Fools die

Book II
Chapter 2

On the luckiest day of Jordan Hawley’s life he betrayed his three best friends. But yet unknowing, he wandered through the dice pit of the huge gambling casino in the Hotel Xanadu, wondering what game to try next. Still early afternoon, he was a ten-thousand-dollar winner. But he was tired of the glittering red dice skittering across green felt.

He moved out of the pit, the purple carpet sinking beneath his feet, and moved toward the hissing wheel of a roulette table, pretty with red and black boxes, punishing green zero and double zero. He made some foolhardy bets, lost and moved into the blackjack pit.

The small horseshoe blackjack tables ran down in double rows. He walked between them like a captive through an Indian gauntlet. Blue-backed cards flashed on either side. He made it through safely and came to the huge glass doors that led out into the streets of the city of Las Vegas. From here he could see down the Strip sentineled by luxury hotels.

Under the blazing Nevada sun, a dozen Xanadus glittered with million-watt neon signs. The hotels seemed to be melting down into a steely golden haze, a reachable mirage. Jordan Hawley was trapped inside the air-conditioned casino with his winnings. It would be madness to go out to where only other casinos awaited him, with their strange unknown fortunes. Here he was a winner, and soon he would see his friends. Here he was shielded from the burning yellow desert.

Jordan Hawley turned away from the glass door and sat down at the nearest blackjack table. Black hundred-dollar chips, tiny cindered suns, rattled in his hands. He watched a dealer sliding cards from his freshly made shoe, the oblong wooden box that held the cards.

Jordan bet heavy on each of two small circles, playing two hands. His luck was good. He played until the shoe ran out.

The dealer busted often, and when he shuffled up, Jordan moved on. His pockets bulged chips everywhere. But that was no sweat because he was wearing a specially designed Sy Deyore Vegas Winner sports coat. It had red crimson trim on sky blue cloth and specially zippered pockets that were optimistically capacious. The inside of the jacket also held special zippered cavities so deep no pickpocket could get at them. Jordan ’s winnings were safe, and he had plenty of room for more. Nobody had ever filled the pockets of a Vegas Winner jacket.

The casino, lit by many huge chandeliers, had a bluish haze, neon reflected by the deep purple carpeting. Jordan stepped out of this light and into the darkened area of the bar lounge with its lowered ceiling and small platform for performers. Seated at a small table, he could look out on the casino as a spectator looks on a lighted stage.

Mesmerized, he watched afternoon gamblers drift in intricate choreographed patterns from table to table. Like a rainbow flashing across a clear blue sky, a roulette wheel flashed its red, black numbers to match the table layout. Blue-white-backed cards skittered across green felt tables. White-dotted red square dice were dazzling flying fish over the whale-shaped crap tables. Far off, down the rows of blackjack tables, those dealers going off duty washed their hands high in the air to show they were not palming chips.

The casino stage began to fill up with more actors: sun worshipers wandering in from the outdoor pool, others from tennis courts, golf courses, naps and afternoon free and paid lovemaking in Xanadu’s thousand rooms. Jordan spotted another Vegas Winner jacket coming across the casino floor. It was Merlyn. Merlyn the Kid. Merlyn wavered as he passed the roulette wheel, his weakness. Though he rarely played because he knew its huge five and a half percent cut like a sharp sword. Jordan from the darkness waved a crimson-striped arm, and Merlyn took up his stride again as if he were passing through flames, stepped off the lighted stage of the casino floor and sat down. Merlyn’s zippered pockets did not bulge with chips, nor did he have any in his hands.

They sat there without speaking, easy with each other. Merlyn looked like a burly athlete in his crimson and blue jacket. He was younger than Jordan by at least ten years, and his hair was jet black. He also looked happier, more eager for the coming battle against fate, the night of gambling.

Then from the baccarat pit in the far corner of the casino they saw Cully Cross and Diane step through the elegant royal gray railing and move over the casino floor coming toward them. Cully too was wearing his Vegas Winner jacket. Diane was in a white summer frock, low-cut and cool for her day’s work, the top of her breasts dusted pearly white. Merlyn waved, and they came forward through the casino tables without swerving. And when they sat down, Jordan ordered the drinks. He knew what they wanted.

Cully spotted Jordan ’s bulging pockets. “Hey,” he said, “you went and got lucky without us?”

Jordan smiled. “A little.” They all looked at him curiously as he paid for the drinks and tipped the cocktail waitress with a red five-dollar chip. He noticed their glances. He did not know why they looked at him so oddly. Jordan had been in Vegas three weeks and had changed fearsomely in that three weeks. He had lost twenty pounds. His ash-blond hair had grown long, whiter. His face, though still handsome, was now haggard; the skin had a grayish tinge. He looked drained. But he was not conscious of this because he felt fine. Innocently, he wondered about these three people, his friends of three weeks and now the best friends he had in the world.

The one Jordan liked best was the Kid. Merlyn. Merlyn prided himself on being an impassive gambler. He tried never to show emotion when he lost or won and usually succeeded. Except that an exceptionally bad losing streak gave him a look of surprised bewilderment that delighted Jordan.

Merlyn the Kid never said much. He just watched everybody. Jordan knew that Merlyn the Kid kept tabs on everything he did, trying to figure him out. Which also amused Jordan. He had the Kid faked out. The Kid was looking for complicated things and never accepted that he, Jordan, was exactly what he presented to the world. But Jordan liked being with him and the others. They relieved his loneliness. And because Merlyn seemed more eager, more passionate, in his gambling, Cully had named him the Kid.

Cully himself was the youngest, only twenty-nine. But oddly enough seemed to be the leader of the group. They had met three weeks ago here in Vegas, in this casino, and they had only one thing in common. They were degenerate gamblers. Their three-week-long debauch was considered extraordinary because the casino percentage should have ground them into the Nevada desert sands in their first few days.

Jordan knew that the others, Cully “Countdown” Cross and Diane, were also curious about him, but he didn’t mind. He had very little curiosity about any of them. The Kid seemed young and too intelligent to be a degenerate gambler, but Jordan never tried to nail down why. It was really of no interest to him.

