Betting on Hope

Chapter 4



Big Julie Saladino, wearing a white terry-cloth robe with the hotel’s name stitched in blue over the chest pocket, sat at the dining room table in his penthouse suite at the Desert Dunes Casino and Resort and shoveled in his eggs. The table was set for two, but he was alone in the five-thousand-square-foot apartment except for a bodyguard, who lounged on a sofa, checking the stock market quotes in the newspaper.

Big Julie was in a bad mood. So far nothing had gone right today, and it wasn’t even noon yet. He’d been woken up by his number-two lieutenant back in Jersey, who reported that one of the soldiers had a new girlfriend. That was the good news. The bad news was, she was the daughter of the Russian mob boss who was after Big Julie’s business. To get Big Julie’s turf, the Russians wanted to outfit Big Julie in a custom pair of cement shoes and take him for a long walk at the bottom of a deep ocean. Which was why Big Julie was in Vegas. Plenty of cement, sure, but no oceans.

The soldier was dazzled by the Russian girl’s big bouncing boobies, which turned one part of his anatomy to steel but turned his brain to oatmeal. The lieutenant told Big Julie how it happened: the soldier’s there enjoying an afterglow with the Russian girl and he asks her about her accent, and she says she’s from Georgia, so of course oatmeal brain thought she meant Atlanta, but she meant Tbilisi. The soldier couldn’t tell the difference between an effing southern accent and an effing Russian accent. That was the kind of help you got these days, where the oatmeal and the steel exchanged places when they shouldn’t, and that was the other reason Big Julie was staying in Vegas. Better help.

So that was the first thing.

Then when he hung up the phone with the number-two lieutenant, Big Julie realized that Baby wasn’t in bed and she wasn’t in the shower, either. So that meant that she could be, one, out shopping, two, getting her hair done, three, getting her nails done, four, out shopping. And sure enough, the phone rings and it’s the front desk asking him to approve a charge limit. And Big Julie wanted to know: what’s the point of bringing a hot piece like Baby to share a love nest in Vegas if she don’t want to stay in bed in the mornings and tempt him with her silicone-enhanced tits, her Brazilian-waxed legs, her organic rosemary peeled face, and her lipo-suctioned tummy? If he’d wanted to be sitting here alone approving credit charges like an effing Wall Street tycoon, he could’ve stayed in Jersey with his wife.

So that was the second thing.

Then he got up and ordered breakfast, and when it came, his eggs had runny whites, even though he’d specifically said, no runny whites. And they gave him that sourdough toast again. Who could eat that crap? It was enough to make a guy puke. So he’d ordered up a new breakfast, but that took a little while, and in the meantime, his coffee got cold.

So that was the third thing.



When Baby finally showed up, shortly before noon, carrying a half-dozen shopping bags, and with a starstruck bellboy carrying another dozen, Big Julie wasn’t feeling very romantic.

“You have to see what I got!” Baby squealed as she tipped the bellboy, her smile sparkling for Big Julie alone.

“I can see you got plenty,” Big Julie groused.

The bodyguard, glancing up over the stock market quotes, thought of something he needed to do somewhere else and glided out of the room, if a man who was six-four and weighed two-thirty in the buff could be said to glide.

Baby dropped the bags on the sofa and rushed over to Big Julie, throwing her arms around him. “Don’t be mad, honey. I got everything for you. You want me to do you credit, don’t you? And you were sleeping so hard, and I know how much those late nights take out of you. I couldn’t wake you. And I got you a present. I hope you like it!”

Big Julie eyed her with disfavor. “If I’d wanted to wear out my credit cards in Vegas, I could have brought Marilyn.”

And so, of course, that was the fourth thing. Because no self-respecting Baby would let a reminder of the wife back home go unchallenged.

“Marilyn!” Baby shrieked, dropping her arms from around Big Julie’s shoulders and stomping off toward the bedroom with her shopping bags. “That’s what you want? You want Marilyn? Well, go ahead and call her! Get her here! You don’t spend time with me, you don’t take me nowhere, we don’t even go down to the casino or out to eat or nothing. And I go out to do a little shopping to kill some time while you’re sleeping so you’ll be proud of me, and now you bring Marilyn into it?”

Big Julie had spoken in haste. He really hadn’t meant that he would rather have brought Marilyn. Ever since his wife had discovered that Baby accepted very munificent gratuities as well as a clothing and automobile allowance to entertain her husband, which she did regularly and energetically in a condo that he’d bought for her overlooking the ninth green of the Rocky Shores Country Club golf course, there’d been trouble at home. In fact, ever since Marilyn realized that every afternoon when Big Julie went out to the country club to swing his driver he was getting a hole in one, Marilyn had added murder to her daily to-do list. Big Julie’s murder.

