A Gambling Man

by David Baldacci

  Archer glanced over the chips and gave the man a number.

  “Thanks, genius,” the dealer said as he placed a like-colored chip atop the rail by the wheel and then placed a number marker on it that coincided with the chip value Archer had given him.

  The dealer grinned at Archer. “Memories are iffy, marker chips make it easy.”

  “Yeah, I can see that, genius.” He put a chip on ten black next to Callahan’s.

  The ball was dropped and the wheel spun by the dealer. People kept betting until the ball was about to drop and then the dealer called out, “No more bets.” Seconds later Archer and Callahan lost their chips because the ball decided twenty-one red all the way on the other side was a much more comfortable resting place than ten black.

  Callahan took a sip of her cocktail and said, “I’m going to Hollywood. That’s what you do if you want to be in the movie business, Archer. Ain’t you heard of that place?”

  “I don’t go to many movies. Never saw the point. They’re not real.”

  “Well, that is the point.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Life is crap, Archer. You go to the movies to get away from that for a little bit. Get some pixie dust thrown on you for a precious two hours.”

  “And when the two hours are up and the pixie dust falls off, your life is still crap.”

  “Boy, it must be fun walking in your shoes,” she observed.

  “But then you go back to the movies for more pixie dust, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Archer said, “So you’re an addict. Might as well be smoking reefer. Movies are about making money. And putting butts in seats. No butts in the seat, no autographs, no maids, and no newspaper pics.”

  She frowned. “Thanks for popping the one dream I have.”

  Archer sipped his highball and tapped a finger against the tabletop. “We all have dreams. Point is, what are you going to do about it? Just going to the place doesn’t seem like enough. I’ll bet it’s chock-full of people wanting to do the same thing as you.”

  “I know that. I need to take some classes and work on how I walk and how I talk.”

  “You can already walk and talk. And dance, too, and sing. I’m witness to that. You do it pretty swell, in fact.”

  Surprisingly, her frown deepened at this compliment. “But there’s a lot more to acting than that. You have to have what they call the ‘it’ factor. The camera has to love you. It has to capture something in you that maybe even you don’t see. That’s how a star is made.”

  “Heard that a bunch of actors fought in the war. Hank Fonda, Clark Gable. Lots.”

  “Oh, poor Clark Gable. Wasn’t it awful what happened to his wife, Carole Lombard?” said Callahan. “That plane crash after she was out promoting war bonds. Her mom was with her but didn’t like to fly. She wanted to take the train back. Lombard wanted to take a plane to get back to Gable faster. They said she and her mom flipped a coin. Her mom lost and they took the plane. And it flew right into a mountain.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that while I was overseas. Damn shame.”

  “So you fought?”

  Archer shrugged. “Sure, like most everybody else.”

  “I worked in a factory making bombs.”

  “Dangerous work.”

  Callahan took a moment to pull a Camel from a pack she slid from her purse. She held out the smoke for Archer to light, which he did, using a box of matches he took from a stack next to a green glass ashtray overflowing with smoked butts. The air was thick with so much smoke Archer thought a fog had materialized inside.

  She cupped his hand with hers as he lit the Camel. She glanced up at him as their skin touched, but he wasn’t looking at her, with good reason. He waved the match dead and plunked it with the other wreckage into the ashtray. Then he sat back and watched her smoke. She did it well.

  She said, “One girl I knew at the factory got killed in an accident. And I lost a brother and a cousin in the war. One in Germany and one in France. They’re buried over there. I want to make enough money to go see their graves and put flowers on them,” she added, her expression growing even more somber, but her eyes lifted to his. “You lose anyone in the war?”

  “Just almost myself.”

  “Right,” she said, apparently disappointed by this.

  “So Hollywood then?” prompted Archer. “Your dream?”

  “Yes. And don’t give me a hard time about it,” she added in a pouty voice that Archer didn’t much care for. Women, he’d found, did that to move men one way or another.

