Secret of the Seventh Son

SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER

P eter Benedict saw his reflection and marveled at the way his image was chopped up and scrambled by the optics of the glass. The front of the building was a deeply concave surface, soaring ten stories over Wilshire Boulevard, almost sucking you in off the sidewalk toward the two-story disc of a lobby. There was an austere slate courtyard, cool and empty except for a Henry Moore bronze, a lobulated and vaguely human conception off to one side. The building glass was flawlessly mirrorlike, capturing the mood and color of the environs, and this being Beverly Hills, the mood was usually bright and the color a rich sky blue. Because the concavity was so severe, the glass also caught the images from other panes, tossing them like a salad-clouds, buildings, the Moore, pedestrians, and cars jumbled together.

It was wonderful.

This was his moment.

He had reached the pinnacle. He had a scheduled and confirmed appointment to see Bernie Schwartz, one of the gods at Artist Talent Inc.

Peter had fretted about his wardrobe. He’d never done a meeting like this and was too sheepish to inquire about dress codes. Did agents wear suits in this day and age? Did writers? Should he try and look conservative or flashy? Buttoned-down or casual? He opted for a middle ground to play it safe-gray pants, white oxford shirt, blue blazer, black loafers. As he drew closer to the disk, he saw himself, undistorted, in a single mirrored pane and quickly looked away, self-conscious of his bony litheness and receding hairline, which he usually hid under a baseball cap. He did know this-the younger the writer, the better, and it appalled him that his balding nut made him look way too old. Did the world have to know he was pushing fifty?

The revolving doors swept him into chilled air. The reception desk was fabricated from polished hardwoods and matched the concavity of the building. The flooring was concave too, made of thin planks of curved slippery bamboo. The interior design was all about light, space, and money. A bank of starlet-type receptionists with invisible wire headsets were all saying, “ATI, how may I direct your call. ATI, how may I direct your call?”

Over and over, it took on the quality of a chant.

He craned his neck at the atrium, and high up on the galleries saw an army of young hip men and women moving fast, and yes, the agents did wear suits. Armani Nation.

He approached the desk and coughed for attention. The most beautiful-looking woman he had ever seen asked him, “How may I help you?”

“I have an appointment with Mr. Schwartz. My name is Peter Benedict.”

“Which one?”

He blinked in confusion and stammered. “I-I-I don’t know what you mean. I’m Peter Benedict.”

Icily, “Which Mr. Schwartz. We have three.”

“Oh, I see! Bernard Schwartz.”

“Please take a seat. I’ll call his assistant.”

If you hadn’t known Bernie Schwartz was one of the top talent agents in Hollywood, you still wouldn’t know after seeing his eighth-floor corner office. Maybe a fine art collector, or an anthropologist. The office was devoid of the typical trappings-no movie posters, arm-around-star or arm-around-politician photos, no awards, tapes, DVDs, plasma screens, trade mags. Nothing but African art, all sorts of carved wooden statues, decorative pots, hide shields, spears, geometric paintings, masks. For a short, fat, aging Jew from Pasadena, he had a major thing going for the dark continent. He shouted through the door to one of his four assistants, “Remind me why I’m seeing this guy?”

A woman’s voice: “Victor Kemp.”

He waved his left hand in a gimme sign. “Yeah, yeah, I remember. Get me the folder with the coverage and interrupt me after ten minutes, max. Five, maybe.”

When Peter entered the agent’s office, he felt instantly ill at ease in Bernie’s presence, even though the small man had a big smile and was waving him in from behind his desk like a deck officer on an aircraft carrier. “Come in, come in.” Peter approached, faking happiness, assaulted by primitive African artifacts. “What can I get you? Coffee? We got espresso, lattes, anything you want. I’m Bernie Schwartz. Glad to meet you, Peter.” His light thin hand got squashed by a small thick hand and was pumped a few times.

“Maybe a water?”

“Roz, get Mr. Benedict a water, will ya? Sit, sit there. I’ll come over to the sofa.”

Within seconds a Chinese girl, another beauty, materialized with a bottle of Evian and a glass. Everything moved fast here.

“So, did you fly in, Peter?” Bernie asked.

