Headlock

by Adam Berlin

  “The mints got her,” Gary said.

  “I hope so.”

  “I could use a woman myself.”

  “I’d be happy just to look at her for a while.”

  “I thought you didn’t get attached.”

  Gary spun the ketchup bottle. It rolled without falling, stopped.

  “Have you ever had a serious relationship?” I said.

  “Women aren’t exactly knocking down the doors to get a piece of me.”

  “If I were a woman I would.”

  “Stop. I’m starting to blush.”

  “You have charm. You make people laugh. You’re the most memorable person I know.”

  “No time,” Gary said. “I was seeing one girl once. We got pretty close, but she ended up marrying a guy from the neighborhood. A real asshole. I went after the guy when I saw him in the local McDonald’s, but he ran away. I’m not cut out for a serious relationship. I’m close to my dogs. They’re close to me. But they don’t miss me and I don’t miss them either.”

  Tia walked past our table with someone else’s order, three plates stacked up her arm. Her nails were cut short and painted dark red. I could tell that she was trying not to look at me. I didn’t flex my arms for her or square up my shoulders. I just watched her eyes.

  “She really is beautiful,” I said.

  “She sure isn’t happy.”

  “She’s a worker.”

  “I get the point. I’ll leave her a good tip if she eases up on me.”

  Tia walked back, past our table. Gary spun the ketchup bottle. Tia brought the Cokes and my water. I said Thank you. She said You’re welcome. She dropped a straw down for Gary.

  “One straw for two Cokes?” Gary said.

  “Do you drink them at the same time?”

  “I thought my cousin and I would share.”

  “That’s very sweet.”

  “I’m just busting your chops. My cousin’s in love with you.”

  Tia looked at me. Blue with gray bursts. I kept my eyes narrow but I wasn’t playing a part anymore.

  “Does your cousin do all the talking for you?”

  “No. I told him I thought you were beautiful. I do. I think you’re beautiful. I think your eyes are beautiful and I’m not even an eye man. That’s what I was thinking. That’s what I’m telling you. I’m talking for myself now. How was that?”

  “That was very nice,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Where are you two cousins from?”

  “New York,” I said.

  “The Big Apple. I’ve never been.”

  “I’ve never been to Las Vegas.”

  “You’re here now.”

  Tia held my eye and I felt it and I made her feel it. I nodded just a little, just for her. She held my eye some more and then walked away.

  “We have a full day of gambling,” Gary said. “If you want to take her in the back for a quickie I’m sure you could, but just a quickie. You’re here to count cards for me. All day. All night.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Rose.”

  “Did you know that matadors have sex before they get in the bullring? That way they won’t get distracted by anyone in the crowd. They shoot their load so they can give the bull their full attention. Then again, boxers aren’t supposed to fuck before they fight. What about wrestlers?”

  “My coaches never said anything about it.”

  “Either way. As long as you keep a perfect card count. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Anybody could have counted cards for you. Your dogs could practically count cards for you.”

  Gary didn’t say anything.

  “I’m with you,” I said.

  “They come after people that owe a lot less.”

  “I know.”

  “A lot less.”

  “We’re safe in Denny’s.”

  Gary took the wrapper off and put the straw in the Coke.

  “She’s not,” he said.

  Gary smiled. It was a smile just for me. It was a great smile but not for selling burgers on TV commercials. It had pain in it and fear and reassurance and it was a gentle smile all at the same time.

  Tia came with the food. She told us to enjoy our meal and walked away. I wasn’t that hungry anymore. I wasn’t sure if I’d been hungry when I ordered. I ate half the tuna sandwich. Gary finished his two meals, asked if I was done, ate the rest of my sandwich. He signaled for the check. Tia brought it over.

  “Compliments to the chef,” Gary said.

  “Believe me, he’s no chef. He’s hardly a cook.”

  “What’s in a name?” I said.

