Short Story: Sin City Sinner

Short Story: Sin City Sinner

Totally oblivious to all the ‘yahoo’s’ and high fives reverberating across the expansive floor of the casino, an unkempt, dishevelled little man stood in front of a roulette wheel as it spun round and round on its axis. Leaning forward, and craning his scrawny neck in eager anticipation, he watched the croupier send the little white ball careering helter-skelter in the opposite direction to the wheel’s spin.

Billy Rae Brown was the scruffy man’s name, and his bloodshot eyes swivelled round and round in their sockets as they tried to follow the path of the ball, while at the same time in desperate hope he crossed every dirty digit on his smelly, unwashed body,

He grimaced as the ball clattered along the ridges of the wheel when it slowed, and gasped as it seemed to hesitate before finally coming to rest in the green bed of number Zero.

Billy Rae jumped up and down whooping with delight and causing a cocktail waitress to juggle with, and almost drop, her tray of freebies as she passed by.

The croupier snarled with disgust before pushing three thousand six hundred dollars worth of chips across the table to Billy Rae, who, grinning broadly, stuffed them into the threadbare pockets of his coat and pants - avoiding the ones with holes in them of course. He then took himself and his chips over to the money cage, cashed in, and walked out of the casino still grinning while ramming wads of green back dollars into his empty pockets.

Las Vegas was, as usual, bathed in hot desert sunshine as he emerged from the casino, and despite the mid-afternoon temperature touching 100 degrees, the strip was bustling with people. Throngs of them filled the sidewalks on either side of the wide thoroughfare that was the heart of so-called Sin City. There were tourists waddling along in T shirt and shorts…their cameras constantly clicking. There were gamblers on the prowl…their eyes shifty and their fingers twitching, and in among them all, shuffled the down and outs, raggedly clothed and hollow eyed, their hands outstretched… forever begging.

Billy Rae had been one of the latter until he’d found the hundred dollar bill.

It had been the night before that lady luck had finally winked her fickle and adulterous eye his way. He’d just begun to curl up for the night behind one of the many enormous dumpsters that adorned the rear of the Silver Dollar Hotel and Casino. All he’d wanted to do, was to try and catch a few hours sleep before one of those sons of bitches security guards moved him on again. But as he’d furtively bedded himself down, hiding beneath some old rags and newspapers, he suddenly spotted the bill stuck against the side of a trash can.

With eyes popping, his trembling, grubby little fingers picked it up and turned it over, not believing his good fortune. On the reverse of the note was a rhyme set out in bold print that read; whoever finds me will be a hero, if he dares to invest me on number zero. Billy Rae wondered who’s hand had written the message and why? He didn’t really care though; it was in his hands now, a whole hundred smackers to do with as he liked. However, as he turned the bill over and over, Billy Rae’s gambling affliction took over, and something in the way the message was written set him thinking.

'Why not?’ he mumbled, ‘perhaps I should do as it says. It must be an omen or something, a gift from the gambling gods. Yes, I’ll do it, I’ll do it first thing tomorrow, what can I lose!’

Then, stuffing the bill in his pocket, he settled down to sleep amongst the discarded trash behind the dumpster.

Billy Rae had lived, or to be more exact, existed in Las Vegas for the last four years, having left his mid-west home on his twenty first birthday, dolled up to the nines, with ten thousand dollars in his wallet and high hopes of turning it into a hundred thousand…or even a million if luck really smiled his way!

Of course, like so many gamblers before him, within a week of arriving in sin city, he was penniless and wandering the streets of downtown Vegas in company with the host of other down and outs, wino’s and the ubiquitous smelly hobo’s.

He couldn’t go back home again, there was nothing to go home for. He had been orphaned at the age of ten and had been farmed out to not very loving foster parents until he’d reached his majority. He was in no doubt that they would take him back, but how would he explain to them why he’d run away, and what would they think when they found out that he’d squandered his inheritance in the greedy casinos. The ten thousand bucks he’d gambled away had been left in trust for him by his father’s lawyers, and he’d rushed round to collect it on the very morning of his twenty first birthday. Then, without a word to his foster parents, he’d boarded a greyhound bus and left town.

Billy Rae had decided to try his luck in Vegas rather than finding a regular nine to five job as his guardians had advised. To him, working for somebody else just wasn’t an option he cared to explore. No, he’d find an easier way to expand his fortune, he’d thought.

Anyway, it certainly hadn’t taken him long to lose his ten grand, and ever since then he’d been living off hand-outs and smoking any butt ends that he came across in the gutters.

Now however, since finding the hundred, and turning it into over three grand, he was convinced he was on his way back and would soon be living it up on easy street. He decided he would not make the same mistakes he’d made first time round; this time he’d gamble sensibly and check the odds before diving in with his money.

He took stock of himself as he passed one of the many full-length mirrors that adorned the outside walls of the casino, and winced at the reflection staring back at him. He was not a pretty sight. From his worn out sneakers devoid of laces and with the soles hanging off, to his pants, torn and held up with string, to his filthy shirt and button-less coat, also held together with a piece of dirty string. His eyes moved up to his once well-groomed brown hair; now it was greasy, long and matted, and he sported an unkempt, straggly beard that covered most of his grimy face. No wonder the casino doorman had tried to turn him away, until that is, he saw the hundred dollar bill clutched in Billy Rae’s grubby fist. A complete makeover is what he needed, and he decided to get one as quickly as possible - hell, he could afford it now!

Two hours later, he stood staring at his new image in the very same mirror and smiled with satisfaction. He’d spent just two hundred bucks on a new head-to-toe rig out, had taken a bath and a trip to the barber shop. Now, clean shaven and dressed in his smart new clothes he looked swell, he thought. Swell enough to be taken for a high roller, fresh in town. Then, as he turned to face the bustle of the strip again, he was suddenly confronted by an old down-and-out whose hand was pushed forward as he asked the stock in trade question; ‘spare a dollar for a coffee buddy?’ Billy Rae glared down at him, already forgetting that a few hours earlier he was in the self same boat as the scruffy looking vagrant in front of him.

‘Piss off!’ he growled, turning on his heel and walking away, the dinkies on the heels of his new shoes clicking as he went.

He smiled smugly to himself as he felt the bulge of notes in his pocket, and his fingers itched with the need to make his small fortune even bigger.

‘Now, where can I do the most damage?’ he asked himself, stopping to look around.

His eyes fell immediately onto the flashing neon sign on the other side of the strip that announced garishly; ‘The loosest slots in town; lowest rake poker; highest odds on craps and blackjack; no limit roulette and baccarat; come inside, all are welcome.’

‘That’s the place!’ he murmured, narrowing his eyes and jutting out his jaw.

Crossing the strip, while taking care to dodge the manic cars and the even more manic taxi cabs, he stood at last outside the entrance to The Lucky Strike Casino. Then, breathing deeply, and fondly patting the wad in his pocket, he hitched up his pants and barged in through the gold edged, glass doors.

The warm desert wind rustled the paper bags, newspapers and other bits of trash that littered a dark alleyway behind one of Las Vegas’ numerous casinos. As it did so, a lone, forlorn figure came into view, silhouetted for a moment against a bright security lamp. It was Billy Rae, dishevelled again, gaunt and hungry looking, he shuffled along wearily, casting his eyes left and right desperately trying to find another hundred dollar bill with the words; invest me on number Zero written boldly on its back.