The office, small and plain, smelled like an ashtray, hugger-mugger with display cases and file cabinets piled high with tottering stacks of tally sheets. Sal sat behind his cluttered desk. The only other place to sit was a sofa made of white naugahyde that brought to mind Las Vegas in the fifties. Somebody had to kill a lot of Cadillacs to make this thing, Bobby thought, sitting down. He offered a deferential smile and waited to be spoken to.
Sal, a pair of cheaters slung low on his nose, jotted figures in a ledger. “You like it here,” he said finally, not looking up. “The card room, I mean.”
“Very much.”
“See you a lot around the tables, checking things out.”
“Yeah.” The phrase caught Bobby’s ear funny: checking things out. He leaned forward, whispering for comic effect, “That’s not a problem, right?”
He cracked a grin that Sal, glancing up finally, did not return.
“There’s some people out there think you’re a cop. Any truth in that?”
Bobby’s throat closed up. He dressed straight, not showy—slacks and sport jackets, Oxford button-downs. It was easier to get marks at the tables to trust you that way. He hadn’t thought it also might make him look narky. And yeah, he’d been hanging around, trying to get folks to like him. Trust him.
“I mean, it’s okay if you are.” Sal studied him, taking his time. “I don’t mind if cops hang out. Kinda hope they do, to be honest. Anything crooked goes down in my store, I wanna know about it.”
Horseshit, Bobby thought. There was talk two city council members were silent partners in the club, and that drove the local cops nuts. They saw the Eucalyptus Room as a flash point for trouble. Beyond the hard play and rumors of time advances at the tables, you had chip girls not just sneaking loans but dealing crack out of their aprons; known bookies and fences waltzing around like kings; a pair of Filipino bank robbers who confessed their heists were driven by gambling losses at the Pai Gow tables. Two stolen cars had been found in the parking lot just last week. Some sorry shmuck had been kidnapped after winning ten grand and another’d been robbed and knifed.
Finding his voice finally, Bobby said, “I’m not a cop.”
Sal rose to his feet behind his desk and stuck out his meaty hand. His eyes said: Time will tell. “Pleasure talking finally.”
Back on the floor, Bobby hunted up a house prop named Gap Quattrone. Props were players staked by the house to team up on suckers, hold them at the tables and keep them losing. Bobby’d sat there one night watching Gap and his partner take a car salesman for twenty-two grand over fifteen straight hours of play. The code they used was primitive, knee knocks and ear pulls so obvious they could’ve been little league coaches signaling from the dugout. Bobby found Gap—the name was short for Gaspar—standing at a sink in the Men’s, combing his wavy blond hair.
“Join me outside for a smoke?”
It was a clear spring night, the racket from Highway 101 unusually loud, like always after a rain. Bobby lit a cigarette for himself, held the match out for Gap, too, and tried to think of how to begin. Gap cupped his hands to the flame, looking almost perfect in its flickering light.
Gap could have been a Hollywood actor—not a star, but one of those faces you always recognize but can seldom put a name to. The guy, you’d say. Which guy? You know, the guy. The too-slick weatherman whose wife walks out first scene in the movie. The psycho killer’s hip-but-not-hip-enough neighbor. First bad guy in the Florida prison break the alligators drag under. Gap looked good, not great, but he did things, even little things—a wink for the cocktail waitress, a drag from his cigarette—like he knew you were watching. And you were.
Finally, sensing the moment was right, Bobby said, “Look, I know you’re playing partners. The guys you team with are a joke. And your code’s so gross my grandmother’s canasta group could nail you. People think I’m a cop. Well, tell you what. I’ll teach you a code nobody will catch, and if I’m a cop that’s entrapment, so I’ve just given you an ironclad defense. What do you say?”
Things improved after that. Gap picked up fast on Bobby’s routine—fanning his cards left or right depending on whether he intended to stay in or fold, using stage business with his chips or his cigarettes or his coffee cup to signal ace, king, queen, jack, and how many of each, changing the code around several times a night. Bobby even taught him how to deal seconds and from the bottom. They practiced together till their hand movements possessed the required subtlety and they could read each other without needing to look straight on.
