Chapter 12
That night, I took a detour driving Ronnie home, and I stopped at the house where Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan hung their hats.
I wanted to plant a GPS tracker on the underside of his car.
Highly illegal—it was considered an invasion of privacy.
Anything I learned from the tracker would be inadmissible in court, but that wasn’t the goal.
The goal was, Mackenzie didn’t have to wake up before dawn on Saturday morning.
Their Wasena brick home had no garage, and in the exposed driveway sat a new white Lexus sedan and an older Volkswagen hatchback.
The Lexus bore a University of Lynchburg parking pass, so I deduced he drove that one, and I clamped the tracker’s magnet onto something metal under the bumper.
Dogs barked down the street and Ronnie laughed and we drove off lickety-split.
“What do you know,” I said. Because of the tracker, I didn’t need to rush the coffee.
Ronnie had invited Kix’s ‘frienemy’ over.
Oliver Something, from daycare. Oliver Something’s father was named Michael, and he was tall and lean and wore flip-flops with his jeans.
He seemed more interested in talking to Ronnie than talking to me.
They were both attorneys, but they didn’t chat legalese—they chatted skin care and shampoos and restaurants and clothing brands and they complimented each other’s fitness routine.
They had the same celebrity crushes as teenagers, how fun, and now they both hated Judge Gray and Mormon Housewives and Rosie O’Donnell, which was weird because I thought Rosie’s new facelift was a home run.
When Manny returned from a jog, shirtless and barefoot and glistening, neither of them spoke for a full sixty seconds, and I deduced Michael’s interest in Ronnie was platonic.
Michael’s son Oliver was examining Kix’s overturned toy box, inspecting toys one at a time with a critical eye.
These knickknacks are all from last year, said Oliver Something.
Then put them down, nerd, said Kix. You’re covering them with your yuck.
And you have too many. Oliver held up a car. You should only own a few quality pieces. At my house we value workmanship. I guess you shop with coupons?
Shows what you know, said Kix. That car can turn into a robot, you ding-dong. Give it here.
At my house, we are considerate hosts. I’m playing with this silly old boring car, and I’m the guest.
You'll break it because you are so stupid, Kix shouted.
Ronnie and Michael Something hadn’t noticed the argument.
If it breaks, it’s cheap, lectured Oliver. And your parents don’t love you. At my house, we don’t name call.
I want it.
Too bad I’m playing with it. And I’m having sooooooo much fun, said Oliver, who was not playing with it. He held it away from Kix.
Fine. Be a jerk. I’ll play with this truck, said Kix.
Oh that’s mine too. Oliver took the truck. At my house, we share.
Kix, toy-less and confused and oppressed by society’s manners, looked at me for direction.
“Hit him,” I instructed my son, “in the mouth.”
I was born for this. Kix didn’t hit him as much as slapped him in the eyes. Oliver reacted like cold water had been dumped on him. He dropped both toys and gasped and waved his little arms.
Look at him waving his stupid little arms, said Kix, and he picked up the discarded truck.
Oliver shouted for justice.
Michael Something shushed him.
Here. Kix offered Oliver the robot car. At my house, this is the toy nincompoops play with.
When Oliver didn’t take the toy, Kix winged it at his head and Ronnie said, “Whoa baby, Kix, no sir,” and took Kix’s truck and Kix let loose with profanity. Oliver picked up a new car and threw it at Kix, and Michael said, “Ahh boys, what are you gonna do.”
Jiminy Christmas.
I ducked into my trusty Honda and closed the door and got the hell out of there.
I chased Dr. Buchanan south on 220 to Danville, an hour behind him.
Watching his blip on my phone, just like Travis McGee used to do.
I hadn’t been to Danville since I was hunting Caleb James, a fugitive from Big Stone Gap, and I had suspected the librarian at Averett University knew something about it. I’d been right.
Memories.
Since that trip, Danville had built itself a casino, Caesars Virginia.
The hotel was twelve stories tall, and the casino floor was big time.
A sports book, and as many slot machines as stars in the sky, table games galore, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, a concert hall where the Jonas Brothers performed last week, and a big poker room.
Danville wasn’t big enough to support such a massive operation, but it pulled clientele from all directions for a hundred miles.
Dr. Buchanan’s dot remained fixed there as I approached.
I found his Lexus on the second level of the parking deck.
I backed into a spot near him, reversing so I could see his Lexus from the driver’s seat if needed.
I strolled by his car and the November wind whipped in the garage and flattened my jacket against my back.
Dr. Buchanan was not in his car, and I retrieved the GPS device off his bumper.
Caesars Virginia felt like walking into Vegas—big doors, bright lights, loud colors, a riot of noise.
Women slouched at slot machines, angry men on phones shouting at televisions, smiling croupiers with bored eyes at the roulette wheel.
I walked every inch of the casino floor, quickly consumed, and examined every blackjack player, investigated each restaurant, searched each bar.
The fruitless hunt lasted an hour. Dr. Rod Buchanan would be hard to miss—lots of silver hair, handsome in a studious way, looked like if Bob Barker was the dean of Princeton—and I couldn’t find him.
If he was in a hotel room above, I’d have to stake out the elevators.
Miserable work. Or lie to a lobby receptionist to get a name and room number.
One final swing through the poker tables and I spotted him returning from the men’s room.
