by Penny Warner
I helped Mother into the MINI Cooper, and we headed for the bingo hall once again. Most of the games were at night, with the exception of Sunday afternoons. Perhaps bingo was an alternative to church for some of the wine-country residents.
As I drove the short distance, I half listened to my mother explain the rules of the game. I hadn’t played since I was a kid, and only once at a friend’s unimaginative birthday party. When I’d told my mother about the party, which included pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs, she’d sworn she’d never host a boring birthday like that for me.
She’d kept her word. Memories of my birthday parties included themes like Princess for a Day, complete with pink prom gowns and tiaras, Own Your Own Zoo, which offered pony rides, and Mickey’s Clubhouse, featuring characters straight out of Disneyland. Of course, once I turned thirteen, I hosted my own parties, with party activities along the lines of crank calling, toilet papering, and eventually spin the bottle.
“Mom, I don’t think I need a review of the game. I played it one time at Rose Mae Lang’s seventh birthday party, remember? Somebody calls out a letter-number combination and if you find it on your bingo card, you cover the space with a bean. Whoever gets five in a row yells ‘bingo.’ No-brainer.”
“That’s children’s bingo, dear. This is much more complicated and there are lots of different versions, like Double-Action, U-Pick-’Em, Postage Stamp, Quick-Shot, Bonanza. And we don’t use beans to cover the spaces.”
“You use those big fat markers, right?” I said.
“They’re called daubers, dear, remember?”
“Okay, daubers. Do they still blow Ping-Pong balls out of a rotating cage?”
“Most places do use those, although Larry said some halls prefer those electronic random number generators, whatever those are. He also said that most people play more than one card—as many as thirty at a time.”
“Thirty!” I shot a surprised glance at her.
“Well, the more cards you play, the better your chances. Some of the younger people who use the electronic machines can play over sixty games at a time.”
Sixty? I’d be lucky to keep track of one, what with my ADHD.
“You’ll have to know some of the terms too, dear. For example, when you only need one more number to win, you’re considered ‘cased’ or ‘set.’ When you’re ‘breaking the bubble’…”
When did bingo get so complicated? I wondered. Cased? Set? Breaking the bubble? “So now I have to learn your bingo lingo?”
“Oh, Presley.” Mother sighed. “Most of the terms are obvious, like ‘jumping the gun’ and ‘false alarm.’ My favorite is ‘crying number.’ That’s the next number that would have been called after someone else wins. If it was the one you were waiting for, it’s your ‘crying number.’”
“That’ll probably be the term I’ll need the most,” I said, pulling into the crowded parking lot and taking one of the last spaces in the farthest row. I helped my mother out of the car and we walked to the hall, entered through the double doors, and scanned the auditorium-sized room full of people sitting at long tables covered with bingo sheets and the occasional electronic monitors. Nearly every seat was taken, mostly by older folks, with a sprinkling of young and middle-aged people.
A hand waved to us from across the room.
“It’s Larry!” Mother said, waving back. “I told him you were coming. He’s saved us some seats. Come along, Presley.”
I followed my mom to a far table where Larry stood, grinning like a teenager.
“Ronnie! You made it! I was getting worried.” He took her hand, kissed it, and guided her to the seat next to him. After Mother sat down, Larry gestured for me to take the seat across from him. In front of us were two bingo sheets each and two large daubers—green for me, purple for Mother.
“My treat!” he said proudly. “I just hope they bring you luck. May I get you both a soda before the game starts? Coffee? Chips?”
“Diet Coke, please,” my mother said.
“Coffee would be great. Thanks,” I said.
Larry nodded and left for the alcove where high school students sold hot dogs, drinks, and snacks. Mother immediately started chatting with the person sitting next to her, a woman in her seventies with champagne-colored hair, freshly styled by the salon. She wore an “I Heart Bingo” T-shirt covered with lots of rhinestone bling.
I glanced around the room, searching for familiar faces, and spotted Allison and Javier three tables away. From a distance, it looked as if Allison was texting on her cell phone while waiting for the games to begin. Javier, on the other hand, was hunched over his bingo sheets as if trying to memorize the letter-number combinations.
I wondered if Allison had exchanged one addiction—drugs—for another—gambling. Apparently even a death at the winery couldn’t stop her from playing the game. As for Javier, did he have a gambling problem as well?
Would I, after an afternoon of bingo?
Yeah, right.
“Presley,” Mother said, interrupting my thoughts. She turned to the “I Heart” woman she’d been chatting with. “This is Constance, a friend of Larry’s. Constance, this is my daughter, Presley. She’s an event planner. She’s the one who found the body at the Purple Grape this morning.”
“Mother!” Talk about gossiping.
“Oh, everyone knows about the murder, Presley. Constance, here, knew JoAnne Douglas personally.”
Constance nodded. “Poor JoAnne,” she said. “Although I’m not surprised. She made a lot of enemies in this town.”
“How so?” I asked, curious to hear what the woman had to say.
Mother gave me an “I told you this was a great place for information” look.
