Dan Marlowe - Shake a Crooked Town

The cabbie jerked awake and turned to look at him. He looked at length and whatever it was he saw in Johnny's face it appeared to satisfy him. “What's your game, chum?”

“Poker.”

“You like it strong?”

“So-so.”

“We could try Louie's,” the driver mused aloud. “Although I heard there was a good game at Rudy's earlier. That's closer.”

“I can get in without an okay?”

The cabbie shrugged. “That's up to Rudy. Tell him Chuckles brought you. Hop in.” Johnny got into the cab. They went a half-dozen blocks and pulled into the curb in front of a tavern with an illuminated beer ad in the window. The neon sign overhead was dark and Johnny realized it was after midnight. He handed the driver a bill. “Thanks, chum,” the driver said. “Play 'em up against your belly inside. It's a bruisin' game.”

Johnny pushed experimentally at the outside door which opened at his touch. Inside, a single subdued light behind the bar framed a bartender washing glasses. “Rudy,” Johnny said to his inquiring look.

The man nodded. His hands didn't move from towel or glasses, but a door opened in the rear of the room and a short, stocky man entered. He walked up to Johnny, dark, liquid eyes contrasting oddly with a dark, hard face. “I'd like to take a riffle,” Johnny told him. “Chuckles, the cab driver, brought me around.”

“That's a strike less on you,” Rudy said amiably. “I don't know you, do I?” He pursed his lips at Johnny's headshake. “You wearin' any iron?”

“Not an ounce.”

“You mind if I check?”

“Help yourself.”

Rudy's capable-looking hands went over Johnny in a light patting routine. “What's your game?” he asked as he stepped back.

“Poker,” Johnny said for the second time.

“Can you stand it?”

Johnny took out Mickey Tallant's roll and slapped it against his palm. “For a while, anyway.”

Rudy nodded. “Right this minute it's a full game but somebody'll get batted out an' make a seat for you. Come on in.” He led the way to the door through which he had entered and opened it with a key. Johnny eyed it passing through. It was a thin door. Rudy wasn't afraid of a police shoulder against it. His question about a possible gun indicated he was more concerned about a holdup man than he was about an undercover man fronting for a police raid.

The room inside surprised Johnny. It was much larger than he would have expected from the tavern out front. It was a complete gambling layout, wheels, dice tables, blackjack tables, even a chemin-de-fer birdcage. It was quiet in the room except at the dice table. Only one blackjack table was open and a single roulette wheel spun lazily for two bored-looking customers. “Everything but live clients,” Johnny commented.

“We do our real business on weekends,” Rudy said. He nodded toward a soft-hatted group of men around a green baize table under a brightly shining drop-light. “Leave your name with the dealer for the next seat an' take a walk around.”

“Sure. How about a drink?”

“Sorry. The bar closes at midnight.” Rudy walked away.

In its own way the prohibition probably made sense, Johnny reflected. The wide-open gambling within forty feet of the main street could be fixed locally. Liquor was state-administered and could not.

He walked to the card table. Between hands he caught the green-eyeshaded dealer's attention, circled the table swiftly with a finger, and then pointed at himself. The dealer nodded. Johnny stood and watched the game. There was no money on the table and he didn't know the value of the chips but the quiet intensity of the game suggested that they didn't represent nickels and dimes. The game was straight poker with no flourishes.

After a few moments he wandered over to the dice table and looked on. There was a younger, harder-looking crowd at the dice table. Noisier, too. Johnny pushed on to a blackjack table and exchanged a twenty dollar bill for dollar chips. He climbed up on a stool and won and lost with almost religious alternation until he looked around at a touch on his elbow. “Seat open,” Rudy said.

“Fine.” He counted out a thousand dollars of Mickey Tallant's money and shoved the rest back in his pocket. He walked back to the poker table and slid into the vacant seat. The dealer shuffled and blended cards in a blurred whirr of celluloid and set them down on the table. “Game's jackpots,” he said briskly to Johnny. “Five, twenty-five, and fifty. Passed pots stop at four. No limit on raises at any time. You can go to the banker at any time. Any questions?”

“Coffeehousin' go?” Johnny asked him.

“Anything goes,” the dealer replied with emphasis. “You're not among friends.”

Johnny pushed his thousand dollars toward the dealer. “Let 'er rip.” He stacked up in front of him the twenty white chips, sixteen reds, and ten blues he received in return. He ran an appraising eye around the table. At five dollars for a white chip, twenty-five for a red, and fifty for a blue he could see a conservative twelve to fifteen thousand dollars in chips on the table. He drew his chair in a little tighter beneath him. His nostrils tested the familiar electricity in the air. He wished he had a cigar.

For thirty minutes he threw in hand after hand, sizing up the players in the game. He drew once to two pair after raising right behind the opener and driving everyone else out. The opener caught another pair and beat him. For the amount of money involved it was a looser game than he expected. Raises were frequent and there weren't too many folded hands. Two or three calls were not unusual. There was only one man in the game playing as tight a game as himself, a gray-haired man with a weather-beaten face.

On a four-time passed pot the deal came up to the man in front of Johnny. Under the gun, Johnny looked at his cards singly as they came off the top of the deck. The first three were nines, and he stopped looking. “Pass,” he said when the cards had stopped falling.

“Open,” the man behind him said. He tossed in two blue chips.

“Raise it once,” the next man said. He threw in four blues.

“Stay.”

“Out.”

“Out.”

“Up again,” said the dealer confidently. One by one he dropped six blues onto the pile.

Johnny felt the finger of excitement on his spine. Three hundred to play. He picked up his hand and spread his cards. He hadn't made any mistake. The three nines were there.

The next card was a king.

The last one was the fourth nine.

“I'll stay,” Johnny said.

“I'll raise it again,” the opener said right behind him. His words tripped over themselves. His voice was taut.

The man who had raised originally frowned at his cards. He folded them, hesitated, opened them up for another look, and removed four blue chips from the diminished pile in front of him. “Stay,” he said.

“Stay,” the next man said. His eyes were upon the dealer who immediately confirmed his worst fears.

“Up once more,” the dealer said silkily. “Let's make it a good one, boys.”

“Stay,” Johnny said. He pushed the last of his blue chips into the center of the table.

The opener debated. “Stay,” he said finally.

“Stay,” the original raiser said stubbornly.

“Stay,” the whipsawed man to the dealer's right said resignedly.

“Cards, gentlemen?” the dealer inquired cheerfully.

“I'll take one,” Johnny said. He lifted a corner of the card dealt him and looked at it. It was a ten.

“I'll play these,” the opener announced. A straight or a flush, Johnny thought. He's out of it.

“Two,” the man who had raised first said unhappily. The pat hand had obviously shaken him.