A Confidential Source (10 page)

The waitress, a woman who was either in incredibly good shape for her age or prematurely gray, walked over with the coffeepot.
She glanced at the paper, and then looked past me to the young families sitting in the booths. “Can you believe it? In this
neighborhood?”

I shook my head sadly.

“Before I quit, I used to buy my cigarettes there. Barry was so full of advice. He’d say, ‘Livia, you sick of serving people
coffee all day? You gotta get a job at one of those four-star restaurants like Al Forno where the tabs are high. Where people
buy wine and cocktails. You gotta do better for your family, for yourself.’” She laughed dismissively. “But you know, they
don’t hire just anyone in those places. You gotta know someone. And besides, I don’t wanna work till midnight waiting on a
buncha tourists snapping at me because the wine isn’t opened right.”

I could actually hear Barry trying to sell her on the higher tabs and bigger tips, knew what words got the emphasis, which
he swallowed. Underscoring it all was a dogged belief that with just the right move, everyone could be rich.

As the waitress walked away, I remembered something Leonard had said about Barry being a card counter who thought he’d had
an infallible system to beat the odds. Blackjack had been his game. And he’d had a couple of favorite tables at the Mohegan
Sun.

I told myself that the issue wasn’t whether to trust Leonard, but whether his information could be confirmed. I had to find
out for myself whether Barry had been a compulsive gambler.

My stomach began to churn the way it did sometimes late at night, when I remembered an overdue bill I had to pay or a phone
call I’d forgotten to return. Lying still in bed became a special kind of torture. I looked down at Barry’s photo in the newspaper.
His eyes spoke to mine:
Jesus, the taxes I pay, don’t let them get away with this, Hallie.

I tore both the article and picture of Barry out of the page and left the rest of the paper on the counter. I threw money
on the check and went straight to my apartment to change clothes. An hour later, I was headed for the casino, in Connecticut.

I thought that on a sunny Sunday afternoon, most people would be raking leaves or watching football, but no. Most people were
at the Mohegan Sun playing the slot machines.

I’d entered through what was called the Summer Entrance, where I was welcomed with a hopeful carpeting of cheery sunflowers.
I’d never been inside a casino before, and I guess I expected it to be dark and glittery, with everyone wearing black and
drinking a martini. But this was less Monte Carlo and more Disneyland Kingdom. There was a Native American theme played out
in neutral earth tones, fake boulder formations, and an enormous wolf statue looking down on its gambling prey.

As I circled the perimeter of the coliseumlike casino, I stepped to a drumbeat of wailing Indian music and an incessant waterfall
of clinking change. The casino reminded me, in turn, of both a shopping mall and an arcade. No one looked particularly sophisticated.
In fact, most of the people at the slot machines were senior citizens in patterned sweaters and knit pants.

I could picture Barry here. But then, I could picture anybody here.

I found the blackjack tables, partially hidden behind wrought-iron fencing with leafy designs. Like the slots, the card tables
were brimming with late-afternoon business, men mostly, who sat with bottled beer to their sides and smoke rings over their
heads. The gaming was vigorous; dealers swiftly went through their decks. I realized that I could not just whip out a picture
and ask if anyone around here knew Barry Mazursky. I walked from table to table for about half an hour just watching the play.
Eventually, I returned to the path around the casino perimeter and came upon an ATM machine with my own bank’s logo on it.

It seemed like some kind of omen.

It wasn’t as if I wasn’t aware of my troubled finances. Besides the $2,000 I owed my mother for the security deposit on my
apartment, I had another couple of thousand in credit card debt and a mere $300 left in my checking account. Somehow, I doubted
the newspaper would reimburse gambling expenses, even if it
was
critical to research. But I’d driven a long way to get here, and, suddenly, it seemed important to blend in. My card slipped
easily into the machine. I was conservative, I thought, withdrawing only eighty dollars. I quickly bought some chips and drifted
between tables to watch the game.

At last, I found a vacant seat at a friendly-looking table with a female dealer, a couple in their midfifties, and a young
man who looked as if he’d had his twenty-first birthday yesterday and decided to drive over today and gamble.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said by way of introduction. I took a seat beside the man in his midfifties.

