The elevator doors opened, and the din of slot machines jerked me back to life.
Mai had played at the Stratosphere only two or three times but apparently knew the place well. She started us walking the casino floor and circling the roulette tables, then the blackjack tables, the baccarat and craps tables. The floor was bustling, the evening crowd here trading in their afternoon sweatshirts for crisp collars and glittery dresses, their baseball caps for hair gel, their handbags for clutches and high heels. This was a newer casino, higher ceilings and skinnier waitresses, and the perfumed air pumped in from the vents masked the cigarette smoke that clung to the walls of a place like the Coronado.
Some of the tables were crowded enough that we had to stop and search for the dealer. Again, they were mostly Asian. Twice we approached a female dealer with glasses, and each time my face went hot with anticipation.
The thought of confronting Happy felt vaguely humiliating, made me regret our chance encounter in Oakland and all my lustful glances at her over the years. I kept imagining Junior and Victor roughing her up, and as ugly as it all was, as much as it proved what she was willing to take for Mai, all I cared about now was whether her bruises had kept her from coming to work.
“Three days are enough for a black eye to fade a bit,” Mai said knowingly. “Little makeup like she had on, and you’re fine. And you can hide a lot with glasses on.”
I followed her into an area with ceilings painted like the sky, past escalators that ascended into clouds toward the entrance of the Stratosphere Tower itself. A sign boasted thrill rides and the Top of the World restaurant. I thought of the suicide Mai had mentioned and wondered if taking this ridiculous route made it easier, gliding past slot machines and fake clouds and zooming up eleven hundred feet to a roller coaster, where to a chorus of laughter and screams you leap off the edge of the world.
Mai had led me on a brisk, circuitous path to the poker room, which was situated far away from the main floor. We arrived at the four-foot wall surrounding the room and started scanning the fifteen packed tables.
Mai slapped the wall irritably and walked to the front desk, which was attended by an impressively tanned guy wearing a double-breasted suit and an oil slick for a haircut. He didn’t look up until she said, “Is Happy dealing tonight?”
“‘Happy dealing’?” he said as if repeating some foreign phrase. He glanced at me.
“Yes, Happy,” Mai repeated. “Is she here tonight?”
“Oh. Wrong poker room. No one here named that. Wouldn’t matter anyway since our dealers rotate every half hour.”
“Okay, then.”
“We have the best, though. They’ll walk you through if you need help.”
Mai had half turned to go but was now giving him the eye as though admiring his ripe tan. “Will they?”
“I can sign you up for the tournament. Starts in half an hour. You’re only risking the sixty-dollar buy-in. A little less pressure.”
“I play cash games.”
“Oh. You do. Well, let’s see. . there’s an open seat at the one/two game. No-limit hold’em.”
“How about a twenty-five/fifty?”
The guy looked up to measure her seriousness, a little embarrassed but also ready to be annoyed. “I’m afraid ten/twenty is the highest we have right now.”
“Too bad. I’ll try another room. Maybe I’ll find Happy there too.”
Mai turned on her heels and stalked off, leaving the guy to look at me again for an explanation.
On our way back to the main floor, I told her, “She’s not here. We need to get going to your place.”
She continued eyeing the tables we passed. “Let me try one more thing. Do you still have that card with my cell number?”
“What for?” I checked my pockets and handed her the card.
She approached an empty roulette table overseen by an older Asian woman and took a seat.
“Good evening, good evening,” the woman said, her crow’s-feet blooming as she smiled. “Try your luck tonight?” She was barely five feet and looked elegantly comical in her bow tie and vest. Despite the “Betty”on her nametag, her accent was strong and unmistakably Vietnamese.
Mai set four crisp hundred-dollar bills on the felt and said, “In quarters please.”
After flashing the bills to the pit boss, Betty pushed a small stack of blue chips in front of her. Each chip, I noticed, was worth $25.
“Excuse me, sir. If you not playing, I can ask you step back from the table? Maybe stand behind pretty lady here?”
She flashed us both another toothy smile and announced, as if the table were full of people, “Place your bets.”
I muttered in Mai’s ear, “Is this all necessary to ask her a question?”
“What’s your birth date?” she whispered back.
“Jesus. September seventeenth.”
“Of course you’re a Virgo.” She took four chips and placed two each on 9 and 17. The minimum bet for the table, a sign said, was ten dollars.
“No more bets,” Betty announced and waved her hand over the table like a magician. She spun the roulette wheel, her smile as empty as her wandering look around the casino.
“My friend Happy deals here,” Mai spoke up, riffling her chips. “Is she on tonight?”
“Oh, you know Happy?” Betty replied brightly. “No, she don’t work tonight.” The ball landed on 23, and she raked in all four of Mai’s chips. She clucked her tongue sympathetically.
Mai again placed two chips each on 17 and 9. “I heard she got hurt bad the other day. She’s doing better?”
It took Betty two long seconds before she nodded. “Yes, that’s right.” She spun the wheel again and looked back quickly at us. Her beaming had lost none of its wattage, but there was a new depth in her eyes, a stillness.
The ball landed on 17 this time. My heart jumped, but Mai gave no reaction. It was like she had expected it. As she watched Betty count out her winnings, about $1,800, she started speaking Vietnamese to her in a measured voice.
At the roulette table next to us, a gaggle of young dudes in khakis and starched shirts were clapping and cheering. I wondered at first if Betty had heard Mai over the noise, but as she pushed four towers of blue chips toward her, she shook her head like she was apologizing and murmured, “I don’t know anything.”
Mai kept at it, her Vietnamese voice tinged with a formal sincerity I hadn’t heard yet. She wasn’t asking questions. She was revealing things.
The humor drained from Betty’s face. She glanced around us. “I don’t know anything,” she said again, soberly this time, and put up a hand as if declining a gift.
A man appeared behind her, in another impeccable double-breasted suit, the pit boss no doubt, brandishing a ringed hand on the felt. He said politely to Mai, “Excuse me, miss — mind if I check your ID there?”
She had it ready for him, apparently used to this. He examined it, then handed it back to her. “Thanks so much. Some people look a little young, is all. You have fun now, miss — but you can only speak English to the dealer, okay?”
“Sorry, sir,” Mai said. “We have a friend in common.”
“That’s fine, but English only, all right? You all enjoy yourself.”
As he walked away, Betty finally looked up from the table, her smile tired now, her silence purposeful.
Mai whispered to me over her shoulder, “What’s my mother’s birth date?”