CHAPTER 21--BENEFACTOR

Sometime in 1989

When I had no wings to fly you flew to me

- Grateful Dead

T

he multicolored magic play of light of the casino games made for pretty eye entertainment, as I sipped the cool, imported beer courtesy of my newly found friend. Rooster was talking, and, as I learned, Rooster always was talking.

"See that machine over there?" Rooster said, pointing from the bar stool at Jerry's Nugget. That's mine. My baby. And the one over there. That one, too."

He pointed his long arms in every direction. We were pretty much sat there half the night, talking, drinking, in the wake of our new partnership. Several Heineken's later, for better or for worse, I found that I trusted Rooster enough to spill my guts about who I was and why I had to keep such a low profile. And he seemed to like me even more after that. Since my dad had passed on, Queen, I really was without a friend in the world. And so, quite suddenly, either through fate or blind luck, I hooked up with a man who became my benefactor. A guy I could call on when I needed to. So, thank God for Rooster.

"So, how do you get by?" Rooster asked.

Up until that point, I'd been living meagerly off the money the old man had left me. But I could see that that money would soon be gone, even with my low-key, frugal lifestyle. OK, Queen, so playing blackjack isn't the wisest way to piss away money you need to live on, especially if all you can do are anonymous odd jobs, and other handyman work. What can I say? A man needs a few pleasures, a few diversions. Blackjack, for me, was one of them.

"Oh, I've got some inheritance money," I said. "But that will run out at some time."

And there I was thinking maybe there was a way I could get Rooster to invest the money I had left, a form of money-laundering that would allow me to leverage the rest of what I had left. Turns out that wouldn't be necessary, because later that day, when Rooster had me out to his place, a ranch on the outskirts of Vegas, he turned me on to the magic box. My reaction was pretty much the same as Louie's.

And Rooster would not explain how the box worked, he just showed me how to use it, and said that, in his whole life, he'd never met anyone that he would just hand the box over to until that day. And Rooster managed to be there for me when I really screwed up. Like the time I got way too fucking drunk in a sleazy casino in North Vegas, a place called the Western, and some scum bag pimp tried to solicit the services of one or even possibly two of his girls, one of whom he called Queen. Didn't like the way he said it- your name-and so I belted him.

Just so happens a cop was driving past, and, lo and behold, I found myself downtown locked up and not sure which way to turn. With one call there really was only person to call, and, as it turned out, he was the right person. Rooster had me sprung so fast, my head spun.

He picked me up outside the jail in a white Cadillac.

"My heart goes out to you ol' pal but how'd you do it?"

"I've got a lot of friends, downtown, Jack, lots of friends."