The woman smiled at me. “There’s always beginner’s luck.”

Her husband had a craggy face, full of sorrow. “Worst thing that can happen to you is that you win.”

No chance of that. Within half an hour, the entire pile of chips I’d bought was gone. But there was a pleasant camaraderie
at the table. The dealer was a woman about my own age who offered beginners advice on when to hold and when to get hit; the
married couple lived in the same neighborhood in Worcester where I’d grown up. The young guy, who wore tight blue jeans, a
laundered white dress shirt, and an enormous silver pendant around his neck, turned out to own a chain of hairdressing salons
in Bridgeport. He won his first four hands, tipped the dealer, and waved to the waitress to bring everyone a drink.

I withdrew another $100 from the ATM but decided to play more cautiously, lowering my bets and staying away from double downs,
even when I had eleven. Dealt a ten of spades and a six of clubs, I clasped my hands on the green velvet table and held steady.
I beat the dealer, winning a $25 bet.

I hit twenty-one twice, and later a real, true blackjack. My skin grew warm as I clutched the ace, my palms sweaty. I gulped
my club soda with delight, not caring about the bubbles tingling my nose.

I won that hand, lost the next, but beat the dealer four of the next five hands. I was up a full $175 and feeling pretty good.
The young guy, Will, his baby face aglow, cheered me on, lauding me for something he kept calling “basic strategy,” and telling
me that I was keeping the cards “in flow.”

I had no idea what he meant, but it felt terrific, and when the dealer finished the deck and announced that there was going
to be a shift change, I felt a sudden dejection, especially when she leaned over and told me to quit now, while the night
was young and while I was this far ahead.

I didn’t want to quit, but they were all looking at me, nodding their heads at the dealer’s good advice. Ed, the husband from
Worcester, was especially vigorous in his endorsement of this wisdom. The cocktail napkin under my drink was wilted and the
corner shredded. I glanced at my watch and realized I’d spent an hour and a half playing blackjack and had failed to ask a
single question about Barry.

“Before you go, can I ask you a question?” I asked the dealer as she finished tidying her shoe of cards.

She looked at me quizzically, and I pulled out Barry’s picture. “Do you by any chance know this guy? Does he look familiar?”

Her expression was cool. I noticed everyone pull back just slightly from the table.

“He’s a friend of mine,” I said swiftly. “He died Friday. I told the family that since I was coming here anyway, I’d try to
contact his friends.”

The dealer’s expression did not change.

“They’re planning a big memorial,” I heard myself lie.

More silence. Everyone was looking at me. I’m not sure if it was with sympathy or amazement. I had the feeling that you weren’t
supposed to talk about death or funerals in a casino.

“I’ve never seen him,” the dealer said at last.

As soon as the new dealer seated himself at the table, the married couple excused themselves. They were going to dinner at
the Bamboo Forest, one of the casino restaurants, and wanted to get there early. Will, the big winner of the evening, decided
to move up to a high-stakes table and I was left sitting alone with the new dealer, a silver-haired man with a neatly clipped
beard. He looked right past me, to the hall, for more players. I showed him the news clip of Barry. “I don’t suppose you know
him?” I asked. He didn’t even look at the picture.

I’d cashed in my chips and was headed over to the food court to grab something for dinner when I came upon a cove of exclusive-looking
restaurants hidden behind another boulder formation. At the end of the wall, I glanced at the glass display of menus and scanned
one from Pompeii and Caesar, a fine-dining spot with expensive entrées. In contrast to the food court, which at six o’clock
was clogged with lines of hungry retirees, the small, elegant restaurant was almost empty. It occurred to me that while the
casino might be brimming with amateurs, the real gamblers, the high rollers like Barry, were probably a fairly small club.
My mistake, I realized, was my random approach. The most likely place to find someone who might have known Barry was at a
high-stakes table.