Not that the physical side of Big Julie’s marriage hadn’t been stale for some time. It wasn’t Marilyn’s tchotchke collection, her plastic-covered furniture, and her extra-large, frozen-from-Costco pans of lasagna that she served every Sunday at family dinners. It was Marilyn herself. That lasagna had packed on the pounds over the years, and although Big Julie liked a woman with meat, Marilyn had tried to rein herself in with the aid of industrial-strength undergarments. Her corseted figure was so rigid with elastic polymers that once when Big Julie found the courage to give one of her tits a little squeeze, there hadn’t been any give to it at all. It was like squeezing a traffic cone strapped to her chest.

In short, Big Julie quickly realized that he had nothing to gain by alienating Baby’s affections with talk about Marilyn.

“Baby,” he said, his voice placating. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

Baby stopped behind the couch and dropped her shopping bags on the cushions in front of her, planting her fisted hands on her curvaceous hips. Her chin-length, blond, curly hair was tousled, her red lips were parted, and her breasts, those glorious globes of heavenly bliss, strained against the flimsy fabric of her sundress. Suddenly Big Julie didn’t feel quite so oppressed.

“Baby, honey,” he said again. “You know that everything I have is yours. I was just missing you. Come on, now. Give me a kiss.”

He advanced to the sofa, but she backed up, her eyes stormy.

“Marilyn,” she said with contempt. “You told me you were getting a divorce. Let’s go to Vegas, you said. I’ll divorce Marilyn. Six weeks and it’s done, that’s what you said. We’ll get married, Baby. With flowers and a diamond ring. By an Elvis impersonator. Anything I want.” Baby looked enraged. “Was that all a lie?”

“Baby, you know it wasn’t. These things just take a little time,” Big Julie said, trying to sound pleading. He didn’t have to try very hard. He was feeling very urgent. Her cheeks were so flushed—her skin was so pink—he knew from enthusiastic experience how rosy those breasts looked when her skin was flushed, how her nipples stood up like sentinels on parade when she got excited, how they bounced when she was on top. If he leaped across the sofa, he could just about reach her.

“Have you even started the divorce?” Baby demanded, her voice rising. “Have you even looked for a lawyer? Because I’m telling you, Big Julie, if you’re just messing with me—”

Big Julie couldn’t wait any longer. He lunged forward, leaping over the sofa like an Olympic hurdler, unfortunately missing the top bar. His foot caught on the back of the sofa, but momentum carried him onward. As he stumbled over the top, he grasped wildly at Baby, getting a hand on her skirt and falling heavily to the floor as she staggered for balance. The dress tore in his hand, leaving him holding a ragged piece of bright cloth and showing a gaping hole at the waist where the skirt joined the bodice.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Baby shrieked, grabbing the remains of her skirt around her. “You’ve ruined my dress! You’re a brute! I’m going to kill you! And you are never sleeping with me again until I see a marriage license!” She grabbed her shopping bags and stomped into the bedroom, slamming the door.

Still stunned from his fall and clutching the torn piece of Baby’s sundress, Big Julie lay on the floor and watched her go. One thing he knew for sure: no elastic polymers there. Not anywhere. Nothing but bounce, front and rear, on that one.

He heard the bedroom door lock turn.

Silence settled over the suite.

Big Julie lay on the floor, waiting for his breathing to restore to normal. He was fairly comfortable, all things considered. After a second, he heard a phone ring. Then Drake, the bodyguard, stuck his head cautiously around the door.

“It’s your wife,” he said, glancing at the bedroom door. “I think you should take it.”

Big Julie sighed and rolled to his side, struggled to his hands and knees, and finally grabbed the back of the sofa to stand up.

“Not so young any more,” he said as he staggered toward the suite’s den.

Drake wisely ignored this. “Would you like some more coffee?” he asked.

Big Julie tried to get his bearings, shaking his head like a wounded bear. “Coffee?” he said. “Way past that stage. Bloody Mary. And keep ’em coming.”

“Sure thing.” Drake disappeared into the suite’s kitchen and Big Julie went into the den, collapsing on a leather sofa. He glared at the phone with its blinking light. Marilyn. What could she want? He’d left her with the checkbook, the family credit cards, the car, everything she could possibly want.

He picked up the phone, punched in the blinking light. “Marilyn?” he said, trying to sound cheerful and not like he’d just got his lights dimmed by leaping over a sofa after his girlfriend. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” Marilyn said, triggering a sudden feeling of dread in Big Julie. “I’ve been feeling terrible ever since you left Passaic, and I know it’s all my fault. When I said I’d kill you, I didn’t mean it, Julie. I want to make it up to you.”

“Oh?” said Big Julie, wary. “That’s nice. I should be home—”

“So I’m on my way,” Marilyn said. “I’m at the airport in Chicago right now, and I’ll be in Vegas around three-thirty. Can you pick me up?”

