Chapter Five

The catalyst for our trip to the casino had been Shirley’s desire to smoke indoors. It was unseasonably cold that winter and the apartment she shared with Jared did not allow smoking in the building, so whenever anyone craved a cigarette, those who wished to join the smoker were forced to go down all eight floors and settle in front of the building where we would all shiver while waiting for all the smokers in the group to finish.

“The smoking ban doesn’t apply to casinos!” Shirley offered us.

It was true; while bar patrons were forced to leave their drinks and step outside to commit to their habit, the lounge area of the nearest casino smelled like the swinging sixties.

There were five of us: Shirley, Jared, Wesley, Elijah and me. Elijah and I were the nonsmokers of the group, but I was always game for an adventure and Elijah didn’t mind a change of scenery either. We had been meeting at Shirley and Jared’s apartment multiple times every week since we had all graduated college as they were always willing to host gatherings and their dwelling was the most suited to such meet ups out of all of us. That is, it was most suited until Southern California decided it was the tundra for an entire week in February.

We piled into Shirley’s 1994 four door coupe and got onto the highway so that we could go to the massive establishment situated on swampland just outside of the city. Though Shirley was pretty adamant about the rule disallowing smoking in her car, the leather upholstery was permeated with the smell of smoke, meaning she would indulge by herself on occasion or the smoke smell got in there and stuck long before the rule was instated.

Music blared, and we had to shout over it to hear one another.

“Has work been getting any better, Ron?” Shirley asked me over the bass that pounded and rattled the bones in our bodies.

A few weeks previous, I had explained my growing dissatisfaction with the establishments I had been sent to “fix”. The latest in this comedy of errors had been a pharmacy that also sold holistic “cures” for whatever ailed them. The owner had neglected the actual pharmacists and their expertise in order to push crystals and essential oils. Thus, she had a problem holding on to anyone with actual competence in the field of medicine for very long. She said that this was because she distrusted traditional medicine and didn’t like the side effects, but I suspected that she appreciated the two hundred percent markup she charged for the items that did not require a prescription.

“I think I’ve convinced her to move the reiki materials away from the over-counter meds!” I shouted back at her.

“And that’s a good thing?” Jared shouted from his place in the passenger seat.

“I think so!” I shouted. “If I can get her to focus on the importance of her pharmacists and treat the hippy dippy stuff as supplemental to her customer’s treatment rather than as a replacement, I think we can get the FDA off her back!”

“Cool!” Shirley shouted.

I noticed Elijah’s mouth had turned into a flat line of disapproval. He had been very vocal that this woman was a lost cause when I first brought her up a few weeks ago. He was the sort who didn’t have much faith in humanity over all. Rather, he appreciated the accomplishments and potential of people as individuals. As, young, idealistic, recent college graduates, we all disagreed with this outlook, but tended to accept Elijah as the group’s cynic and kept him around for his quick wit and cutting sense of humor. The cynicism was merely an eccentric quirk of personality.

However, there was something upsetting in the way Elijah perceived the world. We had all met eternal pessimists and cynics throughout our lives and it was easy to write them off as being ill informed or going through a rough time. This wasn’t the case with Elijah; he was strikingly brilliant.

“You missed the exit,” Elijah told Shirley.

Shirley cursed and searched for her next exit, so she could double back. Elijah leaned back and closed his eyes. He was like that; I could already tell that he had been worried Shirley would do that for quite a while but didn’t want to nag her until she did. The only drawback to this way of handling the situation was that he had to deal with the stress of the expectation and now he was treating himself to a break.

I wished I could do that; close my eyes and completely remove myself from reality for a little while. Later on, when things get even more stressful at work, I began to envy Elijah even more and that scared me. He was a good guy, but I did not want to be like him in any way. The world seemed so ugly through his eyes.

The casino was one of the flashier ones I have ever seen. Massive spotlights shone upon the eight-story building, slowly fading from one neon color to another, making it look like a lamp one might find in a novelty store in the mall aimed at the teenaged and college burnout demographic. In addition, it was surrounded by the lamps lighting up the parking lot and the headlights of the cars being drawn in like lightning bugs. That is to say, all the brightness emanating from the establishment outshone the stars in the sky, drowning them out like the show of electric gluttony they were.

It was like a flashy beacon in the middle of blackness. I knew, based on my basic knowledge of the area, that it was situated right in the middle of wetlands. It was literally a palace of pleasure and pain built on a swamp.

