How Like A God

by Brenda W Clough

  “Sure—but how’d you do that? Was it last night?”

  “I fell, just now. It was good you didn’t touch me.” He got up more carefully and tottered to the bathroom.

  The tide was all the way out, uncovering a very wide beach of clammy gray sand. It was so early, nobody was around except for one girl with a Labrador retriever. The wintry wind whipped the waves into cat’s paws, and the seagulls had to flap hard to make any headway. Rob turned north to walk into the wind, with the ocean on their right. He sucked in a deep cleansing breath. “If this doesn’t blow the cobwebs away, nothing will.”

  “Cold, isn’t it?” Edwin agreed. He wore a faded green warm-up suit. “Like it’s blowing straight from the North Pole. Look, let’s walk to those rocks there. Then I’ll run. You can either wait, or walk on, or go back.”

  “Fine. How far do you go?”

  “Oh, three or four miles. Just enough to keep the cardiovascular system rolling around nicely.”

  Rob smiled at his airy tone. “NASA will appreciate it.”

  Edwin laughed. “I sure hope you were getting weird just then. I don’t want to be obvious.”

  They came to the rocks, and Edwin jogged on. Rob sat down to rest his ankle and watch Edwin recede up the beach. Rob’s coat—the same old dark blue toggle coat, threadbare but thoroughly dry-cleaned now—hardly seemed to strain the wind. He shivered under its blast.

  This has got to work, this blackjack stunt, he told himself. Otherwise I’ll move to—to Saskatchewan, or Tierra del Fuego, someplace unpopulated. I will not put people in danger. He thought about total solitude. So many of his problems would fall away into unimportance, if only he didn’t have to deal with other people. But becoming a hermit necessarily meant never seeing Julianne and the kids again. So Rob knew he had no choice. He had to try.

  He got up and began to walk back to the motel.

  They were finished with breakfast and ready to start by ten. Rob felt the first doubt when he saw Edwin’s laptop computer. “Do you think they’ll let you bring that into a casino, Ed?”

  “Sure, why not? I’ll just explain that I’m a postdoc gathering statistics for research.”

  It sounded reasonable to Rob, who had never done this before. It was still early enough that there was little traffic when they drove to the casino.

  Atlantic City endured far more than its fair share of snack joints, T-shirt shops, and souvenir stands. Beyond the main streets the town seemed stunted and poor. All the juice of civic life was sucked up by the casinos. They dominated the boardwalk, huge gaudy establishments, the Trump Plaza and the Sands and Bally’s Park Place, frosted with more neon than Rob thought possible. The Trump Taj had neon in the shape of a dome, the Trump Castle had neon outlining its turrets and parapets, while the Grand confined itself to awnings and arches picked out in lights.

  Among these grander casinos, the Lady Luck Casino Royale made a poor show, having fallen well behind in neon one-upmanship. The outdated facade displayed a vaguely Moroccan style, with pointy windows and curlicues of gilt ceramic tile. “But the original Casino Royale was in France,” Edwin complained. “By the Riviera. It said so, in the James Bond novel.” He hopped out of the car, the laptop under his arm, and locked the doors with care.

  “Maybe these guys only saw the movie.” As they walked towards the big canopied doors Rob said nervously, “Now, today I just let it rip, right? No deliberate muscle, but no effort to stop leaks.”

  “Right. You’ll try to play four hundred hands. That’ll take all day. I’ll

  keep track of your cards on the computer. Tomorrow, you make an effort to keep your weirdness strictly to yourself, and we’ll compare the results.”

  Two big doormen in fakey yellow satin Arabian Nights costume stood at the big brass doors. They had evidently been chosen not only to look alike, but for size and strength. Between the sequinned fronts of his vest the nearer doorman’s chest rippled with muscle. The laptop made him scowl. “No card-counters,” he told Edwin.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Edwin said reproachfully. “I don’t want to count the cards to cheat. I just want to collect the statistics and enter them on.”

  The second doorman came up, as tall and hulky as the first. “And what’ll you do with these statistics, huh?”

  “Um, write a paper, that’s it. ‘A Statistical Analysis of Doubling Tactics in Atlantic City Casino Play,’ that sounds good.” Edwin smiled, so visibly lying that it was painful to see. “I wonder if Microbiology Review would consider publication?”