“No, I drove, actually.”

“Smart, very smart. I’m telling you, to this day I won’t fly anymore, at least commercial. Nine/eleven is still like yesterday to me. I could’ve been on one of those planes. My wife has a sister in Cape Cod. Roz! Can I get a cup of tea? So, you’re a writer, Peter. How long you been writing scripts?”

“About five years, Mr. Schwartz.”

“Please! Bernie!”

“About five years, Bernie.”

“How many you got under your belt?”

“You mean just counting finished ones?”

“Yeah, yeah-finished projects,” Bernie said impatiently.

“The one I sent you is my first.”

Bernie closed his eyes tightly as if he were telepathically signaling his girl: Five minutes! Not ten! “So, you any good?” he asked.

Peter wondered about that question. He’d sent the script two weeks ago. Hadn’t Bernie read it?

To Peter, his script was like a sacred text, imbued with a quasimagical aura. He had poured his soul into its creation and he kept a copy prominently displayed on his writing desk, three-hole-punched with shiny brass brads, his first completed opus. Every morning on his way out the door, he touched the cover as one might finger an amulet or stroke the belly of a Buddha. It was his ticket to another life, and he was eager to get it punched. Moreover, the subject matter was important to him, a paean, as he saw it, to life and fate. As a student, he had been deeply moved by The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder’s novel about five strangers who perished together on a collapsing bridge. Naturally, when he started his new job in Nevada he began to dwell on the notions of fate and predestination. He chose to craft a modern take on the classic tale where-in his version-the strangers’ lives intersected at the instant of a terror attack. Bernie got his tea, “Thank you, honey. Keep an eye out for my next meeting, okay?” Roz cleared Peter’s line of sight and winked at her boss.

“Well, I think it’s good,” Peter answered. “Did you have a chance to look at it?”

Bernie hadn’t read a script in decades. Other people read scripts for him and gave him notes-coverage.

“Yeah, yeah, I got my notes right here.” He opened the folder with Peter’s coverage and scanned the two-pager.

Weak plot.

Terrible dialogue.

Poor character development, etc., etc.

Recommendation: pass.

Bernie stayed in character, smiled expansively and asked, “So tell me, Peter, how is it you know Victor Kemp?”

A month earlier, Peter Benedict walked into the Constellation with a hopeful spring to his step. He preferred the Constellation over any casino on the Strip. It was the only one with a whiff of intellectual content, and furthermore, he had been an astronomy buff as a boy. The planetarium dome of the grand casino had a perpetually shifting laser display of the night sky over Las Vegas, exactly as it would appear if you stuck your head outside while someone turned off the hundreds of millions of lightbulbs and fifteen thousand miles of neon tubing that washed out the heavens. If you looked carefully, came often enough, and were a student of the subject, over time you could spot each of the eighty-eight constellations. The Big Dipper, Orion, Andromeda-a piece of cake. Peter had found the obscure ones too: Corvus, Delphinus, Eridanas, Sextens. In fact, he only lacked Coma Berineces, Berineces’ Hair, a faint cluster in the northern sky sandwiched between Canes Venatici and Virgo. One day he would find that too.

He was playing blackjack at a high-stakes table, minimum bet per hand $100, maximum $5,000, his baldness covered by a Lakers baseball cap. He almost never exceeded the minimum but preferred these tables because the spectacle was more interesting. He was a good, disciplined player who usually ended an evening a few hundred up, but every so often he left a thousand richer or poorer, depending on the streakiness of the cards. The real thrills flowed his way vicariously, watching the big money players juggling three hands, splitting, doubling down, risking fifteen, twenty grand at a time. He would have loved pumping out that kind of adrenaline but knew it wasn’t going to happen-not on his salary.

The dealer, a Hungarian named Sam, saw that he wasn’t having a good night and tried to cheer him up. “Don’t worry, Peter, luck will change. You will see.”

He didn’t think so. The shoe had a count of minus fifteen, highly favoring the house. Yet, that knowledge didn’t change his play, even though any reasonable card-counter would have backed off for a while, come back in when the count climbed.

