The Only Game in Town

That the words of a story produce in each reader a unique set of emotions and mental images was visually proved when Playboy Art Director Arthur Paul and regular contributing artist Robert Weaver gave one of Bob's classes at New York's School of Visual Arts copies of "The Only Game in Town" to illustrate. Art and Bob were rewarded with a catholic variety of highly imaginative interpretations, from which the seven on these pages were chosen. "We asked the students to be experimental and personal," said our highly pleased Art Director, "and selected the paintings that we thought had come closest to the emotional heart of the story."

His name is Georgie Benefit and I came down here to Atlantic City two nights ago to knock around with him for the weekend. I have not seen him since Las Vegas over a year ago, when I first met him.

I had finished the long first draft of my play about Las Vegas and made the trip out to check it for accuracy and detail. On my first night there, in the Regency Lounge of the Sands, I saw him sitting a few tables away. A small, dark, natty man with black hair and eyes to match; a handsome face with bluish jaws; a flashing smile which came on and went off in the manner of a motel neon: graceful hands which were seldom in repose--the fingers drumming, or drawing water designs on the table, or playing with peanuts. His companion was a surprisingly discreet blonde beauty who wore, so far as I could see, no make-up whatever.

I recognized him at once, since his photograph had appeared in Time only the week before as one of the illustrations in a story on gambling in America. The caption read: "Ahead of the game."

I got Jack to introduce me to him the next afternoon at the pool, and I told him immediately who I was and what I was doing. He became expansive at once and offered to do anything he could to help me.

"All I want," he said, "is you give me two good ones down front for the opening night on Broadway, deal?"

His recent publicity had given him a dramatic view of himself and he was anxious to recite. The Time condensation had proved frustrating.

"I talk to them muzzlers five days and five nights without hardly no stopping and did you see what they put? About this size!" He took an ice cube out of his drink and held it before my eyes, in illustration.

"I thought it was fine," I said. "Fascinating."

"You didn't spill your guts out for five days and five nights."

• • •

Georgie Benefit is, and has been for over 20 years, a professional gambler. He was born in Detroit 38 years ago, dropped out of high school at 14 to drive a wartime taxi, began playing horses at Hazel Park and Livonia, became proficient at handicapping, was invited to do it on percentage for his boss, and before long, gave up driving.

He approached his new calling scientifically. He read books and periodicals on sports and games and eventually knew what he was talking about.

A Grosse Pointe millionaire took him, as a lark, to Monte Carlo. Georgie observed the wheels for three weeks before making a single play. Then, backed by his friend, he began. His winnings were not spectacular, but they were consistent. By the end of a second three-week period he had regained his partner's four-year losses.

But he was anxious to return to the States, "--where I can at least understand what everybody's talking even if I don't like what they're saying mostly."

He traveled: Miami, Saratoga, Kentucky, Chicago, New York, Las Vegas. He played cards: poker, chemin de fer, bridge, canasta, pinochle, blackjack and all forms of rummy. He played games: roulette, dice and chuck-a-luck. He bet on horses, baseball, football, basketball and boxing. He never in his life put a coin into a slot machine.

"I got to play with where there's people in it. Not plain machines. You play against machines, you get to be a machine yourself, y'know?"

In his way, he is a serious man. He studies and practices, and often makes mind bets until he feels attuned to concrete ones.

He told me he liked everything about Las Vegas except the gambling, which he did only occasionally.

"For amateurs. I can't stand it in my stomach to see the mistakes they make."

He frequented Las Vegas mainly for the atmosphere, the climate, the entertainment, the food--and from time to time an important private game.

He was unmarried, had never been married.

"Who would me? The way I move. Hither and yon and back and forth again. I got to travel light. You ever notice it, how you can always get one single-o on the plane? Also, I like women so much, I wouldn't spoil one by marrying them."

The pattern of female companionship he had evolved was entirely satisfactory to the females as well as to himself. In his business he was a ruthless, slashing stylist; with girls he was a tender boy--attentive and considerate and (this never hurts) generous. He had a number of numbers wherever he went and although there were continual changes and adjustments, on the whole his companions were constant. He never dissembled, pretended or lied.

"They always know with me what's the score. Nothing--nothing."

