When I told Jordan ’s widow that my name was Merlyn, she gave me a cool, friendly stare, without guilt or grief. I recognized a woman who had complete control of her life, not from bitchiness or self-indulgence, but out of intelligence. I understood why Jordan had never said a harsh word against her. She was a very special woman, the kind a lot of men love. But I didn’t want to know her. I was too much on Jordan ’s side. Though I had always sensed his coldness, his rejection of all of us beneath his courtesy and seeming friendliness.
– -
The first time I met Jordan I knew there was something out of sync with him. It was my second day in Vegas and I had hit it lucky playing percentage blackjack, so I jumped in for a crack at the baccarat table. Baccarat is strictly a luck game with a twenty-dollar minimum. You were completely in the hands of fate, and I always hated that feeling. I always felt I could control my destiny if I tried hard enough.
I sat down at the long oval baccarat table, and I noticed Jordan at the other end. He was a very handsome guy of about forty, maybe even forty-five. He had this thick white hair but not white from age. A white that he was born with, from some albino gene. There was just me and him and another player, plus three house shills to take up space. One of the shills was Diane, sitting two chairs down from Jordan, dressed to advertise that she was in action, but I found myself watching Jordan.
He seemed to me that day an admirable gambler. He never showed elation when he won. He never showed disappointment when he lost. When he handled the shoe, he did it expertly, his hands elegant, very white. But as I watched him making piles of hundred-dollar bills, it suddenly dawned on me that he really didn’t care whether he won or lost.
The third player at the table was a “steamer,” a bad gambler who chased losing bets. He was small and thin and would have been bald except that his jet black hair was carefully streaked across his pate. His body was packed with enormous energy. Every movement he had was violent. The way he threw his money down to bet, the way he picked up a winning hand, the way he counted the bills in front of him and angrily scrambled them into a heap to show he was losing. Handling the shoe, he dealt without control so that often a card would flip over or fly past the outstretched hand of the croupier. But the croupier running the table was impassive, his courtesy never varied. A Player card sailed through the air, tilting to one side. The mean-looking guy tried to add another black hundred-dollar chip to his bet. The croupier said, “Sorry, Mr. A., you can’t do that.”
Mr. A.’s angry mouth got even meaner. “What the fuck, I only dealt one card. Who says I can’t?”
The croupier looked up to the ladderman on his right, the one sitting high above Jordan. The ladderman gave a slight nod, and the croupier said politely, “Mr. A., you have a bet.”
Sure enough, the first card for the Player was a four, bad card. But Mr. A. lost anyway when Player drew out on him. The shoe passed to Diane.
Mr. A. bet Player’s against Diane’s Bank. I looked down the table at Jordan. His white head was bowed, he was paying no attention to Mr. A. But I was. Mr. A. put five one-hundred-dollar bills on Player’s. Diane dealt out the cards mechanically. Mr. A. got the Player’s cards. He squeezed them out and threw the hand down violently. Two picture cards. Nothing. Diane had two cards totaling five. The croupier called, “A card for the Player.” Diane dealt Mr. A. another card. It was another picture. Nothing. The croupier sang out, “The Bank wins.”
Jordan had bet Bank. I had been about to bet Player’s, but Mr. A. pissed me off, so I bet Bank. Now I saw Mr. A. lay down a thousand dollars on Player’s. Jordan and I let our money ride on Bank.
She won the second hand with a natural nine over Mr. A.’s seven. Mr. A. gave Diane a malevolent stare as if to scare her out of winning. The girl’s behavior was impeccable.
She was very carefully neutral, very carefully a non participant, very carefully a mechanical functionary. But despite all this, when Mr. A. bet a thousand dollars on Player’s and Diane threw over a winning natural nine, Mr. A. slammed his fist down on the table and said, “Fucking cunt,” and looked at her with hatred. The croupier running the game stood straight up, not a muscle in his face changing. The ladderman leaned forward like Jehovah ducking his head out of the heavens. There was now some tension at the table.
