Got rich by embezzling Nazi gold  Founder
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Fortuitous (as selected by Joe Elliott)
If I could give my son one piece of advice, it would be this: "don't get involved with criminals". If I could elaborate on that further, I'd tell him "don't borrow money from the mob". Time permitting, I'd also tell him that I love him and that I'm sorry I haven't spent much time with him. I'm pretty sure he knows that last part and the first two bits he'll probably figure out - right about the time the police are pulling his father's musty, dessicated corpse from a shallow grave in the Nevada desert. I figure that after fourteen years both he and my wife are so accustomed to me running out to buy a gallon of milk and not returning for three weeks that they probably won't even file a missing persons report until at least the fifth week. Five to one says that it takes them less than three weeks to realize they're better off without me: close to the end of January, definitely before February. I can only hope that my chronic absenteeism has, in some way, prepared them both for getting along fine without me. Still, at least I stuck around for Christmas. Well, Chrismas day, at least. Long enough to hear my wife's annual story about the big account she's on at work and how great the bonus will be if it all pans out and so on. Well, that never came and I had some expensive problems that needed quick solving - and if I'm going to be powerless about something's outcome, it's going to be on my terms.
I bring my left arm up and glance at my wrist out of nervous habit. In the dim light I can see the pale stripe where my watch used to rest before I put it in hock. Thirty-five dollars, do you beleve that? The guy who sold it to me said nobody'd know it wasn't a legit Rolex. What's this world coming to when you can't even trust a shady-looking guy in an alley to sell you a decent knock-off? I look around for a clock, a window, anything - but, of course, they don't have either of those in casinos. God forbid you should know exactly how many minutes you have left before two exceedingly polite gentlemen invite you to join them in the VIP area. Still, at this point that number is trivia - you can't rush the "little wheel".
There's something magical about that wheel... its pockets numbered so arbitrarily but uniform the world over, like a masonic ritual or druidic circle of stones. So many other 'games of chance' pit you against the house or against complex math, but Roulette - ah, it is the purest form of chance; no opponenets to bluff, no cards to count, no charts telling you when to hit or stay. When you place a bet on the layout, you have handed that chip directly to Luck herself. The only strategy is hope, the only recourse: acceptance - and that's the rush. Sure, it comes with a cost, but there are no free thrills in life. The croupier's like a bartender - I step up to the table, throw down my chips and say "give me a pint of exhileration, my good man". Sometimes, he gives me one on the house and that's divine, but it doesn't mean that I know how to get free drinks whenever I want.
In my peripheral vision, there's a large mass moving. I'm scared to turn around, in case my time's up. I try to ignore it, but the shapeless mass encroaches futher on my field of vision. A wave of relief crashes over me when I realize it's just the ostentatious getup of a waitress offering me a drink. While I try to politely shift my focus to her, I hear the croupier call "no more bets". I silently curse the waitress for making me miss a spin and decline the drink offer, because at this point I can't afford to tip her. Every chip I have is working in concert to save my life.
I look down at the spinning wheel, balancing perfectly on a needle-fine point to ensure that friction and surface imperfections remain as invisible as possible in the face of randomness. The croupier deftly flings the ball into the whirling core of chance and I find myself mesmerized. The ball circles the counter-spinning wheel like a doomed planet about a black hole, it's decaying orbit languidly delivering it unto it's final resing place. The diamond-shaped studs surrounding the wheel mark the event horizon, beyond which the planet's fate becomes manifest, signaling the beginning of the end.
The tinny beeping of a watch alarm breaks me out of my meditative state. Across the table, I see a man pull up his sleeve. Over the ambient din I can hear him faintly tell his chums that it's 4pm and that they'd better leave now in order to catch the show. Four pm - that means that this hand I've just felt firmly grasping my shoulder would be that of Ricky Two-Legs. I won't go into the details, but his name stems from an incident involving a bonesaw, a well-timed rescue and a very well-paid doctor. He walks with a bit of a limp now, but he's still a great enforcer as long as the enforcee isn't going anywhere.
He informs me of a fact I'd already deduced - my time's up. Ricky's hand gets heavier on my shoulder; he starts to pull me backward and I start doing some quick math. Eleven grand in in the account jointly held by myself and my wife, thirty-three grand in chips in the briefcase in my room and almost four hundred in front of me. To get to fifty grand, I'll have to turn this four hundred into six thousand and to do that I need a bet that'll pay out 17:1 - row zero.
Any time random elements are involved, people are going to get superstitious. The zeros carry about as much weight in a roulette player's mind as thirteen does in the average Joe's mind. Really, the odds of getting zero or double-zero are the same as any other number on the wheel and by picking them both, you double your odds. The problem comes in when you start thinking of combinations - the zeros aren't even, odd, red or black. When zeros come up, the house gets the money of anyone who didn't bet on the zeros - that alone gives people a dim view of them. With all the potential for schadenfreud, I'm amazed people don't root for zeros more often.
