Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  Edmund had pivoted in his chair and was facing Sa’ad and Joel. “Joel. You’re late. Come on and join us.”

  “Hello, Edmund,” Joel said. He had Sa’ad blocked behind him.

  “What are you waitin’ for?” Edmund asked. “Sit down and enjoy.”

  “Okay.” Joel took a seat, couldn’t see where stomping his feet or raising a ruckus or storming off would accomplish much, and at its core this was simply another of Edmund’s bad ideas, a bawdy, misguided effort at generosity. Edmund made the introductions, reciting each woman’s first and last name as he toured the table. The six of them ordered lobsters and steaks, and the women drank two bottles of champagne that the waiter wrapped in cloth napkins and cradled like glass infants when he presented them to Lilly. She giggled and the three ladies jumped both times the cork was popped. It became apparent that Rachel had been assigned to Joel; he declined the champagne when she thrust the bottle in his direction and chatted with her about Wayne Newton and the Hoover Dam and the neat things her uncle did when she was a kid, such as throwing his voice and making his thumb disappear. After two hours, the table was strewn with highball glasses and champagne flutes and lobster husks and plugs of pink filet the women didn’t eat. Joel finished every morsel of his meal from salad to entrée and ordered chocolate pie for dessert.

  Edmund left eight hundred-dollar bills under a bread plate and announced it was time to cross the street and begin the evening’s blackjack at the Mirage. Joel felt a keen emptiness as they were walking into the traffic and neon extravaganza that bracketed the city, Edmund and Sa’ad carefree and at ease, the three women skipping and dodging cars, acting silly, all of them as blithe as could be. Joel was absolutely alone, married but without a wife, jobless, essentially friendless, a teetotaler in a town that celebrated liquor and lust, waiting to return to a bleak underground hole at his sister’s. He watched the women teeter past a cab in their high heels, saw Lilly blow a kiss to a limousine driver who braked to let them pass.

  “I guess I’ll call it a night,” he said to Edmund.

  “Come on, Joel, we’re just hittin’ our prime. At least go to the Mirage for a while.”

  Lilly, Rachel, and Julie had navigated Las Vegas Boulevard and were waving from across the street. Sa’ad looked at Joel but didn’t say anything.

  “Heck, Joel, you can stroll the lobby and look at the white tigers and sharks if nothin’ else,” Edmund urged. “You don’t have to gamble or drink. Wouldn’t you rather have some company than just sit in your room by yourself ?”

  “It’s an impressive lobby,” Sa’ad added.

  The sidewalk was teeming with people, and the air was still warm, even after the sun had set. “I don’t know . . . I’m not big on gambling,” Joel said.

  “It’s a heckuva lot more than gambling, Joel. It’s an upscale hotel with all kinds of attractions. Families and kids come here for their vacations.” Edmund glanced across the street at the other half of their group. “If you were in Rome, you’d see Saint Peter’s; if you went to London, you’d visit Buckingham Palace. You don’t have to be a Catholic or believe in monarchs, right? It’s just seein’ the world.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Look but don’t touch. A trip through a museum,” Sa’ad said.

  “I don’t . . .” Joel left the thought incomplete.

  “It’s a beautiful hotel lobby, not a saloon or speakeasy or somethin’ dirty,” Edmund explained. “It’s the stuff you see on the Travel Channel.”

  Joel peered up at the gaudy gold letters spelling out the resort’s name. “Why not? I might as well see what there is to see while I’m here, and I’m not crazy about sitting alone in a hotel room all night.”

  “That’s the spirit. Now you’re talkin’. ” Edmund sounded truly pleased.

  A cab pulled to the sidewalk, and a man got out, then an older woman in a bright pink pantsuit. Edmund approached the taxi and asked for a ride to the Mirage.

  “It’s right there,” the driver said. He was wearing a baseball hat and had a yellowish film in one eye. When he spoke to Edmund, he wasn’t brusque or condescending. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the hotel.

  “Exactly, sir, but we want a ride anyway. And we’ll need to loop back and pick up those three beautiful ladies.”

  “Can’t make no U-turn. Not here, not this time of night.” The cabbie had his window almost completely down and was resting his arm on the slender strip of glass left in the door.

