A Little Yearning Ch. 11

To be a good gambler, one must have a certain aptitude for numbers, the capacity for self-analysis, a working knowledge of human nature and above all, Lucky believed, the soul of an optimist. That he did have such an optimistic bent, Lucky firmly credited to his fortunate childhood.

As a boy, Lucky had always maintained good relations with his father. The older Rubempre, already in his mid-fifties when Lucky was born, was a distant yet kindly man and as a single parent his one fault may have been a tendency to indulge his only child.

Colonel Docteur le Comte de Rubempre was a figure of some mystery to the village of Rubempre which sprawled at the base of the old chateau which he inhabited, a mystery which he was at pains to maintain since he was in truth--like the Holy Roman Empire--neither a true Colonel (though he did have the uniform and assorted medals, bought at a Paris flea market), nor a real Docteur (thought he did have an ornate certificate in Latin hung prominently in the sitting room, purchased from a diploma mill in Lyon), nor a born Comte (the chateau and the title had come with his marriage to the impecunious widow Rubempre).

As a young man of undistinguished parentage and uncertain prospects, Lucky's father had gone straight from the lycee to clerk in his small town pharmacy. In the days before the war, they had still compounded in the back room some of the old patent medicines such as blue mass and opodeldoc and Dr. Pierre's Pills for "women's complaints" (the chief complaint being unwanted pregnancy) which were sold under the counter to the local country folk. When, in the fifties, a new wave of cure-alls had supplanted the old favorite formulas based mostly on alcohol and laudanum, he had parlayed this experience into a tidy fortune in mail order herbal remedies. After a life devoted to the single -minded pursuit of profit, he had retired from business at the age of fifty-one, removed himself to the country, married advantageously and settled down to the life of the landed gentry, his days passed in overseeing improvements to his chateau, puttering about in his small laboratory or tending to his vines and livestock.

After several years of a harmonious if not passionate marriage, the pregnancy of Madame de Rubempre had come as a bit of shock to the both of them: though younger than the count by a decade, she was already in her early forties by then and had, in spite of her earnest application, never conceived by her previous husband; and neither had the Comte, in spite of a long line of mistresses before his marriage and more recently a predilection for nubile young housemaids, ever fathered a child. In due course, however, the Comtesse was delivered of a beautiful baby boy. She subsequently fell prey to post-partum depression, and an overindulgence in some of the Comte's more potent remedies soon led to her untimely demise.

As a child Lucky was given into the care of a succession of young nannies who were decidedly patchy in the quality of their mothering skills though uniformly impressive in their bust size and replaced with regularity when the older Rubempre tired either of their pursuit or subsequently of their charms. Lucien attended the local primary school and was a gifted if sporadic student. When he was old enough to show an interest in women, the younger housemaids were given to understand that they would be rewarded to gratify his curiosity. When he was old enough to drive, he was given a car (though not driving lessons--this he was expected to puzzle out on his own). For his part, the old man sought to impart a certain expertise in the efficacy of various herbs and chemicals, a subject upon which he was well-versed; and an education in the ways of the world, a subject upon which his instruction was rather more eccentric.

On the question of finances, his father had this to say to him. "Money can be gotten in several ways, Lucien. You can inherit it. You can accumulate it by dint of a steady and applied penury. You can steal it. . .Balzac said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. However, a true master of finance will avail himself of none of these common resorts. He will create money."

"You mean like counterfeiting, Papa?"

The old man puffed up his cheeks and blew out a breath. "Certainly not."

"Well, then, how do you create money?" Lucien asked.

"Well, that is the trick, isn't it?" his father replied with a wink.

By the fourth time the deal had gone around the table, Lucky had a pretty good feel for the other players. Poker is a game of personalities, and table stakes, where the bet is only limited by the amount you have at hand, even more so. The other players in the game were all well-acquainted--you might even say bored--with each other. For this reason they were always glad to invite the occasional guest to sit in. The addition of another player freshened it up for all of them.

Lucky's unique wager also added another, quite novel dimension to the game.

