"But Jackie, we can't afford a house."
"We can now. I got promoted ... to vice." he announced proudly.
Stella threw her arms around him and exclaimed, "Oh Jackie, I knew this would happen, you've wanted it so much."
It was true that jack had wanted to be a vice cop. Especially in such a glamorous place as Atlantic City. He had pictured himself as a mid-coast Don Johnson, ready to clean up the streets, unfortunately they turned out to be dirtier than he had imagined. His job started to depress him, and he started drinking. Then the gambling started. He just couldn't stop. First he lost the car, and oh, how he had loved that little white Chrysler convertible. Then he put a second mortgage on the house. Stella found out and threatened to leave if he didn't stop the gambling. He cried and begged for another chance, promising to stop, but still he went on.
He became desperate when the bank threatened to foreclose on the house and stole some cocaine from a large stash he and his partner had uncovered during a routine shake down. It had been so easy that he continued stealing drugs to get the money to support his own habit of gambling. He probably could have gotten away with it for years, but he got greedy and was caught. His partner, Ramirez, just couldn't ignore it any longer and confronted him. Ramirez was sympathetic to Jack's problem, the gambling that is-he'd seen it before, but he told Jack to shape up or resign, or he would turn him in. Jack really tried but couldn't shake the bug, so he quietly resigned from the force, promising Ramirez that he would get counseling.
Stella had tried to be supportive, but when the bank finally did foreclose on the house, it was the last straw. She went to live with her mother in Newark, and Jack moved into the Y.M.C.A. Again he tried to stop, but unfortunately he found a casino with very liberal credit policies-the Golden Sands-and now he was in a heap of shit...
He counted the change in his hand as he made his way across the lobby to the phones. Yeah, it was enough to call Stella. He hated to do it, but she was his last hope. He put the coins in the slot and dialed the number.
"Let me talk to Stella ... don't give me any grief, just put her on the phone." He could hear Stella arguing with her mother in the background, then she picked up the receiver. "Stella, look ... this is the last time, I swear, I just need a few hundred to get me out of a jam ... yeah, I know, but this time it's different ... please, Stella I'm really in a lot of trouble and I can feel my luck changing. If I can just get out of this, I'll stop, I promise."