“Okay, son, let’s make some money,” said Dixon, who made his bet on the Pass line.
“How?” said Archer.
“Hey, you.”
Archer looked up to see one of the base dealers drilling him with a stare. “The button’s off, pal. Got a new shooter coming up, no point made. You stand by the rail, you got to bet. That’s prime real estate, buddy. Didn’t your mama ever teach you that?”
Everyone laughed and more than a few gave Archer patronizing looks. He placed some chips next to Dixon’s on the Pass line.
“Thank you, sonny boy, now don’t you feel all better inside?” said the dealer.
Dixon leaned over and whispered to Archer, “He’s gonna roll seven on his come out roll.”
“How do you know that?”
“Shit, ’cause he always does.”
The stickman presented the shooter, a tall, thin man with curly brown hair and wearing a two-piece beige suit with a wrinkled white shirt and no belt, with five dice. He picked his deuce and handed the trio back to the stickman, who dumped them in his shake-out bowl.
“Dice out, no more bets allowed,” announced the stickman.
The shooter blew on the dice and rattled them once in his right hand.
“Throw with one hand only, and both dice have to hit the back wall,” instructed the stickman.
The shooter looked at him incredulously. “Hell, you think I don’t know that? How long I been throwing here, Benny?”
“Just saying,” was Benny’s only reply.
The shooter let fly, and the dice bounced off the far U-wall of the table.
The stickman announced, “We got a Big Red, natural seven. Pass line wins, no-pass goes down.”
Dixon said, “What did I tell you? We just doubled our money.”
Their chips doubled, and Archer looked intrigued as the dealers worked the payoffs and oversaw new bets.
“Now what?” asked Archer.
“He’s going to make his point on this next roll.”
Dixon set his chips down on certain betting squares and Archer followed suit.
A few moments later: “Shooter rolls a ten,” announced Benny. “Point is made, folks.”
The bets were posted again and the shooter was handed the dice. They banged off the far end of the table and came to rest.
“Little Joe on the front row,” bellowed Benny. “Hard four.”
Archer looked at the twin twos staring up from the faces of the dice. Then he looked at his pile of chips growing. He and Dixon bet again.
“Boxcars,” called out Benny as double sixes stood up after careening off the wall. “Twelve craps, come away triple.”
“What does that mean?” asked Archer.
“The Wheelhouse pays triple the field on boxcars,” Dixon said, looking down with relish at his now-towers of chips.
“Hey, pal, shouldn’t we quit while we’re ahead?” said Archer.
“What the hell’s the point of that?” countered Dixon.
Archer took some of his chips off, while Dixon did not.
The next roll was another winner and Dixon grinned at Archer. “You’re too timid, son. First rule of craps, you ride a hot shooter all the way to the very end.”
Archer glanced at the shooter. A cigarette dangled from his lips, a line of sweat rode on his brow, and his eyes spoke of too much booze, drugs, and maybe overconfidence. If ever a man looked done in and done out, this was the hombre, Archer thought. He lifted all his chips off the edge of the fabric and slid out his reserve chips from the slots in the table and took a step back as the boxman eyed him with contempt.
“Running out on a hot shooter, bub?” Archer just stared at him. The boxman added with a sneer, “Then go find your mommy. It’s time for your bottle of milk, junior.”
Dixon moved every single one of his chips forward onto new bets on the Pass line and come field a second before Benny handed the dice to the shooter.
As Archer walked away, a huge groan went up from the table as Benny gleefully called out, “Seven out.” The next sound was his stick coming down and raking away all the chips that had bet on the shooter continuing to roll. The House had come roaring back and the lives of the bettors gathered round came careening down to earth like a doomed plane.
Archer looked back to see Dixon staring at the spot where all his chips used to be. The king had lost his kingdom, as they all eventually did.
“I better go find that bottle of milk,” Archer said to himself.
Chapter 4
“Hey. Hey, you!”
Archer looked over and saw the woman waving enthusiastically at him.
It was Liberty Callahan, of the Dancing Birds troupe, sitting at the roulette table. She had changed out of her stage outfit and lost her condor-sized feather. While her sparkly dress was tight, her welcoming smile, promising skittish fun with few rules, was even more appealing to Archer. And yet when he more soberly took in her toothy smile and frisky appearance, Archer saw in it prison guards itching to bust his head, chain gangs to nowhere, and food that was not food at all. That was what had happened to him the last time a gal had called out to him like that. A sob story, a poorly planned escape from her tyrannical father, the arrival of the police, a change in heart by the gal after her old man put the screws to her, with the result that Archer had donated a few years of his life to busting up rocks and seeing the world through the narrow width of prison cell bars. Still, he ordered a highball from the bar and took a seat next to her. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. He was an internal optimist. Or just stupid.
“I’m Liberty Callahan.”
“I’m Archer.”
She shot him a curious look. “That’s a funny name.”
“It’s my surname.”
“What’s your given name?”
“Not one I ‘give’ out.”
Her features went slack and put out, but Archer didn’t feel unduly bothered by this. Any first meeting was a nifty place to lay out the ground rules. And his new universal ground rules were to take no one into his confidence and to listen more and talk less.
“Suit yourself, Archer.” She turned to play with her little stack of chips.
He said, “Mr. Shyner pointed you out to me back at the café. Told me your name too.”
She eyed him cautiously. “That’s right, you were at his table.”
Archer eyed the wheel and the dealer standing in the notch cut out of the elongated table, while the gamblers sipped on drinks and conspired on their future bets. He heard all sorts of talk coming in one ear about this method and that superstition coupled with that infallible telltale sign of where a spinning ball would come to rest in a bowl full of colored numbers in slots that were spinning the other way. People had colorful chips in hand that looked very different from the ones Archer had been using at the craps table.
The table had a sign that said minimum and maximum bets differentiated between inside and outside bets. Archer had no idea what any of that meant.
“He told me you want to get into acting?” said Archer.
Her smile emerged once more, showing every tooth in her arsenal, including a jacketed porcelain crown in the back that was so white it looked nearly pewter in the shadowy cave of her mouth.
She nodded, her smile deepening. “People calling out your name and wanting your autograph. Your picture in the newspapers. Somebody else driving you around and you travel with your own maid. It all sure sounds swell. So, yeah, I want to try my hand at it. Stupid, maybe. Long shot, sure, but why not me, right?”