“Wow,” said Shirley. “They really went all out for this. It’s weird that nothing around it developed.”

“It’s not weird at all,” said Elijah. “They don’t want anything built up around it.”

“Wasn’t there talk of building condos around here, but it fell through for environmental reasons?” said Shirley. “After all, this is a pretty delicate ecosystem from what I’ve been led to understand.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” said Elijah. “It’s easier to draw people in with the flashiest thing around.”

This made my jaw clench up somewhat. Sometimes, Shirley had the habit of responding to Elijah’s negativity with aggressive positivity. I don’t know why she did that; it never ended well. Soon, it no longer became about the actual topic of the argument, but rather a battle of wills, each representing the individual’s point of view.

“All I’m saying is that it’s nice that they’re catering to the needs of the land,” Shirley continued to argue as we passed the threshold, guarded loosely by automatic doors.

Thankfully, the sudden blast of noise emanating from the interior made it impossible to argue further, so Elijah just shook his head in resignation as he was wont to do since the day I met him. It was his way of getting the last word without actually having the last word.

What greeted us when we entered was an absolute onslaught of sensory overload. The heavy, musky fragrance of the buffet wafted our way, even though we weren’t even anywhere close to where the dining area was. There was no smell of any specific food. Rather, it was a general miasma of grease and cigarette smoke that permeated the air. It was the smell of smoke that compelled Jared to shout above the din of slot machines, shouting patrons and general rabble.

“So, it is true!” he shouted. “We can smoke here!”

“What did I tell ya?” Shirley responded in equal measure. “Now we can destroy our bodies from the comfort of the indoors!”

Though he wasn’t here to smoke, Elijah was exceptional at finding the best place to smoke in that he was able to hear silence in the way that most people are able to hear sound. With him taking the lead, we were able to wind our ways through the dark halls and large rooms illuminated only by the lights flickering and flashing from the slot machines. The area was so big, but I still managed to somehow feel incredibly claustrophobic. It took me a moment to realize what factor that evoked this feeling within me.

“There aren’t any doors in here!” I shouted at the rest of them.

“You’re right!” Shirley said. “Isn’t that illegal?”

At this point, we entered into a relatively quiet haven. It was a lounge area with large easy chairs in a deep shade of mauve that looked even darker under the low lighting. It was amazing that it was so dark inside the casino even though it was incredibly bright from the outside. Elijah had lured us to the promised land where we could have a standard conversation without losing our voices. He celebrated this by taking advantage of it.

“There are doors,” he said. “They’re just adorned to blend into the walls.”

He gestured in the direction of a portion of wall what had a slightly different texture from the rest. There was, in fact, a push bar. It was painted to look like the rest of the door except for the fine letters that said, “emergency exit.”

“They’re for emergencies only, obviously,” Elijah said. “The only true exit is the entrance.”

We sat in a circle of chairs in the lounge area.

“But why would they do that?” Shirley asked. “It seems pretty inconvenient for the people who want to leave.”

“Exactly,” said Elijah.

His delivery was so dry, as if to say of course they want to make it inconvenient to leave! His dark eyes stared dully as Jared and Shirley retrieved their packs of cigarettes and, somewhat furtively because they were so unaccustomed to what they were doing being in line with the rules, began to light them.

Shirley took her first puff and sighed with such satisfaction that I resolved to have a talk with her about this habit of hers. I already wasn’t too keen on the fact that she regularly did something so bad for her health, but the fact that it brought her so much relief and satisfaction worried me. She was a true addict; something I should have taken into account as I went on this extended venture out into this palace of avarice right in the middle of the swamp, but hindsight is 20/20.

“But why would they do that?” Shirley asked, a puff of rich, white smoke, swirling out of her mouth like a genie.

“Are you serious?” Elijah would ask. “Of course, that’s something they aim to do. Did you not see how convoluted and dark the winding hallways we took here were? They do not want people to leave this place easily. They make more money that way. The people who stay here for days on end? They’re addicts and a lot of them know that they should leave, but the casino wants to ensure there’s that extra obstacle that prevents them from doing so.”

“That’s…really dark,” said Jared.

The red cherry at the end of his cigarette flared in the dark, giving him a dramatic look.

“Yeah,” said Shirley. “They wouldn’t do something like that. It makes me feel uncomfortable on a moral level.”

