however, the machine made a noise he had not heard before, and then began noisily spitting out a stream of slugs into a sort of a shelf on the bottom of the machine.
'Jesus Christ!'
There were more slugs than he could hold in both hands. But the purpose of the waxed paper bucket he had noticed between his machine and the next now became apparent. Successful gamblers such as himself put their winnings in them.
And wise successful gamblers such as myself know when to quit. I will take all these slugs-Jesus, there must be two hundred of them-to the cashier and turn them in for real money.
He didn't make it to the cashier's cage. His route took him past a roulette table, and he stopped to look. After a minute or two he decided that it wasn't quite as exotic or complicated as it looked in the movies about the Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.
There were thirty-six numbers, plus 0 and 00, for a total of thirty-eight. The guy with the stick-thecroupier, he recalled somewhat smugly-paid thirty-six to one if your number came up. Since there were thirty-eight numbers, that gave the house a one-in-nineteen advantage, roughly five percent.
That didn't seem too unfair. And in another minute or two he had figured out that you could make other bets, one through twelve, for example, or thirteen to twenty-four, or odd or even, or red or black, that gave you a greater chance of winning, but paid lower odds.
Since 0 and 00 were neither odd or even, and were green, rather than black or red, the house, Matt decided, got its five percent no matter how the suckers bet.
And he also decided that since he had already made the mental decision to throw twenty dollars away, so that he could say he had gambled in Las Vegas, there was no reason to change simply because the slot machine had paid off.
He would now be able to say, he thought, as he put five of the slot machine slugs on EVEN that he had lost his shirt at roulette. That sounded better than having lost his shirt at the slot machines.
Six came up.
The croupier looked at him.
'Pennies or nickels?'
What the hell does that mean?
'Nickels,' Matt said.
The croupier took his slot machine slugs and laid two chips in their place.
Obviously, a 'nickel' means that chip is the equivalent of five slot machine slugs.
Matt let his two-nickel bet ride. Twenty-six came up. The croupier added two chips to the two on the board. Matt decided it was time to quit, since he was ahead. He picked up the four chips, and felt rather wise when the ball fell into a slot marked with a seven.
He waited until the wheel had been spun again, odd again, and then placed another five slot machine slugs on the green felt, this time on One to Twelve.
Nine came up. The croupier took the slot machine slugs and replaced them with three nickel chips.
'Sir, would you like me to exchange your coins for you?'
Obviously, it was for some reason impolite to play roulette with slot machine slugs.
'Please,' Matt said, and pushed the waxed paper bucket to the croupier.
'All nickels?'
'Nickels and dimes,' Matt said.
Two small stacks of chips were pushed across the table to him.
Matt yawned, and then again.
Jesus, what's the matter with me? I was just going to get something to eat and then crap out. How long have I been doing this?
His watch said that it was quarter to six.
Time to quit.
He watched the ball circle the wheel and then bounce around the slots before finally dropping in one.
Obviously, it is time to quit. I have been betting on 00 every fourth or fifth bet since I have been here, and that's the first time I ever won.
As the croupier counted out chips to place beside the chip he had laid on 00, Matt said, 'Quit when you're ahead, I always say.'
'You want to cash in, sir?'
'Please,' Matt said, and pushed the stacks of chips, nickels, dimes, and quarters in front of him to the croupier.
He wondered where the cashier kept the real money to cash him out. There was no money, no cash box, in sight.
The croupier put all the chips in neat little stacks, and then said 'Cash out.' A man in a suit who had been hovering around in the background came up behind the croupier, looked, nodded, wrote something on a clipboard, and then smiled at Matt.
The croupier pushed a stack of chips, including some oblong ones Matt hadn't noticed before, across the felt to him.
'What do I do with these?' he wondered aloud.
'Take them to the cashier, sir,' the croupier said.
Matt reclaimed his waxed paper bucket, and as he dumped the chips into it, he recalled that the polite thing to do was tip the croupier. He pushed one of the oblong chips across the table to the croupier.
'Thank you very much, sir,' the croupier said. It was the first time, Matt noticed, that he had sounded at all friendly.
He walked to the cashier's cage and pushed the waxed paper bucket through what looked like a bank teller's window to a gray-haired, middle-aged woman.
She put all the chips in neat little stacks and then counted to herself, moving her lips. She looked at him.
'Would you like me to draw a check, sir?'
What the hell would I do with a check? I couldn't cash a check out here.
'I'd rather have the cash, if that would be all right.'
The gray-haired woman took a stack of bills from a drawer and started counting them out. Matt was surprised to see that the bills were hundred-dollar bills, and then astonished to see how many of them she was counting out into thousand-dollar stacks. When she was finished there were four one-thousand-dollar stacks, one stack with six hundred-dollar bills in it, and a sixth stack with eighty-five dollars in it, four twenties and a five.
'Four thousand six hundred eighty-five,' the gray-haired woman said.
'Thank you very much.'
'Thankyou, sir.'
I don't believe this.
Matt divided the money into two wads, put one in each pocket, and walked out of the casino.
The first thing Matt Payne experienced when he woke up was annoyance. He had fallen asleep with his clothes on. And then he remembered the money and sat up abruptly. It was still there on the bed. No longer in the one thick wad into which he had counted it, three or four times, but there.
He counted it again. $4,685.
Jesus H. Christ!
He put the stack of bills in the drawer of the bedside table, then undressed and took a shower. He wrapped himself in a terry-cloth robe, went back into the bedroom, sat on the enormous bed, took the money from the bedside table, and counted it again.
Then he laid on the bed with his hands laced behind his head and thought about it.