“Oh, you know, suing practically every winery that wasn’t as green as she thought it should be—although I doubt any of them could live up to her standards and still survive. So many of the little vineyards have sold out to Napology—around here we call it Nap-opoly because they seem to be taking over the entire county. Anyway, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. But talk about her wanting everything to go green—now she’ll be enriching the environment personally, if you know what I mean.” Constance snort-giggled at her little metaphor. I don’t know which surprised me more—her reference to JoAnne turning to mulch or a snort coming out of such an elderly woman.
Curious, I asked Constance, “Did JoAnne play bingo?”
“No, no. She thought it was sacrilegious. Even tried to shut it down because it attracted the ‘wrong element.’ Ha. I knew her through the garden club.”
“Do you come here often, Constance?”
“Too often, I’m afraid,” she said, smiling at her own wicked ways. “I’m eighty-six years old and still in the chase, as we call it, after more than twenty years. I love bingo. I surely do.” She giggle-snorted again.
Well, if nothing else, bingo must keep you young, I thought. This eighty-six-year-old woman didn’t look a year over seventy-something.
Larry arrived with our drinks and sat down. He glanced around the room, then said, “You must be one of the youngest people here, Presley. Most who come are our age, although we’ve recruited some of the younger generation. We don’t want bingo to die off with us old folks.”
I thought of Javier and Allison, not exactly part of the general demographic either. Had they been “recruited”?
“But for the most part, young people prefer other kinds of games than bingo,” Larry continued. “They go to the fancy casinos that offer poker and slots, along with high-stakes bingo. These independent halls can’t compete with that.”
“Don’t those high-tech bingo machines bring in the younger generation?” I asked, nodding toward a middle-aged couple nearby. Each one had a machine.
“Yes,” Larry said, “but most of us prefer the old-fashioned sheets. Some of the old-timers think the machines are rigged, so they stick with paper and daubers.” He laughed. “Old habits die hard.”
“Do they ever have a probl
em with cheating?” I asked Larry, after eyeing the female security guard who kept watch over the enthusiastic players.
“Every now and then you get someone complaining about cheating, but they’ve never proved anything—at least not here. A few years ago there was a bingo game over at a Sonoma church. They were using weighted Ping-Pong balls and secret signals with callers in on the fix, so they shut it down. But they’ve never found anything wrong here. They call this hall ‘the least crookedest.’” Larry laughed. I could see why Mother was attracted to him, with his easy demeanor and friendly smile.
“I’ve heard about the skulduggery in other halls across the country,” Constance added. “Scams, bribes, extortion, fraud, all sanctioned by lobbyists and state officials. Sometimes the charities don’t receive the money they are due. There are lots of stories about cheating at the halls.”
“How do they keep things regulated?” I asked.
“The state oversees the Bingo Enabling Act,” Constance said.
“Bingo Enabling Act?” I asked, surprised there was such a thing. It sounded like some kind of codependency program.
“Oh yes,” Larry said. “The state auditors fine operators for infractions, but they’re usually minor oversights, not for cheating.”
“I had no idea there was so much intrigue associated with a simple bingo game,” I said.
“Bingo players are a unique culture,” Larry said. “Some of the more serious players are awfully suspicious—and superstitious. They fight over ‘lucky’ seats or claim their good-luck charms have been stolen off their tables. But they still come to play.”
A quiet middle-aged woman sitting next to me spoke up for the first time. She had tiny brown curls, gray at the temples, plump rosy cheeks, and purple mascara on her eyelashes. “I come here because it keeps me out of the bars.”
I grinned at her. She didn’t smile back. Apparently she was serious.
“Oh, Helen,” Larry said, shaking his head. “You do not. You come to see your friends, like me. It’s more social than anything. Sometimes the hall holds a barbecue or a special jackpot to bring in people—up to three or four hundred. But usually we get about two hundred for the regular games. I know most of the people here—old and new.” I noticed he squeezed Mother’s arm. Mother blushed.
“Does all the money from this hall go to charity?” I asked.
“After overhead, it goes to the local schools. You figure, if everyone pays at least thirty dollars for a set of cards, and two hundred people show up, that’s six thousand dollars. Per night. That’ll buy a few band instruments.”
“Nobody wins playing bingo,” Helen said, looking at me with rheumy eyes. I suspected this woman had had a hard life. “If you break even, you’re lucky. But if I keel over right here, I want people to say, ‘She went the way she wanted to go.’ Maybe they’ll hold my funeral here.”
I tried not to laugh at Helen’s morbid humor, but it wasn’t easy. I glanced at her T-shirt, which featured two colorful daubers that flanked the words “Play Responsibly.”
“Cool shirt,” I said.
She nodded.
“Is gambling addiction really a problem at a bingo hall?” I asked her.
She shrugged, intent on marking her free squares.
Larry answered, “Can be. That woman over there,” he said, pointing to an elderly lady who appeared to be wearing a chenille bathrobe, “lost her house. Went to GA—Gamblers Anonymous. Now she’s back. She says she’s ‘cured.’” He rolled his eyes.
“Wow. I never dreamed the game could become an addiction.”
“Some of these people never even gambled until they walked into a bingo hall. And it’s perfectly legal.”