  Edmund produced a C-note from his pocket and held it in front of the man behind the wheel.

  “Get in,” he said. “For that kinda fare, I’ll make an exception.”

  “You’re going to pay a hundred dollars to ride a cab for two minutes?” Joel was incredulous.

  “It’s only money, Joel,” Edmund said.

  “My goodness.” Joel was shocked, astounded. “What about Sa’ad’s car?”

  “Sa’ad’s been drinking, and we can’t have him behind the wheel, now can we?”

  “Just say no, ” Sa’ad joked.

  “Let’s go, people,” Edmund said. “Our ride’s waitin’.”

  “Is your leg bothering you, Edmund?” Joel asked. “Are you okay? I could get Sa’ad’s car and drive. I’d be glad to, and I’m totally sober.”

  “I’m fine. Healthy as a horse. We’re taking this cab, right now. Quit arguin’ with me.”

  Sa’ad offered Edmund a curious look but didn’t dwell on the issue. “Let’s go then.”

  “You should always arrive at a casino by car,” Edmund explained. “I hate going in all puffin’ and sweaty. Takes something away when the people at the door watch you walkin’ up the entrance road like a pack of teenagers.”

  “I’m not supposed to take six people in my car,” the driver said.

  “Damn, brother, we’re paying you a hundred bucks for nothing,” Sa’ad said. “It’s not going to kill you to be a little more accommodating.”

  “I could lose my license,” the driver said.

  “You could lose a gig paying you three thousand dollars an hour if you don’t get off your ass,” Sa’ad reminded him.

  Edmund bribed him with an additional twenty, and the driver found a way around the rule, horned and butted a route across eight traffic lanes until he was able to swing alongside the curb and collect Rachel, Julie, and Lilly. The three women piled into the rear of the car, and Rachel sat on Joel’s lap. When the taxi accelerated, she bumped backward, and her neck touched the side of Joel’s face. He smelled perfume and alcohol, felt the warmth of her skin transfer into his cheek and found the contact erotic, lowered the power window but got no relief from the hot, clingy air.

  Joel was the last to leave the cab and the last to enter the Mirage. He had to admit that the casino was spectacular. White tigers were lounging in their habitat just off the lobby, sharks sulked in a mammoth aquarium behind the registration desks, and the entire enormous place was a jumble of squeals and voices and coins pouring down into the metal trays of slot machines while lights flashed and comely women tossed dice into felt pits adorned with numbers and chips. Joel’s dose of melancholy continued as he wandered through the casino. He felt a weird disappointment because none of the games and attractions could bring him any particular excitement or lift him from his blue mood. Gambling, drinking, glitz and wholesale whoring were simply not the temptations that turned his head or struck his fancy, and it would’ve been oddly nice to have at least wanted to join in the revelry and feel a twinge of corruption, to want to sneak off and drink a glass of liquor and spin the big wheel-of-chance and petition the Lord for absolution the next morning.

  He located Sa’ad, Edmund and the women at a blackjack table; everyone was playing, the men betting with black chips and sipping scotch. They seemed to be doing well, winning almost every time the cards went around.

  “You better climb in, Joel,” Edmund said. “We got a friendly dealer and a hot shoe, so you could earn some real interest on that money in your wallet.”
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  “I’m not a gambler, Edmund. I don’t enjoy it. What’s a ‘shoe’?”

  “It’s a box the cards are dealt out of, right there.” He motioned toward a crimson-bottomed container on the dealer’s side of the table. “And I ain’t talkin’ about liking it, Joel. I’m talking about makin’ money.”

  “Oh. Well, I can’t really afford to lose the rent check.” Joel gave everyone a wan smile.

  The dealer, an Asian woman with short hair, laid down a card and flicked her eyes over him.

  “Just try it one time,” Rachel wheedled. “It’s a wonderful table.”

  “I don’t know the rules.”

  “We’ll be glad to help you, Joel,” Sa’ad volunteered.

  The dealer was drawing cards for herself and counting out loud. “Twenty-five,” she said. “Dealer bust.”

  Lilly thrust her hands above her head, and everyone cheered and celebrated their good fortune. Sa’ad picked up his glass and swirled the brown whiskey but didn’t take a drink.