  Suddenly everything began to happen very fast. One doorman jerked the laptop from under Edwin’s arm. At the same moment the other one gave him a sharp shove. As Edwin tumbled backwards, the first doorman’s satin-slippered foot was there to trip him up. It was all as choreographed and neat as a circus routine, except that Rob jumped forward to grab

  Edwin’s arm and break his fall. Still Edwin rolled sprawling onto the red-carpeted boardwalk.

  “Spazz,” Rob snapped, and both doormen collapsed onto the ground. Rob scooped up the computer and hauled Edwin to his feet. “Come on!”

  He shouldered through the heavy brass doors and into a huge noisy space packed with rows of whizzing slot machines. Their electronic boops and whoops precluded all possibility of talk. But to one side was a dimly lit bar. Rob hustled Edwin into a booth there and said, “We’re invisible, both of us.”

  “What’s happening?” Edwin said bewildered. “Rob, did you just do something?”

  “You damn well bet I did.” The belated adrenaline rush made every nerve in Rob’s body taut. “Do you even realize what they were doing there?”

  “That big guy in the fez pushed me, didn’t he? And—hey, where’s my laptop?”

  “Here.” Rob slid it across the table. “They were going to stomp it flat as a pancake, after splitting your head open.”

  “But I said I wasn’t using it for card-counting!”

  “And surprise, surprise, they didn’t believe you. Ed, when you worked at Caesar’s Palace over the summer, was it in the casino?”

  “Of course not,” Edwin said. “I was just a college kid. It would’ve been illegal. I was a lifeguard at the hotel pool. I got into blackjack while I was taking a statistics course for my doctorate.”

  For a second Rob wanted to burst out laughing. “Look, Ed, we better rethink this.”

  Edwin dusted off his jacket, still looking confused. “You want to explain?”

  It came to Rob that Edwin might be a little older, and considerably smarter, than he. But Rob had him, hands down, on horse sense. He said, “What we are proposing to do is to take a large sum of money away from professional criminals.”

  “You’re going to win it,” Edwin corrected him.

  “Look at it from their perspective,” Rob said. “They have the money. We take it. Naturally they get mad.” Edwin muttered something about the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. “Ed, these people are criminals. They’ve just proven it. Wolves do not fight fair. Believe me, I was one—I know!”

  “But we’re not intending to rip the casino off,” Edwin argued. “It’s just a temporary side effect. You’ll get it together and start losing like a good

  boy.”

  “You really expect them to trust you on that? Your problem, Ed, is that you are too nice a guy!”

  “Yeah, yeah. And I warned you, didn’t I, that I do not know it all. Well, what do you propose then? Do we bag it and go home?”

  Rob hesitated. “I don’t think I can afford to pass up even the smallest chance of getting a handle on this thing,” he said at last. “Besides—what’s the point of being powerful, if some two-bit heavies in fezzes can scare me off?”

  “Attaboy,” Edwin applauded. “So it’s a go. Break out the cape.”

  “But we have to be very careful, Ed. I mean it. We cover our backs, we take precautions, we don’t do anything stupid.”

  “You better take the lead on that,” Edwin said. “The computer here
is really only a recording device. I can easily note down your games on paper, and enter them later.”

  “That’d be twice the work for you.” Rob was beginning to feel stubborn about it. If the wolves wanted unfair, he’d show them unfair. “I think the most sensible way to cover all the bases today is for you to not appear at

  all. I’ll keep you tarnhelmed, but be visible myself. Then you can load data onto your program all day, and nobody will bother you.”

  “This will be fun!” Edwin said, bouncing to his feet.

  The gaming rooms were past the slots. A repellent haze of cigarette smoke hovered near the ceiling. Though it was early, there were plenty of people sitting on the attached stools pumping coins into the slot machines and pulling the levers, over and over again. Their fingers were grimy gray from touching so many coins. The noise of crashing silver and the clangor of the electronic sound effects was deafening. “That doesn’t look amusing,” Rob said, pitching his voice to carry over the racket. “It actually looks a lot like factory labor.”

