She didn’t talk until one night she had screwed up her courage with a couple of gin and tonics and said, “You’re going to lose your job. You have to stop. If your boss finds out . . .”
Having just popped a few pills which hadn’t kicked in yet, he had been getting ready to go out and hit the blackjack tables at Circus Circus in downtown Reno. Combing his hair in front of the mirror, he said, “He won’t find out.”
He could see her behind him in the mirror. Donna, she of the open emotions, had a closed-up look that made him afraid somehow. He turned. Putting his hand on her cheek, he said, “Not now, sweetmeat. I have such a good feeling about tonight. It’s going to change everything. Don’t bring me down. I might lose the feeling.”
“But you’ve lost over twenty thousand dollars in the last two months!”
“So? Before that I was winning. I still had some things to figure out. I learned a lot about how to ride the streaks. It was a lesson, babe. Watch how I do tonight.”
“Please. Please don’t go.”
“This is the last time. You’ll see.”
He went out and played smart, played good, but she had ruined his confident mood, inserting doubt like a cold rectal thermometer. He knew he couldn’t win. Even so, as the sweat dripped off him, he wrote more checks, knowing he couldn’t cover them. That night, the dealers were on fire and his cards were ice. He had left, swearing never to go to Circus Circus again.
Then came a long spell when nothing he did brought him luck. It seemed to him that he needed to bet more, play more, get through it. He lost their savings, the whole thing, the cashed-out 401K plan, the mutual funds, the savings account. Then Donna really started in on him. She couldn’t understand that he had to keep on, get through the bad spell, and for that he had to have a stake.
He forged her name and refinanced the house. He played smart, downtown where the club take wasn’t as high, pacing himself, following the rules, helping fate.
But he lost it all one night. He had broken one of his rules, which was not to drink. He had been winning and he had decided to reward himself at the bar before he went home, and then the idea got into him to go back and play a few hands at the $25 minimum blackjack tables.
He blew through the rest of their life savings in ten lousy minutes.
He stopped for several months. Donna made him stop by threatening to leave him, and what was worse, she swore through her tears she would tell his boss that he was gambling. That would cost him his job.
Because he was one of only a few people in Nevada who wasn’t allowed to gamble. He couldn’t gamble because of his job. It was unthinkable, which was, as even the psychologist might have eventually concluded, one of the reasons he had to do it. He was showing them all up, thumbing his nose at the eight-to-fivers, showing what he was really, an adventurer, a rebel, an iconoclast who played the daily game so well he had them all fooled into thinking he was one of them.
Of course, by now he had developed a disguise, only it wasn’t really a disguise, the suit and tie he wore to work was the disguise. He had gotten the idea from his wife’s uncle, a card counter named Al Otis. Uncle Al had been 86’d out of every casino in Nevada, so he had started wearing women’s clothes when he went gambling. It worked. Red had followed the lead, taken on a secret name and secret persona.
The new personality, which he kept in the trunk of the Porsche Boxster he leased, was his other self, his real self, expressed in a fake ponytail and goatee, a baseball hat, leather jacket, and Harley pins. He didn’t get rid of his outfit even after he promised Donna he would stop gambling. She didn’t know about the outfit. He had the only key to the trunk.
So for a few months he didn’t gamble, and it wasn’t too hard because things got hairy at work. He clocked in right on time every morning, good boy, and he did his job very well, analyzing the slot action all day long to see if any were paying out too much, watching the security tapes on the jackpot winners, making sure nobody got anything if he could help it.
A big problem cropped up when a tourist lined up three eights on a Quarterinsania slot machine, which would have given this clod almost two million dollars, but the eights weren’t evenly lined up even if they were all touching the center line. The bells didn’t even ring.
So a couple of techies went in, and they ran through the code on the EPROM chip top to bottom until they managed to pinpoint the problem, which turned out not to be the chip at all. It was a malfunction in peripheral equipment. A coin box drawer on the inside of the machine had opened and crashed the chip. It wasn’t a scam, it was a machine failure.
