Andres Martinez - 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas

I scurried away from the table, but not before tossing my last $82 to the dealers. A sarcastic tip. I then walked out into the dazzling sunshine. After more than fifteen hours in the casino, the brightness was blinding. I sat by the pool in a lounge chair, still wearing my damned Hard Rock sweatshirt and my khakis, the way you see gamblers drying out poolside at any Vegas resort, like fish at a market. I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds of the kids splashing about in front of me, playing Marco Polo. I envied their innocence.

Passing snippets of conversation intruded, particularly that of one woman in the Jacuzzi, who told her husband, Im so excited to be ahead $120 for this trip, honey, do you think I should stop? This made me want to cry. Since my last meal, I had lost $22,500, an incomprehensibly vast sum when contemplated out here by the pool, in the light of day, surrounded not by inveterate gamblers but by wholesome vacationers.

I had to go to bed.

A Dell Trade Paperback
Published by
Dell Publishing
A division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Princeton University Press for permission to reprint brief excerpts from Fyodor Dostoevskys correspondence and from the diary of his wife, Anna Dostoevsky, that appear in Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 18651871, by Joseph Frank. Copyright 1995 by Princeton University Press.
Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

Copyright 1999 by Andrs Martinez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

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eISBN: 978-0-307-82868-2

Reprinted by arrangement with Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

v3.1

I knew for certain, and had made up my mind long before,
that I should not leave Roulettenburg unchanged,
that some radical and fundamental change would
take place in my destiny.

Alexey Ivanovitch
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler

This book describes the authors experiences in Las Vegas and reflects his personal reaction to, and impression of, those experiences. In some instances, names and identifying characteristics of individuals mentioned in the book have been changed to protect their privacy.

The computer is down, the teller said nonchalantly, so the most we can give you is five hundred dollars. Unbelievable. This was to have been my finest hour as a Chase customer, the first time (and the last, its safe to assume) I would withdraw $50,000 from my account, an amount that dwarfed my average balance by $49,600, give or take a few hundred. Youd think the branch manager would have whisked me to some back office and served me champagne while minions scraped together such a tidy sum. Thats how Id pictured it, anyway. Instead, I was rebuffed by a bored teller after waiting in line behind a gaggle of British tourists seeking to change their pounds sterling.

You dont understandI leave for Las Vegas tomorrow, and I need the money, I moaned. This got me a raised eyebrow and a suppressed grin. Sir, you can check back in a couple of hours, but right now our systems are down, she said, unmoved by the nobility of my cause.

I walked back out to Park Avenue, only to be drenched by a spring shower. New York rain has a cleansing, pleasing quality to it, unless you are stuck in midtown without an umbrella. I darted across Park and into the Waldorf-Astoria, settling down to a beer and the Financial Times.

It then occurred to me that this might all be a sham. Perhaps Chase Manhattans formidable computer was doing just fine, thank you, but was the scapegoat of choice when the bank deemed it prudent to delay. I hadnt seen others muttering to themselves on the way out, and Chase had every reason to be suspicious.

For one thing, most customers looking to withdraw fifty grand dont wait in line with the masses to see a teller. They presumably have someone they call, someone who sends them a Christmas card and knows the names of their kids. Private banking, I believe its called, as opposed to my all-too-public imploring. I had tried hard not to say Fifty thousand too loudly, lest the people in line behind me think I was bragging, or, worse, get any ideas.

The other interesting factor, at least from Chases perspective, was that I had never even shown my face at this particular location before. There were probably a dozen branches between it and my apartment. Id gone to the Park Avenue branch because I was told it was the only one to stock $1,000 travelers checks. I hadnt been too keen on signing five hundred of the things, if you know what I mean.

Still, some problems are worth having, and this was definitely one of them. I had to laugh at my predicament, ensconced in a bar in the middle of a weekday, waiting to get at the $50,000 that had been parked in my account for less than a week. Then another suspicion arose in me: Was it possible that my loving wife, Kathy, had phoned Chase and prevailed upon the bank to give me no more than $500a more than suitable gambling allowance, to her mind?

Kat had lobbied for keeping the money where it was. Why dont you just write your book about Vegas, but keep the advance? she had asked that morning, not for the first time, as Id struggled to keep Trotsky, our neurotic cat, out of the suitcase while I started packing. What do high rollers wear these days, anyway?

Ive told you, Kat, the publisher gave me the fifty grand to chronicle a gambling spree; no gambling, no advance, Id finally responded, for my own benefit as much as hers. It was a lot of money to blow. Its a chicken-and-egg thing, I added.

It also would have made a nice nest egg, Kathy said, playfully alluding to Albert Brookss hilarious movie Lost in America, which wed recently seen as part of my crash course on all things Vegas.

When I returned to Chase a couple of hours later, the computer was still down. Once again I was offered $500 on my word of honor; anything more would have to be vouched for electronically. This despite the fact that I look like a boyish (though now out-of-school and out-of-shape) Richie Cunningham. Ive always envied people whose features suggest mischief.

It was a good thing my flight wasnt until the next evening. If the computer was still down then, Id be forced to call my editor from the airport and tell him there had been a slight change in the terms of our deal. Hi, Bruce, Martinez here at Kennedy just to let you know that Ill only be risking five hundred bucks instead of the full fifty grand, which my bank wont let me get atsame difference, really. Kat would love that.