Cully was nothing to wonder about or so it seemed. He was your classical degenerate gambler with skills. He could count the cards in a four-deck blackjack shoe. He was an expert on all the gambling percentages. The Kid was not. Jordan was a cool, abstracted gambler where the Kid was passionate. And Cully professional. But Jordan had no illusions about himself. At this moment he was in their class. A degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse, Jordan thought.

They were all at the end of their bankrolls, they would all have to move on soon, except maybe Cully. Cully was part pimp and part tout. Always trying to work a con to get an edge on the casinos. Sometimes he got a blackjack dealer to go partners against the house, a dangerous game.

The girl, Diane, was really an outsider. She worked as a shill for the house and she was taking her break from the baccarat table. With them, because these were the only three men in Vegas she felt cared about her.

As a shill she played with casino money, lost and won casino money. She was subject not to fate but to the fixed weekly salary she received from the casino. Her presence was necessary to the baccarat table only in slack hours because gamblers shied away from an empty table. She was the flypaper for the flies. She was, therefore, dressed provocatively. She had long jet black hair she used as a whip, a sensuous full mouth and an almost perfect long-legged body. Her bust was on the small side, but it suited her. And the baccarat pit boss gave her home phone number to big players. Sometimes the pit boss or a ladderman would whisper that one of the players would like to see her in his room. She had the option to refuse, but it was an option to be used carefully. When she complied, she was not paid directly by the customer. The pit boss gave her a special chit for fifty or a hundred dollars that she could cash at the casino cage. This she hated to do. So she would pay one of the other girl shills five dollars to cash her chit for her. When Cully heard this, he became her friend. He liked soft women, he could manipulate them.

Jordan signaled the cocktail waitress for more drinks. He felt relaxed. It gave Jordan a feeling of virtue to be so lucky and so early in the day. As if some strange God had loved him, found him good and was rewarding him for the sacrifices he had offered up to the world he had left behind him. And he had this sense of comradeship with Cully and Merlyn.

They ate breakfast together often. And always had this late-afternoon drink before starting their big gambling action that would destroy the night. Sometimes they had a midnight snack to celebrate a win, the lucky man picking up the tab and buying keno tickets for the table. In the last three weeks they had become buddies, though they had absolutely nothing in common and their friendship would die with their gambling lust. But now, still not busted out, they had a strange affection for each other. Coming off a winning day, Merlyn the Kid had taken the three of them into the hotel clothing store and bought their crimson and blue Vegas Winner jackets. That day all three had been winners and had worn their jackets superstitiously ever since.

Jordan had met Diane on the night of her deepest humiliation, the same night he first met Merlyn. The day after meeting her he had bought her coffee on one of her breaks, and they had talked but he had not heard what she was saying. She sensed his lack of interest and had been offended. So there had been no action. He was sorry afterward, sorry that night in his ornately decorated room, alone and unable to sleep. As he was unable to sleep every night. He had tried sleeping pills, but they gave him nightmares that frightened him.

– -

The jazz combo would be coming on soon, the lounge filled up. Jordan noticed the look they had given him when he had tipped the waitress with a red five-dollar chip. They thought he was generous. But it was simply because he didn’t want to be bothered figuring out what the tip should be. It amused him to see how his values had changed. He had always been meticulous and fair but never recklessly generous. At one time his part of the world had been scaled and metered out. Everyone earned rewards. And finally it hadn’t worked. He was amazed now at the absurdity of having once based his life on such reasoning.

The combo was rustling through the darkness up to the stage. Soon they would be playing too loud for anyone to talk, and this was always the signal for the three men to start their serious gambling.

“Tonight’s my lucky night,” Cully said. “I got thirteen passes in my right arm.”

Jordan smiled. He always responded to Cully’s enthusiasm. Jordan knew him only by the name of Cully Countdown, the name he had earned at the blackjack tables. Jordan liked Cully because the man never stopped talking and his talk rarely required answers. Which made him necessary to the group because Jordan and Merlyn the Kid never talked much. And Diane, the baccarat shill, smiled a lot but didn’t talk much either.

Cully’s small-featured, dark, neat face was glowing with confidence. “I’m going to hold the dice for an hour,” he said. “I’m going to throw a hundred numbers and no sevens. You guys get on me.”

The jazz combo gave their opening flourish as if to back Cully up.

Cully loved craps, though his best skill was at blackjack where he could count down the shoe. Jordan loved baccarat because there was absolutely no skill or figuring involved. Merlyn loved roulette because it was to him the most mythical, magical game. But Cully had declared his infallibility tonight at craps and they would all have to play with him, ride his luck. They were his friends, they couldn’t jinx him. They rose to go to the dice pit and bet with Cully, Cully flexing his strong right arm that magically concealed thirteen passes.

Diane spoke for the first time. “Jordy had a lucky streak at baccarat. Maybe you should bet on him.”

“You don’t look lucky to me,” Merlyn said to Jordan.

It was against the rules for her to mention Jordan ’s luck to fellow gamblers. They might tap him for a loan or he might feel jinxed. But by this time Diane knew Jordan well enough to sense he didn’t care about any of the usual superstitions gamblers worried about.

Cully Countdown shook his head. “I have the feeling.” He brandished his right arm, shaking imaginary dice.

The music blared; they could no longer hear each other speak. It blew them out of their sanctuary of darkness into the blazing stage that was the casino floor. There were many more players now, but they could move fluidly. Diane, her coffee break over, went back to the baccarat table to bet the house money, to fill up space. But without passion. As a house shill, winning and losing house money, she was boringly immortal. And so she walked more slowly than the others.

Cully led the way. They were the Three Musketeers in their crimson and blue Vegas Winner sports jackets. He was eager and confident. Merlyn followed almost as eagerly, his gambling blood up. Jordan followed more slowly, his huge winnings making him appear heavier than the other two. Cully was trying to sniff out a hot table, one of his signposts being if the house racks of chips were low. Finally he led them to an open railing and the three lined up so that Cully would get the dice first coming around the stickman. They made small bets until Cully finally had the red cubes in his loving rubbing hands.

