Sucker Bet

14

Gerry Valentine’s father had been yelling at him since he was a kid.

It had started when Gerry had gotten caught selling marijuana in the sixth grade, and had continued until a week ago, when he’d hit his father up to pay for his honeymoon. Twenty-three years of yelling, and always over the same thing: Gerry didn’t listen.

Gerry didn’t deny it. He marched to the beat of his own drummer, always had, always would. Take the night before in the hotel casino. For years, his old man had told him not to gamble in the islands. “The regulation stinks,” his father liked to say, “and there’s no one to gripe to if something seems fishy.”

Only, Gerry hadn’t listened. Yolanda had gone to bed early, leaving him with the evening to kill. Taking the last of the money his father had lent him, he’d gone downstairs to give Lady Luck a whirl.

The hotel’s casino was small and European in flavor. Gerry knew enough to avoid playing roulette, the Big Wheel, and Caribbean stud poker—which were games for suckers—and he also steered clear of the craps table, which gave a player decent odds if you knew what you were doing. The only other game that gave you a chance was blackjack, and he found a vacant seat at a table with a hundred-dollar minimum.

Having grown up in Atlantic City, he knew a thing or two about the game. The only smart way to play had been published in a book by Edward Thorp called Beat the Dealer. Thorp had doped out a system that he called Basic Strategy. It was as exact a science as algebra.

Sitting beside Gerry was a cruise-ship drunk. The drunk wore an ugly parrot shirt dotted with catsup and a green avocado-like substance. Belching into his hand, he said, “You Puerto Rican?”

“Italian. What’s it to you?”

“Sorry. With that tan, you look Puerto Rican.”

“You got something against Puerto Ricans?”

“Puerto Ricans aren’t allowed to play in the casino,” the drunk said defensively.

“Says who?”

“Says the government. They just want us tourists playing.” The drunk lowered his voice. “If you ask me, I think it’s because they’re too stupid to understand the rules.”

Yolanda was Puerto Rican. Had he been on his home turf, Gerry would have smacked the guy in the head. He glanced at the dealer. He was an effeminate Puerto Rican with olive skin and wavy hair. He didn’t say much, but in his eyes a fire was burning. He heard the drunk, Gerry thought.

His father had told him to never play with a pissed-off dealer. But what could the dealer do? A pit boss was watching, and the cards were dealt out of a plastic shoe. Deciding to go against his old man’s advice, Gerry had stayed put.

That had been his first mistake.

The dealer had cleaned out everyone at the table. Because Basic Strategy required intense concentration, Gerry had noticed the inordinate number of small cards being dealt. Small cards—two, three, four, five, six—favored the house, while big cards—ten, jack, queen, king, and ace—favored the players. Not enough big cards were coming out of the shoe, which meant something fishy was going on. He’d decided to call the dealer on it.

That had been his second mistake.

“How do you know the dealer was cheating?” Yolanda asked the next day, applying a fresh ice pack to Gerry’s eye. For his imprudence he’d been asked to step outside, where a security guard had punched him.

“Because I figured out what the dealer was doing.”

“You did?”

“He was keeping a slug of high cards out of play. My old man told me about it. It isn’t very hard, once you understand the basics. I should have done what my father said.”

“Which is?”

“If you think you’re getting cheated, leave.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I’m a dope,” he said.

His beautiful bride kissed him on the cheek. “No, you’re not.”

There was a knock on the door. Yolanda ushered in a waiter with the meal she’d ordered from room service. She was loving every minute of their honeymoon, and Gerry struggled with how to tell her that he no could longer pay for their room, or her treatments at the spa, or the lavish meals, or all the other bills they’d rung up. The phone rang and she answered it.

“Hi, Dad,” she said cheerfully.

Gerry groaned. She spoke to her own father in Spanish. Which meant it was his father, the last person on earth he wanted to talk to. He made a move for the bathroom.

“He’s right here,” Yolanda said.

“No, I’m not,” Gerry whispered. “Tell him I’m in the crapper.”

“Talk to your father,” she whispered back, handing him the phone.

Gerry held the receiver in his outstretched hand. He could already hear his old man yelling at him, and he hadn’t even told him what he’d done. He stared at his wife’s protruding belly. Was he really ready to be a parent?

“Hi,” he said.

There was a time in every man’s life when he had to admit his mistakes, and Gerry realized now was that time, even if it meant his father might explode and Yolanda might kill him. But before the words could come out of his mouth, his father stopped him dead in his tracks.

“I don’t know how to ask you this,” his father said.

“What’s that?”

There was a brief silence. Then his old man let him have it.

“I need your help,” he said.