Lucky had been careful not to throw his room key into the pot too hastily. In spite of the manifest impatience of some of the other men, he held it in reserve as the deal moved around. He didn't want to lose it so soon in the game because he quickly saw how it could become an irresistible lure. Frank Harris had already gone all in on him twice in the first two rounds. The first time, Lucky could probably have bested him--would have, as it turned out--with pocket eights, but he folded. On the second occasion, Lucky saw the bet. Since he had at that point somewhat fewer chips on the table than Frank, he was literally moving all in--he had little available cash to buy back in should he lose. But he had Frank figured for two pair, which he imagined his three kings would comfortably beat. As it turned out, Frank didn't even have that--it was an outright bluff. Lucky had doubled his stake.

Chastened but undeterred, it was obvious that Frank was determined to have that room key, and he wasn't going to let the small difficulty of having no good cards stop him. The other players were a bit more level-headed (and a bit less drunk) but, Lucky thought, equally determined. Jim and Artie played like the bankers they were: cautiously, weighing the odds, bluffing tentatively and only pro forma. If either of them pushed out a large wager, the rest of table invariably folded, so they won little, but on the other hand, they were too quick to fold promising cards, so they lost little as well.

Momo, like Frank, was inclined to bet on the come and was determined bluffer. Caught in a losing hand, he would hang on determinedly till the last card, raising the bet at every opportunity, a strategy that could cost him dearly. Spence was rather the opposite: timid to a fault, he could be sent running by the least show of resolve. If Momo hadn't made enough money off of him by sheer bravado and lousy cards, he would soon have been forced from the game.

Of them all, Henry was the hardest to figure, Lucky thought, and of course, this made him the most dangerous. After a couple hours of play, Lucky and Henry were the big winners at the table. The bankers were holding about even. Spence was down to a small fraction of his original buy-in. Momo had bought in again at five grand. Frank was the big loser, having bought in again three times so far and his fourth stake about half eroded.

Momo was just shuffling the cards for the next deal when there was a soft rap on the door. "Now, who the hell could that be?" Henry asked.

Artie went to answer it. It was the security guard from the third floor. He whispered to Artie for a moment. Artie turned and said, "Frank, it's your wife. She's downstairs and wants to come up."

A groan went around the table. Frank's wife was one of the main reasons they had a security guard down there. (The risk of being strong-armed was negligible; the risk of being busted by the police was nil.) She was very good looking woman, his young trophy wife: early thirties, blond eye-candy with a dancer's figure and a model's face, but she was also a very high-maintenance pain in the ass, and her stunning looks were not matched with a charming personality. She was a belligerent drunk prone to fits of jealousy.

When Frank had first courted her, he thought he had found the perfect woman. Not only was she was gorgeous, athletic, immaculately groomed and dressed to the nines, but she was a tigress in bed. At first, they couldn't get enough of each other. She would do things--suggest things, even--that other women had never done with him. And she liked to talk dirty while they were making love. At first, he found this to be quite a turn-on. However, as time went on and the first blush faded, he found it to be a little off-putting, and later as they settled into married life, it came to be downright annoying, and he sometimes had to suppress the urge to clamp a hand over her mouth and say, " I AM fucking you. And in fact I AM fucking you as HARD as I can already."

When he was a teenager, Frank had liked to work on cars. He had a knack with mechanical things. He could make a motor purr. He had a cute little Volkswagen he had customized, and one day he decided to put a bigger engine in it, something better than the glorified air-cooled lawnmower engine it came with. He got a Porsche engine from the wrecking yard and at length shoe-horned it in there. It taught him a lesson. You could have too much of a good thing. After that, the car was just downright scary. Driving it, he felt like he was strapped in a tin can with a firecracker shoved up his ass and the fuse lit. Sometimes, that's just how he felt being married to Hailey.

"Go down and talk to her, Frank," Henry suggested. "We can't have her coming up here. You know what a scene she caused the last time."

"You didn't tell her I was here, did you? Is she drunk?" Frank asked.

Artie turned to the guard, who nodded solemnly.

"I think that's a yes to both," Artie said. "I think I can hear her yelling from up here."

"I'm not going down there," Frank shook his head. "No way. Just tell her to go home. Tell her there's no women up here, and I'll be along later."