When I met him, he had been in Las Vegas for ten months, his longest stay anywhere in years. For the first time in his life his health had failed. An extended sedentary existence coupled with an excess of smoking and drinking had brought about a set of worrying symptoms. His careless diet and uncertain hours had aggravated his condition. He stopped smoking, cold, five minutes after his doctor advised him to do so, and gained 18 pounds in three weeks. He gave up eating for two days and fainted into the arms of his Chicago bookmaker. A checkup revealed lung congestion and an elevated cholesterol count. He went to Las Vegas and took himself in hand. A bookcase I saw in the sitting room of his suite there was filled with works on nutrition and exercise and relaxation. An Exercycle was set up, and he owned a Relaxacizor as well as several vibrators. A chinning bar was rigged in the doorway to the bathroom and one of the beds had been removed from the bedroom to make room for an exercise mat, weights and pulleys.

"But the most good of all is from the massaging." he told me. "Would you believe it? And what's crazy is how I almost damn nearly blew it. Because when the doctor--the one here-- told me I should--for circulatory reasons--I told him forget it. I explained him how I tried it already several times in fact and if there's one thing I can't stand it's it. Massaging. The whole idea is what I can't stand. Every time if I do it I wind up more tenser and nervouser than before I laid down. How can anybody? I mean you take off your clothes, naked, and you lay down and some man starts in to rub you. I swear to God I could get sick to my stomach from only talking about it. Look my hands how they're wet. Anyhow this doctor--the one here--he says to me, 'You mean you can't stand it people to touch you?' 'That's it,' I says. 'Even you. When you were examining me before I felt to bop you one.' He says, 'Would you feel the same if it was a woman?' I says, 'What do you mean? A woman massager?' He says, 'Yes.' So I say, 'Well, what the hell, doc, it would depend what does she look like?' And he says, 'Let me see what I can do.' Did you know they got a law here you can't massage a female if you're a male or a male if you happen to be a female unless with an M.D.'s perscription? Anyway, the next morning he calls me on the phone, the doctor, and he tells me this person'll be right over. Now I'm nervouser than before even. She comes in, I nearly faint again because--well, you seen her. A knockout. She's wearing white everything. Shoes, too. And lugging that portable table and she sets it up. But the thing was, everything was so businesslike, like a nurse, that I couldn't feel funny. I left on my shorts, but. And she started in to. Turns out she's only the greatest in the world, that's all. Just rubbing, no talking like some of them. Later on I found out. She's a Swede, from Sweden, and she does it Swedish. Different kinds --like for waking you up healthy--that's the one she done that day--or putting to sleep or a hangover or mild relaxing. She's some kind of a genius. I have her come back after for the putting to sleep one. This one she does on the bed not the table and when she gets down to my lower back part she pulls my shorts off me and you want to know something? It was like nothing. I mean she was doing her job like as if she would be say like a barber or a tailor. And the next thing you know, I'm sleeping the best sleep I slept in months. So from then on I set her up for three times a day and she still does. You know what I weigh? Guess. One-forty even. And my cholesterol? Guess. One-seventy-four. You can have two-fifty and it's within normal. And the smoking, I don't miss it on account I'm relaxed--and here's the cherry on the top--on account of that I'm on my longest winning streak. How about that?"

I came to know Georgie Benefit well during the following week. He was most helpful and took me about, explaining the routines and the characters and the fine points of the various games. I watched him play, but did not play myself. He wondered about this and was flabbergasted when I told him that I had never gambled. When I revealed the fact that I have never seen a horse race, he regarded me as oddly as he might have had I confessed to him that I was a hermaphrodite.

"Well," he said, "maybe because you never been around the right places. Like now. Maybe a week ain't enough--but I figure in four, five days you'll be grabbing yourself a little action."

He was wrong. It took three days. I became involved in a blackjack game and played for five hours. At the end, I was well ahead. Beginner's luck.

Georgie and I sat in the coffeeshop, having a late supper of fresh fruit salad and fat-free cottage cheese.

"Don't eat the melon parts," he cautioned. "It's full of water retention."

I boasted about my winnings, gleefully.

"I'm sorry to hear it," he said. "Because if you get so high from a win, you'll get too low from a lose. You got to get your jollies from the playing, see, not from the win or lose."