I call out my bet and the croupier looks in my direction, past me - Ricky's touch has rendered me a ghost and he, my medium. I no longer exist in this casino except by the whims of the terrifying bulk of a man behind me. Ricky's contemplative stare lingers for what seems like an eternity as I breathlessly, motionlessly wish for mercy. With a positively glacial swiftness, his expression softens and he nods gently at the croupier, who acknowledeges my bet from beyond the pale by calling it back out to me and closing the table for further bets. The wheel and ball begin their dance again; the white sphere clips the edge of a diamond and skitters daintily across the bucket-tops before finally settling in one. The croupier calls out the result with all the solemnity of a jury forman. Red twelve.
My stomach drops and my legs practically give out underneath me. Ricky shakes my shoulder slightly and, with his acrid cigar breath filling the air around me, thanks me for my high-rolling ways and invites me to chat with the casino owner in the VIP lounge. In a stupor, I mumble an accord and let him lead me out the back door to a waiting limousine. Once inside, the door shuts us in and locks - well, assumedly it locks; no switches, handles or indicators exist on this side of the door. As expected, several men are inside the spacious vehicle; what is not expected is that they're unarmed, but that fact doesn't make them any less frightening. As the reality of my situation settles in on me, their absense of weapons worries me even more - this isn't going to be a clean mob hit, this is going to be an example. I look out the smoked windows and see signs of civilization start to fade in the distance. To the front, open desert streching out like an eternity. Mine, specifically.
Unsurprisingly, the boss, Franco, speaks first. The conversation starts out civilly and tangentially topical: he asks if I'm taking care of my family, I tell him that the business I tried to start is barely staying afloat. He asks if I'm marketing it enough and if the products are of high quality, I answer that people aren't buying custom gambling furniture for the holidays, no matter how high the quality. He asks if I've considered a down-market model since the economy's doing so poorly, I say that I hadn't really thought of it, but the bulk of the cost comes from the labor as opposed to the materials; he suggests I should reduce my overhead, etcetera, etcetera. The air conditioning has the temperature locked at a cool 65 degrees, but sweat is still inching down my forehead. His crew stares blankly, like a cadre of sleeper agents waiting to be activated by a phrase. This isn't cat-and-mouse, this is wolfpack-and-injured-rabbit.
Eventually, Franco wraps up the pleasantries and snaps his fingers. The tone rings in my ears and I suddenly realize that every muscle in my body is tensed. One of his cronies hands him a briefcase and I relax a bit - if mob movies have taught me anything, it's that the Boss only kills for personal vendettas. He thumbs open the clasps and opens the briefcase to reveal a laptop, which he flips open and hands to me. With a shark's smile, he beckons me to transfer the funds he's owed - fifty thousand dollars. I wait for the laptop to boot up, thankful for the short amount of time it buys me. I slowly navigate through my bank's web page, savoring each second I exist; the lousy mobile internet acting as a respirator for my dying body. Ricky peers over my shoulder at the balance on the screen and flatly informs Franco that it's not enough. The assembled crooks eye me watchfully as I start to stammer about the briefcase in my room back at the hotel and beg to be taken back there so I can retrieve it. Ricky stares at me as he reaches into his pocket. I close my eyes.
For a moment, it's silent. There's a small click, followed by soft tapping, like rain on a window. I apprehensively open my eyes and see Ricky typing a message on his phone. One of Franco's men is headed up to my room to count the chips, he says. I look down at the laptop bearing the account balance: eleven thousand. I refresh the page; eleven thousand. I refresh it again. Eleven thousand. Moments later, Ricky's phone buzzes and he frowns at it. He reminds me of two things I was well-aware of: one, that's still not enough and two, he really doesn't like having his time wasted. The car stops, the mobsters smile grimly and Ricky opens the door. I refesh the page with my balance once again.
Seventeen thousand.
Ricky's toothy smile turns to a confused sneer as he looks at the page. I zero out the account to make the transfer and only realize about ten seconds later that I've been chuckling nervously since I saw the new account balance. My uncontrollable laughter crecendos in raw cackles just before Franco nods and Ricky tosses me through the door. I tumble to the ground and roll from the momentum, giggling and gibbering like a fool, numb to the winter desert's cold evening. My fit of laughter eventually subsides and I rise from the side of the road, a dusty shambles beginning his new lease on life. I breathe deep, purging the last of my old breath and the scent of the limo from my lungs, replacing it with the crisp, honest desert air. Life has given me a mulligan and, for the first time, I feel like I'm leaving the table while I'm still ahead. I've got a life to get back to, one I've taken for granted for too long. But: first things first.
I straighten my tie, smooth back my hair and begin the long walk back to the strip. Miles pass as the sun begins to descend and shadows start to creep across the road and soon the casino lights begin to become distinct. I march straight into the first casino I see, right past the Roulette wheel and sit down at the bar. I order a pint to toast line item number twenty-six on this month's bank statement: my wife's performance-based bonus. The bartender pours my beer and sets it in front of me. I reach for my wallet but he smiles and waves my cash away. This one, he says, is on the house.
Divine. |
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2010-01-20 00:04:05 |
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"Children need to be taught from preschool that they might have to put a bullet between the eyes of their own undead mother." - Evans City, PA Police Chief Gino Fulci
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