Sin City (67 page)

“I was living in a fog of pain-killers and fear and self-disgust, especially when my girlfriend returned the ring. The hardest thing was seeing her with her new guy. He was from Chicago and dodged the draft by staying on at school to do a doctorate. None of us Bardstown boys did that. In fact, several of my buddies dropped out of college because they felt their first duty was to fight. But who was I to criticise? I hadn't been the great patriot myself – far from it.” He traces the deep frown-line which runs between his brows. I can hardly see his eyes, their reassuring blue. “All the same, I wasn't exactly wild about the guy. The first time I met him he was only wearing tennis shorts. That really rubbed it in. Those long brown legs and smooth expanse of back without so much as an acne scar.”

“I'd have murdered him, Victor.
And
her.”

“I didn't need to.” His voice is barely audible. “She was killed in a four-car crash just six months after the wedding. She was … pregnant, Carole. I was in the hospital again when I heard the news – skin graft number seven. I couldn't even cry, not with all those tubes and stuff. I wept inside, though. I'd wanted my revenge, but now I had it, it was like I'd lost her a second time, maybe even … killed her.”

“Killed her? How could you, Victor? You weren't driving, were you?”

“No, I told you, I was lying on my back, half raw. But thoughts themselves are dangerous – more powerful than we realise, maybe.” A jet plane screeches through his words. He waits, silent, while it passes, its echo throbbing through my head. “After that, I changed.”

“How d'you mean?”

“Well, revenge was out, to start with – all revenge, whether against the gooks or the government, or the growing bunch of draft dodgers including rival Dougie, who was now a widower. I guess I just accepted things, stopped feeling so damned sorry for myself. I was alive, when all those other unlucky guys were dead –
and
the girl I'd loved. I could walk and talk and even earn my living, when thousands more were paralysed or crippled or missing arms or legs. To say nothing of the psychos and the junkies and those who snuffed themselves because they couldn't face the world after what they'd seen and done in combat.”

Victor's hands are locked together. I've always liked his hands, but now they look quite different: soldier's hands, hands which have loaded shells, fed huge and hungry guns, picked up stinking corpses. I realise that I've never really known him – only just the outside. He shifts one leg, leans forward.

“D'you realise, Carole, by the end of that damned war, the death-toll had reached fifty-eight thousand men, and I doubt if that included all the suicides. A load of guys had breakdowns or ended up as dope fiends. The media weren't so wrong there. You could buy drugs like candy in 'Nam. No one really cared if you were stoned, so long as you kept fighting. In the end, people acted kind of wary of you if you'd been out there at all – assumed you were a baby-burner or a raving sickie who might shoot up innocent women in the street. It wasn't so bad in Bardstown. It's a patriotic little place, and loyal to the hometown boys. All the same, I decided on a second move. I was still too close to home, still pitied as the poor wounded soldier, still labelled as Laura's ex-fiancé. I needed a new start, new friends who'd never met Laura and weren't wondering every time they saw me how bad I looked underneath my clothes.”

He pauses, grimacing at himself as if seeing with their eyes. Silence in the room. I feel guilty, don't know what to say. Empty cliches about looks not mattering are not only untrue, but hypocritical. I ran away myself.

He looks up, breaks the tension. “New York was quite a shock at first, after small-town living, but I survived, found a job of sorts, even found another girl. She was a nurse, so I figured she wouldn't be too thrown by all those scars. Even so, it was months before I told her, and longer still before I let her have a look.”

“What … happened?”

“Not a lot. She just stopped answering her phone, started being busy all the time, too busy to see me any more. After that, I lost my confidence. I kind of chopped myself in two and threw away the bottom half. I was just a head, a chest, two arms. Oh, there was plenty I could do – I worked damn hard, read a lot, improved my poker, raised orchids in my one-room bachelor apartment. It wasn't such a bad life – quite a wrench, in fact, when I was forced to change it. My firm was taken over. I told you that already, didn't I?”

I nod. Though it's only now I realise what a shock it must have been, coming after so many other losses.