The Kid put twenty on the line. Jordan two hundred. Cully Countdown fifty. He threw a six. They all backed up their bets and bought all the numbers. Cully picked up the dice, passionately confident, and threw them strongly against the far side of the table. Then stared with disbelief. It was the worst of catastrophes. Seven out. Wiped. Without even catching another number. The Kid had lost a hundred and forty, Cully a big three fifty. Jordan had gone down the drain for fourteen hundred dollars.

Cully muttered something and wandered away. Thoroughly shaken, he was now committed to playing very careful blackjack. He had to count every card from the shoe to get an edge on the dealer. Sometimes it worked, but it was a long grind. Sometimes he would remember every card perfectly, figure out what was left in the shoe, get a ten percent edge on the dealer and bet a big stack of chips. And even then sometimes with that big ten percent edge he got unlucky and lost. And then count down another shoe. So now, his fantastic right arm having betrayed him, Cully was down to case money. The night before him was a drudgery. He had to gamble very cleverly and still not get unlucky.

Merlyn the Kid also wandered away, also down to his case money, but with no skills to back up his play. He had to get lucky.

Jordan, alone, prowled around the casino. He loved the feeling of being solitary in the crowd of people and the gambling hum. To be alone without being lonely. To be friends with strangers for an hour and never see them again. Dice clattering.

He wandered through the blackjack pit, the horseshoe tables in straight rows. He listened for the tick of a second carder. Cully had taught him and Merlyn this trick. A crooked dealer with fast hands was impossible to spot with the eye. But if you listened very carefully, you could hear the slight rasping tick when he slid out the second card from beneath the top card of his deck. Because the top card was the card the dealer needed to make his hand good.

A long queue was forming for the dinner show though it was only seven. There was no real action in the casino. No big bettors. No big winners. Jordan clicked the black chips in his hand, deliberating. Then he stepped up to an almost empty crap table and picked up the red glittering dice.

– -

Jordan unzipped the outside pocket of his Vegas Winner sports jacket and heaped black hundred-dollar chips into his table rack. He bet two hundred on the line, backed up his number and then bought all the numbers for five hundred dollars each. He held the dice for almost an hour. After the first fifteen minutes the electricity of his hot hand ran through the casino and the table jammed full. He pressed his bets to the limit of five hundred, and the magical numbers kept rolling out of his hand. In his mind he banished the fatal seven to hell. He forbade it to appear. His table rack filled to overflowing with black chips. His jacket pockets bulged to capacity. Finally his mind could no longer hold its concentration, could no longer banish the fatal seven, and the dice passed from his hands to the next player. The gamblers at the table gave him a cheer. The pit boss gave him metal racks to carry his chips to the casino cage. Merlyn and Cully appeared. Jordan smiled at them.

“Did you get on my roll?” he asked.

Cully shook his head. “I got in on the last ten minutes,” he said. “I did a little good.”

Merlyn laughed. “I didn’t believe in your luck. I stayed off.”

Merlyn and Cully escorted Jordan to the cashier’s cage to help him cash in. Jordan was astonished when the total of the metal racks came to over fifty thousand dollars. And his pockets bulged with still more chips.

Merlyn and Cully were awestricken. Cully said seriously, “Jordy, now’s the time for you to leave town. Stay here and they’ll get it back.”

Jordan laughed. “The night’s young yet.” He was amused that his two friends thought it such a big deal. But the strain told on him. He felt enormously tired. He said, “I’m going up to my room for a nap. I’ll meet you guys and buy a big dinner maybe about midnight. OK?”

The cage teller had finished counting and said to Jordan, “Sir, would you like cash or a check? Or would you like us to hold it for you here in the cage?”

Merlyn said, “Get a check.”

Cully frowned with thoughtful greed, but then noticed that Jordan ’s secret inner pockets still bulged with chips, and he smiled. “A check is safer,” he said.

The three of them waited, Cully and Merlyn flanking Jordan, who looked beyond them to the glittering casino pits. Finally the cashier reappeared with the saw-toothed yellow check and handed it to Jordan.

The three men turned together in an unconscious pirouette; their jackets flashed crimson and blue beneath the keno board lights above them. Then Merlyn and Cully took Jordan by the elbows and thrust him into one of the spoke like corridors toward his room.

– -

A plushy, expensive, garish room. Rich gold curtains, a huge silver quilted bed. Exactly right for gambling. Jordan took a hot bath and then tried to read. He couldn’t sleep. Through the windows the neon lights of the Vegas Strip sent flashes of rainbow color, streaking the walls of his room. He drew the curtains tighter, but in his brain he still heard the faint roar that diffused through the huge casino like surf on a distant beach. Then he put out the lights in the room and got into bed. It was a good fake, but his brain refused to be fooled. He could not fall asleep.

Then Jordan felt the familiar fear and terrible anxiety. If he fell asleep, he would die. He desperately wanted to sleep, yet he could not. He was too afraid, too frightened. But he could never understand why he was so terribly frightened.

He was tempted to try the sleeping pills again; he had done so earlier in the month and he had slept, but only with nightmares that he couldn’t bear. And left him depressed the next day. He preferred going without sleep. As now.

Jordan snapped on the light, got out of bed and dressed. He emptied out all his pockets and his wallet. He unzipped all the outside and inside pockets of his Vegas Winner sports jacket and shook it upside down so that all the black and green and red chips poured down on the silk coverlet. The hundred-dollar bills formed a huge pile, the black and reds forming curious spirals and checkered patterns. To pass the time he started to count the money and sort out the chips. It took him almost an hour.

He had over five thousand dollars in cash. He had eight thousand dollars in black hundred-dollar chips and another six thousand dollars in twenty-five-dollar greens, almost a thousand dollars in five-dollar reds. He was astonished. He took the big jagged-edged Hotel Xanadu check out of his wallet and studied the black and red script and the numbered amount in green. Fifty thousand dollars. He studied it carefully. There were three different signatures on the check. One of the signatures he particularly noticed because it was so large and the script so clear. Alfred Gronevelt.

And still he was puzzled. He remembered turning in some chips for cash several times during the day, but he hadn’t realized it was for more than five thousand. He shifted on the bed and all the carefully stacked piles collapsed into each other.

