The worst thing about getting shot in the chest is the breathing, Grant says.
No one I've ever talked to knows if Grant is his given name, family name, or a nickname he picked up along the way. Everyone here knows Grant, but no one has ever asked him.
Grant sits across from me, lighting a cigar with silver lighter cradled in one hand, rotating the stogie patiently in the other until the entire surface glows red. The scar on his cheek twitches as his jaw works, and I can believe he's speaking from experience.
I say not being able to breathe sounds like a problem, yeah.
That's not it, according to Grant. It's not being able not to breathe. It looks like a choice, you see, but it isn't.
It is Grant's belief that the way that breathing straddles the line between voluntary action and against-your-will reflex is the cruelest joke God ever played on his creation.
It is the only time I have ever heard Grant make reference to God.
Wednesdays, when I can make it, I drive out here to the casino to see Grant. Grant is here every day. He is retired -- retired from whatever he used to do, from whatever it is that gets you scars on the cheek and shot in the chest. I always find him at the same table in one of the food courts. He favors the one in the Winter Wing, where the fake trees are bare or frosted evergreen year round. There are always Lucite ice-covered branches jutting out incongruously from the walls, and overlapping two- and three-foot snowflakes cover the ceiling above us.
Over in the Autumn Wing, the trees are in a perpetual state of peak color. The leaves never fall or need to be raked. Across the complex, Spring is under construction, due to open in November of next year.
It's easy to find yourself spending a lot of time in the Winter Wing. It's been climate controlled for your comfort, to offer the romance of winter without the reality.
It's amazing what a large enough amount of money can do, I say to Grant.
The genius part, he says, is that they recognized the demand, the people's desire for it, then went out and did it.
I nod, and take a sip of coffee.
Grant is big on the idea of desire. He asks me what I think people who come here desire most.
Shitloads of money?
Grant shakes his head.
That's when a woman in tall black boots and a fake fur-trimmed coat comes in from the autumn afternoon. She slows without quite coming to a stop, presses a quarter to her lips, and flicks it into the fountain next to Grant. Before it hits bottom he reaches in and plucks her wish out of the water.
It seems to me like the sort of thing you shouldn't do, but this is Grant, and I'm not going to tell him that. The woman doesn't seem to notice, anyway. She's moved on, putting the fountain behind her, and besides the faux fur doesn't do anything for her peripheral vision.
Grant examines the coin framed between thumb and forefinger, as if determining its worthiness. Finally, having reached some conclusion, he slides it across the table to me.
I pick up the quarter, wet and chlorinated. There is a waxy scarlet smear on George's wig. The other coins in the fountain, pennies mostly, are corroded almost to black.
I look up at Grant. What am I supposed to do with this?
Grant shrugs, making a circular motion with his cigar before he takes another puff.
If he's the master then I'm holding a koan in my palm. I hold it, feeling its weight, trying not to touch the lipstick.
With the other hand I stir my coffee with the little plastic stick as the ash at the end of Grant's cigar grows long. A cigar never goes out while there's ash on the tip, he told me once.
I twist around in my chair. I look toward where she was headed, to where it gets dim and people are just shapes among the flashing lights of the slots.
I hear Grant take the cigar out of his mouth. It sounds like a soft kiss.
I hear his voice saying, don't.
I hear all this, though my next move is not to turn back around but to lift myself out of the chair.
Hunter, he says, louder.
This makes me pause. Standing, I turn to face him.
Hunter is my given name.
Don't get involved, he says, dispensing his wisdom in measured tones, in anything you wouldn't want to be involved in.
I know, I say, tapping two fingers on the table to show how grounded I am, how cautious, how prudent -- tap tap. I know. Tap tap.
And then I turn to follow her.
As I snake along the aisles between the machines, my left arm hangs down at my side. My fingers form a cage keeping the coin inside but not smothering it. What do you do with someone else's wish? Keep it. Give it back. Give it away. Toss it back in the fountain. On the floor. A tip jar. Trash can.
Mentally I cross off each of these options.
I wind my way deeper into the labyrinth. It's as if I've pushed my way through the back of the wardrobe into another universe. I've left the world of Grant, the food court, the Winter Wing behind, and entered someone's elaborate dream, only there are other people in here with me.
I hear the jingles of the machines all around me, overlapping, sliding in and out of syncopation, a soundtrack of urgent joy. I'm not sure I see much in the way of desire around me. Everything is tense, suspended. Each person I pass is wrapped in his own bubble, and I keep looking for a disclaimer stenciled near the base of each one, Individuals you see are less desperate than they appear.
