The House's Money
Created by Adobe Firefly
Michael Nolen had been in tough jams his whole life, but none worse than this.
The road to here probably doesn’t matter too much. He’d gone in the hole over the course of a year following the divorce. She’d taken half, and his creditors were on the verge of taking the rest.
He thought he could fix things by stealing from the casino where he worked - a few bucks here, a few there, and pretty soon he’d managed to skim off the 75 large he figured he needed to fix all his earthly woes.
What he didn’t need was to get caught. But in this life, you don’t always get what you need.
“Mikey,” the owner of the joint said, looking down at his tied up former employee. “I won’t belabor this, but you made a dumb mistake and you’re going to have to pay.”
Michael wept silently. He knew begging was pointless. And, if truth be told, he knew this is where this was all going to end up.
“But, I always liked you, Mikey. So, I’m going to give you a couple of payment options.”
“I can pay it back. Some of it’s gone, but I’ll work it off,” Michael said.
“Nah,” the owner said. “You and I both know this can’t be a financial transaction. Here’s the deal. I can have Robert here end this nice and quick. You won’t feel a thing.”
He nodded at the large man in the charcoal suit. The man pulled a pistol out from under his jacket and circled around Michael’s chair.
“Or, I’ll let you make a single bet. If you take the bet, I guarantee you’ll survive to see the sunrise. Today and tomorrow and so on.”
Michael looked up, not sure what to say.
“Of course, it won’t be pretty,” the owner said, walking over to an old roulette wheel laid out in the back storage area where this pleasant conversation was taking place. He picked up the faded white pea sized ball from the wheel.
“One spin, Michael. Whatever number that lands on is the number of bones we break.”
Michael swallowed.
“You got 206 bones. At worst, what, maybe 20 percent of them get broken.”
“What?” Michael said, refusing to understand the predicament.
“It’ll be dealer’s choice, of course. But, hey, I’m a fair man. I’ll mix up the big ones and the little ones. And I won’t break any that’ll take you out of commission.”
“I…I…”
“And, look, it’s an American wheel. You’ve got a zero and a double zero. Hit either of those, and you walk out of here unscathed. Beats a slug to the back of the head by my way of thinking, but what do I know?”
Michael looked down.
“Gonna need an answer, Mikey. If you don’t give me one by the count of three, I’ll just let Robert end this nice and quick.”
Michael couldn’t speak.
“One…two….”
Michael heard Robert racking the slide on his pistol.
“Spin it! Just spin it!” Michael shouted, his voice filled with panic.
The owner nodded at Robert. “See, told you he was smart.”
He spun the wheel and flicked the ball along the inside rail. Michael could see the ball race around the top for the wheel for an impossibly long before it arced down towards the multi-colored numbered slots.
It landed in the “2” before bouncing out and into a few other numbers before finally coming to rest.
“Black 29. Bad luck there.”
The owner picked up a hammer and walked over to Michael.
“Hold tight Mikey, this is going to be a very long night.”