Read Online Casino Moon by Peter Blauner - Free Book Online

seen you rolling your eyes just now when he was talking about you getting a marker off the casino.”
    “Yeah, that’s all right, but I’ve got my days planned out already.”
    I wasn’t going to mention anything about my talk with John B. I already had Teddy hanging over my shoulder looking to grab half of whatever I made.
    “Look at it,” said my father, reaching into my pocket. “He’s got a little black book he carries around with him.”
    I pushed his hand away from my Filofax as the rest of them started to crack up again. As the laughter started to die out after a couple of seconds, I heard a round of sniffling from the other end of the table. Maybe some of these guys still had their cocaine habits after all.
    “Listen,” I said, fixing my cuffs and smoothing back my hair. “If I got a clean record, why would I wanna blow it for a nine-thousand-dollar marker?”
    “The high roller,” said my father, grabbing my arm and punching it playfully.
    I ignored him and went back to scratching the wax off the Chianti bottle. “All I’m saying is I don’t need the pressure. I got better things to do with my life.”
    Teddy stopped chewing and just looked at me. It suddenly got very quiet. I could hear the busboy stacking dishes in the kitchen.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Teddy touched a spot just below his stomach.
    No one was talking. Even the mural of Caesar on the wall looked tense.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    These were guys who’d just as soon blow the back of your head off as change a television channel. And since I’d seen what happened to Larry, I had a good idea of what that might feel like.
    “No, go ahead,” Teddy said in a cold voice. “You were saying you’re better than us.”
    “No, I wasn’t saying I was better, Ted. I was just saying I got other plans.”
    Teddy sucked his teeth again and tugged his earlobe, the way Humphrey Bogart would. In his mind he was a dead ringer for Bogey, even though he weighed three hundred pounds.
    “I give you all this money and get you started in your own business, and you’re making ‘other plans’?” he said.
    I saw my father almost doubling over in his chair from discomfort. When he’d originally loaned me the money to go to college and start my own business, I had no idea how it would change my life. Now I had no way to pay it back. I’d tried everything. A couple of years before, I’d had a legit job managing some buildings on Atlantic Avenue. So Teddy muscled in on them, went partners with the owners, and burned them down for the insurance money. A few months later, I was running boat tours around the island Atlantic City is set on. What happened? Teddy got interested and all the boats sank. The same thing would happen with Elijah and the boxing match if I wasn’t careful.
    “I’ll get it all back to you with interest,” I told Teddy. “Just be patient.”
    “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” His eyes tightened. “Watch my favorite niece and her children starve because you can’t provide for them?”
    “Hey, Teddy, I’m doing my best. I just haven’t gotten the right break yet.”
    It was like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
    “The right break?!” His lip curled. “My own son, rest his soul, should’ve got the same breaks as you.”
    His son Charlie hanged himself when we were in school together. He’d been a friend of mine. Skinny intense kid, who always listened to the rock group Kiss. Instead of saying “hello,” he’d say, “Love Gun!” I used to smoke pot with him under the Boardwalk. He couldn’t stand being part of his father’s life either. Every day he’d get teased by other kids at school: “Okay, Mr. Mafia’s son, let’s see how tough you really are.” And every day they’d kick the shit out of him. He didn’t have someone like Vin to protect him around the schoolyard. So he’d run home and have Ted ride him for being a weakling. As long as Charlie lived, his father’s