She leans back and she’s wearing a sweater and it’s getting tight on her and I’m wondering, the way you wonder. We always wonder. Do women know this?
“So what do we do with you?”
“We go on,” I say.
Obviously, that is not the right answer.
“You want to go on? How much do you make an hour?”
She knows, of course. She’s got my total history in front of her. Today, especially, it’s impossible to obscure yourself, what with Google and Search a touch away.
“Well I’ve been giving this some thought,” she says.
Would I care to advance up to slot host? I immediately say no. I half expected this.
“No?”
They wear suits and ties but boot-lick even more than slot attendants…and work mostly off commission. They practically shanghai high rollers from one casino to another and even backstab within the same establishment. They’re babysitters and I’ve heard them on the phones begging Mr. and Mrs. Smith to please come down for the weekend, we’ve got a fabulous room waiting for you and have already booked you into our Steak House. They keep a list of every birthday, every anniversary and even every funeral. All they do is suck up and they’re always on call. If a high roller steps in, no matter the hour, they have to get dressed and rush on over, like a doctor. No, even doctors don’t do this.
At least in my job, rough as it is on graveyard, once your eight hours are over, it’s over, unless you volunteer for overtime.
“I’ll pass,” I say.
She is not surprised.
Well, she says, she’s been talking to Bob Foster, our president – and she straightens up when she says this, when she mentions his name – so she’s been talking to Bob Foster and he, Bob Foster, favors offering me a special designation; celebrity greeter. She pauses for my reaction. I do not react. She goes on. All I have to do is stand around and greet, or walk around and greet.
“Will people know who I am?”
“Of course.”
I laugh. “I’ll wear a sign?”
“Sure.”
Not exactly a sign, but a tag with my name on it, my name plus this: Author of The Ice King.
That’s how I’d walk around greeting people, and Joe Louis flashes through my mind. Isn’t that how he ended up, only it was Vegas…and Willie Mays, here in Atlantic City?
Landing without a parachute.
I’m also thinking of Requiem for a Heavyweight, with Jack Palance, that terrific TV play written ages ago by Rod Serling. I always thought it was Paddy Cheyefsy, or Ben Hecht. But no, I just found out it was Rod Serling. But a terrific play, about a heavyweight champ and how he’s reduced to a laughable wrestler when his boxing career is done. He has to take it, he has no choice, but it does destroy him, as I recall. What a terrific drama. Rod Serling, prolific as hell, went on to write maybe 200 more plays or episodes, but nothing like this. Who cares? All it takes is one. Arthur Miller could have stopped with Death of a Salesman, and perhaps he should have because he never topped himself, never even equaled himself, but that, Death of a Salesman is the finest piece of literature of the 20th century, or right up there with anybody.
Salinger knew when to stop.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she says. “Bob Foster is expecting us.”
This catches me off guard.
“Upstairs?”
“He really wants to meet you. He’d be honored.”
So up we go to Floor 19 – I’m okay in this elevator as it’s got somebody at the controls – and step into the Golden Player Lounge, busy with loud alcoholic voices. This is the limo/butler set. Limos and butlers are always at the ready for them. Some gamble as much as $100,000 a night…some much higher. It is a lounge but more plush than the usual, and all drinks and snacks are free, of course. There’s no entrance to the room, or even to the floor, without a key, and the key is that you must be a whale. Bob Foster comes over and introduces himself and says it’s an honor. I say, likewise.
He’s average height, average build, much younger and much less imposing than a casino president ought to be. He’s pleasant and has a kindly face and easy smile.
He’s the only one in here who isn’t drunk or loud.
We sit down, the three of us, and Bob Foster starts it all over again, about what a surprise it was to find me, someone like me, working for him.
He doesn’t mention my specific job, even though I am still in my green uniform. But that subject seems to be put aside.
We are not talking about that anymore. Decisions have been made. I can tell. I can tell much talking has been done about me, what to do with me.
“I admire writers and I just don’t know how you guys do it,” he says.
He graduated from Loyola and took Lit as a minor. His favorite author is Faulkner but he’s also a big fan of Elmore Leonard.
Faulkner is okay, if you have the time to follow him, but on Elmore Leonard I totally agree.
Obviously, stereotyping is out, as far as getting judgmental about what a casino boss should be like. They were not like this in the old days, in Vegas.
“I think,” he says, “you should give this serious consideration.”
There’d be more than just greeting the high rollers. There’d also be book parties for my books, book signings and much publicity in the media.
“We do it all the time for singers like Tony Bennett and we just had that guy in from the old Sopranos. We’ve never promoted a writer. But wouldn’t that be new and different?”
He says that the casinos could use some class, some culture, and why not start here and now. I quite agree. I remember, I tell him, when to be called a gambler was to be called a degenerate and that now something like 47 states have lotteries and casinos so that we’re a nation of degenerates. He laughs about the rap, and how it still needs changing. I also remind him that in my religion, when it was practiced to the full, a gambler’s testimony was unaccepted in court just for his being a gambler, and that whereas only about a generation ago virtually all gamblers were men, at the racetrack or in smoke-filled backrooms, now more than half of this nation’s gamblers are women, at the slots. Bob Foster laughs and agrees. That’s even more reason to instill class and culture.
