Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (motivational novels .txt) 📕

Wachowski watches the grainy image on the monitor marked SLOTS—ROW FIFTEEN.

On the tiny screen, Billy Elgart is clearly visible, sucking down another Rusty Nail, fidgeting restlessly behind the old lady hunkered at Machine Number 13. Billy has been waiting for the old bitty to leave for nearly forty-five minutes now, and has burned through six cocktails. At last he throws up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation, and starts weaving drunkenly down the aisle, making a spectacle of himself, moving toward the intersection of corridors at the north end of the main room.

Wachowski smiles. Considering the amount of booze Elgart has been sloshing down, the Russian knows that the gambler will be heading to the toilet soon, which, according to the monitor marked MEN’S ROOM—MAIN FLOOR, will put him in the perfect kill zone.

The Russian is about to pack up and head down to the casino floor when he notices something odd on the monitor marked SLOTS—ROW SIXTEEN.

“Vaht is this, vaht is this?” Wachowski mutters, staring with his one good eye at the tiny screen in the upper right-hand corner of the matrix.

On the monitor, a big, portly tourist in a spongy cowboy hat and ridiculous pink T-shirt is discreetly following Elgart. At first the fat man looks lost. He keeps pausing to gaze innocently around the casino, then hurries to keep up with the drunken gambler.

Wachowski reaches down to the joystick next to the guard’s drooling mouth.

“I vill be a son of the bitch,” Wachowski murmurs as he zooms the camera.

The black-and-white image awkwardly pushes in to a close-up of the big-boned idiot in the cowboy hat and pink top, so close that the guy’s long black ponytail becomes visible, sticking out the back of his hat.

“Vaht is that half-breed cunt doing here?” Wachowski whispers to himself.

Then, after a long moment, he smiles a Cheshire cat kind of smile that deepens the lines around his cold blue eyes. “My lucky night now—two for one.”

19.

Down on the casino floor, Elgart is drawing stares. A couple of Japanese businessmen in shirtsleeves are looking up from their bandits, gaping at the crazy gambler as he bobs and weaves between the aisles, talking to himself, chewing his lip, slurping his Rusty Nail, and staggering from slot to slot. He drops single quarters at a time, yanking levers and then frowning at the results.

Oswald keeps watch from behind a neighboring row of bandits. Something about this is bothering him. More customers are noticing Elgart’s erratic behavior. For example, right now, a skinny hick in a Caterpillar cap is grinning at the rampaging gambler, whispering something to his girlfriend, while a waitress in a low-cut blouse smirks knowingly as she passes, balancing a tray full of daiquiris.

Attention is never a good thing. Attention to a hit man is like saltpeter—an instant deal-breaker—and right now Oswald senses Elgart is about to reach critical mass. Something has to be done.

Several possibilities occur to Oswald over the space of an instant. He could go up to Elgart and pretend to be an old school chum and drag him off the floor, maybe drag him into a safe zone. But then what? Put him on a bus? Buy him a plane ticket?

Would that be enough to save his life?

Something troubling dawns on Oswald then. What is he supposed to do with the shooter? He knows very little about Bernard Wachowski—other than a vague memory of meeting him at a Ferri picnic once.

Rumor has it that the Russian can be somewhat of a loose cannon. He whacked a guy with a car once—drove the thing right through a plate-glass window and squashed the poor guy while he sat in a barber chair getting a manicure. Another time, according to legend, Bernie Wachowski killed two men with a single bullet.

Oswald is not a big believer in folklore, but tonight he would rather not test Wachowski’s limits. He would rather just pop the guy.

But would that cancel the save? Would zapping the hitter result in a zero-sum game? Oswald isn’t sure what he is going to do when he finally meets up with the Russian—it’s a bridge he will cross when he comes to it—but one thing is certain: Wachowski isn’t going to like it.

Across the row of slots, Billy Elgart flops down on another stool in front of another bandit. He slumps down in front of the machine and morosely drops another quarter. The lever comes down and Billy puts his face in his hands. He looks like he’s crying.

The waitress appears behind him with another pair of Rusty Nails on her tray. Elgart gazes up at her through watery, bloodshot eyes. He says something to her, something that appears to be funny only to him, and then he snatches the drinks off the tray.

He downs one of the cocktails—his seventh drink of the evening—in a single chug. A small crowd has gathered at the end of the aisle, about a dozen people, to watch this sad sack melt down before their very eyes.

Oswald scans the crowd carefully for a glimpse of Wachowski. He sees a young, smart-looking black lady in a flight attendant’s uniform, and he sees a pair of Asian girls with big oversized Hello Kitty purses, and he sees a rotund gentleman in a chef’s coat, and he sees an elderly couple in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

No sign of the Russian.

More people are gathering, craning their necks to see what’s going on. People at casinos love to watch high-rollers hitting it big—both hope and greed spring eternal—but people also like to watch their fellow gamblers go down in flames. It’s more than mere schadenfreude. It’s the gambler’s brand of magical thinking.

Better that poor bastard than me.

The Russian waits behind a vending machine fifty feet away from the men’s room. He loves challenges, and this one presents a logistical conundrum the likes of which he has never encountered. Chances are, the Indian will follow the gambler into the men’s