Casino Moon

by Peter Blauner

  “You know what I think sometimes?” I said as the traffic light turned green and the blue-and-red neon from the Doubloon down the block flashed over my windshield. “I think the casinos might have been the worst thing that ever happened to Atlantic City.”

  “How’s that?” Rosemary asked. “The place was a dump for years before they came in.”

  “I know, and then they came in and everyone thought the streets would be paved with gold. But look at this place. Me and my family could never even get a contract to replace the toilet paper dispensers at the casinos.”

  Rosemary closed one eye and put a bobby pin in her hair. “You know, Anthony, I don’t understand something. You’ve got all these balls in the air. First you say you don’t have anything to do with the people who run the club. Then you say something about getting in the fight game. Now you’re telling me you couldn’t get a contract from the casinos.” She touched my wrist and in a half-ironic voice she asked: “Are you trying to tell me you’re in the Mafia or something?”

  In the rearview mirror, I saw the silhouette in the I-Roc combing his hair. “Why do you say a thing like that?”

  Billie Holiday was still singing on the radio: “You’re not the angel I once knew/No need to tell me that we’re through/It’s over now/You’ve changed.”

  I looked up and saw there was a half-moon hanging over Bally’s Grand. It was what I used to call a casino moon, because the yellow casino sign was so bright, the moon looked cheap and unimpressive by comparison. That was Atlantic City. You couldn’t trust anything about it.

  “There’s no such thing,” I said.

  “What?”

  “No such thing as the Mafia.” That was what my father taught me to say whenever outsiders asked you about the Family.

  “Yeah? So what do you and your father do for a living?”

  “We’re businessmen trying to get a little something for ourselves. Just like these people running the casinos.”

  She laughed as we went by the Italian Dimension clothing store and neared Our Lady Star of the Sea, the old yellow church my mother dragged me to once before she died. I was feeling all these emotions I didn’t know what to do with, so I just kept them inside.

  There were stragglers out on the sidewalk in front of the 7-Eleven. Hookers and low-level drug dealers mixing it up in the glare of the red-and-white sign. They weren’t human really. They were more like shadows of what other people wanted at midnight. You put a light on them and they’d disappear.

  “Look at these women, will you?” I tried to change the subject. “Any one of them would give you a blow job for ten dollars.”

  “Twenty-five dollars.” Rosemary told me with absolute assurance.

  I started to ask how she knew, but then the street light changed and I had to hit the brake.

  “I was wondering if I could buy you a drink somewhere.”

  The I-Roc had pulled in so close behind me it was almost nudging my rear fender. After a few seconds, the traffic light turned green.

  “Yes, I suppose that would be all right,” she said. “But I can’t make too late a night of it. I’ve got my mother still watching my daughter.”

  We headed south toward Ventnor. I tried to think of some out-of-the-way place where they at least washed the glasses, but it’d been so long since I’d been out with anybody besides Carla that I had no idea which bars were still standing.

  I saw a familiar old crumpling tenement on North Carolina Avenue, facing a funeral parlor with silver tinsel around its front sign. “I think Dan Bishop grew up there,” I said. “Before he went out to Vegas.”

  “Dan Bishop.” Rosemary got a faraway look, like she was trying to place the name.

  I showed her the magazine clipping I carried around:

  The secret to Bishop’s success is his bold conception of the Horn Hotel and Casino as a kind of adult Disneyland. He eschews the traditional stark single light over each table that reminded players of Jimmy Durante saying, “Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” Instead, he splashes the walls with pastels, electric blues, and vibrant yellows and dresses his cocktail waitresses in skimpy satin wench outfits. Players are greeted in the lobby by a three-dimensional hologram of Blackbeard urging them to blow their life savings at poker. The elevators sing the winner’s theme whether gamblers are going upstairs to bed or coming down to play. And once an hour, a full-sized replica of a pirate ship explodes in the middle of the casino floor with thirty barely clad dancers doing the boogaloo on the poop deck, at a cost of $50,000 a day.

