by Mario Puzo
Merlyn looked back at him and lowered his eyes and then said very softly, “It’s just that you can’t sleep at night, right?”
Jordan said, “That’s right.”
Cully said impatiently, “Nobody sleeps in this town. Just get a couple of sleeping pills.”
“They give me nightmares,” Jordan said.
“No, no,” Cully said. “I mean them.” He pointed to three hookers seated around a table, having drinks. Jordan laughed. It was the first time he had heard the Vegas idiom. Now he understood why sometimes Cully broke off gambling with the announcement he was going to take on a couple of sleeping pills.
If there was ever a time for walking sleeping pills, it was tonight, but Jordan had tried that the first week in Vegas. He could always make it, but he never really felt the relief from tension afterward. One night a hooker, a friend of Cully’s, had talked him into “twins,” taking her girlfriend with her. Only another fifty and they would really shoot the works because he was a nice guy. And he’d said OK. It had been sort of cheery and comforting with so many breasts surrounding him. An infantile comfort. One girl finally cradled his head in her breast while the other one rode him astride. And at the final moment of tension, as finally he came, surrendering at least his flesh, he caught the girl astride giving a sly smile to the girl on whose breasts he rested. And he understood that now that he was finally out of the way, finished off, they could get down to what they really wanted. He watched while the girl who had been astride went down on the other girl with a passion far more convincing than she had shown with him. He wasn’t angry. He’d just as soon they got something out of it. It seemed in some way more natural to be so. He had given them an extra hundred. They thought it was for being so good, but really it was for that sly secret smile-for that comforting, sweetly confirming betrayal. And yet the girl lying back in the final exaltation of her Judas climax had reached out her hand blindly for Jordan to hold, and he had been moved to tears.
And all the walking sleeping pills had tried their best for him. They were the cream of the country, these girls. They gave you affection, they held your hand, they went to a dinner and a show, they gambled a little of your money, never cheated or rolled you. They made believe they truly cared and they fucked your brains out. All for a solitary hundred-dollar bill, a single Honeybee in Cully’s phrase. They were a bargain. An, Christ, they were a bargain. But he could never let himself be faked out even for the tiny bought moment. They washed him down before leaving him: a sick, sick man on a hospital bed. Well, they were better than the regular sleeping pills, they didn’t give him nightmares. But they couldn’t put him to sleep either. He hadn’t really slept for three weeks.
Wearily Jordan sagged against the headboard of his bed. He didn’t remember leaving his chair. He should put out the lights and try to sleep. But the terror would come back. Not a mental fear, but a physical panic that his body could not fight off even as his mind stood by and wondered what was happening. There was no choice. He had to go back down into the casino. He threw the check for fifty thousand into his suitcase. He would just gamble his cash and chips.
Jordan scooped everything off the bed and stuffed his pockets. He went out of the room and down the hail into the casino. The real gamblers were at the tables now, in these early-morning hours. They had made their business deals, finished their dinners in the gourmet rooms, taken their wives to the shows and put them to bed or stuck them with dollar chips at the roulette wheel. Out of traffic. Or they had gotten laid, blown, attended a necessary civic function. All now free to battle fate. Money in hand, they stood in the front rank at crap tables. Pit bosses with blank markers waited for them to run out of chips so they could sign for another grand or two or three. During the coming dark hours men signed away fortunes. Never knowing why. Jordan looked away to the far end of the casino.
An elegantly royal gray railed enclosure nestled the long oval baccarat table from the main casino floor. An armed security guard stood at the gate because the baccarat table dealt mostly in cash, not chips. The green felt table was guarded at each end by high towered chairs. Seated in these chairs were the two laddermen, checking the croupiers and payouts, their hawkish concentration only thinly disguised by the evening dress all casino employees wore inside the baccarat enclosure. The laddermen watched every motion of the three croupiers and pit boss who ran the action. Jordan started walking toward them until he could see the distinct figures of the croupiers in their formal evening dress.
Four Saints in black tie, they sang hosannas to winners, dirges to losers. Handsome men, their motions quick, their charm continental, they graced the game they ruled. But before Jordan could get through the royal gray gate, Cully and Merlyn stepped before him.
