Saturday, October 23, 2021

Money Always Wins -- A Halloween Story

For your Halloween reading pleasure and delectation, a story from me (cw: gore).  Happy Halloween!



Money Always Wins

The plan for Halloween was simple.  Stranded at that frustrating age between enjoying a night collecting free candy and a night of hard drinking and dancing in as little clothing and as much body paint as possible, the potential hook-up and all, Sasha, Sasha, and Joaquin decided to make their own fun.  They were all students at the local high school way up and out of town to the north, practically Canada but not quite.  Fall had already moved in – not the crisp, bright autumns you see in movies set in New England where people pick apples in over-priced fleece vests, but the rainy, dank fall of Bellingham, Washington.  The leaves didn't crunch under your feet as much as they turned to mush, and fat, confused slugs wondered where the sunshine was hiding before being pancaked by truck tires.  Battered pairs of jeans and leather jackets, each a size or two too small, were their uniforms now – like shivering little Ramones for the next five months.  Only tourists or old people would be caught wearing weather appropriate gear out here.  Sasha G., rarely acknowledged as pack leader but leader all the same, had made plans for the Saturday night before Sunday, Halloween day.  They were going to break in and search through the abandoned tribal casino just off the highway towards Mount Baker.
Sasha G. came from even further up the highway, where a few generations back a local Orthodox church had payed to bring entire families of fellow believers over from Russia.  There hadn't been too much thought put into just what these families would do once they were settled in the wilds north of the town proper, but construction jobs were usually plentiful.  People liked to retire out here – buy a piece of land with more trees than they knew what to do with, then cut them all down to make lawns, almost out of fright at so much wild nature being allowed to remain in place.  So a snowball of plumbers, electricians, and general workers who knew how to use a chain saw (or pretended to) could make something of a living out here along with the retirees from California and their pensions.  That's what Sasha G.'s own father did, close to retirement now himself, as well as Sasha B.'s father before the heart attack.  Joaquin's dad was a dentist in town but liked living out here with the deer and the squirrels and the rabbits, who actually seemed to love the isolation and quiet despite the fact that his wife and son very much did not.
There were lots of Sashas around, both north of town and within it, since the great migration from Russia back in the 1990's, when Americans still thought they could save just about anybody from themselves.  The two Sashas indeed carried their proper family names – G and B, but starting in elementary school they'd actually been labeled as “Sasha Girl” and “Sasha Boy” by an aging homeroom teacher who couldn't be bothered.  It stuck of course, even though they both hated it – Sasha G. more than Sasha B., who tended to let things like this roll off of his back.  Sasha G. knew that names and titles were important, held a certain sort of power beyond the obvious linguistic implications.  But Sasha B. thought to himself, at the end of some days, that it kind of sounded cool at least.
At lunch time Sasha G. let it be known that she'd made the communal plans for Saturday night, Halloween Eve, and Sasha B. and Joaquin weren't about to miss out on any potential fun.  They trudged over to her red, aged Kia in the high school parking lot and held court, each dutifully lighting a cigarette as Sasha G. turned down the music, turned up the heater, and left the engine running even though she was terribly low on gas money as usual.
“The casino.  Let's check it out this Saturday night.”
Sasha B. yawned and then tried to blow a smoke ring.  “John and those guys are having the party though.  His uncle got them a keg.”
Joaquin, who rarely questioned why it was he always sat in the back, “rode bitch” as Sasha B. liked to remind him, was shuffling through his backpack, trying to find the half-finished math homework he swore he'd finish on the bus ride into school that morning.  “Casino has got mad security Sasha G.  You know those tribal police have nothing better to do than try and bust people like us.”
Sasha G. looked up into the rear-view mirror to avoid the energy it would take to actually look Sasha B. or Joaquin in the eyes.  “Those tribal police graduated from here two years ago.  They're going to be at John's Halloween party getting fucked up.”
“The casino has been locked up for a decade.  There's nothing in there.”  Sasha B. didn't usually like to contradict Sasha G., but he also knew there was a fraction of a chance he might actually get laid at John's that coming night and didn't want to miss out.
Joaquin started coughing, then managed to drop ash into the center of his open backpack.  He'd only started smoking the week before on Sasha B.'s heartfelt recommendation.  A paperback copy of The Lord of the Flies took a direct hit, along with his his various sketchbooks.  He madly smeared the ash as much as possible, all over his pencil case and school notebooks, managing to make things much worse, wondering if he'd go back to class that afternoon smelling like a damp chimney.  “I'm up for whatever.  I have to be home by midnight though.”
“The casino has been empty for a while.  Anything in there worth stealing has already been taken.  The security guys are going to the party at John's, covering for each other.  We just have to re-break the window in back and we're in.”  Sasha G. maintained her line of sight on the mirror, turned the left half of her lip down a little as if to imply they were the two biggest pussies in the world if they didn't go along with this simple but amazingly clever plan.  She also started to cough though, not from inexperience smoking so much as the need to roll down her driver's side window and let some of the fumes out from three lit smokes.
Sasha B. reveled in the fact that he, as the longest-term smoker, hadn't coughed at all.  “Casino has been dead for years since it went broke.  Won't be anything in there but old furniture they couldn't sell.”
Sasha G. glared.  “Yeah, well, go to that party and don't get laid as usual.  It's Halloween and we should do something different.”
Joaquin looked up from his now smoldering backpack.  “Do either of you Russian assholes have a baby wipe?”

*     *     *

It was no secret that the reservation casino had gone belly-up about ten years ago.  Various, onion-like layers of graft, laziness, and simple greed, not to mention millions in unpaid taxes, had done the trick.  It had had a good run – locals from Bellingham came up, especially on weekends, and Canadians came down, if only because they could buy gasoline and booze and smokes at heavily discounted tribal prices at the convenience store out front.  The other two casinos in the county had soldiered on, one catering to the local retirees with expensive weekend two-night packages.  The other one over in Lynden to the west just focused on the primary mission of separating people from their money with video poker and table games.  The abandoned one they would visit Saturday night had gone down in area lore as something of a grand joke.  People walked in with their money and managed to lose most or all of it, use their coupon for a few rounds at the buffet, listen to the passable country and jazz musicians do their thing for a few hours.  But the county and the state stepped in when they realized the funding for their various anti-drug and anti-smoking and, mildly unsurprising, anti-gambling education initiatives never seemed to materialize.  There was even a local newspaper back then that had covered most of the story – “LOCAL CASINO GOING 'BUST?'”  Hopefully somebody got paid at least a few hundred bucks for that headline alone.  Beyond that, Mr. Jenkins, a history teacher at Sasha and Sasha and Joaquin's high school, had once muttered under his breath, on his way to the bathroom between classes, that even smart people could “fuck up a wet dream from time to time.”  He remains to this day one of the favorite teachers at the school among the kids who actually like to read and learn things, a healthy minority.
As for the casino itself, it's smaller than you might imagine if you've ever seen Vegas.  Now, in its raging decrepitude, it seemed to grow even smaller every year out of neglect.  The chainsaw-carved guardian beaver statues surrounding the main building were sad and weathered, the fat, leaping salmon painted around the place had been scratched out for some reason leaving only mute, gray echoes of former cheer and glory.  The gas station and liquor store was still there, about 30 meters up front towards the highway, still making money to pay off the massive pile of back taxes owed.  All of it was a sad reminder, a greedy hiccup, of what had once been good times and mixed luck for the locals, for the Canadians, for the packs of retirees budgeting pure avarice into their monthly fixed incomes.  “COME BACK AGAIN!” could still be read in a legible gray outline between two of the guardian beaver statues, the block letters themselves torn down, eternally poised and smiling hauntingly for crowds that no longer came, and never would again.

