Atomic City Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Ellis Kale

  EPIGRAPH

  We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day

  we’d all be millionaires

  and movie gods

  and rock stars.

  But we won’t.

  Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  INSIDE STRAIGHT

  SPLITTING PAIRS

  THE JOKER

  ABSOLUTE ADVANTAGE

  ACROSS THE BOARD

  CARTE BLANCHE

  DOUBLE ZERO

  COMING IN ONE HIGH

  CODA: THE ELEMENT OF RUIN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PRAISE

  OTHER BOOKS BY SALLY BREEN

  COPYRIGHT

  INSIDE STRAIGHT

  STATE OF PLAY

  This is Jade. Her story begins the first time you remember being lied to. Jade is the colour of a lie. A silicate of lime and magnesia, a hard green, blue or white stone. Green. A green that is not leafy lush or verdant but unripe. A green that is sour and inedible. Betrayal. A caustic taste in the mouth. White bile in the guts. Green, white, blue. White lies, the green-eyed monster, licentious blue. Jade, the colour of a lie. There are certain people who are prone to being lied to. There are certain people who aren’t. But there are certain cities where the colour of lies is so camouflaged inside the fabric of the streets that every word ends up being tinged with a shade of something untrue. The Dealer lives in such a city. He was born into this prevaricated space. He has made it his life. Jade is from somewhere else and this is why she belongs.

  THE DEALER

  Jade arrived on the Gold Coast in the cold season. I remember the time: 3.57 pm. It had been a long afternoon, the floor subdued. I was still a rookie then, what the other dealers call a lumpy, but I was working my way in. She came directly to my table. Blackjack. Round 701. A bunch of papers and keys in her left hand and a modest wad of cash in the other. She dragged back the vacant chair in front of me, resting her stash on the rubber lip of the table. I checked out the papers under her hand. Usual hotel check-in paraphernalia and a bus ticket. Couldn’t see the details, but wherever she was from she wasn’t wasting any time.

  Jade settled in quickly. She put the papers between her legs, drew out a few greens, waited for the next round and asked me to hit her. She was serious. She was young. Not an average combination.

  I remember her hands – quick, elegant hands with fast fingers – but I didn’t miss the way they shook. The shaking got me. It wasn’t nerves. The rest of her was clear, focused. It wasn’t drink, because her eyes didn’t drift. It was something else. Jade had the sickness; something I knew about, something I hadn’t seen for a while. Everyone in the Casino had symptoms; not everyone had the sickness like her. I felt it as soon as she sat down: the mix of intensity and distance. Jade was on the take.

  But she wasn’t like the others. She was sick but she wasn’t diseased. Jade could have left that table, that room, any time. What drove her wasn’t addiction; I saw addiction every day. She knew about the game, she knew where her decisions were taking her. It wasn’t fear or excitement making her shake; it was knowledge. Jade was here for something else, something bigger than a dice or card. And when she looked at me, straight into me, she knew I’d seen it.

  We played.

  Our hands conducted the game on that table. The game between us was happening in our heads. Her eyes, our subtle smiles, were locked in a force field the table kept at bay. The faster I dealt the more she defied me. It wasn’t the cash she wanted then. In twenty minutes she had my number.

  Like most practised gamblers, Jade didn’t attempt to speak to me. She hit the table with her index finger when she wanted something and sliced her hand through the air when she didn’t. And I liked talking in symbols, it was what I was trained to do but I found myself wanting more than anything to speak to her. The game on the table kept me quiet. Three other players on either side of Jade, one of them Asian, all good but typically last-minute and fussy. Jade, win or lose, just kept firing.

