My name is, well call me Juan Hernandez. The Hernandez family adopted me after my parents died. The Hernandez family didn't have much money, but they were hard workers and perhaps they showed me the way to make something of myself.
The Hernandez family took me in and saved my life. However, I had to work and work hard. I was a big kid, but no sports for Juan. I worked at a market after school, stocking shelves. After work Mama Hernandez made me do my schoolwork. She told me if I was going to be a Hernandez I would just have to make something of myself.
It wasn't easy. But maybe it was all for the best. I couldn't run with the Mexican gangs at school, I didn't have the time. I had to work for a Mr. Johansen down at the market and he didn't put up with any schoolyard slang, Mexican or otherwise. It was all yes sir, no sir and damn respectful. OK, I hated the bastard.
When I graduate from high school my graduation present is a cheap suitcase and a ticket on the iron dog. I ride that bus with the dog on the side up to my uncle's place.
My uncle gets me a job at the casino he works at. Well, my uncle actually gets me an interview with Mr. Adams who runs security for the casino. If Johansen was a bastard, Adams is a super bastard. Adams tries to get me mad, to see what I will do. Hell, I am so used to taking crap from Johansen that I just 'sir' Adams to death and I am ready to walk out near what I think is the end of the interview.
Adams then laughs in my face and tells me to relax. He then asks me if I am as strong as I am big.
I tell the man that I have been doing hard labor since I was a kid in grade school. I am as strong as any of the jocks in high school and I can handle myself.
Adams hires me and puts me to work as casino security.
OK, I am just a dumb Mexican. However, Mama Hernandez had showed me the way to my future. I take classes at the casino after work and I pick up a little polish. I also pick up a little unarmed combat, maybe a lot of unarmed combat.
If you come into my casino looking for trouble you will find yourself out on the sidewalk, probably talking to the police and wondering exactly how you got there. How you got there is Juan Hernandez.
On Christmas Eve I spot a lady who looks like real trouble. She has lost everything. I don't mean just all her money; we get a lot of that. She has lost more and she is just about to lose it all.
I get the lady into one of the little hidden rooms they have all over a casino. I talk to her. I tell her that she is in big trouble. The kind of big trouble that will cause trouble for the casino. My job is to see that she does not cause trouble for the casino.
Janice, the lady looks at me with dead eyes. She tells me that she had come to the casino with a little under a thousand dollars. All the money she had in the world. She would either win enough to give her back her life or she would kill herself.
I ask what life she has lost. Janice tells me that she is the daughter of a rich man who has lost everything when the Internet boom went bust. The only thing that she is trained for is to be the rich bitch wife of a wealthy man. To snag a wealthy man she has to have clothes, jewelry, credit cards and all the other stuff that a rich girl has. Without the stuff she is nothing but a whore and she will kill herself first.
I tell Janice that there are whores working the streets and whores in the legal brothels outside of town. The casino does not get involved with whores.
I tell her that she can get a job as the 'wife of a rich man' if she can pass the interview.
Janice laughs in my face.
I grab her and yank her to my face. I tell her that she does not laugh in a customer's face; ever. For the purposes of her interview I am a customer.
She is scared as hell.
I sit her back down and ask what will she do now?
Janice straightens up and says that she doesn't believe me.
I tell her that is the kind of response I am looking for.
I then tell Janice that the casino has rich men, high rollers, come to visit every day of the year, Christmas included. The rich men like to gamble and they like to have a hot young wife. Not some whore off the street, but a rich man's wife. A wife who knows how to behave in a fancy restaurant or in the company of other rich men's wives. The hot young wife has to know how to act in public and also in private.
A small spark of hope flickers in her eyes. Janice asks if I would like to discuss her last trip to Palm Springs.