Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
The car comes to a stop outside a shop in a rundown area in Brooklyn. There is graffiti on the half-closed roller metal shutters. A hooded man jumps out of nowhere and comes forward. Alexei and Igor do their thing and he finds himself suddenly trapped between them. I get out of the car and walk towards them. The man turns out to be very young, no more than nineteen, but his eyes are shifty. He has spent his whole life in the slums and knows only to cheat, lie, and steal.
“You here for the game?” he asks.
I nod.
“This way, bro,” he says. He seems nervous, but that is on account of the intimidating size of Alexei and Igor.
I follow the youth down a narrow steep concrete staircase into a dingy basement where an illegal gambling club has been set up. Dice in the front, blackjack and poker at the back. I walk towards the back. There are already five men seated at the table. Everyone looks up at my arrival. They are waiting for me. I am the whale, the mark. They think they are going to skin me for anywhere between sixty to a hundred thousand dollars. Alexei and Igor stand at the door. They face outwards because the danger is not from the gamblers, but from the masked robbers who come in with guns. I take a seat at the table with the men. Three I can see are the degenerate gamblers, the losers, and the other two are the sharp professionals. They nod at me, but their eyes give nothing away.
A heavily made-up woman in a tight dress comes up to offer me a drink.
“Scotch on the rocks,” I say, even though I have no intention of drinking anything in this establishment.
“Are we all ready to start?” the dealer asks.
I put my first thick wad of cash on the table. The only person who blinks with greedy surprise is Lara Fitzgerald’s father.
We start to play. The professionals make sure that three degenerates and I win for the first few rounds. They are carefully persuading us to be careless and overconfident. Lara’s father’s face is flushed, his eyes are glittering, and there is a sheen of sweat on his skin. He is exactly as Greta described in her report: gambling addict by night, doting father and real estate company director by day. He asks for another glass of whiskey and leans forward eagerly. He thinks he is on a winning streak.
And he is. He wins the next game. “Excuse me, lads. I need a bathroom break.”
“Me too,” I say and stand.
As he walks to the urinal, I watch him dispassionately. He seems lost and disconnected. A flawed man drowning under the weight of his own addictions. As unbelievable as it seems, his coping mechanism is to double down on his compulsions and hope they will get him out of the very troubles they got him into.
Some part of me feels sorry for him and for what I am going to do to him tonight. A trusted inner voice that I’ve always listened to, cautions that I’ve never played so dirty before and once I walk down this twisted sinful corridor, the door will close behind me, and I will never be the same again. But even that warning doesn’t deter me. The need to have her is greater than the fear of damage to my soul. I tell myself that should all go according to plan, they will both come much better off than they are now.
“You can do this,” her father mumbles to himself as he pisses. “Don’t screw this up. This is your last chance.”
"Good game?" I ask.
“What?” he asks, looking in my direction. His face is pitiful. A mixture of pain and desperation. I realize he holds his drink well, but he is actually already quite drunk.
“Lady Luck is smiling on you tonight, huh?”
"Yeah," he replies, but strangely shakes his head as if even he can’t believe his own assertion.
"Then why so glum?"
"Because I’m bad with numbers,” he mutters. “I messed up and now I’m trapped, in too deep, lost too much, owe too much. Can’t pay my debts. I can’t get out of this sinking world.”
"Why are you gambling even more?" I ask.
"Don’t know what else to do. This is my last hope. I have to get myself out of this crushing debt. And I need to do it fast, or else I will start losing everything by the end of next week. The house, the car, the agency, everything... so many lives are going to be affected, especially—especially my baby girl's." He shakes his head. “It’s bad. It’s bad.”
“Maybe you’ll win it all back tonight.”
He zips up and heads over to the sinks. “God knows I want to believe that, but the stakes are too small and my winning streak won’t last. I need a few big wins and then I’m out of here forever. I’ll never look back, I swear it. This is it for me.”