  Tia looked at me. I looked at her. She cleared the three plates, told us to have a good day, walked away. I watched her walk. I counted her steps to the back, through the swinging door, a peek at a man in uniform whites leaning over a sink spraying water. I nodded for myself. It was something I did before I walked to the mat, a quick shake of hands, the full match ahead of me, seven long minutes of struggle. We had a full day ahead of us and maybe another full day and another. It depended on the cards. It depended on the luck. Gary left a twenty-dollar bill on the table and a five-dollar chip, one of the chips he’d won our first meal with. One of the lucky ones. He paid the bill at the cash register. I went outside. It was hot. I looked at the strip and at the lion’s head in the distance.

  “You think she plays?” Gary said.

  “I doubt it.”

  We started to walk back to Bally’s. Gary bumped into my arm once, a second time. He was breathing heavy.

  “I doubt many of the residents play,” I said.

  “What do you think she’ll do with the chip?”

  “Maybe she’ll just cash it in.”

  “That’s no fun.”

  “It was one of your lucky chips.”

  “I’ve got some left.”

  Gary wiped his sleeve against his forehead.

  “She liked you,” he said.

  “She doesn’t know me.”

  “When she looks at the chip she’ll know you’re playing at Bally’s.”

  “That’s a start.”

  19

  I PRESSED MY FINGER hard into Gary’s back. It wasn’t for a plus four count. The count was plus nine and Gary started to turn his head to ask me what was up. The blue sunglasses were not tinted the way I’d pictured them. The glasses were clear through with black plastic rims. He was standing by the velvet rope that separated players from workers. Gary nodded his head and went back to the cards. He wasn’t going anywhere. The dealer had a four card showing and Gary split the eights in front of him, putting two more black chips into the circle to cover the bet. He won both hands. Gary’s nod had told me all I needed to know. It was for Blue. It was for me. The count was still plus nine and I pressed Gary’s back three times. Blue became a peripheral man, the glasses a peripheral color, but they were there, he was there. Gary won the next three hands before the count shifted and returned to zero.

  Two people left the table and Blue slid into the seat next to Gary’s. The glasses made sense. Plastic didn’t bend in a fight the way wire did. I wondered if he even needed glasses. He was a strong looking man with big arms cut like an athlete’s in a short sleeved polo, not beefy arms but defined. His face was intelligent from the side. I couldn’t see his eyes as he cashed in one hundred bucks and put the minimum twenty-five-dollar green chip in the betting circle. I heard a cocktail waitress behind us ask anyone if they wanted a drink and Gary ordered a Coke, calm voiced and cool like he had all the time in the world. Blue matched him, asked for a bottled water. The game had gone from blackjack to poker. The dealer started to shuffle, separating and reseparating the cards.

  “Gary Rose. How are the tables treating you?”

  “This table was treating me well. I thought you only operated in New York.”

  “I go where the wind takes me and the wind was blowing west. Your roommate told me you took a little drive. How were the sights?”

  “Great. We st
opped at the Grand Canyon and went whitewater rafting. We visited Old Faithful in Yellowstone. We’re on our way to Disneyland.”

  “Your roommate didn’t call you, did he?”

  “My ex-roommate.”

  Blue had strong hands, palms on the table, tapping to some beat he had in his head. The knuckles on his index and middle fingers were flattened. He didn’t wear any rings, nothing to reinforce his punches.

  “Don’t be hard on the poor bastard,” Blue said. “He was scared. Everybody gets scared once in a while, right? He’s very fond of you. He just wasn’t fond of the blowtorch.”

  He laughed like it was a big joke, reassuring the people at the table, making the dealer smile, putting his arm around Gary’s fat shoulders, his forearm too close to my chin, announcing that they went way back, still worked in the same business, they were in for the convention and wasn’t the weather great compared to the snow we were having back east. The guy on the other side of Blue said it didn’t feel like Christmas in the desert and Blue agreed to that, said no place but New England really felt like Christmas, pegged the guy from his accent or from something. The guy said he was from Concord, New Hampshire, and wasn’t that the truth. Blue’s back was to me. I could have taken him down.

