Leaving Las Vegas by John O'Brien Read Free Book Online Page A

zero or double zero, real losers, are favored by the silver ball. Blurred to the eye, rolling on a wheel, the little sphere rides its race indecisively, eventually dropping to the slower, lower track of imminent commitment. It drops into a slot for a while, then starts again.
    At the blackjack tables dealers stand behind other dealers, awaiting their turns to shuffle up and take the house’s chances against the inept infantry of American gamblers. The game can be difficult, for winning brings to a player careful scrutiny by the powers that be, and winning too much can cause him to be conspicuously ejected from the game and the casino. Bad players make foolish plays by definition; good players make foolish plays for the same reason, but only at appropriate moments. Fours and fives get split, so do threes and sixes. When? Why? The dealers watch quietly, knowingly. When they play in a player’s seat they insure their blackjacks. See, they know this game.
    Low key competence, pungent in the air of the poker room, always keeps Sera out, despite the informative flashes from the attendant. He is apt to make known to a passerby that a seat is available on table two, Texas hold-em. In this room players face players. The house doesn’t care what happens here; it draws commission on all pots. Unlike the craps table, green is welcome here. Fresh players are chewed and digested in short order. The games continue with more cunning opponents. Methodically the money flows across the table from this one to that one, then to the new one, and back again to the first one, who is taking and giving, biding his time as he waits for one who isn’t here yet.
    The baccarat balcony is very quiet, well dressed and dignified. Many are the glances upon it from frequent players of other games who would never dare enter this realm. Beautiful women surrounded in black felt feign to play with each other. If a guy had a lot of money he could probably get fucked here. They never give up. It’s all really neat, sort of European.
    “More Herradura?” asks the bartender. He holds ready the bottle. He likes Sera, having identified her as an experienced but not habitually excessive drinker. He is, in his own domain, much like the better dealers who, spotting a competent gambler, will treat him or her as an insider who can be relied on to not do anything stupid or unpredictable, can be trusted to know what they want. More Herradura is served.
    She is more than a little surprised at the ennui. It’s not that she doesn’t understand her life and all its implications, so far she does—as well or better than anyone does. But she didn’t expect to be at such a loss simply because she can’t work for a while. Her dependence on her routine, such as it is, has grown so slowly over the years that it has escaped her notice. Now that the coffee is on the wall, it’s shocking for her to think that her life requires some sort of regular punctuation in order to make it manifest. Thoughmaybe it doesn’t, maybe it just does right now.
    Like an experiment that is radically affected by the removal of one variable, her situation demands assessment. She can’t really come up with one; in truth, she’s not convinced it’s that important. Drunk, she feels the odd inclination to take a long walk, right into the next few days; walking, then rolling, continuously. She leaves the bar and passes again through the hotel doors. Outside it’s still dark and cool enough for this kind of walking. The relatively undiminished activity of pre-dawn Las Vegas raises her spirits, reminds her of why she thinks she originally came here. Long and straight, the sidewalk has inherited the desert’s characteristic disregard for conventional distance. Here she can walk for hours, and since the Tropicana lies virtually at the end of the Strip, hours of walking are available to her.
    She walks slowly, thoughtfully, observing as much as she can and allowing the alcohol to temporarily delay the