  I remember she sat out the last round. No play, just sat there and watched my hands and every movement I made was cleaner, magnified, better because she was there. I forgot about the machines and their tidal noise, the sound of money falling into steel traps, the rattle of tokens flushed repetitively down holes. None of it was there. My eyes didn’t register the swirls of insistent light, flowing up the walls, rolling reflected over our bodies. I concentrated only on the fluid movement of my hands. The precision of my splays and folds was perfect; the effortlessness in my features right; it was a ballet, a test, and when she pulled her papers out of her lap in preparation to leave I found myself, mid-deal, wanting to stop but I didn’t. I kept dealing and tried to let her know with my eyes there had to be more time. And in that moment I sealed my fate.

  Jade smiled.

  She took her room key, a flat acrylic card, white and shiny, and angled it towards me so I could see the number ‘1509’, then she stacked her tokens and left. A glance back wasn’t necessary; Jade knew she had me. And that’s when I got scared. As soon as she’d fallen out of my line of vision I remembered why I wasn’t on the take anymore. Why I’d spent so long trying to undo the fallout. Why I’d started dealing because I thought working on the other side of the table would keep me clean. I faced people all the time who acted like they knew what real risk-taking involved but all they did was make gambling so much easier to refuse. Jade changed all that.

  I was still vulnerable to the rush. Still curious.

  Whatever she wanted me for, the possibilities, the idea of what might happen was charging in like rapid fire between me and an old friend – but I didn’t have any friends by then and I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was my past was irrelevant. A woman I’d never spoken to had superseded it and I was heading as fast as I could to her room.

  STATE OF PLAY

  Jade walks out of the gaming room but she doesn’t leave the arena. The colossal size of the Casino is something she isn’t used to. She has gambled before but nothing like this. Nothing like the sheer, immense materialisation of the game.

  To Jade, the world is full of raucous light and noise. Of glass and gold. She moves towards a more open territory, a giant atrium full of tilted light; white sails hover above her linking the Casino to the arc-shaped arms of its Egyptian-inspired body. And from the sails hangs an installation of primary-coloured lanterns, inflated suns, moons and stars dangling forcefully in the air above her. She stops to enjoy the view in a bar without walls. From here she can look up to where the roof opens out on either side of her, through the glass elevation of the hotel’s four-storey entry, rising to the west, to a bright blue sky; past the rigid trunks of palm trees, running in perfect symmetrical sets, their tops stretching higher than her eyes can see. Below them a bounty of lush foliage looms and encroaches on a circular drive busy with concierges, footmen and bellboys in smart black suits and shiny name tags, reshuffling the crowd, darting burnished luggage trolleys expertly between bodies, all the people arriving and departing, in limousines, taxis, buses, shuttles and private coaches. A constant parade, even in winter, the Casino never slows. Transparent doors fling open.

  Inside, Jade moves through a carnival of artificial light. So bright, so relentless, she imagines she can feel ripples and beams passing through her, quick flashes on her skin, the fleeting iridescence of weightless pleasure. She tries not to blink. She believes she is gliding, as if she is passing lightly through a fluorescent waterfall, moving up and down the mirrored walls, along the shiny surfaces, throwing back the light and the darker
shapes of her body in warped beating glows. Jade is gold-plated and this is how she feels about the world. Swimming through the neon echo that reminds her of the windfall, of the sound of falling money.

  In the Casino Jade does not have to hide, or cower, or protect herself from the presence of more powerful people. The distraction of noise and light is enough. In this city desire is not a secret. The Gold Coast does not disguise the game of living. Existence is not luck. Existence is strategy.

  No one here knows her real name, no one knows where she’s from and it doesn’t matter. The Casino encourages Jade to become what the rest of the world will not let her be: anonymous and open to invention. She does not have to be herself, she can be anyone she wants, counterpart to a space saturated in risk and jeopardy, to a life lived on the outside. Today the Casino is glamorous, it is trashy, it is home and to Jade it means the world – the desire and the actuality. She will sleep here until she finds her bearings, until she stops leering from her escape, until she has accumulated enough cash.

