Ship It Holla Ballas! (8 page)

This kid was asking me if he could buy in for $200 instead of $500 and says he’s no balla, but on his first night in Vegas he’s running the party at the Rhino.

—Irieguy

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
(February 2006)

There are many reasons why people love Las Vegas. Around-the-clock action. The smell of easy money. Beautiful women. Handsome men. Gourmet restaurants. Spectacular shows. The high-octane oxygen that, it’s rumored, flows through every casino’s ventilation system and negates the need for sleep.

But the most compelling reason—the one that the city, circa 2006, is just coming to embrace—is wish fulfillment. Las Vegas is (once again) in the process of reinventing itself, tossing away an unsuccessful branding effort at becoming a destination for the whole family, and wants its visitors to feel comfortable doing the same. Accountants can undo their top two (or three) buttons and turn into high-rolling VIPs. Schoolteachers unleash the leopard-print mini they never get to wear back home. Typically faithful husbands and wives, prowling for a spark of the naughty, well…, as Sin City’s new ad campaign goes: “What happens here, stays here.”

Back in East Lansing, Good2cu already feels like he’s living a double life. By day, he’s your typical college student, spending more time partying and less time on classwork than he should, growing in fits and spurts out of his social awkwardness. But when he’s logged into an online card room, routinely winning hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars in a single night … he’s motherfucking Superman.

He’s never been to Vegas before, but he’s heard enough to know he can leave his glasses at home—all he needs to pack is his red cape.

The descent into McCarran Airport feels like the beginning of a great movie. Through the plane’s window, Technicolor lights erupt out of the stark desert. The glowing casinos, currently trending toward international sophistication, smorgasbord-style—Paris, New York, Venice, Rome, and Monte Carlo all share the same stretch of road—promise the kind of adventure that simply can’t be found in the Midwest.

His plane is two hours late, so Good2cu jogs through the airport, hoping Slim Pickens isn’t too upset. He’s never met Slim in person, but knows enough about him from the Two Plus Two message boards—like, for example, he isn’t a poker pro, but a grad student studying nuclear engineering—to know that he probably isn’t too happy about having to wait at Arrivals for some guy he’s only talked to on AIM.

Slim turns out to be a surprisingly laid-back guy for an aspiring nuclear engineer, but he’s got work to do, so Good2cu’s on his own. Raptor’s not answering his phone, but Good2cu has no trouble figuring out how to kill a little time in a city full of casinos. He asks Slim to drop him off at the Wynn Las Vegas, which is supposed to have one of the best poker rooms in town.

Good2cu has already logged considerable hours at Soaring Eagle and made occasional border crossings to play cards at the Caesars Windsor in Canada, but the Wynn is in an entirely different class. Not even a year old, it’s the casino of the moment, a nearly $3-billion playground with a man-made waterfall cascading off a man-made mountain into a man-made lake that inspired its owner, Las Vegas’s biggest real-estate mogul, to name it after himself. Everything is decorated in plush velvet and almost all of it is red, the color considered luckiest by the high-rolling Asian gamblers the casino hopes to attract.

Good2cu struts into the poker room like he owns the place, figuring that if he acts as if he belongs, he won’t get carded. He’s right. A floorman ushers him to a table spreading $15/$30 limit Hold’em, a game where the average pot usually exceeds $100. Good2cu casually presses a red $5 chip into the floorman’s hand like he’s been doing it all his life.

He’s not quite sure what to expect from the game, but quickly figures it out. Most of the guys at his table aren’t tourists, but local “nits” who refuse to put a chip into the pot unless they believe it’s going to come right back to them. He might be able to bluff them out of a few small pots, but he knows they won’t risk significant money without a hand that’s heavily favored to win.

Great
.
I came to Vegas to fold every single hand.

But the cards fall his way, and he manages to win a few decent-sized pots. With his confidence on the rise, his ears perk up when the floorman announces an open seat at the $80/$160 game, where the pots routinely approach $1,000. It’s a quantum leap above the game he’s currently sitting in. In fact, he’s never played anywhere close to that high before. And he’s doing just fine where he is … but he didn’t come to Vegas to win a couple hundred bucks in a low-stakes game. He’s here to leap tall buildings.

How much harder can it be to win in that game than the one I’m in right now? It’s still just poker, right?