“You’re making the mistake of assuming that the people who set this place up have the same moral standards as you do,” he said. “Just look around. Have you even been seeing the soda machines offering free pop to anyone who just happens to want any?”

“Yeah…” Shirley said cautiously.

“That’s to keep their blood sugar high, so they feel like they’re still lively and awake, but keep their protein low so that they’re not actually lively and awake at all,” he said. “It’s the same reason why they keep it so dark around here everywhere. They want to keep everybody in a complacent state so that they’re awake enough to put their cash into the machines and on the tables, but asleep enough that they don’t think about it too hard.”

“Speaking of which,” Shirley said, standing briskly, cigarette in between two outstretched fingers. “I’m about ready to do the same and put my money on some of those tables. Care to join me, Jared?”

“Only to make sure you don’t get into that half sleeping, half-awake state and gamble away all the money we’ve been setting aside for the wedding,” he said.

His eyes were wide, and he looked a little shaken. It was clear that Shirley’s method of dealing with Elijah’s dark predictions was to ignore them completely, but something had permeated with Jared. He looked genuinely scared.

Elijah appeared to catch on to this.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You two are addicts, but not gambling addicts.”

“Are your phones charged all the way?” Shirley asked instead of responding to what Elijah had said. “It’s pretty loud everywhere, so I think it’ll be good to text each other when we all meet up.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Elijah offered a sardonic “thumbs up.”

“Okay,” said Shirley. “We’ll text you when we’re ready to meet up or you can text us or whatever works out.”

They disappeared into the smoky darkness faster than they would have in a pitch-black night.

“I scared them off,” Elijah said, flatly.

Say whatever you want about Elijah (God knows, I have), but he was pretty self-aware when it came to the unpleasant effect he had on people.

“Yes, you did,” I said.

I wasn’t in any position to deny it. Elijah wasn’t the sort of person to be placated by a comforting lie and it would have made me feel uncomfortable to do, anyway. It was fine though, he simply shrugged it off.

“That’s their problem,” he said. “The evidence is right in front of them and they choose to ignore it. In fact, it’s everywhere!”

“Can’t you accept that there’s a minor possibility that everything you noticed was a mere accident of design?” I asked.

Elijah looked at me as if I had just let loose a giant, wet fart and smiled from ear to ear about it.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said.

“You don’t have to…” I began.

“Let. Me. Buy. You. A. Drink,” Elijah cut me off.

I realized that it was stupid of me to turn down a free drink, anyway. Besides, my friend was being so insistent about it. However, I felt uneasy about accepting. I knew, deep down, that there was some sort of grim lesson Elijah was about to teach me. There always was.

We sidled up to the bar. (Sidled? I assume that’s the right word. I honestly only associate that verb with approaching a bar).

“What’s your drink?” Elijah asked.

“Gin and tonic,” I choose for the price and the fact that I’m not a fan of beer. Elijah may be a grouch at times, but I didn’t want to make him go broke.

“Sounds good,” he said before turning to the bartender. “Two gin and tonics!”

The bartender was right on it because, up until we approached the bar, there hadn’t been any customers in sight. He was very clearly bored and eager to jump at the opportunity for any engagement. Even though he wasn’t the sort to engage in any sort of opportunity for unnecessary conversation, Elijah took advantage of this by beginning to chat with him.

“Busy night?” he asked jokingly.

The bartender let out a small “heh.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s been a real slow night even though it’s getting pretty close to the weekend.”

It was a Thursday and in our little community, Thursday was often busy for bartenders as people got too excited for the weekend and opted to risk calling in on a Friday morning. I learned this from talking to other fixers who were sent on assignment to bars.

“Is it because it’s later in the month?” Elijah asked him.

The bartender chuckled as he dropped a pair of limes in our twin beverages before passing them to us.

“Oh, so you know,” he said.

“Know what?” I asked.

“Everyone comes at the beginning of the month,” Elijah said.

The bartender confirmed this with a nod.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“That’s when most of the patrons get their welfare checks,” Elijah answered.

“Hey man,” said the bartender. “Just remember that he’s the one who said it and not me. Okay? I’m not supposed to say anything regarding this. It’s against the terms of my employment.”

I was awestruck. Elijah simply sipped his drink and smiled. He pulled out a few dollars.

“Nah man,” said the bartender. “It’s on the house.”

“Then consider it your tip,” said Elijah. “Come on, Ron. Let’s take a walk.”

