Lucky Leonardo (7 page)

The man spoke to the man in the cool, dark room, which was closed and fastidiously sealed from the outside like a womb or a tomb so that it might be midnight, and long ago and far away. The walls were decorated with cave paintings and plaster stalactites which appeared and disappeared in the flicker of the flame at the tip of a very long and slender white candle rising like the neck of a swan in the center of the room. Except for the words passing back and forth, the room was very quiet, so quiet you could hear the feet of the dancing flame.

“I take it that this atmosphere is intended to free my mind of inconsequential details, like time and place,” the man in the patient's chair commented.

The other, his body in shadows but his fleshy face to the flame, red and grotesque, nodded.

“Do you still use your couch?” the man in the patient's chair asked. He sensed but could only dimly see the horizontal bulk of the ancient couch lying low against the wall.

“Sometimes,” the other answered. “Would you like to try?”

“No, doc. It still feels too dangerous.”

“It's just a couch.”

“Like a cigar is just a cigar. I could make myself walk over to it, and lie down on it. But you know and I know I'm not supposed to…”

“Oh?”

“…because if I do I'll get myself into serious trouble…”

“Like what?”

“Screamed at…”

“Who…”

“…Kicked out…”

“Why…”

“You know the answers, doc. Don't be so cute.”

“What?”

“I'll stay in the chair.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Doc, to me the analytical point is that when you're a kid and you walk into your parents' bedroom you don't know what's going on in that room. You don't have a clue. You don't know about fights, sex, money, waking people up, or even who they think you are. You're just way out of your element.”

“A fish out of water?”

“Yes.”

“An unhappy fish?”

“Very unhappy...” Leonardo began to whimper.

“Very unhappy,” his psychiatrist, Dr. William Ziggamon, gently repeated, his words hanging in the air as Leonardo—middle-aged, fragile, shaky—rocked in his chair, rocked and whimpered, while the light from the candle flickered across ancient cave drawings.

“Oh, well,” Leonardo said after a while, straightening up, dabbing his eyes, “I called you because I've hit a snag in the road. I may need new tires…”

“Leonardo, it's been a while since I've seen you, and from what you tell me about your
umm
continuing complicated feelings toward Barbara, and this lawsuit, and your
umm
increasing level of anxiety, and
umm
your feelings for the fish, it sounds like…”

“…it's time to change the oil?”

“…you may have a crack in your transmission block. I want to jack you up and take a look inside.”

“I…Incidentally, when did you install your caveman motif?”

“Do you like it?”

“I don't know.”

———

Leonardo's next stop was Starbucks, where he ordered a venti from Chrissie on his way to Abigail's office next door. Chrissie looked troubled. She delivered the coffee with her eyes down and her brow furrowed, prompting Leonardo to lean as close to her as the counter would permit. “I had a nice time last night,” he said softly.

“It's not that,” she answered. “It's my mother.”

“Oh?”

“She hit a slots pot at Foxwoods last night…”

“Oh?”

“…and she won't come home.”

“Oh? How much did she win?”

“Twenty-two thousand dollars.”

“Oh.”

“They put her up in a suite. They're treating her like a queen. She let her bus go without her.”

“And now she's giving it back?”

“As fast as she can.”

“By herself?”

“She mentioned Tom.”

“Tom?”

“She says he's her investment advisor.”

“Tom's new?”

“Tom's today.”

“Tom doesn't sound good.”

“No.”

“Should we drive down there and rescue her?”

“Would you do that for me?”

They arranged to meet in two hours' time, at the end of Chrissie's shift and Leonardo's lawyer's meeting. They smooched good-bye over the counter, accompanied by hissy looks from customers in line, some who thought a father shouldn't kiss his daughter in that way, some who thought a pretty girl like Chrissie ought to do better and were prepared to offer themselves as examples of better, and some who were pissed that the line wasn't moving.

Leonardo walked his coffee next door to Abigail's feeling better than he had been, armed with a powerful new prescription from Dr. Z, wondering how much cash he would need to effectuate the rescue of Chrissie's mom given the potential cash demands of the rescue site, and his unspoken but heartfelt hope that luck be a lady tonight.

