Roulette

It was night time in Las Vegas. A limousine dropped off a pony
tailed man outside the Monte Carlo Casino. He nodded to the doorman,
and a busty cocktail waitress balancing trays of champagne on her bare
arm handed him a glass. He walked over to the roulette table, and
watched the wheel spin.


The men who gambled at Monte Carlo regularly were used to the
girls who went there, delicate as Belgian chocolate, who circled the
room in less time than it took for the ball to roll around the roulette
wheel. As the ball landed on red 7, Scarlett entered the room. Her eyes
were green, like precious vineyard grapes, she had long willowy hair
and legs that men opened doors for. She wore a purple and black satin
dress, with perforations along the shoulders. Within fifteen minutes of
her entering the room, the mood had changed, suddenly there was a
purpose. Scarlett had almost a Midas touch, in that the only thing she
touched was gold. A grey haired man, wearing a suit as crisp as a fifty
dollar bill put his arm around Scarlett's waist and whispered his name
in her ear, in a deep Southern American accent. She could feel his
breath against her neck, his stubble against her chin. Gradually, she
slipped her hand into his and he caressed the goosepimples until they
had disappeared completely. He whispered did she want a drink, she
nodded. He unwrapped his fingers from hers and walked towards a
cocktail waitress. Scarlett sat down at a table by a window and looked
out at the Las Vegas streets seventeen floors below. She took out a
packet of cigarettes, and as she inhaled the first, a shooting star
shot across the sky. She looked up, and watched it sail over the glass
roof. She took the cigarette from between her lips and smoke drifted
across the room, like a hundred dandelion heads delicately sewn
together. Already a waiter replaced the ashtray on the table, he took
the old one away and swept the two cigarette ends and speckles of ash
into a golden pot. The South American came back and placed a huge jug
of iced Tequila Sunrise onto the table, along with two glasses which he
lay on lace serviettes. He pulled up a chair, sat down and poured out
the tequila, the glasses chinking as they were touched by the crushed
ice. Scarlett picked a cocktail stick of cubed fruit from the jug. As
she rolled her tongue around the cherry, all the dice in the room
stopped mid air, a bottle, flipped by a bartender, froze mid
somersault. She gripped the cherry between her teeth, and as she bit
down, chewed, and licked the juice tricking down her lip with her
tongue, the bottle landed back in the barman's hand and all the dice
landed on a six.


A girl was killed in the Monte Carlo Casino two months
earlier, June 16, 1987. She had used her sister's driving licence to
pretend she was older than she was. It was found in a hotel room,
amongst shards of shattered chandelier and droplets of blood, a pair of
socks and sandles, no body. The casino stayed open the next day,
Scarlett the only female under twenty five in there.


He tells her his name is Miguel, it seemed familiar, she
wondered whether she had ever slept with him before. She knew that he
goes to the Monte Carlo regularly, she had seen him often, always at
the roulette table. He had won earlier, she let him tell her all about
it, even though she had watched it closely herself. It was a story she
had heard a hundred times before. When men won, they liked to tell
girls, either verbally, or by flashing possessions. His arm was around
her again, his fingers caressing her hip bone, she flinched as he
kissed her on the neck.
"Your necklace is beautiful" he said, lifting it up with forefinger and
thumb, while kissing underneath it. "I will buy you a hundred necklaces
just as expensive" he said, and slipped the sleeve of her dress down,
kissing her shoulder. As he licked her skin, Scarlett watched the man
with the ponytail sweep all the chips on the board into the palms of
his hand.


Miguel kissed Scarlett in the foyer of the casino entrance.
He'd booked a double room out of the force of habit. They kissed at
length, uninhibited after the tequila forced down their throats. Miguel
reached into his pocket and found his room key.
"Let's go down." He led her by the hand up the carpeted corridor, into
the elevator, while gazing at the reflections of the two of them in
every mirror he could glimpse at. They kissed again when the doors
closed, and they went down, floor 17, 16, 15. He hitched up her skirt
and they kissed, his hand exploring her silk underwear, before they
were interrupted on floor twelve. The man with the ponytail stepped in
without acknowledging them, put his hands in his pockets and looked at
Scarlett, the girl he had been looking at all night. Scarlett watched
him go into his room, remembering which door it was. Within two minutes
of Miguel pulling her dress over her head, she made her apologies, said
she had to go home and redressed herself. Miguel was bright red in the
face, she heard him punch the wall as she walked down the corridor. He
watched her through the spy hole as she knocked on the door of the man
with the ponytail.


