Aurora(15)

“Black lets it ride,” she said to no one in particular and tidied his stack. Rusty tried something different this time. Rather than attempt to psychically will the ball into a black slot, he turned his back on the table, looking out into the casino. He’d been turning away at crucial moments since he was a kid watching football, and more often than not, he’d found it worked. Need that field goal to go through the uprights? Don’t watch. That worked, didn’t it? And that time you were in the kitchen on a third and eight and they ended up getting a first down? Better get the hell back into the kitchen every time it’s third and eight. They say a watched pot doesn’t boil, but if you look away from a roulette wheel, does that make it come up your color? It was worth a try. He took a breath and stood a little straighter while that honey of a croupier set the ball in motion around the spinning wheel and called for last bets.

Suddenly, Rusty furrowed his brow, struck by a thought. It was a new one for him.

Maybe he should stop early.

Maybe, if this spin comes up black, which he was nearly certain it would, he’d take his $1,600 and leave. Maybe he’d settle for two good spins instead of hoping for three, maybe he’d shove the cash in his pocket and walk the fuck out of there for once. Yes. Yes, that was what he would do, that was exactly what he’d do.

Except the money should be on red.

The thought came, unbidden, into his mind, landing like an ember spit out of a fire. His whole body twitched, desperate to turn around and move the bet from black to red. It wasn’t too late. The ball hadn’t started to drop yet; he could still hear it circling the top ledge. There was time. It was going to be red, he knew that now, of course it was going to be red, Red Letter Day, Paint the Town Red, Roll out the Red Carpet, shit, and he started to turn.

But he stopped himself. No. That was the old Rusty. That was stupid, superstitious, and self-defeating Rusty, and he would not surrender to him. He’d come in with a plan, and he was now going to execute that plan. The money would stay on black, and he would remain calm. He took a deep, cleansing breath, closed his eyes, and listened to the sounds of the casino as it hummed and clinked around him. He loved the sound of chips, of slot machines paying off, of ice clinking in drinks, and, most of all, of the erratic bounce-click of a roulette ball starting its descent from the rim of the slowing wheel, doing its jumping-bean act around the wheel, and finally dropping neatly into—

“Double zero. Green pays.”

Rusty turned around, uncomprehending.

Green?

The answer to “red or black” was fucking green? He looked at the wheel, incredulous, and saw the ball riding around in the loathsome double-zero slot, that odious American invention, a second green space.

The ugly, hateful bitch of a croupier scooped up his chips, dropped them on her stack, and staked his four hundred-dollar bills through the slot in the table without remorse. She didn’t look at him, she didn’t say she was sorry, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to be his blackout buddy.



Rusty winced at the light and skulked down the block, headed for his truck. The universe, as usual, had turned on him in the cruelest and most sadistic way possible, teasing him with the good fortune of some unexpected cash and a win at the table, only to come swooping back like a bird of prey, scoop him off the ground, and rip him apart in midair to remind him of the pathetic, endless losing streak that he was still on.

As he came into the alley, he saw Espinoza leaning against his back bumper and could make out two people in the cab through the tinted window. It was Zielinski on the passenger side. He could see the outline of the straw fedora the stupid Polack wore, one of his several affectations. Rusty figured the other guy for the Hispanic dude, and Zielinski was leaned over close to him, something glinting in his hand. The Hispanic man’s muffled shrieks of pain were audible through the thick glass.

Rusty stopped short, looking at Espinoza for an explanation he didn’t want. Espinoza, who now had a leather glove on his right hand, shrugged. An awkward moment passed between them as they both considered the alley walls, the ground, the sky, anything but whatever was going on in the front seat of Rusty’s truck.

“Why don’t you take a hike?” Espinoza offered, his voice almost kindly. “I hate this shit. You know that. Bad enough I gotta be here.”

“How long’s he gonna be?”

Espinoza shrugged. “I’ll leave the keys on the tire.”

But Rusty didn’t want to walk away. He needed to get the fuck in his truck and scrounge cash and food and water in whatever way he could, and he certainly did not want to do so on foot. “I can give it a minute,” he said, the soul of reason.

Espinoza looked up, squinting into the lowering sun. “You think, what they’re saying? With the power and all?”

Rusty shook his head, skeptical. “C’mon.”

“I don’t know, man. Everybody’s saying.”

“They say a lot of stuff. Gotta get ratings.”

“I don’t know, Rusty, feels like shit’s about to get very real in the world.” He jerked a thumb back over the truck, toward the window. “Z wants everybody paid up if the power’s gonna go.”

From the front of the truck, there was a muffled wet gawping sound, someone choking or crying or both. Espinoza looked back at Rusty, agitated this time.

“Seriously, take a hike. You don’t want to see Z right now.”