I was watching Diane. Her face crumpled a little. Jordan stacked his money as if unaware of what was happening. Mr. A. got up and went over to the pit boss at the desk used for writing markers. He whispered. The pit boss nodded. Everyone at the table was up to stretch his legs while a new shoe was being assembled. I saw Mr. A. leave through the royal gray gate toward the corridors that led to the hotel rooms. I saw the pit boss go over to Diane and talk to her, and then she too left the baccarat enclosure. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Diane was going to turn a trick with Mr. A. and change his luck.
It took the croupiers about five minutes to make up the new shoe. I ducked out to make a few roulette bets. When I got back, the shoe was running. Jordan was still in the same seat, and there were two male shills at the table.
The shoe went around the table three times just chopping before Diane came back. She looked terrible, her mouth sagged, her whole face looked as if it would fall apart, despite the fact that it had been freshly made up. She took a seat between me and one of the money croupiers. He too noticed something wrong. For a moment he bent his head down and I heard him whisper, “You OK, Diane?” It was the first time I heard her name.
She nodded. I passed her the shoe. But her hands dealing the cards out of the shoe were trembling. She kept her head down to hide the tears glistening in her eyes. Her whole face was “shamed,” I could think of no other word for it. Whatever Mr. A had done to her in his room was sure enough punishment for her luck against him. The money croupier made a slight motion to the pit boss, and he came over and tapped Diane on the arm. She left her seat at the table and a male shill took her place. Diane sat at one of the seats alongside of the rail, with another girl shill.
The shoe was still chopping from Bank to Player to Bank to Player. I was trying to switch my bets at the right time to catch the chopping rhythm. Mr. A. came back to the table, to the very seat where he had left his money and cigarettes and lighter.
He looked like a new man. He had showered and recombed his hair. He had even shaved. He didn’t look that mean anymore. He had on a fresh shirt and trousers and some of his furious energy had been drained away. He wasn’t relaxed by any means, but at least he didn’t occupy space like one of those whirling cyclones you see in comic strips.
As he sat down, he spotted Diane seated alongside the railing and his eyes gleamed. He gave her a malicious, admonitory grin. Diane turned her head.
But whatever he had done, no matter how terrible, had changed not only his humor but his luck. He bet Player’s and won constantly. Meanwhile, nice guys like Jordan and me were getting murdered. That pissed me off, or the pity I felt for Diane, so I deliberately spoiled Mr. A.’s good day.
Now there are guys who are a pleasure to gamble with around a casino table and guys who are a pain in the ass. At the baccarat table the biggest pain in the ass is the guy, Banker or Player, who when he gets his first two cards takes a long drawn-out minute to squeeze them out as the table waits impatiently for the determination of their fate.
This is what I started doing to Mr. A. He was in chair two and I was in chair five. So we were on the same half of the table and could sort of look in each other’s eyes. Now I was a head taller than Mir. A. and better built. I looked twenty-one years old. Nobody could guess I was over thirty and had three kids and a wife back in New York that I had run away from. So outwardly I was a pretty soft touch to a guy like Mr. A. Sure, I might be physically stronger, but he was a legitimate bad guy with an obvious rep in Vegas. I was just a dopey kid turning degenerate gambler.
Like Jordan, I nearly always bet Bank in baccarat. But when Mr. A. got the shoe, I went head to head against him and bet Player’s. When I got the Player’s two cards, I squeezed them out with exquisite care before showing them face up. Mr. A. buzzed his body around in his seat; he won, but he couldn’t contain himself and on the next hand said, “Come on, jerk, hurry up.”
I kept my cards face down on the table and looked at him calmly. For some reason my eyes caught Jordan down at the other end of the table. He was betting Bank with Mr. A., but he was smiling. I squeezed my cards very slowly.
The croupier said, “Mr. M., you’re holding up the game. The table can’t make any money.” He gave me a brilliant smile, friendly. “They don’t change no matter how hard you squeeze.”
“Sure,” I said and threw the cards face up with the disgusted expression of a loser. Again Mr. A. smiled in anticipation. Then, when he saw my cards, he was stunned. I had an unbeatable natural nine.
Mr. A. said, “Fuck.”
“Did I throw up my cards fast enough?” I said politely.
He gave me a murderous look and shuffled his money. He still hadn’t caught on. I looked down to the other end of the table and Jordan was smiling, a really delighted smile, even though he too had lost riding with Mr. A. I jockeyed Mr. A. for the next hour.