  “Slot jockeys are the lowest on the feeding chain. So am I really invisible now? Nobody can see me?”

  “You’re invisible.” Rob glanced at him. “You can go anywhere, do anything. Nobody would know. Listen to private conversations. Help yourself to chips off the gaming tables. Look up women’s skirts. Take credit cards out of handbags. Everything’s open to you.”

  “Oh, but I’m too nice to do that,” Edwin said smiling. Then he said, “Rob.

  Did you?”

  Rob remembered the dark narrow oubliette, the burial smell of clay and

  solitude, and shivered. “I’ve got a monster locked inside, Ed. Power hasn’t been good for him.”

  Edwin said, “We’re every one of us flawed.”

  The blackjack area was cavernous too, with big chandeliers and carpet that would have been Oriental if it hadn’t spread from wall to wall. Edwin pointed out the two-dollar tables. Rob sat down at one and bought a hundred dollars’ worth of chips from the dealer. Edwin had loaned him the money.

  The smooth green baize table looked huge. It occurred to him that if somehow he lost heavily, if Edwin’s theories were bunk, they might both be in trouble.

  He put a chip down, and the dealer dealt from the shoe. Edwin had coached him to play an extremely simple and overly-conservative strategy—take a card up to 17 and then stand. Over time an ordinary player could expect to lose with it. Rob sighed as the dealer bust and he won. Edwin had predicted it, of course, and it was actually a good sign, since it showed he was on the right track. Still it was depressing, after an hour’s play, to be sitting behind the biggest stack of chips at the table.

  “At least you’re not winning every hand,” Edwin pointed out. He sat on a chair near Rob’s, clicking quietly away every now and then on the laptop.

  After lunch they chose a different table. Edwin said, “I figure that so far

  you’re winning more than half the hands. That’s way out of line, just like I thought. Look at the numbers here. The ratio shouldn’t be more than eight out of seventeen.”

  Rob squinted at the laptop’s screen. “We’ve got to whip the data into better shape. Maybe bar graphs, what do you think? That thing should have enough capacity to do graphics.”

  “That’s right, you’re a software wizard … What’s wrong?”

  Rob stared tensely at the back of the room, where the service doors were. “Damn it, I’m a fool,” he said quietly. “I forgot about the video cameras.

  They must have them in the ceiling to keep an eye on the gambling. Ed, you’re still invisible. Go over and stand near that cigarette girl, will you?”

  Edwin began to say something, but Rob jerked a thumb for him to hurry. A half-dozen men in casino uniform were fanning out around Rob’s table.

  Safely unseen, Edwin slipped past. Rob ignored them, even when one of them came up and examined Edwin’s chair. They might have seen Ed on the video, Rob reflected with cautious satisfaction. But to actually get him they need human hands and eyes and brains.

  After about ten minutes of subdued confusion and discreet searching the men went away. Rob nodded at Edwin, who came back. “So what were your cards?” he demanded.

  “Aren’t you even interested that those goons were looking for you?”

  “Well sure, but let’s keep our eye on the ball here. More data, more!”

  “I lost, on a queen and an eight. The dealer hit twenty-one. Now if I jog your elbow again, you nip over and wait by the ladies’ room there.”

  It happened three times more in the next two hours, and became rather comic. Different groups of burly and unhappy men came out to look for someone who haunted their video pictures but could not be found in real life. To further confuse them, Rob had Edwin circulate around the room and pretend to observe other players. “You just remember the hands I miss,” Edwin said.

  Rob had been stowing extra chips in his pockets for some time now, but he knew the pit bosses had him marked as a heavy winner. They had already given him complimentary food and entertainment passes, all the incentive goodies other winners received. His huge luck plus Edwin’s uncanny presence were sure to provoke some more reaction, and Rob waited for it with watchful interest.

  Finally one more group came out. These men were much better dressed, in neat dark suits instead of the yellow sports jackets. In the middle of the group was a tall thick man in a very expensive suit indeed: a wolf dressed like a sheep, the front man. He came straight up to Rob and said, “How do you do, sir? I’m Conrad Baskin, manager of the Lady Luck Casino Royale.” He held out a hand.