I realize I've been standing in the same spot for a while. I could go forward, left, right, or turn around and retrace, but none of the choices feel particularly compelling. A quarter slot by my right elbow catches my eye, one of the old-fashioned ones where real mechanical parts spin inside the machine. I find myself reading the payouts, my eyes skimming over the numbers and combinations, while my hand, quicker than thought, drops the wish in the slot and works the lever. Something must have made me stop exactly here, is the thought tumbling around my head as the cylinders turn, and a moment later it is clear to me: the most perfect thing to do with a wish is to marry it to another expression of destiny.
When eventually I find one of her black patent leather-booted legs crossed with practiced carelessness over the other at a baccarat table, I go over and introduce myself.
By the way, I add, putting a short stack of chips on the edge of the table, these belong to you.
She thinks I must be mistaken.
I assure her I'm not. Then I ask her name.
After we've been talking for a while, we get on the subject of desire.
By the time I pass by his table on my way out, Grant is gone.
* * *
The next Wednesday I tell Grant about Ashleigh.
He waits till I am done and says to me, I thought you were smarter than that.
There is nothing I can say to that, so I don't. Instead I watch him draw in a mouthful of smoke and let it out slowly. As far as I know, Grant doesn't gamble, at least not now that he's retired. Until last week, I had never made it past his table in the food court myself.
You know kid, he says at last, I'd swear you didn't know anything about women.
I'm going to get more coffee, I tell him. He waves his cigar in that do-what-you-will gesture of his.
Standing in line, I think that Grant doesn't know much about me, or what I know about women. Part of that is because I've never told him about Eleanor, but that's because Eleanor was long over before I ever met Grant, and it wasn't worth talking about.
Besides, women are not all alike. Ashleigh is nothing like Eleanor. I can tell the difference. Eleanor would never have been seen in a place like this, but there are a lot of things Eleanor would never have done.
A week ago, upstairs in Ashleigh's room, she was brushing out her wet hair, head tilted to one side, and asked me what I do when I'm not here.
I drive a car.
Race car?
No. Just a car. For hire.
Like a limo?
A Lincoln. Black.
Bet you make a lot of airport runs, she said with a laugh.
You have no idea. I could do it in my sleep.
Is it what you wanted to do, growing up?
Does anyone ever end up doing what they wanted growing up? I wanted to be a train engineer or else the guy who gets to work the wrecking ball at construction sites, then an astronaut, then a detective, a journalist, a lover, husband, father. What I wanted counted for nothing. What I have is driving.
But rather than share any of this, I just said, No. You?
She laughed, again, instead of answering. I was curious, too, about what she did when she wasn't kissing quarters or playing baccarat, but not that curious. She tilted her head the other way and put down the hairbrush. That miracle you pulled off today, she said. Do you think you could do it again?
I said if she had more kisses like that I'd see what I could do, but she had gotten serious. She had a plan, she told me, a good one, and all she needed was a wheel man.
A wheel man, I repeated, trying not to look at her, because I knew what my answer would be if I did.
She came over to the bed and leaned in closer. Put her hand on my chin and turned my head toward her.
Don't you want to know the plan? she asked, running a finger down my left arm, along my hand, down to my naked ring finger. I'll make it worth your while, she promised. A diamond, maybe two, to give to your girlfriend.
I don't have a girlfriend, I heard myself say. But there's a girl named Ashleigh I kind of like.
She laughed, and then she kissed me again.
When I get back to the table, Grant says, You know she's here again today.
I know. I tap the plastic stirrer on the side of the cup. I made plans to meet her again.
Grant thinks this is even more evidence that he had overestimated my intelligence.
It's an intricate operation, though, this plan of Ashleigh's. There are too many moving parts, and they all have to go together flawlessly.
That kind of woman, Grant warns, that kind of woman'll get you shot in the chest.
I don't think he's wrong, but he's talking as if I have a choice in the matter, and I know better. I know it only looks that way.
* * *
I am thinking about Grant up until the point when I turn on the ignition, when everything begins.
What I mean is: when I turn the key it is the beginning of the end. The detailed plan, so carefully choreographed, set in motion at last. It has been months since Grant gave me that quarter, though I can't give him the blame. He was right. I should not have gotten involved, but it is far too late.
I need you, Ashleigh had repeated when initially I seemed hesitant.
Eleanor needed me too. Until she didn't.
I play my part perfectly. I hit my mark at exactly the right time. Before she steps out of the car, Ashleigh leans over and kisses me quickly on the cheek. She doesn't say good-bye; there is no room for that in her plan.
The crack of the door slamming shut is the gunshot I had been bracing for. I am certain my heart stops, even if only for a second.
I put the car in gear, turn the wheel, and pull away, but all that is simply reflex at work. I move as if I am asleep, in a dream. I can feel the spot on my cheek where she last touched me. I know the scarlet mark there will take a long time to fade, but I keep driving.
I keep breathing.