*     *     *

In town the stoic citizens of Bellingham rarely asked questions, kept to themselves.  Fifteen miles north out here nobody did, unless you really were begging for trouble.  Sasha G. parked her battered Kia on a quiet street of small houses, half of them really mobile homes set into concrete.  She'd even driven with the radio off, which pained her greatly.  Sasha B. was in the passenger seat with his aging Supersonics duffle bag, containing the tools they'd need for that night.  Joaquin was in back, by far the most nervous of all three, and in his jacket he'd stuffed an actual camera and one of his many overflowing sketch-books.
Sasha G. gave her small crew a quick glance before asking Sasha B., “Why do you keep scratching your ear like that?”
“I got a new earring.”
“So that's two now?”
“Yeah, but the new one is part gold, real gold.”
“So a fake silver earring and a cheap gold one?”
“It wasn't cheap.”
Joaquin let them both know, for at least the fifth time that evening, that he had to be home by midnight.  Sasha G. cut the engine and the headlights, and noted on the only remaining dashboard light that it was now 10.  Late October in Bellingham – it had been dark for almost three hours already.
Sasha G. prepared to exit the car but turned and scolded Joaquin – “Stop scratching at your neck there, buddy.”
Joaquin met her glare and mumbled, stuffed what looked like a necklace down the front of his shirt.  Sasha G. could only make out the word “protection” coming from his scared mouth, and decided this was simply Joaquin being himself – always a little bit off, but always with his own contingency plans in place if needed.
They made their way towards the abandoned casino, past two more rows of dilapidated houses and across the backside of the poorly lit parking lot of the gas station and liquor store, still doing some business on a damp, cold Saturday night.  Sasha G. wasn't entirely confident, but she figured her plan was good enough – the two guards on night duty were either getting ready to head for John's party, or they were on their phones trying to figure out if the young women they both hoped to meet up with would be there or not.  Past the liquor store on the highway the occasional truck went by, or SUV heading south back into town.  One of the tribal security cars was parked directly in front of the station, and they couldn't see the other one.
“Walk like we belong here,” muttered Sasha B.  “Just some dumb kids with nothing better to do on a Saturday night.”  Joaquin and Sasha G. didn't think much of his intelligence, but his wits usually served him and, by extension, all of them pretty well.
“What about cameras?” asked Joaquin.
“They're burned out, last I heard.  Or at least they tape everything but nobody ever looks at the tape.  They can barely afford the two night-shift guards as it is.”  Sasha B. was finally looking forward to this, whatever this was.
“We'll get in, look around, take some pictures, and get out.  Then you two virgins can go to that stupid Halloween party,” offered Sasha G.
“Not me, I have to. . .”
“Shut up, Joaquin.”
Behind the casino now, hidden from the gas station and highway, across from the abandoned rail cars and grassy fields leading into nothing, Sasha B. reached in his bag and pulled out a crowbar.  They came up to what was once the rear service entrance to the casino, a single dumpster overflowing with garbage the only reminder that the building had once had a purpose.  The double doors would be firmly locked, but a single window, its bottom half covered in a scrawl of duct tape, was their way in.  Sasha B. didn't want to break any glass if he didn't have to and, to everyone's surprise, he knew right away that he could probably just cut through the tape with his pocket knife.
Sasha G. stood back and let Sasha B. get to work, even as she finally noticed the fresh bandage on his left ear.  It only had a little blood seeping through on it.
“Well, we're at the casino so I guess we're supposed to be lucky.”  Sasha B. started slicing through the mess of sticky gray tape, while Joaquin aimed a small flashlight to help out.  Sasha G. realized she'd left her cigarettes back in the Kia.  She wanted one badly, and not to just show off or let people know she didn't want to be fucked with as was usual.
“Well, we're in.”  Sasha B. peeled away multiple layers of tape and some forgotten, mildewed cardboard, then reached his arm in and around the side of the window to unlock it.  The hole in the glass was small and jagged, but the window slid open about three feet with little sound.  “The seniors come out here to party and fuck sometimes, and nobody wants to pay to fix any of this shit.”
Joaquin faintly whimpered, “Maybe I should stay here and keep watch?”
Sasha G. was quick in response – “No way.  You take the best pictures anyways.  We all go in.”
Sasha B. gently lifted his right foot up and over the window opening.  “If we find any booze it's mine.  Or money.”

