Huey lifted his eyes and met the big man’s gaze. “The Riviera,the Sahara, the Stardust, and all the casinos in old downtown, like the Nugget and the Horseshoe.”
“What are loose slot machines?” the girl asked.
Huey tore the receipt from the register’s printer, and handed it to Troy along with his change. “The management sets them to pay out better. Sometimes they have signs outside that say ninety-eight percent payoff on slots. Go to those places.”
“What’s the payout like at the other casinos?” Amy said.
“About ninety-four to ninety-five percent,” Huey said.
“That much less? That’s cheating.”
Huey said, “That’s the sunshine tax.”
Troy put his change into his pocket, and handed Amy the receipt. Then he scooped his things off the counter. Huey saw the girl’s eyes wander, and said, “I’ll tell you one other little secret about the slot machines.”
She looked up at him expectantly.
“The looser machines are usually near the doors, or places where people congregate inside the casino,” Huey said. “The management does that to create excitement, and entice other people to play. Play those machines.”
“Near the doors,” the girl said.
“That’s right.”
“Thanks,” she said under her breath.
The couple started to leave. Huey said, “One more thing,” and they came back to the counter. “This is really important,” he said. “Always bet the maximum number of coins the machine will take. That’s the only way you can win the jackpot.”
Troy looked at the girl. “You remembering all this?”
Amy recited the names of the casinos, and the pearls about the slots, saying it like it was the most important thing she’d ever been told.
“Much obliged,” Troy said.
“Good luck,” Huey replied.
Through the curly-cues of the Budweiser sign, Huey watched the couple get into their old Volvo. The car started up, and went about twenty feet. Then it stopped, and the girl got out, and marched into the store.
“Forget something?” Huey asked as she approached the counter.
She was holding the receipt, and pointing at it.
“What’s this?” she asked.
Huey stared at a charge for $.75. He scratched his chin. His eyes drifted to the Three Musketeers bar on the counter, next to the cigarette lighters. Picking it up, he said, “Your boyfriend didn’t take his candy bar.”
She shook her head. “Troy don’t eat no candy.”
“My mistake.”
Huey put the candy bar on the shelf behind him. Then he hit the NO SALE button on the register. The cash drawer popped open, and he fished out three quarters, and laid them onto her palm. She left the store without saying a word.
The Volvo left a cloud of dirt in the parking lot. When it settled, another car had taken its place. Four young women piled out. In the back of the car, Huey saw pillows, and guessed the women were planning to share a room.
He took the candy bar off the shelf, and placed it back on the counter on the spot it had occupied since he’d opened his store. The women came in, and he smiled at them.
“Welcome to Nevada,” he said.
PASSLINE by S. J. Rozan
Oh yes, he’d always hated Vegas.
The gambler’s Mecca. In the old days bad enough, fading shabby casinos forcing smiles. Putting out like weary whores: free drinks, cheap rooms. As though he gave a damn. He never gave a damn.
The first time, when he was young (he was very young), it was pulse-pounding thrilling. Staring out the window the minute anything below looked like desert (he’d never left the East before, Pittsburgh-Jesus Christ, Pittsburgh!-as far as he’d been). Leaned that way an hour, waiting. (Catch him doing that now. Forget it, now he took the aisle.) Practically first off the plane (buthe’d never been first), laughed like a kid to see slots at the airport. Had to stop and play them. Lost forty bucks. That was funny, too.
Then the rented car. (Red Thunderbird. Oh, he was one impressive stud, all right.) Then the ten-minute drive. (Too long for him, drumming on the wheel, bopping to the radio.) Then the truth.
The room small, too cold, the sun too hot, burning, relentless. Sand on the wind, stinging. The music too loud, the drinks watered, the girls smiling like their feet hurt.
He wondered if Muslims hated Mecca when they finally got there. Same-same, anyway: hideous buildings, sun and sand.
And Vegas just got uglier. Each time he came, he marveled. (Did pilgrims do that in Mecca, too?) Pirate ships and dancing water (in the desert!) and the Brooklyn Bridge. And hey, you want to talk who knew what and when they knew it, tell me why they never built the Twin Towers into the skyline of New York, New York.
He’d said that to Bennie a few months ago, like Bennie would know, like he’d give a damn.
“You’re an asshole, Taylor.” That’s what Bennie said. That’s what Bennie always said, unless you were placing a bet or paying one off. Or he was paying out, paying you. That did happen. Not often and God knows not to Taylor lately, but it did. Then Bennie handed you your cash and said, “Fuck you, Taylor.”
“Pleasure doing business with a gentleman,” he’d smile at Bennie. He’d always smile.
Bennie’d say, “Fuck you, Taylor.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the stewardess, which was sort of the same as, “Fuck you.” He buckled his seatbelt. The plane banked, dove, bounced, stopped. He sat and waited. People in pastels yanked luggage from overhead. Taylor bet himself how many would get clonked with carry-ons before the door opened. He’d have bet the guy beside him but he was one of the yankers. Taylor’s number was four. By the time the line in the aisle charged forward-a slow-motion charge, like the OJ low-speed chase-he’d only seen three. Losing already, Jeez, that was great.
He stood in the empty aisle, took his case down, brought up the rear. Exited the jetway and the slots still stood, blinking and dinging. Nothing funny about them.
Nothing much funny at all, except that he’d gotten this far.
Could be Bennie was asleep at the switch. But Taylor thought not. Bennie knew where he was. Knew what he was doing and was letting him try, because this was his last time. Win or lose, Bennie was through with him, oh yes. Taylor could almost see him, washing his pudgy hands. (That was metaphoricaclass="underline" Bennie didn’t wash much.) Taylor figured, twenty-four hours. All Bennie’ d give him. All he’d need.
And shit, in this loud-mouthed, self-important, soulless town, all he could take. (Could Vegas see itself in a mirror? No, uh-uh. He was sure.)
He did know, though, after all these years he knew why the glaring neon, the fiberglass, the dancing water. The swollen buildings, the music aimed like a pile driver at the base of your skull. He knew why each casino was huger and stupider than the last one, what all the over-the-top shrillness, bigness, brightness was about.
It was the desert.
The heat, the distance and the hard flat sand would suck the life right out of you. The second it got a chance it would dry you and desiccate you until (weightless, colorless, crisp as a snakeskin) you’d scrape and tumble along. Finally, roped by a hot gust, you’d whirl over the hills and disappear.
At first they’d named the casinos The Sands and The Dunes. That was a mistake and they’d figured it out. Now it was Bellagio, Treasure Island, Luxor, and Grand. You needed bracing here. Shoring up. You had to think of the desert as a vicious, insidious sea. It would take you if it could. And it didn’t have to rise up, throw itself around, pound things and howl like the ocean. It just had to wait.
Taylor knew. He thought, really, everyone knew. He thought, really, that was part of it for every hustler and high roller who came here. The rush, the adrenaline high when your heart thumps and your skin sizzles and you hold your face like marble and keep your body quiet while the lightning rages inside you: the rush speeds fastest when the stakes are highest. Inside the Bellagio and the Luxor (looming windowless liners sailingnowhere) people watched the wheel spin and the cards fall, fed endless chump change into ravenous electronic mouths, and knew. Knew what waited outside, if they lost.