by Jack Bunker
“Twenty it is, then.”
“Jesus, Wanda.” J.T. had to look pained to sell it. He knew if he’d come in at twenty, she’d have said forty. “Your injury is not having to sleep with Mack. You want twenty thousand dollars for that? You’ve done it your whole life for free.”
“No problem,” she said, turning around to unload a rack of glasses. “I think there are some girls down at the Pizza Hut could probably use a green card.”
“Okay, twenty.” He shook his head and smiled. “I wonder if Mack knows what he’s in for.”
Wanda’s smile disappeared. “You just need to remember, J.T., that whatever it is you’re ginning up in that little head of yours, when it’s all said and done, I’m not going to be jerked around.” She stood up straight, towering over J.T., who looked up from his barstool. “I’m looking out for Number One. I will be taken care of.”
SEVENTEEN
Mack McMahon pulled a Corona from his refrigerator. He sat down on the thin carpeting of his apartment living room with his laptop and started trolling the Internet for F-150 King Ranch edition Ford trucks. They were still expensive, even the used ones. Mack tried to figure after flying lessons how much he’d have left of the thirty thousand.
He switched his limited focus from pickup trucks to flight schools. There was a guy in Corona who could get him his license for $5,199. Another place in Norco would get him qualified for $5,299. It was going to take a couple of months. Of course, if he got the thirty grand, he could probably quit his job a couple weeks early and go for the license full time. That made a whole lot more sense. Mack found a flight school in Riverside with an expedited program that would get him his license in seventeen days. It was $5,600. He’d just have a little less to put down on the truck, but then again, once he got married, he could cut his housing expenses by moving in with Wanda. Hell, he hadn’t thought of that. It was like an added bonus old J.T. never even considered. Mack sipped his beer and wondered what Wanda’s place was like. Probably smelled good. Better than his place, Mack was sure.
Al Boyle woke up on Sunday morning unsure which hurt worse, his rash or his head. He’d taken Tylenol with codeine every four hours on Saturday. He started drinking screwdrivers at four in the afternoon and continued alternating between vodka and pills until he passed out on the couch at nine. He woke up completely dehydrated at 6:00 a.m. and staggered to the bathroom. The purple spots that yesterday had looked like tiny boils were now black. This looks like fucking plague or something. Maybe it wasn’t the deodorant he’d already quit using. Had he changed his detergent? The rash was just on one side, the side he slept on. If it were some kind of fever, it would be all over his body. This was local, although covering a big patch on his torso. Mostly it just hurt like hell. He decided to give the cortisone cream one more day to work. He also decided codeine might not be a great idea if he had to drive anywhere.
J.T. gave Mack two thousand of the additional five thousand Al had borrowed from Frankie Fresh. Mack was to drive to Vegas after work on Sunday afternoon. After checking into the hotel of his and Wanda’s choice, they were to go to an all-night chapel and get married. The next morning they were to drive back and check into El Fuente Dorado as honeymooners. J.T. told Mack to sell the newlywed angle hard when they checked in. The back story was to be they’d gotten married on the spur of the moment in Vegas, but wanted to spend their honeymoon at a nice, quiet upscale resort in the desert close to home.
If Mack could flop on Monday afternoon, theoretically, J.T. could mail the demand letter as early as Wednesday. Thirty-one days later would be a Saturday, meaning Al could sign off on the claim as early as the following Monday. Add five business days for processing, that meant a check would be cut the following Monday…add a day for courier service of the check to arrive Tuesday from Sacramento…deposit the next morning…it was pushing it, but if he could just hold off a few more creditors a few more weeks…
Wanda drove her Passat through the dusk and into the night. Riding shotgun, Mack didn’t talk much on the way to Vegas. He worked his way through his twelve-pack of Tecate as the convertible blurred across the featureless desert. Wanda’s hair spread out in a fluffy pillow in the breeze, and every five minutes or so she’d sweep her black curls behind her ear. Mack realized that if he angled his seat just so, he could see nearly Wanda’s entire left breast, including her surprisingly large cordovan nipple, as the wind in the open car luffed the top of her sundress.