*     *     *

”Smells like death in here,” but Sasha B. was wrong as usual.  It was no doubt a damp, offensive smell, but quite the opposite of death – too much life really, the ripe stench reminding Sasha G. of when her dog unexpectedly had puppies in the back bedroom and nobody found out for two days.  Joaquin looked around with his small flashlight, while Sasha G. made due with her smartphone.  Certainly things had died in here, but far more must still be living – rats and cats, wild mushrooms and molds.  There was a faint dripping sound from every corner of the place, and the three made their way out of what must have once been a kitchen onto the casino floor proper.  There was practically a trail of empty beer cans and liquor bottles leading them into the main room, onto what must have once been a small dance floor in front of a low-rising stage.  As their eyes adjusted to the feeble light, they could see that Sasha B. had been mostly right, yet again – any decent furniture, any decent roulette or blackjack tables, had all been  removed and sold off in a hurry, or just stolen.  The remaining chairs and tables were all makeshift – sagging cardboard and thin wooden slabs thrown on top of sawhorses, a few plastic bags near bursting with trash leaning against each other in pitiful facsimiles of comfort.  Joaquin, always the documentarian, set aside his fear and brought out his expensive Nikon rig.  He nearly bent under the weight of it against his chest.
“Flashes O.K., Sasha G.?”
“Yeah, but real quick.  And if we have to run don't go for the car.  Meet up on the far side of the train tracks.”
“I just want a few shots.”
Sasha B. had found a decaying sombrero as he explored behind the bar, which must have been made of wood too cheap to move elsewhere.  Like Sasha G. he wandered about using his phone for light.  “Not even a shitty slot machine to play with.  Like I told you guys, nothing here.”
Sasha G. jumped when Joaquin's first flash went off.  She checked her watch – 10:15.  While the windows facing the gas station were all blacked out she knew that they'd want to get out in the next five minutes.  Sasha B. finished his rummaging behind the bar, a stream of curses coming out of his mouth, mostly in Russian.  His older brother hadn't wanted to buy him any beers for the party that night, so he was hoping against hope he could find a bottle of something to at least to get fucked up on.
“Sasha G., look here.”  In the thick darkness she could tell Joaquin had found something that interested him, which probably meant something that wouldn't interest her, or anybody else.  “It's a mirror I think.”
She stepped away from Sasha B.'s desperate searches at the bar, across the slick dance floor, and towards the last flash she'd heard from Joaquin.
“It's a mirror with writing I think.”
Sasha G. grabbed Joaquin's flashlight without asking, held it up and towards a panel mirror leaning against the wall between two blacked out windows.  The single word “CHOLO” stared out at both of them, written in what must have been crimson paint or lipstick as an obvious joke.  A canvas drop sheet hung over the left half of the mirror, and Sasha G. tried to make out the first part of another word – “EL” or “LO” or “ME” or some other nonsense, scribbled out of either a fit of drunkenness or sexual frustration.
“What does that mean Sasha?”
“It means we live in a shitty town where even the graffiti artists lack talent.”
Joaquin looked up at her and smiled.  She was hard on him, but he kind of lived for it, knew that he could usually count on her in ways that he could never trust Sasha B., even though he sometimes admired the guy's direct, somewhat brutish, approach to life.  He was finally happy to be along, even if he was still scared.
Sasha B. sidled up behind them, sombrero now stuffed into the back of his jeans.  “Well, the bathrooms are over there if you guys want to make out.  I'm leaving though.”
Sasha G. took the hint.  Joaquin took one last shot of the mirror, then another, then spoke up.  “'CHOLO' can mean friend or asshole, or both.  That's you guys.”
They made it outside and Sasha B. slid the window back into place, and even made a half-hearted attempt to cover up the broken parts of the glass with the weathered jumble of tape and a dank piece of cardboard.  Sasha G. thought they should walk out past the train tracks just to throw off anybody who might suspect something, then thought better of it.  The two guards were long gone to the party by now, and nobody out here cared about three weird high school kids walking back to a Kia on a windy, forlorn Saturday night.  Joaquin glanced back at the casino once, just to make sure the guardian beavers were still there, grinning over and guarding nothing now but a profound emptiness.

*     *     *

Sasha G. dropped Joaquin off at home, a shockingly large seven bedroom house built up from the ground by his father's successful dental practice in town.  Joaquin's father wasn't exactly thrilled that his son's only two friends were ostensible burnouts, but his mom appreciated the fact that he finally had any friends at all.  He was home by 11:30, anyhow, and would stay up in his room until three or four sketching or going over the pictures he'd taken.  Rolling back out of the half kilometer of driveway that got them back onto the highway, Sasha B. finally convinced Sasha G. to at least come in to John's party for a bit.
“I know you hate having a good time and hate everybody from school, but maybe tonight's the night you actually enjoy being alive for once.”  Sasha B. sucked on a cigarette and fingered the brim of his new sombrero, laughed at his own joke.
“It was worth it I guess, the casino” replied Sasha G.
“We can say we've been.  And hell, we got Joaquin to do something illegal for once.”
“I think he had fun, actually, even though I think he might have pissed himself a little.”
“He has a huge crush on you, you know that right?”
“He's like my little brother.  That's gross.”
“Little brothers don't know any better.”
Driving over the the party, they listened to music with the windows rolled own and the heater turned on full blast.  Sasha G. knew it was a beater of a car, but she lived for these moments driving it – the sharp inward rush of fall air, the occasional, pungent smells of wood-smoke and skunk.  She did, in fact, hate parties – the obvious charade of drinking and “having fun” just so people could get in each other's pants at the end of the night.  But it was also Saturday night, and she'd done something foolish and interesting and quite literally illegal by breaking into the old casino.  It would always be a story to tell, at the least.  Sasha B. had his moments as well, and there was an outside chance she might run into the one or two other people at school she actually cared about.
“My fucking ear still hurts like hell,” intoned Sasha B., mostly to the roof of the Kia.
“Did the tattoo studio give you any aspirin?”
“Studio?  Fuck that.  Dmitry did it for me with a hot needle.”
Dmitry, Sasha B.'s older brother, had gotten out of prison recently for stealing cars.
“No wonder it hurts.  Probably infected too.”
“Nah, he poured vodka all over the needle first.”
Sasha G. glanced over at her passenger.  “We really are living the dream out here, aren't we Sasha B.?”
Sasha B. just smiled, rubbed the parts of his skull around the raw and tender parts of his freshly pierced earlobe.  He leaned over towards Sasha G. to check himself out in the rear-view mirror.  As they drove through the night Sasha B. adjusted his newly found sombrero.  It wasn't the most half-assed costume he'd ever worn to a Halloween party, but it was close.  He also ran his hand down into his right jean pocket to finger the 5,000 dollar chip he'd snatched from behind the casino bar, rusted, musty red and gold piping.   If he was lucky tomorrow, it would still be valid at the other tribal casino over in Lynden for some quick cash.  It would have been difficult for him to ever feel more proud of himself than he did at that moment, rushing down the dark highway.
“Guess what I am for Halloween this year Sasha G.?  A cholo!”