Peter was an odd duck of a counter. He counted because he could. His brain worked so fast and it was so effortless for him that having mastered the technique, he couldn’t not count. High cards-ten to ace-were minus one; low cards-two through six-were plus one. A good counter only had to do two things well: keep a running tally of the total count as the six-deck shoe was dealt out, and accurately estimate the number of undealt cards in the shoe. When the count was low, you bet the minimum or walked away. When it was high, you bet aggressively. If you knew what you were doing, you could tilt the law of averages and consistently win; that is, until you were spotted by a dealer, the pit boss, or the eye-in-the-sky and booted and banned.

Peter occasionally made a count-based decision, but since he never varied his bet, he never capitalized on his inside knowledge. He liked the Constellation, enjoyed spending three-or four-hour stretches at the tables, and was scared of getting kicked out of his favorite haunt. He was part of the furniture.

That night there were only two other gamblers at his table: a bleary-eyed anesthesiologist from Denver in for a medical convention, and a nattily dressed silver-haired exec who was the only one putting serious money into play. Peter was $600 down, pacing himself and languidly drinking a comped beer.

With a few hands to go before the shoe got reshuffled, a young rangy kid, about twenty-two, in a T-shirt and cargo pants, planted himself into one of the two empty chairs and bought in for a grand. He had shoulder-length hair and a breezy western charm. “Hey, how’s everybody doing tonight? This a good table?”

“Not for me,” the executive said. “You’re welcome to change that.”

“I’d be pleased to be of any assistance I can,” the kid said. He caught the dealer’s name tag. “Deal me in, Sam.”

Betting the minimum, the kid turned a quiet table into a chatty one. He told them he was a student at UNLV majoring in government and, starting with the doctor, asked everyone where they were from and what they did for a living. After blathering about a problem he was having with his shoulder, he turned to Peter.

“I’m local,” Peter offered. “I work with computers.”

Prompting, “Cool. That’s cool, dude.”

The executive told the table, “I’m in the insurance business.”

“You sell insurance, dude?”

“Well, yes and no. I run an insurance company.”

“Awesome! High roller, baby!” the kid exclaimed.

Sam reshuffled the shoe and Peter instinctively started to count again. After five minutes they were well into the new shoe and the count was getting high. Peter puttered along, doing a little better, winning a few more hands than he lost. “See, I told you,” Sam told him cheerfully after he won three hands in a row. The doctor was down two grand, but the insurance guy was out over thirty and he getting testy. The kid was betting erratically, without any apparent feel for the game, but he was only down a couple hundred. He ordered a rum and coke and fiddled with the swizzle stick until it accidentally dropped out of his mouth onto the floor. “Oops,” he said quietly.

A blonde in her late twenties in tight jeans and a lemon-and-lime tube top approached the table and took the empty chair. She put her expensive Vuitton bag under her feet for safekeeping and plonked down $10,000 in four neat stacks. “Hello,” she said shyly. She wasn’t gorgeous but had a dynamite body and a soft, sexy voice and she stopped the conversation dead. “I hope I’m not barging in,” she said, stacking her chips.

“Hell, no!” the kid said. “We need a rose among us thorns.”

“I’m Melinda,” and they amiably dispensed their minimalist Vegas-style introductions. She was from Virginia. She pointed to her wedding band. Hubby was at the pool.

Peter watched her play several hands. She was fast and sassy, betting $500 a hand, making border-line draws that were paying off pretty well. The kid lost three hands in a row, leaned back in his chair and said, “Man, I am hexed!”

Hexed.

Peter realized the count was plus thirteen with about forty cards left in the shoe.

Hexed.

The blonde pushed a stack of chips worth $3,500 forward. Seeing this, the insurance guy stepped up and bet the max. “You’re giving me courage,” he told her. Peter stuck to his $100, the same as the doc and the kid.

Sam quickly dealt and gave Peter a strong nineteen, the insurance guy fourteen, the doc seventeen, the kid twelve, and the blonde a pair of jacks-twenty. The dealer was showing a six. She’s a lock, Peter thought. High count, dealer probably draws and busts, she’s sitting pretty with her twenty.

“I’m going to split these, Sam,” she said.

Sam blinked and nodded as she put up another $3,500.

