Without a Doubt - [70]

It was one of those heavy-handed advances so typical of Israeli men. I signaled to my group to ignore him, but he’d already started chatting up one of the girls. She was getting all shiny-eyed and breathless and had taken it upon herself to make introductions. I half-turned to say hello-and sitting next to me was the most incredibly handsome man I had ever seen.

He had glossy dark curls and enormous green eyes. His features were angelic and yet strongly masculine. Gaby-that’s what his friends called him-was doubtless a womanizing cad. But he was very charming. And he was incredibly funny. Gaby’s wit was never self-deprecating; the joke was always at someone else’s expense. But it was always right on the mark. I was charmed by him despite myself. He spoke to me only in Hebrew, which seemed more intimate than English. About a hour after we’d met he told me, “I’ll take you home.”

It was not an offer. It was an order.

All my life I’ve had this thing for bad boys. I’m embarrassed even having to think about this, let alone talk about it. But I got turned on by that tired old macho come-on. Worldly as I considered myself, I was still a kid. I was wildly confident one moment, withdrawn the next. And so when I ran smack into this handsome, assertive man who seemed to know exactly what he wanted, I saw in him only what I wanted to see: real strength.

I let him take me home to the studio apartment I was sharing with a friend near campus. We began seeing each other. In less than a month I was living with him.

Gaby and I made an odd pair. Here I was, a grubby college student in jeans, whose idea of high fashion was the latest shipment at the army-navy surplus store. I studied all day and ventured out at night only for folk dancing. Gaby was flashy, always dressed to the nines in body-hugging suits. He seemed to have plenty of money. He slept all day and went nightclubbing all night. I found his lifestyle very glamorous, and allowed myself to be swept along by it.

Gaby played backgammon for a living. I’d never even heard of the game before I met him, but Gaby took great pains to teach it to me. He instructed me not only in the basic rules, but in theory and strategy as well. He spent hours explaining the various plays and how to size up your chances of winning at any given point. The sizing-up business was important, because the stakes of the game could be raised over and over again by “doubling.” One player could challenge by offering to double the stakes. If the other player refused, the game ended and the challenger scored a point. The stakes could range from a quarter a point to hundreds or even thousands of dollars a point. When you consider that fifty or sixty points can be easily racked up in one sitting, you can see how some heavy coin could change hands, fast.

I soon learned that backgammon was a real hot pastime with the rich. The craze was in its infancy when Gaby and I first met. Two years later, when I started law school, it had become a full-tilt mania. Bars and clubs everywhere had at least one or two tables. Some clubs devoted themselves exclusively to it. The most popular of these was Pips, in Beverly Hills. Pips catered to the rich and famous. The name of the club was inlaid discreetly in brass to the right of the large double-doored entrance. Muted lighting, thick carpets, and dark, paneled walls lent the place an air of understated opulence. The room devoted to backgammon was right off the foyer. It had ten tables and its own bar. I liked Pips more than other places on the backgammon circuit because it was relatively quiet and had cushiony, well-upholstered chairs. There, I could park myself and study while Gaby played.

Gaby and I would drop into Pips every other night or so while he tried to hustle up a “pigeon,” the pro’s term for a novice who played for high stakes. It wasn’t easy to get a game at Pips. The fashionable set usually played with their friends and were understandably leery of a flashy stranger with an Israeli accent. So if he failed to score, we’d move along to the Cavendish.

The Cavendish, located on the border between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, was a private club that had been devoted largely to bridge and gin rummy. Gambling, of course, was illegal, and I’d heard that the Cavendish had been raided a couple of times-but as far as I could tell that hadn’t slowed down the action. During the early seventies, the entire back room was given over to backgammon. The Cavendish was not the plush playground that Pips was. It was located in an office building, two flights up. There was no elevator that serviced the club. Nor was there any sign visible from the street to announce its existence.

The first thing you saw when you came in was a long counter where club personnel would check to make sure you were a member in good standing. To the left of that counter was a lounge with a couple of sofas and coffee tables. If you passed through the lounge, you’d walk into a large room filled with bridge tables. To the back was a partition of wood and glass; beyond that, backgammon.