Nearing Vegas the darkness became more acute and the temperature dropped.
“You want me to put the top up?” said Wanda.
Mack guessed the end of the wind would mean the end of his show. As he saw Wanda’s nipples harden, he felt his crotch swelling against his jeans. “Naw, I’m fine.”
He was getting cold himself. He was only wearing a short-sleeved golf shirt, but he didn’t want to break the spell. He tried coming up with some small talk, but he really didn’t have a whole lot in his playbook.
“Boy, them stars are something, ain’t they?”
“Yeah. Hey, do me a favor. There’s a sweater in the top of my bag on the back seat. Hand it to me would you, please?”
Mack had been intercepted. The game was coming to an end. He rubbed her shoulder with the back of his hand, a desperate Hail Mary. “What’s a matter? You really that cold?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, here,” he said, rubbing her shoulder and arm like he was trying to thaw out a frostbite victim, “let me see if I can warm you up.” For the first time, Mack noticed that her unblemished skin was the color of toasted coconut.
Wanda kept looking straight ahead. “You know what would be great?”
“What’s that?”
“If you could hand me my sweater.”
Defeated, Mack fumbled with the zipper on her bag and pulled out a big black cardigan and handed it to Wanda. She slid into it one arm at a time, but she didn’t button it. At first the sweater covered up her chest, but gradually, as the wind pushed it aside, Mack was once more able to see the rising breast of his prospective bride. The crotch of his jeans tightened uncomfortably.
In the distance the blue-white lights of Las Vegas seeped onto the horizon.
“You give any thought to where you want to stay?” Wanda asked.
“Not especially,” said Mack. “Lady’s choice.” He grinned what he’d hoped was an endearing rather than threatening smile.
He’d had to agree with J.T. that the girl had a pretty face. Like J.T., he caught himself thinking of her as a girl as opposed to a middle-aged woman. Mack had flirted with her at the club, but he had never seriously considered trying to hook up with her. He didn’t want to guess her weight, but he was pretty sure she weighed more than he did. Still, if J.T. was telling the truth about the swimming, that might account for those shoulders that were easily wider than his.
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d kind of like to stay at the Corcovado.”
“Sure.” Mack shifted again in his seat. He was feeling the wind now, but he still didn’t want to alter his view from the passenger seat. “Thought I might as well try a little blackjack while we’re here, what do you think?”
Wanda smiled. “Fine with me.”
As they checked into the Corcovado, liveried staff wandered through the lobby with blue or scarlet macaws on their arms or shoulders, followed by hotel photographers snapping pictures of tourists feeding the brilliant parrots. A floor-to-ceiling aviary the size of a jai alai fronton surrounded the elevators on three sides with still more macaws and screeching emerald conures.
Mack grabbed a double Jack Daniel’s from a waitress as they stood at the edge of the casino floor, their small overnight bags at their feet. A sixty-foot replica of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue dominated the casino, standing high atop a base shaped like Corcovado itself, overlooking the tables below. A ski lift rose slowly on cables from a corner of the lobby up and over the casino floor to an observation deck just at the feet of the Messiah.
The statue looked to Mack like Jesus was an umpire giving the safe sign at home plate. With a dozen beers inside him, his outlook on the whole plan was increasingly positive.
Up in the room, Mack tossed his nylon duffel bag on the luggage rack while Wanda laid her bag on one of the room’s two king-size beds.
“They don’t keep minibars in here?” said Mack.
“No, they don’t want you staying in your room; they’d rather give you the drinks for free downstairs and have you gamble.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come to Vegas to snuggle up with the Gideons. I’m gonna go get myself a drink.”
“Go for it. I’m going to hop in the Jacuzzi.”
Mack thought about offering to join her. He felt a slight unfurling in his boxers. Fuck it. Plenty of time for that later. She ain’t going anywhere. Might as well enjoy my last night as a free man. “All right then. See you in a few minutes.”