This was not related in any way to the jackpot, said the tourist. The result was right there for all to see, and the machine said, three eights on the payline, you win.
Which wasn’t true, hadn’t been true for years. The EPROM chip source code on the inside was all that mattered. If it showed a different result than the payline the tourists saw, the payline didn’t matter.
The jackpot was disallowed. Global Gaming, the Gaming Control Board, the casino, they all agreed on that.
And the stung player took them to court, which resulted in an embarrassing few months because the whole thing about how the Erasable Programmable Read-Only-Memory chips worked wasn’t really in the public awareness.
Of course when it all came down, the Nevada court ruled for Nevada.
Once they had the court case out of the way, there were some newspaper articles written with more insight into “random” gaming technology than Global Gaming liked to see, and more outraged citizens to placate. He worked with the other casino PR guys to bury the case. As the Nevada Supreme Court had said, “The good will of the state of Nevada is at stake in a situation like this.”
People needed to believe in luck, so the noise died down fairly quickly. But Red was very busy for a while, and his other self stayed stuffed in the trunk.
Then one night in June, he stopped off for a drink at the Sparks Nugget on the way home, still in his suit and tie, and he started talking to this English guy who had just won a bundle. He was buying the whole place drinks, celebrating, young good-looking girls on both arms. It resurrected the longing in Red. He started thinking, Why can’t I do the one thing in my life that’s fun, that I want to do, that makes life worth living?
He couldn’t, though. He had no money except his next paycheck, and they had to eat. They had to cover the lease payments on the cars or else his boss would find out for sure and fire him, and he’d be humiliated, divorced, and homeless. He knew that happened to other guys. He had seen it more than a few times in his business. He didn’t expect it to happen to him. He was different, clued-in.
But he couldn’t risk losing Donna. He needed Donna. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if she left him.
He just had to be smart. He thought a lot about it. He needed a gigantic stake so that he could gamble all he wanted.
And he thought up a way to make it happen.
He got the Englishman’s room number upstairs and he called him about a week later. This time the guy was on a losing streak and not friendly and not forthcoming, but he told Red he’d meet him.
The roughneck’s name was Charlie Kemp, and he was from East London by way of the oil fields in Seal Beach. He was a complete stranger with absolutely no connection to Red.
Perfect. Red made him the offer. Kemp didn’t believe anything he said at first. Red had to show him his ID, talk to him a long time. But when he finally got it he said sure, he’d do it, and he called Red “mate” and put his arm around him. Red thought, Yeah, we’re going to do it, mate, but don’t screw up, because you may look tough, but I’m smart.
That had been two weeks before, the beginning of July.
So now it was Tuesday morning and he was lying on the bed with the curtains closed. Donna had called his office for him.
He was too sick to work today. He was sick with humiliation. Kemp had called him against all orders for a couple minutes just after it happened on Sunday night, tol
d him how he had gone to take a whiz just for a second, mate, thinking he still had some time left on the schedule. That fucking asshole had screwed up in such an unbelievably stupid way, Red could hardly take it in.
He had been right there at the Greed Machine aisle! Five minutes before! Told Kemp he’d be watching! But then Amanda, whom he had brought along for window dressing and who didn’t know what was going on, used up all his money, and they couldn’t just sit there at a progressive and not play. So they moved over to some quarter slots and eked out a little play and then the bells were ringing.
“Jackpot!” Amanda said, and he pushed her back there, knowing just where to go.
But a girl was sitting on Kemp’s stool!
And he, Red, then had to go away and take the cell phone call and change back into his suit. He came back and sat with the whole crew, casino people, Global Gaming people, Gaming Control Board people, while the tech guys spent two hours verifying the fucking code on the machine, and, funny thing, it looked absolutely legitimate, but Red called his boss, Prince Hatfield, about postponing the check ceremony anyway. He needed time to think of some way to salvage the fucking situation. But Hatfield, still smarting from the bad press on the triple-eight incident, told him the big guns had decided Global Gaming should pay off.
