Kostner had been staring at the slot machine for a very long time, and his weary brown eyes had seemed to be locked to the blue eyes on the jackpot bars. But he knew no one else could see the blue eyes, and no one else could hear the voice, and no one else knew about Maggie.
He was the universe to her. Everything to her.
He thumbed in another silver dollar, and the Pit Boss watched, the slot machine repairman watched, the Slot Machine Floor Manager watched, three change girls watched, and a pack of unidentified players watched, some from their seats.
The reels whirled, the handle snapped back, and in a second they flipped down to a halt, twenty silver dollars tokened themselves into the payoff trough and a woman at one of the crap tables belched a fragment of hysterical laughter.
And the gong went insane again.
The Floor Manager came over and said, very softly, “Mr. Kostner, it’ll take us about fifteen minutes to pull this machine and check it out. I’m sure you understand.” As two slot repairmen came out of the back, hauled the Chief off its stand, and took it into the repair room at the rear of the casino.
While they waited, the Floor Manager regaled Kostner with stories of spooners who had used intricate magnets inside their clothes, of boomerang men who had attached their plastic implements under their sleeves so they could be extended on spring-loaded clips, of cheaters who had come equipped with tiny electric drills in their hands and wires that slipped into the tiny drilled holes. And he kept saying he knew Kostner would understand.
But Kostner knew the Floor Manager would not understand.
When they brought the Chief back, one of the repairmen nodded assuredly. “Nothing wrong with it. Works perfectly. Nobody’s been boomin’ it.”
But the blue eyes were gone on the jackpot bars.
Kostner knew they would return.
They paid him off again.
He returned and played again. And again. And again. They put a “spotter” on him. He won again. And again. And again. The crowd had grown to massive proportions. Word had spread like the silent communications of the telegraph vine, up and down the Strip, all the way to downtown Vegas and the sidewalk casinos where they played night and day every day of the year, and the crowd surged in a tide toward the hotel, and the casino, and the seedy-looking walker with his weary brown eyes. The crowd moved to him inexorably, drawn like lemmings by the odor of the luck that rose from him like musky electrical cracklings. And he won. Again and again. Thirty-eight thousand dollars. And the three blue eyes continued to stare up at him. Her lover was winning. Maggie and her Moneyeyes.
Finally, the casino decided to speak to Kostner. They pulled the Chief for fifteen minutes, for a supplemental check by experts from the slot machine company in downtown Vegas, and while they were checking it, they asked Kostner to come to the main office of the hotel.
The owner was there. His face seemed faintly familiar to Kostner. Had he seen it on television? The newspapers?
“Mr. Kostner, my name is Jules Hartshorn.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Quite a string of luck you’re having out there.”
“It’s been a long time coming.”
“You realize, this sort of luck is impossible.”
“I’m compelled to believe it, Mr. Hartshorn.”
“Um. As am I. It’s happening to my casino. But we’re thoroughly convinced of one of two possibilities, Mr. Kostner; one, either the machine is inoperable in a way we can’t detect; or two, you are the cleverest spooner we’ve ever had in here.”
“I’m not cheating.”
“As you can see, Mr. Kostner, I’m smiling. The reason I’m smiling is at your naïveté in believing I would take your word for it. I’m perfectly happy to nod politely and say of course you aren’t cheating. But no one can win thirty-eight thousand dollars on nineteen straight jackpots off one slot machine; it doesn’t even have mathematical odds against its happening, Mr. Kostner. It’s on a cosmic scale of improbability with three dark planets crashing into our sun within the next twenty minutes. It’s on a par with the Pentagon, the Forbidden City and the Kremlin all three pushing the red button at the same microsecond. It’s an impossibility, Mr. Kostner. An impossibility that’s happening to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not really.”
“No, not really. I can use the money.”
“For what, exactly, Mr. Kostner?”
“I hadn’t thought about it, really.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Kostner, let’s look at it this way. I can’t stop you from playing, and if you continue to win, I’ll be required to pay off. And no stubble-chinned thugs will be waiting in an alley to jackroll you and take the money. The checks will be honored. The best I can hope for, Mr. Kostner, is the attendant publicity. Right now, every high-roller in Vegas is in that casino, waiting for you to drop cartwheels into that machine. It won’t make up for what I’m losing, if you continue the way you’ve been; but it’ll help. Every sucker in town likes to rub up next to luck. All I ask is that you cooperate a little.”
“The least I can do, considering your generosity.”
“An attempt at humor.”
“I’m sorry. What is it you’d like me to do?”
“Get about ten hours’ sleep.”
“While you pull the slot and have it worked over thoroughly?”
“Yes.”
“If I wanted to keep winning, that might be a pretty stupid move on my part. You might change the thingamajig inside so I couldn’t win if I put back every dollar of that thirty-eight grand.”
“We’re licensed by the state of Nevada, Mr. Kostner.”
“I come from a good family, too, and take a look at me. I’m a bum with thirty-eight thousand dollars in my pocket.”
“Nothing will be done to that slot machine, Kostner.”