  “There’s nothing to it,” Lilly said. “Don’t be a stick in the mud.” She was wearing a shiny sequined top and a short skirt. She stumbled on the word “stick,” slurring the s.

  “You know, Joel, I don’t enjoy getting up and preparing for work every day. But I do it. I do it to make money. That’s what we have here—a legal chance to make some good money. Give it a try.” Sa’ad still had his drink airborne.

  “How much does it cost to play?”

  “Twenty-five is the minimum bet.”

  “Wow.” Joel made a face. “How much are you guys betting with the black chips?”

  “Black is one hundred,” the dealer explained.

  Edmund suddenly clapped his hands, then elbowed Sa’ad. “Check it out, Otis. Twenty-one. That’s sweet.” Edmund had a black ace and a ten of diamonds in front of him.

  “How much did you win?” Joel inquired.

  “Bet two hundred. Blackjack’ll pay me three hundred.”

  “Plus you get to keep your original bet, your two hundred?” Joel asked.

  “Of course,” Edmund said. A cocktail waitress came by the table and everyone ordered more alcohol. “That’s three hundred profit,” Edmund explained after he’d requested another scotch.

  “I’ll help you play,” Rachel offered. “You need to hurry before the luck turns.”

  Joel stared at the table and cards and chips. “You just try to get to twenty-one, right?”

  “Basically. We’ll help you with the details.” Edmund patted the empty chair next to him. “Hop in.”

  “I could sure use the money.”

  Sa’ad finally took a drink and looked at Joel over the top of his glass. “It’s you and your seventh-grade friends playing twenty-one in the pup tent with your mama’s bridge cards. Flashlights, graham crackers, sleeping bags, a transistor radio. Same harmless fun.”

  Joel rested his hand on the cushion in the vacant seat. “You forgot the BB guns.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Lilly asked. “Transistor—”

  She was interrupted by a yelp from Julie; another blackjack had appeared.

  “It’s an incredible table, Joel,” Sa’ad said. He set down his scotch.

  Joel reached into his wallet and took out one of the hundreds. “Where do I go to have it changed?”

  “All right! Now we’re cookin’. ” Edmund was delighted. “Lay the money on the table, and she’ll give you your chips.”

  Joel settled into his seat and held out the money for the dealer. “You have to put it on table,” she instructed. Her name tag said Li and noted she was from Korea. “I can’t take like that.” She was kind, didn’t scold him.

  Joel received four green chips, which looked paltry compared to Edmund’s massive stack next door. He pushed a chip into a square on the table and waited for his cards. When he swallowed, there was a brief catch in his throat, and a couple breaths came and went too quickly, one right after the other. Edmund raised his wrist to check the time, and things seemed to grind and lose purpose. Julie put her mouth next to Rachel’s ear and whispered, and she took forever to finish three or four words. Joel’s first card was an ace.

  “Now we’re talkin’,” Edmund said. His speech was distorted and strangely slow. “That’s a good start.”

  Rachel made a fist. “Now you need a ten.” Her lips labored and her voice sounded drugged . . . stuck at thirty-three-and-a-third speed. “Paint . . . that . . . bad . . . boy.”

  Joel clasped his hands under his chin and squeezed until the feeling in the tips of his fingers disappeared. Sa’ad got a nine, Edmund a queen . . . The next card, his, was . . . an ace. Another ace, just like the first one. Both diamonds.

  “How . . . what . . . is that right? I got the same card twice. Two aces of diamonds. Is this rigged or something? How—” His own voice wallowed out of his head.

  “It a six-deck shoe,” Li explained. There was a hitch . . . a jolt . . . voices and movements caught speed and herky-jerked into gear. Things returned to normal, ran in real time. “We play with six decks at once. No problem.”

  “There’re six decks, all shuffled together,” Edmund added. “Makes it harder to count cards or cheat.”

  “So I have, what, twelve? That’s not so great.” Joel rubbed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. “Drat.”

  “Split ’em,” Edmund said.

  “Always split aces,” Rachel agreed.

  “Meaning?” Joel asked.

  “You wager another chip, split the aces and you get one card on each ace,” Edmund explained.