And now he was pleased. He was glad that he had enough money to stay in Vegas, that he would not have to go on to Los Angeles to start his new job. To start his new career, his new life, maybe a new family. He counted all the money again and added the check. He was worth seventy-one thousand dollars. He could gamble forever.

He switched off the bedside light so that he could lie there in the darkness with his money surrounding and touching his body. He tried to sleep to fight off the terror that always came over him in this darkened room. He could hear his heart beating faster and faster until finally he had to switch the light back on and get up from the bed.

– -

High above the city in his penthouse suite, the hotel owner, Alfred Gronevelt, picked up the phone. He called the dice pit and asked how much Jordan was ahead. He was told that Jordan had killed the table profits for the night. Then he called back the operator and told her to page Xanadu Five. He held on. It would take a few minutes for the page to cover all the areas of the hotel and penetrate the minds of the players. Idly he gazed out the penthouse window and could see the great thick red and green python of neon that wound down the Las Vegas Strip. And farther off, the dark surrounding desert mountains enclosing, with him, thousands of gamblers trying to beat the house, sweating for those millions of dollars of greenbacks lying so mockingly in cashier cages. Over the years these gamblers had left their bones on that gaudy neon Strip.

Then he heard Cully’s voice come over the phone. Cully was Xanadu Five. (Gronevelt was Xanadu One.)

“Cully, your buddy hit us big,” Gronevelt said. “You sure he’s legit?”

Cully’s voice was low. “Yeah, Mr. Gronevelt. He’s a friend of mine and he’s square. He’ll drop it back before he leaves.”

Gronevelt said, “Anything he wants, lay it on him. Don’t let him go wandering down the Strip, giving our money to other joints. Lay a good broad on him.”

“Don’t worry,” Cully said. But Gronevelt caught something funny in his voice. For a moment he wondered about Cully. Cully was his spy, checking the operation of the casino and reporting the blackjack dealers who were going partners with him to beat the house. He had big plans for Cully when this operation was over. But now he wondered.

“What about that other guy in your gang, the Kid?” Gronevelt said. “What’s his angle, what the hell is he doing here three weeks?”

“He’s small change,” Cully said. “But a good kid. Don’t worry, Mr. Gronevelt. I know what I got riding with you.”

“OK,” Gronevelt said. When he hung up the phone, he was smiling. Cully didn’t know that pit bosses had complained about Cully’s being allowed in the casino because he was a countdown artist. That the hotel manager had complained about Merlyn and Jordan’s being allowed to keep desperately needed rooms for so long despite fresh loaded gamblers who came in every weekend. What no one knew was that Gronevelt was intrigued by the friendship of the three men; how it ended would be Cully’s true test.

– -

In his room Jordan fought the impulse to go back down into the casino. He sat in one of the stuffed armchairs and lit a cigarette. Everything was OK now. He had friends, he had gotten lucky, he was free. He was just tired. He needed a long rest someplace far away.

He thought, Cully and Diane and Merlyn. Now his three best friends, he smiled at that.

They knew a lot of things about him. They had all spent hours in the casino lounge together, gossiping, resting between bouts of gambling. Jordan was never reticent. He would answer any question, though he never asked any. The Kid always asked questions so seriously, with such obvious interest, that Jordan never took offense.

Just for something to do he took his suitcase out of the closet to pack. The first thing that hit his eye was the small hand gun he had bought back home. He had never told his friends about the gun. His wife had left him and taken the children. She had left him for another man, and his first reaction had been to kill the other man. A reaction so alien to his true nature that even now he was constantly surprised. Of course, he had done nothing. The problem was to get rid of the gun. The best thing to do was to take it apart and throw it away piece by piece. He didn’t want to be responsible for anybody’s getting hurt by it. But right now he put it to one side and threw some clothes in the suitcase, then sat down again.

He wasn’t that sure he wanted to leave Vegas, the brightly lit cave of his casino. He was comfortable there. He was safe there. His not caring really about winning or losing was his magic cloak against fate. And most of all, his casino cave closed out all the other pains and traps of life itself.

He smiled again, thinking about Cully’s worrying about his winnings. What, after all, would he do with the money? The best thing would be to send it to his wife. She was a good woman, a good mother, a woman of quality and character. The fact that she had left him after twenty years to marry her lover did not, could not, change those facts. For at this moment, now that the months had passed, Jordan saw clearly the justice of her decision. She had a right to be happy. To live her life to its fullest potential. And she had been suffocating living with him. Not that he had been a bad husband. Just an inadequate one. He had been a good father. He had done his duty in every way. His only fault was that after twenty years he no longer made his wife happy.

His friends knew his story. The three weeks he had spent with them in Vegas seemed like years, and he could talk to them as he could never talk to anyone back home. It had come out over drinks in the lounge, after midnight meals in the coffee shop.

He knew they thought him cold-blooded. When Merlyn asked him what the visitation rights were with his children, Jordan shrugged. Merlyn asked if he would ever see his wife and kids again, and Jordan tried to answer honestly. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They’re OK.”

And Merlyn the Kid shot back at him, “And you, are you OK?”

And Jordan laughed without faking it, laughing at the way Merlyn the Kid zeroed in on him. Still laughing, he said, “Yeah, I’m OK.” And then just once he paid the Kid off for being so nosy. He looked him right in the eye and said coolly, “There’s nothing more to see. What you see is it. Nothing complicated. People are not that important to other people. When you get older, that’s the way it is.”

Merlyn looked back at him and lowered his eyes and then said very softly, “It’s just that you can’t sleep at night, right?”

Jordan said, “That’s right.”

Cully said impatiently, “Nobody sleeps in this town. Just get a couple of sleeping pills.”

“They give me nightmares,” Jordan said.

“No, no,” Cully said. “I mean them.” He pointed to three hookers seated around a table, having drinks. Jordan laughed. It was the first time he had heard the Vegas idiom. Now he understood why sometimes Cully broke off gambling with the announcement he was going to take on a couple of sleeping pills.