“I took it hard, though it was really just tough luck, I guess. The new company already had an ace engineer. It was either him or me, and not much question which one would have to go. So now I had my financial compensation from the war and this new severance pay. I felt doubly on the scrapheap, a write-off with two pensions – nothing else. I sat at home feeling sorry for myself, just went out in the evenings to play poker – though I kept losing even there. I seemed to be unlucky, not just in my life, but in my cards. I had a run of really heavy losses. It became a vicious circle. The more I lost, the more I felt a victim. The other players sensed that, saw me as no threat. I was an easy mark and they jumped all over me. Psychology in poker's all important, Carole, but I didn't even see what I was doing. Well – not until one evening when I'd lost another grand, and this old guy, Mitch, who was always hanging around the poker room, parked himself beside me, ordered us two beers.

“‘Vic,' he said. ‘You sat in that game resigned to lose, expecting to, in fact. You've even started to root against yourself. I've watched you. Okay, you've had some bad streaks, and it's real tough running bad, but every deal affords you the same chance to be lucky or unlucky as any other deal – regardless of what happened yesterday, or the day before, or any goddamned day. Why don't you decide to be a winner for a change, instead of making yourself a target for the rest?'

“I was mad at him at first. He'd no right to just butt in, start giving me advice I didn't want. Now I'm very grateful to the guy. He turned me round, changed my way of thinking. I couldn't sleep that night for mulling it all over. I mean, he was only talking about cards, but what he said applied to my whole life. Did I really want to live it as a loser? Okay, I'd lost my job, but I was still alive, still had funds – and wits. And I kept remembering that phrase about every deal offering you another chance. It was obvious, even trite maybe, yet I'd been trying to deny it, refusing even to take the breaks I got.

“That next night at poker, I had a full house and a straight flush in just the first half hour. I took it as an omen.” He grins. “We poker players are real superstitious, Carole, but I needed that good luck. It psyched me up, helped me change gear from unlucky guy to winner. The difference was incredible. Even when I had bad cards, I played them with a will to win. Sure I still had losses, but I didn't just accept them, sit there like a turkey, resigned to lose, like Mitch had said. And I was winning more than losing – much more. In fact, I even …” He breaks off. “I'm boring you, I'm sorry, Carole. Poker freaks are the biggest bores on earth. Get us on to cards, and five hours later, we'll still be yakking away.”

Boring me? Good God no. That's the last word that I'd use. I'm shocked, admiring, humbled, and confused. So many emotions are churning through my mind, I hardly know what to say or think or feel. Victor seems a stranger. I'm awed by what he's been through, what he's seen and suffered; need time to take it in. And so many things he's said have a bearing on my own life. All that stuff about losing, failing, feeling sorry for oneself, letting go revenge. I light another cigarette, try to sort my thoughts out. The silence feels uncomfortable.

“Did you find another job?” I ask. I must say something, or he will assume I'm bored.

“No. I tried. It wasn't easy. My field was fairly specialised and I was already old in their terms. And when I went for interviews, people always seemed uneasy that I wasn't married.” He laughs. “An aging fag, I guess they thought. All the same, I got close several times – in the final group, in fact – but each damn time it was a younger married man who got the job. I was feeling rather sore about it, until I realised I didn't need to work. I could live off my two handouts and my winnings. I guess it was a question of attitude again. I could see myself as out of work and useless, or I could enjoy the fact I was free of any ties – which meant free to fly to places like Las Vegas, so I could play in tournaments, play a tougher game with pros. After that, it was Vegas every month. I never really planned to settle there, though I liked the climate, especially in the winter. As I said, it's not a friendly town, but I was used to living a private sort of life, presenting just a face to people, concealing all the rest; so that wasn't any problem. In Vegas, you're accepted as you are, no questions asked. A lot of guys end up there who have things to hide, or want to start new lives.”