(I had heard this philosophy expressed often, generally in loftier terms. Every master has tried to teach me that joy must be found in the doing, and that acceptance or rejection of the result is no more than an aftereffect. Now here was Georgie Benefit, in indifferent syntax, reintroducing me to the verities.)

"I do good, it so happens," he continued. "But I would do it even if I would do bad because what I like is to do it. Remember that guy they tell--what's his name? Mizner?--in the story? When they said to him, 'Don't you know that's a crooked wheel you're playing?' And he said, 'Sure I know, but it's the only game in town!'"

The afternoon after I met him, he was with the same impressive blonde I had seen him with in the lounge. When he introduced her to me as Sigrid Johnson, I gathered that she was the masseuse. After he had put her on the three-a-day schedule, he persuaded her to give up her other clients and work for him exclusively. A few months after that, the prevailing understanding was that she was his girl.

Her abilities did not end with her work in physiotherapy, he explained. She was, in addition, a champion swimmer, trainer, posture expert, nutritionist and registered nurse. She took his blood pressure daily and blood samples once a week for comparative analysis. She was, in fact, in charge of his physical life.

"What's the use talking?" he said. "I can't tell things too good."

"You do fine."

"No, I mean it. The best way I want to make my point is I want you to have her--my guest--a couple times a week and you'll see."

"No, thanks."

"Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared."

"Then what?"

"Well, didn't you say it took a doctor's prescription?"

"So what's that? Listen, I know M.D.s out here that for a price, I could get them to write you a death certificate!"

I had five appointments in all with Sigrid Johnson. She was everything he had said, and more.

By the time I arrived in Las Vegas, there was talk around that Georgie might soon marry Sigrid. When it reached me, I broached it to him during a Chinese dinner.

"What're you?" he asked. "Cracked?"

"No."

"Married? What do I need it? I wouldn't marry that Princess Kelly, for cryin' out loud."

"I just told you what I heard."

"From who? From where?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Why not?"

"It was mentioned to me confidentially."

"A confidential crock," he said. "Five'll get you ten that if I was to ask her, even, she'd give me a fast no."

"If I were a betting man, I'd take you up."

"You're a betting man. Don't give me that. I've seen you."

"This week only," I said. "For research purposes."

"Go 'way," he snorted.

Still, I wondered how the rumor had started and began a round of a favorite sport--tracking down gossip. My barber there, Scotty, had told me. I asked him where he had heard it. From Hilda, one of the manicurists; and she had it from a stickman who was engaged to Sigrid's roommate, Terry; and Terry had got it from Sigrid.

I did not reveal the result of my inquiry to Georgie or to anyone else. I thought it a piece of information that might come in handy. Was I beginning to develop a gambler's syndrome myself?

Days passed and I heard it more and more.

I said to Georgie, "People are talking about what they're going to give you and Sigrid as wedding presents."

"People," he said, "are a lunatic. They like to talk."

"The big scam is you're going to do it this week. By the end of Sunday."

"Give odds," he said. "You'll grab yourself a bundle."

A curious look appeared on his face, along with two splotches, one on each cheek.

I mentioned the matter, jokingly, to Sigrid one afternoon as she worked on my chest. She may not have heard me. As Georgie had indicated, she never spoke while giving a treatment and I could gather nothing from that stoic, beautiful, Nordic face.

The following morning Scotty said to me, "I had a joe in the chair here two or three back was looking for a bet on the nuptials. He says yes for Sunday."

"What does he want?"

"He'll take five to one."

"For how much?"

"Name it."

My beginner's luck at the blackjack (continued on page 266)Only Game in Town(continued from page 184) table had waned and I saw a chance to recoup with a sure, small killing.

(Sigrid to Terry? Girl talk. I knew Georgie well enough to be sure that when he said no, what he meant was no.)

I made a bet.

The fever spread. Georgie was a well-known figure on the Strip and I heard that there was activity at the other hotels, too. The odds, however, were about the same everywhere.

One syndicate put up $70,000 no to $10,000 yes.

Almost everyone with whom I came into contact during the next few days had something down.

The odds were rising and I was glad I got in early.

