“I’d like to give it one more shot,” Gronevelt said. “I was a great gambler when I was a kid. If anybody can beat the percentage, I can. If I can’t beat the percentage, nobody can. We’ll have a great time, and I can afford the million bucks.”
Cully was astonished. Gronevelt’s belief in the percentage had been unshakable in all the years he had known him. Cully remembered one period in the history of the Xanadu Hotel when three months straight the Xanadu dice tables had lost money every night. The players were getting rich. Cully was sure there was a scam going on. He had fired all of the dice pit personnel. Gronevelt had had all the dice analyzed by scientific laboratories. Nothing helped. Cully and the casino manager were sure somebody had come up with a new scientific device to control the roll of the dice. There could be no other explanation. Only Gronevelt held fast.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The percentage will work.”
And sure enough, after three months the dice had swung just as wildly the other way. The dice pit had winning tables every night for over three months. At the end of the year it had all evened out. Gronevelt had had a congratulatory drink with Cully and said, “You can lose faith in everything, religion and God, women and love, good and evil, war and peace. You name it. But the percentage will always stand fast.”
And during the next week, when Gronevelt gambled, Cully always kept that in mind. Gronevelt gambled better than any man he had ever seen. At the crap table he made all the bets that cut down the percentage of the house. He seemed to divine the ebb and flow of luck. When the dice ran cold, he switched sides. When the dice got hot, he pressed every bet to the limit. At baccarat he could smell out when the shoe would turn Banker and when the shoe would turn Player and ride the waves. At blackjack he dropped his bets to five dollars when the dealer hit a lucky streak and brought it up to the limit when the dealer was cold.
In the middle of the week Gronevelt was five hundred thousand dollars ahead. By the end of the week he was six hundred thousand dollars ahead. He kept going. Cully by his side. They would eat dinner together and gamble only until midnight. Gronevelt said you had to be in good shape to gamble. You couldn’t push, you had to get a good night’s sleep. You had to watch your diet and you should only get laid once every three or four nights.
By the middle of the second week Gronevelt, despite all his skill, was sliding downhill. The percentages were grinding him into dust. And at the end of two weeks he had lost his million dollars. When he bet his last stack of chips and lost, Gronevelt turned to Cully and smiled. He seemed to be delighted, which struck Cully as ominous. “It’s the only way to live,” Gronevelt said. “You have to live going with the percentage. Otherwise life is not worthwhile. Always remember that,” he told Cully. “Everything you do in life use percentage as your god.”
Chapter 48
On my last trip to California to do the final rewrite on Tri– Culture’s film I ran into Osano at the Beverly Hills Hotel lounge. I was so shocked by his physical appearance that at first I didn’t notice he had Charlie Brown with him. Osano must have put on about thirty pounds, and he had a huge gut that bulged out of an old tennis jacket. His face was bloated, it was speckled with tiny white fat dots. The green eyes that had once been so brilliant had faded into pale colorlessness that looked gray, and as he walked toward me, I could see that the curious lurch in his gait had become worse.
We had drinks in the Polo Lounge. As usual, Charlie drew the eyes of all the men in the room. This was not only because of her beauty and her innocent face. There were plenty of those in Beverly Hills, but there was something in her dress, something in the way she walked and glanced around the room that signaled an easy availability.
Osano said, “I look terrible, don’t I?”
“I’ve seen you worse,” I said.
“Hell, I’ve seen myself worse,” Osano said. “You, you lucky bastard, can eat anything you want and you never put on an ounce.”
“But I’m not as good as Charlie,” I said. And I smiled at her and she smiled back.
Osano said, “We’re catching the afternoon plane. Eddie Lancer thought he could fix me up with a script job, but it fell through, so I might as well get the hell out of here. I think I’ll go to a fat farm, get in shape and finish my novel.”
“How’s the novel coming?” I asked.
“Great,” Osano said. “I got over two thousand pages, just five hundred more to go.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. By this time he had acquired a reputation for not delivering with magazine publishers, even on his nonfiction books. His novel was his last hope.
“You should just concentrate on the five hundred pages,” I said, “and get the goddamn book finished. That will solve all your troubles.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Osano said. “But I can’t rush it. Even my publisher wouldn’t want me to do that. This is the Nobel Prize for me, kid, when this is finished.”
I looked at Charlie Brown to see if she was impressed, and it struck me that she didn’t even know what the Nobel Prize Was.
“You’re lucky to have such a publisher,” I told Osano. “They’ve been waiting ten years for that book.”
Osano laughed. “Yeah, the classiest publishers in America. They’ve given me over a hundred grand and they haven’t seen a page. Real class, not like these fucking movie people.”
“I’ll be leaving for New York in a week,” I said. “I’ll call you for dinner there. What’s your new phone number?”
Osano said, “It’s the same one.”
I said, “I’ve called there and nobody ever answered.”
“Yeah,” Osano said. “I’ve been down in Mexico working on my book, eating those beans and tacos. That’s why I got so goddamn heavy. Charlie Brown here, she didn’t put on an ounce and she ate ten times as much as I did.” He patted Charlie Brown on the shoulder, squeezing her flesh. “Charlie Brown,” he said, “if you die before me, I’m going to have them dissect your body and find out what you got that keeps you skinny.”
She smiled back at him. “That reminds me, I’m hungry,” she said.
So just to cheer things up I ordered lunch for us. I had a plain salad and Osano had an omelet and Charlie Brown ordered a hamburger with french fried potatoes, a steak with vegetables, a salad and a three-scoop ice-cream desert on top of apple pie. Osano and myself enjoyed the people watching Charlie eat. They couldn’t believe it. A couple of men in the next booth made audible comments, hoping to draw us into a conversation so they would have an excuse to talk to Charlie. But Osano and Charlie ignored them.
I paid the tab, and when I left, I promised to call Osano when I got to New York.
Osano said, “That would be great. I’ve agreed to talk in front of that Women’s Lib convention next month, and I’ll need some moral support from you, Merlyn. How about if we have dinner that night and then go on to the convention?”
I was a little doubtful. I wasn’t really interested in any kind of convention, and I was a little worried about Osano’s getting into trouble and I’d have to bail him out again. But I said OK, that I would.
Neither one of us had mentioned Janelle. I couldn’t resist saying to Osano, “Have you seen Janelle in town?”
“No,” Osano said, “have you?”
“I haven’t seen her for a long time,” I said.
Osano stared at me. The eyes for just one second became their usual sneaky pale green. He smiled a little sadly. “You should never let a girl like that go,” he said. “You just get one of them in a lifetime. Just like you get one big book in your lifetime.”
I shrugged and we shook hands again. I kissed Charlie on the cheek and then I left.
That afternoon I had a story conference at Tri-Culture Studios. It was with Jeff Wagon, Eddie Lancer, and the director, Simon Bellfort. I had always thought the Hollywood legends of a writer being rude to his director and producer in a story conference were shitty no matter how funny. But for the first time, at this story conference, I could see why such things had happened. In effect, Jeff Wagon and his director were ordering us to write their story, not my novel. I let Eddie Lancer do most of the arguing, and finally Eddie, exasperated, said to Jeff Wagon, “Look, I’m not saying I’m smarter than you, I’m just saying I’m luckier. I’ve written four hit pictures in a row. Why not ride with my judgment?”