Good2cu moves to the bigger game, and, just a couple of hours later, rises from the table carrying two racks full of chips, $4,000 richer.

Up, up, and away, bitches!

But his confidence dims when he gets to the cashier’s cage, where he learns that for tax purposes, they’re going to need to see an ID. Good2cu’s fake has seen better days—it fell apart after his mom threw his pants in the washing machine, and when he put it back together he accidentally glued the back on upside down. If the ID fails, he’ll not only lose the money, but may possibly face charges of tax fraud. He’s debating the risk-reward when he spots a spaghetti-thin guy, not much older than he is, sitting at a low-stakes table. On a hunch, Good2cu approaches him.

“You aren’t by any chance here for Irieguy’s tournament, are you?”

“Sure am. I’m TheNoodleman.”

“Good2cu.”

“You too.”

“I mean, that’s my name on Two Plus Two. Good2cu.”

“Never heard of you.”

“Yeah, I mostly just lurk, but I’m here to play the heads-up thing. And right now I have a bit of a problem.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“I’m only nineteen.” Good2cu’s grinning so hard it makes his face look crooked. “And I need to cash out these chips.”

TheNoodleman, who makes $10 an hour working for a local-access television station back in Indiana, stares, slack-jawed, at the racks Good2cu’s holding in his hands. This goofy kid’s got more chips than everybody at TheNoodleman’s table put together.

Who is this kid,
he wonders,
and if he plays this big, why the hell haven’t I heard of him before?

*   *   *

“Who?” asks the voice on the other end of the line.

Good2cu repeats his Two Plus Two user name into his phone before tossing out his given name for good measure.

“Never heard of you,” replies Daliman. “Plus I’m drunk, I’m playing blackjack for five hundred dollars a hand, and I don’t give a fuck.” He hangs up before Good2cu has a chance to respond.

After TheNoodleman helped him cash out his chips, Good2cu traded the commotion at the Wynn for the quiet of Slim Pickens’s house, where he took a disco nap on the couch. When he woke, he politely declined Slim’s invitation to join him at the Orleans for a low-stakes game, where the pots would rarely top $20 or $30. He tried calling Raptor, but got his voice mail once again. The only other number Good2cu has belongs to Daliman.

After Daliman abruptly terminates the call, Good2cu tries him again. “Raptor’s not with you, is he?”

“Here, talk to Irieguy.”

There are muffled noises as the phone gets handed from one person to the next. Good2cu can hear the unmistakable sound of a slots payout in the background:
ding ding ding
!

A few seconds later, Irieguy gets on the line. “We’re at TI donking off money in the pits. We’re heading over to a craps tables next. You can’t miss us.”

Treasure Island was originally envisioned as a cornerstone of Las Vegas’s family-friendly motif, a Disneyesque theme park where choreographed battles between pirate ships played out in an artificial lagoon seven times a day. Three years ago, when the city decided to abandon the kids, Treasure Island became TI, a swashbuckling fantasy for adults hosted by buxom cocktail waitresses stuffed into low-cut halter tops.

Good2cu exits his cab in front of the casino and dials Daliman for the third time. “I’m here. Where are you guys?”

“I’m still drunk, and I still don’t give a fuck. Call someone else.”

Click
.

Fortunately, the few bits of intel Good2cu has at his disposal—young, drunk, playing craps—are enough to lead him straight to the group. He approaches them with equal parts excitement and nervousness—it feels like he’s on a blind date—and introduces himself. The fact that everyone’s already drunk helps break the ice. Soon he’s able to attach names to faces: Raptor, Irieguy, Daliman, Apathy, Bonafone, Deuce2High. When the dice get passed his way, Good2cu puts aside his inhibitions over negative-EV gambling and rolls the bones down the table.

As it turns out, getting drunk and donking on craps is a hell of a lot of fun. For a while, anyway. When the allure of betting on dice starts to fade, they decide to move the party to the world-famous Spearmint Rhino.

*   *   *

Of all the occasions Irieguy’s been to the Rhino (and let’s just say there have been a few) this is the first time he’s ever had to sweat getting in. Not for himself obviously—he’s much closer to forty than twenty-one—but for the entourage of underage kids trailing him. Bonafone, a seventeen-year-old from Colorado, looks too young to be left at home without a babysitter. Good2cu appears a little older, but thanks to his shaggy bowl cut, Coke bottle glasses, and the rolling suitcase he’s for some reason lugging behind him, he also looks like someone that even a good-natured Vegas bouncer would relish barring from the club.