I could see Mr. A. had juice in the casino. The ladderman had let him get away with a couple of “claim agent” tricks. The croupiers treated him with careful courtesy. This guy was making five-hundred– and thousand-dollar bets. I was betting mostly twenties. So if there was any trouble, I was the one the house’d bounce on.
But I was playing it just right. The guy had called me a jerk and I hadn’t got mad or tough. When the croupier told me to turn over my cards faster, I had done so amiably. The fact that Mr. A. was now “steaming” was his gambler’s fault. It would be a tremendous loss of face for the casino to take his side. They couldn’t let Mr. A. get away with anything outrageous because it would humiliate them as well as me. As a peaceable gambler I was, in a sense, their guest, entitled to protection from the house.
Now I saw the ladderman opposite me reach down the side of his chair to the phone attached to it. He made two calls. While watching him, I missed betting when Mr. A. got the shoe. I stopped betting for a while and just relaxed in the chair. The baccarat chairs were plush and very comfortable. You could sit in them for twelve hours, and many people did.
The tension at the table relaxed when I refused to bet Mr. A.’s shoe. They figured I was being prudent or chickenshit. The shoe kept chopping. I noticed two very big guys in suits and ties come through the baccarat gate. They went over to the pit boss, who obviously told them the heat was off and they could relax because I could hear them laughing and telling jokes.
The next time Mr. A. got the shoe, I shoved a twenty-dollar bet on Player’s. Then to my surprise the croupier receiving the Player’s two cards didn’t toss them to me but to the other end of the table, near Jordan. That was the first time I ever saw Cully.
Cully had this lean, dark Indian face, yet affable because of his unusually thickened nose. He smiled down the table at me and Mr. A. I noticed he had bet forty dollars on Player’s. His bet outranked my twenty, so he got the Player’s cards to flip over. Cully turned them over immediately. Bad cards, and Mr. A. beat him. Mr. A. noticed Cully for the first time and smiled broadly.
“Hey, Cully, what you doing playing baccarat, you fucking countdown artist?”
Cully smiled. “Just giving my feet a rest.”
Mr. A. said, “Bet with me, you jerkoff. This shoe is ready to turn Bank.”
Cully just laughed. But I noticed he was watching me. I put down my twenty bet on Player’s. Cully immediately put down forty on Player’s to make sure he would get the cards. Again he immediately turned up his cards, and again Mr. A. beat him.
Mr. A. called, “Attaboy, Cully, you’re my lucky charm. Keep betting against me.”
The money croupier paid off the Banker’s slots and then said respectfully, “Mr. A., you’re up to the limit.”
Mr. A. considered for a moment. “Let it ride,” he said.
I knew that I would have to be very careful. I kept my face impassive. The slot croupier running the game had his palm up to halt the dealing of the shoe until all bets had been made. He glanced down inquiringly at me. I didn’t make a move. The croupier looked to the other end of the table. Jordan made a bet on the Bank, riding with Mr. A. Cully put a hundred-dollar bet on Player’s, watching me all the time.
The slot croupier let his hand fall, but before Mr. A. could get a card out of the shoe, I threw the stack of bills in front of me on Player’s. Behind me the buzz of voices of the pit boss and his two friends stopped. Opposite me the ladderman inclined his head from the heavens.
“The money plays,” I said. Which meant that the croupier could count it out only after the bet was decided. The dollars and Player’s cards must come to me.
Mr. A. dealt them to the slot croupier. The slot croupier threw the two cards face down across the green felt. I gave them a quick squeeze and threw them over. Only Mr. A. could see how I made my face fall slightly as if I had lousy cards. But what I turned over was a natural nine. The croupier counted out my money. I had bet twelve hundred dollars and won.
Mr. A. leaned back and lit up a cigarette. He was really steaming. I could feel his hatred. I smiled at him. “Sorry,” I said. Exactly like a nice young kid. He glared at me.
At the other end of the table Cully got up casually and sauntered down to my side of the table. He sat in one of the chairs between me and Mr. A. so that he would get the shoe. Cully slapped the box and said, “Hey, Cheech, get on me. I feel lucky. I got seven passes in my right arm.”
