You Can Never Go Back
The Cooler: Chapter 24
“I’m here to see Paul,” JJ said as he stepped up to the pit in the Tropicana.
“You mean Mr. Covino?” The woman behind the rope asked
“I guess, I didn’t get a last name only, Paul,” JJ responded.
“One moment, he’s at lunch,” the woman said. She stepped back to a table and made a call.
After a moment, she came back and said, “ok Mr Covino told me to tell you it’s the guy over at the bacarat table, in the high roller room. He also said you can’t go in there. Do you know what any of that means?”
“Yeah,” JJ said and started to walk away. Before he had gone two steps, he stopped and turned back. “Uh, where’s the high roller room?”
She let out a small laugh and then said, “It’s over next to the piano bar.” And then she pointed to where he needed to go.
He walked over to where he had been directed and stopped just outside. The room was off to the side of the entrance of the piano bar. It wasn’t obvious what it was; there wasn’t even a sign outside or blinking lights. The players that would be in there would not want an audience, so the casino was more than willing to accommodate them by not advertising the room.
The door was open, and JJ could see a few tables with dealers and one player.
JJ looked around to try to find a place where he could see the player and not be standing in the doorway. The sea of slot machines started on the other side of a walkway. The closest ones of that sea were positioned so that if JJ pulled the chair just a little away, he could still look like he was playing and have a decent view of the room, and more importantly, the player.
JJ looked at his watch and saw that it was showing a new moon, empty. “Perfect, I can fill this.” He said to himself. Still looking at the watch, he tried to remember why he hadn’t been relying on it for luck, instead he had been obsessing on a silver coin. He kept looking at his watch, thinking about it.
“Are you going to play the machine?” An older woman asked, seeing him sitting in a chair just staring at his watch.
“What?” JJ asked, looking up.
“Are you going to play the machine?” She asked again.
“Oh,” JJ looked up, finally noticing the machine he was sitting at. “Oh yeah, I’m going to.”
The machine he was at was a bank of four positioned at right angles to each other, making a small circular set of machines. What surprised JJ was that the machines were some Silver Catch machines. The silver coins displayed at the top had Tropicana-themed reliefs. “Well, might as well try and get some of these while I’m here,” He said to himself and then slipped in a hundred-dollar bill.
He pulled the handle a couple of times with a max bet, then snuck a peek at the player to make sure he could still see him.
He was still there, and his stacks of chips were still growing. “Time to start dealing with this,” JJ said, and then put his right hand on his watch and quietly said the spell to drain the wild magic.
The player played a few more hands, winning each of them. JJ continued to drain the magic until his watch started to get warm. “Better slow it down,” JJ said to himself, and then changed how tightly he was holding the watch.
JJ could see that he was affecting the player now. The player threw some cards at the dealer and yelled something.
He had another loss followed by another tantrum. He got up and knocked over his chair, and then caught sight of JJ.
“I can’t believe you guys would do that to me. A cooler. This is shit,” the player yelled and then started stomping towards JJ.
“You piece of shit, you steal my luck. I’m going to take it back in flesh,” he said.
Now JJ could see that the player was the young guy from Arnie’s shop, just dressed a lot better.
JJ quickly stopped the drain spell and then pulled the slot machine handle.
“You shit, cooling my winning streak, I’m going to make you pay,” the guy said as he stepped up to the machine. He stopped for a second and then swung at him with a fairly uncoordinated punch.
“Hey,” JJ yelled as he ducked. Luckily they guy didn’t know how to punch, letting JJ easily avoid it, while still in the chair. “There are other machines.”
“I don’t want your machine; I want you gone,” the guy said, then tried to kick him, but all he hit was the bottom of the chair. “Damn,” he said, then started to hop around, saying. “Ouch, Ouch.”
JJ just stared at him, slightly amused at the hopping antics.
“Don’t laugh at me,” the guy stopped hopping and reached into his pocket. “I’ll deal with you.” He pulled out a small purple crystal and then started saying some weird foreign words.
As the guy was finishing the spell, JJ found himself quickly saying some words that he didn’t recognize, and then made a circular motion with his hands. JJ finished what was obviously a spell just as the lucky player finished his spell. He pointed at JJ, and a bright light flew out of his finger and struck the air infront of JJ. The energy from the attack caused a green magical shield to become visible. The shield disappeared as quickly as it showed, leaving nothing but an afterimage in the vision of the people who had witnessed it.
“Dammit, you should have been left twitching on the floor by that. He promised me!” The guy said, then turned to leave when he was tackled by security.
JJ was as stunned as the guy with what just happened. “What was that? What did I just do?” JJ asked quietly to himself. He hit the cashout button and started to put the coins into a bucket.
“We will get those for you,” one of the security men said.
JJ looked up — and up — and up, to see a very big guy well over six and half feet tall in an all-black suit, and then said, “Thank you. I can get them.”
The security guard reached down and grabbed JJ’s arm, then said, “No, one of my associates will get them; you,” he emphasized with a not-so-gentle tug, “are coming with me.”
“Ouch,” JJ said as the giant made his point. “Why? He attacked me.”
The security guard didn’t say anything more, just insisted JJ do what he wanted by picking him up and then dragging him towards an employee-only door.
***
JJ was brought into an interrogation room and left alone. After a few minutes he checked the door and found it was locked.
The room looked like any interrogation room shown on any cop show. The table was stainless steel and bolted down. There were two chairs; the one facing the obvious one-way mirror was bolted down. The other chair was positioned with its back to the mirror.
