The Investment Club Read online

  Praise for Doug Cooper’s Outside In:

  Winner of the 2014 International Book Award for Literary Fiction

  Winner of the 2014 USA Book News Award for Literary Fiction

  Winner of the 2015 IPPY Bronze Book Award

  “Rarely does an author capture the frenzied descent into drug and alcohol abuse as Doug Cooper does in his tumultuous novel, Outside In. A story of disillusion drowned in excess, tempered by the decisions we make to survive another day. A searing debut.”

  —Stephen Jay Schwartz, Los Angeles Times bestselling

  author of Boulevard and Beat

  “This modern take on finding oneself shows readers what can happen when you completely lose control and become someone you are not. It reminds us all of Shakespeare’s counsel, ‘To thine own self be true.”’

  —Weldon Long, author of the New York Times

  bestseller The Power of Consistency

  “Outside In takes readers on a wild ride with the final destination being a rediscovered sense of self.”

  —Colleen Hoover, author of the New York Times

  bestseller Slammed

  “A buoyant story of one man’s willingness to sacrifice everything in the name of self-discovery.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “[An] insightful coming-of-age story.”

  —Foreword Reviews

  “…the relatable tale of one man’s quarter-life crisis that will resonate with readers of all ages.”

  —Red City Review

  “Brad Shepherd’s teaching career wasn’t exactly promising to begin with, and when it ends suddenly, he takes his unexpected freedom as an opportunity to escape to the freewheeling Put-in-Bay, Ohio, where he immediately begins experimenting with alcohol and drugs, hooks up with people his parents would definitely say were the wrong sort, and generally starts on a downward spiral that can only end in disaster. Is Brad wracked with guilt over a student's death, the incident that ended his teaching career? Will he find a way to pull himself out of the abyss and find the man he truly is? This is a coming-of-age story about someone a decade older than the genre’s usual protagonist, and it’s quite good—nicely written with a cast of realistic characters (the seductive girl, the affable druggie, the street musician who takes the younger Brad under his wing) and situations that would fit into a more traditional YA novel but that carry a little adult baggage. A very good first novel from someone worth keeping an eye on.”

  —David Pitt, Booklist

  “Doug Cooper writes authoritatively about the ease with which circumstances conspire to ensnare a promising young teacher into a lush life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It remains to be seen how easy it will be for him to get himself out—or if he will just become another bleached-out lotus-eater in the Florida sun. A charismatic cast of characters populates this promising novel from a rising talent.”

  —Stuart Smith, CEO, Central Recovery

  the

  invest

  ment

  club

  DOUG COOPER

  This is a Genuine Vireo Book

  A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books

  453 South Spring Street, Suite 302

  Los Angeles, CA 90013

  rarebirdbooks.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Doug Cooper

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address: A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 453 South Spring Street, Suite 302,

  Los Angeles, CA 90013.

  Set in Minion

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-945572-20-3

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: Cooper, Doug, 1970- , author.

  Title: The Investment club / Doug Cooper.

  Description: First Trade Paperback Original Edition | A Vireo Book | Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY: Rare Bird Books, 2016.

  Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-945572-00-5

  Subjects: LCSH Gambling—Fiction. | Casinos—Fiction. | Sex-oriented businesses—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Blackjack (Game)—Fiction. | Las Vegas (Nev.)—Fiction. | BISAC FICTION / General

  Classification: LCC PS3603.O58262 I58 2016| DDC 813.6—dc23

  For all those who give and never expect anything in return.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Date: Friday, January 17, 2014

  Dow Jones Open: 16,408.02

  Never split tens.

  The words flashed in their eyes and formed on their lips. A nervous fingering of chips followed. Except for third base, the last, and most important, seat at the table. He controlled the fates of the other players, a role he seemed to enjoy. His stout digits remained steadfast, cupped over the stack of ten black chips measured to split the hand. Never had a doubt. Once he saw the house had a five of hearts, he knew his play.

  My left hand slid to the shoe, eyes directed toward first base. “Twelve.”

  The brim of her faded green military cap angled downward, concealing her eyes and half of her tawny face. Her hat was more fashion than function, this girl had never served, at least in the armed forces. Her body, though, was all function. Lean and mean. Definitely put on this earth to move. It was just a question of if that was in the vertical or the horizontal.

  She waved her hand over the cards, never lifting her gaze from the table. “I’ll stay. You’re going to bust.” She was there fo
r one purpose: to make money. Played every night. Never for less than $25 per hand and often as high as $200 when she really got rolling. I wouldn’t say she was unfriendly or mean. Just had an edge to her. Wanted to be left alone and not have to talk to anyone.

