but it’s not because you were gambling.”
“Alex…”
“As it turns out, the guy was selling Girl Scout cookies on the side and you bought two thousand boxes.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“Yes, I do. That’s the problem. I understand you completely.”
Edwin got up from the table. I thought he’d leave, but instead he went up to the bar and ordered a Manhattan. He came back with it and sat back down.
“Alex,” he said. “I have a problem. I know that. And I thought I had solved that problem. I thought I was done with it. But I was wrong. I admit it. Okay? I was wrong. I still have a problem.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever had a problem like this,” he said. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d ever have a gambling problem. You probably can’t relate to that. But it’s really not that much different from any other kind of compulsion or addiction or whatever you want to call it. Whether it’s gambling or alcohol or drugs, it’s really the same thing. Have you ever had any kind of problem like that at all?”
“For the sake of argument,” I said, “let’s say I have.”
“Okay, but whatever it is, it gives you something. Whether it’s a drink or a pill or a bet. It gives you a certain kind of feeling. You know what I mean? It’s a feeling that you can’t get anywhere else. And eventually you get to the point where you know it’s starting to hurt you, but you still have to have that feeling. For me, it’s the feeling of having something at risk. That ball is spinning in the roulette wheel. Or the dealer is showing a six and I’ve got eleven. It’s like a bolt of electricity right through me, Alex. And believe me, there is nothing else that makes me feel that way. There is nothing that can take its place.”
“I understand that much, Edwin. I know it’s an addiction like any other kind of addiction.”
“Okay, so let’s say you’re an alcoholic. And instead of going right into your twelve-step program, you try something else first. Let’s say that instead of trying to give up alcohol altogether, you just try to cut down on it, you know, so you can get a handle on it. So say instead of drinking whiskey, you just drink beer.”
“Sounds like you’d be fooling yourself,” I said.
“You’re probably right,” he said. “But that was my idea, you see? I thought if I could cut down on my gambling, then I could deal with it.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Alex, it’s not the winning that gets you. It’s the anticipation. It’s not knowing if you’re going to win or lose. That’s how you get that feeling. So what I figured is, if I bet on football games, I could stretch out that anticipation. Instead of having to play a hand of blackjack again and again to keep that feeling going, all I had to do was bet on one football game and then just sit on that one bet all week long. Like I was nursing one beer for days at a time.”
“Edwin, for God’s sake.”
“I’m just telling you what I was thinking, Alex. The football lines come out on Monday morning. So I get a bet down right away, and it’s just like taking that little hit. As long as it was enough money to matter a little bit. Like five hundred dollars, usually. Maybe a thousand. It’s all I would need. I could relax all week long.”
“So how long have you been doing this?”
“Couple months,” he said. “Just since football season started. I was doing pretty well, too. Until that stupid Brigham Young game. Can you believe it, they were up twenty points with two minutes to go. Twenty points! And then they give up two garbage touchdowns. I was giving seven, so I lose by a point. Those Mormons, they can’t play defense, that’s my problem.”
“A Mormon football team can’t play defense? You think that’s your problem?”
“I was just kidding, Alex. I know what my problem is. Seeing that dead guy was a wake-up call for me. That could be me some day if I don’t clean up my act.” He took a long swallow from his drink and leaned back in his chair.
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m through with gambling. Forever. I mean it this time.”
“Would you like to make a bet on that?” I said.
He laughed.
“Gamblers Anonymous,” I said. “They’re in the book.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m calling them tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I’m really going to call them.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going home now, Alex. I’m going home to my wife.”
“Edwin,” I said. “If you walk out of this door and go to the casino, I will find you and I will kill you with my bare hands.”
“I’m going home, Alex. I promise.”
“Then go already.”
“Thank you, Alex. Let me pick up your check.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I want to.”
“Just go.”
“I want to buy you dinner.”
“Out!”
“I’m going to buy you dinner. You can’t stop me.” He went up to the bar and put a few bills in Jackie’s hand, pointing back at me. And then with a wave he was out the door.
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. There was something about the man, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate him. In a way, he was just like my old partner, Franklin. Edwin was barely five foot four, shaped like a pickle barrel, as white as a man can be, richer than hell, and a compulsive gambler. Whereas Franklin was a good six five, two-forty at least, an ex-football player, black, and as strapped for cash as any other working cop in Detroit. And he wouldn’t even put five bucks in the weekly pool. But somehow, to me, the two of them were exactly alike.
“You’re my best friend, Alex.” Edwin had said that one night, sitting in this very bar. He had just finished his third Manhattan, but I knew it wasn’t the liquor talking. He said it like it meant something, like it was something he had thought about for a long time and had finally worked up the nerve to say.
Franklin never got the chance to say it himself. Not to my face, anyway. I had to hear it secondhand, after he was gone, when I met his widow. “He used to talk about you all the time,” she said. “All the arguments you used to have about sports. And all the times you helped him, too. He really looked up to you, Mr. McKnight. I know he never would have said so in a million years, but you should know he considered you his best friend.”
Thinking about Franklin, and then about what happened to him, it took that smile right off my face.
I went home. It was another windy night. Before I went to bed I stood in the bathroom and looked at my bottle of pills. You don’t need these, I said to myself. I looked at myself in the mirror. You don’t need these. I rubbed the scars on my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore. You don’t need a pill to go to sleep. And if you dream about Franklin, well, you can handle that. It was fourteen years ago.
I could hear the wind coming through the cracks in the cabin.
You don’t need them anymore. You are strong enough without them.
I opened the bottle. And then I closed it again. I put the pills back in the medicine cabinet and turned out the light.
I slept for a while. And then the phone rang again. I looked at the clock. It was three o’clock.
I picked up the phone. “Goddamn it, Edwin,” I said. “What is it now?”
“Good evening, Alex,” a man’s voice said. It was definitely not Edwin. It was a low, hissing voice, almost reptilian.
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, Alex? Don’t you know who this is?”
