The Only Girl in the Game

by John D. MacDonald

  The man nibbled the corner of his thumbnail. “I don’t know. I mean … hell, I’m so far behind now.…”

  “You think gambling is the only way you can catch up?”

  “What have I got to lose? Right now I got no equity left in the house. I’m as far down as I can get. So how can I get hurt?”

  “By continuing?”

  “The way I see it, I can save up a couple hundred bucks at a time and keep trying. If I drop it, nobody is hurt Sooner or later I’ll make out, and then I can get well. That’s all I want. I don’t want to make a fortune. I just want to get well again. There’s no law against that, Mr. Darren.”

  Hugh glanced at John Trabe. John shrugged almost imperceptibly. Hugh said, “I think we’d better let you go. Engler. You’ve done good work here. We’ll see you get a good letter of recommendation. But, on the basis of past experience in similar situations you’re a risk we can’t afford.”

  Engler said bitterly, “Thanks a lot. You’re a couple of real nice guys to work for. Thanks for everything. Should I finish the shift?”

  “You better just go clean out your locker, Chet,” John Trabe said, “and turn the hotel equipment in, and wait for me out in the staff lounge I’ll bring you your check to date, with three weeks in advance.”

  Engler got up and walked out without a word.

  “What happens to them, Hugh?” John Trabe asked sadly. “They get hooked. They throw everything away. They drop out of sight as if they’d never existed. They forget you can’t beat the casinos. They live for the time they can buy at the tables. Whenever they’re away from the tables they act semiconscious. They do bad work. And sooner or later they dream up some crazy scheme to tap the till so they can play oftener and heavier. People who stay immune can make a good living here and have a damn fine life.”

  “How did he start? Do you know?”

  “He was what we call a dollar player, Hugh. A dollar player is a guy who will take his wife out for the evening, and when she goes to the women’s room, he’ll change a five or a ten into silver dollars and drift over to a crap table or a blackjack dealer and make a few bets. If he doubles his money he’ll quit and tell his wife she was a cheap date. If he loses, he’ll mentally chalk it up as part of the cost of the evening out. A dollar player isn’t hooked, but with some people it can all of a sudden turn into a snake.

  “The way I got the story, Chet and Lila went out one evening and they had a hell of a fight over something or other, one of those marriage battles, and she went home in a cab. He knew the fight was his fault, but he was too stubborn to follow her home right away. He played dollars at blackjack and made out well, and then started playing two hands and switched to five dollars a hand, playing with house money he had won. He kept winning, and switched to ten bucks a hand, and finally cashed in eleven hundred bucks. He used it to buy Lila a mink stole as a peace offering. About two weeks later he decided he’d try to win himself a new car. A month or so after that fiasco, he sneaked out of the house with the mink and sold it for four hundred bucks so he’d have money to play with. Now he’s played himself right through everything he owned, and right through his marriage. He knows he’s being criminally stupid, but he can’t quit. He doesn’t even want to quit.”

  “Some psychiatrists say, John, that a man like Engler wants to lose. He has a compulsion to lose and punish himself by losing. It’s a sort of symbolic suicide.”

  John Trabe stood up. “I don’t know how the shrinkers have it figured. All I know is we’re doing the right thing in letting him go, but I’ve lost one of my best men. Joan and I have had dinner in their house, Hugh. The four of us have had a lot of laughs. She cried on Joan’s shoulder before she took off. It’s like somebody had died.”

  “Or caught an incurable disease.”

  “Yes. A disease. That fits better. I’ll have this check sent in for signature, Hugh. By the way, I’ve been thinking we ought to stock a wider range of wines in all price levels. It’s moving better lately, and if I can grab more storage space, we can make a hell of a saving on big purchases.”

  “And print new wine lists?”

  “We’re going to have to print up more pretty soon anyway.”

  “Are you thinking of any offbeat brands?”

  “Hell, no! I want things we can be sure of reordering with no problems. I’ll have a written recommendation ready by next week some time.”

  “So far it sounds good, Thanks, John.”