So Mr. A. was Cheech. An ominous-sounding name. But Cheech obviously liked Cully, and just as obviously Cully was a man who made a science of being liked. Because he now turned to me as Cheech made a bet on the Bank. “Come on, Kid,” he said. “Let’s all break this fucking casino together. Ride with me.”
“You really feel lucky?” I asked, just a little wide-eyed.
“I may run out the shoe,” Cully said. “I can’t guarantee it, but I may just run out the shoe.”
“Let’s go,” I said. I put a twenty on the Bank. We were all riding together. Me. Cheech, Cully, Jordan down on the other far side of the table. One of the shills had to take the Player’s hand and promptly turned up a cold six. Cully turned over two picture cards and on his draw got another picture for a total of zip, zero, the worst hand in baccarat. Cheech had lost a thousand. Cully had lost a hundred. Jordan had lost five hundred. I had lost a measly twenty. I was the only one to reproach Cully. I shook my head ruefully. “Gee,” I said, “there goes my twenty.” Cully grinned and passed me the shoe. Looking past him, I could see Cheech’s face darkening with rage. A jerkoff kid who lost a twenty, daring to bitch. I could read his mind as if it were a deck of cards face up on the green felt.
I bet twenty on my bank, waited to slide the cards out. The croupier in the slot was the young handsome one who had asked Diane if she was OK. He had a diamond ring on the hand he held upraised to halt my deal until all the bets were made. I saw Jordan put down his bet On the Bank as usual. He was riding with me.
Cully slapped a twenty on Bank. He turned to Cheech and said, “Come on, ride with us. This kid looks lucky.”
“He looks like he’s still jerking off,” Cheech said. I could see all the croupiers watching me. On his high chair the ladderman sat very still and straight. I looked big and strong; they were just a little disappointed in me.
Cheech put three hundred down on Player’s. I dealt and won. I kept hitting passes and Cheech kept upping his bet against me. He called for a marker. Well, there wasn’t much left of the shoe, but I ran it out with perfect gambling manners, no squeezing of the cards, no joyous exclamations. I was proud of myself. The croupiers emptied the canister and assembled the cards for a new shoe. Everybody paid his commissions. Jordan got up to stretch his legs. So did Cheech, so did Cully. I stuffed my winnings into my pocket. The pit boss brought the marker over to Cheech to sign. Everything was fine. It was the perfect moment
“Hey, Cheech,” I said. “I’m a jerkoff?” I laughed. Then I started walking around the table to leave the baccarat pit and made sure to pass close to him. He could no more resist taking a swing at me than a crooked croupier palm a stray hundred-dollar chip.
And I had him cold. Or I thought I did. But Cully and the two big hoods had miraculously come between us. One hood caught Cheech’s fist in his big hand as if it were a tiny ball. Cully shoved his shoulder into me, knocking me off stride.
Cheech was screaming at the big guy. “You son of a bitch. Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?”
To my surprise the big hood let Cheech’s hand go and stepped back. He had served his purpose. He was a preventive force, not a punitive one. Meanwhile, nobody was watching me. They were cowed by Cheech’s venomous fury, all except the young croupier with the diamond ring. He said very quietly, “Mr. A., you are out of line.”
With incredible whip like fury Cheech struck out and hit the young croupier right smack on the nose. The croupier staggered back. Blood came billowing out onto his frilly white shirtfront and disappeared into the blue-black of his tuxedo. I ran past Cully and the two hoods and hit Cheech a punch that caught him in the temple and bounced him off the floor. And he bounced right up again. I was astonished. It was all going to be very serious. This guy ran on nuclear venom.
And then the ladderman descended from his high chair, and I could see him clearly in the bright lamp of the baccarat table. His face was seamed and parchment pale as if his blood had been frozen white by countless years of air conditioning. He held up a ghostly hand and said quietly, “Stop.”
Everybody froze. The ladderman pointed a long, bony finger and said, “Cheech, don’t move. You are in very big trouble. Believe me.” His voice was quietly formal.
