Stewart
Active Member
The Inward Light
Every night, at the casino, I chanced to see the inward light. It was a man (that was what I thought at first) but I was sure that beyond his countenance there lay some ability to exceed the capabilities that I and my fellow gamblers had been granted at birth.
He never gambled; he watched. Not just the games, the roulette and blackjack, but the people who threw a rainbow of chips frivolously onto the table and saw them vanish down the hole as quick as they appeared. Texas sureshots, Chinese statisticians, British men who knew not when to quit, and the peroxide haired beauties that flashed between the men with money depending on the ratio of their wins to their losses; he watched them all.
I thought at first that he may be the manager of the casino until I met Monsieur Thierry DuPont, the foul-mouthed Frencman. He had been in charge of this establishment since it had opened in the early eighties. Rich beyond the wildest dreams of most gamblers, DuPont left his staff to actually manage the casino while he chased women with phenomenal success. All this, of course, was on account of his wallet; not his charming personality.
It was Monsieur DuPont that told me the mysterious gambler called himself Leo Erasmus, while others called him the First Saint. It was also DuPont that introduced Erasmus to me, and I to the world of the First Saint.
"Monsieur Erasmus, I'd like you to meet Monsieur Drake."
"Erasmus looked at me, an eerie stare that felt like his mind was probing the darkest recesses of mine. He offered his hand, "how do you do?"
"Fine," I replied, shaking his hand but finding that I didn't want to let go. "And yourself?"
"As well as I could be." He let go of my hand. "Do you-"
"Now that you've met I'll leave you two to it." DuPont left. While it seemed a honourable gesture I knew that he had spotted some fresh pussy to chase. Given half a chance he would weasel his way into our conversation spouting his opinions on such a self-obsessed topic as how often he shaved or the date of his first wedding.
"Do you," Erasmus hoisted the word accusingly, "gamble?"
"I do, but the odds are piled against me."
"What odds, Mister Drake?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.
"Roulette, for example. It's thirty-five to one that I'll win any money."
"It doesn't have to be. Put your money on odd or even and then the odds become two to one." He puffed a ring of smoke in my direction.
"And if I still lose money?"
"Then you are still a gambler. Nothing more; nothing less. Erasmus took a whiskey from a passing waitress, thanking her generously for her service with a hundred dollar bill. He sipped it once, licked his lips, and smiled. I could hear the devious cogs turn inside his head. Looking back now, I wonder if he planted tht image in my mind. He did that regularly. "I could make you more than a gambler, if you so wish. Do you wish?"
"More than a gambler? I don't understand."
"Not a gambler, but a winner. A person who never has to wonder whether he is making the right choice on where to place his money." More smoke rings, getting smaller as they came in my direction.
"Sure, I'd like to win but you couldn't make me win. It's all about luck. How could you make me win every time?"
"Luck is nothing. I am more than luck. Put your chips down on black thirty one. Nothing significant if you don't beleive me."
"An image of money - and plenty of it - sent me to a roulette table. I placed fifty dollars on the word of Erasmus. The assistant spun the table, the ball rattled round and round, and I closed my eyes, talking to myself, going come on! come on! as it rolled over one number and then the next, come on! come on! as the wheel started to slow, the ball crawling from one number, slumping into the socket of the next, come on! come on! -
Black thirty-one.
One thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. For a moment it felt as if my heart had stopped. Sparks, red and green, fizzed and popped before my eyes. And then I got over the shock.
Erasmus came to the table and whispered in my ear, his nicotine breath eddying around my nose. "Red seven."
I put all my winnings on the number. The ball landed on red seven. Eighty seven thousand three hundred and fifty dollars. I could have kissed Erasmus and I would have but he seemed to put an image in my head that deterred me. I couldn't say exactly what it was; a mass of twisting shapes, colours I'd never seen, and noises for which I'd dare not imagine a source. It was then that I realised that Erasmus was more than an ordinary man - he was a master of some unspoken art.
"What number now?"
He waved away my eagerness, and took a further draw on his cigarette. "That was just a taste of what you could have. To become a winner you must promise unto me something."
"Such as?"
Stony faced, he said: "your life."
Laughter erupted from deep inside my chest. With his art he dispelled that also. "What would you want with my life?"
"That's irrelevant. For fortunes untold I ask only for your life."
"So, you win me millions and then expect me to let you kill me?"
"It's not like that. You keep your fortune, you do whatever makes your pleasure. Buy stocks and shares, hookers and cops, businesses outright. The day that fate has sealed for your death then I shall come, ready to take your life. It's the least you can grant me for the wallet of a god."
"And when does fate declare that I die?"
"Mister Drake, I am no clairvoyant. You will die," he pondered my death for a moment, "whenever." The final smoke ring he blew seemed to wrap around my neck before dissipating.
And I promised him my life.
Within one year I was the most famous man on the planet. Recognised for having a considerable share in every major business regardless of its products. I owned sports teams regardless of the sport. Newspapers, books, and magazines constantly rolled off the press from my publishing companies and into the hands of the public, and there wasn't a home in the western world that would know the words Vincent Drake and millionaire and not think to put them together.
Businesses aside, I was exempt from the law. My first taste of Erasmus' world, the microcosm of the First Saint: a land of complete lawlessnes for certain individuals; those who would play safe with their lives always opted for the pattern that society provided while people like myself were not individuals by choice, but by right. Erasmus was a god and so, it would seem, was I. That first step into Erasmus' world still transposed the world I was stepping from. There were many changes to go before I reached the status that the First Saint had achieved. With each step I knew that I would have to tread gracefully; and carefully.
There is no room for family in an individual's life - I divorced my wife. I still took time out to look after my children but I rarely saw them. The legitimate children that was; if bastards were money then I'd have been worth a second fortune.
As the years progressed I stepped ever closer to my destiny with Erasmus. The world I inhabited was, as I have said, of complete lawlessness; it was, however, unchaotic. Sure, I could go out, kill somebody, **** a small girl, and then carry cocaine into any country in the world, and get away with it. There was a degree of order to it all.
You may think that having a finger in every pie may be great, that it would be the answer to all your woes - I thought that myself - but I found that the more money I accrued the more miserable I became. In my waning years I have taken to standing by the window of my multi-million dollar home, occupied by myself and dollar-driven servants. I'm beginning to realise to realise what a waste of money it all is, and I watch the horizon, and the sky, and all through the trees wondering if this might be the day that Erasmus finally comes to take my miserable life.
