Page 1 of Never Never

CHAPTER 1

PAN

FIVE YEARS EARLIER

This place smells like ass.

I take my last breath of fresh air at the revolving doors of the entrance and brace myself for the wall of stank I’m about to inhale.

The Jolly Roger’s been open since, I don’t know, the sixties or seventies, whenever the mob was putting up a ton of casinos, and at the risk of sounding rude, she’s really showing her age. Honestly, I’m surprised the carpet doesn’t crunch under my boots as I jog down the steps to the gaming floor. Generations of ashtrays dropped and shitty liquor slopped have made the ground beneath the slots and tables more gray than green even though the print is some kind of tropical leaf.

You’ve gotta love the theming, though. Part exotic island, part pirate ship, all tacky as fuck. If they could just be bothered to pipe in some coconut-scented air or something it’d almost feel less like a toxic waste dump.

Not that it matters. My lungs are the least of my worries. I’m broke and I’m hungry and opportunity calls.

I take my time strolling the floor, not too slow, not too fast. It’s Thursday, I think. Not the busiest night, but not a graveyard. The usual bluehairs posted up at their lucky machines with their buckets of quarters. Some sweaty guys in golf shirts in from the Marina. Couple of suits, handful of waitresses.

And me. Dark jeans, dark jacket, ID that says I’m absolutely twenty-one, how dare you even ask?

I stuff my hands in my pockets and flick the corner of the plastic over my thumb out of habit, blending into the scenery as best I can. Which isn’t hard, because besides smelling terrible, every inch of this place is flashing, blinking, or blooping. Video slots spinning, animated gold coins raining down screens, cartoon cowgirls and hula girls and fairy girls with tits bigger than their heads trying to get you to try your luck on their machine. Truly, it’s like candy for your eyes. The eighteen-plus version of those mall stores with all the sour watermelons and gummy bears and shit in plastic chimneys. I don’t know how the floormen and pit bosses handle it on top of all the coke they’re snorting, but who knows? Maybe they cancel each other out.

Besides, not like I really want those guys to be at their sharpest anyway.

I mosey around a corner, hands in my pockets, following the winding yellow brick road in the carpet from the slots floor toward cards, tables, sports windows. I’m not in a rush. Only ten p.m. or so, and I’d rather sleep during the day anyway. But I can’t wait too long. There’s a sweet spot you want to hit, around when people are starting to get tired, wearing down a little, but haven’t yet packed up for the night. You need a kind of critical mass on the floor or else you stick out.

Especially if you start getting lucky.

And damned if I’m not here to get lucky.

Roulette’s out, same with craps. Anything that takes actual cheating, weighted dice and shit, that’s too risky for the sophisticated environment of the Jolly Roger. Easiest mistake you can make, trying to upgrade your hustle: assume your back-alley, three-card-monte type plays are going to work here. The tricks you can pull on drunk beach bros wandering up from the boardwalk at 3 a.m. don’t cut it. And you can’t just kick the shit out of them if they cry foul, either.

I glance just sideways at the wall, at the nearest floorman, looking all official in his red-wine-button-down, his slicked-back hair, his clear spiral earpiece.

No, I think, you most certainly can’t.

Floorman’s eyes flick to the side. If he saw me seeing him, neither of us is going to act like it.

Which is good news, because in the meantime, a bottle of Coors Light has leapt from a passing waitress’s tray right into my hands.

Fine by me, I think, sipping my newfound beer. These are games of skill. And I’m here to do what I do best: win.

Cards. It’s gotta be cards.

Blackjack, to be precise. I prefer poker—human psychology and all—but blackjack’s simply the easier game to, well, game.

At least, it is here. Because I know a dirty little secret about the Jolly Roger.

See, foot traffic is down. Anecdotal, I guess, but I say this as someone who’s been bumming around the Marina for a good few weeks now. Not “casing the joint” per se, but just, you know, observing. So the Jolly Roger’s doing what it can to drum up new business, or squeeze more cash out of old business. New machines would be out of the question, but a few new side bets? All that takes is some fresh felt on the blackjack tables and some corny on-theme decorations to entice you in. Now you can waste your money not just trying to hit 21, but on guessing what suits you’ll get in your hand.

Except you don’t really have to guess. Not if you know what you’re doing. Play your cards right, literally, and you could walk away with whatever the side bet jackpot’s reached that night.

And tonight, it’s closing in on fifty grand.

First order of business is scoring some chips, which turns out to be no problemo as a stumbling drunk in a backwards baseball cap knocks a whole tower onto the floor not two feet away from me.

“Jesus, look what you did now,” he moans to his girlfriend, a pretty little thing in sparkles and platforms and a skirt much too short to be stooping over. “Pick those up.”

“Please”—I see my opening and duck in ever-so-chivalrously—“allow me.”