  “What we’re offering is the total entertainment experience,” says Bishop, 49 , a gruffly charming man with the air of an East Coast gangster mixed with the civility of a Mediterranean maitre d’. “We’re not trying to remind people of what their lives are like at home. What we’re about is testing the limits, scraping the sky.”

  “He was a local kid like me,” I explained to Rosemary. “Now look at him.”

  That article was my talisman. Whenever I looked at it, I felt like I had a shot in life.

  “You know what his secret is? He understands no one wants to be a square. Everyone likes to take a chance and gamble once in a while. That’s why you get lines around lottery places and casinos in the middle of the desert. Gambling’s the way of the future. That’s why I’m in boxing.”

  But Rosemary glanced at the picture of Dan Bishop standing by a swimming pool wearing a tuxedo with a ruffled shirt underneath and said he looked like a pastry with hair on it. I took the article back from her.

  “You know, you shouldn’t make fun of other people’s dreams.”

  We were almost at the edge of Atlantic City when we hit one last stoplight at the Memorial Circle. The statue of old Captain O’Donnell had his back only half turned to my side of the car, as if he didn’t trust me entirely.

  Rosemary put her head on my shoulder and ran her fingers through my hair. “Hey, Anthony. Look at me.”

  I turned my head. Rosemary was giving me this deep soulful look with her bruised lips and her full dark eyes. I felt something rise in my pants and knew my life and wedding vows would never be the same.

  “I am almost thirty-eight years old,” she said in that very proper way she had when she was trying to make a point. “You don’t have to tell me any stories about Vegas and light shows. I don’t make judgments. I have two jobs, a daughter at home and my mother waiting up to chew out my ass. I’ve been divorced, I’ve had two abortions, plus the one I lost, and I must have danced on top of every bar from here to Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden. Now I am aware you are not taking me to the Waldorf-Astoria. Things are what they are. So if you or your family have done some things maybe you aren’t proud of, I really don’t care. I haven’t met anyone who’s lived the perfect life yet.”

  “Well it’s not too late to start trying,” I said.

  I was going to kiss her right there, but then I looked up and saw that red I-Roc pulling up beside us. At the wheel, with his long dark hair and nonexistent chin, was Nicky DiGregorio. He’d been following us since the club. My breath caught in my throat and stayed there.

  “Oh my God,” said Rosemary. “Look at that guy, Anthony. I can’t believe how ugly he is. He doesn’t have any chin.”

  The light was still red and traffic flowed freely through the intersection in front of us. It was too dangerous to just step on the gas. Instead, I tried to sink under the dashboard, pretending to look for something. But then I heard the I-Roc’s door open. I looked up and saw Nicky standing next to my window, glaring down at me.

  “That’s right, you cocksucker,” he said. “Crawl down on the floor where you belong.”

  I started to roll up my window, but he reached inside the car and grabbed my hand. “That’s very rude, Nicky,” I told him. “Didn’t your father teach you any manners?”

  Some gritted teeth appeared in his mouth. I thought he was about to start crying. But instead he smacked the door frame with his fists. Everything shook, including the kids�
� roller skates in the back.

  “I oughta blow your fuckin’ head off right here and now.” He put his face right up to mine so I could smell the Sambuca he’d been drinking. “But that would be too easy. So you know what I’m gonna do now, Anthony? I’m gonna wait, and I’m gonna hurt you the way you hurt me. All right?” He stuck a long fingernail in my face. “Because I’m not just gonna hurt you. I’m gonna hurt your whole family.”

  He flicked the fingernail and took some skin off the end of my nose. My hands flew up toward the stinging sensation.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” Nick leaned in to get a better look at Rosemary. “I didn’t mean to interrupt a pleasant evening.”

  He went back to his car as the light finally turned green. I stepped on the gas and got out of there as fast as I could.

  “Jesus,” said Rosemary. “What was that all about?”

  “Bad tile job,” I told her. “He thinks I charged him too much.”