*     *     *

Saturday morning and afternoon were primarily a blur for Sasha G.  After dropping Joaquin off at home she'd taken Sasha B. to John's party out in the woods.  (This far north of Bellingham, everybody mainly lives in some variation of out in the woods.)  It had been predictably horrible – red plastic cups, strange, desperate mixtures of the cheapest and strongest alcohol anybody could find, sexual tension, and copious amounts of vomit.  It was primarily a high school party, John's parents having taking their R.V. down to Oregon for the weekend,  but some college kids from Western had actually shown up and actually managed to make things worse.  Sasha G. rarely drank but kind of wanted to that night, but knew she had to drive.  She'd already outwitted two tribal security guards, but that didn't mean much.  There'd be hell to pay if she took chances with Washington State troopers who were certain to be prowling the highway between the party and Bellingham looking to fill their monthly quotas with potential DUIs.  She tried to have fun but about an hour in realized she was, unconsciously, making towers of emptied red plastic cups and emptying ashtrays into the ones on top of the tower, cleaning up after people she didn't like very much.  She got called a dyke twice, once for refusing to go upstairs to the unlit bedrooms with a football player, and another time simply for walking out towards her little red Kia and heading for home.  This only made her more certain that she'd made the right choice in leaving around one in the morning, and feeling stupid for ever heading inside in the first place.
She made it home and took a quick, quiet shower so as not to wake her parents.  She felt grimy not just from the moldy interior of the abandoned casino, but also from the pot smoke and other human smells of the party.  She took a quick spin through Wikipedia on her phone, looking up “NOOKSACK TRIBE” and the story of the embezzlement and various tax avoidance schemes that had shut down the casino, mixed with inscrutable tribal politics, getting up only once that night for an extra blanket for her and her dog Annika, no longer the puppy she thought she still was.  She got up around nine Sunday morning, Halloween itself, and had breakfast with her mom.  Her dad had gotten called in for some roofing work, weekend overtime.  He'd be in a good mood when he got home that night.  So would her mom.
Sasha G. looked forward to a lazy day of reading and listening to music after taking a long morning walk.  More rain had come the night before, after she got home, and the wind had knocked down various pine and cedar boughs along the quiet road she and her neighbors lived on.  Annika the dog was always thrilled at having this kind of quality time with Sasha, and the feeling was mutual.  It was only around 12:30 when her phone started to light up as she was walking back towards her house.
“PLZ ME AND DMITRY HURT PLZ COME FIND US.”  It could only be from Sasha B.  Before she had a chance to type a response, more text – “SSHA IM SORRY I LIDE PLZ DMITRY BLEDIDNG COPS COMING”
“Where the fuck are u 2?”
“LINDEN TEH GOOD CAISNO”
“CHIP FROM LAST NITE DIDN TELL U”
“ME N DMITRY CASHED IT IN LINDIN THEN DEER ACVDNT PLZ COME NOW”
Annika was struggling at her leash to go after some a stray chipmunk that had run and hid in a ditch by the road.  Sasha G. broke into a trot about five minutes from home, trying to remember where she'd left her car keys last night.
“Coming to Lynden, need 20 minutes.  Let cops help you, ambulance 2.”
Juggling her dog and her phone, waiting for the next vibration, Sasha G. didn't let her mind wander too far into whatever kind of trouble Sasha B. and his older brother must have gotten into last night, or this morning.
“IM SORRY I SORRY DMIRYT IS HURT BLADO”
Sasha G. took the spare 30 seconds necessary to get Annika into her backyard pen, then rushed in through the seldom used back door into the kitchen.  Her mom was on the phone, the landline, looking pale.  She covered the bottom end before speaking.
“Your little criminal friend Sasha has been in an accident.”
“Momma, I know, I need to go help him.”
“Help him?  Help him and his convict brother?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“His mom, she just hung up.  The police called her and then she called me.”
“Momma, I'm going to the Lynden Casino, the good casino.  I have to.”
Sasha G.'s Russian was terrible.  Her father had insisted on moving to America that she learn “the right language” and the right language was English, only.  But as she she fished through the key bowl by the front door and tried to remember how much gas she had in the Kia's tank, she certainly understood her mother's quiet, plaintive Russian words – “My god, oh my god.”