Cully was leading me through the gate, and I was more than willing to go. But I was really puzzled by some of the reactions. There was something very deadly about the young croupier’s face even with the blood flowing from his nose. He wasn’t scared, or confused, or badly hurt enough not to fight back. But he had never raised a hand. Also, his fellow croupiers had not come to his aid. They had looked on Cheech with a sort of awestricken horror that was not fear but pity.
Cully was pushing me through the casino through the surf-like hum of hundreds of gamblers muttering their voodoo curses and prayers over dice, blackjack, the spinning roulette wheel. Finally we were in the relative quiet of the huge coffee shop.
I loved the coffee shop, with its green and yellow chairs and tables. The waitresses were young and pretty in spiffy short-skirted uniforms of gold. The walls were all glass; you could see the outside world of expensive green grass, the blue-sky pool, the specially grown huge palm trees. Cully led me to one of the large special booths, a table big enough for six people, equipped with phones. He took the booth as a natural right.
As we were drinking coffee, Jordan came walking by us. Cully immediately jumped up and grabbed him by the arm. “Hey, fellah,” he said, “have coffee with your baccarat buddies.” Jordan shook his head and then saw me sitting in the booth. He gave me an odd smile, amused by me for some reason, and changed his mind. He slid into the booth.
And that’s how we first met, Jordan, Cully and I. That day in Vegas when I first saw him, Jordan didn’t look too bad, in spite of his white hair. There was an almost impenetrable air of reserve about him which intimidated me, but Cully didn’t notice. Cully was one of those guys who would grab the Pope for a cup of coffee.
I was still playing the innocent kid. “What the hell did Cheech get sore about?” I said. “Jesus, I thought we were all having a good time.”
Jordan ’s head snapped up, and for the first time he seemed to be paying attention to what was going on. He was smiling too, as at a child trying to be clever beyond its years. But Cully was not so charmed.
“Listen, Kid,” he said. “The ladderman was on to you in two seconds. What the hell do you think he sits way up there for? To pick his fucking nose? To watch pussy walk by?”
“Yeah, OK,” I said. “But nobody can say it was my fault. Cheech got out of line. I was a gentleman. You have to admit that. The hotel and the casino have no complaint about me.”
Cully gave me an amiable smile. “Yeah, you worked that pretty good. You were really clever. Cheech never caught on and fell right into the trap. But one thing you didn’t figure. Cheech is a dangerous man. So now my job is to get you packed and put you on a plane. What the fuck kind of a name is that anyway, Merlyn?”
I didn’t answer him. I pulled my sports shirt up and showed him the bare front chest and belly. I had a long, very ugly purple scar on it. I grinned at Cully and said to him, “You know what that is?” I asked him.
He was wary now, alert. His face hawklike.
I gave it to him slow. “I was in the war,” I said. “I got hit by machine-gun bullets and they had to sew me up like a chicken. You think I give a shit about you and Cheech both?”
Cully was not impressed. But Jordan was smiling still. Now everything I said was true. I had been in the war, I had been in combat, but I never got hit. What I was showing Cully was my gallbladder operation. They had tried a new way of cutting that left this very impressive scar.
Cully sighed and said, “Kid, maybe you’re tougher than you look, but you’re still not tough enough to stay here with Cheech.”
I remember Cheech bouncing up from that punch so quickly and I started worrying. I even thought for a minute about letting Cully put me on a plane. But I shook my head.
“Look, I’m trying to help,” Cully said. “After what happened Cheech will be looking for you, and you’re not in Cheech’s league, believe mc.”
“Why not?” Jordan asked.
Cully gave it back very quick. “Because this Kid is human and Cheech ain’t.”
It’s funny how friendships start. At this point we didn’t know we were going to be close Vegas buddies. In fact, we were all getting to be slightly pissed off with each other.
Cully said, “I’ll drive you to the airport.”
“You’re a very nice guy,” I said. “I like you. We’re baccarat buddies. But the next time you tell me you’re going to drive me to the airport you’ll wake up in the hospital.”
Cully laughed gleefully. “Come on,” he said. “You hit Cheech a clean shot and he bounced right up. You’re not a tough guy. Face it.”
At that I had to laugh because it was true. I was out of my natural character. And Cully went on. “You show me where bullets hit you, that doesn’t make you a tough guy. That makes you the victim of a tough guy. Now if you showed me a guy who had scars because of bullets you put into him, I’d be impressed. And if Cheech hadn’t bounced up so quick after you hit him, I’d be impressed. Come on, I’m doing you a favor. No kidding.”