If there was ever a time for walking sleeping pills, it was tonight, but Jordan had tried that the first week in Vegas. He could always make it, but he never really felt the relief from tension afterward. One night a hooker, a friend of Cully’s, had talked him into “twins,” taking her girlfriend with her. Only another fifty and they would really shoot the works because he was a nice guy. And he’d said OK. It had been sort of cheery and comforting with so many breasts surrounding him. An infantile comfort. One girl finally cradled his head in her breast while the other one rode him astride. And at the final moment of tension, as finally he came, surrendering at least his flesh, he caught the girl astride giving a sly smile to the girl on whose breasts he rested. And he understood that now that he was finally out of the way, finished off, they could get down to what they really wanted. He watched while the girl who had been astride went down on the other girl with a passion far more convincing than she had shown with him. He wasn’t angry. He’d just as soon they got something out of it. It seemed in some way more natural to be so. He had given them an extra hundred. They thought it was for being so good, but really it was for that sly secret smile-for that comforting, sweetly confirming betrayal. And yet the girl lying back in the final exaltation of her Judas climax had reached out her hand blindly for Jordan to hold, and he had been moved to tears.

And all the walking sleeping pills had tried their best for him. They were the cream of the country, these girls. They gave you affection, they held your hand, they went to a dinner and a show, they gambled a little of your money, never cheated or rolled you. They made believe they truly cared and they fucked your brains out. All for a solitary hundred-dollar bill, a single Honeybee in Cully’s phrase. They were a bargain. An, Christ, they were a bargain. But he could never let himself be faked out even for the tiny bought moment. They washed him down before leaving him: a sick, sick man on a hospital bed. Well, they were better than the regular sleeping pills, they didn’t give him nightmares. But they couldn’t put him to sleep either. He hadn’t really slept for three weeks.

Wearily Jordan sagged against the headboard of his bed. He didn’t remember leaving his chair. He should put out the lights and try to sleep. But the terror would come back. Not a mental fear, but a physical panic that his body could not fight off even as his mind stood by and wondered what was happening. There was no choice. He had to go back down into the casino. He threw the check for fifty thousand into his suitcase. He would just gamble his cash and chips.

– -

Jordan scooped everything off the bed and stuffed his pockets. He went out of the room and down the hail into the casino. The real gamblers were at the tables now, in these early-morning hours. They had made their business deals, finished their dinners in the gourmet rooms, taken their wives to the shows and put them to bed or stuck them with dollar chips at the roulette wheel. Out of traffic. Or they had gotten laid, blown, attended a necessary civic function. All now free to battle fate. Money in hand, they stood in the front rank at crap tables. Pit bosses with blank markers waited for them to run out of chips so they could sign for another grand or two or three. During the coming dark hours men signed away fortunes. Never knowing why. Jordan looked away to the far end of the casino.

– -

An elegantly royal gray railed enclosure nestled the long oval baccarat table from the main casino floor. An armed security guard stood at the gate because the baccarat table dealt mostly in cash, not chips. The green felt table was guarded at each end by high towered chairs. Seated in these chairs were the two laddermen, checking the croupiers and payouts, their hawkish concentration only thinly disguised by the evening dress all casino employees wore inside the baccarat enclosure. The laddermen watched every motion of the three croupiers and pit boss who ran the action. Jordan started walking toward them until he could see the distinct figures of the croupiers in their formal evening dress.

Four Saints in black tie, they sang hosannas to winners, dirges to losers. Handsome men, their motions quick, their charm continental, they graced the game they ruled. But before Jordan could get through the royal gray gate, Cully and Merlyn stepped before him.

Cully said softly. “They only have fifteen minutes to go. Stay out of it.” Baccarat closed at 3 AM.

And then one of the Saints in black tie called out to Jordan, “We’re making up the last shoe, Mr. J. A Banker shoe.” He laughed. Jordan could see the cards all dumped out on the table, blue-backed, then scooped to be stacked before the shuffle, their inner white pale faces showing.

Jordan said, “How about you two guys coming in with me? I’ll put up the money and we’ll bet the limit in each chair.” Which meant that with the two-thousand limit Jordan would be betting six thousand on each hand.

“Are you crazy?” Cully said. “You can go to hell.”

“Just sit there,” Jordan said. “I’ll give you ten percent of everything your chair wins.”

“No,” Cully said and walked away from him and leaned against the baccarat railing.

Jordan said, “Merlyn, sit in a chair for me?”

Merlyn the Kid smiled at him and said quietly, “Yeah, I’ll sit in the chair.”

“You get ten percent,” Jordan said.

“Yeah, OK,” Merlyn said. They both went through the gate and sat down. Diane had the newly made up shoe, and Jordan sat down in the chair beside her so that he could get the shoe next. Diane bent her head to him.

“Jordy, don’t gamble anymore,” she said. He didn’t bet on her hand as she dealt blue cards out of the shoe. Diane lost, lost her casino’s twenty dollars and lost the bank and passed the shoe on to Jordan.

Jordan was busy emptying out all the outside pockets of his Vegas Winner sports jacket. Chips, black and green, hundred-dollar notes. He placed a stack of bills in front of Merlyn’s chair six. Then he took the shoe and placed twenty black chips in the Banker’s slot. “You too,” he said to Merlyn. Merlyn counted twenty hundred-dollar bills from the stack in front of him and placed them on his Banker’s slot.

The croupier held up one palm high to halt Jordan ’s dealing. Looked around the table to see that everyone had made his bet. His palm fell to a beckoning hand, and he sang out to Jordan, “A card for the Player.”

Jordan dealt out the cards. One to the croupier, one to himself. Then another one to the croupier and another one to himself. The croupier looked around the table and then threw his two cards to the man betting the highest amount on Player’s. The man peeked at his cards cautiously and then smiled and flung his two cards face up. He had a natural, invincible nine. Jordan tossed his cards face up without even looking at them. He had two picture cards. Zero. Bust-out. Jordan passed the shoe to Merlyn. Merlyn passed the shoe on to the next player. For one moment Jordan tried to halt the shoe, but something about Merlyn’s face stopped him. Neither of them spoke.

The golden brown box worked itself slowly around the table. It was chopping. Banker won. Then Player. No consecutive wins, for either. Jordan riding the Banker all the way, pressing, had lost over ten thousand dollars from his own pile, Merlyn still refusing to bet. Finally Jordan had the shoe once again.