  The dealer suddenly barked, “Hey, lovebirds, you gonna bet or you gonna give up your seats, ’cause that’s the choice you got to make. And do it before I die of old age, will ya?”

  Callahan looked at the man with an expression that gave Archer pause. It was akin to a snake sizing up its next meal. He didn’t like it, but he could understand it. With a slow, methodical, full-of-meaning motion, she pushed her remaining chips onto twenty-two black.

  “You sure about that, honey? Just that one bet,” said the dealer, giving her an eye back as though to evaluate her mental acuity.

  Turning to Archer she said, “It’s the year I was born, 1922. And I like black better than red, always have.”

  Archer slid all of his roulette chips next to hers.

  She jerked so violently her Camel came close to hitting her in the eye.

  “Archer, that’s too many chips for a single ride on the wheel. Soften the blow with other bets on white, black, even, odd. Don’t be a dummy, spread the risk.”

  “Lady’s talking smart,” said the dealer.

  Archer finished his highball and sensed the others at the table watching him, wondering whether he was mad, rich, just stupid, or all three. “Thing is, I didn’t earn it. I just followed a guy over at the craps table and got out before I lost it all. For me, it’s free money.”

  “Ain’t no such thing, buddy,” barked the dealer.

  Archer eyed him. “You in the business of not taking bets, buddy?”

  The man chuckled and spittle ran down his chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. “Your funeral, pal. So just to be clear, you’re doing a straight up bet on twenty-two black with no outside odd or even, red or black column bets? How about some inside splits, corners, street, double street? Last chance, amigo.”

  “If I knew what any of that meant, I’d answer you,” said Archer. “But all I know is if that little ball drops on twenty-two black, we win.”

  “You know the odds?” asked the dealer nervously.

  Archer glanced around the bowl. “You got thirty-six numbers.” Then he noted the zero and double zero slots that were in green felt rather than red or black.

  “What are those numbers?” he asked.

  The dealer grinned. “That’s where the House gets its advantage, pal, didn’t you know?”

  “You mean, it doesn’t count for the odds?”

  The grin deepened. “Nope, just two more numbers to add to the thrill. See, that’s what advantage means.”

  “So thirty-six minus one means the odds are longer than the road from heaven to hell and the payoff is thirty-five to one, although the wheel has thirty-seven opportunities to lose.”

  “You’re picking it up real fast, pardner,” said the dealer, eyeing the big stack of chips on twenty-two black. His eyebrow twitched and a sweat bubble sprouted over this twitch like a mushroom after a hard rain. “Like taking candy from a baby,” he said, but there was no spirit behind it.

  “So you gonna spin the wheel and drop the ball, or do I have time for a smoke break?” asked Archer.

  Callahan gripped Archer’s hand under the table and gave him a pointed smile that showed all teeth and the jacketed crown that now looked more white than pewter.

  The dealer looked around the table and then glanced to the ceiling and muttered something Archer couldn’t hear.

  The wheel was spun, the dealer sent the ivory ball spinning in the opposite direction, and Arc
her and Callahan waited for what seemed an eternity for the game to do what it was designed to do.

  The bona fide absurdity of the endeavor was not lost on Archer. He watched a dozen reasonable-looking adults eyeing a little ball like it was the most important thing they would ever witness in their entire lives.

  It’s a damn miracle we won the war and aren’t speaking German.

  “No more bets,” barked the dealer.

  A moment later, Callahan shrieked, “Omigod,” as the ball dropped into the slot for twenty-two black.

  She threw her arms around Archer and kissed him on the lips, almost knocking him out of his seat.

  “Damn,” said the dealer, shaking his head.

  “How much did we win?” asked Archer quietly. “I mean in money, not wafers.”

  The dealer eyed the bets and then the markers and said mournfully, “Little over four grand for you. Two hundred and eighty bucks for the lady.”