*     *     *

Sasha G. got a few more texts on the way northwest towards Lynden, the quiet bedroom town that was home to the “good” tribal casino, the one that hadn't gone bankrupt in a cloud of grift and tax evasion a decade ago like the one near her high school.  She was scared and nervous, even over a reliably unreliable friend like Sasha B., but managed to calm herself and drive steadily.  It was a typical fall afternoon near Bellingham, with the wind picking up and an unavoidable rainstorm on the way for that evening.  Her phone had gone achingly quiet.
When she arrived at the parking lot she saw two ambulances and multiple law enforcement vehicles – tribal, state, and town.  All of their lights were flashing, but silently.  There were cars with a 50-50 mix of Washington State and Canadian license plates, which was about as normal as things out here ever get.  She got out and once again calmed herself, realized that as much as she wanted to help Sasha B. she also had to be careful with her words, about anything that would implicate her in the break-in the night before.  She remembered that she actually was his cousin, only four or five times removed.  Maybe that was good enough – some dippy Russian chick checking in on her ignoble countryman and family member.
The back doors of the second ambulance had been swung wide, but the vehicle was empty.  Over by the first ambulance, she immediately recognized Sasha B. sitting in a wheelchair, the doors on this one now closed.  Two cops were questioning him, state troopers, while two Bellingham cops and two tribal security guards stood behind them and tried to look like they still had a purpose here.  Sasha B. was slumped down, defeated, in an almost unrecognizable way.  A radio message blared from a third state trooper's shoulder emerging from the passenger side of the first ambulance, something like “already dead understood.”  The female trooper looked over at Sasha G. before closing the back doors and patting them.  The ambulance engine came to life and it drove off, no sirens or hurry necessary now for the person in back, for a now dead Dmitry.
“Sasha!  Please talk to these cops for me!”
Sasha G. knew better than to interrupt cops and their diligent cop work at any time.  But now they'd both turned and were looking full on at her, wondering what she was doing now as a late arrival to the parking lot.  From inside the casino came the sound of video slots pinging and blinging, buffet trays being emptied and refilled in a rhythm of gluttony and commerce.  And at the same moment she glanced a few car lengths ahead into the parking lot and could see, with the first ambulance gone, what had happened just outside the Lynden Casino that blustery fall morning.  She recognized Dmitry's green, Ford Ranger truck, the one car of many he always seemed to own, the one car he actually took care of rather than trying to sell off to a gullible friend or stranger.  The lifeless, tortured body of a mature deer, a doe, was splayed across the hood, about one third of its surprisingly large carcass having made its way through the windshield in an explosion of glass, blood, and now-leaking radiator fluid.
The thing is, deer accidents happen every day out here in Whatcom County.  If you haven't hit one in the past five years, you have a friend or neighbor or relative who has.  Most people get away mostly unharmed, but cars tend to be totaled given the speeds of the two speeding objects involved.  Of course, what made Dmitry's collision unusual was that his small truck hadn't been moving at all – was still parked, engine off, as he and Sasha B. got back in the vehicle after cashing in their 5,000 dollar chip.  As the two congratulated themselves on their good luck on getting cash (it made sense that it would be valid across tribal gambling joints, but they still weren't sure, and Sasha B. was under 18 anyhow) the lone black-tail had decided to go kamikaze on the stationary truck.  Dmitry had actually looked up briefly from the driver seat, already arguing with Sasha B. on where they should go first to spend some of the money, when the animal leaped up from the parking lot pavement and hurled itself full on through the windshield.  Sasha B. hot gotten incredibly lucky, as Dmitry's chest and skull took almost all of the force from the doe.  He'd also managed to find some inner reserve of mental acuity that told him to stuff the small paper bag of fresh hundreds and twenties into his Sonics bag before the cops arrived, covered in bits of both human and animal blood and bone as it was.
“Son, you really should go to the hospital.”
“My parents don't have insurance,” muttered Sasha B., which was true.  “And my cousin is here.  She'll take me home.”
Sasha G. let Sasha B. play this one the way he wanted, and his instincts, as rattled as they were after seeing his older brother crushed to death by a flying mammal, were good enough that day.  Having already given his contact information, and deciding that the kid was the luckiest bastard in the entire Pacific Northwest for that year, his older brother not so much, the cops let him go.  They hadn't even searched his bag, maybe out of deference to his dead brother.  They helped Sasha B. up from the wheelchair and allowed Sasha G. to put an arm around him, walk him away towards her own vehicle.
“Shit.  Shit, it was so bad.”
“Whisper now.  They can still hear us.”
“Sorry.”
“How did you and Dmitry hit a deer when the car wasn't even moving?”
“The fucking deer hit us!  It committed suicide on us!  It was all over in a second!”
“Why the fuck are you at the good casino anyways?”
Sasha B. immediately shut up and let Sasha G. help him into the passenger side of her car.  A wrecker had pulled into the parking lot and was already hooking up Dmitry's green truck.  It was clear it was headed for a junkyard, not a garage due to the obvious damage.  The second ambulance was pulling out, ready for the next accident somewhere in the county.
Sasha B.'s hands were shaking, but he managed to pull a cigarette from his blood-spattered bag and took a deep drag, looked straight into her eyes.  “Last night behind the bar, I found a chip.  5,000 dollar chip.  I thought it might still be good at this casino, same tribe and all.”
“And you didn't tell me or Joaquin?”
“I was going to, but I wasn't sure if I could cash it, if it was too old.  Dmitry took me in because he's 23, he. . .”  Sasha B. paused.  “He was 23, old enough to gamble, old enough to cash out chips.”
“You weren't ever going to tell us.”
“I was!  But I didn't know!  These chips even have little microchips now, so this one was still good even though the lady behind the cage was being a bitch about it.”
“So you and Dmitry cashed it in, and you would never have told me and Joaquin even though we found it together?”  It was more a statement of act than an actual question.
“Together?  Oh no, I found it, and that stupid hat.  You and Joaquin were playing with that stupid mirror and his stupid camera.  But once I got the cash I was going to tell you.  Just you.”
“I'm taking you home I guess?  Did the cops call your mom?”
“Yeah.  Yeah, I need to talk to her.  That fucking deer.”
“I'm sorry about Dmitry.”
“I don't think he had time to feel it it, it was so fast.”
Sasha G. pulled out of the casino parking lot and headed east towards Dmitry's house, figured she should probably step in for a while and at least give her condolences to his mom.  Of course, she was also angry that Sasha B. would have kept all that money to himself and his brother.  She and Joaquin deserved their fair thirds of it.
Sasha B. threw his butt out of the open passenger window and rubbed his ear, felt for the two rings.  “Sasha, when I carried that chip in it's hard to explain.  I knew something bad was about to happen.”
“They gave you five thousand bucks!  What's bad about that?”
“When we were walking in the chip, I had it in my right pocket – it started to get really cold, like somebody stuffed an ice cube in there or something, and heavy too.”
“Well, they might have called the cops on you.  You didn't know if the chip was still good.”
“I mean, even Dmitry – Dmitry fucking loves money – even he was acting strange, like he could feel something coming off of the chip, coming off of me.”
“Did you even take a shower since the party last night?  You smell like shit.”
“Not a smell, a feeling.  That fucking chip was so cold and heavy when I turned it over, then the lady took five minutes to look up something on her computer but finally she started counting out the money when Dmitry showed his ID.”
“Like you said, it makes sense that they'd use chips that were good at both casinos.  Same tribe.”
“But when we were walking out to the car, we were so fucking happy to have the money. . . .”
“Me and Joaquin's money too, asshole.”
“Yeah.  Everybody's money.  But even that paper bag started to feel weird.  The wind started picking up out of nowhere, people started honking at each other for no reason.  Everything just felt wrong.”
“You and Dmitry were still nervous.”
“Yeah.  We got in his truck.  I didn't even see the fucking deer.  Next thing I know I wake up and I'm holding on to my Sonics bag and I'm in a wheelchair.  Dmitry, I looked over at him just once.  He didn't even have his keys out yet, wanted to count the money one more time with me.”
“Let's go to your mom's house.  She wants to see you.  You have to tell her about Dmitry, not about the money.”
For the second time in two days Sasha G. drove in absolute silence, with no desire at all to listen to the loud, weird music that was usually a welcome companion inside her tiny car.  Sasha B. appreciated the thought but wasn't sure if Sasha G. could tell or not.  Silence was as much as either of them could handle at that point.  As they approached Sasha B.'s house he simply said, “This is bad money.  We have to take it back to the abandoned casino before it gets somebody else killed.  That chip – I shouldn't have broke that fucking chip, we shouldn't have picked it up in the first place.”
“Oh, now with the 'we'?”