Mack went down to the casino floor. He’d been to Vegas once before, but that was staying at a down-at-heel old hotel on the strip. He couldn’t even remember the name of it. He’d lost a couple hundred bucks playing limit Texas Hold’em. That was about all he could remember. That and a vague recollection of banging a mother of three from Traverse City, Michigan.
Mack sat down at an empty ten-dollar blackjack table. The name tag on the black vest of the blond dealer said “DONNA, Houston, Texas.”
“Howdy, Donna,” Mack said. “I’m from Van Horn.”
“Well, hey!” she said. “Always a pleasure to meet another Texan!”
She looked to be in her early thirties, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had a nice buttery color to her, not the kind of dried-up, two-pack-a-day skin Mack usually associated with barmaids and other cash handlers of the hospitality industry.
He pulled two hundreds from his wallet and bought chips. A dark-skinned waitress came holding an empty tray on her fingertips. Her name tag said, “FELICIA, Atlanta, Georgia.” Mack ordered a double Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.
After being down sixty dollars in less than ten minutes, Mack thought about going back up to the room, drink or no drink. Just as he was about to get up from the table, Felicia reappeared with two doubles and apologized for the delay.
With the drinks in front of him, Mack figured he might as well play two hands, seeing as how he had the whole table to himself. He hit blackjack on both hands. Donna gave him a big smile.
“Look at you.”
“How about that? Hell, let’s do that again.”
Donna dealt two more hands. No blackjack for Mack, but the house busted with twenty-three, and Mack was caught up.
He gazed from time to time at the statue of Umpire Jesus on the top of the mountain. Mack felt calmed by the Redeemer’s passive expression. Or maybe it was just the whiskey. Increasing the size of his bets, he played two hands at a time, never losing more than one. His roll continued until Donna’s shift ended.
Mack looked down at his stack of chips. He thought of J.T. as he tossed Donna a fifty-dollar chip. She smiled, thanked him, and gave a clap for the cameras—just like in the movies.
An Italian-looking kid with some kind of shit in his hair sat down between Mack and a Japanese tourist. A new dealer came on. He had a moustache and a name tag that said “BRIAN, East Caldwell, New Jersey.” Mack had a feeling that none of these portents could be good. He counted up his chips. Thirty-two hundred dollars. Hell, that was more than halfway to his flying lessons right there. He got a couple of glasses of champagne from Felicia and headed back upstairs.
All the lights were off in the room, and some kind of soft Brazilian melody played on the TV’s music channel. Mack noticed a thick nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope on top of a bathing suit and a pair of shorts in Wanda’s open suitcase. A muted light was on in the bathroom, with the door open a few inches. Mack was wondering what kind of loser brings paperwork to an overnight trip to Vegas when he heard a splash from the tub.
“Hey! You decent?” he hollered. “I brought you a glass of champagne.”
Another splash. “Thanks! Yeah, c’mon in.”
The bathroom was enormous. Wanda had her curly black hair pinned up off her neck, with thick iridescent white foam covering nearly the entire surface of the water. The Jacuzzi’s jets were off. Steam fogged the mural mirror above the sink.
Wanda smiled. “You can set it down there,” she said, pointing to the side of the tub, bubbles dripping from her forearm. “I thought you were just going down for a drink.”
“I was. Then I got to playing blackjack. Guess how much I won?”
Wanda reached for the stem of champagne. “I don’t know.”
“Three grand! You believe it? More than that—like thirty-two hundred!”
“Wow! That’s terrific.”
The air in the bathroom was thick with humidity. The bubbles had a nice tropical smell, light but not overly sweet.
“Yeah, my dealer went off shift, so I figured I’d come up and see if you wanted to go down and gamble.”
Wanda sat up a few inches. The suds pushed away from her chest a little. Mack could make out some cleavage, but not much else.
“You know, I can’t remember the last time I had a night off, much less a hot tub. I think I’m just going to hang out here. But thanks again for the drink.”
“No problemo.” He smiled, although he was disappointed he didn’t get another look at her breasts. “Hell, I’m too jacked up to sit around. You don’t mind, I’m gonna go back downstairs. Get another drink.”
She smiled again. “That’s great about your big win.”