It was rich. Really rich. He felt like the old woman was back on earth, pushing him away all over again.
Then, to add to the whole thing, the big screwup by the screwup, the loss of all that money he had lined up, on top of all that, he had to watch the girl with the scarf take his fucking check, some nobody who never had fifty cents to her name in her whole life before, along with her husband who looked like a reject for a comedy show, who had told Kemp he would hold the seat!
What a night. He had gotten up on Monday, painfully, and taken three Motrin. Then he shaved, dressed, and went to work to see if there was anything he could do. There wasn’t. When he got home he took a long shower and went to bed.
He didn’t feel well.
So now it was Tuesday. The first day of the rest of his lost and lonely—shut up! Donna was still at work. His watch told him it was past three in the afternoon. He had another shower, washed his hair a few times, and flossed hard. Then he felt better.
Later, after a freezing dinner with Donna, who he really didn’t feel like talking to right now, who had just gotten the bank statements and wished to inform him that they were overdrawn, who looked at him with mistrust in her eye—he said he had to go out. And she said, “Don’t you dare.”
“I’m not going to gamble.”
“You’re lying.”
“I give you a reason not to to trust me lately?”
“It’s building up. You’re so tense. Don’t pretend it isn’t.”
“Well, I’m not going to gamble. Look. No money.” He actually turned out his pockets for her. She didn’t care. She just sat at the dining-room table and didn’t even take her head out of her hands.
Which only made it build up more.
That was how bad things were between them. But he had to go, he had a problem named Kemp. He changed into his outfit in his car and drove to the corner 7-Eleven and called Kemp, who didn’t answer.
Red got back into the gold Boxster that cost a fortune every month and that he was three months behind on the payments for, and drove over to the Reno Nugget, which was just powering up for the evening. Passing by the happy laughing tourists on their way over to the blackjack tables he struggled with a powerful emotion that combined violent jealousy with a choked-up distressed feeling.
He tried to picture the two of them, him and Donna, as one of those simple, vapid couples out there nuzzling each other, nothing to worry about, spending the evening at the tables, looking forward to getting back to the room later and more satisfying moments to come. He couldn’t. Fortune had abandoned him. Donna—she would leave him if they lost the house.
He felt like a little lost child.
At Kemp’s room on the third floor, he knocked on the door. He was holding things back, things that wanted to overwhelm him, but he had to be cool right now, make sure there were no loose ends.
An eye through the spyhole, then Kemp opened up in a cloud of marijuana.
“Great. Get yourself arrested,” Red said. Kemp’s room was a jumble, clothes and leftover room service all over, and Red felt even worse. He saw very clearly now that he had squandered his jewel of a plan on a loser.
Which made them both losers.
He sat down in the chair Kemp indicated and said, “Open a window.”
“They’re welded shut. I opened the vent, not that it helps.” Kemp didn’t seem upset. He almost seemed to be enjoying himself. Stubbing out the spliff he was smoking, he put the whole works, ashtray, lighter, Baggie, and roach, into a drawer. He turned a straight chair so its back was to Red, sat down in it with his elbows on the back of the chair, legs in the blue jeans spread, unwashed narrow white feet resting on the rungs, and said earnestly, “Hard luck, man.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I never would of effing believed the machine would go off in just a few seconds like that.”
“You were supposed to stay there.”
“Yeah.” Kemp shook his head and blew out his lips in what was supposed to be sympathy. “Can we try again?”
This guy was unbelievable. “No way. Not for a year, anyway.” And within a year, if he was lucky, he would be living out of his suitcase in a cheap hotel room on the slippery slope, just like Kemp was now.
“I didn’t expect you to show up, especially with a girlie in a chair,” Kemp said. “That was a surprise. Might have thrown me off a bit. Who’s she?”