"You're right about all the betting going on," said Georgie in the steam room that night. He laughed. "I thought sure you were putting me on."

"No," I said.

"All these half-wits," he scoffed. "I hope you. ain't in."

"Me?" I said. "Of course not."

"Good," he said.

That Sunday morning, Sigrid Johnson and Georgie Benefit were married in the Emerald Room by the mayor of Las Vegas.

"What happened?" I asked him, after I had somehow managed to mumble congratulations.

"Don't ask me," Georgie replied in a daze. "It was just a spur on the moment. Like that."

I kissed the bride, although I felt like biting her.

The next day, I left Las Vegas.

All this happened over a year ago and Georgie Benefit vanished from my life.

• • •

Last Thursday afternoon, he phoned me from Atlantic City.

"Whatever happened to that there show you were supposed to be making up?" he asked. "I can't find it."

"That makes two of us," I said.

"No kidding, what?"

"I'm still working on it."

"Boy, it must be pretty long by now, huh?"

"How are you?"

"Not bad. Listen, I'm down here in a game--what I mean--a big game. What we call a Frank Buck."

"A what?"

"Big game."

"Oh, I thought you meant--never mind."

"You like to see some of it?"

"Sure."

"Come down. I'll fix you up with a suite at the Claridge. That's not where the game is, but it's where Sigrid likes so that's where we go."

"How is she?"

"You'll see."

I drove down and I am glad I did.

There was no game on Friday night, because two of the players, from Linden, New Jersey, are Orthodox and do not play on the Sabbath.

So it was dinner and the evening with Sigrid and Georgie at the Knife and Fork. They both looked marvelously fit. She dominated him completely, but he seemed to revel in it.

There was talk of Georgie's giving up gambling. Sigrid has her eye on an available ski lodge near Stowe, Vermont. She is thinking of a year-round resort with sauna baths and special diets.

"And maybe," said Georgie, wistfully, "one wheel in the back room."

"No," she said, taking the saltcellar out of his hand and putting it on the adjoining table.

"Just a thought," he said.

"You know what we agreed," said Sigrid. "No playing, no betting unless necessary and then only out of the state."

He protested. "But in this business you got to keep going, sweetheart. You can't start and stop. You lose edge."

"We'll talk about it," she said, and began asking me about what shows to see in New York.

Tonight. The big game he promised was big, all right, if you call a $360,000 pot big.

Those steely boys were something to watch.

The session ended at two A.M. sharp, by prearrangement. Most places are closed by then, but there is a private open-all-night club Georgie goes to in Ventnor and that is where we have been.

I sat there drinking Vichy with a slice of lemon in it, but he got plastered fast, almost as if he were trying to do so. This was hard to understand, since it reversed the usual pattern I have noted--the losers get drunk and the winners do not. Georgie was a winner tonight.

"I'm glad you come down," he said.

"Thanks for asking me."

"What is it, like a year or more or what?"

"Just about."

"It seems longer."

"How do you like married life?" I asked.

"I just told you."

"You did?"

"I said it seems longer, didn't I?"

"You look well."

The compliment unnerved him. He pointed a cranky finger at me and said, "Look, buster. There's more to it--to life --than to look well all the time and that's all."

"Yes."

"I've got myself in one damn what-a-box here. Did you hear her before? All that about that Vermont?"

"I did."

"Where the hell is Vermont, anyway? Do you know?"

"Sure."

"Boy, can she find places!"

"Do you have to go to them?"

I had irritated him again.

"Yes," he said, mocking me. "I do have to go to them...What's a matter with you? You're married. You know how it is."

"What I know is that my wife and I always talk over things like that. Plans, moves."

"Talk, talk," he said. "But you notice how it always winds up her way?"

I considered this for a time and, stalling, said, "Well--"

"Always," he insisted, and I thought it best not to pursue the discussion.

He consumed another drink before continuing.

"You know what else she's in charge of?"

"What?"

"The bundle. The stash. You ought to see her, every day with the glasses on, and the pencils and papers. It's like she's handicapping money."

"How's she doing?"

