“That’s all right,” I said. “So this is a nice little place you got here.”
“Thanks,” she said, twirling a few long strands of her curly red hair with a finger. “Can I get you a beer or something?”
“Why not?” I said.
She went to the fridge, took out two Heinekens, and put them down on the counter.
“I’m really glad you called me,” she said, opening the beer. “I was hoping you would.”
“I should’ve called you right away,” I said.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I told you I’d call you and I never did. That was wrong.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just as much my fault as it was yours. I could’ve called you too.”
I put my hands against her hips and turned her around toward me. I kissed her—gently at first, then I pushed her back against the refrigerator, kissing her all over her face. She was kissing me back, sucking on my earlobes. As I was unhooking her bra she said, “Wait, you really think we should do this?”
“Yes,” I said. “Unless you don’t want to.”
Her bra fell onto the floor and she pulled off my shirt. I carried her to the bed, still kissing her, when the doorbell rang.
Susan looked terrified.
“Who the hell could that be?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“So let’s just ignore it,” I said.
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he knows I’m home.”
“Who knows?”
“My boyfriend.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend. The guy I was at the bar with the other night.”
The knocking was louder now. Then the guy—I remembered his name was Jim—said, “Come on, Susan, open up! Open the fuckin’ door, Susan!”
“Just forget about it,” I whispered. “He’ll go away.”
“No, he sounds drunk,” Susan said. “He’ll wake the whole building. Why did my stupid doorman let him up?”
“Susan!” Jim yelled. “Open the door Susan! Open the fucking door!”
“I’ll go talk to him,” Susan said.
She put her shirt on.
“You sure?” I said.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine. Wait one sec.”
Susan went to the door and I was thinking how, when she came back, I’d make up some excuse and go home. Although Susan was a nice girl and she was very good looking, we didn’t have anything in common and I couldn’t remember why I’d called her in the first place.
Susan and Jim were talking at the door.
“Come on, lemme in,” Jim said.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Susan said.
“No, let me in now,” Jim said. “I wanna talk to you.”
“It’s too late,” Susan said.
“Why, you got someone here?”
“Nobody’s here.”
“Who’s here?”
“No one.”
“Stop it...Jim!”
Jim pushed his way into the apartment. He stormed into the bedroom area and saw me sitting there on Susan’s bed without a shirt on. He was wearing a business suit, his tie partially unwound. His hair was a mess and he looked drunk.
For a few seconds, he just stood there, shocked, then he said, “What the fuck is this shit?”
“Just go home,” Susan said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You fuckin’ son of a bitch,” Jim said to me.
He stood there for another second or two, then he charged me. I stood up and pushed him away, which wasn’t very hard. The guy was about five-six and probably weighed eighty pounds less than me.
Susan was screaming for Jim to go home and I said, “Just take it easy—take it easy, all right? I don’t wanna hurt you, just take it easy.”
“Fuck you,” Jim said, spraying spit. “Just fuck you.”
He tried to punch me in the face and missed by about a foot. Then he came at me again and grabbed my chain with the little gold barbell. The chain snapped and the barbell fell onto the floor.
“Look what you did,” I said. “Look what you did.”
“Fuck you,” Jim said.
I went after him, punching him in the face again and again. His nose started gushing blood, then he fell onto the floor, curled up into a ball, yelling, “Help me, Susan! Help me!”
Finally, Susan pulled me away. She kneeled next to Jim and said to me, “What’s wrong with you? Why wouldn’t you stop?”
I picked up my barbell chain, happy to see that only the clasp was broken.
“Just get the hell out of here,” Susan said to me. “Leave!”
I put on my shirt and coat and left the apartment. Walking home down Third Avenue, I finally started to calm down.
When I arrived at my place, I went right into the bathroom and washed up. I didn’t even have a scratch on my face, but my knuckles were sore. I felt bad for hitting Jim as hard as I did and I hoped he wasn’t seriously hurt.
I put the barbell and the busted chain away in my dresser drawer, then I sat at the table and counted the money I had left over from the robbery. The total came to about $1,700 and tomorrow was my day off. Maybe what I needed was to get away for a day or two—clear my head.
Then, just like that, I drove out to La Guardia Airport and hopped the next flight to Vegas.
It was last-minute notice so they charged me through the eyeballs for a ticket. I paid eight hundred bucks for the round-trip flight, when it probably would have cost me half that much if I bought the ticket in advance or took one of those gambling junkets. Now I only had about four hundred bucks on me—I’d left five hundred at home—so if I didn’t hit something right away it was going to be a short trip.
The plane took off at around 6:30 in the morning. I switched planes in Detroit and arrived in Vegas at eleven o’clock, ready to rock and roll. I didn’t sleep a wink the whole flight, but I was wide awake anyway.
I took a cab to the strip, shocked how big the place was. For years people had been telling me, “You gotta see Vegas to believe it,” and now I knew what they meant.
I didn’t know where to go first so I had the cab driver drop me off at Bally’s. Sticking to the plan I’d made on the plane, I went to the first roulette wheel I saw and let three hundred bucks ride on black. The ball spun around, bounced out of a red slot, and landed in black. I let the six hundred ride and black came in again. I’d just won a free trip to Vegas.
At a blackjack table my hot streak continued. After about ten minutes I was up over a grand. I could do no wrong—splitting nines and pulling aces, hitting on fifteen and sixteen and pulling fives and sixes, sticking with single digits and watching the dealer bust. I tipped the dealer fifty bucks for his trouble and headed over to the racebook.
I bet on a couple of simulcast races from New York and Florida. I lost at Calder, but I hit an exacta and win bet at Aqueduct that put me up another G. I played slots for a while, breaking even, then I hit the blackjack tables again, winning another five hundred bucks. I had been in the casino for about an hour and a half and I was up about
