Dice, though, dice had odds. Some numbers came up more than others. He liked that. It was the right game right now.
Because, if his number didn’t come up, his number was up.
Walking toward the table, Taylor laughed.
They made room for him. People always made room for Taylor at the tables, at the wheel, at the big-money window. They were lovers, amateurs, vacationers. They could tell he was different: an initiate, a priest. Dedicated from a young age to the faith. They got a thrill playing beside him, went home and told the story: “There was this guy…”
Sometimes, especially lately, smack on the peak of the rush, a dark smothering thickness would descend on Taylor. Like an ocean tide covering the glittering beach, and suddenly nothing was clear, nothing was shiny, it was hard to hear and hard to breathe. That tide was partly this, knowing how he was seen anddiscussed, part of other people’s entertainment, one of the fascinating phenomena of their days, marveled at and soon forgotten. It was other things, too, and partly this. He’d enjoyed it, once. He’d enjoyed all this, once.
Taylor settled his chips, settled himself. A hand was in progress, a stony Chinese grandma throwing with thick, arthritic fingers. The point was eight, lucky for the Chinese. Taylor held off, soaking in the flurry of chips and calls, felt his heart speed up more, his skin start to sizzle. He liked this part, the part just before: it was like swimming, he was always a guy to walk in slowly, not plunging underwater until he was up to his chest, until his long deep breaths disturbed the surface as his chest rose and fell. Then, suddenly, he’d dive through. Then the cold shock and the sudden silent, swirling green world where you wanted to stay forever. But you couldn’t breathe. (And when you came up, took a breath and went back down, it was good but it wasn’t the same, it was never the same.)
She was hot, the Chinese grandma, and when she finally hit the point the table erupted in hooting and laughing. Lots of people had made lots of money: a friendly-faced bald guy, an intense black woman, a young sweaty guy with glasses (which of them was Bennie’s?). The grandma too, but her face didn’t change. She just dumped her chips in a bucket and carried them off.
The dice moved to the player two to Taylor’s right. As she reached her hand to choose her dice from the stickman’s six, Taylor looked at her (up to now it had been the table, always the table, the numbers, the chips). A woman, his age, black hair, black dress, bare arms. Small silver earrings, red lipstick, and otherwise as God had made her. She caught Taylor watching her, met his eyes, didn’t smile, but knew him, as he knew her, as members of a tribe or a cult or a team know each other. As though they’d given the secret handshake and the password, flashed the signet ring. The crowd, he noticed, made way for her too.
Taylor bet the pass line, five thousand, starting small, wading in. She rolled, the black-haired woman, his teammate, the other one like him. Supple, small wrist, nails shaped and polished but no color, no distraction. Her focus on the tumbling cubes asburning as his (but how burning was his, he wondered in the endless second before they came to rest, if he noticed hers?). And it was seven.
Okay, good beginning, Taylor thought, piling the chips and letting them ride. She threw again, turned up six. The dealer marked the point, called it out, the little ritual. Everyone had his own, the players, the amateurs, even the casino, the rituals what it’s about, the rush and the rituals. Taylor stayed with the pass line, doubled behind it, placed the eight, the nine. The woman threw and she was hot. She kept throwing, Taylor kept winning. He let his chips ride, he watched them pile up. What the helclass="underline" He bet the horn, and damn, she hit for him. Then back to basics (he thought about a hard eight, but that was stupid, and it was too early to get stupid). He stayed with his placed bets, racked his chips.
Taylor was making money.
Bennie’s money. Okay, Bennie’s money.
Taylor kept with the pass line, stacking the chips the dealer passed him (never one of those players too superstitious to sort his chips, and now no superstition for him at all, because that was just another way to pretend to control) and nodded to the woman, his benefactress. She flashed a look around as people took care of business. Taylor let his winnings ride until he reached the table limit, then racked what was beyond it. A few more throws and she hit her six and her streak was over.
And Taylor was way up.
The dice moved to the sweaty guy with glasses. Lucky as the woman had been for Taylor, she’d been bad for him. He was way down, and reached for the dice grimly, if you want something done right do it yourself. Oh, Taylor thought, oh; and he bet the don’t-come. The come out roll was ten. Lay odds, Taylor told himself. Behind the don’t-come? This was something Taylor never did. Just one of his rituals, bad luck, not for everyone but for him. He did it. Two throws later the guy turned up seven. Groans everywhere, except from Taylor. He’d made ninety thousand dollars.
As he racked it he spotted them. Bennie’s people. Two men he didn’t know, polo shirts and khakis. Feeding coins into the slots, not enough to hoodwink the Trop’s security people but enough to signal their intention: we’re just watching, we won’t make trouble. Inside.
Okay, Taylor thought, you’re here to watch? Watch.
The sweaty guy sent Taylor an envious, burning glare, as though the money Taylor had just made was his. Sorry, Charlie, thought Taylor, It’s Bennie’s, Taylor feeling that tug as the adrenaline tried to push a grin through the marble mask. The guy slunk away, shoulders hunched.
The dice were Taylor’s now. Well all right! From the six he took the two closest to him, never did it that way before, always looked for the lucky ones but he did it that way now. He felt them, shook them, their sharp little edges meeting his skin, leaned over the rail and threw them. His point came up four. Oh shit, that was hard, but so what? Throw, and throw, and throw, taking the odds, up at the limit, and throw again. Oh yes, now it was happening. Prickles rose on the back of his neck, he felt like his skin was tightening. Oh yes. Sounds grew sharper, lights got brighter. The bald guy whispered to the woman beside him while they placed their tiny bets, their fifty bucks, what they’d budgeted themselves, what they could afford to lose (Taylor could afford to lose nothing, absolutely nothing) and they watched Taylor.
Another throw, another, and then he said, “Hard eight,” in a calm, stone voice, a voice of ice, as though the fifty thousand he was putting on it was nothing to him, was not the sum total of what he’d come out here with, the sum total of who he’d been when he’d come to this table (though he was someone else now, because fifty thousand wasn’t much of a dent in his pile). He shook and threw and came up two fours, his hard eight, his high odds, his score.
He almost laughed, almost cracked his marble mask. The woman beside him smiled a tiny smile. At his right shoulder he felt a presence, a man in a suit, a floor boss, summoned by a dealer with a button or a nod or whatever they used at the Trop. The dealer gave the stickman six new dice. The stickman rolled them out, pushed them to Taylor to make his choice. This time he took the ones farthest away.
Three more throws and he hit his point, raked in his chips. People laughed, thanked him; he’d done well for some. And for himself, oh yes, oh yes.
Hours, many more hours it went on like that. Sometimes it was other people, sometimes it was the woman like him or itwas him, sprinkling the dice like confetti over the green felt, bouncing them off the rails, everyone drawing breaths, holding them, puffing them out. The dealers passed chips out and repossessed them, piles of red chips and black ones, green and purple, orange and gray, rising and falling around the table like some lunatic living bar chart. The boxman, the stickman and the dealers rotated out, replaced by others. The floor boss stayed And the whole thing was in slow motion and fast-forward simultaneously, around Taylor everything whirling and dinging, in front of him everything sweeping and clicking, and also everything crystal clear and completely under control.