  “And thanks to you for listening to Chet. Because he’s been a friend, I couldn’t.…”

  “I know.”

  At nine-twenty P.M. on that Sunday, the seventeenth day of April, Hugh Darren was making ready for bed. It was a rare luxury to fold so early. The hotel was full. For once every department for which he was responsible was running smoothly. He had made a final tour of inspection before deciding to turn in early. For once there were no special instructions to relay to Bunny Rice.

  He soaked away his tensions in a long hot shower and slid gratefully into bed. Just as he was reaching to turn out the bedside lamp, his phone rang and he changed the direction of his reach and picked it up.

  “Hugh?” the familiar voice said. “Vicky here.”

  “Well, hello, stranger. I left a note for you gadabouts, but.…”

  “Perhaps Temp picked it up, because I don’t know anything about it. Hugh, I’m so upset. A dreadful thing is happening, and I can’t stop it. I really don’t know what to do.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m on one of the house phones right now, in the lobby. It’s Temp, Hugh. He’s gambling.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Vicky, he’s not a child. He can gamble without upsetting you, can’t he?”

  “You don’t understand. He’s been drinking ever since he had that conference today with those horrid men. They upset him dreadfully, you know. And I can’t seem to communicate with him at all. He’s gambling heavily and he’s losing heavily, and I don’t think he really knows what he’s doing. They’re honoring his checks on the account he established in New York, and I have no idea what he’s lost, but I really think it might be a great deal. I can’t make him stop. I can’t even make him listen to me. I’m hoping you can do something with him. It’s really very frightening.”

  “You stay near the house phones, Vicky. I’ll be down in about three minutes.”

  He dressed hastily. When Vicky saw him walking toward her she advanced to meet him. She took his hand in both of hers and he noticed her fingers were moist and cold. She looked trim in a severe black suit that had a slimming effect, but small flaws in her grooming testified to her agitation. The lipstick had been chewed from her underlip and some golden strands of hair were awry.

  “I’ll take you to where he is,” she said.

  Casino play was exceptionally heavy. All tables were in operation, and the customers stood two and three deep around the craps and roulette. The murmuring crowd noises blended with the chantings of the casino staff, the continuous roar of the slots, the music from the Afrique Bar and the Little Room, and the muffled bursts of applause from the big Safari Room where the dinner show was coming to an end. As he worked his way through the throng, Hugh was once again aware of how truly joyless these casino crowds were. When play was this heavy there was a special electric tension in the air, but there was something dingy about it. There was laughter, but no mirth. This was the raw and sweaty edge where luck and money meet in organized torment. Money is equal to survival. So it is as mirthless as some barbaric arena where slaves are matched against beasts. People in casinos ignore each other. It is a place where each man is intensely and desperately alone.

  “Right there,” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “Do you see him?”

  Temple Shannard stood at a curved corner of a crap table. When Hugh worked his way closer he could see the chips stacked vertically in the half-circle groove of the rail in front of Shannard. He had a ten-inch length of hundred-dollar chips and half that amount of fifty-dol
lar chips. He stood with brown hands braced on the rail, watching the teasing dance of the dice. His collar was open, his face flushed, his eyes slitted and intent, his mouth entirely slack. He took some hundred-dollar chips and, with no attempt to count them, placed them behind his come-line bet, increasing his bet with the shooter.

  “The point is eight,” the stick man chanted. “And the shooter rolls an eleven. No bets in the field.”

  “Hard eight,” Shannard said and tossed the hundred-dollar chip. The stick man moved it onto the double-four box.

  “And a three, another number in the field, and a seven.”

  When the come bets were raked in and the other bets adjusted, the stick man hooked the five dice over in front of the next shooter for him to make his choice of the two dice he would use.

  Hugh had managed to edge in behind Temp. “Having fun, Temp?” he asked.

  Temp looked back over his shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? A lot of big fat fun.” His voice was blurred and thickened. “How are you doing?”

  “Check with me later, old boy. Check with me later. Right now I’m busy.”