He made his bet, the two-thousand-dollar limit. He reached over into Merlyn’s money and stripped off a sheaf of bills and threw them onto the Banker’s slot. He noticed briefly that Diane was no longer beside him. Then he was ready. He felt a tremendous surge of power, that he could will the cards to come out of the shoe as he wished them to.

Calmly and without emotion Jordan hit twenty-four straight passes. By the eighth pass the railing around the baccarat table was crowded and every gambler at the table was betting Bank, riding with luck. By the tenth pass the croupier in the money slot reached down and pulled out the special five-hundred-dollar chips. They were a beautiful creamy white threaded with gold.

Cully was pressed against the rail, watching, Diane standing with him. Jordan gave them a little wave. For the first time he was excited. Down at the other end of the table a South American gambler shouted, “Maestro,” as Jordan hit his thirteenth pass. And then the table became strangely silent as Jordan pressed on.

He dealt effortlessly from the shoe, his hands seemed to flow. Never once did a card stumble or slip as he passed it out from his hiding place in the wooden box. Never did he accidentally show a card’s pale white face. He flipped over his own cards with the same rhythmic movement each time, without looking, letting the head croupier call numbers and hits. When the croupier said, “A card for the Player,” Jordan slipped it out easily with no emphasis to make it good or bad. When the croupier called, “A card for the Banker,” again Jordan slipped it out smoothly and swiftly, without emotion. Finally going for the twenty-fifth pass, he lost to Player’s, the Player’s hand being played by the croupier because everyone was betting Bank.

Jordan passed the shoe on to Merlyn, who refused it and passed it on to the next chair. Merlyn, too, had stacks of gold five-hundred-dollar chip sin front of him. Since they had won on Bank, they had to pay the five percent house commission. The croupier counted out the commission plaques against their chair numbers. It was over five thousand dollars. Which meant that Jordan had won a hundred thousand dollars on that one hot hand. And every gambler around the table had bailed out.

Both laddermen high up in their chairs were on the phone calling the casino manager and the hotel owner with the bad news. An unlucky night at the baccarat table was one of the few serious dangers to the casino profit margin. Not that it meant anything in the long run, but an eye was always kept on natural disasters. Gronevelt himself came down from his penthouse suite and quietly stepped into the baccarat enclosure, standing in the corner with the pit boss, watching. Jordan saw him out of the corner of his eye and knew who he was, Merlyn had pointed him out one day.

The shoe traveled around the table and remained a coyly Banker’s shoe. Jordan made a little money. Then he had the shoe in his hand again.

This time effortlessly and easily, his hands balletic, he accomplished every baccarat player’s dream. He ran out the shoe with passes. There were no more cards left. Jordan had stack on stack of white gold chips in front of him.

Jordan threw four of the gold and white chips to the head croupier. “For you, gentlemen,” he said.

The baccarat pit boss said, “Mr. Jordan, why don’t you just sit here and we’ll get all this money turned into a check?”

Jordan stuffed the huge wad of hundred-dollar bills into his jacket, then the black hundred-dollar chips, leaving endless stacks of gold and white five-hundred-dollar chips on the table. “You can count them for me,” he said to the pit boss. He stood up to stretch his legs, and then he said casually, “Can you make up another shoe?”

The pit boss hesitated and turned to the casino manager standing with Gronevelt. The casino manager shook his head for a no. He had Jordan tabbed as a degenerate gambler. Jordan would surely stay in Vegas until he lost. But tonight was his hot night. And why buck him on his hot night? Tomorrow the cards would fall differently. He could not be lucky forever and then his end would be swift. The casino manager had seen it all before. The house had an infinity of nights and every one of them with the edge, the percentage. “Close the table,” the casino manager said.

Jordan bowed his head. He turned to look at Merlyn and said, “Keep track, you get ten percent of your chair’s win,” and to his surprise he saw a look almost of grief in Merlyn’s eyes and Merlyn said, “No.”

The money croupiers were counting up Jordan ’s gold chips and stacking them so that the laddermen, the pit boss and the casino manager could also keep track of their count. Finally they were finished. The pit boss looked up and said with reverence, “You got two hundred and ninety thousand dollars here, Mr. J. You want it all in a check?” Jordan nodded. His inside pockets were still lumpy with other chips, paper money. He didn’t want to turn them in.

The other gamblers had left the table and the enclosure when the casino manager said there would not be another shoe. Still the pit boss whispered. Cully had come through the railing and stood beside Jordan, as did Merlyn, the three of them looking like members of some street gang in their Vegas Winner sports coats.

Jordan was really tired now, too tired for the physical exertion of craps and roulette. And blackjack was too slow with its five-hundred-dollar limit. Cully said, “You’re not playing anymore. Jesus, I never saw anything like this. You can only go down. You can’t get that lucky anymore.” Jordan nodded in agreement.

The security guard took trays of Jordan ’s chips and the signed receipts from the pit boss to the cashier’s cage. Diane joined their group and gave Jordan a kiss. They were all tremendously excited. Jordan at that moment felt happy. Here ally was a hero. And without killing or hurting anyone. So easily. Just by betting a huge amount of money on the turning of cards. And winning.

They had to wait for the check to come back from the cashier’s cage. Merlyn said mockingly to Jordan, “You’re rich, you can do anything you want.”

Cully said, “He has to leave Vegas.”

Diane was squeezing Jordan ’s hand. But Jordan was staring at Gronevelt, standing with the casino manager and the two laddermen, who had come down from their chairs. The four men were whispering together. Jordan said suddenly, “Xanadu Number One, how about dealing up a shoe?”

Gronevelt stepped away from the other men, and his face was suddenly in the full glare of the light. Jordan could see that he was older than he had thought. Maybe about seventy, though ruddy and healthy. He had iron gray hair, thick and neatly combed. His face was really tanned. His figure was sturdy, not yet willowing away with age. Jordan could see that he had reacted only slightly to being addressed by his telephone codename.

Gronevelt smiled at him. He wasn’t angry. But something in him responded to the challenge, brought back his youth, when he had been a degenerate gambler. Now he had made his world safe, his life was under control. He had many pleasures, many duties, some dangers but very rarely a pure thrill. It would be sweet to taste one again, and besides, he wanted to see just how far Jordan would go, what made him tick.

