Eoin Colfer - Plugged

I snap my fingers at AJ. ‘Gimme some chips. Two grand mixed.’

Vic clears the order with a slow blink, and soon four towers of chips list before me. I straighten them with forefinger and thumb while Vic takes a slug out of his refreshed cocktail.

‘What’s the game?’ he asks.

‘Straight poker,’ I shoot back. ‘Nothing wild, no wrinkles. All face down. Five and three, that’s it.’

Vic nods. He’s giving me some latitude because he’s a player and I’m an amateur.

‘Straight poker it is. Brandi, honey, get McEvoy something from the bar. What do you need? Shit, all this time and I don’t even know what you drink.’

I shake my head. ‘You stay right where you are, Brandi honey. I don’t need you behind me feeding the boss my figures. In fact, I want to see you in front of me at all times.’

Brandi pouts, cocking her hip, boosting her breasts high with crossed forearms.

‘Shit, Dan. That hurts.’

‘Sure. Whatever. Also, keep that compact in your bag. You know, the one with the mirror.’

Vic chuckles, not in the least offended that I have more or less accused him of being a lifelong cheat. ‘I guess you better stay where you are, honey. AJ, you in?’

‘No, he is not in,’ I say before AJ can answer. ‘Poker is not supposed to be a team sport. One on one.’

Vic is getting a little pissed now. ‘Okay, doorman. Is that it? Any more rules? Just tell me, because I don’t want you bitching when I clean you out.’

‘We play for the girls first,’ I say. ‘The smart one deals.’

‘Which is the smart one?’

I nod at the terrified girl, a skinny brunette whose blotted mascara makes her look like a skull. She doesn’t have the hope in her to smile.

‘The one who knows how much trouble she’s in. After I dig the girls out, we play for my salary.’

Vic shrugs, the magnanimous monarch. ‘Green is green, doorman. The order it comes in doesn’t matter to me.’

The girl deals. She’s so nervous that she flips a couple of cards and has to start again. Finally Vic and I have five apiece. Too late to back out now.

I check my cards, fanning them inside the clam shells of my hands.

Two kings, not a bad start.

I suppose , Ghost Zeb grudgingly agrees. Maybe you know what you’re doing .

Half an hour later I’m down to my last hundred bucks in chips.

Moron , says Ghost Zeb.

‘Moron,’ says Vic, and I cut him a suspicious look.

‘What?’

‘Moron,’ he repeats. Obviously I have been emasculated by my unlucky streak. ‘You come into my club and try to take me on. Me! Victor Jones. You know how many guys have taken a beating here?’

‘It’s two grand, Vic. Get a grip.’

‘Two grand more that these lovely ladies owe.’

‘No,’ I protest. ‘I lost my wages, that’s all.’

Vic chews an unlit cigar. ‘No, no, fuck that. You said we were playing for the girls first.’

‘Those chips were my wages. Anything I won was to get these two out of the shit-pile they’re in.’

AJ is snuffling and snorting, beads of sweat standing out on his red forehead. Begging to be turned loose. But Vic holds him back with a frown, magnanimous in his good fortune.

‘Any way you look at it, McEvoy, these pretty things are still in the hole. You ain’t saved nobody. Not since the army.’

That joke is getting old.

‘I’ve got a hundred bucks left on the table. You never know, my luck might be about to change.’

Vic lights his cigar, twisting it slowly for an even burn. He’s past pretending to give a shit what I think.

‘One more hand. Why not? After today, doorman, you’re gonna have to borrow a pot to piss in. I’ll give you a good rate on one of those.’

‘Very funny, Vic. Let’s play cards.’

It’s the macho thing to say, but I don’t feel very tough. Vic is crucifying me. Maybe Simon Moriarty was right and I am totally trans-parent.

A good dealer can land five cards right on top of each other so the corners match up. This girl is so rattled, one of my cards floats right off the table.

‘You wanna change that, McEvoy?’

I snag the card with two fingers. ‘No, Vic. I’m good.’

It’s not a bad hand. Two pair. Queens and eights.

We’re both in for fifty, then I tap the table and the girl slides a single card over. Vic passes his hand across his cards, like a magician. He’s sticking with what he’s got, which should mean that he has everything he needs, unless he’s bluffing. A couple of hands back I folded on a pair of aces, lost over seven hundred dollars. I never paid to see Vic’s cards, but I’ve seen him bluff with nothing. The problem is that when Vic has his game face on, nothing changes. His voice is steady, his features are calm, his body language says fuck you , no matter how good his hand. I thought I could find a chink in his armour, but I can’t. My only hope is Lady Luck.

‘Fifty,’ I say, even though my fifth card is useless to me. Why not go for broke.

‘This is going to be easy,’ says Vic, pushing in a stack. ‘Five hundred. You can’t pay, you’re gone. No IOUs here. House rules.’

‘I know the house rules, Vic. You made us memorise them, remember?’

Vic relaxes a little now that the battle is won. ‘AJ here can’t memorise dick. That’s why we call him by his initials, so he can remember his own name.’

‘Maybe that torch scratched his brain.’

AJ smacks the flat of his hand on the table, but he won’t move without a go from Vic.

‘Okay,’ says Vic. ‘So you’re done, doorman. Get the hell out of my club. You’re barred.’

‘Unless I got dollars to spend, right?’

‘I don’t turn down cash money. You never know, if you drop by, maybe Marcie here will give you a hand-job in one of the booths. Work off some of her debt.’

Marcie cries a river, and I reach for my wallet.

‘I’ll see your five hundred.’

Vic hides his surprise well. ‘You sure about that?’

‘What? You thought I was walking around broke? I got funds, Vic, so I see your five. You never turn down cash money, right?’ I toss the bills in with a flourish.

‘Never.’ Vic cups his stash with two hands and pushes it all in. ‘There’s your five hundred, and two thousand more. You got that much walking-around money?’

I’m watching him closely. Same old Vic. I was hoping the surprise funds might throw him.

‘Yeah, I got it.’

Your getaway money? Come on, Dan. Are you going to blow all that for these two airheads? They dug this hole for themselves .

I have no intention of blowing it all; just enough to clear the girls and maybe get my wages back. This pot and that’s it.

‘How much you got in that safe you don’t have?’

Vic somehow keeps the face straight. I bet his toes are curled in his shoes.

‘I got the night’s float. That’s twenty grand, Daniel.’

And there it is. He was all McEvoy-doorman-moron and suddenly it’s Daniel . Vic never called me Daniel in his life. It’s just like Dr Moriarty said: Vic’s subconscious is trying to gain my trust because he’s lying. Bluffing.

I realise with a rush of certainty that Vic doesn’t have shit in his hand. I can win big here.

My resolve to play it safe dissolves, and in its place floats a shining Christmas bauble vision of a moment in the near future when I leave Victor Jones weeping at his own table. If I let him keep the table. This is the guy whose first thought on seeing Connie dead in the parking lot was for his own sleazy business, and I feel an irresistible urge to take that business away from him.

My poker face is nowhere near as good as Vic’s, so I hide it in my hands, feigning distress.