Drinks in hand, we wandered off. My eyes were starting to open, and I didn’t like to think of what I would see in this place now that they were in that state.

I should explain that I had met Elijah while going to school. He was a business management major like I was and was even looking into being a fixer himself, but somewhere along the way, he got disenchanted with the whole dirty business and never bothered looking into internships or securing a position after graduation.

As it stood, he was just sort of floating through his post-graduation years. He would pick up a job or two writing a featured article for the newspaper even though he had never had a journalism degree. He was just very good at collecting and assessing information. So, whenever he managed to write an article for the paper, it tended to whip people in a frenzy. Often, they would write in letters of complaint. But Elijah didn’t mind because he thought that as long as he was telling the truth, it didn’t matter that people weren’t reacting well. He just wanted to be the one to tell it. On top of that, the paper certainly didn’t mind because the controversy tended to mean an increase in sales. Whether they would admit it or not, the people wanted outrage porn.

Seeing this, anyone would think that perhaps journalism would be the ideal field for Elijah to go down. Right? However, he would just wave this off whenever it was brought up, reasoning that journalism was a dying career and a college had already scammed him out of his tuition money once. Why would he let them do it again?

Long story short: Elijah was one jaded son of a gun.

“So, that was…” I began to say but faded out.

“Enlightening?” Elijah offered.

“Upsetting,” I retorted.

“The truth is upsetting,” said Elijah.

“Then why is your smile so wide?” I asked.

My companion stopped dead in his tracks.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t realize itI was.”

It sent a cold chill down my spine. Despite all the awful things he was claiming, there was something gleeful about his demeanor. It reminded me of serial killers that you’d see on garbage TV. They’d always be so oddly happy or, at the very least, blasé about very upsetting topics. Was this a red flag I was beginning to see in Elijah?

We approached a pair of escalators.

“Let’s see what’s up on the second floor,” he said. “Shall we?”

At a loss for words, I could only nod. We passively allowed the elevators to carry us up to the second floor. I looked down and couldn’t help but notice the patrons of the casino sitting at their slot machines. Just as we allowed the escalators to carry us up to the next level of what was slowly becoming like Satan’s realm to me, they sat there in front of the machines, thoughtless and glass-eyed. Something about this place made everyone so… passive. I didn’t want to see what was in store next.

I was pleasantly surprised by a brightly lit open space. Instead of the deep reds, purples and blacks that decorated the area below, the second floor of the casino was all white. Not only that, but giant windows spanned the entire floor, reaching all the way up to the two-story ceiling. This was much nicer. Perhaps Elijah had been wrong about this place all along. At least, that was what I wanted to let myself believe. However, the ominous buzzing in the back of my brain wouldn’t let me convince myself of that. I was smarter than that and Elijah knew it.

Over a loudspeaker, a monotone voice called out letters and numbers. Upon registering the voice, I realized that this was a bingo hall. In the big, white, open area in front of the windows, sat several matching white tables with comfortable chairs. In them, were people crouched over their cards. Some of them had as many as twenty or thirty right in front of them. Every time a letter paired with a number was called, they would scan all the cards before them and lethargically dot out the lucky space with their bingo markers.

I didn’t think the pit of my stomach could feel any sicker, but there it was. I took a big drink from the cool gin and tonic Elijah had just purchased for me. It was going to be a long night.

At the top of the escalator stood a security guard. He was big in the way that I could tell that he exercised regularly and had probably once been quite fit. However, he had spent a long time being inactive and now he had a thick layer of fat covering all his muscles. Like the bartender in the floor below, he looked bored. I cringed as I automatically knew what was coming next.

Elijah approached the security guard.

“How’s it going?” he asked him.

Rather than the enthusiastic reaction similar to the one the bartender had given us; the security guard merely shifted his stance. This man was in such a state of boredom that he barely bothered to feign being awake.

“It’s all right,” he said in response to Elijah’s question. “It’s all right.”

It was as if he had to repeat the assertion that it was, in fact, “all right” to convince himself.

“Let me ask you a question,” said Elijah.

The security guard merely stared at Elijah for an extended period of time before even responding.

“Okay,” was what he had to say when he did get around to responding.

“I assume you’ve worked other security jobs before this?” Elijah asked.

“Yeah…” said the security guard.

His responses came out slow and thick, like molasses.

“Compared to the jobs that you’ve worked in the past, how much effort do you have to put into security around here?” Elijah asked.