Mack peeled off two hundreds and laid them on the counter as he stood up. “Hang onto this. You never know.”
EIGHTEEN
After trolling the floor looking for blackjack dealers from Texas, Mack found “JIMMY, Corpus Christi, Texas,” dealing at a twenty-five-dollar table. By the time Jimmy’s shift ended, Mack had doubled and redoubled his stack.
Mack tossed Jimmy a hundred-dollar chip. The replacement dealer was from Boston, so Mack scooped up his more than $9,000 in chips and went in search of another table.
He had another Jack Daniel’s and fingered the chips in his pocket. A couple more laps around the floor revealed no new dealers at the blackjack tables. Mack didn’t want to play craps or the other games, just get one more hot dealer from Texas.
The thought of going to another casino crossed his mind, but he wasn’t sure what that would do to his luck. Then there was the question of going back upstairs, although Wanda hadn’t seemed in any hurry to get anything going. He’d be pissed if he’d walked away from a lucky streak just to get blue-balled.
Mack settled on a ski lift ride over the casino floor. The din from the tables and slots softened as the lift rose, then banked diagonally across the floor on the slow ascent up Corcovado. Concealed speakers piped in the melodies of Tom Jobim and Stan Getz. Ordinarily it wasn’t Mack’s kind of music, but he had to admit it had a relaxing quality to it. As the lift neared the base of the statue, Mack looked up at Umpire Jesus. As he got closer, he could see that the statue wasn’t stone or even concrete, but some kind of polymer like the rocks they use in movies. Mack didn’t care. A sixty-foot statue of Jesus in a casino was just badass.
When he got back to the casino floor, Mack found another blond dealer. This one, Vondel from Fort Worth, was just coming on shift at an empty table. By the time Vondel’s shift ended, Mack was up more than $20,000. He shared his theory about Texas dealers with Vondel, who told him Jim Don, from Dallas, was at the hundred-dollar table.
Chewing on a straw while he waited on another Jack Daniel’s, he weighed the risk of moving to the big tables. Jim Don had probably already been on for a while; he’d likely only have a little time left on his shift. Even if Mack’s luck turned, he’d still be ahead for the night.
Another Chinese guy and a really short white dude, maybe five feet tall, were already playing at Jim Don’s table when Mack slid onto a s
eat. He split aces on his first hand and hit blackjack with both. Everything felt just as it had with the other tables. He won after doubling down on eleven and started playing two hands again. He occasionally lost one of the two, but never both. The Jack Daniel’s kept coming.
Jim Don’s shift ended and Mack tossed him two hundred-dollar chips from chips the black mound in front of him. He glanced up at Umpire Jesus. Mack didn’t know how much he was up, but he was looking at a shitload of chips. He checked his watch. Six a.m. As he gathered his chips, a guy in a white blazer stood next to him and smiled.
“You’ve had quite a night, Mr.…?”
“McMahon. Mack McMahon,” said Mack, extending his hand.
“Mr. McMahon, I’m Sam Restivo from the hotel. Are you staying with us?”
“Yes, sir, I sure am. Room nine-fifty-four.”
A black guy in a tropical shirt hustled through the lobby with an enormous cerulean hyacinth macaw screeching from his shoulder.
“Well, Mr. McMahon, the hotel would like to upgrade you to a suite at no charge.”
“Thanks, but my fiancée and I were supposed to be heading out today.”
“Have you seen our suites, Mr. McMahon? I bet your fiancée would be impressed. How about staying over another night as our guest? Maybe take in a show. Perhaps your fiancée would appreciate an afternoon in our exclusive Buzios Spa.”
Wanda stirred and rose in the far king-size bed when Mack opened the door with his card.
“Ohmigod, have you been in the casino all night?”
“You damn right. Guess who got us upgraded to a suite?”
“But I thought we were going back today. You know, after…”
“You ever seen one of these suites? I think it’d be worth staying another day, don’t you?”
“You really want to?”
“Fuck it. When am I gonna hit a streak like this again?”
Wanda sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She looked at her watch on the bedside table.