Leonardo was a casino virgin, not counting twenty dollars dropped on Caribbean slots with Barbara a long time ago, and fifty dollars on baseball during a shrink convention last year in Las Vegas, plus another fifty or seventy-five, who's counting, on blackjack at the end of the convention as he waited for them to bring up his golf clubs for the trip home, and some other chips dropped here and there on roulette or slots or whatever, suggesting a willingness to experiment, possibly an inclination and a ripening desire, but not yet the defloration. A kiss on my cheek, and her perfume lingers.

“Guess who called me a few minutes ago?” Abigail asked him as he parked his casino fantasy in her outer lobby, took a healthy slug of coffee, and settled into one of her client chairs.

“Your brother Drunkmiller?”

“He's not really my brother.”

“I know…”

“That's just the courtesy we lawyers give each other…”

“…I know.”

“…before we stab each other in the back. Although in this case Martin is an old friend.”

“Oh? You didn't tell me that before.”

“I told you I knew him.”

“Well…”

“Leonardo, I'm not compromised in my diligent representation just because I know him.”

“How well do you know him?”

“We worked in the same law firm a hundred years ago. We were friends.”

“What kind of friends?”

“It's not a relevant point.”

“Lunch friends? Dating friends?”

“Leonardo, you're overreacting. I represent you diligently. That's all that should matter to you. This is business, not personal, for me and for Martin, and that's the way it should be for you too.”

“I…”

“Anyway, it wasn't Martin who called. Guess who it was?'

“I don't know.”

“Guess.”

“My brother-in-law, Hal?”

“No. Although he owes me a call.”

“I haven't told him about me and you.”

“It's not a secret, you know. It's not like I'm your psychiatrist.” She laughed at the thought. “My appearance is on file with the court. It's public information. You should tell him.”

“It'd be awkward.”

“Less awkward than when he hears it from someone else?”

“I don't know. How's his landlord case?”

“Ask him when you speak with him.”

“I'll think about it.”

“So guess who called me?”

“I give up.”

“Brockleman.”

“Oh?”

“He wanted to know what Martin said to me yesterday in the corridor outside the courtroom.”

“How'd he know about that?”

“I assume he had somebody in the courtroom, to monitor the hearing.”

“Interesting, because I felt I was being watched. I saw curious eyes all around me…”

“That's something else I want to talk to you about.”

“What?”

“When you're in court, Leonardo, and especially when you testify, it's a lot better to be cool and calm than dropping a nutty…”

“I wasn't…”

“I'm sure you know more about this than I do, but I think we have to work on turning down the emotional volume.”

“You mean relax and enjoy it?”

“I mean…”

“Spread my legs and think happy thoughts?”

“…that it's business, not personal.”

“It's…I'm…I can't…What did you tell Brockleman?”

“I told him I haven't heard back from him on our demand that DeltaTek pay your legal fees and indemnify you against damages.”

“And he said?”

“He said we'd be making a big mistake if we get in bed with Martin and the Binhs.”

Abigail let slip a girlish smile at the mention of getting in bed with Martin, prompting Leonardo to wonder how recently, and how often, and how was it, and whether it mattered if they do or they did, and whether he was drifting into a paranoidal netherworld populated by agitated little voices, before he reached the big mistake part of her remark. “What big mistake?” he asked.

“Well, you're not going to like this, but Brockleman said, and this is pretty much a direct quote of what he said, that the claims DeltaTek has against you, could bring against you, is thinking about bringing against you, are a pissload more real and expensive than any claims Eugene or Mrs. Eugene can dream up.”

“What?”

Chrissie found her mom pumping a dollar machine, sitting alongside a dark-complexioned, long-haired young man with a muscular torso who was sharing her coin cup. He could have been a bouncer, or a garbage man, or a member of a motorcycle gang. No doubt he was cute, and not exactly the prototype lounge lizard or confidence man Chrissie expected to rescue her mom from.

“Are you Tom?” Chrissie asked him amid the usual background noise of a big casino, the bells ringing their little hearts out on top of winning slot machines, the nearby craps players cheering the making of a point as though rescued from the jaws of death. He half-turned and half-nodded, and gave her a full once over with his big, brown, bedroom-type eyes. “I'm Chrissie, the daughter,” she said extending her hand.

“Tom,” he replied in an easygoing voice with a little twinkle, like he was pleased to make her acquaintance, like he knew how to do things she might like to get done. He gave her hand a shake that was firm but not too much.

“Mom said you're helping her spend her jackpot.”