“Then why pull it for ten hours?”
“To work it over thoroughly in the shop. If something as undetectable as metal fatigue or a worn escalator tooth or–we want to make sure this doesn’t happen with other machines. And the extra time will get the word around town; we can use the crowd. Some of those tourists will stick to our fingers, and it’ll help defray the expense of having you break the bank at this casino–on a slot machine.”
“I have to take your word.”
“This hotel will be in business long after you’re gone, Kostner.”
“Not if I keep winning.”
Hartshorn’s smile was a stricture. “A good point.”
“So it isn’t much of an argument.”
“It’s the only one I have. If you want to get back out on that floor, I can’t stop you.”
“No Mafia hoods ventilate me later?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: no Maf–”
“You have a picturesque manner of speaking. In point of fact, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sure you haven’t.”
“You’ve got to stop reading The National Enquirer. This is a legally run business. I’m merely asking a favor.”
“Okay, Mr. Hartshorn, I’ve been three days without any sleep. Ten hours will do me a world of good.”
“I’ll have the desk clerk find you a quiet room on the top floor. And thank you, Mr. Kostner.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“I’m afraid that will be impossible.”
“A lot of impossible things are happening lately.”
He turned to go, as Hartshorn lit a cigarette.
“Oh, by the way, Mr. Kostner?”
Kostner stopped and half-turned. “Yes?”
His eyes were getting difficult to focus. There was a ringing in his ears. Hartshorn seemed to waver at the edge of his vision like heat lightning across a prairie. Like memories of thi
ngs Kostner had come across the country to forget. Like the whimpering and pleading that kept tugging at the cells of his brain. The voice of Maggie. Still back in there, saying…things…
They’ll try to keep you from me.
All he could think about was the ten hours of sleep he had been promised. Suddenly it was more important than the money, than forgetting, than anything. Hartshorn was talking, was saying things, but Kostner could not hear him. It was as if he had turned off the sound and saw only the silent rubbery movement of Hartshorn’s lips. He shook his head trying to clear it.
There were half a dozen Hartshorns all melting into and out of one another. And the voice of Maggie.
I’m warm here, and alone. I could be good to you, if you can come to me. Please come, please hurry.
“Mr. Kostner?”
Hartshorn’s voice came draining down through exhaustion as thick as velvet flocking. Kostner tried to focus again. His extremely weary brown eyes began to track.
“Did you know about that slot machine?” Hartshorn was saying. “A peculiar thing happened with it about six weeks ago.”
“What was that?”
“A girl died playing it. She had a heart attack, a seizure while she was pulling the handle, and died right out there on the floor.”
Kostner was silent for a moment. He wanted desperately to ask Hartshorn what color the dead girl’s eyes had been, but he was afraid the owner would say blue.
He paused with his hand on the office door. “Seems as though you’ve had nothing but a streak of bad luck on that machine.” Hartshorn smiled an enigmatic smile. “It might not change for a while, either.”
Kostner felt his jaw muscles tighten. “Meaning I might die, too, and wouldn’t that be bad luck.”
Hartshorn’s smile became hieroglyphic, permanent, stamped on him forever. “Sleep tight, Mr. Kostner.”
In a dream, she came to him. Long, smooth thighs and soft golden down on her arms; blue eyes deep as the past, misted with a fine scintillance like lavender spiderwebs; taut body that was the only body Woman had ever had, from the very first. Maggie came to him.
Hello, I’ve been traveling a long time.
“Who are you?” Kostner asked, wonderingly. He was standing on a chilly plain, or was it a plateau? The wind curled around them both, or was it only around him? She was exquisite, and he saw her clearly, or was it through a mist? Her voice was deep and resonant, or was it light and warm as night-blooming jasmine?
I’m Maggie. I love you. I’ve waited for you.
“You have blue eyes.”
Yes. With love.
“You’re very beautiful.”
Thank you. With female amusement.
“But why me? Why let it happen to me? Are you the girl who–are you the one that was sick–the one who–?”
I’m Maggie. And you, I picked you, because you need me. You’ve needed someone for a long long time.
Then it unrolled for Kostner. The past unrolled and he saw who he was. He saw himself alone. Always alone. As a child, born to kind and warm parents who hadn’t the vaguest notion of who he was, what he wanted to be, where his talents lay. So he had run off, when he was in his teens, and alone always alone on the road. For years and months and days and hours, with no one. Casual friendships, based on food, or sex, or artificial similarities. But no one to whom he could cleave, and cling, and belong. It was that way till Susie, and with her he had found light. He had discovered the scents and aromas of a spring that was eternally one day away. He had laughed, really laughed, and known with her it would at last be all right. So he had poured all of himself into her, giving her everything; all his hopes, his secret thoughts, his tender dreams; and she had taken them, taken him, all of him, and he had known for the first time what it was to have a place to live, to have a home in someone’s heart. It was all the silly and gentle things he laughed at in other people, but for him it was breathing deeply of wonder.