*     *     *

That Sunday afternoon and evening word got around quickly about Dmitry and Sasha B.'s bizarre, stationary deer accident.  Dmitry was a bit of a known quantity around town, with multiple arrests for stolen cars and some drug dealing.  Still, he was young and maybe had a future in front of him.  People could only close their eyes and imagine the carnage left over from a mad deer hurling itself through a car windshield, imagine how awful it would be for any local funeral home to have to work with that sort of a mess.  Sasha G. didn't want to, but went in and hugged Dmitry's mom.  Already steaming pots and tin-foil covered casseroles and loaves of bread were arriving from neighbors who didn't say much, just left the food somewhere were it would be noticed and hopefully appreciated by the grieving family, or by other visitors looking for something to do with their hands and mouths.
Before getting back in her car Sasha G. texted Joaquin, asked him if he'd heard the news about Sasha B.'s brother.  Neighbors and distant relatives and at least three of Dmitry's ex-girlfriends, all wailing, continued to pull in while she texted with him.
“I got him from Lynden casino real bad mess crazy accident w Dmitry.”
“I'm sorry for him.  I'm sorry for U 2 Sasha that must have been terrible 2 see.”
“Dmitry is dead deer killed him Sasha B is mostly OK”
“Sorry, sorry for U 2”
“Fine now we should talk this week at school tho Sasha found a poker chip and got money we both should get some too.”
“Legal money?”
“Kinda”
“Maybe I should ask my dad first?”
“NONONONONO”
“OK”
“Sasha 1 more thing pictures I took I will send them 2 U”
“OK no hurry was pretty dark in there.”
“Sasha, do U member the mirror?  CHOLO???”
“Sorta”
“Just sent pics plz look again doesn't say CHOLO says something else.”
“Short version plz”
“O's are weird symbols, mirror reflects weird too I think we read backwards.”
“Shorter version plz”
“Doesn't say CHOLO says MOLOCH”

*     *     *

Sasha G.'s parents bombarded her with questions when she finally got home through the pelting rain that Sunday afternoon, Halloween proper.  She told them most of what she knew – some crazy deer had murdered Dmitry, Sasha B. was at home with his mom, she had no idea why they'd gone to the Lynden casino.  She just wanted to lay down on her bed with Annika.  She just wanted Sasha B. to be O.K., as O.K. as he could ever be after seeing what he saw, but at the same time she never wanted to see him again for betraying her and Joaquin.  It was her idea to break into the casino in the first place.  She wondered if he could understand any of that, how hurt she was, and quickly decided that no, he could not.
She finally got out her phone and went over the pictures Joaquin had sent her.  They were all blurry, she remembered how scared they all were of getting caught, her and Joaquin at least, but there was definitely something different about the red lipstick, or magic marker, or paint on the mirror set against the wall.  Joaquin was right though – the first picture he sent her didn't match her memory of that night.  Something – the poor light, the mirror itself, or just their scared minds, hadn't let them read the word as clearly as they should have.  Cameras don't lie, or aren't supposed to at least – it clearly said “MOLOCH.”  She threw her phone on the nightstand and slept, listened to the wind outside and now the rain coming down on the roof.
Her mom got her up around six for some dinner.  She sent Sasha B. a text asking if he was doing alright, but not really caring if she was being honest with herself, still angry at him and angry at herself for being caring.  Joaquin had texted too and asked what she thought of the new pictures, and a wiki link to Moloch, burner and eater of babies in the bible, patron of money according to some dead hippie poet.  She ate heartily then went back upstairs to do some homework, realized that the last thing she wanted was to go back to school tomorrow morning.
Around nine Joaquin called instead of texted, so she knew something was up.
“Sasha B. told me not to tell you he's going back in tonight to get rid of the money, going to give it back.”
“Give it back to who?  The mice and the bats?”
“He wants me to come but he said don't tell you or he'd kill me.”
“So why did you call me then?”
“I'm scared.  I think Sasha B. is scared too.  He thinks the money is what killed his brother, cashing in that chip.”
“When?”
“Eleven, eleven thirty maybe.  He's picking me up.  He found the keys to one of Dmitry's other cars.”
“And if he gets pulled over in it he'll go to jail for driving a hot car.”
“Sasha, I don't know what to do.  I don't want anyone else to get hurt.”
“I'll be there at 11:30.  If he wants to throw away all that money fine, but part of it belongs to us.”
“I don't want it.”
“Well, I might.  See you, wear dark clothes.”
Sasha G. headed downstairs where her parents were watching the news, no doubt a story about deer safety in Whatcom County.  “I'm going to Sasha's house for a little while, he says his mom is falling apart.  I'm going to make her some tea and a late dinner.”  Sasha G. lied easily to her parents at 16, like anyone at that age can.
“Please, please drive safe little one.  Give her our love.”

*     *     *

She pulled up at nearly the same house as the one the night before.  The gas station and liquor store would still be open this Sunday night, and she'd walk her walk over to the abandoned train cars and sidle to the back entrance just like the night before, try and hide her tracks a bit.  If the tribal rent-a-cops hadn't seen her previously they never would now, or so she wanted to think.  It was 11:45, and she hoped that maybe Sasha B. and Joaquin would dump the cash and come out, and she could finally decide whether or not she had the guts to go in and take it back for herself.  Or maybe just let it go, let it all go.  But 5,000 bucks is 5,000 bucks, even if she'd have to wash some deer brain and fur off of it.  The back entrance was completely silent except for the rain, cold and almost sticky.  The window had been slid open just enough to get in, the ball of duct tape and some rotted cardboard resting at the bottom of the wall.
She awkwardly went through and pulled out her phone for some light.  At once she noticed a small dark bundle on the floor of the old kitchen – Joaquin.
“Hey, you awake?  Where's Sasha B.?”
Joaquin was breathing lightly, definitely asleep, but his left hand clutched a necklace around his throat, and his other hand was grasped around his expensive Nikon.  She tussled his jacket open and studied the cheap leather strap with some trinkets on it – two refrigerator magnets?  And a little plastic beaver figurine like the big wooden ones outside?  She felt around the back of his head for spots of blood, any kind of wound but that was it – Joaquin had decided to take a nap while Sasha B. replanted the money.
“Finally!  Finally our heroine has arrived!”
The double-door from the kitchen into the floor of the casino swung wide open with a crash.  Sasha G.'s first thought was simple – try and lift Joaquin, throw him through the kitchen window, and get out herself.
Without thinking, without even willing it, her legs straightened up and moved the rest of her body through the doors.  The murk and damp of last night was completely gone now, as neon glowed around the space, the bags of trash and piles of rat shit somehow cleaned away.  It was downright bright actually, and she raised a hand to cover her eyes a bit as she took in what seemed to be a casino in full swing.  Her legs kept moving her towards the central dance floor without her asking them to.
A thin man in a pristine black suit awaited her, lounging back in a velvet-cushioned chair arranged at what looked to be a gaming table.  He was tall and sinewy, and brought a long cigar to thin lips that never, ever stopped broadly smiling.  He wore gold-rimmed glasses and had green eyes, dark green more the color of felt on a roulette table than anything else.  The smell from last night, the smell of too much life, slick newborn puppies waiting for the mucus on their fur be cleaned off by their mother, was still there but less so.  He had a martini glass filled to the rim on the edge of his chosen table, and a waitress in fishnets and red leather hot-pants stood behind, tending to him.  Around the room people were gambling, or loading up plates at the buffet, or watching a football game on one of the 20 or so TV sets surrounding the interior.  Video poker machines blurted and whined.
The problem was that, aside from Sasha G. and the handsome man who seemed to own the place, everybody's mouths and and eyes had been sewn shut with ragged, black string.  And while her legs were now serving someone other than her, slowly bringing her over to the smiling man at his table, her stomach was all her own – she puked up the entirety of the steak and roasted carrots her mom had served her for dinner a few hours back, adding new smells to the room – bile and human fear.