  Next to her in seat two, a burly man, about six foot two or three—somewhere in his late sixties—nodded approvingly. He had a half-inch gray flattop that with each tilt of his head revealed a thinning patch on top. “Good girl,” he said. “You don’t have to have great cards; just need the dealer to have worse ones.” He plucked a red five-dollar chip off his stack and placed it next to his bet. Holding up his index finger, he said, “One card, down please.”

  Sliding the card from the shoe without revealing the value, I said, “Down and dirty.” Directing my attention to his neighbor, I nodded at the seventeen in front of the surgically enhanced Barbie doll in seat three. “The ol’ mother-in-law’s hand.”

  She furrowed her brow, barely wrinkling her taut forehead. “What does that mean?” It was obvious she didn’t know the game, but she wasn’t stupid either. Everything she did had a purpose. What she revealed at the table was exactly what she wanted the others to see to elicit the reaction she desired.

  “It’s a seventeen,” I said, about to drop one of my standard lines, good at least a few times a night. “It’s like your mother-in-law. You want to hit it, but you can’t.”

  “Well, I don’t have to worry about one of those.” Her eyes sank to her cards. “So do I hit or not?”

  The burly, elderly man to her right said, “Always assume the dealer has a ten as the down card, sweetie. With the dealer showing five, you don’t want to hit because the house probably has fifteen and is going to bust.”

  “Just let her play her hand, gramps,” the guy at third base said. Diminutive in stature—oh hell, I’ll just say it. He was a little person or dwarf or whatever the politically correct term is these days. He played with aggression and anger. Winning wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Acted like he deserved it. Like the world owed it to him. He banged back the remainder of his third cognac and motioned for the cocktail waitress to bring another one.

  Nip-Tuck Barbie pushed her puffy lips out in a pout, waving her perfectly manicured fingers over her cards. “I’ll hold then.”

  Seat four was all business. He was around fifty, black and distinguished, with a wiry frame. He had short salt-and-pepper hair on the sides and back that connected into a beard the same length but much thicker than the rest. Too methodical to be a pro, but he knew the game. He was firm and decisive. It was obvious he liked strategy and analysis. My guess was accountant. His face was too kind to be a broker or a banker. Wasting no time, he pushed his fingers outward from his clenched fist over the cards. “I’m good with eighteen.”

  The waitress delivered another cognac to the little guy at third base. He took a green twenty-five-dollar chip from his growing stack, which was almost as high as the one on his shoulder. He downed the drink in one gulp. “Bring me another,” he said. His eyes were drooping with each drink. He ran his hand through his wavy, reddish-brown hair and pushed the $1,000 black stack next to his bet. With his index and pinky fingers extended like a two-pronged fork, he said, “Split ’em.”

  I tilted my head to alert the pit boss. “Checks play. Splitting tens.”

  Gramps said, “Come on, junior. You’re going to take the bust card and screw the table.”

  The pit boss walked over. “Splitting tens. Go ahead.”

  I pulled the first card from the shoe, hesitating before revealing its identity. “You sure about this?”

  He pressed his index finger repeatedly into the felt. “Flip the damn card.”

  It was an ace. “Twenty-one.”

  He pointed at the second ten. “Paint it.”

  I pulled a queen from the shoe. “Split again?”

  “Nah, I’m good with twenty,” he said. “I don’t want to be greedy.”

  “Too late for that,” the Accountant in seat four said.

  I knew what was going to happen before I even played my hand. I had seen it too many times before. One asshole screwing it up for everyone else. I revealed my down card. A king of spades. “Dealer has fifteen.”

  The Accountant rubbed the bald patch on the crown of his head and shifted back in his chair. “Would’ve busted if you hadn’t split.”

  “Come on, need a big one,” Lean and Mean at first base sneered.

  I flipped the next card to add to my fifteen. An ace of clubs. “Sixteen,” I said. “Not going down easy.”

  “Six or higher, six or higher,” Gramps said.

  I pulled the next card, peeking under the corner to delay their unfortunate fate before flipping a three of hearts. “House has nineteen.”

  I scooped Lean and Mean’s last four green chips from the bet circle.

  She ripped her hat off in disgust, her thick black hair and crescent eyes now visible, and glared at Junior. “You’re such a dick.”

  I placed my hand on Gramps’s down card.

  He pleaded for a ten. “Monkey, monkey, monkey.”