  Rob took it without hesitating. “Hi, my name is Jones.”

  Baskin smiled. His handshake was smooth and dry. “An alias, surely, Mr. Jones.”

  “Oh yes—my wife doesn’t know I’m here, you see.”

  “And how long have you been playing casino blackjack?”

  “This is my first visit to a casino, ever.”

  Rob, carefully observing Baskin’s thought processes, saw that Baskin didn’t believe him. With amusement he watched Baskin ape surprise and genial pleasure. “My goodness, your beginner’s luck is phenomenal, then! Fred,

  Marie, do the honors!”

  A smiling waiter appeared with champagne and an ice bucket. The camera girl snapped Rob’s picture as Baskin put his arm around his shoulders. The cork popped loudly. People turned to look as Baskin announced, “His very first visit to the Lady Luck, ladies and gentlemen, and he’s won, what? Ten thousand dollars or so, in one day’s play! And he’s not done yet, right,

  Mr. Jones?” “Oh no,” Rob said. “It’s too early yet.”

  “That’s the spirit! Here, let me present you with this—” More goodies appeared, a yellow Lady Luck T-shirt, vouchers for rooms and more meals, tickets to see Regis and Kathie Lee. “And did I understand that you’re traveling with a friend? We’d be happy to offer him a room voucher too—where is he?”

  Rob smiled. What a lot of rigmarole, to work up to that question! “He slipped on the boardwalk and sprained a wrist, so he went back to our room to watch cable TV.”

  “We have cable too, the adult channels, everything. Please, both of you, be the Lady’s guests!”

  “I’m sorry, we’ve already made other arrangements for this evening.” Rob watched to see what lurid interpretation Baskin would put on this: call girls, of course. Baskin’s men would probably waste hours trying to find and suborn these phantom call girls.

  “Perhaps some other time very soon then,” Baskin said cordially, shaking Rob’s hand again in farewell. “You’re always welcome here!”

  As soon as the fuss died down Edwin came back. “I thought they’d want to sock you on the jaw or something,” he said. “What’s with the cornucopia?”

  “They can’t possibly assault me here,” Rob said. “It’d be horribly bad advertising. Would you like some of this champagne? They want me to stay—first, because I might lose all this money back again, and second, bec
ause they haven’t figured out our scam yet.”

  “This is terrible,” Edwin said, sipping from a plastic champagne flute.

  “The cheapest money can buy, I’m afraid. How much longer do I have to do this?”

  Edwin checked his numbers. “Another fifty hands will do it. Say another hour.”

  “It’s getting tiresome,” Rob grumbled. He persevered, however. Thanks to Mr. Baskin, his pleasant anonymity was gone. Other gamblers made side bets on him, and tourists goggled at his pile of chips. An admiring crowd followed him to the cashier when he went to cash in. The camera girl popped the flash at him.

  “Wonder if I should buy one,” Edwin said. “I’ll turn out in her pictures, won’t I?”

  “Neither of us will. She took her lens cap off, and then I had her put it back on.”

  Edwin laughed. “But they still have your image and mine on videotape.”

  “That I don’t care about. What I don’t want is for Julianne to open the paper tomorrow and see my picture with a caption: ‘First Time Blackjack Player Wins Big.’ “

  Rob was supposed to fill out IRS tax forms too. He handed them back blank to the cashier and had her return them to her drawer. No way these people were going to get his name and address. Then she began to count out money, an enormous wad of limp old bills, greasy with the sweat of losers. “—and twenty makes thirteen. Thirteen thousand, one hundred and five dollars! Thank you for playing at the Lady Luck Casino Royale!”

  The cashier beamed. With difficulty Rob wedged the rolls of fifties and twenties into every pocket he had. Cameras flashed. Mr. Baskin appeared, flanked by confetti-tossing showgirls, and cried, “Congratulations, Mr.

  Jones! We’re sending you home in the casino stretch limo!”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve already arranged for my friend to pick me up.” Rob nodded slightly at Edwin, who took the hint and went to fetch the Mazda. A huge white stretch limo pulled up at the awning anyway. Rob recognized the doorman who opened the door, and the fellow stared stonily at Rob from under his ridiculous yellow fez.