Cully said softly. “They only have fifteen minutes to go. Stay out of it.” Baccarat closed at 3 AM.
And then one of the Saints in black tie called out to Jordan, “We’re making up the last shoe, Mr. J. A Banker shoe.” He laughed. Jordan could see the cards all dumped out on the table, blue-backed, then scooped to be stacked before the shuffle, their inner white pale faces showing.
Jordan said, “How about you two guys coming in with me? I’ll put up the money and we’ll bet the limit in each chair.” Which meant that with the two-thousand limit Jordan would be betting six thousand on each hand.
“Are you crazy?” Cully said. “You can go to hell.”
“Just sit there,” Jordan said. “I’ll give you ten percent of everything your chair wins.”
“No,” Cully said and walked away from him and leaned against the baccarat railing.
Jordan said, “Merlyn, sit in a chair for me?”
Merlyn the Kid smiled at him and said quietly, “Yeah, I’ll sit in the chair.”
“You get ten percent,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, OK,” Merlyn said. They both went through the gate and sat down. Diane had the newly made up shoe, and Jordan sat down in the chair beside her so that he could get the shoe next. Diane bent her head to him.
“Jordy, don’t gamble anymore,” she said. He didn’t bet on her hand as she dealt blue cards out of the shoe. Diane lost, lost her casino’s twenty dollars and lost the bank and passed the shoe on to Jordan.
Jordan was busy emptying out all the outside pockets of his Vegas Winner sports jacket. Chips, black and green, hundred-dollar notes. He placed a stack of bills in front of Merlyn’s chair six. Then he took the shoe and placed twenty black chips in the Banker’s slot. “You too,” he said to Merlyn. Merlyn counted twenty hundred-dollar bills from the stack in front of him and placed them on his Banker’s slot.
The croupier held up one palm high to halt Jordan ’s dealing. Looked around the table to see that everyone had made his bet. His palm fell to a beckoning hand, and he sang out to Jordan, “A card for the Player.”
Jordan dealt out the cards. One to the croupier, one to himself. Then another one to the croupier and another one to himself. The croupier looked around the table and then threw his two cards to the man betting the highest amount on Player’s. The man peeked at his cards cautiously and then smiled and flung his two cards face up. He had a natural, invincible nine. Jordan tossed his cards face up without even looking at them. He had two picture cards. Zero. Bust-out. Jordan passed the shoe to Merlyn. Merlyn passed the shoe on to the next player. For one moment Jordan tried to halt the shoe, but something about Merlyn’s face stopped him. Neither of them spoke.
The golden brown box worked itself slowly around the table. It was chopping. Banker won. Then Player. No consecutive wins, for either. Jordan riding the Banker all the way, pressing, had lost over ten thousand dollars from his own pile, Merlyn still refusing to bet. Finally Jordan had the shoe once again.
He made his bet, the two-thousand-dollar limit. He reached over into Merlyn’s money and stripped off a sheaf of bills and threw them onto the Banker’s slot. He noticed briefly that Diane was no longer beside him. Then he was ready. He felt a tremendous surge of power, that he co
uld will the cards to come out of the shoe as he wished them to.
Calmly and without emotion Jordan hit twenty-four straight passes. By the eighth pass the railing around the baccarat table was crowded and every gambler at the table was betting Bank, riding with luck. By the tenth pass the croupier in the money slot reached down and pulled out the special five-hundred-dollar chips. They were a beautiful creamy white threaded with gold.
Cully was pressed against the rail, watching, Diane standing with him. Jordan gave them a little wave. For the first time he was excited. Down at the other end of the table a South American gambler shouted, “Maestro,” as Jordan hit his thirteenth pass. And then the table became strangely silent as Jordan pressed on.