  The dealer slid the yellow card to Gary. He’d been at the table the longest. Gary picked it up and placed it in the center of the deck. The dealer cut the cards, fit the cards into the shoe, burned the first card, and started to deal. Blue drew an ace.

  “Good cut,” he said.

  They played side by side without talking while I kept the count. I shifted my weight back and forth, my old habit, getting ready before the match began. I looked at the back of Blue’s neck and the way his hair was cut in back, a line straight across, a small mole just below the collar which was pulled down across his strong back from tilting his head forward to watch the cards. I looked at the dealer doing his job. Maybe he’d tell his family when he got home about his day at work, about the talk of blowtorches, a fat man, a man with blue sunglasses, or maybe he’d seen it all, heard it all, just another day at work before he went home. I thought of Tia a few streets away serving burgers, fries, shakes with her brown Denny’s uniform on looking sexy even in that but hating it. I pictured her taking it off as soon as she got home, getting into the shower, her long body under the water, moving her painted fingers over her skin, soap turning to lather, washing her hair, putting her head under the water and staying there to wash the day off like washing garage dirt and exhaust fumes off the way I had done, washing the match off the way I had done.

  The shoe was done. The dealer started to shuffle. Blue put his hand on Gary’s shoulder. I shifted my weight.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” Blue said.

  “Lunch sounds great,” Gary said.

  Blue stood up. He was a little taller than me in cowboy boots and about three weight classes higher, close to two hundred pounds. Gary stood up, slower than Blue.

  “Who’s your friend?” Blue said.

  “Some guy I met here.”

  “How come you didn’t massage my back?” Blue said. “I like a good massage.”

  “It takes awhile to gain my trust,” I said.

  “Fair enough. Strong connections don’t just happen over-night, right? It takes time for muscle to meld with bone, or for cartilage to mesh with joints. I guess we’ll never be friends.”

  Blue cracked up and a single dimple cut into his left cheek.

  “Damn,” I said, exaggerating the word.

  Blue got a kick out of that and laughed harder, genuinely. Gary smiled at me. Nothing showing. I wanted to squeeze Gary’s hand hard to show him he could take it.

  The carver was happy to see Gary. He piled pastrami on rye, corned beef on rye, asked Gary if he wanted some fresh potato salad and Gary said Great. Blue asked for a turkey sandwich. I asked for the same. I watched Gary piling fish sticks onto a second plate. We sat down and the waiter brought two Cokes for Gary and one for me. Blue ordered a bottled water.

  “I’ve become a big health nut in my old age,” Blue said. “I drink gallons of water a day to flush out my body. It’s good for the skin.”

  “You wouldn’t want to see my body flushed out,” Gary said.

  “Lay off the fatty meats for a while. Drink plenty of water to fill up on zero calories. I’m in better shape now than when I was the kid’s age.”

  Still the kid. The kid.

  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you,” Gary said.

  “I’ve heard some stories about you too,” Blue said.

  “Our small world. Did you really hang that guy off the roof at Yankee Stadium?”

  “Yes I did. The guy shit his pants so much the grounds crew could have fertilized the entire outfield. For that split second I have a feeling that guy hated baseball more than he loved it.”

  “You never know. There are a lot of die-hard Yankee fans.”

  “Not that die-hard. What about you? I heard you won the Coney Island hot dog eating contest two years in a row. I heard you made enough money on side bets to retire for life.”

  “I did that right out of college. Eating and gambling were my two major strengths. How could I lose?”

  “You can always lose.”

  “Yes you can. That’s why we’re having this power lunch.”

  Gary finished his pastrami sandwich and started his corned beef. He hadn’t told me that story. I wondered how many hot dogs he’d eaten, how quickly, and if there was a plaque in Coney Island commemorating the young Gary’s victory.

  “What about you?” Blue said to me. “Are you famous for anything?”

