Vintage

by

John Kratman

Vinny Darris made his way, rubbing his hands together, pulling his eyes from every slot machine he saw, fighting with the gambling monkey he carried on his back. He continually ran his hands through his yellow hair as he walked. He had on a yellow double-breasted suit that had fit him well when he bought it, but now sagged over his skinny frame. His pale green eyes darted here and there, seeing the poker tables through windows, watching the thin women with dead eyes bring drinks to the tourists and the retired, and, of course, the group he belonged to-The Locals.

He walked down the strip and past the old Dunes. It was all boarded up now, only an empty shell of what was once one of the most popular casinos in Las Vegas. Outclassed, it was unable to compete with the new MGM Grand hotel, the pyramid hotel "the Luxor" with its one hundred foot high replica of the Sphinx, and Treasure Island’s two full size Galley ships fighting every two hours on the hour.

Las Vegas was growing.

Nearly two thousand people came to live in Vegas a month, mostly unskilled labor, shuffling into the casinos to work for minimum wage, hoping that the next high roller would drop some bills on the bar out of pity. At the edge of the city, pre-fab houses sprung up like fungus, moving ever onward to the great open spaces that the Hopi Indians had received when the government stole all the fertile land. Now the Hopi were laughing. The whites had used the land they stole until there was no room left to go. The desert was now prime real estate, but the Hopi would not sell. Who would?

Still, under the glamour of the new strip, some old traditions remained alive. Small motels, only slightly more ramshackle than the tiny wedding chapels that stood before them, stretched for miles. Inside, they were all the same, all holding that smell of despair that lay under the make-up that Las Vegas wore. Cologne over body odor, sweet and wretched, the rooms had seen innumerable sorrows and broken hopes. All had a thousand stories. Very few of them had happy endings.

Into one such motel Darris walked, rubbing his hands together, muttering to himself that tonight would be the night, the night he had dreamed of ever since Las Vegas had sunk its fangs into him. He would win big, big, BIG! No more quarter poker machines, no more dollar Keno with the smell of old men and ladies puffing Pall Malls and drinking gin and tonics. No more blue hair and inane conversation with paranoid ladies from Oklahoma, clutching their nickels like they were the Crown jewels themselves.

He would walk into Caesar’s Palace, Sarah on his arm, all decked out, and go straight to the thousand dollar Baccarat tables. VIP treatment all the way.

Sarah didn’t understand. "What makes you think this nut isn’t gonna try to kill you, Vinny? You don’t really buy that shit about his sick mother do you? Don’t you think that someone with the dough this guy’s got could get blood for his mother somewhere besides some scummy motel? I just can’t believe you! Two-fifty a pint he gives you", (Five-hundred, he had lied about that, extra money for the poker tables), "and still you don’t try to save. Has it ever occurred to you that if you saved the thousand a week", (two thousand, babe), "you’re getting, you wouldn’t have to gamble? And what about me? This creep kills you and what do I do? Throw on a costume and serve drinks to old men for nickel tips?"

"Now, honey," he’d interrupt, "This guy isn’t gonna kill me. I know that the mother thing is crap, but so what? I really do have a rare blood type; I’ve known that since I got my appendix out. I almost died before they realized my cousin had the same type. If he hadn’t been there-- anyway! Say the guy is sick, that he...say... drinks it. He always pays doesn’t he? If you could see the look in his eyes...I mean this guy just loves the shit. Whether or not it’s really for his mother, I don’t think he’d risk losing his supply."

Now, remembering, Vinny Darris fingered the gun he’d bought when he first met Treska. He had to tell Sarah that he wasn’t afraid, but sometimes, the look in the guy’s face just made him cringe. He walked around the back, hardly even thinking about it, it was so familiar. Every week, he’d go to the motel, go down to the bar to have a drink, and blow some money before he met Treska in room 511.

He sat in front of a "Megabucks" progressive slot machine that he had been steadily feeding dollars to for the last three months. Above the bank of machines, steadily building as gamblers across the state lost more and more money, the jackpot sign stood at just over three million dollars.

A tired looking waitress came over and dutifully changed the greasy bills he gave her into silver dollars. She walked off to get him his whiskey sour. He dropped the dollars in, three at a time, and pulled the arm without looking at the screen. He was superstitious. The waitress brought him his drink, smiling when he dropped a dollar on her tray. She started to look away, then spun around with a look of astonishment in her eyes.

Darris turned around slowly. There, right before his eyes, three golden eagles stood in a row on the screen.

He had won!

#

When the pictures were taken, and Darris’s name had been written on the check, he remembered Treska, upstairs waiting.

He couldn’t cash the check until Monday anyway, so why not? He could have a good time tonight with Sarah, (or maybe without Sarah), and tell Treska that they were through. He owed the old boy that anyway. Unconsciously he fingered the bruised veins of his forearm through his shirt.

He went into the men’s room and checked his gun. Then he went outside, up the stairs to room 511.

#

The shadows were thick where Treska sat, but his guests could see him nonetheless. He wore a midnight black suit, beautifully tailored to fit his gaunt frame, a black silk tie hanging just below his pale face. His eyes were of the purest blue, alight with restrained energy and passion and, perhaps, triumph. Around a table they sat, its length spanning the long chamber lit softly by candles and the full moon through the windows. No sound, save the noise of an occasional well-mannered sip, broke the stillness of the shadow-filled room. Each of his guests was tall and pale, impeccably dressed in flawless black dinner jackets, the only exception a beautiful woman, dressed in a black evening gown that was startling contrast to her long red tresses. Each held a wine glass that they stared at, admiring its contents. They nodded to each other in agreement.

"It seems you have won again, Treska, damn your black hide! This is the finest to date." The red haired woman’s voice was low and quite beautiful. "I thought I had you for certain this year."

"Do not be too upset, Carolyn. Yours was a worthy competitor. Heroin addict, was he?" answered Treska.

"Yes. It made for a unique taste, did it not?" she replied. "But tell me, where did you get this?" she asked, a sparkle of mischief in her pale face as she held her glass to the light.

"Ah, no my dear, I learned my lesson last year, when you stole my previous supplier. I am afraid that this particular vintage is now very rare, the supply in my cellar being the very last." He laughed as he fingered the three scorched holes in his suit jacket, just about where his heart had once beaten, long ago.

"My supplier had a slight run of unfortunate good luck." He laughed more loudly, and his companions laughed with him, long teeth flashing in the moon lit room.

<end>