The Select (27 page)

"This looks like Beirut," Quinn
said.

"Yeah, but it's a Beirut laid out by
the Parker Brothers."

Despite the desolation, Quinn had to
smile as they passed the avenues: Atlantic, Illinois, New York,
Pennsylvania...

"Right. Monopoly. I've bought these
streets plenty of times. But I'd be taking a lot better care of
them if they were still mine."

"Consider this your reality check
before stepping into the land of make believe."

They turned onto Virginia, and moments
later they were entering an Arabian Nights Neverland. Smooth,
well-lit pavement lined with stone elephants led down a long,
walled entry to a maharajah's palace—or rather a Hollywoodized
vision of a maharajah's palace, with candy-colored cupolas and
faux-Arabic script spelling out "Donald J. Trump presents the TAJ
MAHAL." Tim pulled to a stop under the canopy where turbanned
attendants unloaded their baggage and whisked the car away to the
hotel garage.

"Sort of like stepping out of Kansas
into Oz, isn't it," Tim said as they followed their bags toward the
registration desk.

Quinn thought of the desolation
outside and the costumed attendants swirling around her now in the
opulent lobby.

"More like entering the Masque of the
Red Death."

Tim gave her a sidelong glance.
"Nothing like an upbeat literary analogy to set the tone for the
evening."

As the porter led them to the
registration area, Quinn noted that the faux-Arabic script was
everywhere—over the restrooms and over the VIP check-in desk where
they stopped.

"Can we have two beds?" Quinn said to
the woman as Tim handed his comp invitation across the
counter.

"I'll see what I can do, ma'm." She
checked her computer screen. "Yes. That will be no
problem."

"No problem for you, maybe," Tim
muttered.

Quinn laughed.

*

As soon as the bellman was gone, Quinn
tossed her bag onto the king-size bed near the window.

"I've got this one!"

Tim dropped his on the other. "Then I
guess this one is mine."

Compared to the rest of the hotel,
Quinn thought the room was rather ordinary. Almost a relief not to
see minarets on the bedposts.

"We can unpack later," she said.
"Let's go downstairs. I'm not underdressed, am I?"

He laughed. "No way. There's not much
in the way of a dress code on the gaming floor."

"Good. Are we ready, then?"

She was getting into the mood, giving
in to a growing excitement. She couldn't help it. She wanted to see
the casino and try out Tim's plan.

"Fine with me," Tim said. "But how
about a quickie before we hit the tables?"

She could tell he was kidding—well,
half kidding. And she was almost tempted...

...No foreign
entanglements...

She played indignant and pointed to
the door. "Out."

"For good luck?"

"You told me you didn't believe in
luck."

He hesitated. "I did, didn't I. Why do
I say things like that?" Then he brightened. "But I'd sure as hell
consider myself lucky if—"

She pointed to the door again.
"Out!"

*

Quinn was taken aback by the casino's
gaming floor. She'd expected the flashing lights and the noise, the
bells, the clatter of the slots, the chatter of the voices, but she
wasn't prepared for the crowd, for the ceaseless swirl of people,
and the layer of smoke that undulated over the tables like a muslin
canopy.

She paused at the top of the two steps
that led down to the gaming floor, hesitant about mingling with the
flowing crowd. Everyone down there seemed to know what they were
doing, where they were going. Suddenly she felt a little lost. She
grabbed Tim's arm.

"Don't lose me."

He patted her hand where it gripped
his bicep. "Not a chance."

He led her gently into the
maelstrom.

"First we'll take a walk, get you
oriented, then we'll find us a table and relieve Mr. Trump of some
of his money."

Quinn couldn't say exactly what she
had expected to see in a casino, but this was not it. Not by a long
shot.

But it was absolutely
fascinating.

She had always been a people watcher,
and this was a people-watcher's paradise.

First they had to wade through the
phalanxes of slot machines with their dead-eyed players, most of
whom seemed old, and not too well dressed. Each stood—except for
the ones in wheelchairs—with a cup of coins in the left hand, and a
cigarette dangling from the lips as they plunked in coins and
pulled the lever with their right hand. The machines dutifully spun
their dials, and then the procedure was repeated. Endlessly. Robots
playing robots. Even when the machines clanked coins into the
trays, the players showed no emotion.

Quinn had a sense of deja
vu, and then she remembered an old silent film, Fritz Lang's
Metropolis
, in which
laborers in the city of the future were shown working the machines
of the future, pulling levers with soulless ennui.

But this was no dank subterranean
factory. Dozens of huge, magnificent chandeliers were suspended in
recesses in the mirrored ceiling. Lights flashed
everywhere.

She heard excited shouting from a
group of men crowded around a table.

"What's that?"

"Craps. I've tried to learn that game
for years but I still don't understand it."

"They sound like they're having
fun."

"That's because they're winning. But
you can lose your shirt before you know it in that
game."

She followed him to the blackjack
section, aisles of curved tables, some full, some empty.

"Can we get a non-smoking
table?"

"That's not one of my criteria," Tim
said, "but I'll try."

"There's nobody at that one," she
said, pointing to a table where a female dealer stood with her
hands behind her back, staring blindly ahead over an empty expanse
of green the color of sunlit Astroturf. She wore a purple vest
festooned with gold brocade over a white shirt fastened at the
throat with a gold broach. All the dealers, male and female, were
dressed identically. "We could have it all to
ourselves."

"We don't want it all to ourselves,"
he said. "It'd take forever to work through the shoe."

