Post by Ace Anderson on Mar 30, 2013 14:01:01 GMT -5
House of Cards, Part III: Benny V
[/b][/I]Autumn, 2007
Ace Anderson had alienated his pregnant wife, betrayed his best friend Lantlas, failed to defeated him for the World Heavyweight Champion, and dove headfirst into as much cocaine as he could afford.
When PCW management discovered he was using cocaine in the locker room, PCW’s Zero Tolerance policy had his contract terminated and forced him into a rehabilitation centre. If he refused, he would never wrestle again, and could even go to jail. His track record with the company kept them from making this public knowledge, but the information still made its way to the only person that mattered: Katelyn.
As if losing their savings in a whirlwind weekend in Vegas shortly after their wedding wasn’t enough, finding out he was using cocaine (at all?) mere months before her due date was enough for her to file a restraining order on her mother’s advice. ‘A gambler and a drug addict can make a child, but he sure as hell can’t raise one,’ was her basic line of reasoning. And once his head was clear of the coke, he didn’t disagree.
He knew he fucked up. In some backwards way, it seemed like it was on purpose. He was ‘prepared’ for the responsibility, but being away from the ring, sitting down in a card room, and ultimately fulfilling the terms of his contract with Skylar Marshall had skewered his relationship to any sort of accountability. So what would he do? His son was born and he wasn’t there. If he tried to see him, his mother-in-law would call the police. Katelyn would probably file for divorce any day, and he’d deserve it. After he got out of rehab he tried to call. But she didn’t answer. The one time she did, she couldn’t talk to him. First she cried. Then she yelled at him. Then she cried while yelling at him and hung up the phone. He hadn’t called her since. She was a grown, professional woman with a newborn child and had no choice but to be strong and move on without him. He was an out of work professional wrestler with a newborn child he couldn’t even hold let alone raise, addiction problems that went from bad to worse, and a once indomitable will that had been shaken, not stirred.
Once again he was no longer Ace Anderson, was simply Jason McDonald, and had no idea what to do with himself. So he went back to old faithful, No Limit Hold ‘Em.
He found himself frequenting a card room in the basement of a club in Greenville. He didn’t go back to Boston because he knew he would be tempted to violate the restraining order. It wasn’t the thought of going to jail that bothered him so much as stirring up emotions Katelyn didn’t need to feel. An arrogant and selfish asshole he certainly was, but he still loved her.
At first his bankroll was small. But after playing six nights a week for a month it began to grow. While he cashed out after a particularly good night, a South American man approached him.
“You’re a good player,” the man said as he lit a cigar.
“Thanks, I guess. But I don’t remember seeing you at the table,” Jason replied.
“I don’t sit at the tables. I own the tables.”
“Is this a shakedown?” Jason asked.
“It could be. I wouldn’t lie if I said you being here is bad for business. My dealers tell me our regulars, guys who have been coming here for years, stand up when you sit down,” the man explained, “my name’s Benito Villalba. But they call me Benny V.”
Jason turned from the counter to face the man. He was much shorter than Jason, though most men were. He was dressed in a smart suit and smoked his cigar with both purpose and pleasure. His hair was close-cropped, probably because his hairline was well over halfway up his forehead. Jason looked around and noticed a man almost as large as himself was watching them a little too closely from across the room. He was familiar with men like these.
“Are you telling me you don’t want me to come back?” Jason asked as he pocketed his winnings.
“Quite the opposite. I’m wondering if you want to raise the stakes,” Benny said as he exhaled a cancerous cloud of cigar smoke, up and away from Jason’s face but some of the smoke still filled his eyes. He stared through it and into the eyes of Benny V. Those eyes were all business. He had seen eyes like them before, in the office of Skylar Marshall. His instincts ought to have said ‘run’, but the poker player in him, the only part of him that still remained in working order, was already baited.
“Can’t. Don’t have the bankroll for it. Anything I win comes out to cover certain expenses,” he explained. He didn’t bother to mention those expenses were rent and child support payments. He was sure Benny could guess. Any man who owns a card room knows a grinder when he sees one.
“You misunderstand me,” Benny began. “The scope of my proposal extends well beyond these walls.”
“I don’t follow,” Jason said as he turned and made his way toward the door. Benny was annoyed by this but he walked with him. Jason didn’t have to turn to know the watcher was following as well.
“I own this room, that’s true. But my network extends across the country. If there’s one thing I know about card rooms, it’s that the player makes more than the rake.”
“Naturally,” Jason replied as he pushed open the door. He was interested, but knew if he showed too much interest he’d lose some sort of edge. If he had an edge at all?
“What I’m suggesting is we help each other,” Benny continued, “and in doing so, we’ll both make much more than we do now.”
They walked up the stairs to the parking lot, and as they reached the top he heard the door open behind them. The bodyguard, of course. “You’re still ahead of me. Speak plain, sir.”
“I want to back you. I provide your bankroll. You travel around my rooms and play as you would. When you win, I take a cut, a modest amount of course. But in most of these rooms it’s going to be more in one night than I’d make in a week from the rakes. You keep the rest. And it will be more than you make in two weeks at these tables with the roll you have now.”
Jason stopped in his tracks. He didn’t expect anything like this. In the month he’d be been playing he was up two grand from grinding it out. A thousand bucks a night was a tempting offer, even with the catch. “What if I lose?”
“You’re obviously a gambler, and not just any gambler. Something tells me you’ve been doing this for most of your life. That you’re here playing at $10/$25 tells me you’re suffering from lack of funding. You should be playing at $50/$100, at least. From what my dealers tell me, you probably have in the past.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jason said, firm yet respectful. At this point he didn’t want to get too coy.
“If you lose, you pay back the roll. Like I said, you’re a gambler. It’s a risk like any other.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Well... I’ll get it one way or another,” Benny V said with a Skylar Marshall-esque smirk. Jason knew right away that meant he’d be hounded until he came up with it, or the big guy who was still watching them, now smoking a cigarette in the shadows, would take it in flesh. Or at least, he would try.
“I’m interested,” Jason said. And he was. He had next to nothing to lose, and apparently much to gain.
Benny reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin business card. “Come to my office here in Greenville, in the next couple days, and we’ll work out the details,” he said.
Jason took the card, pocketed it next to the modest roll of cash he made that night, and held out his hand. Benny refused the shake.
“Let’s save that for the deal,” he said as he turned away and walked toward the man in the shadows. He flicked his cigarette and followed Benny V down the stairs to the card room.
Jason found his Mustang in the parking lot, but paused before he got in. Things could stay the same, and he’d get by. But he didn’t want to grind forever. Eventually he’d have to up his stakes or he’d go insane. If he wasn’t already.
Without actually considering the answer, he asked himself the question: What do I have to lose? As if he hadn’t learned his lesson, that was all it took to convince him that he’d make another deal with a different sort of devil.