  “Holy Jesus,” exclaimed Callahan.

  “We’ll cash out now,” said Archer, giving the dealer a dead stare.

  The man slowly counted out a number of regular casino chips. He slid a small pile to Callahan and a far larger stack to Archer.

  Archer took his stacks of chips, split them evenly, and handed one stack to Callahan.

  “What are you doing?” she said, bug-eyed. “You won those, not me.”

  “I just followed your bet, Liberty. I would’ve won nothing except for you. So a fifty-fifty split seems fair.” He lit a Lucky Strike and eyed the dealer through the mist. “After all, it was free money.”

  “Do you…? I mean, are you…? Oh, Archer.” She kissed him again, this time on the cheek and not with as much fury, so he held firm in his seat.

  The dealer said, “Hey, look, the night’s young. You folks sure you won’t let me try to win some of that back? My boss ain’t gonna be happy with me.”

  Archer flipped him a fifty-dollar chip. “He might still be unhappy. But you won’t be, amigo.”

  The man caught the chip and looked surprised. “Didn’t figure you for a class act. My mistake, buddy.”

  “I think you figured me just right, but four grand can bring class to any bum.”

  After Archer and Callahan reclaimed their hats from the hat check girl, they turned chips into dollars at the cashier’s desk, and Archer carefully folded the money over and put it through a slit in his hat’s lining. Callahan’s stash disappeared into her purse.

  “How about a drink?” she said. “To celebrate? On me? Not here. They water everything down. I know a place.”

  He studied her for so long she finally said, “What!”

  “Works for me.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “The guy usually does the asking, not the girl.”

  “Well, I’m the other way around, Archer. You hang around me long enough, you’ll figure that out.”

  “Maybe I will. Or maybe I won’t. But let’s go get that drink,” he added with a measure of calm bordering on ambivalence.

  “You’re a strange bird. Most folks after winning all that would be sort of giddy.”

  “I don’t think I have any giddy left.”

  Chapter 5

  IT’S RIGHT DOWN THIS STREET,” said Callahan as they turned off the strip. “A friend told me it used to be a speakeasy back when they had Prohibition.” Callahan slipped her arm inside his. “Isn’t life just grand sometimes, Archer? I mean, five minutes ago we had nothing, really. And now look at us.”

  Archer wasn’t sure what to make of her move on him, but he let the lady stay right where she was, even as her soft hip bumped his. He could figure that out later, if need be.

  “It took guts what you did back there, betting all those chips.”

  “Doesn’t seem anything like that.”

  “I suppose you’d feel that way, I mean, after fighting in a war.”

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?” she asked, glancing at him.

  “Yes.”

  “How come? It might make you feel better.”

  “I don’t need to feel better. And the guys who didn’t come back can’t talk about it, so what gives me the right? The lucky stiffs shouldn’t write the histories or tell the stories.”

  “Okay, okay, Archer. Don’t bite my head off for caring.”

  They took a few more steps when Archer said, “What was that?”

  “Sounds like a fight or something,” said Callahan, looking startled. “But they have lots of those around here. No business of ours.” She tightened the grip on his arm.

  Next they heard a man calling out in fear: “Please, dont!”

  Archer said, “That sounds like…”

  “What?”

  “Let me just see something.” He pulled free from her and hustled down the street.

  “Archer!”

  She hurried after him, holding on to her hat as she did so. “Dammit, I don’t like to run with heels on!”

  Archer reached an alley and turned down it. He ran toward the noise and eventually saw three burly men surrounding another man, far frailer and older, like hyenas circling prey.

  Robert Howells was just picking himself up off the ground; his lip was split and his cheek was bruised, and his crumpled hat was lying off to the side. His concave chest was heaving as he held up his hands futilely in a defensive measure as the younger and larger men bore down on him. The blood leached down his face and made a spot on his shirt like a crimson teardrop.

  “You boys having fun at an old man’s expense?” said Archer as his hand slipped into his pocket and wrapped around something he was probably going to need.

