Jean-Jacques Tibor - The loser_s wife

"Johnny, Johnny, don't worry about anything. Come on, get into bed with me and we'll talk about it in the morning. You'll see, everything's going to be fine."

Her husband finished undressing and crawled in bed beside her. At first she thought he was relieved that she hadn't wanted to tank to him about the gambling losses, but all night long she could feel him tossing in his sleep. His breathing was very erratic and once she was startled to find a cold film of perspiration covering his forehead.

He awoke about ten and called to her in the kitchen while she was making coffee.

She came in with an extra cup for him and sat on the edge of the bed. As he slid up to rest against a pushed-up pillow, he took her hand.

"Laura, I have to talk to you." The words seemed choked with emotion and she could sense the seriousness and tension in his voice.

"Honey, I have to tell you about last night… I'm so ashamed of myself. I don't know what happened to me, whether it was the booze or just all the excitement."

He was trying to be calm but his hand was gripping her so tightly that it was painful. She started to say something to calm him but she could tell he had to get it out of his system, and that there was nothing she could say that could help.

"Alright, Johnny, I'm listening. And don't worry."

"Remember when you left… I was at the crap table. Well, everything I did seemed to be right. I kept winning and winning. I'd won almost three thousand dollars, and then the dice, everything, seemed to change…" He paused, as if he was trying to relive the whole night, to bring everything back into focus.

"I started to lose… on every toss I lost. I tried anything – changing my bets, I moved to different tables. Nothing worked. Everybody kept patting me on the back, telling me my luck had to change, and Deke kept handing me more chips to play…"

His voice trailed off and he was silent for several seconds. He wasn't even looking at her, just staring off into the distance, and Laura could see the pain etched into his face.

"It kept going on and on. I couldn't win! I couldn't win!"

She began to get frightened. She'd seen him when he started to gamble and she knew there was no stopping him until his money ran out. It was his remark about Deke Vito that worried her.

"Johnny, what do you mean Deke kept giving you money. Whose money was it? Wasn't it yours, wasn't it the money you'd won earlier?"

"No!" he shouted bitterly. "I'd already lost that, I told you! It was his money. Deke's!"

"Oh no, Johnny. Why? How could you have borrowed money from him. You know we don't have any money to pay him back. How much was it? For God's sake, how much was it!"

The worry in her voice hit him and he grabbed her, burying his head against her breasts. He mumbled something but she couldn't hear him.

"What, Johnny? Johnny, I can't hear you. How much of Vito's money did you lose? Please, Johnny, talk to me…"

He raised his head and she could see the wetness lining his eyes.

"Over five thousand dollars. Over five Goddamned thousand dollars!"

"Oh my God, Johnny! How could you? Where are we ever going to get that much money. We can't even buy groceries!"

She could feel him trembling against her and shaking his head from side to side, but her mind kept reeling with the thought of all that money. How? Where were they going to get the money? She tried frantically to think of someone who would lend them that much. Johnny had no family and they couldn't go to hers because they had been against the marriage in the first place. Their daughter, a society debutante from one of the oldest families on Cape Cod, marrying an entertainer. A singer that no one had ever even heard of!

"Honey…" his voice interrupted her thoughts, "we were celebrating, me and Deke. He had a brand new contract for me. A big one! At the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco! I was so happy, so Goddamned happy. It was what we'd been waiting for, you and me. We'd made it. Big Time…! and I blew it, shot it all to hell…"

His voice trailed off and she sat up trying to understand what he'd said.

"Johnny, what do you mean, you blew it? That's it! It's wonderful, that's the way we can pay him back. If the new contract means more money we can…"

"Laura," he interrupted, "Laura, it's no good. I know Deke and he'll never let me have that much time to pay him back. When I left him he got kinda nasty and asked me if I was going to bring the money to him today."

He looked up at her, the hurt and confusion showing plainly in his eyes. "Laura, I didn't know what to say… I told him sure I'd give it to him today. I couldn't tell him anything else, he had Black Jack with him – Mr. Mornay's bodyguard."

Johnny Dutton held his head in his hands. There was no sound except the convulsive shaking of his shoulders. "Honey, he'll ruin us if I don't pay. He'll blackball me in every club on the West Coast."

"Johnny, I don't understand. Surely he knows you can't pay him back right away. Why did he give you the money?"

"I don't know… I don't know, he just kept handing me more chips. It was almost as if he wanted me to lose."

They sat quietly for several moments, the room darkened except for the brilliant shaft of sunlight that had broken through a half-opened window.

Laura's mind spun in a tortured turmoil. First it had been the old man the night before and now it was this. She didn't know what to do!

Johnny put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to him. "We've got to get out of here. It's our only chance. We'll go back East, New York or someplace… I'll just start over." His hand gripped her tighter. "Hell, I can still sing; he can't take that away from me."

Their eyes met, as if they'd both remembered a story they'd heard in the same instant. Just after they'd arrived fox Johnny's engagement at the casino a story had been going around about a saxophone player who had crossed Deke Vito. He had been found several days later in a ditch outside of town with his lip cut horribly and all of his fingers broken. Naturally, there had been no witnesses and the musician had been too frightened to speak, but the old timers in the club had mentioned Deke Vito's name more than once, and some of them even had similar stories of incidents in the past.

Whether the story of the sax player or any of the others was actually true, it frightened the two of them. Laura tried to stop the tears that were building up in her, but it was no use and she broke into great heaving sobs as Johnny held her tightly in his arms.

"My God, Johnny… what are we going to do…" There was no answer. No answer until…

"Laura, baby, there's only one way out." He paused and she could hear the falseness in his emotion.

"Laura, if you talked to Vito, maybe if you went to see him you might be able to convince him…" As he stuttered out the words she knew by the way he spoke they were rehearsed. Johnny was a tremendous talent as a singer, but he was no actor and she could almost see the words forming themselves in the air before he uttered them. She waited, not because she didn't know what was coming, but only to see how he was going to phrase it. She wondered if he was going to be able to squeeze out an actual tear or if he'd have to fake it.

"Honey, you wouldn't have to do anything with him, I promise. If it ever came to that I'd kill myself." His voice came haltingly, steeped with emotion.

"Laura, you could just talk to him; he likes you – you know that. If you could just get him to wait for the money, to give me that contract – we could make it."

She watched him carefully. She saw the tears forming in his eyes. He really is crying, she thought. He must know that Deke Vito would never be satisfied with just a spoken plea from me. He'll want more, much more. Oh, Johnny, don't you know what you're doing to us?