  Jade requests a high floor because she comes from a place where living is done close to the ground. The first room she gets she doesn’t like, looking out to the mountains rolling behind the city, over the covered car park of the Casino. The pale yellow concrete roof only reminds her of dead space and the backs of things. She wants to see the future. A room facing the hinterland reminds Jade of her past, of her home town and all her formative spaces. Hills and valleys trap cold secrets. Jade wants a flat stretch of territory full of easily collapsible constructions always higher than the small patches of land they sit on. Jade knows in open space she can control the terms. She demands another room. The receptionist is resistant but Jade knows how to manipulate, to make people feel comfortable, to like her. She smiles, tells the woman where she is from, tells her wide-eyed that she has rarely seen the ocean. Her ploy works.

  Jade finds herself facing the sea on the second-highest floor, encased in the wings of the Casino. At night the electric blue and white lights running along these wings will fill her with vivid energy.

  Jade likes the idea this room is now her home. That no one else can enter it without her permission. That money can purchase her a fluid identity and an unfixed address. In the two arms spreading out to the sea Jade is in the right, facing north-east, viewing the city for the first time from up high – its best profile. She’s elevated enough to see the ocean but not the sand, for her fairytale home sits back from the salt on a man-made island separated from the rest of the metropolis by a moat of dark green water.

  The highway in front of the Casino is a marker, a bitumen rivulet dividing the city into two parts. Blocks that front the ocean and blocks that don’t. The Casino hunkers down on this borderline, turning its back on the sprawl; arms wide open to the coastal stretch lingering seductively in front of it. From here Jade can view the action in these coveted streets and dream about how and when she will enter them. Like the Casino, Jade does not need to look back; the world is now turning in the small space between her and the salt water. An idea of heaven. A flat land on which everything slips and is always new. A warm place on the edge of the country far from her home in the womb of it. A place that worships the limitless blue beyond the boundary. For Jade the edge is the ideal space, uncertain, where her history is changeable and her future endless.

  Tonight she waits, wondering if the Dealer will come to see her, watching cable instructions on how to play games she already knows how to play. She is pleased to be in a place where entertainment is both childish and adult, a city bold in its declarations, rich in attendance and gloss, in all the things muted in her previous world. The fact she cannot see the sand does not disturb her; these towers blocking her view of the ground are full of the transient. She is buoyed by the promise of strangers. There are enough spaces to hide.

  Jade knows the streets will protect her. When she shifts between worlds here she will not be noticed. And just like the Gold Coast, what else can she cling to but her own often ridiculed fantasy? She is the invention of Popsicle time. A fugitive in the loophole world. As if someone has photographed the idea of her essence away, Jade plays with what’s left – with the pictures, memories and inventions; with the idea of who she could be in this city.

  She does not struggle with the concept of being bound to her own body.

  Corporeality is not her crutch. It is not her alibi. It is vapour, a machine, the Red Sea, a room. Her body is wherever she sees herself. Jade does not aspire to transcendence; she prefers illusion. She is hooked on the mirage.

  THE DEALER

  The first room I go to is the wrong one. It’s not the girl I want who answers the door. I apologise. I don’t usually get numbers wrong. Downstairs I ask the girls on the desk and they tell me the woman in 1509 has moved, and they roll their eyes at me. They don’t like that I’m going to see her. I’m not supposed to, but breaking the rules isn’t what’s getting to them. Deep down, Casino staff don’t like it when the customer wins.

  The first thing she says to me: Come in.

  I just nod; she knew I’d find her. Like all standard hotel rooms the entrance way is small, so when she steps back to let me in I slide past her and our clothes and parts of our bodies brush, electrically, and I wonder if I’ve read the whole thing wrong. Maybe she just wants to sleep with me. I’ve been in these rooms enough times before. Walking in I can feel her behind me but when the room opens out I head for a chair by the window instead of the bed. She stops at the mini bar.

  Drink?

  Bourbon.

  Straight?

  Thanks.

