When the money dwindled, so did the dames. And the free booze. I sat at a lonely blackjack table with the last of my chips, locked in the final stage of Total Loser Syndrome: complete denial. I didn't think about the stacks I'd lost. I didn't think about the mountain of debt I'd racked up. And I sure didn't think about the bloodthirsty shylocks that would unleash their hounds to descend on my vicinity and present me with gifts of broken bones and cement shoes.
The flurry of casino activity reduced to streaks of blurred activity around me. I sat at the table with my shirt rumpled, tie askew, and my Bogart tilted so far over my brow I was practically blind. A gasper dangled between my teeth, trailing curls of smoke toward the ceiling. My eyes were bleary from sleep deprivation, my head held upright only by using my arm for a kickstand.
I had all the time in the world to lose everything I had left.
The dealer was a standard model android named Stella, capable of conversation and various expressions of humor and empathy, modeled in retro movie starlet fashion. From the waist up she was a decent facsimile but behind the counter nothing but cords and wires. Most people tended to prefer human dealers, suspicious of somehow being cheated if the dealer was synthetic. Those folks didn't understand how casinos worked. You're asking to be robbed the minute you walk through the doors. Me, I didn't care. At least I didn't have to look into another human being's eyes while they purposely diced me to financial pieces.
I squinted at the cards in front of me. Ace and a five. Stella stood behind a ten and a seven. I tapped the table for a hit. Card dealt was a Queen. I slid the rest of my black chips outside the betting box and pointed, indicating a double down. All I needed was a number lower than six and higher than one. I felt pretty good about my chances. The odds were finally in my favor. I felt it, a tingle in the air like an invisible electric current. I was going to turn things around and start my ascent into jackpot heaven.
Stella dealt me a nine.
"I'm so sorry." Her voice dripped with sympathy as she cleaned me out. "Perhaps your luck will change next time, Mr. Trubble."
"Yeah. I can feel it in the air."
I lifted the booze glass to my lips with a shuddering hand, tilting it back and tasting only diluted water. Even the bourbon was gone. The realization finally hit, as it always does when it's too late. Gambler's regret: the sudden rush of clarity that strikes like a midnight toll to Cinderella, alerting you to the fact that your glitz and glam are loaners and your pumpkin coach is about to be repossessed. I broke out in a cold sweat, shivering at the thought of how precarious my grip on mortality had become. I was literally living on borrowed time, with only hours before some dropper picked up a body shop card with my mug on it.
My last black chip flipped back and forth across my knuckles as I considered my next move. I still had the transit card Wiseman slipped me before he bought the farm. It was a golden ticket, good for a seat on the train departing from New Haven to the great unknown. I could take a chance on getting to the station without being spotted. I didn't know what kind of world waited outside. Some folks say New Haven is a dream, and you can only wake up if you leave. Others say there is no ticket out of New Haven, that Transit Express is an illusion to make unmanageable residents disappear. No one can really say, because no one has ever come back.
Didn't sound so bad. Better than waiting to catch a case of the New Haven Blues in some dark alley.
Then I thought about Natasha.
She was a mess. Still in shock over witnessing her parents' brutal murder, she disappeared into abstract art and her own little private world to cope. She needed time to recover, to deal with the pain. I was the only person close to her. The only person she trusted. If I just pulled a Casper and vanished, she'd be alone. Vulnerable. She needed me.
Probably should have thought of that before putting myself on a Mafia hit list.
The chip tumbled from my fingers, rolled across the table, and fell into a black-gloved hand.
I glanced up at the glove's owner. The Chinese dame was the kind of woman you only see in picture shows or on the airbrushed pages of some glamour mag. Porcelain skin, dark eyes, cherry lips. She tilted her head, studying me as if deciphering my secrets. I tried getting a read on her, but her poker face baffled my normally keen senses. I knew she was a professional. Just didn't know the occupation.
She spoke in a silky undertone, eyes locked on mine. "You are a very poor gambler, mister…?"
"Trubble. Mick Trubble."
"Well, Mr. Trubble, you've been giving away your money all night. Might want to consider another occupation."
"I have another occupation."
"Really? What do you do?"
"I'm a Troubleshooter."
"That's ironic."
"Yeah? How's that?"
"You keep on this downward slide, and it will be trouble shooting at you." She held up the chip, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"You don't know the half, sweetheart."
Her fingers folded over the chip. "I'm going to hold on to this. If you want it back, it will be paying for my drink at the bar."
A dry laugh rasped out of me. "I think that would be the only good use of my dibs this entire night."
She walked toward the bar with my chip still in hand. I watched her go, taking in the way she moved. It wasn't the seductive stride I expected. Her walk was entirely casual, without any attempt to impress. At the last second, she lifted her arm, waggling her fingers in a beckoning manner.
I stood, adjusted my tie, and tilted my Bogart just the way I liked it before following her to the bar.
The world became a stasis of whirring slots, shuffling cards, clattering dice. Time was nonexistent in the casino, like it is in any purgatory. Day, night — it didn't matter. A gambler lives in the moment, blinders firmly secured, eliminating notions of past and future. At that moment I was at the bar in the company of a beautiful woman. The only thing that mattered was the sound of her voice, the soft sheen of her skin, the shape of her slender frame against the silk of her black, lotus-embroidered dress. Her fragrance of cloves and rose petals managed to overpower the smoke that trailed from my gasper.
"I haven't been in New Haven long." Her eyes shimmered with a distant sadness. I thought it was for me at first, but I realized she carried sadness with her like the sequined clutch under her arm. Melancholy was an adornment, as much a part of her as the glove on her hand or the costume jewels glinting on her neck and wrists.
I downed a shot of bourbon. "Folks come to New Haven because they're either looking for something or running from something. Which are you?"
"I prefer not to talk about my past."
"Yeah, me too."
"Because of the pain?"
I grimaced at my warped reflection in the bottom of the glass. "Because I don't remember it."
"That must be a blessing."
I shrugged. "It has its perks, I guess. Just can't think of any right now."
Her laughter was an automatic response. "You're different from what I expected."
"How's that?"
"You seem to be a nice man."
"I'm only nice to folks who deserve it."
"You don't know if I deserve it or not."
"I got a soft spot for dames. You gotta prove me wrong if you wanna see my bad side. So you came here from the Outside. What's it like?"
"Same as anywhere, I guess." Her gaze grew remote. "Busy. Dangerous. I was in Singapore before I came here. I made my money gambling at casinos. Saved enough to make my way here."
"Singapore has a Haven?"
"No. But Outside isn't the post-apocalyptic wasteland you Haven residents believe it to be. There are pockets of civilization, entire cities functioning without Haven oversight."
I sat back, chewing on the revelation. "Ol' Wiseman used to talk about the Outside. Wanted to get out of New Haven something bad."