“Can I get a beer?” JJ said to the mirror. “Do you have cocktail service in here?”
JJ paced for a while after getting no response from the mirror. When he had gotten his steps in for the day, he decided to see how comfortable the chairs were. He found that the bolted-down chair’s seat bottom was slanted forward so that a person seated there would keep sliding forward.
JJ sat down in the interviewer’s chair and then put his head down to take a nap.
***
“Paul, we need to take a trip,” Simon said after walking into the library, where Simon had given Paul an assignment to learn about some theory of magic.
“Cool, I could use a break from these books,” Paul said, putting the book down so fast it left a cloud of dust. “Where we going and when?”
“Vegas Baby,” Simon said. “But not before we work up a plan. We are going up against a god.”
“Wow, a god,” Paul said.
“Yes, that call was from an old friend of mine. He told me that there is a problem in vegas with one of the gods from the islands who followed them,” Simon said.
“Them? Who are them?” Paul asked.
“Hawaiians Paul, Hawaiians. After the California opened, they have been moving there in bigger and bigger numbers. They brought their culture, their food, their beliefs, and their gods. Like any culture that is brought to a new place, it has changed. The change in location has resulted in many changes. Vegas has a way of amplifying the worst in people and the worst in gods. The Hawaiian god Kaulu was one of those who followed the Hawaiian people to Vegas. In the islands, he was more of a mischievous trickster; now, he seems to be worse.”
“So what do we need to do?” Paul asked.
“We need to trap him,” Simon said.
***
JJ was awakened by the interrogation room door opening.
“Mr. Presley, can I get you some water?” an older gentleman asked as he came in. He was obviously a boss of some kind. Instead of sitting in the uncomfortable chair, he sat down on the edge of the table to the side of JJ.
“A beer,” JJ responded quickly, wiping away the pool of drool that had formed on the table while he slept.
“Oh, I can’t get you any alcohol in here,” the gentleman said.
“Then I’m fine. Why am I down here? Do you always detain someone who was attacked?” JJ asked.
“No, we do not, but we do detain persons who harass our good customers,” the man said. “The customer, Mr. Cox, was very adamant that he was only defending himself against your harassment. He said something about you being a cooler. I don’t believe in that — uh — mumbo jumbo, but what the customer wants, the customer gets, within reason, and the within reason this time is to ban you from the property. Mr. Presley, if you show up on the property again, you will be tresspassing and we will have you arrested. Now, Mr. Gaul will escort you out.” He waved his hand to some unknown person on the other side of the mirror.
The man got up and went to the door, just as the giant who had escorted him down originally came in.
“Mr. Presley, come with me,” Gaul said.
This time, Gaul didn’t drag JJ, just walked him out.
Gaul was silent until they got out of the main door, then finally asked, “You’re a cooler?”
“Uh, yeah, sort of,” JJ said.
“What do you mean sort of?” Gaul asked.
“Well, I am only a cooler because I was cursed by …” JJ started.
“By a gypse?” Gaul asked.
“No, it was a Hawaiian god,” JJ said.
“Really? You play in the big leagues,” Gaul said, stopping at the sidewalk that bordered the property. “Here you go, have a good day, just don’t come onto the property again.” Gual took a moment to shake JJ’s hand.
“Thank you, sir. Why did you ask about being a cooler?” JJ asked.
“My grandmother was called a witch, and I’ve always been interested in that kind of thing,” Gaul said.
“Then you should go to the coffee shop in the Horseshoe around 1 am, there is a group that meets there. They are all trying to learn about magic,” JJ said.
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Gaul said, then turned and headed back in.
JJ stood fora moment and looked across Tropicanna at the progress of the new MGM Grand, then looked down at his watch to see it was 4:20 pm.
“Man, I wasted the whole day in there,” JJ said.
He stood there for a moment trying to figure out where he was going to go. He looked up and down Tropicana Avenue to see if there were any cabs. “Oh man, I forgot all about those giant heads.” He said when he caught sight of the giant easter island head replicas.
***
“Hello?” Raul’s voice came from the phone handset.
JJ had gone across the Boulevard and found a phone to use in Excalibur.
“Hey, Raul, it’s JJ,” he said.
“Did you figure out why you felt you needed to call me?” Raul asked.
“Yeah, my neighbor had a stroke,” JJ said.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry. Did you know him well?” Ral asked.
“We barely talked until last night when he gave me some great advice, and that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” JJ said. “Are you doing anything now?”
“Peter is trying to teach me some real magic, but I’m not learning very fast,” Raul said.
“Oh, good, Peter is there also, see if he will take a break and you guys can meet me down here at the king’s bar in Excalibur,” JJ said.
“One second,” Raul said and put the phone down.
After a moment, Raul came back, “Paul said we can take a break, we’ll be there in about an hour.”
***
“Hey, JJ,” Raul said when he and Peter walked up to the bar where JJ was sitting.
“Hey, guys,” JJ said. “What do you guys want?”
“You called us,” Paul said.
“I mean,” JJ said, looking at Paul. “What would you two like to drink?” JJ asked.
“Oh, just a beer for me,” Raul said.
“Soda, and a lime,” Peter said.
“I’ll get the drinks. Grab a booth over near the wall so we can talk,” JJ said.
***
“Here you guys go,” JJ said as he set down the drinks and took a seat.
Peter and Raul took a sip of their drinks, waiting for JJ to tell them why he wanted to meet them. Finally, JJ spoke up. “So, I want to talk about Arnie and that kid that was at his shop last time Raul and I were there,” JJ said, and then very quietly, “and Kaulu.”