She smiled at me and gave me a kiss. She never cared really what she got for Christmas, she loved buying presents for others, for the kids especially and then for me and her family. Her father and mother and brothers and sisters. The kids got four or five presents. And there was one super-duper bicycle that I was sorry she had bought. It was a two-wheeled bike for my oldest son, and I was sorry because I would have to put it together. And I didn’t have the faintest idea how.
Vallie opened a bottle of wine and made some sandwiches. I opened the huge carton that held the different parts of the bicycle. I spread everything out over the living-room floor, plus three sheets of printed instructions and diagrams. I took one look and said, “I give up.”
“Don’t be silly,” Vallie said. She sat down cross-legged on the floor, sipping wine and studying the diagrams. Then she started to work. I was the idiot helper. I went and got the screwdriver and the wrench and held the necessary parts so that she could screw them together. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning before we finally got the damn thing whole. By that time we had finished the wine and we were nervous wrecks. And we knew the kids would spring out of bed as soon as they woke up. We’d get only about four hours’ sleep. And then we would have to drive to Vallie’s parents’ house for a long day of celebration and excitement.
“We’d better get to bed,” I said.
Vallie spread out on the floor. “I think I’ll just sleep here,” she said.
I lay down beside her, and then we both rolled over on our sides so that we could hug each other tight. We lay there blissfully tired and content. At that moment there was aloud knock on the door. Value got up quickly, a look of surprise on her face, and glanced at me questioningly.
In a fraction of a second my guilty mind built a whole scenario. It was, of course, the FBI. They had deliberately waited until Christmas Eve, until I was psychologically off guard. They were here with a search-and-arrest warrant. They would find the fifteen thousand dollars I had hidden in the house and take me away to jail. They would offer to let me spend Christmas with my wife and kids if I confessed. Otherwise I would be humiliated: Vallie would hate me for getting arrested on Christmas. The kids would cry, they would be traumatized forever.
I must have looked sick because Vallie said to me, “What’s wrong?” Again there was a loud knocking on the door. Vallie went out of the living room and down the hail to answer it. I could hear her talking to someone, and I went out to take my medicine. She was coming back down the hail and turning into the kitchen. In her arms were four bottles of milk.
“It was the milkman,” she said. “He delivered early so that he could get back to his family before his kids woke up. He saw the lights under our door, so he knocked to wish us a Merry Christmas. He’s a nice man.” She went into the kitchen.
I followed her in and sat weakly in one of the chairs. Vallie sat on my lap. “I’ll bet you thought it was some crazy neighbor or crook,” she said. “You always think the worst will happen.” She kissed me fondly. “Let’s go to bed.” She gave me a more lingering kiss and so we went to bed. We made love and then she whispered, “I love you.” “Me too,” I said. And then I smiled in the darkness. I was easily the most chicken shit petty thief in the Western world.
But three days after Christmas a strange man came into my office and asked me if my name was John Merlyn. When I said yes, he handed me a folded letter. As I opened it he walked out. The letter had printed in Old English heavy letters:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
then in plain capital printing:
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
Then in block lines my name and address and off to the far end in capital letters: “GREETING:”
Then it read: “WE COMMAND YOU, that all singular business and excuses being laid aside, you and each of you appear and attend before the GRAND INQUEST of the body of the people of the United States of America”-and went on to give times and place and concluded “alleged violation Title 18, U. S. Code.” It went on to say that if I didn’t appear, I would be in contempt of court and liable to penalties of the law.
Well, at least now I knew what law I had broken. Title 18, U.S. Code. I’d never heard of it. I read it over again. I was fascinated by the first sentence. As a writer I loved the way it read. They must have taken it from the old English law. And it was funny how clear and concise lawyers could be when they wanted to be, no room for misunderstanding. I read that sentence over again: “WE COMMAND YOU, that all singular business and excuses being laid aside, you and each of you appear and attend before the GRAND INQUEST of the body of the people of the United States of America.”
It was great. Shakespeare could have written it. And now that it had finally happened I was surprised that I felt a sort of elation, an urgency to get it over with, win or lose. At the end of the working day I called Las Vegas and got Cully in his office. I told him what had happened and that in a week I would appear before a grand jury. He told me to sit tight, not to worry. He would be flying in to New York the next day and he would call my house from his hotel in New York.
Book IV
Chapter 17
In the four years since Jordan ’s death, Cully had made himself Gronevelt’s right-hand man. No longer a countdown artist, except in his heart, he seldom gambled. People called him by his real name, Cully Cross. His telephone page code was Xanadu Two. And most important of all, Cully now had “The Pencil,” that most coveted of Las Vegas powers. With the scribbling of his initials he could bestow free rooms, free food and free liquor to his favored customers and friends. He did not have unrestricted use of “The Pencil,” a royal right reserved for hotel owners and the more powerful casino managers, but that too would come.
Cully had taken Merlyn’s call on the casino floor, in the blackjack pit, where table number three was under suspicion. He promised Merlyn he would come to New York and help him. Then he went back to watching table three.
The table had been losing money every day for the last three weeks. By Gronevelt’s percentage law this was impossible; there must be a scam. Cully had spied from the Eye in the Sky, rerun the videotapes monitoring the table, watched in person, but still couldn’t figure out what was happening. And he didn’t want to report it to Gronevelt until he had solved the problem. He felt the table was having a run of bad luck, but he knew Gronevelt would never accept that explanation. Gronevelt believed that the house could not lose over the long run, that the laws of percentage were not subject to chance. As gamblers believe mystically in their luck so Gronevelt believed in percentages. His tables could never lose.
– -
After taking Merlyn’s call, Cully went by table three again. Expert in all the scams, he made a final decision that the percentages had simply gone crazy. He would give a full report to Gronevelt and let him make the decision on whether to switch the dealers around or fire them.
Cully left the huge casino and took the staircase by the coffee shop to the second floor that led to the executive suites. He checked his own office for messages and then went on to Gronevelt’s office. Gronevelt had gone to his living suite in the hotel. Cully called and was told to come down.
He always marveled at how Gronevelt had set himself up a home right there in the Xanadu Hotel. On the second floor was an enormous corner suite, but to get to it, you had to be buzzed into a huge outside terrace that had a swimming pool and a lawn of bright green artificial grass, a green so bright you knew it could never last for more than a week in the Vegas desert sun. There was another huge door into the suite itself, and again you had to be buzzed in.