Stanley Abbott: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 30, No. 13, Mid-December, 1985

by Al and Mary Kuhfeld

There was a knock on the door. George Grimby put his cards face down and went upstairs to answer it while the other four players waited.

“I’m not sure about this, an outsider at our game...” Pederson said, taking the opportunity to rearrange his hand.

“C’mon, poker isn’t poker without five players,” said Nygaard. “Thorpe couldn’t make it, and with due respect to our host, Grimby ain’t but half a player at best, even when he does take a hand.” Nygaard noted Pederson’s rearranging and looked complacently at his own hand.

Balstad was at the small refrigerator, getting a beer. “We can use some fresh blood at the table. We’ve been playing together so long I think we’re getting stale.”

The door slammed upstairs, and a gust of arctic air came down and wrapped itself around the ankles of the poker players. Boots clumped and feet clattered on the stairs; Grimby was back, bringing with him a broad bulldog of a man. The man’s eyes swept the room, and Nygaard was suddenly aware that while Grimby’s basement rec room was warm and clean, its decor could best be described as Early Suburban Bad Taste. Plaster plaques featuring bathroom humor and mother-in-law cracks were hung on the imitation wood paneling, and the acetate curtains featured pink and black poodles. The object that came closest to good taste was a bad reproduction of a classic painting of five poker-playing dogs. Grimby had tacked it to the wall behind his tiny bar.

The newcomer’s face fell subtly as he looked about. A high roller, I bet, thought Nygaard, who thinks he’s fallen among yokels.

But the man made a quick recovery and flashed a grin as brilliant as the diamond in his pinky ring. “Hi, I’m Larry Fields. Sports equipment is my game, and I wish I’d brought my snowshoes with me.” He gestured at his snow-covered shoes and laughed. “I’m from Chicago, the windy city. But it usually blows wet this time of year, not white.” He took off a pinch-brim hat and shook snow off it.

“We’re enough farther north to make a difference, all right,” said Pederson. “Coat rack is back in the hall.”

“Thanks.”

The men returned to their hand. It was a friendly poker game, and they played with a minimum of words and gestures, the way people do who have spent many hours in each other’s company. Strangers were rarely invited to sit in, but as Nygaard had pointed out, Grimby preferred the role of host and poker isn’t poker without five players. And as Balstad had noted, play was slow as much because the players were stale as because the cards were cold. Anyway, Ken Olson, desk clerk at the Valhalla Inn, had vouched for Fields, and he was a fair judge of character.

Draxten folded, Pederson and Nygaard called, and Grimby won with a pair of jacks.

“Rats.” Pederson dropped his cards in front of him and began to nudge them away with a forefinger. Nygaard was reminded of a terrier. “A lousy pair of jacks,” Pederson said, and scratched restlessly behind an ear. “There hasn’t been a decent hand yet.”

“Give it time, the cards haven’t warmed up yet,” said Nygaard. “We’ve only been playing an hour.”

“They may have been a lousy pair of jacks,” said Grimby as he raked in the chips. “But they were my jacks, and they were good enough to beat you. And on that note, Larry, here, take the luckiest seat in the house.”

Fields came back from hanging up his coat and took the chair Grimby had vacated, between Pederson and Draxten. “What’s a buy-in gonna cost me?” he asked.

“Fifty dollars cash,” said Pederson.

“Fifty?” Fields, wallet in hand, looked disappointed.

“We prefer a friendly game to mayhem-on-the-halfshell, Mr. Fields,” said Draxten with finality. Steady, sober, tenacious, Draxten spoke like the Saint Bernard nanny in Peter Pan.

Fields pulled two twenties and a ten out of a fat wallet and handed them over with a shrug. “Yeah, well, fifty bucks ain’t patty-cake, either.”

Why am I all of a sudden seeing everyone as a dog? thought Nygaard. Pederson’s a terrier, Fields is a bulldog, Draxten is a Saint Bernard — and, by God, Balstad would make a good poodle with that bright red sweater and his curly blond hair. Interesting. Amused at this flight of fancy, but not wishing to be asked about it, he covered a grin with a massive hand — and his eye was caught by the print behind the bar. There they were, the poodle, terrier, bulldog, and Saint Bernard — and a Great Dane. I’ll have to be the Great Dane, I guess. Pity it isn’t a Norwegian elkhound. Nygaard, like any Son of Norway, knew the difference between Danes and Norwegians.

Pederson took Fields’s money and gave him a handful of chips and a rundown on the house rules. “Whites are one, reds five, and blues ten dollars. There’s a ten dollar limit on raises. Hands are dealer’s choice. No sandbagging, and any faced card is dead unless the dealer is giving it to himself. A dollar comes out of every pot to help our host meet expenses.”

Fields played conservatively the first several hands, taking the measure of his fellow players and learning the rest of the house rules. He was a restless man, considering his bulk. “I’m a smoker,” he confessed halfway through his fourth hand, when he saw Nygaard’s awareness of his fidgets, “but none of you seems to smoke, and I’m willing to fight the habit for a few hours if that’s the only way I get to play. Will we break for dinner?”

“Huh-uh, game’s over at six today,” said Balstad. “Big lodge doings this evening.”

Fields again looked disappointed, but said, “Fine.”

It was Balstad’s deal. “Seven card stud, gentlemen,” he announced. “Ante up.” There was a gentle clattering of white chips into the ante. Fields snatched up his hole cards, fondled them lovingly, glanced at Nygaard, put them down, knocked over his chips, and began a careless restacking of them. But his eyes wandered around the table, watching the players.

Nygaard glanced at his own hole cards: king of clubs and seven of hearts; then looked up to see the king of spades land face up in front of him. Nobody else showed anything higher than a ten. His attention was so distracted by Fields, he forgot he preferred not to scare off the other players. He tossed in three white chips: “Open for three.”

“I quit,” said Balstad. “When Thor bets three this early, he’s got at least another king in the hole.” Balstad, like most poodles, was easily intimidated.

Draxten, who had the ten of hearts, maintained a saintly silence as he met the bet.

“I’m in,” said Fields. He had been holding his hole cards again, playing with them. He picked up three white chips and tossed them in.

Which brought it to Pederson. He had a four and five of clubs showing. “You’re bluffing, Thor, I can tell,” he said.

Nygaard shrugged indifferently.

“I can beat whatever you’ve got, I guess,” said Pederson. He picked up a red chip and tossed it into the center with terrier bravado.

Fields “milked” the two cards in his hand, pulling the top one off and sliding it under the other, over and over. He looked at them as if worried they’d changed color in the last minute, pulled his nose, sniffed hard, and put them face down on the table. But Nygaard, a keen people-watcher, noticed that Fields’s eyes kept glancing around the table as well.

“You gonna sit there all afternoon?” demanded Pederson.

“Huh? Oh.” Nygaard had gotten so interested in trying to figure Fields out that he’d failed to notice it was his turn again. He consulted his cards and, with a show of reluctance, put another two dollars into the pot to call the bet. Fields and Draxten also called. Balstad dealt each of the remaining players another card.