Shelly asks how many books have I written.
I do the math. “Published? Five. Written? Twenty.”
Bob Foster catches on. He likes me. I think I like him.
“I think book parties sound like a terrific idea,” says Shelly King.
“Give the man some time,” Bob Foster says slowly, offering me a wink. “Writers think carefully.”
“Nobody comes to book signings,” is what I say.
I know this from experience. People don’t show up, unless it’s Dan Brown. At one Barnes & Noble, in King of Prussia, after two hours of me sitting there at that table and no sales, the store manager urged his clerks to buy some copies (this was before The Ice King caught on) so that I wouldn’t be fully humiliated and perhaps kill myself. Hemingway killed himself. Writers are known for this.
Some people do stop by and flip through the pages of your book, set it down, and go on browsing in the Self-Help section.
Does anybody really get helped?
“I’m thinking,” says Shelly, “that we might do something else as well.”
She’s thinking we might form a class for employees, teaching English, me the instructor, given all the foreign people we have working for us.
“Hey,” says Bob Foster. “What do you think?”
“Something to think about,” I agree.
“I’ve been approached by people, especially our Indian employees, who’d love something like that,” says Shelly King.
Our Indian employees, my buddy slot attendants, many of whom move on quickly to become dealers, are motivated, educated, and cultured. They are clannish, but aren’t we all. Though I have become part of their group. I once complained to a roundtable of them that when they speak their language I don’t know what they’re ta
lking about and that makes me think, sometimes, that they’re talking about me. They were very upset about this, that I felt that way, and apologized, and it never happened again. At least they stop it as soon as I join them and learn from them as they learn from me. They’re very cultured. I’ve discussed their history with them, that is, their British history, and it is a sore topic. I have also discussed the shame of Indian bride burning and that is also a sore topic.
“I think this would work,” says Bob Foster about my teaching English, “in addition to Plan A.”
“He makes a good appearance,” Shelly informs Bob Foster, speaking about me. I make a good appearance.
“You do look like an author,” he says.
“He has the look,” says Shelly.
“What look?” I ask.
“Distracted,” says Shelly.
“Well writers are always thinking, aren’t you guys?”
“Yes we are.”
“Always coming up with something,” he says, and then asks Shelly if she’s read my Big Book. She’s flustered.
“Not yet, but I’ll get it out of the library.”
“Writers don’t like that,” says Bob Foster. “Writers need sales. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” I say.
Bob Foster leans back and I take it to be over. It’s back to downstairs – but I’ve been made an offer, and surely a raise in pay is in the offing.
But I do not ask.
“You have a lot to think about,” says Bob Foster.
“I know.”
“Do you like this?” he asks, pointing to my green uniform.
“It’s a job.”
“Right,” says Bob Foster. “Every job here is important, but…”
“It’s a paycheck,” I add, “and Benefits.”
“We’re the best in town when it comes to Benefits,” says Bob Foster.
“That’s what attracted me.”
“I really like that book party idea,” says Shelly King. “I’d love to get started on a campaign, the AC Press, Philly Inquirer, radio, TV.”
“You can dress as you like, you know,” says Bob Foster. “I mean on the floor. Wouldn’t have to wear a suit. Writers don’t wear suits, right?”
True, a writer in a suit and tie is a loser. He’s obviously not writing or getting published, no, he’s job hunting.
“But I’d wear that badge?”
“Oh yes, people would have to know who you are.”
“So I’d be walking around with a sign that says I’m an author.”
“Sure, the author of The Ice King. Everybody saw the movie. I see this as great for our business and a terrific boost for you. A real career move.”
“No downside,” says Shelly. “Win win.”
“You’ll have to talk with Carl Giddings.”
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Advertising,” says Shelly.
“We could start a whole campaign around you,” says Bob Foster.
“Advertising, PR, could be so exciting,” says Shelly.
“What do you say?” asks Bob Foster.
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“Are you happy?” he asks.
“It’s something to think about.”
Shelly doesn’t care for my drift.
“Does your book have sex?”
“Only where necessary.”
“Of course it has sex,” says Bob Foster. “You gotta have sex.”
“Sex sells,” says Shelly.
I could say yes right now. But I can’t. I just can’t. I only want to escape, get down there at my zone. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Something’s wrong. I’m like the cheap thoroughbred who wants no part of the starting gate, unseats the rider, and makes a dash back to his barn where it’s nothing much but it’s familiar and he knows it’s where he’ll be fed.
Hey, I’ve been discovered, like Lana Turner at Schwabs, or Alain Delon at Cannes. So this is good. But it isn’t. It is not quite the same.
“So what do you think?” says Bob Foster.
“I don’t think you have a choice,” says Shelly. “You don’t belong…”
“Listen, can I think about this?
