THE casino was a slick dumb orange building looming out of nowhere like a humungous stereo cabinet from Circuit City. They dropped a few dollars at the tables before checking in. The Indians were stealing their money already.
Laxmi dragged them to the spa and the Jew reserved 3 late-afternoon massages (evidently, they weren’t so busy). He said to charge them to his room. Big man. Chess couldn’t even believe she was staying with Maurie — he was more stunned than pissed — and when Laxmi took him aside to whisper something about “twin beds,” like that was supposed to make it all better, he just shrugged. The FNF conspiracy theories swept back over him…but why should he care? It was none of his business and he didn’t want to feel foolish. He didn’t want to feel foolish about anything anymore. He was gonna sue the motherfuckers, and if Laxmi wanted to drop by the pad and smoke his dope and let him look at the hair on her legs, fuck it.
They had 4 hours to chill before getting rubbed. Maybe he’d check out the pool or the gym or go take a nap. Chess wondered if the masseuses gave hand jobs. He figured there was a pretty good chance because the place was new, and it might be part of a secret corporate policy to keep guests coming back. He reminded himself they were there to location scout for a commercial, but it felt kind of bogus, and he couldn’t shake the idea that Levin was out to grease him so he’d drop his lawsuit (which he already might have blown) and join the FNF payroll. He didn’t trust the Jew for shit.
MAURIE said they could wake up early and scout on Sunday morning before brunch. He told Laxmi she could sleep in. Then, around noon, they’d drive to “Las Viagras.” That wasn’t part of the plan and Laxmi hated the idea. One casino was enough. Maurie said cool, they could hang at Morongo or get stoned in Joshua Tree or have “supper” at the Viceroy, in the Springs. Laxmi wasn’t into it. She said they should go back to LA after breakfast, but then she got to thinking about Joshua Tree and how that might be trippy. Chess couldn’t see himself spazzing around in the high desert but kept his mouth shut. He’d just stay in his room — he was in pain most of the time anyway, still fine-tuning the medley of meds that mellowed him out. That’s how fucked up it was: he’d become some housebound geezer, cozily experimenting with milligram’d combo-plates.
At a certain point, they wound up alone in the elevator. He told Laxmi he’d brought the Karma Sutra she gave him (the other Bodhi Tree books were weirder, and he hadn’t yet delved into them) and she smiled, without enthusiasm or innuendo. When he made a move to kiss her — he was just stoned enough — she backed away, saying, “We shouldn’t.” He tensed up. His neck and shoulders stung and throbbed. OK — cool. That’s cool. I can live with that. Probably not such a great idea. Fuck it, we’ll always have Griffith Park. If he had to stretch the truth a bit, he actually liked that she was being prudent, or prudish, or whatever. Besides, if they did the deed, the Viagra might interact with other drugs he was taking and give him vertigo again. Just what he needed: Laxmi goes consensual then he pukes on her during the Tantric Tortoise, the Pair of Tongs, the Splitting Bamboo.
The Jew and the Lotus retired to their suite to “rinse off” and lie down. Did that mean they were going to fuck? What else could it mean? He was the lowest of the low — a cuckold without a wife. His rage at Maurie boomeranged. He decided to hit the casino. Walk it off. He checked out the losers at the slots then went to the spa and had a few words with the proprietress. Then he rode the elevator to 1508, replaying the other ride, with Laxmi, in his head, his failed minimove rocket-to-nowhere. It had embarrassed him. On top of it (and he knew this was sick) was the part that felt guilty about his behavior — that he’d betrayed his friend, the man who had caused him grievous injury! At least, he thought, I’m lucid enough to know that it’s only the irrational thoughts of a depressive mindspace.
Chess sat on the bed, lit a joint, and flipped through the trove. The pages actually smelled like her — that patchouli vibe. The ludicrous thing was, the Karma Sutra had a whole section with the rubric, “Other Men’s Wives,” detailing how a man had the universal right to fuck a married woman! There were entire lists of what made hapless brides “eligible” for adultery: like if a gal was neglected or scorned, or had married someone beneath her caste, or even if her husband happened to have “many brothers.” (Laxmi was a strong candidate — Maurie had neglected and scorned her, and was definitely beneath her caste. Plus, the Jew used to refer to Chess as his “brother.”) He laughed aloud at the following passage: “Just as medical science explains that for certain diseases one should eat dog meat, similarly, in special circumstances, an individual may find himself in need of sleeping with other men’s wives, and he should put it into practice only after a serious study of the Karma Sutra.” Well, right on! Let the serious studies begin! He flipped through another book, the strangest in the litter, and this one offered conflicting views: if the spouse cheated, why, then she should “sleep in a trough of cow dung for a year,” and be paraded through town on a black donkey. Hey, whatever gets your Ganges wet. This particularly sizable volume was way harsh, declaring that if a man poured the pork to his brother’s wife, it was thereby proclaimed he should rip out his own cock and balls (a neat trick! whoa!), cup em in his hands, and walk in a “southerly direction.” Right on. But my personal opinion is the dude ain’t gonna feel up to no stroll.
Chess returned to the enlightened pages of the Karma, to the addendum called “Justification for Seducing Other Men’s Wives.” Thus it was written: if a guy had insomnia “for thinking of the object of desire,” or if he is obsessing, well, then, that was enough of a reason. Shit. Jesus. This is crazy. The book was really growing on him…then came the coup de grâce: “weakness leading to vertigo” was in there too! If you were feeling vertiginous, you could get jiggy with your neighbor’s Mrs! Vertigo! It said that! The ultimate Epley Maneuver! Now, that was freakish. He realized how stoned he was, and wound up masturbating to the book’s X-rated illustrations, suffused with Laxmi’s smell.
ABOUT an hour before the massages, everyone met for drinks in a lounge off the casino. Tanqueray and Vicodin had Chess seriously toasted. Maurie was on another roll about the “shitfaced brownskins” and Laxmi shushed him. Chess began to riff about a white-collar con he’d read about that made the Sioux look like pikers.
“Ever heard of whistleblowers? You know, those guys in big corporations who snitch to the government?”
“Like The Insider,” said Maurie.
“I love Al Pacino,” said Laxmi.
“Right.” He felt in the groove, and flashed on the chapter of the Karma Sutra that said married women liked to be seduced by good storytellers. “There’s this whole confidence game where people whistleblow, but the shit they’re exposing isn’t true. The government has whistleblowing laws — some of em guarantee 30 % of whatever money is recovered. So there’s this guy who whistle-blew—”