But after a coordinated effort by the older guys, redistributing their IDs to the younger members of the crew, everyone—except for Bonafone and Deuce2High; there’s only so much looking the other way that a bouncer can do—gets in. Irieguy suggests Good2cu check his bag at the door, which he manages to do despite all the distractions.

And by “distractions,” we mean tits. The Rhino is swimming in them. Good2cu wonders if it’s possible to see so many perfect breasts in such a short period of time as to become completely immune to their charms. He hurries through the math: in the last two minutes, he’s probably increased his lifetime intake of live, naked, female bosom by a multiple of ten. Twice that, if you count each breast separately.

They come in nearly every color, shape, and size, as do the women they’re attached to, a fickle raja’s fantasy harem. White and black. Hispanic and Asian. Cute and slutty. Mysterious and girl-next-door. As varied as the women who work here are, there’s one area where they hardly differ at all. After another quick calculation, Good2cu estimates that he’s looking at more than a half-million dollars in top-shelf plastic surgery.

Raptor, feeling like an old hand on his third trip to Vegas, notes the awed expression on Good2cu’s face. “What do you think?”

“I think I need a drink.”

“How about a dance? My treat.” Raptor pulls a gangster roll out of his pocket, peels off a couple of twenties, and waves them in the air. A few seconds later, one of the hottest women Good2cu has ever seen materializes out of the darkness.

In Good2cu’s eyes it’s just about the smoothest move he’s ever seen. He didn’t think Raptor would be able to measure up to the image he projects online, and he was right—the guy’s way cooler in real life. He’s got an easy smile and a self-assuredness about him that belies his youth. It doesn’t hurt that he stands several inches over six feet and sports the kind of unblemished face and chiseled features that girls can’t ignore. He looks like the type of guy Good2cu would have mocked or avoided in high school, the student body president or the captain of the football team, but he has to admit that right about now it feels good to be hanging out with the cool crowd. And that’s before the dancer starts grinding her perfect ass into his lap.

A round of drinks appears. Then another. In between lap dances, the Two Plus Twoers down shots and brag to one another about their prowess.

Their online poker prowess.

“So you’ve been eight-tabling the $215s, huh?”

“Yeah, I used to do that, but lately I’ve been twelve-tabling the Step 5s.”

The strippers in their company pretend to be impressed, the same way their sisters in New York and Los Angeles humor hedge fund traders and movie producers. Money sounds the same in every language. One of the dancers leans in close and whispers into Good2cu’s ear. “How about a private dance in the back, you sexy stud?”

If a beautiful, half-naked woman had asked him the same question back in Michigan, Good2cu probably would have erupted into that nervous donkey laugh of his. But here in Vegas he can be anyone he wants to be, and right now, he’s a guy carrying several thousand dollars in cash, stuffed into the front pocket of his jeans like the proverbial banana.

“How much are you going to pay me?” he replies.

It’s an old routine she’s heard countless times before, but she still smiles sweetly. “You know that’s not how it works, honey.”

A few of the Two Plus Twoers have already ventured into the “Champagne Room” in the back of the club, where wild, private dances are chipping away at their bankrolls like the world’s most expensive taxi ride.

“Maybe later,” says Good2cu.

“I hope so,” she replies before resuming her rounds.

The aroma of her perfume is still lingering in the air when a balding guy in a jacket and loosened tie—the universal workday’s-finally-over look—grabs Good2cu by the shirt.

“Hey, kid.… You want to make a quick hundred?” Good2cu’s drunk, but it’s obvious from the way this man is swaying that he’s even drunker. As the man lets go of Good2cu’s shirt, he rests one hand on the wall to steady himself. “You won’t have to do anything weird, I promise.”

Good2cu might have thousands of dollars of cash in his pocket, but thanks to the Rhino’s $22 cover charge, $10 cocktails, and $20 lap dances, it’s disappearing fast. At heart he’s still just a kid from Okemos, where $100 feels like an enormous sum. He’s also drunk enough not to think too deeply about what might happen next.