“Don't worry about that jackpot, honey,” Tom said. “Your mom and I are so much in love the money doesn't even enter into it. Are you available to be maid of honor?”

Chrissie raised her nose in the air, like she was sniffing a bad odor, and moved one slot over to Mom who was fixed on her machine like a stamp to a letter, and seriously smoking which she hadn't done in a while. “Mom,” Chrissie said, “are you going to stop long enough to say hello?”

“Chrissie…,” her mom replied, speaking over her shoulder as she fed her machine and watched the results and fed her machine and watched the results, and inhaled and exhaled and fed her machine and watched the results, “…what're you doing here? I thought you were anti-casino.”

“I came to see if you lost all your money yet.”

“No dear, and I seem to be winning more and more.” As Mom spoke coins tinkled out of the machine's bottom on account of three bars coinciding on the screen. “And,” Mom added as she scooped the coins into her cup, “I'm having a wonderful time with Tom.”

“Thanks Mom,” said Tom, who was young enough to be her son assuming an early teenage pregnancy. “I'm having a wonderful time too.”

“The casino comped us a lovely room, with a whirlpool bath and a fruit basket,” Mom went on. “If you'd like to freshen up be my guest. Did you come with what's-his-name?”

“I did, but we separated…”

“I never liked him anyway.”

“You know what I mean. We separated to look for you.”

“How would he know what I look like? He missed his chance to meet me you may recall. I keep a piece of my hangover from that night, as a momento.”

“I described you to him. I told him to look for a big-haired degenerate gambler accompanied by a smoothie gigolo.”

“Chrissie,” Mom said on the exhale, “I'm pleased I brought you up with such good moral values and that you're so concerned for my well being, but…here, let me give you a few chips and you can run off and have a good time.” She plugged her cigarette into the side of her mouth to free up a hand to reach into her belly bag to pull out chips, black ones worth $100 each, and pass them back over her shoulder to her daughter as her machine's bell started ringing and coins poured down between her legs, which she greeted with the look of bliss reserved for children sitting in front of birthday cake.

“Mom, they just want you to stay so you'll lose all your winnings…”

“Take the chips,” Mom said.

“Mom…”

“And meet us at the steak restaurant for dinner. We have a ten o'clock reservation, compliments of the casino. Bring Dr. Strangelove.”

“Mom…”

“See you at ten.”

Chrissie accepted defeat, for now, and took the chips. Tom gave her a wink as she turned to go, and as he dipped again into the shared cup to her great annoyance. “Tom,” she had to ask, “what, if anything, do you do for a living?”

“I'm a high school teacher.”

“No way.”

“English. Ninth and eleventh grades.”

“Who wrote
Moby Dick
?”

“Do you know?”

“Of course I know.”

“Was it…Hawthorne?”

“Hah, you're no teacher.”

“OK, Melville.
Touché
.”

“As if. What do you hang around casinos looking to hit on lucky widows? You show them some toned torso and they start creaming? What kind of snake are you?”

“Chrissie,” her mom interjected, “don't forget to bring Strangelove to dinner. We'll compare notes about our boyfriends.”

So with five black chips in hand and bubbling with indignation Chrissie took her leave. The place was enormous, and like a maze. After a few turns, around a bank of slots, past a pod of roulette wheels, she lost track of her mom and was on her own in the gambler's wilderness. “Leonardo,” she called, her voice drowned by the roar of the action.

A hundred impenetrable yards away Leonardo was losing his virginity at craps.
More, more, more. Harder, harder, harder
. The shooter, a small woman, her face hidden by a low-slung baseball cap, with short fingers attached to pudgy hands and barely enough wrist to reach the far wall of the pit with her toss, hit another number to the delight of the crowd and then slowly, slowly, slowly took back the dice from the stick and set them just so on the green felt, and chanted baffling entreaties to them and to those who controlled them, before finally grasping them again in her hot little hand and tossing them back across the pit to hit another number. “Five” called the stick.

And she did the same act every time. The placement, the chant, the toss, the number. Number after odds-defying number. Four. Six. Six. Ten. Eight. Six. Nine. Five. Six. Nine. Eight. None of those red devil sev…those red devils who shall go nameless because if they hear their name they might be inclined to pay a visit.

For fifteen exquisitely painful minutes of pleasure she hit and hit. At first just her, and Leonardo and another player betting table minimum, then others attracted by the scent, then suddenly a pack of big men muscling for space at the table, cheering hard as she performed.

