Queenpin by Megan Abbott

his life. What kind of job could he get? What kind of job would he take?
    “Thanks, baby, but I don’t work that way,” he said, lighting a cigarette for himself. “If I can’t make it happen fast, I just blow town.
    Got some connections out west. There’s a lady I know. She’s flush and has it bad for me. Wants to marry me. She’ll help me out. She’s my escape hatch.”
    He was looking at me and I was looking at him and I wouldn’t give it to him, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. But sure, I felt it. I was made of blood and guts. I didn’t want him hightailing it to some other woman with some big house on the ocean while I stayed here and slept alone.
    “But I doubt it’ll come to that,” he said. “I got a feeling.” He tapped his chest, ring catching the sun. Teeth flashing. “Something special’s coming my way.”
    “I know that song,” I said before I could stop myself.
    He laughed. “I bet you do. But baby, I mean it. I’m not one of those sad sacks you see at Yin’s, the poor suckers on a beeline from casino to poorhouse. I got bigger stuff in me. Sometimes I can feel it rushing through me, just standing there watching the wheel, the hand. Don’t worry. You’ll see.
    There was something in his eyes, something flickering. It got me going again, my throat throbbing. It was something about not being able to stop himself, about going all-in, with each game, each race, each hand, each spin of the wheel, with everything.
    I just knew I had to get out of there fast before things got crazy again.
    “Okay,” I said, my voice barely there. “I’ll see you tonight.”
    I wanted to go home after seeing him, to pull myself together. But the rules were the rules and I had to go to her place. I had to give my report and she had to pass me some messages for my rounds that night. The whole way there I kept thinking about what a bad move I’d just made, not just being seen with him but doing what we did. And then to hear about the mess he was in, which made him a bigger target. A fellow that deep in the hole, she might hear about it.
    I thought about stopping for a drink to get my head back on straight. I didn’t want her to know I might be losing it. I didn’t want her to know I’d gone so crazy, and all for a sharpie, a plunger racking up big losses every day, even when everyone who mattered knew how it worked, how he’d never make it that way, loading it all on one horse, one race, playing the wheel all night, falling for sucker bets.
    But if I had a drink, she’d know. If I stopped at all on my way back, she’d know. She knew everything.
    When I got to her place, she was pretty busy, which made it easier. She was on the phone bawling out some guy who’d boosted some jewelry and then gone ahead and tried to pull the rocks from their settings himself.
    “Okay, Mr. Gemologist, what do you think we can do with these geegaws now?” she said, waving me in with her hand. “Our guy says each one’s got a chip in it. What makes you think you know what the hell you’re doing? What’d you use, bolt cutters?”
    I sat down on the sofa, back straight, and waited. Watching her, hearing her lay down the law in that way of hers, voice so cold you prayed for her to yell instead, I got to thinking about how I had to do better, had to get my act together.
    She hung up the phone and walked toward me. “How’d it go?”
    “No problems. Smooth sailing.”
    “You’re a httle later than usual,” she said, sitting down beside me. And as she did, I felt my chest go tight. I thought maybe—what a thing to think—that she could smell him on me. Could she? Could she do that?
    “You know, brushing off a fella or two,” I said. “Is that for tonight?” I pointed to a manila packet on the coffee table.
    She looked at me. “Yeah,” she said, slowly. I thought for a second, was she leaning in toward me? His bay rum, his cheap cigarettes, everything else.
    But then she sat back, reached over, and picked up