“Welcome to bingo, everyone!” A disembodied voice came over the loudspeaker. A cheer went up from the crowd. I had a feeling these people couldn’t wait to start marking up their sheets. Constance picked up a tiny elephant and kissed it, then replaced it in front of her. Several players fiddled with their lucky charms, arranging them just so, while others, including my mother, decapitated their daubers and began filling in all the free spaces on their bingo sheets. The room suddenly stilled. Voices hushed, heads bent over. Faces turned serious. This was nothing like the bingo game I remembered at Rose Mae’s birthday party. These people meant business.
“Our first game will be Straight Lines Bingo,” the male caller said. “First player to call bingo with five in a row wins the cash prize of two hundred and fifty dollars. No corners. Are you ready?”
Another ear-piercing cheer went up. Yikes.
Although Mother jumped right into the game as if she’d been playing professional bingo for years, it took me a few minutes to get the hang of it. An image of the first ball appeared on a large electronic screen even before it was called, giving players a head start on filling in their grids—and a head start on calling out bingo if they had a winning card. I barely kept up with the numbers, often missing some. Luckily Larry, sitting across from me, pointed out the ones I overlooked, in addition to covering his own spread of cards. Talk about multitasking—this was not the best game for someone with ADHD.
Ten minutes later a voice called out “Bingo!” Moans and groans filled the room as the rest of us losers realized this first game was over and there would be no cash prize for us this time. I turned to see who’d won the money and was surprised to find Javier with his hand in the air, a big gap-toothed grin on his face. Allison, sitting next to him, was also grinning, and patting him on the back. I made a mental note to go congratulate him at the scheduled break.
Once I had the hang of the next game, I got cocky, until they threw me a curve. This one was called Postage Stamp Bingo, which meant instead of covering five spaces in a row, players had to fill a block of four. Next came Six-Pack Bingo—fill in a six-space rectangle. I almost yelled “Bingo!” when I found one of my sheets had five in a row, until my mother reminded me this was a whole new game. Boo.
An hour and five losing games later, the caller announced a much-needed break. I stood up, stretched out my back, squeezed together my numb buttocks, and took a stroll around the room to get the circulation going in my legs again. I found myself on the other side of the room, where Javier and Allison sat drinking sodas and eating candy bars.
“Hi!” I said, acting as if I was surprised to see them.
They looked up. Javier stiffened; Allison cocked her head.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
“My mother wanted to come and she invited me along. I thought it might be a nice escape from…” I didn’t finish the sentence.
Allison nodded. “Us too,” she said, indicating Javier. “It’s so gloomy over there right now. And there’s really nothing we can do with that crime scene tape all over the place. Right, Javier?”
He nodded and took a bite of his candy bar.
Allison stood up. “Well, time for a potty break,” she said, then dashed off, leaving me alone with Javier, who continued to look uncomfortable.
I sat down in her seat.
“Hey, congratulations on winning the first game! That was exciting.”
Javier broke a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Only wish it was enough to pay the bills, you know?”
I nodded. “Rob said you manage several of the smaller wineries but that some of them have closed down.”
He frowned. “Yeah, bought out by Nap-opoly, thanks to JoAnne and all her green rules. I’m down to two wineries now. I could definitely use a few more bingos, you know?”
“You think JoAnne is responsible for the loss of the small wineries?”
He said nothing, just took another bite of his candy bar and washed it down with soda.
“Because her requirements are too strict?” I said, pursuing the question.
“The small wineries, they can’t compete with the big ones, not with all these rules about restricting expansion and development.”
“Do you think any of the owners were upset enough to kill her?” I asked bluntly.
Javier shot me a look. “I don’t know. Not Rob. He’s a good man. He tried to go along with JoAnne’s demands—we all did. But when he found out—” Javier stopped.
“Found out what, Javier?”
“Nothing. It’s not my place to speak, you know?”
“Javier, JoAnne Douglas is dead, and your boss—your friend—Rob is down at the police station being questioned. If there’s anything you can tell me that would help him…”
Javier bit his lip, glanced around, then said quietly, “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me, you know? Rob found out JoAnne was selling bottles of her regular wines as ‘new boutique wines,’ marking up the prices and using fake labels. He told her it wasn’t right, but she said there was nothing illegal about it. He reminded her of the Thomas Jefferson fraud a few years ago, but she just ignored him.”
“What fraud?” I asked, puzzled at how our third president could be involved in a wine scandal.
“It was a big scandal. An auction house was selling off limited bordeaux with Thomas Jefferson’s label, but the wines inside the bottle turned out to be something different. If something like that happened here in Napa, it could ruin the reputation of everyone who’s legitimate.”
“Fake wine labels? Wow.”
“Yeah, most vintners today use high-tech fraud prevention—invisible markers, tamper-proof seals, ID chips in the corks, microprinted codes. That’s how they try to prevent counterfeiters, since there are no ‘wine police’ to oversee everything. But all that stuff costs money. Lots of money.”
No wonder Rob had hired Javier as his manager. This guy knew everything there was to know about wine. “Why would JoAnne do that?”
