A Dangerous Man

THE ATM CARD was the tip of the iceberg.

At the Palms Miguel passes a black AmEx to the girl in the cage and says he’d like to open a line of credit. Before the vibrations of his words have left the air, a manager materializes from a trapdoor somewhere. He supplies Miguel and Jay with a bottle of Cristal, offers a comp room, passes to Rain a thick stack of meal tickets, and processes Miguel’s two-hundred-thousand-dollar line of credit.

– You may, of course, extend it if you wish.

Miguel shakes the manager’s hand.

– No, man, s’cool.

– Well, let me just say how happy we are to have you here. And congratulations, of course.

Miguel bobs his head; humble as all hell.

– Yeah, thanks, man.

I follow him and Jay into the casino, wondering what the fuck the manager was congratulating him for.

FINGER FUCKER SWINGS and I lean out of the way. I almost fall down because I’m so buzzed on x, and so fat and slow. But I keep my feet and watch as the momentum of his punch spins him around. I shove the back of his right shoulder as he rotates past me and use my right foot to scoop his off the ground and he goes down face-first and I hear a little crunch that might be his front teeth biting into the tarmac. I turn around and there’s Uncle Fester, still in Miguel’s face, wagging his head back and forth and bugging his eyes.

– What ya gonna do ’bout it? Gonna show me somethin’, big man? I’m right here. I’m right here.

JAY WANTS TO go to Rain.

The line for the place snakes around the casino, circling the wall. A purgatorial conga line of twenty and thirty-somethings dressed in every possible interpretation of hip and cool, desperate to get inside the hottest club in Vegas. Miguel eyes the line and shakes his head.

– Uh-uh. Veto.

Jay protests.

– Yo, we got passes. All we got to do is cruise to the VIP entrance. Come on, yo.

He points at the line, singling out the girls sporting the most conspicuous absences of clothing.

– Bang! Bang! Bang! Can you imagine the talent that’s inside? The shit they don’t make wait in line?

Miguel takes the rate card the manager gave him from his pocket.

– Two hundred G’s. Tonight’s the night. Tonight we play big.

He holds out his glass of Cristal.

– Last hurrah.

Jay taps Miguel’s glass with his own.

– My bad, yo. Let’s gamble.

Miguel snaps a corner of the card.

– Let’s get our drink on and let’s gamble.

– It’s on. It is on!

They drain their glasses and make for the tables. I trail behind, starting to get the idea that Miguel might be a new-money kind of guy.

MIGUEL STANDS AT least a half foot taller than Uncle Fester and is obviously in much better shape, but he keeps his open hands up at shoulder level and takes another step back, trying to create space between them.

– Just take it easy, man. S’cool. Nobody wants any trouble here.

Fester takes another step toward Miguel and gives him another chest bump.

– Looks like trouble’s here, big man. What ya gonna do ’bout it? Gonna puss out on it, big man? Fucking showboat. Gonna puss?

I put my foot in his asshole. He squeals, lurches forward, and Miguel skips back out of the way.

I’VE NEVER SEEN two guys happier about being down a hundred grand. I watch Miguel lay two thousand on a hard six.

Jay snaps his fingers.

– Yo. That’s a bet. That bet is coming in.

The dice come up craps and Miguel and Jay laugh and high-five.

– That was a for real bet, yo. Right, baby?

Jay’s talking to the girl wearing the silver lame bikini top and short red sarong, the girl glued to his left hip. He culled her from the Rain line a little while ago.

I saw him walking the line, flashing his club pass and asking who wanted to get in right now. Lots of hands went up and he drew a little crowd of spectators as he got the guys waiting in line to applause-o-meter each girl and pick the winners. He got three girls out of line and brought them over and dangled them baitwise in front of Miguel.

– Yo, let’s lay off and go dance.

Miguel waved him off and kept rolling. At first the girls were pissed about losing their places in line and not being taken to the club, but then they saw the money flying and got friendly. Miguel’s been friendly with the girls, throwing his arms around whichever one is near when he hits on a big bet, but they’re clearly a sidebar to the dice.

Jay shoves one of them my way. She tries to chat with me, tells me she’s an elementary schoolteacher from Flagstaff and God! Does she need to blow off some steam. I tell her I’m working and she goes back over to Jay. He whispers something in her ear. I see his lips mouth Scarface.

I look over the little crowd that’s gathered at the tables. A few are playing, but most have been drawn by the big-spender show Miguel and Jay are putting on. A couple of beefy guys in baggy business suits are standing by the head of the table, Coors Lights in their hands, whispering to each other, pointing at Miguel, pointing at me. Sweat beads between my shoulder blades.

Are they planning to follow us out and rob Miguel? Are they sizing him up for a fight because they think he’s a show-off? Or are they talking about him at all? Maybe they’re talking about me. Maybe they’re big true crime fans and they never miss an Unsolved Mysteries or America’s Most Wanted. Maybe they’re looking through the botched face job, the crew cut, the sunglasses. Maybe they see me.

They start walking around the table toward us.

If they confront me, if they try to finger me, I’ll just laugh it off: Am I who? Oh, not again. I get that all the time.

They’re around the table. Miguel has the dice now, holding them above his head, one in each hand, showing them to the crowd. The croupier is asking him to please lower the dice, but he’s smiling. He’s smiling, the pit boss is smiling, somewhere the manager is smiling. Miguel has dumped a hundred G’s on this one table and no one who works this place is gonna stop smiling at him until they wring out whatever he has left in him.

The business suits are coming toward me. One is holding his beer bottle down at his side. It’ll be easy for him to flip it and bring it up at my face. They’re both rumpled and have their collars open and ties tugged down. They look exactly like a pair of early twenties business guys. Pals who knocked off early from their cubicle brokerage gig in L.A. and hopped the flight to Vegas for an overnighter. They look as inconspicuous as Branko.

They stop right in front of me. The one holding his bottle starts to bring it up. His buddy turns his head, looking at the crowd around us. All eyes are on Miguel, who has just rolled a four. The beer bottle moves higher. I take a step back and get ready to kick the guy in the balls. Why did I leave the gun at home?

The beer bottle is up. It goes to the guy’s lips and he takes a drink.

– Uh, hey, man?

His buddy is still looking at Miguel, who has just made the point.

– Um, we don’t want to bother anybody, but we were wondering.

The girls squeal as Miguel hits another point. The other guy is still watching.