On Gap’s good word Sal finally changed his take on Bobby, staking him with house money then taking half of what he and Gap won on any night. Business was good. The Nevada houses were closing their poker operations due to the competition from the California card rooms. The casinos never much liked the poker crowd anyway; they generated little side action and tended to prey on the tourists. And so the money started drifting in to the Eucalyptus Room, some players smarter than others, but few of them smart enough. Even the ones who caught on backed down once they realized getting serious meant dealing with Sal.
There were still those around the club who called Bobby “professor” because he’d been to college, or “junior” because of his youth, hoping to somehow undermine his growing bond with Sal. And when it got out that he’d majored but never earned a degree in English, same subject his mother had taught in high school, the badgering turned heartless. He could hardly have done worse studying interpretive dance. In some ways it worked to his advantage, the mockery; the suckers didn’t take him seriously and it made them easier to play. But there was a bite, a vengefulness to some of it that made his deepening bond with Sal crucial. Sal suffered no fools. His regard for Bobby meant standing. Protection. And an extra advantage came with that—with Bobby squarely in Sal’s good graces, Trink finally took him seriously.
They started with after-shift breakfasts: Bobby would sit there listening to the latest version of the Perils of Jennifer Trinka and watch as she sent her scrambled eggs back to the kitchen time and time again, till they came back rubbery, like gum erasers. “There’s only one thing runny I want in my mouth,” she’d tell him and he couldn’t hear it enough. Six weeks later they were living together. He’d never done that before. Never bought jewelry for a woman, either, or sat on the toilet and watched as she lathered and shaved her legs in the tub. Never shared a beer for Saturday breakfast or had a woman tell him, as he lay with her in bed, “You can do anything you want. Just give me some warning if you’re gonna hit me, okay?”
But Bobby wasn’t a hitter. It was all he could do to oblige her request that he hold her down during sex. One more legacy of the schoolyard bullying she took from her brothers when she was eight: She liked to struggle with him on top of her. Same way she liked to smoke.
One night Sal came up, gestured Bobby and Gap away from their game. Once he had them off the floor, he said, “Come with me, okay? I need somebody to see this.”
They drove to a nearby watering hole called the Eight Ball—a jump joint, like most bars in East Palo Alto. Phil Vogel sat alone on his stool, sagging like his spine had turned to putty and staring into his glass. Crumpled bills, too many, sat in plain view, inviting trouble. The bartender, who’d called Sal at the club, nodded as though to say, Get him out of here. The other customers, some of whom wore prison tats or gang colors, made no secret of their curiosity. They sipped Hennessey and Coke or bottled malt liquor, prowled around the pool table or chewed on plastic straws at the tables near the back, eyeing Sal and Gap and Bobby like the Marx Brothers had just shown up.
Sal came up behind his partner and leaned close. “Time to knock off, Phil. Let’s go, while the going’s good.”
Phil shot a screw-you look at Sal in the mirror, not straight on, then gestured to the bartender for another. Sal glanced up at the bartender and shook his head.
“You think I’m joking? Come on. We’ll drive you back to the club.”
Sal slipped his hand under Phi
l’s arm but the sad fat drunk broke free, stumbling off his stool in a wild-limbed stagger then spinning around. He fumbled in his pocket for something. “Where would you be, huh? Without me. Where?” He pulled from his pocket what he wanted, finally—a femmy little .22, wiggling it in the air. He looked like he wanted to cry, which was what Bobby felt like doing, too, once he saw the pistol sailing around like that. Didn’t matter how small it was, Bobby hated guns. It was almost a phobia, like some people with spiders or heights. You could talk a man out of almost anything, you did it right, but a gun, it just does what it was built for. It tore open flesh. It ripped arteries and muscle apart. He doesn’t even have to want to, Bobby thought. Accidents happen.
Sal didn’t so much as glance at the weapon, just stared into his partner’s rheumy eyes. “You sad old faggot.” He turned to the bartender. “Call the cops on this piece of crap.” Then, turning to Gap and Bobby: “Let’s get back to work.”
Bobby stood frozen in place, still staring at the gun. Gap took notice and whispered, “Come on,” grabbing Bobby’s sleeve. “Never let jigs see you’re scared.”