  Joel sighed. “So I have to bet another twenty-five?”

  “Yes.”

  Joel looked at Sa’ad, inviting his opinion.

  “It’s a no-brainer, Joel,” he said.

  “Okay. Okay, then.” He placed another green bet. Li’s hands darted to his cards and separated the aces. “Good luck,” she uttered in a detached tone that made Joel think she frequently said it when people were in his circumstances.

  The first card made a crisp, snapping sound when it exited the clear dispenser. A ten. “Twenty-one,” Joel heard someone say. The next card appeared much more quietly, seemed to come from nowhere. A nine. “Twenty,” Sa’ad said. “Good card.”

  Li finished dealing to the rest of the table and turned to her own cards, one exposed, the other facedown. She had a seven of spades everyone could see, and she pinched it at the corner and used it to flip over the card underneath. A red queen with a lazy smile rolled onto her rump, and the table cheered and broke into high-fives. “Dealer have seventeen,” Li said. She slid two green chips to Joel, fifty dollars. More money than he’d earned in a month. Only Lilly had lost, and she didn’t seemed too concerned about the setback.

  “Nothing to it, huh, Joel?” Edmund said.

  “Congratulations,” Li said.

  “Should I keep playing?” Joel asked. “Or are the odds against me winning again?”

  “This table’s a gold mine. Put your bet down.” Edmund had been drinking for hours but didn’t appear affected by it.

  “You’re sure?” Joel quizzed him.

  “It’s gambling, Joel, not banking,” Sa’ad remarked. “The only sure bet is the ATM machine, and sometimes even that jams. But this is as good a run of cards as you’ll find.”

  “How much should I put out?”

  “Bet it all,” Lilly said. She was smoking a cigarette, and a segment of gray and white ash collapsed and sprinkled the floor without her noticing it.

  “Yeah,” Rachel encouraged him. “Go for all of it.”

  “Don’t pay them any attention,” Edmund said sternly. “Bet the fifty you just won. That way you’re playin’ with the house’s money.”

  “Makes sense,” Joel agreed. He dropped two chips onto the table, and Li began giving everyone cards.

  The same thing happened again as soon as the first card popped from the shoe . . . the Mirage bogged down, and the casino became sluggish and ponderous, congealed. Co
lors and shapes strung together in stuttering, piecemeal sequences and people moved like flipbook figures, leaving behind fleeting vapors with each step or reach or gesture. Joel saw a blackish vein across the top of Li’s dealing hand, noticed the pattern and weave in the green fabric covering the table as a card closed in on his fifty-dollar wager. “A three,” one of the women said, and she sounded as if she were submerged.

  He noticed a man in a handsome suit, walking through the casino so slowly that he seemed mechanical. The man locked onto Joel and gradually released a smile, raised his hand in a leaden wave as if they knew each other. One tooth—in the top front—was outlined in gold, an image that lingered in Joel’s mind even after the passerby had disappeared behind a cluster of people betting on a dice game.

  “Sir, what you like to do?” It was Li, and the warped, weighted sound had gone from her voice. Her smile was formal and fixed. She was staring at him with one hand hovering above the shoe. He had missed a card, missed some time, gotten bound up in the freakish mire and the stranger’s flashy smile.

  “Uh, I . . . lost track there, sorry. It’s strange the way things happen when, well, when the cards are coming. So, okay.” He examined his cards. “Thirteen. That’s low, isn’t it? I guess I need to take one?” He turned to Edmund for help. “Right?”

  “Lord no, Joel. Look at what the dealer’s got showin’. She’s riding a six. You stay where you are.”

  “I only have thirteen, Edmund. I’ll never win with that.”

  Li hadn’t moved, although her smile was gone. She shifted her weight, made eye contact with the dealer at the adjacent table.

  “It works like this,” Edmund began. “You don’t care—”

  Sa’ad interrupted. “We don’t really care what you have. She has a six showing, and we assume she has a ten in the hole. That’s sixteen, so she has to take a card. When she pulls a card, the odds are she’ll bust. The object is to win. Thirteen wins if she goes over twenty-one.”

  “How do you know she has a ten underneath?” Joel demanded. “It could be anything.”

  “We’re playin’ the odds,” Edmund explained.