Дэвид Гейтс - Set 'em Up, Joe

The place was stale with cigar smoke and whiskey sweats, and feral energy, like a cage at the zoo. I went to the lavatory and splashed water on my face, washed my hands to get rid of the greasy card feel, and shook some talcum on them. I slipped my jacket off, and shucked out of my shoulder holster, and put them both on a hanger, but I tucked the.38 Super in the small of my back, in front of my shirttail, under my vest. I took out my cufflinks and rolled my sleeves up to the elbow. It was time to piss or get off the porcelain.

Baton Rouge was back, looking refreshed after getting his knob polished, ready to go at it again, but Bangor chose to drop out of the game. He’d played respectably and gotten good play for his money, probably losing no more than fifteen hundred over twelve hours. He shook hands with Dunnigan, and they settled up the tariff.

“I’ll call you again when I’m in town, Francis,” he said.

“At your convenience,” Dunnigan said, smiling.

“Were you all strangers to one another before the game?” I asked.

The guy from Bangor gave me an odd look.

“Mickey’s a friend who sits in from time to time,” Dunnigan reassured him, pleasantly.

The guy from Bangor nodded. “I never met any of them,” he said to me. “O’Donnell, well.” He smiled ruefully. “I knew his name from table talk. Games up on the Hudson, north of 125th Street.”

He meant the carpet joints. I was familiar with them.

“I mean you no disrespect, Francis,” the guy from Bangor said, “but the next time you put me in a game, whether O’Donnell is part of it or not, leave those two out of it.”

He didn’t even incline his head, but Dunnigan and I both knew he meant the two guys from St. Louis and Chicago. I hadn’t been the only one to notice.

“My apologies,” Dunnigan said.

The guy shrugged philosophically. “You know what they say, Francis. If you play for more than you can afford to lose, you’ll learn the game.”

They shook hands again, and the guy from Bangor shook hands with me, too, and then he left.

It was time to get down to business.

We were all fortified with eggs Benedict and corned-beef hash, smoked salmon and pork sausages, some freshly opened oysters, of which I had six, the chafing dishes left behind for our delectation. I decided on my first drink of the day, a dram of Irish in a cup of hot coffee.

The new dealer cracked a fresh deck, fanned it on the felt, slipped out the jokers, and began his shuffle.

Playing until daylight is one thing. Playing in daylight is another. Dunnigan had drawn the curtains, and the hotel suite became suspended in time. It was a secret Benny Siegel had understood. If you go to Vegas nowadays, the casinos admit no natural light, they have no clocks, there’s nothing to remind you that life is passing you by. All that counts is the click of the chips and the cards you’re dealt. There’s a philosophy. Every deal is a new chance to repair the damage done.

Five draw. I had three clubs, not in sequence, two cards off-suit. Under the button, I moved in for fifty. Baton Rouge called, St. Louis raised a hundred, Elyria called and raised another hundred, Chicago called and raised. The pot was at an even five hundred. I called and bumped it five hundred. They all called, and Elyria raised three hundred. I thought it was a dumb bet, signaling indifferent cards.

I called and raised a thousand.

Baton Rouge called. St. Louis folded. Elyria called. Again, not the right move. In his position, I would have raised it, all in. Chicago, of course, did exactly that. I called and raised him. We were now up to six thousand, and Baton Rouge folded. He had to bet to see new cards.

It was a lot of money for one pot. Make or break. Elyria did the uncharacteristic thing and folded.

I was heads-up with Chicago, just the two of us. I asked for two cards. He asked for two. I drew two spades, which gave me zero. I moved in with what was left of Dunnigan’s money, three thousand, and reached back into my jacket, as if going for more capital, and he mucked his cards. I raked in the pot. He reached for my down cards. I slapped my hand down on his. “You pay to see the cards,” I said.

“It’s a showdown,” he said.

“Only if you meet the bet,” I said. I pushed all the cards together facedown and shoveled them toward the dealer.

I need you here to stop trouble, not to keep me honest before God.

Of course it was the correct etiquette. You bluff a guy out of his money, he doesn’t get to see your method of play, but I’d done it as offensively as I knew how. I wanted him as an enemy, I wanted him to feel it personally. There are maybe a lot of ways to play cards, but the best way to win is to humiliate the guy you’re playing. Not only is it satisfying, but the madder he gets, the more mistakes he makes. And in the end, you clean his clock.

Somebody once told me something about chess, as opposed to cards. Cards often depend on luck, but with chess, it’s all about defining weakness. When you beat somebody at chess, you crush them, they have no excuse. With cards, there’s always the chance they’ll pull it out because they beat the odds.

It wasn’t true for Elyria, who kept losing, and it wasn’t true for Chicago and St. Louis because I made sure they kept on losing. Poker is a cumulative game, and in the end, the house odds work against you. Thin Jim O’Donnell was a better poker player than the amateurs from out of town, and he was a better poker player than I was, but the two of us were better than they were. I’d managed to reduce Elyria’s loss to twelve thousand.

“You’re not doing him any favors,” O’Donnell said.

“A fool and his money are soon parted,” I agreed.

It was five o’clock that afternoon. O’Donnell was ahead an easy thirty grand. “What does it matter?” he asked.

“Dunnigan has a name for not running a crooked game.”

“I don’t understand your stake in this, Mickey,” he said.

“I might come away with a little something,” I said.

“What do you want from me ?” he asked.

I hadn’t understood him right away. “Ach,” I said. “I’m not expecting a piece of your action, Jimmy. You make whatever you can, as long as it’s honest work. I’m not here for that. I came for Francis.”

“Why would you be doing a favor for Frank Dunnigan?”

I shrugged. “One hand washes the other,” I said. The truth is, I wasn’t quite sure. It meant nothing to me, who won or lost the game. It wasn’t about fairness. There’s little fairness in this world, after all. No. The simple fact is that I wanted to rub their noses in the dirt, the two cheats.

“Let’s play some cards,” O’Donnell said.

We went back to the table and settled into our seats again. The pace was telling on all of us, and lack of sleep. The button was in front of Elyria, and he called his favorite, seven stud, high-low.

Two cards down, one up. Elyria’s face card was an ace, and so was mine. He bet out fifty. The table called around to me, and I raised a hundred. The table called around to Elyria, with the pot now at six hundred, and he raised me full. The others called, and I raised a thousand. Elyria called and went in for another fifteen hundred. The pot stood at four thousand, with only the first three cards dealt. Thin Jim O’Donnell folded. I called. Baton Rouge called. So did St. Louis and Chicago.

“Pot’s right,” the dealer said, and dealt the next card up.

Baton Rouge paired with sixes, and St. Louis paired with kings. Chicago was showing four-five of clubs. Elyria caught a deuce to his ace, both diamonds. I was dealt a ten off-suit. No help, but my hole cards were ace-ten, so I was sitting on two pair.