  17

  “HE ALWAYS OUT this late?” asked Teddy.

  His niece Carla filed her nails nervously and leaned against the refrigerator. “I think he’s been working onna couple of business things,” she said, “and they been taking up a lot of his time.”

  “Well he better come back soon. I got a job for him.”

  Vin sat at the kitchen table, making percolating sounds, like a belligerent coffeepot. Teddy looked at the clock on the stove. It was past ten-thirty and Anthony still hadn’t shown up, so they could warn him about Nick DiGregorio. Carla, who was almost six months pregnant, tapped her foot and pulled the belt on her yellow bathrobe. Pieces of tinfoil were twisted into her hair as part of her color treatment.

  Even with her swollen stomach, she looked like a little girl to Teddy. Could it be eighteen years had gone by since she was wearing pigtails and playing on the jungle gym in the backyard with his Charlie? Now Charlie was buried in Brigantine and she was married to this kid Anthony, who found a different way to get on Teddy’s nerves every day.

  “I hope you’re not covering up for him or anything.” Teddy sniffed the vague cat odor in the walls.

  “I’m not.” Carla shook her head and the tinfoil rustled like Christmas tinsel.

  “Because if I ever find out he’s not doing right by you, that’ll be the end of him.” He cut the air with the flat of his hand.

  Vin began cracking his knuckles again. The kids were in the other room, still watching television. Some sexy show where the lawyers were all good-looking and worried about ethics.

  “Look.” Carla hugged herself. “Everything’s fine. It’s not any of anybody’s business.”

  “How can you tell me it’s not any of my business?” Teddy dropped his hands to his sides. His thighs still felt sticky from the soda Nick poured on him. “You’re my favorite niece. I love you like I loved my own children.”

  “That’s real nice, Uncle Ted.” Carla raised her chin, like she was ready for a fight.

  “Nobody’s trying to butt in,” said Vin, playing peacekeeper again. “We just came over here to tell you to be careful.”

  “Why?” Carla dropped a protective hand over the baby in her stomach. “What’s going to happen?”

  “Nothing.” Teddy perused the kitchen cabinets. He looked over at his niece. “Say, you got anything for dessert?”

  “I think there’s still some Jell-O left in the refrigerator,” said Carla, her mouth scrunched up and her eyes shifting. All this scrutiny made her uncomfortable.

  “How ’bout a little grappa to wash it down?”

  “Hey, Uncle Ted,” she said, bumping against the refrigerator. “Is Aunt Camille starving you or something? I thought you were trying to lose weight.”

  Teddy waved for her to move out of the way so he could look in the refrigerator for himself.

  Just lately, the hunger had been worse. When he tried to fill it, there was a pain. For some reason, he couldn’t eat enough anymore and he wasn’t sure why.

  He fixed himself a bowl of strawberry Jell-O and sat down at the kitchen table across from Vin. His chubby right arm curled around the bowl protectively, a habit he’d learned in the reform school mess hall, where other boys made a sport out of stealing his lunch.

  Carla put her nail file down and brushed a stray piece of foil off her shoulder. “Why do I have to be careful?”

  “You should always be careful,” said Vin, lighting a cigarette and putting his feet up on the kitchen table. “It’s a dangerous world out there.”

  Teddy stopped eating for a moment and reached inside his jacket. He took out the .38 caliber revolver that Larry DiGregorio had fired at Vin and set it down on the kitchen table. “There,” he said. “If anybody tries to give you a problem, you show ’em that.”

  Carla’s mouth formed a perfect O of horror. “What the fuck are youse two doing?!” she cried out. “I got children in this house! I don’t want any guns around here!”

  Teddy frowned and went back to eating. “Carla,” he said, letting the Jell-O gush along the gutters inside his cheeks. “I don’t got any son to succeed me and my own daughter’s feebleminded. I know you’re only the girl in the family, but it’s up to you to look after yourself sometimes. I’m sorry it has to be that way, but maybe if you’d married a real man of respect, things could be different.”