Holy shit! Peter was dumbstruck. Who splits tens?

Unless?

Peter and the doc stood pat, the kid drew a six and stayed on eighteen. The insurance man busted out with a ten and spat out in disgust, “Son of a bitch!”

The blonde held her breath and clenched her fists until Sam dealt her a queen on one hand and a seven on the other. She clapped and exhaled simultaneously.

The dealer flipped his hole card, revealing a king, and drew a nine.

Bust.

Amidst her squeals, Sam paid out the table, shoving seven grand in chips her way.

Peter hastily excused himself and started for the men’s room in turmoil. His mind was grinding. What am I thinking? he said to himself. This is none of my business! Let it go!

But he couldn’t. He was overwhelmed with moral outrage-if he didn’t take advantage, why should they?

He pivoted, went back toward the cluster of blackjack tables and made eye contact with the pit boss, who nodded and smiled at him. Peter sidled up and said, “Hey, how’re you doing?”

“Just fine, sir. How can I help you this evening?”

“You see that kid at the table over there and the girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re counting.”

The corner of the pit boss’s mouth twitched. He’d seen a lot but he’d never seen one player turn in another. What was the angle? “You sure about this?”

“I’m positive. The kid’s counting and signaling her.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll handle it.”

The pit boss used his two-way to call the floor manager, who in turn got security to play back the tape of the table’s last couple of hands. In retrospect the blonde’s stepped-up bet did look suspicious.

Peter had returned to the table just as a phalanx of uniformed security men arrived and laid hands on the kid’s shoulders.

“Hey, what the fuck!” the kid shouted.

Players at other tables stopped and stared.

“You two know each other?” the pit boss asked.

“I never saw her in my life! That’s the goddamn truth!” the kid wailed.

The blonde said nothing. She just picked up her pocketbook, gathered her chips, and tossed a $500 tip to Sam.

“See you, fellows,” she said as she was led away.

The pit boss made a hand signal and Sam was replaced by another dealer.

The doc and the insurance guy looked at Peter with glazed astonishment. “What the hell just happened here?” the insurance man asked.

“They were counting,” Peter said simply. “I turned them in.”

“No you did not!” the insurance guy howled.

“Yeah, I did. It ticked me off.”

The doc asked, “How’d you know?”

“I knew.” He felt uncomfortable with the attention he was getting. He wanted to scram.

“I’ll be damned,” the insurance guy said, shaking his head. “I’m going to buy you a drink, friend. I’ll be damned.” His blue eyes sparkled as he reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. “Here, take my card. My business runs on computers. If you need any work, just call me up, all right?”

Peter took the card: NELSON G. ELDER, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DESERT LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY.

“That’s very nice of you, but I have a job,” Peter muttered, his voice barely audible above the repetitive melodies and clanging of the slots.

“Well, if things change, you’ve got my number.”

The pit boss approached the table. “Look everyone, I apologize for what happened here. Mr. Elder, how are you tonight, sir? All of you are eating and drinking on the house tonight and I got tickets to any show you want. Okay? Again, I’m very sorry.”

“Sorry enough to reverse my losses tonight, Frankie?” Elder asked.

“I wish I could, Mr. Elder, but that I cannot do.”

“Oh, well,” Elder told the table, “you don’t ask, you don’t get.”

The pit boss tapped Peter on the shoulder and whispered, “The manager wants to meet you.” Peter blanched. “Don’t worry, it’s all good.”

Gil Flores, the floor manager of the Constellation, was sleek and urbane, and in his presence Peter felt scruffy and self-conscious. His armpits were damp, he wanted to leave. The manager’s office was utilitarian, equipped with multiple flat-screen panels getting live feeds from the tables and slots.

Flores was drilling down, trying to figure out the hows and the whys. How did a civilian spot something his guys didn’t and why did he turn them in? “What am I missing here?” Flores asked the timid man.

Peter took a sip of water. “I knew the count,” Peter admitted.

“You were counting too?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a counter? You’re admitting to me you’re a counter?” Flores’s voice was rising.

“I count, but I’m not a counter.”