Well, he was right all the way. But it didn’t make any difference. I didn’t feel like going home to my wife and my three kids and the failure of my life. Vegas suited me. The casino suited me. Gambling was right down my alley. You could he alone without being lonely. And something was always happening just like now. I wasn’t tough, but what Cully missed was that almost literally nothing could scare me because at this particular time of my life I didn’t give a shit about anything.
So I said to Cully, “Yeah, you’re right. But I can’t leave for a couple of days.”
Now he really looked me over. Then he shrugged. He picked up the check and signed it and got up from the table. “See you guys around,” he said. And left me alone with Jordan.
We were both uneasy. Neither of us wanted to be with the other. I sensed that we were both using Vegas for a similar purpose, to hide out from the real world. But we didn’t want to be rude, Jordan because he was essentially an enormously gentle man. And though I usually had no difficulty getting away from people, there was something about Jordan I instinctively liked, and that happened so rarely I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by just leaving him alone.
Then Jordan said, “How do you spell your name?”
I spelled it out for him. M-e-r-l-y-n. I could see his loss of interest in me and I grinned at him. “That’s one of the archaic spellings,” I said.
He understood right away and he gave me his sweet smile.
“Your parents thought you would grow up to be a magician?” he asked. “And that’s what you were trying to be at the baccarat table?”
“No,” I said. “Merlyn’s my last name. I changed it. I didn’t want to be King Arthur, and I didn’t want be Lancelot.”
“Merlin had his troubles,” Jordan said.
“Yeah,” I said. “But he never died.”
And that’s how Jordan and I became friends, or started our friendship with a sort of sentimental schoolboy confidence.
– -
The morning after the fight with Cheech, I wrote my daily short letter to my wife telling her that I would be coming home in a few days. Then I wandered through the casino and saw Jordan at a crap table. He looked haggard. I touched him on the arm, and he turned and gave me that sweet smile that affected me always. Maybe because I was the only one he smiled at so easily. “Let’s eat breakfast,” I said. I wanted him to get some rest. Obviously he had been gambling all night. Without a word Jordan picked up his chips and went with me to the coffee shop. I still had my letter in my hand. He looked at it and I said, “I write my wife every day.”
Jordan nodded and ordered breakfast. He ordered a full meal, Vegas style. Melon, eggs and bacon, toast and coffee. But he ate little, a few bites, and then coffee. I had a rare steak, which I loved in the morning but never had except in Vegas.
While we were eating, Cully came breezing in, his right hand full of red five-dollar chips.
“Made my expenses for the day,” he said, full of confidence. “Counted down on one shoe and caught my percentage bet for a hundred.” He sat down with us and ordered melon and coffee.
“Merlyn, I got good news for you,” he said. “You don’t have to leave town. Cheech made a big mistake last night.”
Now for some reason that really pissed me off. He was still going on about that. He was like my wife, who keeps telling me I have to adjust. I don’t have to do anything. But I let him talk. Jordan as usual didn’t say a word, just watched me for a minute. I felt that he could read my mind.
Cully had a quick nervous way of eating and talking. He had a lot of energy, just like Cheech. Only his energy seemed to be charged with goodwill, to make the world run smoother. “You know the croupier that Cheech punched in the nose and all that blood? Ruined the kid’s shirt. Well, that kid is the favorite nephew of the deputy police chief of Las Vegas.”
At that time I had no sense of values. Cheech was a genuine tough guy, a killer, a big gambler, maybe one of the hoods who helped run Vegas. So what was a deputy police chief’s nephew? And his lousy bloody nose? I said as much. Cully was delighted at this chance to instruct.
