by Alan Cook
Chapter 28
I ran extra hard on Wednesday morning, perhaps
trying to wash the guilt out of my system with
the sweat. Images went through my mind as I
ran: Elma laughing, Elma crying, Elma clinging to
me. It occurred to me that I could easily get a
crush on her. She was a very lovable woman.
Of course I couldn't afford to get a crush on her. Or
if I did I couldn't do anything about it. This had been
a one-night stand. But as my urgency to cleanse
myself abated and my brain started to function
normally, I began to realize that I need not have
any guilt on Elma's behalf.
Elma had needed me in a way that was too complex
for me to understand. Her last words to me as I left
had been, "You saved my life."
I hadn't stayed the night; Elma couldn't afford the
risk of having her daughter find me there. In
addition, it would have destroyed the magic and
the meaning of the moment to wake up together,
with morning breath and morning reality. I had
returned home and slept in my own bed, sleep
being a relative term.
I ran to the post office and checked my mailbox.
There was a small, padded package, big enough
to hold baseball cards. Nothing unusual about
that; I received cards all the time. I looked at
the return address and didn't immediately
recognize it. Then I did; this was the seller of
the Honus Wagner card, the cause of all my
misfortune. I laughed out loud, somewhat
hysterically.
I couldn't wait to look at the card until I got home.
I borrowed a pair of scissors from a postal clerk
and carefully opened the package. Inside, the
card was encased in hard plastic. I carefully
inspected the front and the back. If anything, it
looked better in person than the scans had looked
on eBay. This was one helluva card.
I wrapped it up again, placed it carefully in my
fanny pack and jogged back to the house. The
card was in such good condition that maybe I
could resell it for more than I paid. Even if I lost
a few thousand dollars it would be worth it. Of
course, carrying out another auction, even on
eBay, would take more time than I had to
square things with Buchanan. And it was too
soon to place the card back on eBay.
Back home, my thoughts returned to Elma. Now,
even as I understood as much as I ever would
about what had happened between us, a tinge
of guilt remained. I couldn't make it go away with
logic. It continued to haunt me after I ate
breakfast and started working on my baseball card
business. And after I sent a thank you email to the
seller of the card and gave him positive feedback
on eBay, which would increase his credibility with
other buyers and sellers.
Conflicting ideas went through my head. On the
one hand, I wanted to protect Elma and help
her. On the other hand, I wanted to convince
her to give her proxy to James--the man who
had killed her husband.
The incompatibility of those desires suddenly
rang in my head with the clarity of the tone
produced by a fork striking a piece of crystal.
And I knew there was no way I could do what
James wanted me to do. And I knew that if I didn't
do what James wanted me to do I was a dead man.
For an hour I wallowed in despair. I felt sorry for
myself. I, Karl Patterson, would be cut down in
the prime of my life. Fortunately, after reaching
the depths I began to understand how ridiculous
these maudlin thoughts were. I fixed myself an iced
tea and told myself sternly that I wasn't dead yet
and until I was I had damn well better do something
to improve my situation.
Okay, fine. What? The obvious answer was to
prove that James had arranged to have Ned
murdered. Easier said than proved. Maybe the
way to get at James was through Stan. Was
Stan possibly a weak link? He had been the
front man. Could I get him to admit that?
Arrow knew Stan much better than I did. But in
order to get her assistance I would have to
confess to her that I had sold my soul for a
baseball card. The idea galled me, but wha
choice did I have?
Could I intercept Arrow when she came for the
morning briefing of my father? No, because she
wasn't coming today. I had heard her and my
father discussing that yesterday. She was
working on something else.
I called Arrow and got her voice-mail. I left a
message, asking if she was free for lunch,
knowing that I wouldn't hear from her. She
didn't need me anymore and in the business
world that put me at the bottom of her list of
calls to return. And low priority calls never got
returned.
# # # #
The phone rang at three o'clock in the afternoon
while I was buried in my baseball card business,
trying to forget about my impending doom. It was
Arrow. Arrow! I had completely given up on her.
"Karl, I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I
had to finish a project by two. I haven't eaten
lunch yet. What about you?"
