Chapter 1 – Part 3
When they came to a stop, the crowd erupted in a deafening roar as the stickman shouted, “Winner, ten! Holy shit—the hard way!”
“Oh, my God! I hit it! I fucking hit it, I screamed. A surge of adrenalin rushed through my body as the hard ten came immediately.
“He’s clairvoyant,” one spectator yelled.
“How much did he make?” another one inquired.
As the table crew struggled to calculate the payoff, I looked at the box man and stated: “$135,000, minus the 5 percent juice on the $20,000 place bet, for a net of $134,000.” As a high-stakes gambler, I never made a wager without knowing the precise payoff in advance.
After a brief colloquy, they concurred. “You’re right—$134,000, Kevin. How do you want it?” the box man asked.
“Make it all blue,” I replied. Blue was slang for $5,000 chips. I was now at $335,000.
It was 7 o’clock.
“Kevin, shall we inform LB’s of your arrival for dinner?” the shift manager inquired.
“No, thanks; not tonight.” I told him. I was on a purpose-driven mission and still $215,000 short of my goal.
In a scene reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, my next come-out roll was interrupted as a treasure chest of $5,000 and $10,000 chips, escorted by a slew of security guards, were delivered to my table.
When play resumed, I took a gutsy but calculated move: I called my place bets “working” with just a $100 chip on the pass line. Since this roll was a come-out roll, any place bets left from a previous roll—in this case, the $133,000 that was still spread across the table—would not have paid unless I called them working. On the other hand, since I called them working, I was also running the risk of losing the entire $133,000 if the seven showed up on the new come-out roll. Since I had just hit a bunch of sevens, I was betting $133,000 against just $100 that one of my place bets would appear on my new come-out roll.
My alter ego agreed: “This is it, big guy. This is your break-the-bank moment. Roll anything but the seven.”
I set the dice on a hard ten and let them rip. They barreled down the table as a host of onlookers jostled for a view. Rolling to a stop before an anxious crowd, the first die landed on five; the other . . . rolled slowly back towards me before stopping on two.
“Seven, pass line winner. Sorry, Kevin,” the stickman mumbled as the table crew collected my $133,000 and paid me a paltry $100 pass line win.
“No! You idiot! You stupid, fucking idiot!” my alter ego screamed in a scurrilous tirade. “What the hell were you thinking? You just lost $133,000 to win a hundred bucks! Good trade, cupcake. You could have gone up another $20,000; but no, you had to play the probability theory. Well, I got your probability . . . you’re probably the world’s biggest idiot! Can somebody say, ‘loser,’ with a capital L . . .”
Just like that, my celebration for winning $134,000 on the ten was negated by losing $133,000 on the come-out seven. My cash total was now at $202,000.
“Bring it right back, big boy,” my alter ego demanded, obviously devoid of short-term memory. “Bring it right the fuck back! Put $20,000 on the pass line, $20,000 on your odds, and $128,000 across . . . This is your house, baby.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, my voice of reason retorted, cool your jets, big guy—in the end, the tortoise always wins. Remember the verse from Proverbs, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished”? Plus, as Smith Barney used to say, “We make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it.” You still have ten hours. Take your time—you don’t have to get it all back on one roll.
“Oh, man! You are making me sick,” my alter ego responded. “Let me just vomit right here! What are we doing? Running a deadbeat, tax-free, municipal bond mutual fund? Are you suddenly a Zen master? Gandhi? Confucius? Oh, please, gag me! Need I remind you? We’re in a fucking casino, not some damn Buddhist convention. Confucius says, Get your damn money back—now! Leave the whole self-help gig to the Tony Robbins’ of the world, and let Wall Street manage the capital markets. You’re a gambler! Now . . . take your head out of your ass and get with the program. You got work to do!”
Siding with my alter ego, I laid $20,000 on the pass line and shot the dice with conviction.
“Eight!” the stickman shouted. “Make your place bets, come bets, and hard ways.”
“Give me $128,000 across!” I demanded, as I laid an additional $20,000 in odds behind my eight.
“This is my house!” my alter ego reminded me as I set the dice on four and four and had a textbook throw. Everything was perfect . . . loft, rotation, axis, trajectory, location, and landing. As they rolled to a stop . . .
“Seven, out!” was the call.
“What!” I shouted in disbelief. My alter ego, likewise, exploded: “Why did you do that? How could you be so fucking stupid? You are the dumbest son of a bitch I know!”
I looked at the spectators and mercifully pleaded for a pistol. “Can someone, anyone give me a loaded gun so I can just blow my brains out right here, right now?”
I tried to warn you, big guy, my voice of reason quibbled.
Oh, shut the fuck up, I silently rebutted.
“That’s right, you tell him, partner,” my alter ego replied. The dealers hastily collected my $168,000 in chips and, in a déjà vu moment, I watched as the security guards and spectators shook their heads in disbelief and walked away. Raging mad, I placed $20,000 on the pass line.
Don’t do it, Kevin, the grimacing faces of the table crew implied as the stickman reluctantly slid me the dice.
Like a poker player on full tilt, I heaved them down the table.
“Three, craps. Take the pass line bets.”
“Shit!” I bellowed in disgust. That was another $20,000 down the tubes. Hoping for a come-out seven, I slammed my last $14,000 on the pass line, hastily grabbed the dice, and let them rip.