“You have to understand,” Cully said, “that the deputy police chief of Las Vegas is what the old kings used to be. He’s a big fat guy who wears a Stetson and a holster with a forty-five. His family has been in Nevada since the early days. The people elect him every year. His word is law. He gets paid off by every hotel in this town. Every casino begged to have the nephew working for them and pay him top baccarat croupier money. He makes as much as the ladderman. Now you have to understand the chief considers the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights as an aberration of milksop Easterners. For instance, any visitor with any kind of criminal record has to register as soon as he comes to town. And believe me he’d better. Our chief also doesn’t like hippies. You notice there’s no long-haired kids in this town? Black people, he’s not crazy about them. Or bums and pan handlers. Vegas may be the only city in the United States where there are no panhandlers. He likes girls, good for casino business, but he doesn’t like pimps. He doesn’t mind a dealer living off his girlfriend hustling or stuff like that. But if some wise guy builds up a string of girls, look out. Prostitutes are always hanging themselves in their cells, slashing their wrists. Bust-out gamblers commit suicide in prison. Convicted murderers, bank embezzlers. A lot of people in prison do themselves in. But have you ever heard of a pimp committing suicide? Well, Vegas has the record. Three pimps have committed suicide in our chief’s jail. Are you getting the picture?”
“So what happened to Cheech?” I said. “Is he in jail?”
Cully smiled. “He never got there. He tried to get Gronevelt’s help.”
Jordan murmured, “Xanadu Number One?”
Cully looked at him, a little startled.
Jordan smiled. “I listen to the telephone pages when I’m not gambling.”
For just a minute Cully looked a little uncomfortable. Then he went on.
“Cheech asked Gronevelt to cover him and get him out of town.”
“Who’s Gronevelt?” I asked.
“He owns the hotel,” Cully said. “And let me tell you, his ass was in a sling. Cheech isn’t alone, you know.”
I looked at him. I didn’t know what that meant.
“Cheech, he’s connected,” Cully said significantly. “Still and all Gronevelt had to give him to the chief. So now Cheech is in the Community Hospital. He has a skull fracture, internal injuries, and he’ll need plastic surgery.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Resisting arrest,” Cully said. “That’s our chief. And when Cheech recovers, he’s barred forever from Vegas. Not only that, the baccarat pit boss got fired. He was responsible for watching out for the nephew. The chief blames him. And now that pit boss can’t work in Vegas. He’ll have to get a job in the Caribbean.”
“Nobody else will hire him?” I asked.
“It’s not that,” Cully said. “The chief told him he doesn’t want him in town.”
“And that’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Cully said. “There was one pit boss that sneaked back into town and got another job. The chief happened to walk in and just dragged him out of the casino. Beat the shit out of him. Everybody got the message.”
“How the hell can he get away with that shit?” I said.
“Because he’s a duly appointed representative of the people,” Cully said. And for the first time Jordan laughed. He had a great laugh. It washed away the remoteness and coldness you always felt coming off him.
Later that evening Cully brought Diane over to the lounge where Jordan and I were taking a break from our gambling. She had recovered from whatever Cheech had done to her the night before. It was obvious she knew Cully pretty well. And it became obvious that Cully was offering her as bait to me and Jordan. We could take her to bed whenever we wanted to.
Cully made little jokes about her breasts and legs and her mouth, how lovely they were, how she used her mane of jet black hair as a whip. But mixed in the crude compliments were solemn remarks on her good character, things like:
“This is one of the few girls in this town who won’t hustle you.” And “she never hustles for a free bet. She’s such a good kid, she doesn’t belong in this town.” And then to show his devotion he held out the palm of his hand for Diane to tip her cigarette ash into so that she wouldn’t have to reach for the ashtray. It was primitive gallantry, the Vegas equivalent of kissing the hand of a duchess.
Diane was very quiet, and I was a little put out that she was more interested in Jordan than me. After all, hadn’t I avenged her like the gallant knight that I was? Hadn’t I humiliated the terrible Cheech? But when she left for her tour of duty shilling baccarat, she leaned over and kissed my cheek and, smiling a little sadly, said, “I’m glad you’re OK. I was worried about you. But you shouldn’t be so silly.” And then she was gone.
– -
In the weeks that followed we told each other our stories and got to know each other. An afternoon drink became a ritual, and most of the time we had dinner together at one in the morning, when Diane finished her shift on the baccarat table. But it all depended on our gambling patterns. If one of us got hot, he’d skip eating until his luck turned. This happened most often with Jordan.
