Fools die

Chapter 13

I was finally ready for my trip to Las Vegas to see Cully again. It would be the first time in over three years, three years since Jordan had blown himself away in his room, a four-hundred-grand winner.

We had kept in touch, Cully and I. He phoned me a couple of times a month and sent Christmas presents for me and my wife and kids, stuff I recognized that came from the Xanadu Hotel gift shop, where I knew he got them for a fraction of their selling price or, knowing Cully, even for nothing. But still, it was nice of him to do it. I had told Value about Cully but never told her about Jordan.

I knew Cully had a good job with the hotel because hi~ secretary answered his phone with “Assistant to the president.” And I wondered how in a few years he had managed to climb so high. His telephone voice and manner of speaking had changed; he spoke in a lower tone; he was more sincere, more polite, warmer. An actor playing a different part. Over the phone it would be just idle chitchat and gossip about big winners and big losers and funny stories about the characters staying in the hotel. But never anything about himself. Eventually one of us would mention Jordan, usually near the end of the call, or maybe the mention of Jordan would end the call. He was our touchstone.

Value packed my suitcase. I was going over the weekend so I would only have to miss a day’s work at my Army Reserve job. And in the far-off distant future, which I smelled, the magazine story would give me the cover for the cops about why I went to Vegas.

The kids were in bed while Vallie was packing my bag because I was leaving early the next morning. She gave me a little smile. “God, it was terrible the last time you went. I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

“I just had to get away then,” I said. “Things were going bad.”

“Everything’s changed since,” Vallie said musingly. “Three years ago we didn’t have money at all. Gee, we were so broke I had to ask my father for some money and I was afraid you’d find out. And you acted as if you didn’t love me anymore. That trip changed everything. You were different when you came back. You weren’t mad at me anymore and you were more patient with the kids. And you got work with the magazines.”

I smiled at her. “Remember, I came back a winner. A few extra grand. Maybe if I’d come back a loser, it would have been a whole different story.”

Vallie snapped the suitcase shut. “No,” she said. “You were different. You were happier, happier with me and the kids.”

“I found out what I was missing,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “With all those beautiful hookers in Vegas.”

“They cost too much,” I said. “I needed my money to gamble.”

It was all kidding around, but part of it was serious. If I told her the truth, that I never looked at another woman, she wouldn’t believe me. But I could give good reasons. I had felt so much guilt about being such a lousy husband and father who couldn’t give his family anything, who couldn’t even make a decent living for them, that I couldn’t add to that guilt by being unfaithful to her. And the overriding fact was that we were so lucky in bed together. She was really all I wanted, perfect for me. I thought I was for her.

“Are you going to do some work tonight?” she asked. She was really asking if we were going to make love first so that she could get ready. Then, after we’d made love, usually I would get up to work on my writing and she would fall so soundly asleep she would not stir until morning. She was a great sleeper. I was lousy at it.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to work. I’m too excited about the trip to sleep anyway.”

It was nearly midnight, but she went into the kitchen to make me a fresh pot of coffee and some sandwiches. I would work until three or four in the morning and then still wake up before she did in the morning.

The worst part about being a writer, anyway for me when I was working well, was the inability to sleep. Lying in bed, I could never turn off the machine in my brain that kept thinking about the novel I was working on. As I lay in the dark, the characters became so real to me that I forgot my wife and my kids and everyday life. But tonight I had another less literary reason. I wanted Vallie to go to sleep so that I could get my big stash of bribe money from its hiding place.

From the bedroom closet way back from its darkest corner I took my old Las Vegas Winner sports jacket and carried it into the kitchen. I had never worn it since I had come home from Las Vegas three years ago. Its bright colors had faded in the darkness of the closet, but it was still pretty garish. I put it on and went into the kitchen. Value took one look at it and said, “Merlyn, you’re not going to wear that.”

“My lucky jacket,” I said. “Besides, it’s comfortable for the plane ride.” I knew she had hidden it way back in the closet so that I would never see it and never think to wear it. She hadn’t dared throw it out. Now the jacket would come in handy.

Vallie sighed. “You’re so superstitious.”

She was wrong. I was rarely superstitious even though I thought I was a magician and it’s really not the same thing.

After Vallie kissed me good-night and went to bed, I had some coffee and looked over the manuscript I had taken from my desk in the bedroom. I did mostly editing for an hour. I took a peek into the bedroom and saw Vallie was sound asleep. I kissed her very lightly. She didn’t stir. Now I loved it when she kissed me good-night. The simple, dutiful, wifely kiss that seemed to seal us away from all the loneliness and treacherousness of the outside world. And often lying in bed, in the early-morning hours, Vallie asleep and I not able to sleep, I would kiss her lightly on the mouth, hoping she would wake up to make me feel less lonely by making love. But this time I was aware that I had given her a Judas kiss, partly out of affection, but really to make sure she would not awaken when I dug out the hidden money.

– -

I closed the bedroom door and then went to the hail closet which held the big trunk with all my old manuscripts, the carbon copies of my novel and the original manuscript of the book I had worked on for five years and had earned me three thousand dollars. It was a hell of a lot of paper, all the rewrites and carbons, paper I had thought would make me rich and famous and honored. I dug underneath to the big reddish folder with its stringed cover. I pulled it out and brought it into the kitchen. Sipping my coffee, I counted out the money. A little over forty thousand dollars. The money had come rolling in very fast lately. I had become the Tiffany’s of bribe takers, with rich, trusting customers. The twenties, about seven thousand dollars’ worth, I left in the envelope. There were thirty-three thousand in hundreds. I put these in five long envelopes I had brought from my desk. Then I crammed the money-filled envelopes into the different pockets of the Vegas Winner sports jacket. I zipped up the pockets and hung the coat on the back of my chair.

In the morning, when Vallie hugged me good-bye, she would feel something in the pockets, but I would just tell her it was some notes for the article I was taking with me to Vegas.