He dealt effortlessly from the shoe, his hands seemed to flow. Never once did a card stumble or slip as he passed it out from his hiding place in the wooden box. Never did he accidentally show a card’s pale white face. He flipped over his own cards with the same rhythmic movement each time, without looking, letting the head croupier call numbers and hits. When the croupier said, “A card for the Player,” Jordan slipped it out easily with no emphasis to make it good or bad. When the croupier called, “A card for the Banker,” again Jordan slipped it out smoothly and swiftly, without emotion. Finally going for the twenty-fifth pass, he lost to Player’s, the Player’s hand being played by the croupier because everyone was betting Bank.
Jordan passed the shoe on to Merlyn, who refused it and passed it on to the next chair. Merlyn, too, had stacks of gold five-hundred-dollar chip sin front of him. Since they had won on Bank, they had to pay the five percent house commission. The croupier counted out the commission plaques against their chair numbers. It was over five thousand dollars. Which meant that Jordan had won a hundred thousand dollars on that one hot hand. And every gambler around the table had bailed out.
Both laddermen high up in their chairs were on the phone calling the casino manager and the hotel owner with the bad news. An unlucky night at the baccarat table was one of the few serious dangers to the casino profit margin. Not that it meant anything in the long run, but an eye was always kept on natural disasters. Gronevelt himself came down from his penthouse suite and quietly stepped into the baccarat enclosure, standing in the corner with the pit boss, watching. Jordan saw him out of the corner of his eye and knew who he was, Merlyn had pointed him out one day.
The shoe traveled around the table and remained a coyly Banker’s shoe. Jordan made a little money. Then he had the shoe in his hand again.
This time effortlessly and easily, his hands balletic, he accomplished every baccarat player’s dream. He ran out the shoe with passes. There were no more cards left. Jordan had stack on stack of white gold chips in front of him.
Jordan threw four of the gold and white chips to the head croupier. “For you, gentlemen,” he said.
The baccarat pit boss said, “Mr. Jordan, why don’t you just sit here and we’ll get all this money turned into a check?”
Jordan stuffed the huge wad of hundred-dollar bills into his jacket, then the black hundred-dollar chips, leaving endless stacks of gold and white five-hundred-dollar chips on the table. “You can count them for me,” he said to the pit boss. He stood up to stretch his legs, and then he said casually, “Can you make up another shoe?”
The pit boss hesitated and turned to the casino manager standing with Gronevelt. The casino manager shook his head for a no. He had Jordan tabbed as a degenerate gambler. Jordan would surely stay in Vegas until he lost. But tonight was his hot night. And why buck him on his hot night? Tomorrow the cards would fall differently. He could not be lucky forever and then his end would be swift. The casino manager had seen it all before. The house had an infinity of nights and every one of them with the edge, the percentage. “Close the table,” the casino manager said.
Jordan bowed his head. He turned to look at Merlyn and said, “Keep track, you get ten percent of your chair’s win,” and to his surprise he saw a look almost of grief in Merlyn’s eyes and Merlyn said, “No.”
The money croupiers were counting up Jordan ’s gold chips and stacking them so that the laddermen, the pit boss and the casino manager could also keep track of their count. Finally they were finished. The pit boss looked up and said with reverence, “You got two hundred and ninety thousand dollars here, Mr. J. You want it all in a check?” Jordan nodded. His inside pockets were still lumpy with other chips, paper money. He didn’t want to turn them in.
The other gamblers had left the table and the enclosure when the casino manager said there would not be another shoe. Still the pit boss whispered. Cully had come through the railing and stood beside Jordan, as did Merlyn, the three of them looking like members of some street gang in their Vegas Winner sports coats.
Jordan was really tired now, too tired for the physical exertion of craps and roulette. And blackjack was too slow with its five-hundred-dollar limit. Cully said, “You’re not playing anymore. Jesus, I never saw anything like this. You can only go down. You can’t get that lucky anymore.” Jordan nodded in agreement.
The security guard took trays of Jordan ’s chips and the signed receipts from the pit boss to the cashier’s cage. Diane joined their group and gave Jordan a kiss. They were all tremendously excited. Jordan at that moment felt happy. Here ally was a hero. And without killing or hurting anyone. So easily. Just by betting a huge amount of money on the turning of cards. And winning.