  I turned over a six of diamonds. “Seventeen.” I snagged the two red chips from his failed double and redeposited them into the house bank. Returning to Nip-Tuck Barbie, in one motion I collected her chips and also seat four’s. “Another seventeen and eighteen, not enough to beat the nineteen.”

  Greedily rubbing his hands together, Junior said, “But my twenty-one and twenty are. Daddy about to get paid!”

  I pushed two stacks of one thousand to match his bets. “Twenty black going out.”

  The pit boss approved the payout.

  “That’s it for me,” Lean and Mean said. “I’m not wasting any more money playing with this jackoff.”

  “Me, too,” Gramps said and pushed his thirty-eight fifty to the center to cash in. “I’m done.”

  “Quit your bitching,” Junior said, tipping the waitress fifty for the new cognac.

  “But we all would’ve won if you hadn’t split,” Gramps said.

  Junior tossed two of the blacks back to me. “Give me some green.”

  I measured two stacks of four green chips. “Check change. Two black coming in.”

  He combined the stacks and tossed four green at Lean and Mean and one each at the other three players, giving the last one to me. “That ought to cover it, you bunch of crybabies. That’s why they call it gambling.”

  Lean and Mean flipped the chips back to him. “I don’t need your charity.”

  He pushed them to the middle of the table. “Well somebody take them because I don’t want them.” His eyes scanned the other players, before stopping again on Lean and Mean. She put her hat back on and pulled the brim low. He said, “Heeey, wait a second. I know you. You work down at OGs, don’t you? You and your girlfriend soaked me for about five grand one night.”

  OGs was Olympic Gardens, a mid-level strip club on Las Vegas Boulevard between downtown and the strip. Mid-level because it’s not as swanky as the upper-tier places like Spearmint Rhino or Sapphire, but it’s also not the bottom rung like you walked into a methadone clinic the day after New Year’s. OGs biggest advantages are the location right on LV Boulevard and having male and female dancers to cater to both genders. The men perform upstairs and the women downstairs, which was obviously set up by a man, because that’s how most men want to operate in their relationships as well. If patrons want some seediness without feeling the need to bathe in hand sanitizer after leaving, then OGs is the place.

  Lean and Mean snatched her purse off the back of her chair and slung it over her shoulder. “I don’t know you.”

  “Well, you should. We spent about four hours in the VIP room. Your name’s, um…Faith, and your girlfriend, oh, what was her name? She was a real rock climber, that one. She had that chalk bag of coke in her underwear and kept bumping me up while she wa
s dancing. Damn, what was her name? I kept calling her Dora the Explorer.”

  Gramps said, “Just drop it. The lady said she don’t know you.”

  “What are you, her pimp?” Junior gulped more cognac.

  “That’s OK,” she said. “I was just leaving.” She turned and angled toward the door. Gramps followed her.

  Nip-Tuck Barbie squirmed in her chair. “Geez, I never knew blackjack had so much drama.”

  Junior picked up the hundred dollars in green that he had tried to give Lean and Mean from the middle of the table. “For someone who works for tips, you’d think she’d be more appreciative.” He tossed them to me. “I’m sure you’ll put these to good use.”

  And that was how I met these five broken people—a drug-addict singer-turned-stripper; a widowed, retired New Jersey police officer; an alcoholic, divorced sportscaster; a card-counting, ex–Catholic priest; and a self-destructive, dwarf entrepreneur—who all somehow managed to wander into the El Cortez and sit at my table on a random Tuesday night.

  I haven’t always been a blackjack dealer, but I have always lived in Vegas—fifty-seven years. Have held just about every hospitality job this town has to offer, from parking cars to cooking food to serving drinks. What I’ve never done is been a big winner. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of winnings, but they don’t even come close to the losses. For every night in the black, there were two or three in the red, and the red numbers always seem to be higher than the black ones. Don’t let anyone tell you different. They might say they’re even, but they’re well south of even; it’s just a question of how far. That’s why I gave it up years ago and switched to this side of the table. I can guarantee you I walk out of the casino up every night.

  I’ve tried dealing other games, but there’s just something about blackjack. I like how communal the game is. I like how strangers sit down and in no time will be fist-bumping and high-fiving. Of course there are a fair share of squabbles as well, like the one I just told you about. You see, a lot of players think they’re just playing their individual hands, that they should trust their guts. But the good ones know there are rules and every decision at the table affects everyone else. I know the math says differently, that each play is an independent event and will help others just as often as it hurts. But I’m talking about the bigger play, the energy at the table, the stuff that flows through and carries us all.