The bartender called out, “I ain’t callin’ no cops on his ass. Don’t need that kind of trouble. You haul his sorry drunk butt on outta here.”
But Sal just kept walking. Bobby couldn’t follow him fast enough and Gap took up the rear, making sure Phil didn’t shoot and nobody else came after them.
In the car, once they were on their way, Sal said quietly to Bobby, “What happened back there? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
Bobby sank in his seat. He hated failing Sal. “Never been much of a fighter.”
“Not what I meant.” With his thumb Sal plunged in the dash lighter for the cigarette now bobbing between his lips. “I saw how scared you were. But you didn’t embarrass yourself. Or me. I appreciate that.”
Back at the club, Sal told Bobby and Gap to follow him into the office. “Close the door.” He poured each of them a few fingers of Cutty, took a long sip of his own. “Draws a gun, the fat cunt. I’d call that a final god damn straw, how about you?” Before either of them could answer, he added, “Either of you guys like to buy in to a new room?”
The man in the ski mask and baggy brown suit remained motionless in the doorway to Sal’s office, gun trained straight at Bobby’s face.
“Gap, Gap, put it down, okay? No need for that.” Bobby stared up from where he knelt on the floor, hands held out to either side. “Think I wouldn’t know it was you? I mean, I’m sorry, but hey.”
The pistol sank in almost imperceptible degrees. With his free hand, the gunman reached up, pulled the ski mask off. Strands of his curly blond hair hovered from the static. Eyes whirling, he seemed wildly confused. He didn’t look so much like a Hollywood type right then.
“You know what he was gonna do, right?”
“Gap, what? Sal, he—”
“No, Bobby. Listen to me. Place in Burlingame he talked about? He’s got no lease. Management company’s never heard of him.”
“But the points, Gap, I know guys, ten, maybe a dozen, they put—”
“Shut up! Listen to me. It’s bullshit. There are no points. He was just gonna close up tonight, run with the cash.”
Bobby got up from the floor, using Sal’s desk to pull himself onto his feet. His head spun. “Sal wouldn’t do that.”
“You simple? It was done.”
“I don’t know, Gap. Jesus.” Bobby nodded to the gun. “You mind putting that thing away?”
Gap let the pistol hang beside his leg but didn’t slip it in his pocket. “What was I supposed to do, Bobby? He had a gun, too.”
Bobby moved toward the door. “We should check, see how bad he is.”
Gap cut him off. “I’m gonna get inside the safe.”
“Gap, it’s Sal out there.”
“I know who the fuck it is. He’s a god damn thief.” Sweat broke out on Gap’s face. He raised the gun again, shouting now, “Okay, you got your chance. Go on home. I’m getting in that safe.”
Gap waited, trying to nudge Bobby out the back way by waving the nose of the gun that direction, but Bobby couldn’t move. Giving up, Gap dropped down behind Sal’s desk and knelt before the vault. Bobby considered going out, checking on Sal, but as Gap worked the tumblers it dawned on him: Since when has he been planning this? More to the point, why’d he never tell me?
“I got eighteen thousand in there, Gap. My money, okay?” He eased around the corner of the desk. “I mean, I can’t afford to lose my bank. Trink, she’s real sick, I can’t—”
Gap said nothing, just kept spinning the dial back and forth. Bobby, watching, got it then. Gap had no clue what the combination was.
“Gap, what’s going on here? What’s this about?”
He stood too close to ask a question like that. Sure enough, Gap spun around and the gun came with him. Bobby spooked, trying to swat the barrel away but his hand sailed high. Gap took it for a blow and on instinct fired. The bullet ripped into Bobby’s arm. Maybe a second passed, maybe a thousandth of second, but Bobby stared at the small black hole torn into the fabric of his jacket, a little above the elbow. He felt the first pop of blood. And then, at last, the pain. His whole arm erupted like it had been set on fire. He cringed, winced, danced this way and that, biting his lip with all his might to keep from screaming.
“What the hell you do that for?” Both of them, same words, same time, shouted over one another.
The next thing Bobby knew he was running, out the back door Sal had told him to take in the first place. He couldn’t tell if Gap was right behind, didn’t dare look. He threw the lock on the door, pushed with his shoulder and tumbled out into the parking lot.