He had stayed with her for a long time, and had supported her, supported her son from the first marriage; the marriage Susie never talked about. And then one day, he had come back, as Susie had always known he would. He was a dark creature of ruthless habits and vicious nature, but she had been his woman, all along, and Kostner realized he had been used as a stop-gap, as a bill-payer till her wandering terror came home to nest. Then she had asked him to leave. Broke, and tapped out in all the silent inner ways a man can be drained, he had left, without even a fight, for all the fight had been leached out of him. He had left, and wandered west, and finally come to Las Vegas, where he had hit bottom. And found Maggie. In a dream, with blue eyes, he had found Maggie.
I want you to belong to me. I love you. Her truth was vibrant in Kostner’s mind. She was his, at last someone who was special, was his.
“Can I trust you? I’ve never been able to trust anyone before. Women, never. But I need someone. I really need someone.”
It’s me, always. Forever. You can trust me.
And she came to him, fully. Her body was a declaration of truth and trust such as no other Kostner had ever known before. She met him on a windswept plain of thought, and he made love to her more completely than he had known any passion before. She joined with him, entered him, mingled with his blood and his thought and his frustration, and he came away clean, filled with glory.
“Yes, I can trust you, I want you, I’m yours,” he whispered to her, when they lay side by side in a dream nowhere of mist and soundlessness. “I’m yours.”
She smiled, a woman’s smile of belief in her man; a smile of trust and deliverance. And Kostner woke up.
The Chief was back on its stand, and the crowd had been penned back by velvet ropes. Several people had played the machine, but there had been no jackpots.
Now Kostner came into the casino, and the “spotters” got themselves ready. While Kostner had slept, they had gone through his clothes, searching for wires, for gaffs, for spoons or boomerangs. Nothing.
Now he walked straight to the Chief, and stared at it.
Hartshorn was there. “You look tired,” he said gently to Kostner, studying the man’s weary brown eyes.
“I am, a little.” Kostner tried a smile; it didn’t work. “I had a funny dream.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah…about a girl…” He let it die off.
Hartshorn’s smile was understanding. Pitying, empathic and understanding. “There are lots of girls in this town. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding one with your winnings.”
Kostner nodded, and slipped his first silver dollar into the slot. He pulled the handle. The reels spun with a ferocity Kostner had not heard before and suddenly everything went whipping slantwise as he felt a wrenching of pure flame in his stomach, as his head was snapped on its spindly neck, as the lining behind his eyes was burned out. There was a terrible shriek, of tortured metal, of an express train ripping the air with its passage, of a hundred small animals being gutted and torn to shreds, of incredible pain, of night winds that tore the tops off mountains of lava. And a keening whine of a voice that wailed and wailed as it went away from there in blinding light–
Free! Free! Heaven or Hell it doesn’t matter! Free!
The sound of a soul released from an eternal prison, a genie freed from a dark bottle. And in that instant of damp soundless nothingness, Kostner saw the reels snap and clock down for the final time:
One, two, three. Blue eyes.
But he would never cash his checks.
The crowd screamed through one voice as he fell sidewise and lay on his face. The final loneliness…
The Chief was pulled. Bad luck. Too many gamblers resented its very presence in the casino. So it was pulled. And returned to the company, with explicit instructions it was to be melted down to slag. And not till it was in the hands of the ladle foreman, who was ready to dump it into the slag furnace, did anyo
ne remark on the final tally the Chief had clocked.
“Look at that, ain’t that weird,” said the ladle foreman to his bucket man. He pointed to the three glass windows.
“Never saw jackpot bars like that before,” the bucket man agreed. “Three eyes. Must be an old machine.”
“Yeah, some of these old games go way back,” the foreman said, hoisting the slot machine onto the conveyor track leading to the slag furnace.
“Three eyes, huh. How about that. Three brown eyes.” And he threw the knife-switch that sent the Chief down the track, to puddle in the roaring inferno of the furnace.
Three brown eyes.
Three brown eyes that looked very very weary. That looked very very trapped. That looked very very betrayed. Some of these old games go way back.
It’s not enough merely to worship a god.
You’ve got to know which one’s in charge.
And Heaven help you if you mess around on the wrong turf.
Corpse
Walking uptown against traffic on Lexington Avenue, I was already in the Seventies when I saw three young vandals ruthlessly stripping the hulk of a 1959 Pontiac someone had deserted beside a curb in front of a condemned church building. They had pried up the hood of the car with a crowbar; apparently it had rusted or been wired closed before being abandoned. And as I paced past on the opposite side of the street, they began using mallets and spikes to shatter the engine mounts. Their teeth were very white, and they appeared extraordinarily healthy, as they smiled while they worked. I presumed they would eventually sell the engine to a junk dealer.
I am a religious man. I have always been a religious man–and one would think that should count for something. Apparently it does not. I’ve learned to my dismay that worship is like the stock market. (Though God knows an assistant professor in Latin American literature makes hardly enough to dabble with any degree of verve.) There are winning issues and there are, of course, losers. Placing one’s faith on a failing stock can be no less disastrous then placing one’s faith on a downtrending deity.