The Search for Joyful by Benedict Freedman

annoyance.
    â€œYou look ravishing, Kathy.” The prospect of a nefarious evening brought color back to her cheeks and the old animation. “Have you any money?”
    â€œNot much. Will I be needing any?”
    â€œWell, there’s no use going to a gambling casino if you don’t gamble.”
    â€œYou’re right,” I said. Where and how could I come by money? There was the money I saved during the week for movies, and I might borrow a similar amount from Sister Egg. I shut out of my mind Mama Kathy’s reaction to such a scheme.
    I knocked on the door of Egg’s room. “It’s for an emergency,” I explained.
    The casino was on Cote Street, which everybody called Luck Road. All the swank places in Montreal were subterranean, and this cavern exploded in light and sound. Rapid French struck us from all sides and seemed to accelerate the more plodding English. Other languages intruded. People joked in Russian, laughed in French, and whispered in Armenian. One man wept bitterly in what sounded like Bulgarian or some other Slavic tongue, and seemed on the point of suicide, but allowed friends to restrain him. It was Dante’s inferno mixed up with carnival.
    The decor was elegant but far from tasteful. There was a crystal chandelier, a gaudy jukebox in conflict with it. Boxed palm trees were scattered about, and, in their shade, spittoons. The floor was marble, disfigured by black heel marks. At one end of the bar an enormous fresco beamed down on us of a woman in extremely high heels, garters, and a feathered boa that covered some essentials, but not all. The room was ringed by rows of slot machines, and people congregated around them. Gaming tables, however, were the focal point from which all other activities radiated like spokes of a wheel.
    The crowd around the tables was as eccentric as the room. A conglomeration of expatriates from a dozen countries waved their money, collected chips, and placed their bets. I had a strong feeling they were not what they seemed, that nothing here was. The well-dressed gentleman with goatee, who resembled a French banker, I was sure I had seen driving a cab. It was carny time, and people dressed themselves in their wishes, their dreams.
    I was one of them in my borrowed finery.
    There were floor-length gowns and women in slacks. Among the men, zoot-suiters in the drape shape with the reet pleat and the stuff cuff mingled with starched ruffled shirtfronts and cummerbunds.
    The closeness of the room intensified the sensations my nose picked up—brilliantine, that was a definite smell. It came from a head in front of me that glistened with it. The man turned a hawklike face in my direction. He wasn’t looking at me, but at Mandy. It was an insolent look, bold and—He noticed I was observing him and ducked into the maze of people.
    Expensive French perfumes were at variance with those picked up in the dime store. The atmosphere was invaded by stogies and cigarettes. Belinda Fancytails from Havana were advertised. They sold everything here.
    Sharp’s casino imitated both the discreet establishments of Nice and the flamboyance of Las Vegas. Mandy held onto me. We had somehow gotten separated from Robert and were scrutinizing the crowd for him. I followed a strobe light picking out face after face. There in an alcove was the man with the brilliantined hair and hawk face, talking to . . . I thought it was Robert, but the light moved on. When it completed its circuit and swung back, there was the hawk still in the alcove, but alone, nursing a drink. Someone called, “Frankie, c’est va? ” and he answered with a smile and a wave of the hand. The smile was unpleasant. One front tooth lay on top of the other, giving him the appearance of a wolverine.
    â€œHere’s Robert,” Mandy called.
    Robert had found us and put an arm around each. He was perfectly at ease. Indeed he was at home in this frenetic strobe-light jungle