"That's hard to say. We got more squirreled away than I ever had, but I can't lay my hands on it. I'm always short usin' money. Like take tonight, if I hadna come up there with them two pair, I'da been to the cleaners... And over the hotel, you know what we got? One double room. Did you hear me good? A double. Inside. Not on any ocean, even." He sighed and shook his head. "When I was single I never took a double. Always a suite. You remember, you saw. Now we're two, so we're in one room. Go dope it." He looked off and as he went on, seemed to be talking to himself as much as to me. "Her birthday, January the five, I bought her a rock. Not hot, regular. You know what she done with it? Took herself a refund and bought instead tax-exempts. She says because on them you don't need to carry insurance like on a rock." He looked back at me. "Where do you think she had me last week? Before we came up here? Guess."

"No idea," I said.

"Down in D.C.," he exclaimed. "She said so long as we're this close we should go, because she's got to have a meeting with this Senator guy from Nevada because she don't like the law. She claims so long gambling ain't illegal out there and so long you're suppose to declare winnings, how come you can't deduct losses and what's going on around here anyways, and you call this fair, no, a rotten shame--and why is the Government such a dirty crook? I tell you she gets going she goes off like some kind of a runaway... And I don't get so many massages anymore. She says it's bad for me. I don't know. The whole thing--it's got me mashed. Every day I don't understand it more."

He frowned and pinched his eyes, wearily.

I asked, "Are you saying you're sorry you did it?"

He threw a swift furtive look over his shoulder, casing the nearby booths for possible eavesdroppers. When he turned back to me, he was testy again.

"Hold it down, you mind? Boy, you got some loud voice, y'know it?"

"It's that bloody jukebox," I explained.

"Screaming around. How do you know who's maybe on the earie?"

"Nobody."

"Anyhow," he said (so quietly, I could barely hear him), "did you hear me say anything about that? About sorry?"

"No."

"All right, then. Don't start in."

"All right."

"In fact, how about stay off altogether? What's it your business?"

I was beginning to get nervy myself, and said, "It is, in a way."

"In what way?"

"It cost me some money. That's business, isn't it?"

He studied the tabletop, and said, "I know."

"I got suckered into a bet and I lost."

"How do you mean suckered?"

"I asked you, remember? And you told me there was nothing in it. That was the horse's mouth as far as I was concerned."

"When I told you how it was," he said deliberately, "that's how it was."

"Yes."

"You mean no, huh?"

"Why?"

"The way you said yes."

"No."

"I give you my word," he said.

"That's good enough for me, Georgie."

"I'll tell you the truth, though, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: It's been on my mind. You've. That's why I asked you down here. The real reason."

"Why?"

"What'd you drop on me?"

"What's the difference? I'm sorry I mentioned it. This late at night, I get jumpy."

"How much?" he insisted.

"Listen," I said. "After watching those pots tonight, it seems like postage stamps."

"How much?"

I thought back.

"Fifteen hundred," I said, abashed.

He reached into his pocket, brought forth a hefty pack of folded bills, found three 500s and pushed them toward me.

"There's no interest money, you notice," he said. "But I'm picking up your tab at the hotel so that ought to about square it."

I demurred, saying, "No, look. A bet's a bet."

"Pick up your money before somebody else does." As I hesitated, he snapped, "Pick it up!"

I did so.

"Put it away," he added, "and hear me out. After I finish telling you--if you want to give it me back--I'll take it."

I pocketed the money and said, "Thanks."

We left the club and walked the three blocks to the sea in silence. When we reached the nearly deserted boardwalk, we proceeded to the rail. Georgie took six deep breaths and exhaled each forcefully.

"Greatest air in the world," he said. "Have some. On me."

We started toward Atlantic City.

"We're not going to walk all the way, are we?" I asked.

"You can use it," he said. "No wonder you can't finish your work. Your blood's got no circulation."

We walked.

"So," he said. "Here goes. The night you mentioned to me how there was this talk around? We were eating Chinese. You were wearing a white tie with gray stripes."

"How do you remember stuff like that?"

"That's my business, to remember. Anyhow, I swear to you that was the first I heard. But not the last. For the next few days--that's all I heard. Then Tiny --you know, the fat captain--he scoops me there's been a bet put down. Now, look. You got to keep it in your mind who am I and what's my pitch. From that minute on, the only thing I could hear clicking around in my head was the stakes and the odds and the layoffs, percentages. So I kept on listening and--"

He stopped talking as a young couple walking hand in hand came within earshot. When they had passed and were well out of range, he continued.