"But she looks lonely."

"Quinn..."

"Sorry."

They wandered up and down the
blackjack aisles. Quinn watched Tim's eyes flickering from table to
table, searching.

"What are we waiting for?"

"I'm looking for the right table," Tim
said. "It's got to be nearly full and the dealer is just starting a
new shoe." He stopped, staring. "And I think I just found
it."

He led her to the right.

"But it's only got one
seat."

"That's for you."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll be standing right behind you,
teaching you the game, waiting for another seat to open
up."

Quinn saw cigarettes in the hands of
two of the four players already at the table.

"About that non-smoking
table?"

"Quinn..."

"Sorry."

*

As Tim pulled out the end seat on the
dealer's right and held it for Quinn, he scanned the cards on the
table. This was the first hand. He'd seen one of the players
placing the yellow cut card and had moved quickly, despite the
table limits: minimum $10 / Maximum $500. He would have preferred
something higher. Once the cards already played were photographed
and filed in his memory, he squared Quinn at the table and dropped
twenty one-hundred-dollar bills on the table.

"Hundreds," he said, and waited for
Quinn's reaction.

As the dealer called out, "Two
thousand in hundreds," she didn't disappoint him: She nearly gave
herself a whiplash as she snapped her head around to look at him.
Tim winked, pushed the black-and-green chips in front of her, then
moved behind her where he had a good view of the table.

The other players were three deadpan
middle-aged men with drinks in front of them—scotch or vodka on the
rocks, Tim guessed—and an elderly, chain-smoking woman with orange
hair.

"What do I do now?" she
said.

"Bet a hundred. Put out one
chip."

"That's a hundred dollars!"

"Please do it, Quinn." He winked at
the dealer, a pretty blonde wearing a ton of eye shadow. "She's a
beginner." The dealer favored him with a tolerant smile.

Quinn slid the chip forward and was
dealt an eight and a ten. The dealer had a king showing.

"What do I do now?"

"Stick."

The dealer turned over a nine and
raked in Quinn's chip.

"What happened?"

"We lost."

"We lost a hundred dollars? Just like
that?"

Down the table, one of the other
players groaned softly.

"Put out another chip."

"How about half a one?"

"Quinn..."

"Sorry."

She placed the chip and got a four and
a five in return. The dealer had a seven showing.

"What do I do now?"

"Take a look: The very best she can do
is eighteen. Since that's over sixteen, she has to stick. You're a
sure loser with what you've got, so take another card when she
comes around to you."

The dealer looked at Quinn, her
eyebrows raised questioningly.

"I'll take another card,
please."

Tim said, "Real gamblers say, 'Hit
me,' or just tap their cards."

Quinn tapped her cards. "Hit me.
Please."

Tim scanned the cards showing and
noticed an indulgent smile on two of the other players.

A ten of clubs landed in front of
Quinn. The dealer turned over a queen. She placed another
green-and-black chip next to Quinn's.

"I won?" she said.

"You won."

"That means we're even. Maybe we
should quit now."

"Quinn..."

"Sorry." She reached for one of the
two chips in front of her.

"Let them ride," Tim said.

"Two hundred dollars all at once? I
hope you know what you're doing."

The pit boss, dressed in a gray suit,
stepped up to Tim's side and spoke in a low voice. "Is there
anything the casino can do for you, sir?"

Tim had been expecting him. Two
thousand tossed on the table tended to attract the right kind of
attention. That was why he'd bought all his chips at
once.

Tim shrugged. "Our room's already
comped."

The pit boss nodded sagely. "In that
case, may we offer you dinner, perhaps? And the show? Julio
Iglesias is here tonight."

"Dinner will be fine," Tim
said.

The pit boss bowed and walked
off.

Meanwhile, Quinn had been dealt a jack
of clubs. Then came an ace of diamonds.

"Blackjack!" Tim said and Quinn
screeched excitedly as the dealer pushed three more chips in front
of her.

"I
like
this game!" she
said.

The others were smiling openly now,
nudging each other. They loved her.

Of course they did. Tim put his hands
on her shoulders and gently kneaded the tight muscles under the
fabric of her blouse. How could they help but love her?

*

Quinn was feeling a little more
comfortable with the game now. She'd caught the rhythm of the
table, of the play, but she was behind in the winning category. Her
pile of hundred-dollar chips had shrunken.

She didn't like this gambling thing.
She didn't like any of it—the casino with its noise and congestion,
the city around it, the people within it with their dead eyes and
their cigarettes, their endless, air-fouling, breath-clogging,
eye-stinging cigarettes.

And she would have been completely
loaded by now if she'd taken advantage of the complimentary
cocktails. Every few minutes a long-legged waitress in a short
skirt and a feathered fez—it had taken awhile for Quinn to get used
to that fez—would be at her side, asking her if she wanted a drink.
Quinn ordered her usual Diet Pepsi.

She had a moment of uncertainty when
the orange-haired lady quit her seat and Tim strutted to the far
end of the table to claim it, taking half of her remaining chips
with him.

"I guess it's time for me to show Mr.
Trump how to play this game for keeps," he said in exaggerated
basso voice, a perfect parody of macho overconfidence.

He gave her a reassuring wave from the
other end and she realized why he hadn't hesitated to move: the
curve of the table gave her a clear view of him to her right. She
missed the reassuring pressure of his hands resting on her
shoulders but realized it was probably better if there was a little
distance between them. It would make it easier to see the series of
hand signals Tim had set up between them.