Artie said, "He says she's in no shape to drive."

"Damn it, Frank, she's your wife," Momo said. "Take care of it." But Frank made no move to get up. His face was as pale as his hat.

"Perhaps I can help," Lucky suggested. "I'll have my driver take her home. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Excuse me for the moment." He rose from the table, taking out his cell phone, and stepped out onto the balcony to call Carlos.

Carlos Herrara wasn't too upset at being wakened, though he'd been asleep for less than a couple hours. He was half-expecting it. When Lucky had left with the young girl, he'd told Carlos to gas up the limo and then get some sleep--they might be needing to leave in a hurry. Carlos didn't know exactly what Lucky was up to, but he didn't need to know all the details to know it was something that was more than likely to blow up in his face, and usually in the middle of the night, if experience was any guide.

"All goes well," Lucky assured him. "I have covered the football bets. However, there is now a small complication. One of the player's wives is downstairs at the third floor elevator causing a hell and disrupting the game. Can you take her home?"

"No problem, boss. Go back to your game. It is already taken care of."

Throwing on his suit coat--he had gone to sleep in his clothes--and shoes, he went upstairs. He heard her before he saw her. The woman was pacing the landing on the third floor. The elevator was just coming back down. She accosted the security guard as he got out, her brassy voice echoing down the corridor.

"Well? Did you tell him I was here? Where the hell is he, then?"

"Si, missus, I tell him. But he is very busy at the moment," the guard patted the air with his hands. "He cannot come down right now."

"Well, that's just not fucking good enough. You're gonna goddamn take me up there right now!"

Carlos came up behind her and took her gently by the arm. "Ma'am?"

"Who the hell are you?" she spun on him. "Take your fucking hands off me." She was taller than Carlos, almost two meters, he guessed, a beautiful woman with an athletic look. Her shoulders, bare in her black mid-thigh cocktail dress, showed some definition and her calves swelled attractively over her three-inch heels.

"They say I am to drive you home," he said. "Please, if you will be coming with me. I have the car."

"I'm not going anywhere until I speak to Frank, goddamn it. He's holed up there with some skanky bimbo. . ." She started toward the elevator, shoving the security guard aside.

"No, lady, please. . ." Carlos reached out to grab her.

As he caught her arm, she turned on him quick as a snake, striking him on the side of the head with her bulky Prada purse. There was a meaty smack and Carlos saw stars. She had something heavy in there.

"Puta!" he hissed fall back a step, rubbing his cheekbone gingerly with his hand.

"I warned you! I'm going up there to see my husband. Don't you try to stop me, grease ball."

Carlos circled her warily, a fixed smile on his face. She looked mad enough to spit fire, but he was watching her hands.

She lashed out with her foot. A slower man, or one without Carlos' trained reflexes, would have gone down with a solid shot to the balls--game over--but he turned his hips to block the move. He caught her foot on the upswing and she went down with a thud.

The security guard blanched. "This is not good, amigo. Her husband, he's an important man."

Carlos ignored him. "You want to play rough?" he asked her. He stood over her, his arms crossed. "You are a bad woman! You have very much to drink and you have no manners. Now I am taking you home."

She clambered to her feet, brushing the hair back out of her face. Deliberately she kicked off her heels. "Oh, so you think you're a tough guy, pushing over women, you fucking pussy. I'm going to kick your ass." One of the shoulder straps of her dress had broken and it hung down on the right, showing the swell of her breast almost to the nipple. Hiking up her skirt, she settled into a karate stance.

Carlos started to laugh, but it was cut short as she feinted to the left and then caught him full in the abdomen with a round-house kick. He hunched over, trying without success to draw a breath. She danced back, light on her feet. Carlos regarded her with narrowed eyes. Apparently, she wasn't quite as drunk as she let on.

She rounded on the security guard. "You want some of this, old man? I've done karate, tae-bo, krav maga. Now give me that damned elevator key before I fuck you up!"