  Hugh moved away from the table, gestured to Vicky to wait where she was, and went to the big casino cashiers’ cage. The men who worked behind the windows knew him even though they did not come under the hotel operation.

  “Are you cashing checks for Temple Shannard?” The man hesitated.

  “Uh … yes, we are, Mr. Darren.”

  “What’s the total so far?”

  “Would you hold on just a moment, please?”

  Hugh waited thirty seconds and suddenly Max Hanes appeared beside him. “What’s on your mind, Hugh?”

  “I want to know how deep Temp Shannard is getting.”

  “They brought the first check to me, Hugh. I checked with Al on it. We agreed we’d cash checks right up to one hundred grand. So far we’ve cashed one for three thousand, four for five thousand apiece, and one for ten, and it’s that ten he’s working with right now. Thirty-three thousand bucks, pal.”

  “I’ve got to get him away from that table, Max.”

  “Now that’s an interesting-type idea, but do you mind telling me why you think you got to get him away from the table before the poor guy has a chance to run hot and get well?”

  “He’s my friend. He’s had bad luck. And he’s drunk. He shouldn’t be losing that much money.”

  Max Hanes gave him a friendly thump on the biceps that momentarily numbed his arm. “Darren, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been here eight months now, and that’s long enough so you should get the picture. The lieutenant-governor of this great state of Nevada, Mr. Rex Bell, goes around making luncheon speeches about how the whole idea of the State of Nevada is that people shouldn’t be treated like children. They are grown up and they ought to be treated like adults. In Las Vegas a man gets treated like an adult. If he wants to drink, he can drink. If he wants to gamble, he can gamble. Nobody twists his arm. And if he wants to drink and gamble, that’s his privilege. Now you wouldn’t want to go against the whole idea of this place all of a sudden.”

  Hugh turned to face Max Hanes squarely. “He’s my friend. He’s doing something he’s going to regret. I’m going to have to stop him.”

  “Okay, so we give you a big score for friendship, buddy, but let’s change that brave talk just a little bit. You can try to stop him. You can go right over there and talk to him. That’s your privilege. Anybody who comes into my casino has that same privilege.” He tapped Hugh on the chest with a thick finger. “But all you do is talk. And you do it quietly. And if he doesn’t listen, that’s too damn bad. Because if you try anything else, Darren, if you try pulling him away from the table, or grabbing his chips to go cash them in, you’re no different from any bum who wanders into my casino making a disturbance. If you do anything except talk, I got boys who will walk you out of here so quiet nobody will know anything is wrong, but you’ll maybe have lame arms for a week.”

  “You people wave a big flag for friendship, don’t you? You leave a drunken bum in as manager because he’s an old pal. But when it comes to one of my friends, he’s just another pigeon to pluck. Is that it, Max?”

  “You’re an employee and your old buddy is a mark. You got to belong to the club.”

  “What do you show the membership committee? A photostat of your prison record?”

  “See how I’m getting all red and confused and guilty-looking? You’re hurting my feelings, Hugh.” He laughed as Hugh turned angrily away from him.

  Once again Hugh shouldered his way close to Temp Shannard. The dice had come to Temp. He bet heavily on himself and crapped out, then bet twice as much as before and rolled a ten. He rolled for a long time, struggling for the ten, until a five deuce showed. He was down to so few chips he took them off the rail and held them in his hand.

  Hugh talked to him, his lips close to Temp’s ear. He begged him, he implored him, he pleaded and wheedled.

  “For me, Temp,” he said finally. “Not for Vicky, not for yourself. For me.”

  Temp swung around, his eyes big with an animal wildness, and yelled, “Get the hell away from me, Darren!”

  Ben Brown, Max Hanes’ first assistant, and a big casino guard had moved in close. “I guess you’re bothering the player, Mr. Darren,” Brown said mildly.

  Hugh walked over to Vicky and took her out of the crowd, over to the far wall beyond the last aisle of slots.

  “He won’t listen.”

  “Can’t you ask them to stop taking the money?”