“An old friend. I thought I’d make sure you were all right. You waited until I left to fuck up.”
“It was nerves. I was excited and me bladder was going to explode all over the casino if I didn’t do something.” The way he said it, it sounded like “somefing.” His speech and his manner were making it harder for Red to stay cool. He was a moron. Red couldn’t believe he’d made him a partner.
“Well, the way it worked out, I had a potentially very dangerous problem Sunday night,” Red said. “The husband saw me in these clothes and later I was in the room when the payout was made to his wife. He looked at me pretty hard. I don’t think he recognized me, though. He was half dead with excitement thinking of all the ways he was gonna spend his wife’s money.”
“You’re kidding, mate. You had to watch her taking the money?” Kemp threw back his head and started to guffaw.
Red pulled out the gun he had taken out of the detective’s pocket two nights before and said, “Shut up,” very quietly. Just “Shut up,” no particular affect to the words, the gun providing the affect.
Kemp stopped mid-laugh. A loud silence filled the room. His face had gone slack.
“You stupid cocksucker,” Red said. “You think this is some kind of joke? You think I’m afraid of you? You think I’m a loser like you? I’m fifty-two years old, and I only had this one chance here and now. I made a major mistake with you, but I’m going to give you your cut—a cut of the contempt I feel for myself right now. Because you hurt me when you blew this chance.”
“Hey now, hey now.”
“Open your big fat mouth. I’m going to put a bullet down your fucking throat. And if you don’t, I’m going to shoot you through the jaw. You might live longer, and you won’t want to.”
“W-wait, mate. Lemme j-just say one thing.”
“Yeah. Your prayers,” Red said, his humiliation hot in him, feeling a strong need to squeeze the trigger.
“I’m fixing it,” Kemp said, speaking very fast. “I talked to the lawyer for the girl.”
“You did what?”
Red was starting to feel even worse, like something had started that he was losing control over. He stood up, gun pointed at Kemp, and Kemp put up his hands and said, “Please.”
Red didn’t say anything. “I offered them half,” Kemp
said. “I told the lawyer lady it was my jackpot.”
“You did what?”
“I scared her, told her I’d call her last night and then I didn’t. I’m making them sweat. They’ll come through. They won’t want trouble. The husband—he knows that was my spot!”
“Did you tell her about me?”
“No, never in a thousand years.” Red breathed again.
“You stupid . . .” He told Kemp what he thought of him, and Kemp took it because Red had made him believe he was going to be dead sooner rather than later if he didn’t. When he was finished, Red forced Kemp to open his mouth. He put the barrel of the Glock right in there until Kemp gagged.
“They are going to wonder if it was a con,” Red said, moving the gun around to make his point more vivid. “The husband—he might remember me.” He was thinking aloud now. Kemp was in no position to chime in. “Have to do something. But what? What?”
The thought, when it came, was such sweet relief that Red took the gun out of Kemp’s mouth. Kemp spat on the floor and the smell of stale marijuana filled the room. Red said, “Don’t move. I’m thinking.” Kemp froze and Red started walking around the room, kicking crap out of his way.
Until he took the gun, he had never once broken the law in his whole life. He thought about that. The reality principle, the emperor with no clothes, the scared little professor behind the curtain in Oz. You had to buy in to it.
Anyone could make the clouds move if they wanted it bad enough, like he did. All you had to do was see through the reality principle. And then there was the pleasure of doing exactly what you wanted.
“We have to force the win,” he said. “We could. Just make her pay us when the money comes in. How, you may well ask. By snagging the husband. Put him away somewhere and let her stew, then, you know, like in the movies, demand a ransom. A very private deal. You can talk now.”
“Kidnap him?”
“He has to go anyway. You talking to the lawyer, the husband being at the awards ceremony. I have to get past this losing streak, have to hang in there. So get rid of the husband and collect the money,” Red said. “Look. Let bygones be bygones. You ready to take this a step farther?”
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