Going west on U.S. 94, the automatic pilot grabbed the wheel. Tom resisted the first pull, steered straight. The next tug came at the southbound exit for U.S. 494. He beat that one, too. Ten minutes later, as the spire of the state capitol marked the horizon, the impulse snuggled up again. This time, seduction was fast and total; he drove past the downtown St. Paul exits and continued west on 94 until it branched and he took 35E south. The Rabbit knew the way.
Get off on County Road 42, turn west, and then it was eight miles to the Mystic Lake Casino.
Working through the turns, his pulse quickened: Eagan and Prior Lake-the crossroads. Casino to the left. Racetrack to the right. He turned left, passed the frost-rimmed rock-landscaped entrance to the “Wilds” golf course. A few miles later, the casino rose like a squashed modernist wigwam from a sea of parked cars.
He turned into the lot, left the rusting VW, squared his slumped shoulders and walked through the tinted glass doors.
Mystic Lake was roomy and clean, without the sweaty opium den feel of smaller casinos. Showroom bright, a cherry Acura gleamed on a dais. Win me. He inhaled the signature incense of cigarette smoke entwined with the loopy rush of calliope music spiraling off the slots.
With childlike faith, he let it all surround him like the pulsating heart of an immense plastic toy. It reminded Tom of his deceased mother’s living room in Bayport, Minnesota, in the shadow of Stillwater Prison, where his dad had worked as a guard. After Dad died, she’d draw the curtains and re-cline like a silent movie star on the couch in front of the TV, sucking on Winstons that protruded from a slim cigarette holder. Wheel of Fortune flickered on the screen. The volume was turned all the way up.
Mom died before Minnesota legalized gambling. Her one trip to Vegas with her chain-smoking girlfriends was her preview of heaven.
All he had was the two twenties he’d lifted from Barb Luct.
Start small. Play his way up to the blackjack tables. Hell, go to the nickel machines if he had to.
Just show me some magic.
When his stake was minimal, he always started on the same machine, an Atronic game scrolled with bright symbols of heraldry and knights in armor. A bank of them nested between quarter keno and across from a row of deuces wild poker. Camelot combined interactive video with the slam-bam spin of a slot. Three pay lines rotated icons on the drum.
Shields, castles, crenelated pennants, number sevens, battle-axes crossed on shields; the usual arcana of the one-armed bandit. But there were also progressive symbols; when an archery target appeared on one line the play moved to a new screen on which two knights squared off in an archery contest.
Choose left or right.
Two helmets on one line moved the play to a jousting tournament.
Three swords in a row summoned the test of Excalibur and the stone.
Blackjack was cold sober business. You had to count. You had to mind the rules. But this game, with its colorful marquee of castles and armor, took him back to the realm of childhood wishes. He stepped up to a machine like a knight errant confronting a squat Sphinx.
Am I worthy. Judge me. If he pulled the sword from the stone on his first pass Caren Angland would call him up. He would write the biggest story of his life, and they’d have to take him back on general assignment.
He would only use the money he had in his pocket.
Promise.
But soon the two twenties he’d slipped from Barb’s wallet were gone. Then all of his pocket change. He had to amend the rules. Just this once.
At the check-cashing booth, he slapped down his last piece of plastic, a MasterCard to which he’d transferred all his other balances; 5.9 percent APR, no finance charge for twelve months.
The circuits rejected $100.
“Fifty,” he told the bored clerk. Fifty also drew a pass.
Probably the clip of the service charge exceeded his credit limit.
“Forty.” Forty went through.
With two more twenties he returned to his machine, fed an Andy Jackson into the slot. Eighty credits electronically clicked up on the screen. Coolly, after toying with him, the machine gulped down the eighty. His hand shook, sweaty, as he tendered the second bill into the electronic maw.
An ascending stream of chimes erupted in back of him.
Big winner. Coins steadily clinked, little silver hammers striking base metal. Other people were winning.
My turn, dammit.
Like mockery, from across the vast room a PA voice com-plimented Tony Lofas of Grand Forks, who had won twenty-three hundred dollars on Dollar Double Diamond.
The drum in front of him cocked and spun and cocked and spun and nothing matched up. Change the pattern. He cashed in his few remaining credits so he could feed the coins manually into the slot on every play. Soon his stake had shrunk to a pile he could hold in the palm of his hand.
More slowly, the quarters dropped down the cool steel gullet.
Grimly, he plugged in three of his dwindling quarters, selected the center line and spun the drum.
The clamor, the cheap electronic champagne bubbles, the needy human press all around, receded. Tom was alone, locked in the slot.
Three swords in a row.
A trumpet fanfare. A new display magically swam up from the electronic alchemy. A forest grotto. Two princes stood on either side of a sword plunged to the hilt in a huge rock.
The prince on the right was short and dark, with a sinister, spaded black beard and red and black livery. Tom favored the younger man on the left, who was blond, broad-shouldered, and clean-shaven. Like he might look if he got in shape. Tom even had a lucky nickname for Mr. Left. The pillow talk nickname Ida whispered in the dark.
“C’mon, Danny,” he chanted under his breath as he keyed the left button.
The blond prince reached forward, and for a beat, his hand paused on the hilt. Then, effortlessly, with a smooth confident kingly sweep of his arm, he drew the sword from the stone and held it triumphantly over his head to a cloudburst of special effects.
Thunder pealed, lightning bolts electrified the display. The boulder pulsed red as a living heart. A crown appeared on the winner’s head. A regal purple robe draped his shoulders.
Sparkles of anointing energy closed the circuit between Tom’s rapt face and the screen.
A scroll above the stone announced You WIN 1000.
Only quarters, not dollars. But it was a jackpot. Someday he’d have this feeling in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. And it would be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
“Yes!” affirmed Tom James. He punched the cash-out button and listened to the abundant shower of falling silver.