Gronevelt said softly, “You have a check for two hundred ninety grand coming from the cage, right?”

Jordan nodded.

Gronevelt said, “I’ll have them make up a shoe. We play one hand. Double or nothing. But you have to bet Player’s, not Banker’s.”

Everyone in the baccarat enclosure seemed stunned. The croupiers looked at Gronevelt in amazement. Not only was he risking a huge sum of money, contrary to all casino laws, he was also risking his casino license if the State Gaming Commission got tough about this bet. Gronevelt smiled at them. “Shuffle those cards,” he said. “Make up the shoe.”

At that moment the pit boss came through the gate of the enclosure and handed Jordan the yellow oblong ragged-edged piece of paper that was the check. Jordan looked at it for just one moment, then put it down on the Player’s slot and said smiling to Gronevelt, “You got a bet.”

Jordan saw Merlyn back away and lean up against the royal gray railing. Merlyn again was studying him intently. Diane took a few steps to the side in bewilderment. Jordan was pleased with their astonishment. The only thing he didn’t like was betting against his own luck. He hated the idea of dealing the cards out of the shoe and betting against his hand. He turned to Cully.

“Cully, deal the cards for me,” he said.

But Cully shrank away, horrified. Then Cully glanced at the croupier, who had dumped the cards from the canister under the table and was stacking them for the shuffle. Cully seemed to shudder before he turned to face Jordan.

“Jordy, it’s a sucker bet,” Cully said softly as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. He shot a quick glance at Gronevelt, who was staring at him. But he went on. “Listen, Jordy, the Bank has a two and a half percent edge on the Player all the time. Every hand that’s dealt. That’s why the guy who bets Bank has to pay five percent commission. But now the house has Bank. On a bet like this the commission doesn’t mean anything. It’s better to have the two and a half percent edge in the odds on how the hand comes out. Do you understand that, Jordy?” Cully kept his voice in an even tone. As if he were reasoning with a child.

But Jordan laughed. “I know that,” he said. He almost said that he had counted on that, but it wasn’t really true. “How about it, Cully, deal the cards for me. I don’t want to go against my luck.”

The croupier shuffled the huge deck in sections, put them all together. He held out the blank yellow plastic card for Jordan to cut. Jordan looked at Cully. Cully backed away without another word. Jordan reached out and cut the deck. Everyone now advanced toward the edge of the table. Gamblers outside the enclosure, seeing the new shoe, tried to get in and were barred by the security guard. They started to protest. But suddenly they fell silent. They crowded around outside the railing. The croupier turned up the first card he slid out of the shoe. It was seven. He slid seven cards out of the shoe, burying them in the slot. Then he shoved the shoe across the table to Jordan. Jordan sat down in his chair. Suddenly Gronevelt spoke. “Just one hand,” he said.

The croupier held up his arm and said carefully, “Mr. J., you are betting Player’s, you understand? The hand I turn up will be the hand you are betting on. The hand you turn up as the Banker will be the hand you are betting against.”

Jordan smiled. “I understand.”

The croupier hesitated and said, “If you prefer, I can deal from the shoe.”

“No,” Jordan said. “That’s OK.” He was really excited. Not only for the money but because of the power flowing from him to cover the people and the casino.

The croupier said, holding up his palm, “One card to me, one card to yourself. Then one card to me and one card to yourself. Please.” He paused dramatically, held up his hand nearest Jordan and said, “A card for the Player.”

Jordan swiftly and effortlessly slid the blue-backed cards from the slotted shoe. His hands, again extraordinarily graceful, did not falter. They traveled the exact distance across the green felt to the waiting hands of the croupier, who quickly flipped them face up and then stood stunned by the invincible nine. Jordan couldn’t lose. Cully behind him let out a roar, “Natural nine.”

For the first time Jordan looked at his two cards before turning them over. He was actually playing Gronevelt’s hand and so hoping for losing cards. Now he smiled and turned up his Banker’s cards. “Natural nine,” he said. And so it was. The bet was a standoff. A draw. Jordan laughed. “I’m too lucky,” he said.

Jordan looked up at Gronevelt. “Again?” he asked.

Gronevelt shook his head. “No,” he said. And then to the croupier and the pit boss and the laddermen. “Close down the table.” Gronevelt walked out of the enclosure. He had enjoyed the bet, but he knew enough not to stretch life to a dangerous limit. One thrill at a time. Tomorrow he would have to square the unorthodox bet with the Gaming Commission. And he would have to have a long talk with Cully the next day. Maybe he had been wrong about Cully.

– -

Like bodyguards, Cully, Merlyn and Diane surrounded Jordan and herded him out of the baccarat enclosure. Cully picked up the yellow jagged-edged check from the green felt table and stuffed it into Jordan’s left breast pocket and then zipped it up to make it safe. Jordan was laughing with delight. He looked at his watch. It was 4A.M. The night was almost over. “Let’s have coffee and breakfast,” he said. He led them all to the coffee shop with its yellow upholstered booths.

When they were seated, Cully said, “OK, he’s got close to four hundred grand. We have to get him out of here.”

“Jordy, you have to leave Vegas. You’re rich. You can do anything you want.” Jordan saw that Merlyn was watching him intently. Damn, that was getting irritating.

Diane touched Jordan on his arm and said, “Don’t play anymore. Please.” Her eyes were shining. And suddenly Jordan realized that they were acting as if he had escaped or been pardoned from some sort of exile. He felt their happiness for him, and to repay it he said, “Now let me stake you guys, you too, Diane. Twenty grand apiece.”

They were all a little stunned. Then Merlyn said, “I’ll take the money when you get on that plane leaving Vegas.”

Diane said, “That’s the deal, you have to get on the plane, you have to leave here. Right, Cully?”

Cully was not that enthusiastic. What was wrong with taking the twenty grand now, then putting him on the plane? The gambling was over. They couldn’t jinx him. But Cully had a guilty conscience and couldn’t speak his mind. And he knew this would probably be the last romantic gesture of his life. To show true friendship, like those two assholes Merlyn and Diane. Didn’t they know Jordan was crazy? That he could sneak away from them and lose the whole fortune?