  I watch her pour our drinks and notice the shaking in her hands has stopped. Now we’re alone in a smaller space she seems taller, really long in simple black and bare feet and I realise that although she’s beautiful, in a kind of unusual way, her body is not why I’m here. She crosses the room to hand me my drink. I raise the glass in thanks and take a grateful swig. She steps back, and sits facing me on the edge of the bed. For a moment we say nothing, just concentrate on the drinks, on each other. I want her to speak first but I know she won’t, so I ask her name, fully aware I probably won’t get a truthful answer. She doesn’t hesitate. She looks me in the eye.

  Jade.

  She already knows mine. It’s on my badge.

  So, Jade, I say, placing my drink on the reading desk and leaning forward, tell me what’s on your mind.

  When she laughs me off I realise the reason I’m here is definitely not about sex. There’s nothing flirtatious in her amusement. I sit back. Jade looks past me, gliding around, feeling me out. Her curiosity is not physical; she’s just trying to get inside.

  You’re a bit rusty, aren’t you?

  Her comment’s not aggressive, just an observation. I look down because I know it’s true.

  Could say that.

  Well, she says as she looks out the window, I don’t suppose that matters much around here?

  Depends.

  On what?

  On how far you want to go.

  Jade makes a thoughtful noise, running her left hand absent-mindedly along the raised stitching on the in-house bedspread. I let her mull it over, thinking about all those hundreds of bed covers in the Casino, the ones I’ve been on, every one of them the same, swirls of lurid florals and colours to hide the stains.

  Jade looks up at me. I haven’t come here to go half way, she says.

  And she means it but suddenly the look on her face is becoming unsettling, like all her features are slipping, losing their grip. Her bottom lip is shaking. I ask Jade where she’s come from, to try and calm her down, but she just completely glazes over, like I’m not even here. I look at her closely, intently, because I can, because she doesn’t seem to be seeing me anymore. Her skin is pale and though her face is angular, it is still pubescent, softened by baby fat and at this moment I can see just how young she is, maybe eighteen. I can’t help but wonder how much she really knows.

  Excuse me.

  She stan
ds hurriedly and makes her way, head down, to the bathroom. I think there might be tears but I get the feeling this might be an act so I don’t waste any time. I look quickly around the room for signs, evidence, indications. There’s no bag, no wallet; she must have them stashed in the cupboard but that’s too close to the bathroom and she might hear me, or worse, come out while I’m there. On the bedside table are the papers she had with her today. I grab the bus ticket and quickly place it in the inside pocket of my Casino jacket. I take our near-empty glasses and busy myself making drinks. I don’t trust her yet but there should be no reason why she shouldn’t trust me.

  The door opens.

  I’m sorry, she says as she emerges more like she looked today: slightly shaken but impenetrable. Confident. She’s certainly got the skills, the ability to switch; I just don’t know how much she’s aware of it.

  That’s okay. Here.

  I hand her the drink.

  Get this down.

  Jade takes the glass looking at me over the rim; her eyes are wide and shining. No hint of a miss but I know what she’s doing. I might be rusty but I don’t forget and Jade is luring me in. Making me the protector. I decide to run with the charade. She’s standing very close to me. I lead her to the window, and the crook of her arm feels very thin in my hand, fragile like a bird’s wing. Below us towards the ocean, the city is glittering.

  Tomorrow, I say, meet me over there.

  I point to the café precinct of Broadbeach directly in front of us.

  Gino’s. Eight pm.

  She nods and I down the rest of my drink.

  Thank you, she says.

  We’ll see.

  And I leave, shutting the door quietly behind me.

  STATE OF PLAY

  The Dealer is driving home. The city is sleeping. Wrapped around itself, stalled without warning by the onset of winter. Jade has arrived in downtime. When the lines of light on the road are scarce, when some tables in the Casino are roped off, when the locals take a breath and the balconies on the towers stay lit but un-peopled. An eerie landscape, when the late-night face of the city remains made up but with no one to please. A perfect set with no one in it. And the Dealer worries, as everyone here tends to do, whether the hordes of tourists will ever come back.