  “The casino is separate, Vicky. It doesn’t come under me. It’s just as if he was playing at the Sands or the Tropicana. The best thing is to wait and catch him on the way to cash another check.”

  “How much has he gone through?”

  “Quite a lot.”

  “How much, Hugh?”

  “Over thirty thousand.”

  She closed her eyes. She kept them closed for several seconds, and her plump oval face looked naked and young and helpless.

  “Oh, the ass!” she said, her voice barely audible in the din. “The bloody, stupid, drunken ass! It’s the end of it, you know.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It isn’t his to lose. He owes every dime of it.”

  “Come on! He’s leaving the table.”

  Shannard was plodding toward the cashiers’ cage, planting his feet very firmly and carefully, as though the floor were tilted.

  They caught him twenty feet from his destination. “Dearest, do come up to bed now,” Vicky said, standing directly in his way.

  “Ganging up on me,” Shannard said.

  “It’s a mug’s game, darling. They’re licensed to steal from you.”

  “You aren’t in good shape, Temp,” Hugh said. “Try tomorrow when you’re rested up.”

  Shannard turned his head slowly to stare at Hugh with a puzzling look of mockery. “Sobered up, you mean, old pal.”

  “That’s an idea too.”

  He glowered at the two of them. “You kids don’t get the picture. Been a gambler all my life. Gambled on everything I ever did. So when it goes sour you got to fight it, see? You got to get in there and slug. You got to turn it back your way … or you’re lost. That’s what I’m doing. I’m standing toe to toe with it, kids. I’m fighting it.”

  “Temp, please. Actually, you’re too stinking drunk even to know what you’re saying,” Vicky said.

  He pushed her out of the way with one wide sweep of his arm. Had Hugh not caught her, she would have fallen.

  “You don’t get anywhere talking, I guess,” Max Hanes said, smiling at them.

  “You’re a completely poisonous type,” Vicky said coldly. Max merely widened his grin. “You do the duchess bit pretty good, chick. Where’d you learn it?”

  “Good night, Hugh,” Vicky said. “Thanks for trying to help. Sorry I disturbed you for nothing.”

  She disappeared swiftly into the crowd, heading in the direction of the lobby. �
�That’s a type broad I can appreciate,” Max said with surprising warmth. “Just as mean as a damn snake. You can’t cross up a broad like that. She’ll beat you to it every time.”

  “Max, as a favor to an acquaintance … I won’t pose as a friend … will you cut him off at fifty thousand?”

  “It would make me unpopular with Al, Hugh. Al says he’s good for a hundred.”

  “What about being unpopular with me, Max?”

  “What the hell can you do?”

  “Just stand still and think for a minute. Think of all the things I can do that’ll make your operation a little bit tougher to handle, and won’t be so obvious they’ll get rid of me. And after you’ve listed all the things you can think of, multiply by three, because I sure as hell can think of three times as many as you can, if you give me this kind of a reason.”

  Max met his level stare for several seconds. “And I could frame you right out of the best job you’ve ever had, kid.” “And give yourself a chance to work with another bum like Jerry.”

  “You and me, we can get along. But don’t push me.”

  “Then don’t bitch up my friends.”

  “So maybe he takes his business somewhere else.”

  “It’s the play right here I’m concerned about, Max.”

  Max knuckled him painfully in the ribs. “You know, Hughie, I think you got more working for you than I figured. If he keeps on losing, I’ll cut him off at seventy-five.”

  “Sixty, Max.”

  “So let’s settle for sixty-five, and I don’t think he’ll last to go that deep anyhow. The new limit is good only for tonight. That’s the best deal you get, and I could have swore you weren’t going to get yourself any kind of deal at all.”

  As Hugh was leaving the casino, Ben Brown moved over to stand beside Max Hanes. “That’s one boy scout gives me a quick sharp pain,” Brown said.

  “Don’t fault that boy. How much did Shannard take?”

  “Another ten.”

  “Tell Ritchie to cut him off at sixty-five.”

  “But I thought you said Al said it was okay to go to.…”

  “If I want a conversation I’ll go on television.”