"No," I lied. I never skipped a meal and probably
wouldn't, even if I were on the way to the
guillotine. Which I was. "Can we get together?"
"You sounded upset in your message. Is
anything wrong?"
"I'll tell you about it at Norms. See you in half
an hour?"
"If that's enough time for you."
"I think we've had this conversation before."
# # # #
We sat in the same booth we had used the
first time we had met at Norms. I attempted
a joke, saying, "I see they saved our table for
us," but it didn't sound very funny to me.
At first it was difficult for me to look Arrow in
the eye. Would she suspect what I had done
with Elma? Reason told me she didn't even know
I'd been with Elma. What does reason know?
Arrow's normalcy brought me back to earth. She
acted concerned but not suspicious. Since I'd
already eaten I ordered a piece of pie. After we
finished ordering, Arrow said, "Okay, Karl, I can
see you're not your usual exuberant self today.
Tell me what the problem is."
"You aren't leaving me much wiggle-room," I
said, "so I guess I'll have to tell you. Remember
when I told you I needed several hundred
thousand dollars?"
"That was in London when I was beating you
at darts."
"Rub it in. Well, the reason I needed the money
was to buy a baseball card."
"One baseball card?"
You would have thought I had said one piece of
bubble gum. I explained to Arrow why the Wagner
was so valuable. I wasn't sure she understood.
Then I told her that James had lent me the
money. Her eyes got very wide.
"You are a complete idiot," she said.
"I knew you'd understand."
"I don't want to hear this, but how are you
going to pay him back?"
I told her I had to get Elma's proxy for James.
Now she looked horrified.
"Karl," she said, quietly, "you are betraying your
father."
"I know. If it's any consolation to you I'm not
going to do it."
"Then what the bloody hell--excuse my
Londonese--are you going to do?"
I started to tell her about my meeting with the
gangbangers.
Her response was quick. "You could have been
killed."
"But I wasn't." I told her they had mentioned
Stan's name.
This time she didn't respond immediately. Then
she said, slowly, "How can you trust them?"
"I can't, but I don't think they would have pulled a
name like Stan out of thin air. That's too much of
a coincidence."
"It's difficult to picture Stan killing anybody. But isn't
that always the case? When reporters question the
neighbors of the murderer they always say, 'He was
such a good boy.'"
"Then you admit it's possible."
"You can't prove it, Karl. You said yourself that
the gang members won't talk to the police."
"I was hoping you'd have an idea about...about
how to make Stan confess."
I must have looked forlorn because Arrow reached
across the table and took my hand. She said,
"You're in serious trouble, Karl."
"Maybe it's better if you stay out of it. Don't
make it a company problem."
It's already a company problem. Ned's death is
a company problem and as long as James is a
Dionysus stockholder, even a minority one, that's
a company problem. Besides..."
Arrow paused for so long that I prompted her.
"Besides what?"
"Before, you were always the self-sufficient
outsider, aware of the problems of Dionysus
and your father, but not personally affected
by them. This is the first time you've
been...vulnerable."
"So, are you going to come galloping to my rescue?"
Arrow smiled and let go of my hand. "Yes, if I
can. You and I are going to have a talk with
Stan."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea. That could be
dangerous."
"Your life could be in danger if we don't. We'll be
careful. We'll make a plan. We'll play good-guy,
bad-guy, like the cops do. Or maybe seducer,
seducee."
"If we do that, knowing Stan's proclivities, I
would have to be the seducer. And the
thought of his hand on my knee..."
"You might have to go a lot further than that..."
"Arrow!"
"Okay, scratch that idea. We'll come up with
something." She whipped her cell phone out of
her bag and started pressing buttons.
"And you're calling who?"
"The airline, to see if we can catch the six
o'clock commuter flight to San Francisco."
"Don't you have to tell my father--Richard?
"I will; I'll call him from San Francisco."
"I wonder if you can leave frequent-flyer miles
to your heirs."
# # # #
Of course there wasn't a parking place within
several football fields' lengths of James' house
so I jammed our rental car up behind several
other cars in the driveway. If someone needed
to get out they would know where to find me.