Cully said, “Listen, we have to keep him away from the tables. We got to guard him and hogtie him until that plane leaves tomorrow for LA.”

Jordan shook his head. “I’m not going to Los Angeles. It has to be farther away. Anyplace in the world.” He smiled at them. “I’ve never been out of the United States.”

We need a map,” Diane said. “I’ll call the bell captain. He can get us a map of the world. Bell captains can do anything.” She picked up the phone on the ledge of the booth and made the call. The bell captain had once gotten her an abortion on ten minutes’ notice.

The table became covered with platters of food, eggs, bacon, pancakes and small breakfast steaks. Cully had ordered like a prince.

While they were eating, Merlyn said, “You sending the checks to your kids?” He didn’t look at Jordan, who studied him quietly, then shrugged. He really hadn’t thought about it. For some reason he was angry with Merlyn for asking the question, but just for a moment.

“Why should he give the money to his kids?” Cully said. “He took care of them pretty good. Next thing you’ll be saying he should send the checks to his wife.” He laughed as if it were beyond the realm of possibility, and again Jordan was a little angry. He had given a wrong picture of his wife. She was better than that.

Diane lit a cigarette. She was just drinking coffee, and she had a slight reflective smile on her face. For just one moment her hand brushed Jordan ’s sleeve in some act of complicity or understanding as if he too were a woman and she were allying herself with him. At that moment the bell captain came personally with an atlas. Jordan reached into a pocket and gave him a hundred-dollar bill. The bell captain almost ran away before Cully, outraged, could say anything. Diane started to unfold the atlas.

Merlyn the Kid was still intent on Jordan. “What does it feel like?” he asked.

“Great,” Jordan said. He smiled, amused at their passion.

Cully said, “You go near a crap table and we’re gonna climb all over you. No shit.” He slammed his hand down on the table. “No more.”

Diane had the map spread out over the table, covering the messy dishes of half-eaten food. They pored over it, except Jordan. Merlyn found a town in Africa. Jordan said calmly he didn’t want to go to Africa.

Merlyn was leaning back, not studying the map with the others. He was watching Jordan. Cully surprised them all when he said, “Here’s a town in Portugal I know, Mercedas.” They were surprised because for some reason they had never thought of him as living in any place but Vegas. Now suddenly he knew a town in Portugal.

“Yeah, Mercedas,” Cully said. “Nice and warm. Great beach. It has a small casino with a fifty-dollar top limit and the casino is only open six hours a night. You can gamble like a big shot and never even get hurt. How does that sound to you, Jordan? How about Mercedas?”

“OK,” Jordan said.

Diane began to plan the itinerary. “ Los Angeles over the North Pole to London. Then a flight to Lisbon. Then I guess you go by car to Mercedas.”

“No,” Cully said. “There’s planes to some big town near there. I forget which. And make sure he gets out of London fast. Their gambling clubs are murder.”

Jordan said, “I have to get some sleep.”

Cully looked at him. “Jesus, yeah, you look like shit. Go up to your room and conk out. We’ll make all the arrangements. We’ll wake you up before your plane leaves. And don’t try coming back down into the casino. Me and the Kid will be guarding the joint.”

Diane said, “ Jordan, you’ll have to give me some money for the tickets.” Jordan took a huge wad of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and put them on the table. Diane carefully counted out thirty of them.

“It can’t cost more than three thousand first class all the way, could it?” she asked. Cully shook his head.

“Tops, two thousand,” Cully said. “Book his hotels too.” He picked the rest of the bills up from the table and stuffed them back into Jordan ’s pocket.

Jordan got up and said, trying for the last time, “Can I stake you now?”

Merlyn said quickly, “No, it’s bad luck, not until you get on the plane.” Jordan saw the look of pity and affection on Merlyn’s face. Then Merlyn said, “Get some sleep. When we call you, we’ll help you pack.”

“OK,” Jordan said and left the coffee shop and went down the corridor that led to his room. He knew Cully and Merlyn had followed him to where the corridor started, to make sure that he didn’t stop to gamble. He vaguely remembered Diane kissing him good-bye, and even Cully had gripped his shoulder with affection. Who would have thought that a guy like Cully had ever been in Portugal.

When Jordan entered his room, he double bolted the door and put the interior chain on it. Now he was absolutely secure. He sat down on the edge of the bed. And suddenly he was terribly angry. He had a headache and his body was trembling uncontrollably.

How dare they feel affection for him? How dare they show him compassion? They had no reason-no reason. He had never complained. He had never sought their affection. He had never encouraged any love from them. He did not desire it. It disgusted him.

He slumped hack against the pillows, so tired he could not undress. The jacket, lumpy with chips and money, was too uncomfortable, and he wriggled out of it and let it drop to the carpeted floor. He closed his eyes and thought he would fall asleep instantly, but again that mysterious terror electrified his body, forcing him upward. He couldn’t control the violent trembling of his legs and arms.

The darkness of the room began to run with tiny ghosts of dawn. Jordan thought he might call his wife and tell her of the fortune he had won. But knew he could not. And could not tell his children. Or any of his old friends. In the last gray shreds of this night there was not a person in the world he wished to dazzle with his good luck. There was not one person in the world to share his joy in winning this great fortune.

He got up from the bed to pack. He was rich and must go to Mercedas. He began to weep; an overwhelming grief and rage drowned out everything. He saw the gun lying in the suitcase and then his mind was confused. All the gambling he had done in the last sixteen hours tumbled through his brain, the dice flashing winning numbers, the blackjack tables with their winning hands, the oblong baccarat table strewn with the pale white faces of turned dead cards. Shadowing those cards, a croupier, in black tie and dazzling white shirt, held up a palm, calling softly, “A card for the Player.”

In one smooth, swift motion Jordan scooped the gun up in his right hand. His mind icily clear. And then, as surely and swiftly as he had dealt his fabulous twenty-four winning hands in baccarat, he swung the muzzle up into the soft line of his neck and pulled the trigger. In that eternal second he felt a sweet release from terror. And his last conscious thought was that he would never go to Mercedas.