We made our way down the stairs to the casino, to the mellow tones of Tony Bennett singing, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Appropriate. Wednesdays must be slow nights because there weren't many people here. I didn't recognize the man standing at the bottom of the stairs to greet us. He looked older than Stan and even had some gray at the temples.
He shook hands with the Goodwins and welcomed us all to the casino. He told Arrow and me his name was Art and that he was the floor manager on duty. I asked him if Stan was working.
"Not tonight," Art replied. "He's scheduled to work tomorrow night."
"Is he in the house, do you know?" I asked.
Art shook his head. "I believe he's out for the evening. However, I'll ring his number and check for you."
He headed for the room under the stairs. "Is James in?" I called after him.
He shook his head again and said, "He's on a business trip."
"I guess I was too impetuous," Arrow said, frowning. "It looks like we've wasted the evening."
"Have a drink with us," George said in a hearty voice.
"What I would really like is something to eat," I said. I had ordered a burger to go from the Norms when we had decided to fly here, but since then all I had eaten was some crunchy stuff served in tiny packages on the airplane with a list of ingredients that covered the package.
Fortunately, there was some food left at the buffet table. Arrow and I filled two plates and sat at a table with Martha and George, who had ordered drinks. Art came over and confirmed that Stan was not at home.
"So, have you been coming here long?" George asked us.
"This is my fourth time and Arrow's second," I said. "What about you?"
"We've been coming here off and on for six months," George said.
"And lost our shirts in the process," Martha said.
I detected real bitterness in her voice and I wanted to ask for details, but all I said was, "Oh?"
"We'll probably lose our company," Martha added.
George said, "Martha…"
"We might as well tell them. It'll be common knowledge soon. Maybe we can save them from having the same experience. Have you heard of a company called everything. com?"
I hadn't but Arrow said, "Yes. I read in a trade journal-a number of months ago, I think it was-that you were going to do an IPO."
"Yes, we were all set to have a stock offering," George said. "Then the market turned sour, and now it's too late."
"Too late," I repeated, wondering how James entered into this.
Martha said, "You see…"
"I'll tell it," George interrupted. "I want to make sure it's told right."
Martha gave him a dirty look.
"I had this great idea for a dot-com company and was able to raise some venture capital to get started. Originally, Martha and I were the only employees. Then we started growing…"
"But we were still losing money," Martha said.
"Yes, but that's normal for a young, rapidly growing company. We planned to have the initial public offering to raise more capital. When the stock market tanked we put it off, expecting the market to come back."
"But we were bleeding money too fast," Martha said, "and needed more right away. Suddenly we were pariahs. Our venture capitalist wouldn't give us any more money; he said it was too risky."
"To make a painful story shorter," George said, "we came to James, who we had heard of through friends, and told him our situation. He offered us a deaclass="underline" we could gamble for an infusion of capital. If we won he would put money into the company in return for stock. If we lost he would get the stock anyway but wouldn't put in any money.
"It sounds one-sided," Arrow said.
"That's James' adult version of The Game," I said.
"We were desperate," Martha said, "and we took it. We played roulette…"
"And you lost," I said, picturing the situation. "But if the company goes out of business, what good is the stock to James?"
"He has no intention of letting the company go out of business," George said. "He has offered us two more deals: the first is to gamble again for another cash infusion. Of course, if we lose again he gets most of our remaining stock. Then he'll put money into the company and try to save it. The second alternative is to sell him practically all our stock at a bargain-basement price. He made the same offer to our venture capitalist for his stock."
"The diabolical part," Martha said, "is that the offer becomes worth less each week-so the longer we delay in making a decision, the worse off we are."
"If your problems are so bad that nobody but James will help you," Arrow said, "then there must be a substantial risk that you will go out of business-and that James will lose his investment."
"But James makes it up in volume," I said, suddenly understanding the big picture. "If he invests in ten small, high-tech companies, even if only one makes it, his return on that one will be enough to pay for the nine losers many times over."
"You should go to work for James" Martha said, ironically. "You obviously have the kind of mind he's looking for."
"He offered me a job."
Arrow kicked me under the table and I almost yelled out loud.
She asked, "What are you going to do?" in a sympathetic voice.
"That's why we're here tonight," Martha said. "George thinks he has a system for beating roulette. He wants to practice."
She made "system" sound like a dirty word.
"Is everybody who comes here in the same boat?" Arrow asked.
"Pretty much," Martha said. "If they're not gambling for their lives already, they're thinking about it."
"Do you know the odds against winning at roulette?" I asked George, trying to sound more empathetic.
"I do," George said, "but what choice do I have? We could take James' piddly offer to buy most of our stock. He would still employ us to run the company-on a salary, of course. Then, if we succeed he makes billions while we make chicken-feed."
"Or we can lose at roulette," Martha said, "and hand him the stock for nothing."
"But using my system we might win," George said, "and then we'd get to keep a substantial amount of stock."
George had polished off three drinks during our conversation so I already knew one probable flaw in his system. I said, "Explain your system to me."
"I play only red or black, even odds. Forget the long shots. I start with what I call my basic bet. If I win I keep my winnings and keep betting my basic bet as long as I keep winning."
"And if you lose?"
I double my bet. Then, when I win it cancels out my loss."
"What if you lose five times in a row? Do you keep doubling your bet each time?"
"Yes."
"At that point you would be betting 32 times your basic bet."
"Something like that."
"What happens if you lose enough times in a row so that you don't have enough money left to double your bet?"
George squirmed in his chair. "If I make my basic bet low enough it should never happen."
"In statistics," I said, lecturing like a professor, "anything that can happen will happen eventually. And if you make your basic bet too low it will take you forever to win the amount of money James has decreed you need to be a winner, even if you get lucky. The other problem with your system is that the odds aren't even on red and black. The zero and double-zero on the roulette wheel make them less than even."
George stared at the table and said nothing. Had I been too hard on him? I was trying to save him what money he had left.
"Thank you," Martha told me. "Maybe he'll listen to you. He won't listen to me."
Arrow had been unnaturally quiet during this discussion. Now she said, "I think you should listen to Karl. He knows what he's talking about."
George and Martha left soon after that. Hopefully, they wouldn't be back.