The leaves of the eucalyptus trees shivered in a brisk wind, driven by an incoming storm. Bobby’s cheeks grew wet from tears as he ran to Eddie’s Bug, fumbled left-handed into his right coat pocket, digging for the keys. Gap would be there any second to finish him off and Bobby wondered at what was taking him but then he was behind the wheel, cranking the ignition and lodging the tranny left-handed, fishtailing away toward the freeway.
His vision blurred as he sped north. Not just the tears. The blood loss, he was going into shock, feeling the cold possess his hands, his feet. Bullet must’ve hit an artery, he thought. Get yourself to a hospital. But Gap would come hunting for him, wouldn’t he? To finish things. Sooner or later, probably sooner, he’d show up at the apartment. Trink was there alone.
He had to fight to keep from weaving lane to lane as he passed Candlestick Point, accelerated to clear the hill then descended past Bay View, Portola, Silver Terrace. You should call 911, he thought, tell them about Sal. But he didn’t dare stop and with his arm hurt so bad he couldn’t dig into his pocket for his cell phone and try to drive at the same time. “I’m sorry, Sal,” he whispered. The pain spread from his arm into his shoulder, his chest, his throat. He wet himself, feeling scared like he’d never felt scared before and thinking of Eddie’s mother, the smell in that house, wondering which had come first, death or the letting go.
He didn’t even remember the rest of the drive or where he parked, just found himself trying to climb the seven impossible flights of stairs to the apartment. Dragging himself up along the handrail, his mind in a fog, he paused for breath at each landing with his bloody arm hanging there. The pain was everywhere now, not just his arm. He stank and had to fight from hurling but he made it to the sixth floor, stiffened his resolve and reached the next landing, halfway up.
Wait now, he thought. Maybe she’s already used up the last of the Albuterol. Remember, stress is a trigger. Imagine how you look. You just tumble in like this, she’ll have an attack. Too many problems at once. Too many patients. Think it through.
He knelt, hoping for just a moment to clear his head. Twisting himself into a seated position, he panted, dry-mouthed, drenched in sweat with blood caked down his sleeve, fingers sticky with it. Beneath the gore, the skin had turned a yellowish gray. Phantom shadows darted
along the edges of his field of vision and to escape them he closed his eyes.
From above, he heard a door lock click. Eyes blinking open, he saw Trink staring down at him, still dressed in her underwear but she’d pulled on one of Bobby’s button-down shirts as a wrap. A lit cigarette dangled between her fingers. Sneaking a midnight smoke while she waited for him to come home. Bad timing, Bobby thought.
“Roper?”
Before he could get a word out her chest started heaving. Her mouth shot open but no sound came. She dropped the cigarette and reached out blindly for the railing, finding it finally, gripping it with both hands, standing as long as she could but then her knees gave way with an awkward rubbery trembling. The whole time her eyes stayed fixed on his, staring down at him like he’d turned into something terrible.
“Baby, you gotta try,” he said, loud as he could without drawing out the neighbors, his throat parched. “You gotta get up, Trink. You gotta turn around now, go back in, get your inhaler. Or if that’s all used up, make coffee. Right? A couple aspirin, strong black coffee. You know what to do. Listen. We gotta get out of here. You gotta get me to a hospital, okay? Your turn to take care of me, how about that? Get up now. Come on, Trink. Try.”
He might as well have said nothing. Her eyes turned vacant and she dropped sideways onto the landing, not all at once but in jerky helpless staggers as her skin turned a marbled blue. Bobby couldn’t get to her, couldn’t move—bad idea, he realized too late, sitting down, as much blood as you’ve lost. In his impotence he felt everything give—his vision grayed, his muscles went slack, his pores opened up and a bitter-smelling sweat beaded on his skin as he whispered, “Trink, please, I am so sorry.” She lay on her side, eyes rolled back, mouth slack. I’d love not to have to think about my next breath. He closed his eyes as a sickening dizziness swept through him, like he was spinning across a dance floor, his reflection flickering beneath him.
Killing Yourself to Survive: Stories Page 9
