In his most recent novel, Frederick Barthelme tells the story of a Texas architect who is seduced by the seedy glitter of the Gulf Coast casinos and loses everything at the blackjack tables, yet manages to turn losing into an existential dare. "I sort of felt it was more exhilarating to lose a lot than win a little," says Ray Kaiser, the hero of Bob the Gambler. "Losing meant you had to play more, try harder."

Now the owners of the Grand Casino in Gulfport, Miss., are saying that Barthelme himself, 55, is not nearly so taken with losing. In fact, they claim that in November 1996 the critically acclaimed author (Two Against One, Second Marriage) and his brother Steven, 51, also a published fiction writer, conspired with a casino dealer to rig blackjack games. In a criminal trial scheduled to begin in March, the Barthelmes are accused of plotting with dealer Cynthia B. Wojciechowski, 37, who allegedly tipped them off when she had blackjack (an ace and a face card), which is an automatic win for the house. Wojciechowski—who has pleaded not guilty along with the Barthelmes—is said to have signaled the brothers whether or not to buy "insurance"—a side bet a player can take out against himself in order to cut his losses. One of the brothers' attorneys, Boyce Holleman, 74, notes that his clients lost more than $150,000 at the casino in '96, suggesting that if they were cheating, they weren't very good at it.

The brothers say they were "stunned" that night more than two years ago when three burly casino security guards appeared at their table, ordering them to fold their hands and depart the establishment for good. "We had been playing all night and we were tired," says Barthelme. "We didn't raise any Cain about it. Just did what they told us to do and left."

The Barthelmes, who both teach at the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers in Hattiesburg, were indicted in September 1997; if convicted, each could face two years in prison. "It's very unpleasant," says Frederick (whose friends call him Rick). "You can't call up the D.A. and say, 'Excuse me, but I didn't do this. Can you please make it go away?' "

The son of an architect and his wife, an English teacher, both now deceased, Barthelme grew up in Houston in a family of five children, all of whom became writers. (Older brother Donald, who died in 1989, is the best known.) Rick studied architecture at Tulane and worked as a painter and sculptor before shifting to writing in the '70s. He has published 11 spare but pitch-perfect novels, often about characters who eat junk food, watch too much TV and quietly grapple with life's pain and losses.

Among those losses, of course, are the kind gamblers court. But Barthelme (who lives in Hattiesburg with girlfriend Rie Fortenberry, 45, managing editor of USM's biannual Mississippi Review) says he didn't become a casino regular until 1995, when he began researching Bob the Gambler—and squandering a chunk of his inheritance in a manner that suggests the brothers might have been out of control. "If we were addicted [to gambling]," Barthelme says, "we're not now, and we don't gamble very often at all."

Several of the Barthelmes' colleagues and students at the university, where the brothers are extolled as excellent teachers, find the accusations unbelievable. "If there's something either enjoys doing, it's because of the challenge—and cheating takes the challenge out of it," says Ph.D. candidate Shawn Schooling, 35. "[The charges] certainly came as a surprise to everyone."

Especially to Barthelme himself. "One of the things that startled us about the whole case," he says, "is that we were good customers. We thought we were friends with everybody." Now, he says, he is burdened with fear. "It's scary when your [fate] is in somebody else's hands. I told Mr. Holleman that I don't know how criminals deal with this."

William Plummer with bureau reports