“Unhg,” Big Julie gasped, feeling that he was taking that walk on the bottom of the ocean after all.

“I want us to be happy again,” Marilyn said. “Like we used to be. I’ll see you this afternoon, Julie.”

She hung up.

Drake came into the den with the Bloody Mary.

“Bad news?” he asked, glancing at Big Julie’s face as he set down the glass on a smooth leather coaster.

“Marilyn’s coming.” Big Julie grabbed the glass and took a slug of his drink. “This afternoon.”

“Oh?”

“Damn right, oh. What the hell am I going to do, Drake?”

Drake glanced out the window. Jump, his expression seemed to suggest.

“It’s a problem,” he agreed.

“You’re no help,” Big Julie said, fearing what might make his wife happy. The thought of having to get into bed with the flannel-nightgown-wearing, hair-curler-sprouting, face-cream-slathering Marilyn, while the ripe, luscious, soft, yielding, athletic, and best of all, naked Baby lay alone and neglected somewhere else, well, it was enough to weaken a man’s resolve, if you got the drift.

“No,” Drake agreed again. “And you have another problem, sir.”

“Whatever it is, the answer is no,” Big Julie said. “No more problems today.”

“Well, this is a problem you have to take care of,” Drake said. “You know how trouble comes in threes? I think problem number three is sitting in the living room.”

“Right now? In the living room right now?” Big Julie asked.

Drake nodded.

“Is it a dame?” Big Julie asked. “I am done with dames.”

“It is, ah, a dame,” Drake said.

“And you let her in because—”

“Because, remember? You got a call from Jersey last night. From Marty the Sneak. And he’s calling in his favor from last winter when he helped you with that thing in Atlantic City.”

Big Julie remembered. Remembered it all—last night, the call, Atlantic City, the thing, and Marty the Sneak. He groaned.

“So what does Marty want I should do?”

“He wants you to talk to this nice woman who is sitting in your living room right now, and listen to what she has to say, and if you can, accommodate her. Marty says he thinks you can accommodate her.”

Big Julie sighed. “Is she a looker?”

“She is indeed.”

“Dammit to hell,” Big Julie said. “I have really had it with good-looking women.” And then he went out to the living room to deal with his third problem.



Hope stood up when Big Julie entered the living room. He looked terrible. He was wearing a big, white, terry-cloth robe, he was unshaven, and his hair was a mess. He looked pasty, like he was hung over or tired and hadn’t seen the sun in any of his fifty years. He was holding a Bloody Mary, too.

This’ll be bad, she thought.

She, on the other hand, had given a lot of thought to her appearance. Hope knew that she didn’t have her mother’s looks, but at least she had half the lucky gene pool. She was tall and blonde, and she was wearing her hair down, so Big Julie probably would like that, and her figure was decent and her features were regular bordering on pleasant. So she had that going for her, but she hadn’t been sure what to wear. She wanted to look businesslike without looking prim. She’d settled on a navy suit with a skirt and high heels and a tight, bright pink camisole that had shrunk in the wash and never been worn again until today.

She hoped that would do the trick.

“Hello, Mr. Saladino,” she said. “I’m Hope McNaughton. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Yeah,” Big Julie said, dropping into a sofa. The bathrobe gapped open over his bulk, and Hope quickly averted her eyes.

We’ve barely been introduced, and already I have too much information.

“Siddown, siddown,” Big Julie said irritably, readjusting his robe. “Whaddaya wanna drink?”

“Oh, thank you, nothing,” Hope said as she sat down again. She smiled, focusing on his face. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but Marty said I should explain.”

“Explain what? Drake, get her an orange juice. Or a Snapple. We got some good Snapple—lemonade, peach tea, whatever you want.”

“Um, well, plain iced tea would be good if you have it.”

“Drake, see if we got that. Okay, now explain.”

Drake glided away again.

“I understand that at your poker game a week ago, you played with Derek McNaughton, and you won a ranch from him.”

A smile lit Big Julie’s face.

“I sure did. That guy don’t quit, I gotta give him that. But he didn’t have the cards that night. You know this guy?”

“He’s my father,” Hope said.

“Oh,” Big Julie said. “Bad luck for you.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Hope paused while Drake brought in her iced tea, and she took a sip while he settled in a chair in the background.

“My family lives on that ranch,” Hope said.

“So what is it you would like me to do?” Big Julie said. “Assuming I can do it, or want to do it, or will do it, which is not certain yet. Because I am guessing that if you know I got the ranch, you know I got a buyer lined up. A company that specializes in destination entertainment.”

Hope nodded, feeling her stomach clench, knowing that she had to play her hand with everything she had, and be lucky, as well. And sitting across from this tired, hung-over, semi-naked Mafioso, she didn’t believe that the odds were on her side.