“Two, craps. Sorry, Kevin,” the stickman sympathized.
Just like that, I was broke. In the span of five minutes, I had gone from a hero to a zero; a zero who was trying hard not to blow a blood vessel and have a fatal stroke right on the spot. I fought to maintain an outward appearance of resilience—a performance that, in the face of such a catastrophic event, was worthy of an Oscar. Never let ‘em see you sweat, I reminded myself before calmly heading for the public bathroom at the other end of the casino.
I had no sooner locked myself in the stall than I was shouting, “You loser! You stupid . . . fucking . . . loser!” as I incessantly banged my head against the divider. To add insult to injury, the guy on the other side furtively solicited me for a homosexual romp, an act that conjured up horrific memories of my military boarding school years. Seething over the fact that I had just lost a quarter of a million bucks, not to mention the fact that I would have to face the music the next day, I impulsively unleashed a foul-mouthed fury of rage, “You peter-pumping, tube-steak-tugging, baby-gravy-chugging, son-of-a-bitch! If you as much as even breathe in my direction, I’ll come in there and coldcock you right where you sit. Bypassing the sinks altogether, he scampered out of the men’s room with his pants still wrapped around his ankles.
As I copped a squat on the commode, I found myself surrounded by potty poetry. What in the hell would make a grown man write this crap all over the walls, I wondered, much less read it? Yet there I was, a captive audience, fully engaged in the latrine literature myself. One obscene poem—while not particularly Pulitzer-Prize-winning—resonated with me, as I could truly empathize with its author. It read, “Here I sit among the vapor, freshly out of toilet paper; The tables are calling me, I must not linger; watch out asshole, here comes my finger.”
To a pathological gambler, the pull of the tables is no less tempting than a loaded crack pipe is to a cocaine addict. In either case, the addict would go to extreme lengths just to get a fix—apparently, even if it meant an unsanitary solution. As I sat on the porcelain throne, I couldn’t help but agonize . . . over my stockbroker getting fired, the SEC nailing both of our asses, my multimillion-dollar IRS bill looming on the horizon . . . or the fact that my company was bleeding $200,000 a month and engulfed in frivolous litigation. On top of that, I was raising my son as a single parent, and I was in a “Fatal Attraction”– type relationship with my personal kryptonite—a suicidal femme fatale I’d been trying desperately to shake by cherry picking the hottest women from various online-dating sites and wining and dining them from L.A. to Miami. I instinctively knew that the same traits I had used to power my meteoric rise to the zenith of entrepreneurship—passion, desire, and determination—were contemporaneously driving me to the nadir of my carnal cravings: salacious sex, death-defying speed, and gut-wrenching gambling. Entrenched in a jet-set lifestyle of limos, lovers, lunacy, and lechery—I had become the quintessential prototype for a special episode of Jerry Springer: “White Collar Calamities!”
“What now?” I asked myself. Ignoring the excruciating pain from what felt like a stomach full of sizzling cigarette butts, I ran the facts of my predicament through my mind: I didn’t have a dime to my name, I hadn’t brought a checkbook, and my credit cards were maxed out. In addition, I had no casino credit line, so I couldn’t get a marker. Robbing a bank was also out of the question since banks rarely stockpiled hoards of cash; and besides, they were all closed. I couldn’t get a personal loan, since I hadn’t invited my normal entourage of people—no friends, no employees, no arm candy, and no pilot hanging around to fly me home. To make matters worse, barring a hookup with another patron, cocktail waitress, or a casino shill—sympathy sex to assuage my emotional pain was even out of the question. How in the hell was I going to get my hands on half a million bucks by morning? “If your brain was as brilliant as your balls are brass,” my inner devil berated, “you wouldn’t be here to begin with. Now—think, moron!”
Just when I was about to give up hope, a small light bulb went on in my mind. It was only a flicker but at least it was a light. Missy, my personal assistant, had just paid my bills, including my credit cards, the week before. I’d asked her to pay the minimum on two cards and $35,000 on another. Could that payment possibly have posted? Granted, it was chump change compared to the $550,000 I needed, but, if it was available, I still had a glimmer of hope.
“Thank you, Porcelain Goddess” I murmured, as I exited the throne room with a new lease on life and headed for the closest cashier’s cage. Lord, let it be there, I prayed while the clerk behind the counter spoke with my bank for what seemed an eternity. “Mr. Lehmann, after your bank’s fee and the casino’s surcharge, you have $32,000 available.”
“Yes, baby!” I rejoiced. “Thank you, Jesus.” “How do you want it?” she asked. Give me six blue and two orange, please. I hope I can make this $32,000 work better then my last $32,000,” I told her. But just then my voice of reason offered some sobering advice: Whoa, big guy, think this through. You’re going to need that $32,000 to pay for your insanity defense tomorrow. Your company is cash poor right now, and you’re certainly no Warren Buffett when it comes to the stock market.
My alter ego chimed in: “Dude, you don’t have a choice! With the trouble you’re facing, this is your last shot. You’ve got nothing to lose, and you need a 1700 percent return by morning. So what! You were practically there thirty minutes ago. Why don’t you take a load off, grab some grub, and then go get your moolah! This is your house, baby . . . let’s rock and roll!”