Legend of the White Whale – Part V

When we last left our cast of characters:
Frank (my bookie – sports betting – poker player – traveling team softball coach),

Fat Russ (Big time bookie – big time sports bettor – poker player) and the

White Whale (part time employment, part time softball starter for the Big Team and full time pot stirrer);

Russ had just thrown the White Whale physically out of Frank’s house. He did this because Russ was convinced that the White Whale was a ‘black cat’ – total bad luck. It was becoming such an obsession with Fat Russ that the friendship and betting partnership between him and Frank was starting to suffer.

Frank had confided in me that although he didn’t believe in superstitions, since he hired the White Whale to replace me, things were ‘going south’. “The guy is obnoxious and a jinx, but he is just too damn funny to not have around somewhere.”

Russ did not want the Whale anywhere around him. He even paid the White Whale $100 to stay away from Frank’s house the night of the poker game (hence the reason for the ‘assistance in leaving’ mentioned earlier).

Russ made Frank call him only when The Whale was not in earshot of the phone where Russ might hear his voice and know The Whale was present. It had become an obsession.

But the banishment from contact did not stop Fat Russ from sinking. It literally seemed from the moment Fat Russ set eyes on the White Whale, his luck disappeared. Russ even offered to pay me 5 times what I was making at my new 'legit' job, if I would go back and work for Frank.

My soon to be Mrs. Faldo was not impressed with the offer, so that ended that.

[I don’t know how many millions of dollars she may have cost me in the future, but I’m getting ahead of myself. "In the poker game of life - women are the rake!" - Worm, in Rounders]

Russ’s bad luck continued on many fronts. His poker playing was break even or very little profit. His booking business was getting beat. His sports bets were losing, whether he went with Frank or they went opposite. Frank meanwhile stayed afloat only by the wins he got when him and Russ differed.

Russ’s wife got fired from her real estate job for some commission ‘disagreements’ (maybe related to the beats Russ was suffering) – let’s just put it that way – and job offers in the Detroit area were not about to be forthcoming.

Then, one night right after Fat Russ had just grabbed the huge chunk of betting player’s winning cash that Frank owed Russ from another losing weekend, the police raided Russ’s house! Yes, The Whale had dropped it off and was nabbed at the end of the block - but not charged with anything.

Remember even black cats have nine lives.

The authorities took Russ’s house, all the cash found, his car and of course arrested him. The charges were later reduced and a no contest plea was given. Punishment was no jail time, but a big fine was paid (a loan from Frank) on top of surrendering everything else the authorities took.

Now, flat busted, no home or property, and both out of work with no prospects, Fat Russ and his wife decide to head to their favorite city – Las Vegas
- to get jobs as ‘blackjack dealers,’
- to just take it easy and most importantly
– escape the White Whale.

They do,
they don't,
and they do for a while.

But that is for Part VI.