“Not that much,” said the security guard. “There’s barely anything.”

“So, the customers here are pretty placid?” Elijah asked.

“Yeah,” the security guard responded again. “I really only need to help kick somebody out when they pass out or need to leave because they shit themselves and won’t move away from the slot machines.”

“Wow,” I said because it was all I could manage.

“Yeah,” said the security guard. “People here have so much fun, sometimes they just don’t want to leave for anything.”

Elijah offered the lethargic security guard an award-winning smile. When he smiled like that, I could tell how he was able to win people over so easily when he tried (which he rarely did). I thought, not for the first time, that he would have been incredible in business management had it not been for the pesky issue of his personality.

We made our way away from the bingo area to where a series of shops were located. I was surprised to see several high-end stores and boutiques.

“I’d be surprised if they sell much here,” I said.

“It’s so that they can incentivize their regular customers into coming back more often,” Elijah explained. “Say somebody who used to frequent the casino isn’t coming back as often or is even spending a little less time here when they do come. The casino’s executives keep track of their spending habits and know how long it is before they bow out. When it’s just about that time, they’ll approach the customer and offer them a complimentary service or gift. Or, for the really hardcore gamblers who simply disappeared, they’ll call or mail them an offer for a gift. I know for a fact that they’ve gone so far as to offer a diamond necklace to little old ladies with serious gambling problems whose children had to make a concerted effort to keep them out of here.”

“Really?” I asked. “A diamond necklace? They can afford to give that away for free?”

Elijah turned to look at me. His solemn black eyes were framed by his thick, black, square rimmed glasses. He always sort of looked like a nuclear physicist from the nineteen sixties, so seeing him looking so darkly serious made me feel as if the apocalypse was at hand. The severity of this effect was undercut when he sipped a bit of his gin and tonic through a straw.

“Of course, they can afford it,” he said. “They buy the diamonds wholesale because they aren’t even that rare to begin with. It’s just that only a handful of companies own all the diamond mines so that they can create an artificial scarcity. And anyway, a diamond necklace isn’t that much when you consider the fact that a lot of these sweet little old ladies are gambling away their life savings or any money they might have inherited along the way.”

In the distance, I could hear the dull, cold, voice of the bingo announcer. The sound of him announcing the winning numbers had taken on an insidious overtone.

“You know what the strangest thing about this place is?” I asked him upon sudden realization.

“I don’t know how I could possibly pick,” said Elijah.

“Nobody here laughs,” I said. “This is supposed to be a place of leisure and entertainment, but nobody here ever shows it by laughing.”

This made Elijah freeze in the spot.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. I’ve never noticed it before, but you are completely right. It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?”

I shivered again. This place was getting creepier and creepier by the minute. What made it worse was that Elijah just seemed so darn happy about all of this. For the first time since I had met him, there was a sort of ease that I had not been accustomed to him affecting. Was there something so inherently dark about this person that I had come to think of as such a close friend that his personality would border on gleeful in the face of such a dark place?

No, I thought to myself. Give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s just a know-it-all. Not the greatest attribute in the world, but it’s certainly better than psychopathy. He’s just happy to be right about something once again.

It was the “once again” part of the thought process that threw me off, though. Elijah was typically right about things. Whenever there was a debate about a fact say, the date of a particular battle in the revolutionary war or the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, a simple search online proved that he was right. Never before did affirmation of his correction ever yield such a visible sense of satisfaction in him. Typically, he just sighed and slumped back as if the entire argument had been beneath him the entire time and he felt foolish for having been involved.

In that moment, however, as it became clearer and clearer that Elijah had been correct about the insidious nature of this place, the sense of satisfaction coming off of him was palpable. In an odd way, it seemed as if he were enjoying himself. I had to say something.

I hesitated a moment, not sure of how to phrase it. I feared the worst: perhaps, knowing that I was aware of his evil nature, Elijah would morph into his true form. What if he was a hideous demon sent from Hell meant to consume us pitiful humans? It would make sense; as I said before, Elijah knew the exact dates and details of every major historical event. It would stand to reason that they’d be easier to memorize for one that was, in fact, immortal and had been at the event.