***



Miguel runs out of money in the Blackpool Amusement Arcade quickly. He
closes his eyes, as passionately as Marvin Gaye but when he puts his
hands in his pockets, all the feels is the cotton of the insides. He
doesn't feel angry, just empty. When low, he thinks of food, of
restaurants, of cooking. He finds warmth in his pockets, it displays a
confident bravado, stops him from curling up and shaking. At the change
bureaux, the woman who had been looking at him puts on an overcoat and
walks towards the door. Miguel gets there before her. He assumes it is
Scarlett, but at first does not recognise her for certain. She walks
through the door, flashes Miguel a perfunctory smile and crosses the
puddled road. He waits for a car to drive past, then walks over to
her.
"Can I give you a lift? That's my car, there." He points to a white
Ford Fiesta four parking spaces away. "I mean it is raining, and I have
nowhere to be. I would gladly?"
"?okay." She nods, and changes direction, the two walk to the car
together.
"I'd like to offer more" he says, cleaning the windscreen with an old
rag. "I mean dinner, a restaurant, but my current financial?"
"?a lifts fine" she says, sharply, but without being impolite.
"I could cook. Sorry, you've said no. I'll take you home." She shakes
her head.
"What's your name?"
"Miguel"
"Miguel" she says, quietly, to herself, as though chewing it around
like tender meat. "I'd like you to cook for me Miguel. I'm Scarlett."
Miguel smiles at the confirmation and slips the car into fifth gear as
the road widens into two lanes.


When he moved to England, a business partner sent him an
email asking if he'd seen Scarlett yet. It was an almost nothing
comment, the two knew her from the casino, everyone knew her from the
casino. Miguel replied straight away, asking if Scarlett really was in
England, and the follow up email revealed that she had married an
English model, and settled home in Manchester, but the infidelity which
was well reputed in the Monte Carlo Casino stayed with her, and he
caught her in bed with an African American body builder who had
travelled across the ocean to pursue her. Miguel's business partner
knew nothing after this; the Monte Carlo Casino continued without her,
since she last stepped in there, a hundred girls had walked along the
carpets, graceful as ballerinas, deadly as tigers. The casino survived
without Scarlett, she did not survive without the casino. It was not
Miguel's own decision to follow her, several people back in Las Vegas
had urged him, desperate to know how Scarlett was. His life had gone
downhill, several investments had been unsuccessful, his life followed
the same pattern as Scarlett's, just less glamorous.


"You come to the arcades a lot." It was a statement rather
than a question. She rarely speaks; her silence is as attractive as her
figure, her eyes, her teeth. He remembers being attracted to her
silence all that time ago, enjoying it when she did speak, or Southern
Californian accent has faded in the fifteen years that passed since he
last saw her. She still wore make up, though to cover up the signs of
ageing rather than to accentuate her beauty, as it had been before.
Miguel nods, though she doesn't see it, he has his back to her as he
rummages around in the pantry. He places three carrots on the side,
along with an onion and a leek. The kitchen is cramped; Scarlett
manoeuvres herself out of the way of the cupboard he opens to take out
a chopping board, then again to move away from the sink, where he runs
water, checks it for temperature and rinses the carrots thoroughly. She
moves a third time to allow him room to select a knife, the sharpest in
the drawer, and finds herself in the same position as she started at,
having moved 360 degrees, her back to every wall in the kitchen. The
knife is far too sharp for chopping and peeling but within seconds the
chopping board is full of fresh vegetables, peeled and sliced. Miguel
brushes the peelings into a carrier bag he uses as a dustbin, wraps a
tea towel around his right hand and takes out a casserole dish of
potatoes and sausages fresh from the morning's farmers market,
sizzling, the smell spreading around the kitchen.
"You still come despite the killing?" Scarlett asks, surprised.
"Did someone die? I did not know." Miguel adds the vegetables to the
casserole dish, slots it back onto the bottom shelf of the oven, and
clicks the door shut.
"Last week. A sixteen year old girl. It made the newspapers."
"I do not read much." Miguel sits down at the table in the kitchen.
Scarlett sits next to him.
"At the back of the arcade," she continues, "Where the beer crates are
stored. Local kids smoke there. Her throat was slit using a broken
bottle, she was found in the morning, her shoes and socks had been
taken. In the struggle cratefuls of empty bottles fell to the floor. It
took the entire staff seven hours to sweep the floor clean.
Look!"
She unbuckles her left sandle and takes off her sock. The little toe of
her left foor has a cut, as feint as a vein. Michael stoops down and
kisses it. They both smile, Michael lets go of the ankle, goes to the
sink and rinses the knife under cold water. Scarlett pulls her sock
back on, and switches on the black and white television in the corner
of the kitchen. She adjusts the aerial, and flicks through the
channels. She settles on a cartoon, a Princess with a tiara nestled in
curls of strawberry blonde hair stands at the top of her castle,
screaming for help.