Flores’s polish rubbed off. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I keep the count-it’s kind of a habit, but I don’t use it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Peter shrugged. “I’m sorry but it’s the truth. I’ve been coming here for two years and I’ve never varied my bets. I make a little, lose a little, you know.”

“Unbelievable. So you knew the count when this shithead does what?”

“He said he was hexed. The count was thirteen, you know, a code word for thirteen. She joined the table when the count was high. I think he dropped a swizzle stick to signal her.”

“So he counts and decoys, the chick bets and collects.”

“They probably have a code word for every count, like ‘chair’ for four, ‘sweet’ for sixteen.”

The phone rang and Flores answered it and listened before saying, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, Peter Benedict, it’s your lucky day,” Flores announced. “Victor Kemp wants to see you up in the penthouse.”

The view from the penthouse was dazzling, the entire Strip snaking toward the dark horizon like a flaming tail. Victor Kemp came in and extended his hand, and Peter felt his chunky gold rings when their fingers entwined. He had black wavy hair, a deep tan and gleaming teeth-the sleek, easy looks of a headliner at the best club in town. His suit was a shimmery blue that caught the light and played with it, a fabric that seemed unearthly. He sat Peter down in his cavernous living room and offered him a drink. While a maid fetched a beer, Peter noticed that one of the wall monitors at the far end of the room had a shot of Gil’s office. Cameras everywhere.

Peter took the beer and considered doffing his cap but kept it on-damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.

“An honest man is the noblest work of God,” Kemp said suddenly. “Alexander Pope wrote that. Cheers!” Kemp clinked his wineglass against Peter’s beer flute. “You have lifted my spirits, Mr. Benedict, and for that, I thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Peter said cautiously.

“You seem like a very clever guy. May I ask what you do for a living?”

“I work with computers.”

“Why am I not surprised to hear that! You spotted something an army of trained professionals missed, so on one hand I’m pleased you are an honest man but on another I am displeased at my own people. Have you ever considered working in casino security, Mr. Benedict?”

Peter shook his head but said, “That’s the second job offer I’ve had tonight.”

“Who else?”

“A guy at my blackjack table, the CEO of an insurance company.”

“Silver hair, slim fella in his fifties?”

“Yes.”

“That would be Nelson Elder, a very good guy. You’re having quite a night. But, if you’re happy with your job, I’ve got to find some other way to thank you.”

“Oh. No. That’s not necessary, sir.”

“Don’t sir me! You call me Victor and I will reciprocate by calling you Peter. So, Peter, this is like you just found a genie in a bottle but because this isn’t a fairy tale you only get one wish and it’s got to be, you know, realistic. So what’s it going to be, you want a girl, you want a credit line, some movie star you’d like to meet?”

Peter’s brain was capable of processing a tremendous amount of information swiftly. In a few seconds of thought he worked through various scenarios and outcomes and out popped a proposition that, for him, was high impact.

“Do you know any Hollywood agents?” he asked, his voice quavering.

Kemp laughed. “Sure I do, they all come here! You’re a writer?”

“I wrote a script,” he said sheepishly.

“Then I’m gonna set you up with Bernie Schwartz, who’s one of the biggest guys at ATI. Will that work for you, Peter? Does that float your boat?”

Joy-soaked, he exulted, “Oh yeah! That would be unbelievable!”

“Okay, then. I can’t promise you he’ll like your script, Peter, but I will promise you that he’ll read it and meet with you. Done deal.”

They shook hands again. On his way out, Kemp put his hand on Peter’s shoulder in a fatherly way. “And don’t be counting cards on me now, Peter, you hear? You’re on the side of righteousness.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” Bernie said. “Victor Kemp is Las Vegas. He’s a prince of a man.”

“So what about my script?” Peter asked, then stopped breathing to await the answer.

Crunch time.

“Actually, Peter, the script, as good as it is, needs a bit of polishing before I could send it out. But here’s the bigger thing. This is a big budget film, you got here. You got a train blowing up and a lot of special effects. These kind of action films are getting harder and harder to make unless they’ve got a built-in audience or franchise potential. And you’ve got a terrorism angle which is the real killer. Nine/eleven changed everything. I can tell you that very few of my projects that got cancelled back in ’01 have been resurrected. Nobody wants to make a terrorism picture anymore. I can’t sell it. I’m sorry, the world has changed.”