“The lawyer I talked to said the place is worth two million dollars,” she said. “My family doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of money, Mr. Saladino, but we love that ranch. We’ve always lived there. We’d be heartbroken to leave it.”

Big Julie finished his Bloody Mary with a slurp through the straw and put the empty glass on the end table.

“Yeah, see, I’m not in the charity business,” he said. “Tell Marty I’m sorry about your loss and all, but I won that ranch fair and square.”

“I’m not asking for charity, Mr. Saladino,” she said. “I want to play you for the ranch.”

Big Julie’s eyes opened a little wider. “What?” he asked.

Go for it now. Hope unbuttoned her jacket and leaned forward, putting her glass on the table in front of her. She watched him while his eyes drifted toward the pink camisole. Excellent.

“In next Saturday’s card game,” she said. “I want to play. You win, you take my stake, you keep the ranch. I win, I get the ranch.”

Big Julie stared, but he didn’t budge.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “There’s already eight in the game. Anyways, I got a buyer.”

Hope took off her jacket, turning to lay it on the back of the sofa, letting Big Julie get an eyeful of pretty much everything she had.

“I understand,” she said, crossing her legs and smiling. “Still, turning the property into an entertainment destination will be complicated. The sale isn’t a simple cashout. There’ll be leveraged stakeholders, stock options, maybe bonds to float, perc and land tests, permits, contingencies, covenants, restrictions, valuations, who knows what. You can’t get it done in a week. You can’t get it done in a month. Maybe several months. Even years. It’s a lot of work. Maybe more work than the property’s worth to you.”

Big Julie had torn his eyes away from the pink camisole while she’d been talking, but now that she’d wound down, he was staring at her chest again. Back in the game.

“I’m just asking you to let me play.” Hope recrossed her legs. Not that she had any evidence that Big Julie was a leg man.

“So what’s this cozy little meeting going on in here?” a strident female voice asked.

Hope looked up to see a gorgeous, pampered, unhappy-looking young woman storm into the room. The young woman stared at her tight pink camisole and exposed thigh with deep suspicion.

Wrong outfit for her, Hope thought. I blew it.

“Hello,” Hope said, trying to sound unthreatening. “I’m—”

“Baby, honey,” Big Julie said, placating. “This here is—what did you say your name was again, Sweetheart?”

Hope blinked. “Hope,” she said. “Hope McNaughton.”

“Hope, here, is just asking me if she can play in next Saturday’s game.”

“Oh, is that what she’s here for,” Baby said, crossing her arms, glaring at Hope. “I thought it was for something else.”

“Baby, you know I would never—”

“I’m watching you, Big Julie. You are never getting out of my sight until—”

And then, as Hope watched Big Julie gaze at the angry china-doll blonde, Hope saw an Idea enter Big Julie’s head. His eyes went from desperate to smug in a second. And then she knew she was in the game—on Big Julie’s terms, whatever they were.

He looked at Hope with a diabolical smile. “Hope here wants to play in the big leagues. And I was just about to tell her that she’s in if she brings a stake of two hundred to the table and you take her shopping. Today. At three-thirty. And not a minute later.”

“What? No,” Hope said, feeling excitement and confusion overtake her. “Shopping? Why?”

“Three-thirty today,” Big Julie said. “Three-thirty today, you and Baby here go shopping. And you bring two hundred to the game next Saturday, and you can play.”

Hope felt her heart pound. She was in the game. And all she had to do was spend one afternoon shopping and bring a two hundred dollar stake.

“Me?” Baby said, incredulous. “Take her shopping? No way.”

“Spend what you like,” Big Julie said, uttering the magic words.

“Why do I have to take her shopping?” Baby asked, still suspicious.

“Are you kidding?” Big Julie asked, smug with victory. “She can’t play cards looking like that.”

“What?” Hope said, “Of course I—” But Baby looked at Hope, appraising her outfit. Evidently what Big Julie said made sense to her.

“Well, okay, I’ll do it,” she said. “But don’t expect miracles.”

“Hey,” Hope said.

“So if you could just leave Hope and me for a second to settle some details, I’ll be in to settle some details with you, too,” Big Julie said. “Only yours will take longer.”

Baby sniffed, but she tossed her head and left the room. The second she was gone, Big Julie leaned forward.

“My wife is coming at three-thirty today,” he said. “If you want to play next Saturday, you will take Baby shopping today and every day until then.”

“What?” Hope said, her head spinning. “I can’t. I have to work.”

“Take it or leave it,” Big Julie said. “I don’t care. And don’t forget, you need two hundred, too.”

“Shopping, every day,” Hope said. She hated shopping, and Baby didn’t like her. That should be fun. But at least she could afford the stake—Marty would be surprised. “And two hundred dollars. That at least I can manage.”

“Two hundred dollars—you’re a kidder,” Big Julie said. “I like that.”