As her attention was diverted, Carlos lunged for her. Brushing aside her fist, he wrapped his arms around her and took her down, using his weight to pin her on her side. She squealed as she turned under him. She raked her nails down the side of his face, narrowly missing his eye. He caught her wrist. He was lying sprawled across her as she shrieked at the top of her voice. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a knot of people forming down the hallway. Keeping his back to them, he eased up off her and pulled her up off the floor. As she straightened up, spitting profanities at him, unseen by the onlookers he gave her a short, sharp poke in the solar plexus.

The whole hotel went suddenly silent, it seemed, as the air whoofed out of her and her mouth made an O.

His arms around her, Carlos drew her close and whispered in her ear. "Now we are going to walk out of here and you will behave yourself like a lady and not like some chola borracha or so help me God I will beat you black and blue, yes?" He dug his thumb into her arm just above the elbow and watched the pain light up her eyes.

"All right, then." Turning her to face the people down the hall, he locked her hand in a come-along hold behind her back. He grabbed her purse with his other hand.

"It is O.K. now. The lady fell down, but she is all right. Everything is all right now. You can go back to bed, please. We are sorry to be disturbing you." As he advanced on the small crowd they fell back against the walls to let them through.

When they were in the elevator going down to the ground floor, Carlos pushed the button to stop them between floors. He let go of her hand and turned her to face him. He tied up the strap of her cocktail dress and brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She was breathing heavily and she gave off a sickly smell of booze with a tang of sweat and some very expensive perfume. There was still fire in her eyes, but she had calmed somewhat. She looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time.

"Do I know you?" she asked, swaying slightly on her feet.

"We have not been introduced," he said in a gentle voice. "What is your name?"

"Me?"

"They did not tell me your name. Such a beautiful lady as yourself, I should be embarrassed to be saying, 'Hey you, lady. . .'"

"I'm Hailey."

"I am honored to make your acquaintance, Hailey," he said formally. "My name is Luiz Carlos Herrera Calderone." He held out his hand. "You can call me Carlos."

"You hit me," she said.

"I am sorry."

"You HIT me ON PURPOSE."

For a moment he thought she was going to attack him again as she glared at him through narrowed eyes. Carlos regarded her impassively, leaning in toward her. She shook her head and gave a brittle laugh, and then abruptly she was crying, the warm tears spilling down her cheeks. He put his arms around her and she rested her brow on his shoulder, hiccupping and sobbing.

"I don't know why I did that," she said, the words spilling out of her in a rush. "Sometimes, I just get so angry, I don't know why I do those things, I get so angry and then I'm ashamed of myself. I work like hell to make him happy, you know, and then he just ignores me, or he talks to me without looking at me. He'll be watching some young girl go by and he won't even look at me. Do you know how hard I work at looking good? I go to the gym, I get my nails done and my hair done and go to the tanning salon and shopping for clothes. I even take singing lessons. Just so I'll look nice, you know. Why can't he look at me? I had my nose fixed and botox and collagen. I even had a G shot. That hurt! And then I see him ogling these teenagers and it just makes me feel so angry and old. He's got this young secretary down at the dealership he takes out to lunch, and I know they're up to something. I want to have a baby but I'm afraid that I'll get fat and he'll say I'm a pig and go off with somebody else 'cause he can be so damned hateful. I don't know why I got married. He was so nice to me before we got married. I'm sorry I took it out on you. . .?"

"Carlos."

"It's not you, Carlos, it's fucking Frank."

"Fuck Frank," Carlos agreed solemnly.

She giggled. "Yeah, fuck Frank."

"You want to get a cup of coffee with me, Hailey?"

She nodded, her eyes cast down. "I feel better now. I'm not so mad any more."

They crossed the lobby to the bar but the place was packed and the noise was tremendous. Carlos took her by the arm and drew her aside to the restaurant across the hall. The door was closed but there was a waitress still inside wiping down tables. Carlos rapped on the door. She came over shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, we're closed," she said through the door. She was a young Latina in a burgundy outfit cut low in the bodice with a short pleated skirt and a little white apron tied around her waist. Stray wisps of hair were hanging about her face from where it was knotted in a bun. She looked flustered and tired.

Carlos held a hundred dollar bill up to the glass. "We'd just like to have a cup of coffee."

She unlocked the door and cracked it open. "There's nobody here, sir. I'm just closing up."