It was a little past 8:30. We had driven directly
here from the San Francisco airport.
Arrow wore about the brightest and tightest
red dress I had ever seen. As I helped her out
of the car it rode up almost to her waist. One
of the benefits of being a gentleman.
My surge of hormones made me realize that I
had fallen well behind my quota in
complimenting her. I said, "You look fabulous
in that dress, especially since you had about
five minutes to both pack and get dressed."
"Ten, actually, since I had to wait for you to pick
me up. But, thank you, sir. You look pretty sharp,
yourself."
I wore a sport coat and tie.
"You'll notice that tonight I'm actually wearing
underwear," she continued. "If we have to take
off our outer clothes as part of our investigation
I have a second line of defense."
Had she caught me looking? "I trust we won't
have to go that far."
"You never know."
She was pretty upbeat, considering the gravity
of the situation.
Another car pulled up behind ours. As we walked
up the steps, with Arrow's arm in mine so that
she wouldn't stumble in her high heels, a
couple got out of the car, not much older
than we were. They followed us up the steps
and caught us as we reached the landing by the
front door.
"Good," the woman said. "You can help us with
the puzzle. George always screws it up and then
I have to get out a pencil and paper and solve it.
Men are supposed to do those things."
"I just pick a number," I said. I rang the doorbell.
"I'm Karl and this is Arrow."
"George and Martha," the man said.
We shook hands all around.
A voice unknown to me said, "Yes? Oh, hello, Mr.
and Mrs. Goodwin. Are those your friends?"
"Uh, I'm Karl Patterson and this is Arrow Andrews,"
I said, somewhat embarrassed at not being
recognized.
Silence from the speaker.
"I'm sure we're in the database," I said, lamely,
trying to recover with George and Martha. "At
least they know I like iced tea."
"Don't worry about it," George said, laughing. He
had a grating laugh and looked like an
entrepreneurial type, with short hair and rimless
glasses. "Sometimes they don't recognize us,
either. It just depends on who's manning the
camera."
"Arrow--what a great name," Martha said. "And I
love your dress."
"Thanks," Arrow said. "It's worked so far."
Martha's own dress hadn't exactly come from a
thrift shop. She was fashionably thin and her
hair was suspiciously blonder than that of 999
out of every 1,000 people in the world.
The voice from the speaker said, "Here is the puzzle
for tonight. Let's say that A and B both collect
spiders. A says, 'B, I'll buy 18 of your spiders. Then
I'll have twice as many as you do.' B says, 'Au
contraire, I'll buy 18 spiders from you. Then
we'll have the same number.' How many total
spiders are there?"
"Jesus!" George said. "What we have to go
through to come here."
"Do I have to get out the pencil and paper?" Martha
asked. She opened the clasp of her purse.
"Karl will figure it out," Arrow said. "He's brilliant
at this sort of thing."
As she said this she took hold of my arm, possessively,
as if we were married or at least sweethearts, and
pulled it against her body. This gave me an additiona
l hormonal boost, but not the kind conducive to
solving math puzzles.
"Thanks for putting me on the spot," I said, trying
to clear my head. Okay, let's see. If they swap
18 spiders and then have the same number, one
has 36 more spiders than the other to begin
with. They swap the other way and one has 36
plus 36 or 72 more spiders than the other. That's
twice as many as the other so the other must
have 72. Seventy-two times two is 144. Subtract
18 from 144 and you get 126. Add 18 to 72 and
you get 90. Ninety is 36 less than 126, so that
checks out. The answer is 126 plus 90 or 216. Right?"
"If you say so," George said.
"My hero!" Martha said, dramatically.
Maybe she was an actress. I gave Arrow some
time to pick apart my logic, but she couldn't do
it so I announced our answer to the faceless
voice within. A click told me I was correct and
I opened the door.
We made our way down the stairs to the casino,
to the mellow tones of Tony Bennett singing, "I
Left My Heart in San Francisco." Appropriate.