Exhale. He felt light-headed.

Roz came in. “Mr. Schwartz, your next appointment is here.”

“Where’s the time gone!” Bernie sprang to his feet, which made Peter levitate too. “Now, you go and write me a script about high-stakes gambling and card counters and throw in some sex and laughs and I promise I’ll read that. I’m so happy we were able to meet, Peter. You give my regards to Mr. Kemp. And listen, I’m glad you drove. Personally, I won’t fly anymore, at least commercial.”

When Peter got back to his small ranch house in Spring Valley that night there was an envelope sticking out from under his welcome mat. He tore it open and read the handwritten letter under the porch light.

Dear Peter,

I’m sorry you struck out with Bernie Schwartz today. Let me make it up to you. Come over to Room 1834 at the hotel tonight at ten.

Victor

Peter was tired and dispirited but it was a Friday night and he had the weekend to recover.

The check-in desk at the Constellation had a room key waiting for him and he went straight up. It was a big two-bedroom suite with a great view. The coffee table in the living room sported a fruit basket and a bottle of iced Perrier-Jouet. And another envelope. There were two cards inside, one a voucher for $1,000 of merchandise in the Constellation shopping plaza and the other a $5,000 line at the casino.

He sat down on the sofa, stunned, and looked down onto the neon landscape.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” he called out.

A female voice: “I don’t have a key!”

“Oh, sorry,” Peter said, sprinting for the door, “I thought it was housekeeping.”

She was gorgeous. And young, almost girlish. A brunette with an open, fresh face, firm ivory flesh pouring out of a clingy black cocktail dress.

“You must be Peter,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Mr. Kemp sent me to say hello.” Like many in Vegas, she was from somewhere else-her accent had a hillbilly twang, dainty and musical.

He blushed so brightly his skin looked like it was made of red plastic. “Oh!”

She slowly walked toward him, backing him up toward the sofa. “My name is Lydia. Am I okay?”

“Okay?”

“If you’d prefer a guy, that’s cool. Didn’t know for sure.” She had a charming ditziness about her.

His voice got squeaky from laryngeal constriction. “I don’t like guys! I mean, I like girls!”

“Well, good! ’Cause I’m a girl,” she purred with practiced artifice. “Why don’t you sit yourself down and open that bottle of champagne, Peter, while we figure out the kind of games you’d like to play.”

He reached the sofa as his knees were buckling and went down hard on his rump. His brain was swimming in a sea of juices-fear, lust, embarrassment-he’d never done anything like this before. It seemed so silly, yet…

Then, “Hey, I’ve seen you before!” Now Lydia was genuinely excited. “Yeah, I’ve seen you tons of times! It just hit me!”

“Where? At the casino?”

“No silly! You probably don’t recognize me because I’m not in that stupid uniform. My day job is at the reception desk at McCarran Airport, you know-the E.G. and G terminal.”

The rouge drained from his face.

This day was too much for him. Too much.

“Your name’s not Peter! It’s Mark something. Mark Shackleton. I’m good with names.”

“Well, you know how names are,” he said shakily.

“I get it! Hey, none of my beeswax! What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, honey. If you want to know the truth, my name’s not Lydia.”

He was speechless as he watched her strip off her black dress, showing all her black lacy gear underneath, talking a mile a minute as she went. “That is so cool! I’ve always wanted to speak to one of you guys! I mean how crazy must it be to commute to Area 51 every day. I mean it’s like so top secret it basically makes me hot!”

His mouth fell open a little.

“I mean I know you’re not allowed to talk about it but please, just nod if we’ve really got UFOs we’re studying out there cause that’s what everybody says!”

He tried to keep his head still.

“Was that a nod?” she asked. “Were you nodding?”

He composed himself enough to say, “I can’t say anything about what goes on there. Please!”

She looked bummed then brightened up and started to work again. “Okay! That’s cool. Tell you what, Peter,” she said, swinging her hips, slowly approaching the sofa, “I’ll be your personal UFO tonight-unidentified fucking object. How would that be?”