They had to wait for the check to come back from the cashier’s cage. Merlyn said mockingly to Jordan, “You’re rich, you can do anything you want.”
Cully said, “He has to leave Vegas.”
Diane was squeezing Jordan ’s hand. But Jordan was staring at Gronevelt, standing with the casino manager and the two laddermen, who had come down from their chairs. The four men were whispering together. Jordan said suddenly, “Xanadu Number One, how about dealing up a shoe?”
Gronevelt stepped away from the other men, and his face was suddenly in the full glare of the light. Jordan could see that he was older than he had thought. Maybe about seventy, though ruddy and healthy. He had iron gray hair, thick and neatly combed. His face was really tanned. His figure was sturdy, not yet willowing away with age. Jordan could see that he had reacted only slightly to being addressed by his telephone codename.
Gronevelt smiled at him. He wasn’t angry. But something in him responded to the challenge, brought back his youth, when he had been a degenerate gambler. Now he had made his world safe, his life was under control. He had many pleasures, many duties, some dangers but very rarely a pure thrill. It would be sweet to taste one again, and besides, he wanted to see just how far Jordan would go, what made him tick.
Gronevelt said softly, “You have a check for two hundred ninety grand coming from the cage, right?”
Jordan nodded.
Gronevelt said, “I’ll have them make up a shoe. We play one hand. Double or nothing. But you have to bet Player’s, not Banker’s.”
Everyone in the baccarat enclosure seemed stunned. The croupiers looked at Gronevelt in amazement. Not only was he risking a huge sum of money, contrary to all casino laws, he was also risking his casino license if the State Gaming Commission got tough about this bet. Gronevelt smiled at them. “Shuffle those cards,” he said. “Make up the shoe.”
At that moment the pit boss came through the gate of the enclosure and handed Jordan the yellow oblong ragged-edged piece of paper that was the check. Jordan looked at it for just one moment, then put it down on the Player’s slot and said smiling to Gronevelt, “You got a bet.”
Jordan saw Merlyn back away and lean up against the royal gray railing. Merlyn again was studying him intently. Diane took a few steps to the side in bewilderment. Jordan was pleased with their astonishment. The only thing he didn’t like was betting against his own luck. He hated the idea of dealing the cards out of the shoe and betting against his hand. He turned to Cully.
“Cully, deal the cards for me,” he said.
But
Cully shrank away, horrified. Then Cully glanced at the croupier, who had dumped the cards from the canister under the table and was stacking them for the shuffle. Cully seemed to shudder before he turned to face Jordan.
“Jordy, it’s a sucker bet,” Cully said softly as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. He shot a quick glance at Gronevelt, who was staring at him. But he went on. “Listen, Jordy, the Bank has a two and a half percent edge on the Player all the time. Every hand that’s dealt. That’s why the guy who bets Bank has to pay five percent commission. But now the house has Bank. On a bet like this the commission doesn’t mean anything. It’s better to have the two and a half percent edge in the odds on how the hand comes out. Do you understand that, Jordy?” Cully kept his voice in an even tone. As if he were reasoning with a child.
But Jordan laughed. “I know that,” he said. He almost said that he had counted on that, but it wasn’t really true. “How about it, Cully, deal the cards for me. I don’t want to go against my luck.”
The croupier shuffled the huge deck in sections, put them all together. He held out the blank yellow plastic card for Jordan to cut. Jordan looked at Cully. Cully backed away without another word. Jordan reached out and cut the deck. Everyone now advanced toward the edge of the table. Gamblers outside the enclosure, seeing the new shoe, tried to get in and were barred by the security guard. They started to protest. But suddenly they fell silent. They crowded around outside the railing. The croupier turned up the first card he slid out of the shoe. It was seven. He slid seven cards out of the shoe, burying them in the slot. Then he shoved the shoe across the table to Jordan. Jordan sat down in his chair. Suddenly Gronevelt spoke. “Just one hand,” he said.
The croupier held up his arm and said carefully, “Mr. J., you are betting Player’s, you understand? The hand I turn up will be the hand you are betting on. The hand you turn up as the Banker will be the hand you are betting against.”
