“Sure. Sure. I’ve been broke a million times,” the old man boomed. “Had to clean spittoons in Fairbanks, Alaska. Drove a mule team between Barstow and Daggett—one hundred and ten in the shade and there wasn’t any shade. Never knew what it was in the sun. Afeared to look.” He was throwing bills across the green felt to the dealer, who poked them into a slot in the table and replaced them with more orange chips. “What you want to remember, boy—luck’s gonna change. Nobody ever has bad luck all the time.”

Skip wanted to say, “You sure about it?” but he held his tongue. The old man had pulled him back to the table, given him a double fistful of the chips and was telling him how to play. Skip glanced at his shoulder, feeling pressure there. A girl’s palm was outspread. Skip shrugged and turned away. The girl said, “You little son of a bitch!”

“Get lost.”

“You’d better stay away from Mr. Salvatorre! These people at the hotel keep an eye on him!” she hissed at him.

“They’d better watch you,” Skip told her.

She didn’t leave. He was aware of her warm flesh, the perfume, the silver glitter of her hair. She had on a red sheath dress, cut so tight Skip didn’t understand how she could breathe. She wore a clutter of platinum bangles on her wrists. Her bare legs above gold sandals were chocolate-colored from the sun. “Nasty little man. You belong on skid row. Why don’t you go away and quit trying to crash the party?”

Skip didn’t answer. He was interested in what was happening to his money. The old man had given him over two hundred dollars, and now by a rapid calculation he found that he was down to eighty.

“Play up, boy, play up!” The old man leaned his belly on the rim of the table and chanted to the dice. Afterward he bought more chips.

An ugly feeling of disappointment surged through Skip. He wasn’t going to come out of this with anything. It was a con game, a racket. The old fool must be a shill, playing on house money. Or else he was a nut. Skip was himself too unpredictable and too insecure to endure eccentricity in others.