Ken Grimwood - Replay

So far, Jeff had managed to deflect Frank’s questions about what had led him to such a spectacular win. Maddock now assumed Jeff to be a handicapping prodigy, with some secret method. That image had only been strengthened by Jeff s refusal to make a follow-up wager on the Preakness, two weeks after the Derby. He’d been sure that Chateaugay would win two out of three of that year’s Triple Crown, but he couldn’t remember which of the Derby sequels the horse had lost; so, despite Frank’s protests, Jeff had insisted they sit out the Preakness. Candy Spots had taken the race by three and a half lengths. Now not only was Jeff certain of victory in the upcoming Belmont Stakes, but the resurgence of Candy Spots had driven the odds back up on Chateaugay.

The betting had given Jeff a new sense of purpose, distracted him from the hopeless quagmire of metaphysics and philosophy in which the answers to his situation lay buried. If he weren’t insane already, another month or so of brooding over those imponderables surely would have driven him to that point. Gambling was so clear-cut, so soothingly straightforward: win or loss, debit or credit, right or wrong. Period. No ambiguities, no second guessing; especially not when you knew the outcome in advance. Frank had gathered up the scattered cards, was stacking and shuffling them. "Hey," he said, "let’s do a double deck!"

"Sure, why not?" Jeff straddled a chair next to the bed. He took the cards, reshuffled, began to dole them out.

"Plus one, plus one, zero, plus one, zero, minus one, minus two, minus two, minus three, minus two…"

Jeff listened contentedly to the familiar litany, the running count of aces and tens as they were dealt. Frank had been avidly memorizing charts and tables from a new book called Beat the Dealer, a computer study of betting strategies in blackjack. Jeff knew from his own reading how well the card-counting method actually worked. By the mid-seventies, casinos had begun barring anyone who played with those techniques. In this era, though, the dealers and pit bosses had welcomed any sort of system players, considered them easy marks. Frank should do all right, hold his own at the very least; and if he were absorbed in the thrill of his own triumphs at the 21 tables, it might divert his attention somewhat from the more spectacular win that Jeff expected to achieve in the Belmont.

"… minus one, zero, plus one—stop! Hole card’s a ten." Jeff showed him the jack of clubs, and they slapped five. Frank drained his beer, set the bottle on the nightstand next to half a dozen other empties. "Hey," he said. "One of those drive-ins we passed on the way into town was showing Dr. No; want to check it out?"

"Jesus, Frank, how many times have you seen that movie already?"

"Three or four. It gets better every time."

"Enough already; I’ve OD’d on James Bond."

Frank looked at him quizzically. "You what?"

"Never mind. I just don’t feel like going; you take the car, the keys are on top of the TV."

"What’s the matter, you in mourning for the Pope? I didn’t even know you were Catholic."

Jeff laughed, reached for his shoes. "Oh, what the hell, all right. At least it’s not Roger Moore."

"Who the hell is Roger Moore?"

"He’ll be a saint someday."

Frank shook his head and frowned. "Are we talking about the Pope dying, or James Bond, or what? You know, buddy, sometimes I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about."

"Neither do I, Frank; neither do I. Come on, let’s go to the movies. A little escape from reality, that’s what we need."

They drove straight through to Las Vegas the next day, spelling each other at the wheel of the Avanti. Jeff had never been to Nevada, and the neon-lit Strip seemed emptier, less thoroughly gaudy than he recalled from movies and television shows of the eighties. This was pre-Howard Hughes Las Vegas, he realized, before the influx of Hilton and MGM money had built the massive, "respectable" casino hotels. Those that now dominated this surreal little segment of Nevada State Road 604 were low-slung, racy legacies of the postwar gangster era: the Dunes, the Tropicana, the Sands. "Rat Pack" Vegas, straight out of old caper movies with jivey, finger-snapping soundtracks. There was still a provocative hint of evil in the hot, dry air.

They checked in at the Flamingo, put sixteen thousand dollars in cash on deposit with the hotel casino. The assistant manager, all teeth and swagger, comped them to a three-room suite and all the food and drink they wanted for the duration of their stay.

Frank spent the evening checking out the blackjack tables: number of decks used, rules on splitting and doubling down, speed and personality of the various dealers. Jeff watched along with him for a while, then grew bored and went off to wander around the casino, absorbing the bizarre ambience of the place. Everything seemed illusory here: the brightly colored chips representing enormous sums of money, the flashily dressed men and women … desperate facades of sexual bravado and the pretense of limitless, uncaring affluence.

Jeff went back to his room early, fell asleep watching "The Jack Paar Show." When he got up the next morning he found Frank pacing around the living room of the suite, grumbling to himself and periodically referring to a set of makeshift flash cards.

"Join me for breakfast?"

Frank shook his head. "I want to go over these one last time, and hit the tables before noon. Catch the dealers at the end of the morning shift, when they’re starting to fade."

"Makes sense. Good luck; I’ll probably be out by the pool. Let me know how it goes."

Jeff ate alone at a table for six in the hotel restaurant, reading the Racing Form. The odds were still climbing on Chateaugay for the Belmont, he noted happily; but none of the dozens of other races mentioned in the paper meant anything to him. He wolfed down a double order of scrambled eggs with a thick slice of country ham, then had a large stack of pancakes and a third glass of milk. For the last few years he’d gotten in the habit of skipping breakfast entirely, maybe grabbing a Danish and the first of many cups of coffee on his way to work; but this new, young body of his had its own appetites.

Frank had gone down to the casino by the time Jeff went back to the room to change into his bathing suit. He grabbed an oversized towel and a copy of V, stopped by the hotel gift shop for a bottle of Coppertone (with no PABA rating, he noted), and found himself a lounge chair by the pool.

He saw her right away: wet black hair, sculpted cheekbones. Breasts ample but firm, belly trim, legs elegant and shapely. She raised herself from the pool, smiling and shining in the desert sun, and walked toward Jeff.

"Hi," she said. "Anybody using that chair?"

Jeff shook his head, motioned an invitation for her to sit beside him. She stretched out on her back, flicked her dripping hair over the back of the canvas chaise lounge to dry.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, willing his eyes not to linger too long or too obviously on her droplet-beaded body.

"No, thanks," she said, but smiled and looked straight at him, taking the edge off the refusal. "I just had a Bloody Mary, and the heat’s making me a little dizzy."

"It’ll do that if you’re not used to it," he agreed. "Where are you from?"

"Illinois, just outside Chicago. But I’ve been here for a couple of months, think I might stay awhile. How about you?"

"Atlanta right now," he told her, "but I grew up in Florida."

"Oh, so I guess you’ve always been used to the sun, hmm?"

"Pretty much." He shrugged.

"I went to Miami a couple times. It’s nice, but I wish you could gamble there."

"I grew up in Orlando."

"Where’s that?" she asked.

"It’s near—" He almost said "Disney World," stopped himself in time, then started to say "Cape Kennedy," though he knew that wasn’t the real name of the place, even in 1988. " … near Cape Canaveral," he finally finished. His hesitation seemed to puzzle her, but the awkward moment passed.