The cards felt stiff to Easton's shaking hands as he bent up the corners. Across the table, two royal blue chips worth a hundred dollars each rested uneasily in the betting box. The dealer showed a red eight. The other card was face down. Easton's eyes stared at the patterns on the back of it until shapes began to emerge.
"Stand," he said. The dealer nodded, and laid down a card for himself. Five of spades. He flipped over the down card, a six. Nineteen.
Easton sighed with a combination of relief and disappointment. He overturned his cards, a nine and a queen. Push.
He thought about leaving. There was a knot in his stomach, he couldn't stand the thought of losing those last two chips. He looked around for a sign, and an attractively made-up woman approached him, wearing the tiny uniform of the casino's servers. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Okay," Easton said with apprehension. "I guess I'll have a Rolling Rock." It was free, why not? The least they could do was comp him a beer.
"You got it," she said, and Easton watched her sashay through the aisles of slot machines and roulette tables.
The dealer put two cards in front of Easton. The chips! He'd left them on the betting line. A six faced him. He lifted the other card: a four. "Hit," he said.
The card showed a single diamond, the ace. "Stay," he said, expelling the last of his breath.
The dealer handled his own cards and reached twenty. Easton doubled his money. He held four hundred dollars' worth of chips in his hand. Four chips. They felt so small. He looked at them, snug in his palm. They weren't enough. He put two of them back on the table.
The cards came out. A five and a six. Easton felt a surge of adrenaline as the words "double down" left his mouth. He dropped his other two chips on the table, letting it all ride on this next card. A ten, a face card of any kind, would be worth four hundred dollars.
The dealer gave him a two.
Easton felt dizzy. His vision closed in on the card. Two clubs stared back at him, mockingly. Even as his eyes crossed and it looked like four, it still wasn't enough to win. It was over. He would be evicted from his apartment and starve on the street. Maybe he could sell everything he owned. Maybe he could get a loan from a mobster. They had to have those around here.
"Dealer busts." Four more chips slid forward. Easton took his hands off the sides of his head. He felt the air rush back in to his lungs. Suddenly he could see again. Four cards rested in front of the dealer: a six, a three, a five, and an eight.
"Rolling Rock?" Easton turned toward the sweet voice. A glass of amber ale stood, sweating, on the tray, inches from his face. He looked behind the cold beer, following the soft curves of the woman's body upwards, and her face was beautiful red lips, dark eyes, peroxide-blonde hair and laserbeam-white teeth. He felt a rush of triumph. Gleefully, he took the beer, collected his chips, and left the table. Tonight, he felt he had beaten the house, and was going out on top. It was time to cash out, but first he would finish this drink, his reward for skillful play. He sipped it while walking to the cashier's cage, and some of the beer splashed down his chin. Stopping to wipe it, he surveyed the floor for a place to sit down. There was an empty stool at the roulette table. His eyes were drawn to it.
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