on a hanger rack.

  He was up there hiding, ready to give her the biggest surprise of her life.

  But she beat him to it.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Not nearly.

  There were four men with her, and Bobby knew two.

  What they said in the next half-hour while he crouched above them, quiet as a mouse, astounded him.

  But he could have dealt with that. They could have talked it out.

  He’d still give her the ring.

  But what Jewel said about him, while the box in his hand got heavier and heavier, while his fingers curled around it and tightened and tightened until the four sides of it collapsed, devastated him.

  He tried to be the mouse. He felt like a mouse, and he hated that feeling.

  He knew that he was a rat. He’d betrayed his brother who’d taken a chance on him.

  He was a chump. He’d always been a chump.

  He found himself crying, and then he heard a sound and realized he’d let out a sob.

  Suddenly the voices down below quieted.

  Which was a relief because he didn’t think he could bear another word from Jewel’s sweet, treacherous lips.

  They wanted to kill him.

  Jewel was all for it.

  That was the worst.

  That’s when he wished, at that moment, that they go ahead and do it.

  But they were afraid. They weren’t murderers. That wasn’t part of the plan.

  So they made him promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone what he knew.

  Especially his brother.

  He promised. He was numb.

  He felt like his life was over.

  They argued for a while. Could they trust him? They needed insurance, and that’s when Jewel mentioned his daughter, Paula.

  She knew what the girl meant to him.

  So they told him if they found out he ever betrayed them, told anyone who they were, they would go after Paula.

  And that’s why, even after everything he told me, Bobby refused to divulge the names of the men who were Jewel’s accomplices.

  Twelve

  I would find out, one way or another.

  But, after he’d talked himself out, I could see he was exhausted.

  I could tell that he wanted, needed, a hit of something strong, something that would take him away from that little room and the memories of his lost love, his shattered illusions.

  I could tell how scared he was for his daughter.

  She was the only thing he had left.

  If he put her in harm’s way, he had nothing to live for.

  I just had to convince him we could keep Paula safe.

  I thought the bad guys were just bluffing and that once Poe had their names, they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again.

  But I didn’t press him right away.

  I asked him what he was doing there at the Beachside Motel, lovely idyll that it was.

  He said that after that terrible night when they’d threatened his daughter, Jewel had disappeared, and he hadn’t seen her or the others since.

  Maybe she’d made it to that Caribbean island without him.

  He needed time to think. And he was afraid that the guys who threatened his daughter might reconsider and come back to get him. He knew his brother was looking for him, and he didn’t want to face Poe.

  His shame was a bigger factor than his fear of what his brother might do to him.
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  He said that Karin was the only person who knew where he was. But now that she’d betrayed his confidence, no matter her intentions, he needed to move.

  But he was running out of money, and he was tired.

  Tired of everything.

  I understood. And I also knew that it was the cocaine, or lack of it, that was helping drain his energy and will, amping the desperation.

  I told him to take a nap. That I’d get dinner for us and we’d talk more when I got back.

  He sighed and laid back on the bed and closed his eyes.

  As I opened the motel room door, he called out, “I need to see my daughter. I need to see Paula.” He was up on his elbows, his eyes suddenly wide, urgent. “Tonight. We can—”

  I closed the door, came back inside, sat beside him on the bed. “Why?” I asked.

  “She’s smart. She’s the only one I trust. She’ll know what I should do, even if I don’t like it.” He went to the dresser beneath the TV and retrieved his cell phone. He picked it up, swept his finger across the screen, whispering, “My baby,” as he tapped her number in.

  She took less than twenty minutes to get there, and when she did, it shocked me to the bone.

  They had set me up.

  Led me like a puppet on a string.

  And I had no idea why.

  Thirteen

  The Paula Fenderdale who showed up at the Beachside Motel wasn’t the same Paula who came to my boat that morning.

  Bobby insisted the stranger standing in front of us was his daughter.

  And, oddly enough, the stranger, the sweet woman with the puzzled expression on her face said she’d known Bobby, her father, all of her twenty-nine years.

  The real Paula was wide-hipped, like the imposter who’d hired me, but she had dirty blond hair instead of brown, a long aquiline nose instead of a pug number, and she was three or four inches taller, and at least a half-decade younger.

  Bobby and his daughter were concerned and confused about who might have been impersonating Paula, but they were even more focused on solving Bobby’s current dilemma.