Leonardo learned fast about come bets, press bets, place bets, horn bets, hopping bets and bets he couldn't name but wanted to try. He'd point to another player's chips on the layout and say, “I want that,” and it was his. Like the positions of the
kama sutra
were spread before him, and he tried them all to his delight. Like the laws of probability were suspended, and the angel of death detained elsewhere. Like the angel of easy money rested her wings on the shoulder of the little shooter whose face was hidden by a low-slung baseball cap, and promised to stay forever.

Four. Six. Eight. Five. Back on the five. Three in a row on the five. Six. Nine. Four. Only numbers, as the dealers pushed red, green and black chips into Leonardo's fold. And it was all good. Until she threw a seven.

“Goddamnit, what'd she do that for,” one player groused.

“She sucks,” added another.

A six and a one, with the one following a collision with a stack of chips dropped on the felt an instant before by a newly-squeezed-in player whose hand still hovered in the table's airspace, whose bet was not all out of his mouth, whose chips were still moving and shaking when the die on its way to be a two, or a three, or a who knows what, hit them on the fly like they were a load of brick fallen from the back of a truck into the middle of the road, and dropped dead on the spot as a one.

What if the new player placed his stack of chips a fraction to the left? What if he paused for a snack or to tie his shoe laces, and was late for the toss? What if Hitler was killed by that bomb beneath his desk? Or dropped on his head by his mother? Or dropped again?

After a slight pause the stickman came to his senses and remembered that
what ifs
don't count. “Seven out, take the line, pay the don'ts,” he proclaimed like the coroner recognizing his old friend death, and offering the traditional words of welcome. And at his cue the other dealers, just doing the job they were trained to do, like body baggers on the battlefield at the end of a bloody day, collected the piles of chips from the table, the thousands of dollars of chips in all the colors of the rainbow that used to represent dreams of glory.

Think of tsunami washing away lifeguard stands and sand castles and beach umbrellas and dozing sunbathers and a Maginot line of concrete and steel breakwaters designed by professionals to stop tsunami. The slate was wiped clean.

“Pass the dice. New shooter coming out,” intoned the stick.

Leonardo was up twelve hundred dollars, a drop in the bucket of possible winnings, if only he had known, chump change to some late-arriving big bettors with their exotic yellow and purple chips, but big-time enough for first-timer Leonardo. He needed a shower and a vacation, and a chance to download to his memory bank.

He cashed out, and stepped away from the table and into the flowing waters of the casino, on automatic pilot, drifting past a strip of blackjack tables, through a clump of slots, in and around more tables and more slots, and after some bobbing at the point where his river emptied into a choppy sea he was washed ashore along the fringe of a remote and sparsely populated cocktail lounge where he recognized the little crapshooter who had won him his money, sitting by herself with a bottle of beer.

He wasn't sure of the protocol. He felt he knew her intimately, like she was a baseball pitcher whose face and routine he observed in close-up on television through a squirming inning, as he stared in for the sign, and checked the bases and threw the ball and reacted to the call and mopped his brow and did it again as the runners took their leads and the fans hooted and implored. As a shooter she was on public display, but could he talk with her now, he wondered, in the green grass behind the stadium?

“Hello,” he said. “I was at the craps table when you were shooting. You did a splendid job. I wanted to thank…”

“Are you following me?”

“What? No, no. I just saw you sitting here, and I remember you…”

“How do I know you aren't following me?”

“I saw you sitting here. I was drifting through the casino. I just wanted to thank you for your shooting and for the thrill, that's all. I don't want to know your name or your telephone number or anything like that…”

“Or my hotel room?”

“Certainly not your hotel room.”

“Or whether I'll have sex with you?”

“No…”

“Whether I've shot dice before?”

“Have you?”

“I'm a fucking nun. A fucking escaped nun. I don't shoot dice.”

“You're a nun?”

“And who are you? Jesus Christ come to make me an honest woman?”

“No, no.”

“These chips,” she said as she spread a handful of them onto the little cocktail table, “burn me with their dirtiness.”

“Oh,” said Leonardo, who stood close to her through the discourse but now backed away with quiet little steps, anticipating the possibility of a storm of obscenities and a lunge for his neck to punish him for noticing her. “Wait a minute,” she said, as he had one foot dipped into the foaming sea, with its promise of camouflage and safety.