*     *     *

Sasha G. came awake and found herself seated across from the handsome man.  Another eyeless waitress brought over a glass of something.
“Some ginger-ale my dear, for that tummy trouble of yours?  I know you're underage, and we do follow the rules around here.  But we can also bend them as necessary, seeing as how you're too young to even be in here.  No need to tip her, by the way.”
The waitress smiled a horrible smile, crimson lipstick smeared more across and over her sewn lips than on them, dark purple eye shadow done manically over shut, unblinking eyelids.
Sasha G. mustered the very little strength she had left.  Her arms felt like lead, and she struggled to lift her head sufficiently to look the handsome man in the eyes.
“This isn't real.”
“Oh, this is very real.  You've come to my casino!  Lovely, no?”
Sasha G. gazed over to a nearby blackjack table.  A fat, seated man pushed some chips in on a double-down while his other arm held a short wife or girlfriend in place, both of them unable to see through scarred eyelids – doubling down when he already had 19.  At the video poker machines people with outlandishly huge plastic cups – WINNERS ALWAYS WELCOME! – pushed more and more tens and twenties and hundreds into the greasy bill slots.  Their cups were empty, awaiting payouts that would never come, but the eagerness of the blind, mouthless gamblers remained undiminished.  Over by the buffet tables all sorts of bodies were shoveling all sorts of lukewarm food onto plates.  Some of them were even smearing cocktail hot-dogs or bits of nachos and fetid sour cream over their mouths, hopelessly trying to break through the fraying bits of string holding their jaws permanently shut.  What's worse, none of them seemed to mind that much.
“Where are my friends?  Why is Joaquin sleeping?”
“Oh, slow down!  Slow down!  I'm stingy with money but not so much with information!”
At the bar another eyeless worker poured whiskey and cola into glass tumblers, poured medium-sized drafts of piss-yellow Coors Light into mugs, wordlessly had them distributed around the room by the fleet of eyeless waitresses.  On the televisions a football game was being played, but the same play – a blocked run up the middle for two yards at most – repeated itself.  The stands were empty.  The players staggered against each other in a slough of repetition and pain, the ball going nowhere slowly.
“Sasha B.?  The money?”
The handsome man put down his cigar in a coral colored ashtray and played with his bright yellow cravat, centered around an enormous clear diamond.  He sipped his martini and licked his lips.  He exuded sex and confidence, and just the cloudiest aura of menace, of complete ownership.
“Before we go any farther, I want you to know that I do, in fact, own this place.  And not in some spiritual bullshit kind of way.  I pay the bills.  I pay the county twice a year on the property taxes, the Feds once a year.  Real money.  Because this is a real place.”
“It's abandoned.  It's the fucking empty casino the tribe lost ten years ago.”
“Yes and no.  Abandoned yes, empty no.  I live here now.”
Between her sour stomach and not being able to move her legs, to get up and run like she wanted, Sasha G. was left with only one feeling – complete and desperate fear.
“Sasha wanted to give the money back.  You didn't have to kill his brother with the deer.”
The handsome man had produced a pack of cards from somewhere, sliced them open with a small, curved knife he pulled from a leather sling under his arm and crushed the plastic foil into the ashtray, watched it melt from the heat of his cigar.
“Do you play poker?”
“With my dad, he taught me some.”
“Splendid!”
With skilled hands and incredibly adept fingers the handsome man did a full shuffle after throwing the jokers onto the floor.  Another waitress ambled by and took longer than necessary to bend over and pick them up as her red shorts jumped a few inches up her thighs.  She tried to smile up at the handsome man, wordlessly asking for his approval.
“Joaquin, in the kitchen though. . . .”
“Yes, your little Latino friend is fine.  He wore the right trinkets.”
“He's Hispanic, not Latino.”
The handsome man paused and smiled more broadly than she thought capable, then slammed his hands against the leather railing of the card table.  His martini glass didn't move an inch, nor did his cigar resting in its ashtray.  “Listen you scrawny little bitch, I'm trying to make this easy on you!”
Sasha G. nearly convulsed and dropped her ginger-ale.  Another blind, mouthless waitress came over to clean up the mess.  Another one brought a fresh drink.  Sasha G. wanted nothing more at that moment then to start crying, but fought it back.  She glanced up to the stage behind her – a lone singer in a black velvet dress was desperately trying to force words out of her mouth, words that would never emerge.  But somehow Sasha G. knew it was a love song.
“Your – Hispanic – friend is fine.  He did his research.  He had the right totems, even made one of them by himself which is rather astounding.  I thought your high school was just a football and beer school like most of them around here.”
“Totems?”
“His necklaces – Mount Baker and Chinook salmon refrigerator magnets from the airport gift shop, and that guardian beaver he managed to make himself.  3-D printer, very clever.  That's what saved him.  If he actually stepped in here without my permission he'd be dead, but the totems kept him from crossing the threshold.  He might even be smarter than you.”
“Sasha B.?”
“Yes, well.”  The handsome man was now showing off some shuffling tricks to nobody in particular.  The clear ovoid diamond on his chest shifted and glistened with each cut and spread and flip of the cards.  At one point he sat back in his chair to admire his own work, took a moment to stroke the shoulder-length blond hair on both sides of his skull.  “He broke the chip.  Cashed it in at that other place in Lynden.  The competition.  My brother's place.  Not a smart move.”
“You killed Dmitry because of the chip?”
“Yes.  And your friend, when he came in here tonight.  Couldn't be helped, I'm afraid.”
Another pair of double-doors across the room slowly blossomed open.  Two burly eyeless men were wheeling something in on a hand-cart.  They looked a lot like the two tribal security guards she'd seen at the party the night before, hitting on girls way too young for them.
“Your friend Sasha B., he's the one who really fucked up.  He knew that chip belonged here.  I practically told him before he cashed it in.  Gave him a chance.”
The two guards wheeled the hand-cart next to the table.  One stood proudly while the other lifted the canvas tarp off the top of a heavy, new-looking slot machine.  It glowed with the simple, deep polish of dark wood and gleaming gold plate, and some strange kind of leather.  There were no electronics on it, no plugs or microchips getting in the way, just a thoroughly old-school one-armed bandit.  Sasha G. had a hard time admitting to herself that it was rather beautiful.
“Where's Sasha B.?”
The handsome man said nothing, took out a silk handkerchief monogrammed with a large “M.” and got up to start wiping down small spots of rain spatter, the slightest imperfections on the gold plating.  He took particular care with the three small windows displaying three different pairs of identical ripe cherries, hanging fat for the taking.
“My fucking gods, this really is a masterpiece.  Care for a pull?  One on the house?”
Sasha G. continued to stare at the mechanical slot machine, wondered why what should have been brown or black leather was much whiter, paler than necessary, almost translucent rather than opaque under the sharp neon lights.
“No?  No, I guess not.  It's a lot to take in.  But all of our bills must be paid at some point, no?”
The handsome man resumed his seat and took another sip of his drink which never seemed to diminish.  The banks of neon seemed to shift onto the slot machine now, and Sahsa G. could see quite clearly that the handle wasn't topped with a red or black ball for luck.  It was simply a human ear with two piercings through the hanging lobe – one fake silver earring, one real gold one.  The arm itself was mostly metallic, but the pale sheen of the ear was the same color as the rest of the pallid leather covering nearly half of the machine's body.
“Please let me go.  Me and Joaquin.  Please, we won't come back.”
“That smell!  Oiled cogs!  No electrical gizmos!  No electricity at all!  Just luck!  Pure, mechanical luck!”
Sasha G. finally felt hot tears running down her cheeks, running down onto her leather jacket.
“He was a dumb asshole but he was my friend.  His mom. . . .”
“Welcome to life, Sasha G.!  Welcome to fucking life!  Payments due!  Debts accounted for!”
“Please we can go home now please. . . .”
“No, not quite.  No, because your friend Sasha B. was dumb and unlucky.  Your friend Joaquin was smart and lucky though, so he still has a chance.  You, well, I like you Sasha G.  But tonight we're going to finally figure you out.  Your luck, your brains, your future on this worthless planet!”
Sasha G. hated herself, once again, for crying, for showing too much, especially to a stranger.
“I kind of loathe Texas Hold'em to be honest, but I know it's the game you Americans like to play these days.”
Sasha G. again tried to get up and run, maybe jump through a window and dash away forever, even if it meant leaving Joaquin behind.  But she realized she could only move her head, and just barely her arms now.
“Heads-up.  5,000 dollars for you, and 5,000 thousand dollars for me.  I'm going to deal but you should know that I would never cheat at my own game, certainly not in my own casino.  Word would get around.  Those bible-thumpers in Lynden would have a fit.”
“Fuck you,” more of a whimper than an actual insult.
“Now now, angry is no way to play.  Nor drunk.”  The handsome man took two short, studied puffs on his cigar, still the same length as when Sasha G. had sat down against her remaining will.  “I thought you'd appreciate my little lessons here, how you shouldn't let those silly emotions impede your natural genius.”
“Please can I go home now?  Me and Joaquin?”
“No.  And shut up.”  It was the only time a smile ever escaped his face that night.
Sasha G. had watched plenty of Hold'em videos with her Dad, who was a middling low-stakes gambler himself before he got married, and sometimes after.  She knew the hands, knew that unlike a lot of other casino games bluffing and personality actually mattered a lot more than math or odds in this one.  Texas Hold'em was a card game designed for bluffs, basically, and much less for skill.  The handsome man re-shuffled the deck with fewer tricks this time, but an obvious flare for showmanship.  He put two cards face-down for each of them.
“And remember Sasha G., after tonight – you either wind up another slot machine in my collection or you go home with your little friend and live to tell about it all.”  He took what seemed to be an important, final sip from his unending drink.  “And please remember that luck isn't something you win or lose, or something you find or give away.  It's a verb – it's something we do.”
The human-shaped entities throughout the casino were now crowding around the center table, stumbling over from the video poker machines and the blackjack tables and even the buffet.  The mute waitresses were taking a break, mindlessly, eyelessly flirting and flashing their stockings at the other gamblers hoping for tips.  Finally empty of tears, maybe forever, Sasha G. slowly pulled up the edges of her two hole cards – a queen and eight, suited clubs.  She processed what might be a middle flush draw, or a weak straight draw.  But she knew there was no use getting into a slugging, tactical match with the handsome man.  She was just looking for the right moment to get her money into the pot, and it was now.  It wasn't a great hand, but heads-up it might do, it might work for her – she might make it work for her.  She might not end up another human-coated slot machine that Halloween night, or she might.
She pushed her single chip into the middle of the table.  “All in, you creepy fuck.”  She took a sip of ginger ale, wiped her face, and waited for the flop.