Yes, it was unlikely that Elijah was a soul sucking demon, but at that point, I was in the mindset to accept any terrible truth after what I had seen. Given all this, it didn’t seem particularly wise that I was about to inquire about this in a relatively secluded area of the casino, but then again, should I ask in a more populated part, it seemed doubtful that it would make much of a difference. Everyone everywhere here, guests and employees alike, had a sedated, placid look to them. A cold-blooded murder could take place right in front of them and it wouldn’t draw their focus away from their addictions.

“I’ve got to ask,” I finally said. “Why are you so darn happy about all this?”

Elijah stopped cold. He slowly turned to me.

Oh my gosh, I fretted to myself. This is it. He will transform and I will be yanked to the bowels of inner H-E-double-hockey-sticks!

“What do you mean?” Elijah asked.

“Why are you so happy about how miserable everything is here?” I asked.

Rather than exploding like I expected him to, Elijah just frowned a little. This simply returned him to his standard way of being.

“I’m not happy about the misery this place causes in people’s lives,” said Elijah. “I’m just aware of it. I’m not sure why you would think I’m happy about it.”

Once again, I hesitated. Elijah was a grouch, to be sure, but I had never seen him offended. I didn’t want to do that over this.

“I don’t know…” I waffled. “It’s just that the more and more apparent it is that you’re right, the happier you get about being here.”

Elijah paused, allowing his dark eyes to drift upward to the flickering florescent light above.

Here it comes, I thought. This is where Elijah shows his true colors.

And, he did show his true colors, just not in the way I had expected. When he returned his eyes to me, I could see that they had become glassy with tears. It was a strange and unexpected sight to see Elijah on the verge of crying. It made me very, very, uncomfortable.

“That’s because I can tell you’re starting to believe me,” he said.

So, it is because he’s happy to be right, I thought. But if he’s so happy, why is he crying?

I simply did not understand.

“Are you unhappy that you’re right?” I asked.

“In a way,” he said. “Of course, I’m unhappy that I’m right. A cynic is really just a romantic that desperately hopes they’re wrong. But that’s not it; it’s that I’ve felt misunderstood my entire life. Everybody thinks I’m crazy or pessimistic or accuse me of having a terrible attitude every time I call things like I see them. But now, here we are and all the terrible things I’ve come to see about the world are right here so blatantly on display that they’re impossible to ignore…”

I began to feel Elijah’s sorrow. What must it be like to have all the ugly things about the world so apparent to you?

It must have been infuriating, as if there were giant, black, viscous blobs of ink falling from the sky. Every time one fell on something he cared about, he had to fight back the temptation to say hey! Are we going to do anything about this gosh darn stuff falling on everything! Or… at least when he did draw attention to what the problem was, everyone treated him like he was all those awful things we labeled him as because they all had a vested interest in ignoring it.

What’s worse is that I was one of those people. Not only was I one of those people, though, but when I started to see the world through Elijah’s eyes at this awful place, I initially chose to misunderstand him even further. I didn’t make him feel the comradery that one should feel after seeing the world the way they’ve been seeing it this whole time. I suspected that he was some sort of know it all, gleeful at being right at the expense of others, or worse, a complete psychopath.

By the time this hit, however, all hints of extreme emotion had vanished from Elijah. He had returned to his usual demeanor (i.e. as emotional as a gray rock with occasional bouts of mild annoyance).

“Anyway, it’s nice to be understood is what it all boils down to,” he said. “I just thought you should know that.”

He then finished the very last of his gin and tonic, throwing the plastic cup into a nearby trash receptacle with perfect aim.

He was a very strange friend to have. He was a creature with a sixth sense for deviousness, sort of like how bumble bees can see ultra violet waves. I would be able to pick up on the things he was pointing out to me, but sometimes not until he went through the effort of explaining them to me step by step. However, sometimes he felt the situation was so dire, that not even a long-winded explanation would be enough to alert me to the potential dangers of what I was facing.

Thus, on the two separate occasions when Elijah invoked the word “casino”, it was a way of indicating that he was perhaps seeing things that I wasn’t.

“Casino,” said Elijah as I stood in the sterile and empty temporary apartment Green and Associates had procured for me.

It hit like of ton of brinks. I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Listen,” I said. “It’s either this or my job.”

“Your job isn’t worth it,” he said. “They’re the reason why you’re out there on such short notice in the first place.”

I knew he was right, but he was sort of putting me in a tough place.

“I really don’t have any other options,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I hung up before he could even manage to respond. I turned off my cellphone. I knew he would try to get a hold of me all night. The next day was going to be a long one and I needed my sleep.