  “Not me.”

  “You’re a mystery, right? That’s a good thing to hold on to. I’m so mysterious I don’t have a last name. Blue. Madonna. Prince. Casanova. Babe. As in the Babe, Babe Ruth. I’m a big baseball fan.”

  “Ruth is a last name,” I said.

  “So it is, kid.” He turned to Gary. “How’d you do on the World Series this year?”

  “I won about ten grand,” Gary said.

  “I used to love baseball, but I’m too busy to get to many games these days. That’s the price you pay for having a solid reputation. Everything has a price, right? They send me out west, they send me to Europe. I even had to go to Japan last year to take care of some business.”

  Blue straightened his hand, made a high pitched hiiii yaaaa sound, karate chopped the table. He started cracking up. People seated at the other tables stopped feeding to turn around.

  “It’s important to keep a sense of humor about things, right?”

  “I’m having a lot of fun,” Gary said.

  “There you go. My therapist told me I feel no remorse for the consequences of my actions which makes me perfect for the job.”

  “That would make you a good gambler,” Gary said.

  “Why is that?”

  Gary pulled the plate of fish sticks closer to him, picked one up with his fingers, put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed.

  “If you think about the consequences, you can go in with a losing attitude and then you’re definitely going to lose.”

  “So you had a bad attitude.”

  “No. I had bad luck.”

  “Of course.”

  Blue drank some water.

  “My old man was a gambler,” he said. “That’s where all the problems started.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “You can trace things back farther than that.”

  “I probably could. My old man’s old man was a dick, but I never met the guy so I couldn’t tell you firsthand. My old man was a dick too so maybe his assessment of his old man was wrong. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. It takes one to know one, right? My old man lost a lot of money and as a kid growing up, eating scraps of shit everyday to support his habit, I learned to hate him. How’s that for a talk show subject?”

  “It’s probably been done. You do what you do for revenge. Easy pop psychology.”

  “Give me some cre
dit, kid. I hope I’m a little more complicated than that.”

  “I hope so.”

  I watched his eyes. He didn’t give a shit. Sometimes I pushed my opponents’ heads harder than I was supposed to, got them riled up so they would hate me and once they hated me they lost their skills. I knew about loss of control. I watched his eyes behind the blue lenses.

  “I like this kid.”

  Blue lifted his leg and put it on the table.

  “You like my boots? These are some very expensive shit kickers. Snakeskin.”

  I didn’t say anything. He didn’t care. Blue looked at his boots, rubbed his hand over the scales, and reached a finger under the inside of the boot like he was feeling the texture for the first time. Gary looked at me between fish sticks. He was no longer sizing me up. He liked how I was handling Blue. I liked how Gary had nodded his head at the blackjack table.

  “Gary Rose,” Blue said. “How are those fish sticks?”

  “Delicious,” Gary said. “I think it’s whiting.”

  He put a fish stick in his mouth.

  “Maybe halibut.”

  He put another fish stick in his mouth.

  “Whiting. It’s definitely whiting.”

  “I appreciate your taking me to lunch. Most of my so-called clients are weasels like my pop psychology father. It makes my life easier because they’re used to being bullied, but I get tired of them sometimes. You remember those school yard bullies, right kid? You’re usually better off just taking a beating without fighting back.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “I once broke a bully’s nose,” Gary said. “When I was a kid, the playground bully used to pick on me. He called me a pig, a fat hog, a porker. He had a new name for me every day. He was a real creative kid. One day I got sick of it and punched him in the nose. I got suspended from school for a week which was fine with me. I snuck out of the house everyday to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.”

  “I broke a guy’s nose once,” Blue said. “My old man’s.”

  I watched his eyes. He didn’t give a shit about his father.

  “I’m getting some dessert,” Gary said.

  “No desserts for me, thanks,” Blue said.

  Gary walked to the buffet line. From the table I watched his wide back, his body moving more side to side than forward, his small hands swinging.