*     *     *

Sasha G. and Joaquin graduated a year later.  Joaquin's grades were never very good, he was far too easily distracted by his own interests and impulses, but he convinced Mr. Jenkins to let him do a senior year project under his guidance.  It got him into Stanford where he double-majored in fine art and anthropology, and he went on to enjoy a wildly successful academic career as a photography teacher and a noted specialist on Native American wards, totems, and fetishes.  He and Sasha G. stayed in touch with a few letters every year for a long while, but not forever.  He never married.  Sasha G. herself made it into the University of Washington and managed to pay her way through with some student loans, some help from her parents, and no small number of nights spent playing Hold'em and Omaha in games around Seattle both legal and illegal.  She never forgot that luck is something you do, not something you have, and not something you ever deserve.  She married four times, practically once every decade, each time to a man richer, younger, and more handsome than the one before.  By 40 she was traveling regularly between Vegas and Macau and Monaco, rarely stopping by Bellingham to visit her parents, and then never again once they moved across the country to retire in Florida in a large, comfortable house right on the ocean that she'd bought for them.  She anonymously wired money to Sasha B.'s mom every Christmas for eight or nine years before she died from what might have been cancer, or the plain loneliness of a life without her two dead sons.  Once in a while she'd hear whispers about the special rooms, the unadvertised high roller suites involving dark, unspeakable things – a roulette table covered in strange leather rather than green felt, or even a mechanical slot machine of dubious origins that only took 5,000 dollar chips for a minimum spin, was put into motion with a polished humerus instead of a gold-plated metal handle.  (Macau was the worst place for this sort of depravity, or the best one depending on how you look at things.)  Sasha G. always stuck to poker though, its variations of confidence and luck and bullshit, and math only when necessary.  She enjoyed her life and her money and her travels, her many vigorous love affairs outside of her marriages.  She made money when others lost so much of it because she always knew when it was time to leave the table – to just go home – wherever that happened to be at the time across this wide, largely unwelcoming planet.

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