  The three men turned around. They were all bigger and beefier than Archer, and not one of them carried a friendly expression.

  Archer advanced on them and pointed at Howells. “You feel good about that? Something to write home to Mom about, if you got one.”

  The biggest and meanest looking of the trio took a few steps toward Archer. “This ain’t your business, buddy, so shut your trap, just turn around, and keep moving, if you know what’s good for you. You get one warning and that’s it.”

  “Bobby H, come on over here,” said Archer.

  The other two men put out their thick arms to bar the old man from moving.

  “Look here, I don’t want to do this the hard way,” said the big man. He held up a fist as large as a bowling ball. “You beat it now or this is the last thing you’ll see until you wake up.”

  “All you have to do is let him go,” said Archer. “Then you don’t get hurt.”

  The men just gazed stupidly back at him, as though wondering whether Archer was simple-minded or thought way too much of himself.

  “Do you got a death wish, bub?” For added emphasis and to let Archer see things as clear as possible, the man took out a blackjack and slapped it against an open palm. One of the other thugs drew out a switchblade and made a slashing motion with it. He grinned and made another slash. Archer didn’t bother to watch the performance. His immediate focus was on the blackjack.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” said Archer, still marching toward the big man.

  “So just turn around and get out of here. Last warn—”

  Archer pushed off the balls of his feet, which separated him from the pavement. With his wingtips rising about six inches off the surface, he moved in a graceful arc. As he leaped he rotated his arm back, his elbow making a V pointing in the opposite direction from which he was heading. As Archer made his descent, his hand, now a mean fist, came forward. Archer leaned his weight into it, thereby accelerating the blow about to be delivered. His fist struck the man so hard on the chin on a downward slope that the man’s upper jaw jammed into his lower; two of his teeth were ejected by this collision and landed on the ground along with a stream of blood. A split second later, their owner joined them, facedown and lights out.

  Arc
her came to rest on the ground, his knuckles cracked and bleeding and the stinger flowing all the way to his rotator. You couldn’t hurt another man in that way without hurting yourself, he knew. But he would take the pain he was feeling over the one the big man would endure when he awoke.

  The knife man lunged at Archer, making attacking motions with his blade. Archer waited for a few seconds as he sized him up until the man drew close enough. Then he lashed out, gripped the man’s wrist holding the knife, and used his foot to hook his opponent’s ankle while at the same time he pushed his foe backward. The man fell, but he did so without the blade, since Archer had twisted it free with a violent downward tug on the man’s wrist.

  Archer closed the blade and threw it behind him. He didn’t like knife fights for the most part and would rather finish this skirmish with his fists. The man regained his balance and flew at Archer, only to collapse backward from a shot directly to his nose that had painfully moved it about an inch closer to his face. He had less room to breathe now, but air was the least of his concerns at present. Like his friend, he collapsed on the pavement for an involuntary nap after Archer’s haymaker.

  The third man, taking no chances, had drawn a snub-nosed Colt .32 with oak grips from his jacket pocket. He pointed the barrel at Archer and took no pains to conceal his delight at what he was about to do. It took something to kill a man at close distance and with your own hands. It took only an index finger and not a shred of nerve to do the same with a gun.

  The shot made Archer flinch, because the sound of gunfire just did that to a man. But it hadn’t come from the snub-nosed.

  He looked back to see Callahan standing there holding a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson .38 Special. She had fired the shot into the air, but now had her gun pointed at the other man’s chest. “Drop the piece, or I drop you,” she said, her features set like a slab of pretty granite. “And I don’t miss, mister.”

  The man eyed her up and down, a slick smile creeping onto his lips. “I ain’t worried about no girl pulling no trigger on me.”

  Her response was to place a shot through the top inch of his porkpie hat, neatly blowing it off his head. He cried out, dropped his gun, and knelt down, blubbering like a baby.