Майкл Бретт - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 36, No. 6, June, 1975

I had a plan when I started to gamble. The limit I had placed on myself was ten dollars a day. I was reconciled to the idea that I’d lose the money. It had been figured into the cost of the vacation.

I played the dollar minimum at the blackjack table. My luck was good. Every time I won Martha would let out a squeal of pleasure.

At first I thought that was kind of cute. The dealer, even though he figured to be used to exuberant cries, was plainly irritated after I’d won over forty dollars. Las Vegas dealers are great at hiding their emotions, but the running argument Martha and I were having must have had something to do with steaming him up a little, the way I figured it.

It seemed I couldn’t do any wrong. I didn’t follow any system. I’d stand on twelve, thirteen and at other times I’d have the dealer hit me on seventeen and eighteen when I had a hunch that he’d go broke on his turn. I’d hit eighteen and wind up with twenty-one. That was the kind of a night it was.

The trouble started when I wanted to increase my bet by doubling up. If I had just increased my bets to two dollars I would have wound up with eighty dollars the first night instead of forty. Every time I put two dollars down Martha would say, “Now Warren, you promised. Don’t you dare!”

Frankly it was kind of embarrassing having her hang over me that way. What could I do, though? Arguing with her, or telling her to leave me alone would have ruined my time. Besides, she wouldn’t have listened. That’s the kind of woman she is. Once or twice when the dealer won she’d say, “See, Warren, what did I tell you? You would have lost double the amount. See what I mean?” Her words irked the dealer.

I could see what she meant all right. Most of all I could see that she was beginning to annoy me and without her riding herd over me I might have had a chance to win some big money.

She was unreasonable in other ways, too. At four-thirty in the morning she insisted that I quit and go to sleep. Everybody knows that you’re not supposed to walk away from a winning streak. I tried to explain that to her, but she wouldn’t listen.

“Now Warren, if you stay up all night you’ll be so tired you won’t be able to enjoy tomorrow,” was what she kept saying.

She wouldn’t stop.

There wasn’t any point arguing with her, so we went to bed. Unknown to me she stuck a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and I wound up sleeping half the next day away, when I could have been winning some money. When I awoke I was alone.

The hundred I had started with was now a hundred and forty. I dressed quickly. If I could get to the casino without Martha I’d be able to really hit them.

When I got there she was waiting for me, smiling. “Warren, you look wonderful, all rested out,” she said.

If I’d wanted rest I would have stayed home. I didn’t tell her that. She’d never understand.

I played every game there was, poker, dice, blackjack, chemin de fer, roulette, and to say that my luck was great would be an understatement of fact. It was phenomenal. From time to time I lost, but I always bounced back. I walked away winning from everything I tried.

Martha hung around my neck like an anchor. At the dice table I made six straight passes and wanted to double up on each one, but I couldn’t get rid of Martha.

She was choking me. I couldn’t breathe with her around. So to gain a breathing spell I handed her fifty dollars and told her to try her luck elsewhere. I had to promise that I wouldn’t increase the size of my bets while she was gone before she agreed to leave.

During the twenty minutes she was gone I met Paul Varig at the dice table. He was a professional gambler. I recognized him immediately, since his photograph had been in the newspapers during a recent Senate crime hearing on gambling. He had pleaded the fifth amendment no less than forty-six times.

He wasn’t reluctant to talk to me, however, and ride my winning streak all the way, winding up with eight thousand dollars. Myself, I made two hundred dollars.

Once when I had a lucky run he whispered, “This is unusual pal. You go a little heavier when it’s like this.”

“Well, I promised Martha,” I said. He smiled and shrugged as if to say, well, I can’t play your game for you.

When Martha returned I introduced him to her. Despite what the newspapers had to say about him being an unsavory character and all, he seemed like a nice guy as far as I was concerned. And he was.

During the rest of the vacation we stuck together and there wasn’t any question but that he made the rest of our stay more enjoyable.

At night we’d go to the other hotels for dinner and the shows and his presence was more than enough to insure us a ringside table. People were standing in line, but we’d breeze right through and were treated like some sort of visiting royalty.

I could tell right off that Martha liked him, but he was a gentleman. He never made a pass and that’s kind of unusual, since Martha’s a genuine beauty.

I’m not saying this because she’s my wife and I might be a little prejudiced. Before we were married she was Miss Runner-up in a beauty contest in Oklahoma, so I know what I’m talking about. I guess the real reason for Varig’s indifference was that he had all the female companionship he had use for. Some real beauties would smile and wave at him wherever we went.

I got to know Paul Varig well during the rest of my vacation. Once I had convinced Martha that I’d continue to gamble cautiously, she left me alone. I had ample opportunity to study Varig’s gambling habits. The one thing I noticed about him that stuck in my mind was that he always took the odds, and that when he felt they were in his favor he played heavily.

He came out winning forty-three thousand dollars during the time we were there, but in all fairness to him, he kept saying, “Warren, bet a little heavier and you’ll grab yourself a bundle.”

When Martha and I checked out of the hotel we were ahead a thousand dollars. She was delighted over it. She kept saying, “Warren, it isn’t how much you win. It’s the fact that you’re a winner that’s important.”

I let it go at that. There wasn’t any sense arguing with her. It wouldn’t change her point of view anyway.

I didn’t see Paul Varig for six months after that. But my head was filled with the good rolls and the points I’d made and how things would be a lot easier for me if I had played the way I wanted to.

I figured it out a few times and realized that if I had only placed bigger bets and doubled up a few times I would have come out winning over a hundred thousand dollars. Thinking about that, the thousand only frustrated me.

The way I saw it, Martha, with her unreasonably cautious attitude and my going along with it, had cost me ninety-nine thousand dollars. I could forgive her almost anything, but ninety-nine thousand dollars is a lot of forgiving and I didn’t have all that forgiveness.

Things between us got kind of unpleasant after a while. What made it even worse was that she wanted to spend some of the thousand. She wanted a new winter outfit, a coat, shoes and purse, only I wasn’t about to go along with that.

No sir. Since I was the one who’d won the money I figured that I was the one who had the right to spend it any way I wanted. So I told her nothing doing.

Actually, what I said was, “Forget it, Martha.” When she insisted that she hadn’t had a new coat in five years and she really needed one, I said, “Get lost, Martha,” and that was being kind of gentle the way I saw it, since I was out ninety-nine thousand dollars.

Marriage isn’t going to hold up with something like that hanging over it. I guess her background had something to do with it, too. Her father was a railroad hand and a heavy drinker back in Oklahoma and from what she’d told me she hadn’t exactly lived in the lap of luxury. She’d been working ever since she was fourteen. Maybe that accounted for her cautious attitude toward money.