Mr. Lucky

Mr. Lucky

For Deborah & Shawn Redmond

Everybody’s honest, when they can afford to be.

—BENNY BINION

Famous casino owner

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the following people for their help in writing and researching this novel: Peter Ballas, Chris Calhoun, Michael Connelly, Steve Forte, Joni Hatch, Jerry Hooten, Dana Isaacson, Linda Marrow, Deborah Redmond, Robert Knuts, Charles & Margaret Swain, and my wife, Laura.

1

The moon looked funny that night, so bright it seemed to sport a face with droopy eyes and a sly little grin, and for the rest of his life Ricky Smith would think of that face whenever he paused to reflect upon the series of events that had turned his life upside down.

“So how did you win all that money?” the beautiful girl in his room wanted to know. Her name was Rita, and somehow he’d talked her into coming up to his room high above the Las Vegas Strip, her statuesque body parked beside him on the lumpy double bed. God, is she gorgeous, Ricky thought. Her eyes demanded an explanation, and he shrugged like winning twenty grand at blackjack was no big deal.

“Come on,” she pleaded, giving his knee a squeeze.

“Tell me.”

The little man in Ricky’s crotch snapped to attention. Divorced six months and eleven days, he found himself getting aroused walking in a stiff wind. Time stood still as he struggled for something clever to say. “I got lucky,” he mumbled.

Rita’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe that for one minute.”

He looked at her face, seeing double. “Believe it.”

Rita’s tongue did butterfly kisses on his earlobe while her hand crawled up his thigh. The little man was six degrees from exploding, and Ricky squeezed his legs together.

“You were cheating, weren’t you?”

His head snapped. “No.”

“Card counting?”

Ricky shook his head. He played a system developed by a legendary counter named Stanford Wong, but tonight it hadn’t been necessary to memorize a single card. As every gambler knew, for all the calculations and odds and multiplying strategies of working the percentages, there were days when things just went your way.

“You’re holding back on me,” she cooed.

The little man was ready to pounce. Battle stations were ready, all men on deck. He swallowed hard as Rita’s hand climbed farther up his leg, her pink fingernail tickling the crotch of his pants. “I’ll make you tell me.”

Ricky didn’t think that was going to be very difficult. Rita coyly pulled her hand away, waiting for him to say something. He coughed awkwardly. “You want a drink or something?”

She crossed her arms. Not pissed off, but getting there. “Or something? What have you got in mind?”

Ricky’s cheeks burned. Talking to women always tied him in knots. Maybe that was why he’d married the first girl he’d ever slept with. Trying to get up, she grabbed his hand.

“Tell me your secret,” she demanded.

His tongue felt as thick as a potato. “If I did that, I’d have to kill you.”

Rita fell backward onto the bed and started laughing. Ricky would have been hurt, only she pulled him down for the ride, the two of them rolling around in each other’s arms like a couple of kids on a hayride. His lips brushed her mouth, and suddenly they were kissing. Ricky’s heart beat out of control. This is how it was meant to be, he thought. She did not seem to mind that he wasn’t good-looking or well dressed and that he had as much hair on his head as most guys had on their ass, and all Ricky could hope for was that the magic spell he’d cast over her wouldn’t wear off before morning.

“I’ll take you up on that drink,” Rita said when they pulled themselves apart.

“Name your pleasure.”

“Gin and tonic, heavy on the gin.”

He went to the room’s minibar. Once his winnings had started to mount, the casino had plied him with free drinks, and now he could barely walk. Stopping at the boxy TV mounted to the wall, he paused to stare at his disheveled appearance in one of the smoky mirrors that served as wall decorations. His face was smeared with pink lipstick, and his hair stood on end. He looked like shit. In the same reflection he caught Rita firing up a butt. She was a mess, too, but in a sexy way, like she’d just woken up, and it occurred to him that no matter what she did to herself, she was always going to be beautiful, and he would always be a grunt. He staggered into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

“Jesus.” The bathroom light was bright and harsh. Filling the sink with cold water, he dunked his head, came up for air, then plunged his face in again.

“Are you all right?” she asked through the door.

He pulled his face out of the sink. “Give me a minute, okay?”

“You want a drink?”

“Coke.”

“Want some rum with that?”

“No, straight.”

Another dunk and he felt a little better. Drying himself, he examined the pocks and crevices of his face in the mirror, his wet hair hanging limply from the circular edge of his freckled head. His pride had been crushed long ago, and he felt the skeptic in him rear itself. What did Rita really see in him, besides the twenty grand? No immediate answers came to mind. Then he had a brilliant thought; he’d ask her.

He cracked the bathroom door. She was at the minibar, her back to him. In the smoky mirror he watched her fix their drinks. She’d slipped off her shoes and found Kenny G on the radio, her feet dancing as she poured his soda. She was primed, and the little man sent a message to his brain telling him to drop his drawers and march right up to her. “Or something,” he’d say wittily, then throw her on the bed. Wild, uncontrollable sex would follow, and life would be perfect for a little while.

“Don’t drown in there,” she called out.

His pants were hanging around his knees when he saw Rita dig a tiny vial from her purse. Oh no, he thought, a coke head. Unscrewing the top, she dumped the contents into his bubbling soda and mixed it with her pinky.

“I’m waiting,” she called out.

Ricky shut the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily. Not coke, a mickey. Knock out the