Wednesdays must be slow nights because there
weren't many people here. I didn't recognize the
man standing at the bottom of the stairs to greet
us. He looked older than Stan and even had some
gray at the temples.
He shook hands with the Goodwins and welcomed
us all to the casino. He told Arrow and me his
name was Art and that he was the floor manager
on duty. I asked him if Stan was working.
"Not tonight," Art replied. "He's scheduled to work
tomorrow night."
"Is he in the house, do you know?" I asked.
Art shook his head. "I believe he's out for the
evening. However, I'll ring his number and check
for you."
He headed for the room under the stairs. "Is
James in?" I called after him.
He shook his head again and said, "He's on a
business trip."
"I guess I was too impetuous," Arrow said,
frowning. "It looks like we've wasted the evening."
"Have a drink with us," George said in a hearty voice.
"What I would really like is something to eat," I said.
I had ordered a burger to go from the Norms when
we had decided to fly here, but since then all I had
eaten was some crunchy stuff served in tiny
packages on the airplane with a list of ingredients
that covered the package.
Fortunately, there was some food left at the buffet
table. Arrow and I filled two plates and sat at a
table with Martha and George, who had ordered
drinks. Art came over and confirmed that Stan
was not at home.
"So, have you been coming here long?" George
asked us.
"This is my fourth time and Arrow's second," I
said. "What about you?"
"We've been coming here off and on for six
months," George said.
"And lost our shirts in the process," Martha said.
I detected real bitterness in her voice and I
wanted to ask for details, but all I said was,
"Oh?"
"We'll probably lose our company," Martha added.
George said, "Martha..."
"We might as well tell them. It'll be common
knowledge soon. Maybe we can save them
from having the same experience. Have you
heard of a company called everything.com?"
I hadn't but Arrow said, "Yes. I read in a
trade journal--a number of months ago, I
think it was--that you were going to do an
IPO."
"Yes, we were all set to have a stock offering,"
George said. "Then the market turned sour,
and now it's too late."
"Too late," I repeated, wondering how James
entered into this.
Martha said, "You see..."
"I'll tell it," George interrupted. "I want to make
sure it's told right."
Martha gave him a dirty look.
"I had this great idea for a dot-com company
and was able to raise some venture capital to
get started. Originally, Martha and I were the
only employees. Then we started growing..."
"But we were still losing money," Martha said.
"Yes, but that's normal for a young, rapidly growing
company. We planned to have the initial public
offering to raise more capital. When the stock
market tanked we put it off, expecting the
market to come back."
"But we were bleeding money too fast," Martha
said, "and needed more right away. Suddenly
we were pariahs. Our venture capitalist wouldn't
give us any more money; he said it was too risky."
"To make a painful story shorter," George said,
"we came to James, who we had heard of
through friends, and told him our situation. He
offered us a deal: we could gamble for an
infusion of capital. If we won he would put
money into the company in return for stock. If
we lost he would get the stock anyway but
wouldn't put in any money.
"It sounds one-sided," Arrow said.
"That's James' adult version of The Game," I said.
"We were desperate," Martha said, "and we took
it. We played roulette..."
"And you lost," I said, picturing the situation.
"But if the company goes out of business, what
good is the stock to James?"
"He has no intention of letting the company go
out of business," George said. "He has offered
us two more deals: the first is to gamble again
for another cash infusion. Of course, if we lose
again he gets most of our remaining stock. Then
he'll put money into the company and try to save
it. The second alternative is to sell him practically
all our stock at a bargain-basement price. He
made the same offer to our venture capitalist
for his stock."
"The diabolical part," Martha said, "is that the
offer becomes worth less each week--so the
longer we delay in making a decision, the worse
off we are."
"If your problems are so bad that nobody but
James will help you," Arrow said, "then there
must be a substantial risk that you will go out of
business--and that James will lose his investment."
"But James makes it up in volume," I said, suddenly
understanding the big picture. "If he invests in ten
small, high-tech companies, even if only one makes
it, his return on that one will be enough to pay for
the nine losers many times over."
"You should go to work for James" Martha said,
ironically. "You obviously have the kind of mind he's
looking for."