I purchased new chips with my winnings, made another $100 withdrawal from the ATM, and hoped like hell that rubbing Gregory
Ayers’s arm for luck really worked. Back at the blackjack tables, I found Will sitting at a crowded table where bets opened
at $50. As I approached, he looked up from his cards with a curious expression and frowned when I took the empty seat beside
him. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

“Feeling lucky,” I said in a whisper, knowing that saying this too loudly would certainly be a jinx. It was an all-male table,
from the dealer, a wiry man who looked like he smoked a lot of cigarettes, to the two middle-aged men who sat to the left
of Will and eyed me as I sat down, to the elderly gentlemen to my right. I noticed that they all sat at attention, guarding
an imposed distance. A new tension filled the air and it took me a minute to figure it out. Will’s eyes met mine and I caught
an expression of resigned annoyance. And then I realized that I’d misread Will’s fine features as youth, while all the men
at the table understood that he was gay.

Not exactly an enlightened crowd, the men didn’t seem pleased about me, either. They focused intently on their cards and talked
to each other without looking at us, as if we were a distraction that would negatively affect their game.

I waited for the dealer to start a new shoe and played a $50 bet, the minimum, and held at sixteen. The temperature of my
skin rose with the bet, my breath got caught somewhere above my stomach, and my palms were sweaty, but there was a tingling
sensation in my shoulders, too—excitement rather than fear. Time was suspended as I waited for the dealer’s hand.

When the dealer broke with two sixes and a ten, Will tapped my arm and smiled. Riding the luck I must have gleaned from Gregory
Ayers’s sleeve, I won the next two hands. Will seemed to enjoy my winnings more than his own, and the two middle-aged men
sitting to his left started to pay attention. It was a heady feeling, this flow of blood, this run of luck. I proceeded to
lose the next two hands, but was not discouraged. Everyone lost a hand or two, Will told me. And I could feel luck in my stomach.
Feel that it was going to be my night. I won another hand, gained confidence and raised my bet to $75. I won four more hands
and was up a net $450 for the evening; this was profit above the money I’d withdrawn from my checking account.

I was charged with luck, feeling both giddy and wildly competent. I had a kinship with the cards, a sense of what would be
dealt, a knack I never knew for numbers. I could have played all evening, but when Will said he was going to the food court
to get something to eat, I felt the rumbling in my stomach. It was already eight o’clock, and I’d forgotten about dinner.
When the two middle-aged men beside him looked at each other and said they’d take a break, too, I knew I had no choice.

“Can I go with you?” I asked Will.

“Sure,” he said, looking pleased.

I took my time, rounding up my knapsack and tipping the dealer to give the two middle-aged men time to get up from the table.
They were a few yards behind Will and me, but we were all headed in the general direction of the restaurants. I slowed my
pace to let the two men catch up. It was late, and I no longer cared if I was breaking casino etiquette. I whipped out the
news clip of Barry, shoved it toward them, and repeated the story about rounding up his friends for a memorial service.

I got the same cool response I’d experienced earlier. The two men barely looked at the news clip before insisting that they
had never heard of him. “He was a good guy. Experienced player,” I said, making up new details in the hopes that this would
jog their memories.

They shook their heads, determined not to even look at the picture.

I turned back to Will, expecting him to ditch me, too. But instead, he looped his arm through mine and asked if I’d rather
go to the steak house or the Italian place for dinner.

Suddenly, I was more exhausted than hungry. “You know, maybe I should just call it a night,” I said. “I’ve got to drive all
the way back to Providence.”

“Providence? I thought you said you were from Worcester.”

“I grew up in Worcester. I live in Providence.”

As it turned out, Will, whose last name was Poirier, had worked for a few years as a hairdresser in Rhode Island. He grimaced
so I could see what a horrible experience that had been. Another thought occurred to him. “Is that where you know that guy
from? The guy who died? From Providence?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Did he own some kind of convenience store?”

I looked at him with surprise. “He used to.”

“Yeah, I think I know who he was,” Will said. “A lot of people from Rhode Island gamble here. But this guy…” He took the picture
from me and for the first time really looked at it. “This guy used to be around here a lot. Mostly blackjack, some roulette.
He liked to talk like he was a big deal, but you could kind of see he was on a losing streak.”