“Sure,” says Bob Foster. “Sure. Think about it and let us know.”
“By the way,” says Shelly, “you’d be answerable directly to me. You wouldn’t have to go through anyone else.”
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” says Bob Foster.
“That’s a real plus,” I say.
“You’ll let us know, right?”
“Yes, Mr. Foster.”
“Call me Bob.”
Chapter 15
I did not know, until recently, that the eye in the sky also has ears. Mark the Guard had warned me about this but I had not quite believed him.
“What were you two talking about?”
That’s Detective Conrad Stevenson again, and they’d been listening in when Toledo Vasquez approached me that day. That was the day when he got a five dollar tip off a million dollar win and the timing seemed right for him to open up. There are 60 surveillance monitors up there, each scanning a particular spot. There are about a hundred surveillance authorities up there and their job is to nab theft and stop larceny among players and employees and they’re well trained and good, very good at their job. They had only picked up snatches of my halting conversation with Toledo for all that casino ruckus; coins make heavy noise. For visual, they can zoom in for close-ups so magnified that they can catch it if your teeth need flossing, but the sound system of those cameras are not yet cutting edge.
So mostly what they heard was that he wanted to talk. Which is no crime, as yet. Mark the guard would say that’s next. The one remark of Toledo’s that caught their attention and had them going “Aha” was when he made that quite Biblical remark about his vexation: “Mine is too big to carry alone.” I thought it beautifully quotable, and so did they, those guys up there in the sky.
“What did he mean by that?” asks Stevenson.
“I have no idea.”
Which I don’t, technically.
“No idea, huh?”
“No idea.”
“You talk to a guy but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s hectic down there,” is my only comeback.
“You two were sure going back and forth.”
I explain about that million dollar win and that five dollar tip. That’s something to talk about, but not much to remember.
“I know about that,” he says.
He even knew about the tip. Upstairs, the cameras picked that up. One of our supervisors got fired for taking a tip, against company rules. He hid it fast, but not fast enough.
“So you know everything.”
“Not quite,” he says.
I am in for a grilling. This isn’t like last time, when it was almost civil. Once they get a grip, these guys, they don’t let go.
“I really have nothing to add.”
“We think you do.”
It goes back and forth like this and yes, Stevenson has dropped the good cop routine. He’s near unpleasant.
I recall that his wife read my book. Makes no difference. I forget if she liked it or not. I don’t remember. I think she liked it, yes.
Some people say they’ve read your book, period. They say nothing else. They say, “Hey, I read your book.”
Some saw the movie but THINK they’ve read your book and begin to take your book apart for all the movie’s flaws.
Stevenson informs me that if I know and don’t tell I could be charged and detained for complicity. I think he threatened me with that before.
Now he changes his approach and appeals to me as one educated man to another. “You’re not like them,” he says.
Maybe it didn’t start like that, but now I am like them, I think. I’m pretty sure I am. Anyway, what’s wrong with THEM?
I’ve gotten to like them, most of them.
They’re people
like everybody else. I’ll take Gabe and Mark and even Toledo over Roe Morgan any day, and where is Roe Morgan?
I do this often. In the middle of one conversation I find myself abstracted into another, into something else, altogether.
Where is Roe Morgan? Is Sylvio still talking to him? Is that door still open?
“There are no secrets,” Stevenson says. “You’re a smart guy and you know there are no secrets. We know everything.”
George Orwell said it about the same way. Back in 1985, when I was quite young and working through a first novel by means of doing PR for the phone company, the department head came over to my desk to tell me, smugly, how wrong Orwell was about 1984. He said, “See, nothing like this has happened.” Meanwhile, monitors scanned every work station and every desk.
“Know what I mean?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not nuts about it myself,” he says. “The shadow knows. Technology has us by the balls. Every minute of every life is watched, recorded, documented, sealed. We’re bar-coded like lemons at the supermarket. We’re bar-coded and stamped from cradle to grave and even beyond. You can’t even die without them bringing you up again. Our DNA tells everything about us and makes us everlasting. Really, immortal.”
He’s right. You’re not even allowed to die. There’s all that, and then there’s DVD where everybody comes back.
A couple of officers step in to talk some business with Stevenson. It’s not about me but I wonder if it’s for show. They’ve got those weapons and handcuffs at their sides. These guys, they don’t do anything that isn’t calculated. When I was doing martial arts regularly with Boris, he also had a crew of municipal cops and even State Troopers in there brushing up on moves, especially defense against gun, and lately more and more defense against knife for the new brand of domestic violence that was developing out there, and I got to know some of them, even sparred with them, and when I earned their trust they told me how calculated it all was.
They’re always watching, even when you don’t know they’re watching. It’s all profiling, racial and otherwise. They can tell what kind of person you are by what kind of car you drive, how you drive it, how you stand, how you sit, how you walk, even how you move your eyes. That’s all profiling.
When the others leave, Stevenson turns back to me as if he forgot what page we were on.
Slot Attendant Page 15