  Carla was still looking at the gun like it was a poisonous snake on her kitchen table. “Get rid of that fuckin’ thing! I don’t want little Anthony playing with it!”

  Ted looked over at Vin, who took the gun and hid it in the red flour can on Carla’s counter. Carla watched him, trying to decide whether she should protest any further.

  “Maybe I’ll send Richie over,” Teddy said to Vin, who was taking a long drag on his cigarette. “He can sit here in the kitchen and make sure nothing happens.”

  “Oh no,” said Carla, forgetting the gun and wagging her head furiously. “I am not having Richie Amato in my house.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you remember?” She put her hands on her hips. “I used to go with Richie. You wouldn’t treat a dog the way he treated me. Whatever bad you can say about Anthony, at least he ain’t Richie.”

  She looked over at Vin, who was sitting down and putting his feet back up on the kitchen table. “Hey, get your damn feet down and stop smoking in here. Don’t you know I’m pregnant?”

  Vin took his feet off the table and grabbed an empty beer can out of the garbage, so he could put his cigarette out in it.

  Teddy was looking up at the little peels of paint that looked like fish gills on the ceiling over his head. “Youknow you could use a paint job in here,” he said. “You sure that Anthony’s providing for you?”

  “He provides,” said Carla, going to get a glass of water.

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  “What do you want me to do, Uncle Ted?” She whirled around to glare at him and the tinfoil in her hair made a soft tsshh sound. “Walk out on him? With two kids and another on the way?” Her pale hands and red fingernails flew up in dismay. “What choice do I have? I can’t just pack up and leave. Either I make my marriage work or the roof caves in. So don’t go talking subversive to me, Uncle Ted.”

  “Where do you get a word like that?”

  “I heard it from Anthony,” she said, without embarrassment. “So don’t try turning me against him. I got too many responsibilities depending on him.”

  “I still say he’s a bum,” Teddy muttered under his breath.

  “And I say you don’t know him,” Carla lashed back, her face turning red. “Anthony was the only boy who’d talk to me in high school and we pledged our love. We may be having our problems now, but we’ll work them out. And if we can’t, I’ll be the one to take care of it.”

  She glanced over at the flour can where Vin had left the gun. Teddy stood up and started to put his arms around her, but there was too much flesh between them.

  “Carla, you’re a very special girl,” he said. “Any man who doesn’t appreciate
you, doesn’t deserve to be around himself.”

  18

  I FORGOT ABOUT FINDING a bar and took Rosemary back to the Family’s stash house in Marvin Gardens. The apartment was empty that night, though you never knew when somebody was going to come by to drop off some money or pick up a gun. The white shag carpet fired off little static shocks as I walked in.

  Rosemary took a look around the place and saw the bar next to the kitchen, the wall with the mirrors on it, and the black leather couch from Dave D.’s that folded out into a bed. The lamps all had identical bulb-shaped bodies and shades thick as plaster. The door to the other room was opened just enough so you could see some of the swag stored in there. My father had just gotten in a shipment of Iranian pistachio nuts and Nigerian hand soap from someone he knew in New York. I hoped Rosemary wouldn’t ask me about any of it. She was probably already thinking it’d been years since a woman had a say in how the place looked.

  “Let’s go for a walk on the Boardwalk,” she said abruptly.

  It was a beautiful night, with a soft breeze coming off the ocean and amusement park lights blazing from the other end of the Boardwalk, but I hardly noticed it. I was too busy thinking about all the things that had happened since my father killed Larry. Now I had Nicky coming after me and my family. I figured that he wouldn’t do anything right away. It would be better to wait and torture me. But I knew I had to get my wife and kids out of the house soon to protect them.

  “Hey,” said Rosemary. “Are you a made guy?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  We walked along quietly for a couple of minutes as a light from a Coast Guard ship cut through the fog on the water.

  “You know, I always thought you had to be Sicilian to be a made guy,” she said. “You don’t look like any Sicilian to me.”

  “How come you know so much about it?”