But then there were long afternoons when we’d sit around out by the pool and talk under the burning desert sun. Or take midnight walks along the neon-drowned Strip, the glittering hotels planted like mirages in the middle of the desert, or lean against the gray railing of the baccarat table. And so we told each other our lives.
– -
Jordan ’s story seemed the most simple and the most banal, and he seemed the most ordinary person in the group. He’d had a perfectly happy life and a common ordinary destiny. He was some sort of executive genius and by the age of thirty-five had his own company dealing in the buying and selling of steel. Some sort of middleman, it made him a handsome living. He married a beautiful woman, and they had three children and a big house and everything they wanted. Friends, money, career and true love. And that lasted for twenty years. And then, as Jordan put it, his wife grew out of him. He had concentrated all his energies on making his family safe from the terrors of a jungle economy. It had taken all his will and his energies. His wife had done her duty as a wife and mother. But there came a time when she wanted more out of life. She was a witty woman, curious, intelligent, well read. She devoured novels and plays, went to museums, joined all the town cultural groups, and she eagerly shared everything with Jordan. He loved her even more. Until the day she told him she wanted a divorce. Then he ceased loving her and he ceased loving his kids or his family and his work. He had done everything in the world for his nuclear family. He had guarded them from all the dangers of the outside world, built fortresses of money and power, never dreaming the gates could be opened from within.
Which was not how he told it, but how I listened to it. He just said quite simply that he didn’t “grow with his wife.” That he had been too immersed in his business and hadn’t paid proper attention to his family. That he didn’t blame her at all when she divorced him to marry one of his friends. Because that friend was just like her; they had the same tastes, the same kind of wit, the same flair for enjoying life.
So he, Jordan, had agreed to everything his wife wanted. He had sold his business and given her all the money. His lawyer told him he was being too generous, that he would regret it later. But Jordan said it really wasn’t generous because he could make a lot more money and his wife and her husband couldn’t. “You wouldn’t think it to watch me gamble,” Jordan said, “but I’m supposed to be a great businessman. I got job offers from all over the country. If my plane hadn’t landed in Vegas, I’d be working toward my first million bucks in Los Angeles right now.”
It was a good story, but to me it had a phony ring to it. He was just too nice a guy. It was all too civilized.
One of the things wrong with it was that I knew that he never slept nights. Every morning I went to the casino to work up an appetite for breakfast by throwing dice. And I’d find Jordan at the crap table. It was obvious he’d been gambling all night. Sometimes when he was tired, he’d be in the roulette or blackjack pits. And as the days went by, he looked worse and worse. He lost weight and his eyes seemed to be filled with red pus. But he was always gentle, very low-key. And he never said a word against his wife.
Sometimes, when Cully and I were alone in the lounge or at dinner, Cully would say, “Do you believe that fucking Jordan? Can you believe that a guy would let a dame put him out of whack like that? And can you believe how he talks about her like she’s the greatest cunt built?”
“She wasn’t a dame,” I said. “She was his wife for a lot of years. She was the mother of his children. She was the rock of his faith. He’s an old-time Puritan who got a knuckle ball thrown at him.”
– -
It was Jordan who got me started talking. One day he said, “You ask a lot of questions, but you don’t say much.” He paused for a moment as if he were debating whether he was really interested enough to ask the question. Then he said, “Why are you here in Vegas for so long?”
“I’m a writer,” I told him. And went on from there. The fact that I had published a novel impressed both of them and that reaction always amused me. But what really amazed them was that I was thirty-one years old and had run away from a wife and three kids.
“I figured you most to be twenty-five,” Cully said. “And you don’t wear a ring.”
“I never wore a ring,” I said.
Jordan said kiddingly, “You don’t need a ring. You look guilty without it.” For some reason I couldn’t imagine him making that kind of joke when he was married and living in Ohio. Then he would have felt it rude. Or maybe his mind hadn’t been that free. Or maybe it was something his wife would have said and he would let her say and just sit back and enjoy it because she could get away with it and maybe he couldn’t. It was fine with me. Anyway, I told them the story about my marriage, and in the process it came out that the scar on my belly I had shown them was the scar of a gall bladder operation, not a war wound. At that point of the story Cully laughed and said, “You bullshit artist.”
I shrugged, smiled and went on with my story.