"--the next thing I hear they're laying five to one. And every kind of a clown is bugging me for information."

"Including me."

"I didn't mean you."

"Go ahead."

"I figure I'll have some fun a little, so I get Terry--you know, Sigrid's roommate--to spill it around the barbershop how Sigrid says we're gonna. Wham-- there's all of a sudden a stack of fresh money around...What's a matter? You feel all right?"

"Sure, why?"

"You got red. I noticed from the lamppost. Maybe too much walking?"

"Nothing. Keep going."

"And great odds," he said, picking up the thread of his account. "From there on in, I lose control. I admit it. The day I heard seven to one--I couldn't stop myself. I shilled a bet and started in hustling for more. It wasn't hard to find. In three days, I put down thirty-five Gs and my odds averaged up around eight to one."

"Wait a second. You put down thirty-five and you hadn't asked her yet?"

"Sure not. That was the gamble. The kick. What do you take me for? Some kind of a sure shot schmo? It was a bet."

"What if she'd turned you down?"

"I'da lost."

"But you didn't."

"I'll say not. I hit it for two-eighty and even with after the commissions I still had better than a quarter. I would call it no doubt my best week I ever had."

He began to walk faster, and it was some time before I could slow him down.

"How do you figure I'm entitled to mine back?" I asked.

"Because," he said. "I shoulda touted you off. Those other characters--they were pros mostly--or everyday bettors-- or else strangers. You were just a plain babes in the woods."

"Oh, I don't know," I said, bristling at the description.

"I know," he said. "A light white pigeon. I knew it all the time that you were in. Then when I said to you how I hope you ain't, that meant for you to get out. But I forgot you didn't speak the language. Like me in that Monte Carlo, Europe there. So take it and keep it and I'm glad to have it off my mind. You."

When we reached the front of the Claridge, he seemed reluctant to stop, and kept walking. We traversed the paths of the wide plaza in front of the hotel.

He said, "I'm sorry I got mad before, when you asked me am I sorry I done it. Married. You were right. I shouldna done it. Never."

"I didn't say--"

"It was wrong. All wrong. For me and for her and everything. I knew it at the time, even."

"Why did you, then?"

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me.

"The odds!" he said reverently. "I couldn't stand off them odds! Could I?"

"Well," I said, "maybe you'll get used to it. Many men do."

We walked again, more slowly than before.

"Not me," he said. "I wasn't built for it. Like take right now. What I used to used to do like take right now is to get in bed with a beer and a few magazines and unwind and think over my game and what I done right or wrong or good or bad. And in between, read and figure the next day. Like that... But you know how it's different like take right now?"

"No."

He glanced up at the hotel, closed his eyes for a moment and shuddered.

"I'll go on up and she'll hear me come in. She gets up, gets out of bed, gets her glasses and her pencils--gives me a glass of that kind of skim milk stuff and starts in on me. I got to tell her the whole game and who played and who did how and won or lost and how much and why. It's not too bad when I come in on top, but boy--the times if I'm tapped out! She gets mad or if not cries or whatever and it's something terrible on the nerves. She's got me playing for winning and that's even more terrible on the nerves."

It was my turn, and all I could come up with was a lame, "Maybe things'll be better in Vermont."

"Vermont!" he said, and spat. "You should only live so long. That's one I can keep pushing off till forever."

"I'm not so sure," I said. "The way she sounded at dinner last night--pretty determined."

"Yeah? Well, that's me, too--pretty determine." The volume of his tone was increasing with each word. "If she stays hipped on that, she can go--only without me!"

"You mean you'd bust up?"

"Damn right," he said wildly.

"Divorce?"

"Why not? They do it every day, don't they?"

We had again reached the front of the hotel and, this time, went in.

I picked up my key at the desk and left an early call. Georgie had his key in his pocket.

We left the elevator together, on the 11th floor, and stood for a moment in the hallway. We shook hands.

"Thanks for everything," I said.

"You're welcome."

"It'll never happen."

"What never?"

"Divorce."

"You want to bet?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"No," I said, and let go his hand. "No, I don't."