"He offered me a job."
Arrow kicked me under the table and I almost
yelled out loud.
She asked, "What are you going to do?" in a
sympathetic voice.
"That's why we're here tonight," Martha said.
"George thinks he has a system for beating
roulette. He wants to practice."
She made "system" sound like a dirty word.
"Is everybody who comes here in the same boat?"
Arrow asked.
"Pretty much," Martha said. "If they're not gambling
for their lives already, they're thinking about it."
"Do you know the odds against winning at
roulette?" I asked George, trying to sound more
empathetic.
"I do," George said, "but what choice do I have?
We could take James' piddly offer to buy most of
our stock. He would still employ us to run the
company--on a salary, of course. Then, if we
succeed he makes billions while we make
chicken-feed."
"Or we can lose at roulette," Martha said, "and
hand him the stock for nothing."
"But using my system we might win," George said,
"and then we'd get to keep a substantial amount
of stock."
George had polished off three drinks during our
conversation so I already knew one probable
flaw in his system. I said, "Explain your system
to me."
"I play only red or black, even odds. Forget the
long shots. I start with what I call my basic
bet. If I win I keep my winnings and keep
betting my basic bet as long as I keep winning."
"And if you lose?"
I double my bet. Then, when I win it cancels out
my loss."
"What if you lose five times in a row? Do you keep
doubling your bet each time?"
"Yes."
"At that point you would be betting 32 times
your basic bet."
"Something like that."
"What happens if you lose enough times in a row
so that you don't have enough money left to
double your bet?"
George squirmed in his chair. "If I make my basic
bet low enough it should never happen."
"In statistics," I said, lecturing like a professor,
"anything that can happen will happen eventually.
And if you make your basic bet too low it will take
you forever to win the amount of money James has
decreed you need to be a winner, even if you get
lucky. The other problem with your system is that
the odds aren't even on red and black. The zero and
double-zero on the roulette wheel make them less
than even."
George stared at the table and said nothing.
Had I been too hard on him? I was trying to
save him what money he had left.
"Thank you," Martha told me. "Maybe he'll listen
to you. He won't listen to me."
Arrow had been unnaturally quiet during this
discussion. Now she said, "I think you should
listen to Karl. He knows what he's talking about."
# # # #
George and Martha left soon after that. Hopefully,
they wouldn't be back.
Art had the cashier issue us some "fun" chips and
Arrow and I played blackjack, side by side. I
coached her on the basics and she about broke
even while I counted the cards and amassed a large
pile of chips. It's easy when you're playing for the
hell of it.
At some point Art asked me to move the car
to let some people out and I was able to park
it on the street.
After we tired of blackjack we wandered around
the room, betting a few chips at the craps table
and the roulette wheel. I started watching the
other players. I noticed that there were two kinds
of chips, the fun chips, like the ones we were
using and the serious chips, for those who had
some kind of a bet going with James.
The people betting the serious chips were
themselves much more serious than the others
because they were possibly betting their
companies. It occurred to me that some of these
sessions might go on for a number of nights while
the bettors tried to increase their winnings
sufficiently to, in effect, win their bet with James,
or until they lost their stake.
This was borne out when I saw one couple take
a pile of serious chips to the cashier and get a
receipt for them. I was sure they would be back
tomorrow. I glanced at my watch; it was close
to eleven.
"I'm starting to drag," Arrow said. "When you get
up at five, 11 p.m. isn't on your clock."
I was tired too. "There's one small problem," I said.
"We don't have a place to stay." We hadn't done
anything about it before, thinking we would take
a night flight back to LA. Now it was too late.
We approached Art, hoping he could help us find
a hotel.
"We have a spare bedroom here that isn't being
used tonight," Art said. "We could let you sleep
there."
"One?" I asked.
"One," he said, looking from one of us to the other,
with just a hint of a leer.
"How many beds?" I asked.
"Two double beds."
"Can you trust me to stay in my own bed?" I
asked Arrow.
She nodded, sleepily.
Aces and Knaves copyright ©2002 Alan L. Cook
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