He rubs his chin, reflecting. “I had a real good start myself, a run of wins, soon found my niche in a couple of casinos where they knew me as just ‘Vic' – no past, no state, no surname. That suited me just fine. But I was getting tired of all the travelling – crowded planes, delays at airports. It seemed more sensible to buy a place, try my luck here as a native. I already knew this neck of the woods. I used to hire a car and drive out on weekends – explore the desert and the mountains. One day, I stopped to take a hike, admire the sunset, and I came across a house for sale – this house. Twelve weeks later, I'd sold up in New York and moved in here. So …” he shrugs. “Now you know my story.”

A pretty bloody lonely one, I think, as I ease my aching legs, stretch them into life again. Victor's lost everything, not just a normal healthy body, but love, marriage, the chance of children, a proper family home. And he's still not bitter, not furious like I'd be.

“And you … never met another girl?” I ask him.

He grins. “Dozens. But I didn't fall in love again until just this last December.”

I snap a match in two. “In love?”

He picks up my blue dress, which has lain forgotten on the floor, smooths it out, handling it as gently as if it were precious antique lace. “Carole, I shouldn't tell you this, but I fell in love with you the very first moment I saw you standing on that sidewalk, soaked to the skin with your wet hair dripping into those furious blue eyes and …” He's talking to the dress, mumbling, nervous, yet incredibly intense.

“In love?” I say again. I need to play for time. I'm stunned. I suppose I guessed it really, but to have him spell it out, declare it formally, when I've still not recovered from the first shock.

“I vowed I'd never tell you. It wasn't fair. I'm twenty-one years older. No – twenty-four. Jeez! That sounds a whole lot worse. I've been worrying all this time about a twenty-one-year age gap, and now you've made it more.”

“D'you want me to be twenty-one again?” I feel much older, more than twenty-one. So much has happened in this last half hour – a whole war, twenty skin grafts, fifty-eight thousand deaths.

“No.” He grins. “Forty-two's still double that. Even if you shot right up to twenty-five, I'd still be much too old for you, as well as being …” He stops, embarrassed, searches for the word.

“Scarred,” I tell him silently. “Disfigured.”

“Well – not exactly Mr Universe. I just hoped we could be friends. Except it wasn't simply friendship I was feeling. Christ, no! In fact, it was only because of you I went to that damned brothel. I guess you must have stirred up all my hormones.” He give a sheepish laugh.

“You mean, you've never been before – not to other ones? Not in all those years?”

“Never. Not even in Vietnam, where there were hundreds of girls available, and half the bars were brothels.”

“Loyal to Laura, I suppose?” I try to keep the resentment from my voice.

“Well, she was only just a kid, Carole, and always seemed so … trusting. And she wrote me every goddamned day out there. So,” he grins, “I managed to resist. Not that it was easy. This may shock you, Carole, but war's a kind of turn-on. I guess it's the adrenalin which gives GIs the hots. The night before you're going into combat, all you want to do is screw your brains out. Otherwise, you just lie there on your own, shit-scared and keyed-up both at once, so it's impossible to sleep. And after it's all over, it's like you're extra horny just to celebrate the fact you're still alive, haven't lost your vital bits and pieces. You've got to try them out, to prove you can still function.”

He glances at me, as if he's afraid he's gone too far. “All the same, I'm glad now I said no. I saw my pals buying girls with dollars, or softening them up with Lucky Strikes and bars of soap. It all seemed so damned casual – just throw your money down, do your stuff, wham-bam, then saunter out. It caught up with them later. I've heard guys say they couldn't handle women once they'd left the military – not emotionally – couldn't relate or feel, couldn't give themselves.”

I say nothing. That's hardly news to me. At the Silver Palm, we're just objects to be bought. It may be stupid, or even hypocritical, but I'm still upset that Victor ever went there. He seems to read my thoughts, or perhaps he's just defensive at my silence. Anyway, he starts explaining.

“Listen, Carole darling, I only went this time because I was so upset about the fact that I'd lost you, so turned on when I thought of you … Oh, I knew you'd never look at me, not in that way, but so long as you were with me, I felt the greatest luckiest guy in all of Vegas.”

“But it was only two days, Victor.” I try to haul them back, re-examine them. I can't. The Victor I knew then was not the same – not scarred, not a gunner, not a bloody hero.