He pushed his hands under an automatic antiseptic lotion dispenser and spent a minute cleaning his palms and fingers, standing near the cashier, before buying a coffee off a passing waitress and returning to his seat, middle of the room.
So it was poker. Not a sexual affair.
So far.
I waited by the brush desk, watching. I soon calculated that he was playing at table eleven, based on the chatter of floor managers.
Dr. Buchanan’s posture was rigid, his smile ready.
He clearly knew a couple of the players, friendly and joking.
Considering he hadn’t been sitting long, his chip stack indicated he’d bought in for two hundred.
While I watched, he won another hand, counting chips and tipping the dealer.
He leaned back and sipped coffee, a man pleased.
I asked the brush to put me at table eleven whenever convenient.
We call the poker room admin the “brush” because long ago they would carry one to sweep away cigarette ash and dirt between games. Now they typed on a computer and talked into a microphone.
Poker rooms are war, minor skirmishes played over green fields where combatants faked cavalier gamesmanship until their luck turned or they lost the attrition battles or died all at once.
We pretended our fellow man wasn’t going broke, but he was and we were to blame and we smiled pulling his money our way.
Hideous and addictive and wondrous, and I loved it.
I never played anymore though and I felt the thrill again, stirred by the sound of chips clacking.
Greed in the veins, my self-worth somehow at stake.
Eventually my name was called. I bought two hundred in green and orange chips from the cashier and took my seat, two down from Dr. Buchanan, relieved he wasn’t playing bigger stakes.
“Whoa, big fellow,” said the grinning man next to me. “Careful, you’ll knock me over.”
I didn’t introduce myself around the table. I didn’t speak to Dr. Buchanan. I played poker and I watched Saturday morning Premiere League soccer games on the televisions and I catalogued every word Buchanan said.
He and a man seated across from him were discussing a Bill Bryson book titled The Road to Little Dribbling, and how they wanted to travel Europe more extensively.
The crowd at a poker room before noon didn’t strike me as full of professional high-achieving industry giants.
They dressed in t-shirts and sports jerseys and they wore ball caps and work boots, and Dr. Buchanan stuck out.
He wore loafers, khakis, and an oxford shirt, and he didn’t play games on his phone, and his conversation was artful and intelligent.
I liked him, and listening to his chatter was entertaining.
I made a mental note to check out a book he mentioned, about the greatest sentence ever written, by Isaacson, a historian I would kill for. I liked Buchanan’s style.
When discussing Europe, he mentioned wanting to take his wife on the trip. Other than that, Mrs. Buchanan was never alluded to, nor did he discuss other women or partake in ribaldry. By all appearances, he was a buttoned-up gentleman.
He didn’t leave the table for lunch—he ordered it brought to him, a salad with grilled chicken.
He drank only coffee and water. I kept eyes on him when I left for a hamburger at the bar, maintaining line-of-sight.
He’d spoken to me twice, both times after I’d won a hand, banal small talk that guys make during the game, commenting on luck.
Players came and went. He remained and his stack steadily grew until he had a pile worth a grand. My chips grew with less enthusiasm, but eventually I had five hundred, and Dr. Buchanan gathered his chips and stood.
“Wish me luck,” he said to everyone and no one. “I’m off to lose my hat at higher stakes. Cheers, gentlemen.”
We’d been playing $1-3, and now he took his money to a $2-5, where the stakes were essentially doubled, the players sharper. These were men who tried to scratch out a living at the game and they’d eat your lunch if you blinked. One level up, $5-10 or $10-20, they’d take the deed to your house.
The poker room consisted exclusively of men until two women arrived before dinner, two Asian women who asked to be seated together, and soon after that another woman arrived and bought chips, and then a group of three, younger and looking for fun. None of them spoke to Dr. Buchanan.
He ordered his dinner brought to him, and indulged in a glass of white wine.
After playing for nine hours, my eyes hurt and so did my butt.
I cashed out, up to $700, and bought a green smoothie.
I walked to get the blood pumping, and stretched a lot in the sports book, and then sat at a slot machine where I could watch Dr. Buchanan at a distance and prayed he would tire soon.
He was still cruising at midnight, and I lost thirty dollars in the slot machine out of boredom. From a distance it looked like he was doing well.
Until 12:05, when a shout went up from his table.
Laughing and cheering. Clearly a prodigious sum of money changed hands.
Dr. Buchanan stood from the table, looking shattered.
He walked through the room holding onto the chair backs for support, a man of straw.
Gone was his good posture and vigor. And gone were his chips.
He fell into a chair near me at the slot machines and pushed his spectacles up and rubbed his eyes, fingers shaking, and he heaved the sigh of the damned. He’d lost it all.
I beat him to the parking lot. I was sitting in my Honda when he arrived, him walking slowly and shooting glances like worried people were watching.
Instead of ducking into the driver’s seat, he climbed into the back, out of my sight.
I waited twenty minutes with heavy eyes until I stood and cruised by his Lexus and spotting a sleeping form in the back seat covered by a blanket.
The dummy was sleeping in his car.
Dammit. The story of Dr. Buchanan had taken a turn.
I returned to my Honda and took a blanket from my trunk, and leaned the seat back. Fortunately temperatures were only dropping into the forties tonight. I texted Ronnie and I closed my eyes.
Now there were two dummies sleeping in their cars.