Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
IVAN
C losing the PDF Greta sends me, I delete it from my phone. I lean back against my car seat and stare out of the window. What I am going to do is cruel. Very cruel. I have never done anything like this before. And if I do it there is no going back. She will hate me violently, but… I will get what I want. Is it worth it? The answer flashes into my head, clear and definite.
Yes.
Yes, it is worth it.
I think of Lara’s fingers unwittingly caressing my chest while her mouth says no. Yes, I can live with her hate. I want only her passion and that instinctive, animalistic need I saw briefly in her eyes. I know she wants me. The only thing standing between us is her pride and a stupid sense of propriety.
In the background, Violetta, the tragic fallen woman in La Triavata is singing, ‘Nothing in the world matters except pleasure. Let’s enjoy ourselves. Love is a flower that blooms, dies, and is gone forever’.
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.”
"I’m happy to increase the stakes," I say, "but are you sure you can handle it?"
"Are you serious?" His head has snapped around, and his beady eyes are suddenly full of fire. That he is an incurable, degenerate gambler is finally undeniable. Unless he gets some serious help, this man will never stop gambling. The door to the forbidden corridor creaks open and I step into the velvety darkness. It doesn’t feel wrong. On the other side is Lara and her hate and her beautiful passion.
"Yes," I reply. "How much do you owe?”
Suddenly his eyes narrow. "You look familiar. Have we met before?"
No doubt he’s seen photos of me in a suit and in his befuddled state doesn’t recognize me with a basketball hat on. "No, we’ve never met."
He looks at me challengingly. “Are you good for a quarter of a million?”
I nod. “Stanley will vouch for me.” Stanley is the guy running this scam.
“That’s good enough for me.”
“One game. We'll play for your debts. If you win, I’ll pay off all your debts, if you lose you owe me a quarter of a million."
The fog and desolation clears, as if by magic from his eyes as they nearly pop out of their sockets. He is suddenly alert, excited, and supremely confident. To him, there is nothing like the rush of playing for everything with someone he has seen lose the previous few games.
"Well then, let's go play,” he says eagerly and starts walking ahead of me.
I look around at the other gamblers in the room. They are nothing but little fish—an eyesore. I send a message to my guys guarding from outside the room. A few seconds later, they appear at the door, huge and intimidating, and in an instant, the room feels claustrophobic and cramped.
“Excuse us, gentlemen, but this table is now closed. Please leave the room,” I say calmly.
The two professional gamblers stand instantly. They are here for easy money, not trouble, but one of the degenerates who has had too much to drink looks at my men, and starts to puff up. He still has money in his pocket and he wants to carry on playing. He starts to protest, but I don’t have the time or the patience to engage with him. Alexei steps forward and glares down at him. When the man starts to stand, Alexei clamps down hard on his shoulder. The man flinches and cries out in pain.
Alexei steps back.
The man massages his shoulder and looks confused. Everyone grumbles, a few curse words slipping through, but they all rise reluctantly to their feet. The room empties and a heavy silence settles.
"I’m ready when you are,” Lara’s father says.