William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

“I’m in,” Stan said. He had a Jack in the hole. The highest card showing was a ten in the Sailor’s hand.

“I’m with you,” Joe Plasky said, the Lazarus smile never changing.

Behind Joe sat the hulk of Bruno, his shoulders rounding under his coat. He watched intently, his mouth dropping open as he concentrated on Joe’s hand.

“I’m in, too,” Martin said. He dealt. Stan got another Jack and pushed in three blues.

“Going to cost you to string along,” he said casually.

Martin had dealt himself another ten. “I’ll string along.”

Major Mosquito, his baby head close to the boxtop, stole another glance at his hole card. “Nuts!”

“Guess it’s between you gents,” Joe said placidly. Bruno, from behind him, said, “Ja. Let them fight it out. We take it easy this time.”

Martin dealt. Two little ones fell between them. Stan threw more blues in. Martin met him and raised him two more.

“I’ll see you.”

The Sailor threw over his hole card. A ten. He reached for the pot.

Stan smiled and counted his chips. At a sound from the Major all of them jumped. “Hey!” It was like a long-drawn fiddle scrape.

“What’s eating you, Big Noise?” Martin asked, grinning.

“Lemme see them tens!” The Major reached toward the center of the snake box with his infant’s hand and drew the cards toward him. He examined the backs.

Bruno got up and moved over behind the midget. He picked up one of the cards and held it at an angle toward the light.

“What’s eating you guys?” Martin said.

“Daub!” Major Mosquito wailed, taking his cigarette from the edge of the box and puffing it rapidly. “The cards are marked with daub. They’re smeared to act like readers. You can see it if you know where to look.”

Martin took one and examined it. “Damn! You’re right.”

“They’re your cards,” the Major went on in his accusing falsetto.

Martin bristled. “What d’ya mean, my cards? Somebody left ’em around the cookhouse. If I hadn’t thought to bring ’em we wouldn’t have had no game.”

Stan took the deck and riffled them under his thumb. Then he riffled again, throwing cards face down on the table. When he reversed them they were all high ones, picture cards and tens. “That’s daub, all right,” he said. “Let’s get a new deck.”

“You’re the card worker,” Martin said aggressively. “What do you know about this? Daub is stuff you smear on the other fellow’s cards during the game.”

“I know enough not to use it,” Stan said easily. “I don’t deal. I never deal. And if I wanted to work any angles I’d stack them on the pick up until I got the pair I wanted on top the deck, undercut and injog the top card of the top half, shuffle off eight, outjog and shuffle off. Then I’d undercut to the outjog-”

“Let’s get a new deck,” Joe Plasky said. “We won’t any of us get rich arguing about how the cards got marked. Who’s got a deck?”

They sat silent, the expansion joints of the rails clicking by beneath them. Then Stan said, “Zeena has a deck of fortune-telling cards we can play with. I’ll get them.”

Martin took the marked deck, stepped to the partly open door and sent the cards flying into the wind. “Maybe a new deck will change my luck,” he said. “I been going bust every hand except the last one.”

The car shook and pounded on through the dark. Behind the open door they could see the dark hills and a sliver of moon setting behind them with a scattering of stars.

Stan returned and with him came Zeena. Her black dress was relieved by a corsage of imitation gardenias, her hair caught up on top of her head with a random collection of blond hairpins.

“Howdy, gents. Thought I’d take a hand myself if I wouldn’t be intruding. Sure gets deadly back in that coach. I reckon I’ve read every movie magazine in the outfit by this time.” She opened her purse and placed a deck of cards on the box. “Now you boys let me see your hands. All clean? ’Cause I don’t want you smooching up these cards and getting ’em dirty. They’re hard enough to get hold of.”

Stan took the deck carefully and fanned them. The faces were an odd conglomeration of pictures. One showed a dead man, his back skewered with ten swords. Another had a picture of three women in ancient robes, each holding a cup. A hand reaching out of a cloud, on another, held a club from which green leaves sprouted.

“What do you call these things, Zeena?” he asked.

“That’s the Tarot,” she said impressively. “Oldest kind of cards in the world. They go all the way back to Egypt, some say. And they’re sure a wonder for giving private readings. Every time I have something to decide or don’t know which way to turn I run them over for myself. I always get some kind of an answer that makes sense. But you can play poker with ’em. They got four suits: wands are diamonds, cups are hearts, swords are clubs, and coins are spades. This bunch of pictures here-that’s the Great Arcana. They’re just for fortunetelling. But there’s one of ’em-if I can find it-we can use for a joker. Here it is.” She threw it out and placed the others back in her purse.

Stan picked up the joker. At first he couldn’t figure out which end was the top. It showed a young man suspended head down by one foot from a T-shaped cross, but the cross was of living wood, putting out green shoots. The youth’s hands were tied behind his back. A halo of golden light shone about his head and on reversing the card Stan saw that his expression was one of peace-like that of a man raised from the dead. Like Joe Plasky’s smile. The name of the card was printed in old-fashioned script at the bottom. The Hanged Man .

“Holy Christ, if these damn things don’t change my luck, nothing will,” the Sailor said.

Zeena took a pile of chips from Joe Plasky, ante’d, then shuffled and dealt the hole cards face down. She lifted hers a trifle and frowned. The game picked up. Stan had an eight of cups in the hole and dropped out. Never stay in unless you have a Jack or better in the hole and drop out when better than a Jack shows on the board. Unless you’ve got the difference.

Zeena’s frown deepened. The battle was between her, Sailor Martin, and the Major. Then the Sailor dropped out. The Major’s hand showed three Knights. He called. Zeena held a flush in coins.

“Ain’t you the bluffer,” the Major piped savagely. “Frowning like you had nothing and you sitting on top a flush.”

Zeena shook her head. “I wasn’t meaning to bluff, even. It was the hole card I was frowning at-the ace of coins, what they call pentacles. I always read that ‘Injury by a trusted friend.”’

Stan uncrossed his legs and said, “Maybe the snakes have something to do with it. They’re scraping around under the lid here like they were uncomfortable.”

Major Mosquito spat on the floor, then poked his finger in one of the auger holes. He withdrew it, chirruping. From the hole flicked a forked thread of pink. The Major drew his lips back from his tiny teeth and quickly touched the lighted ember of his cigarette to the tongue. It flashed back into the box and there was the frenzied scraping of coils twisting and whipping inside.

“Jesus!” Martin said. “You shouldn’t of done that, you little stinker. Them damn things’ll get mad.”

The Major threw back his head. “Ho, ho, ho, ho! Next time I’ll do it to you-I’ll make a hit on the Battleship Maine .”

Stan stood up. “I’ve had enough, gents. Don’t let me break up the game, though.”

Balancing against the rock of the train, he pushed through the piled canvas to the platform of the next coach. His left hand slid under the edge of his vest and unpinned a tiny metal box the size and shape of a five-cent piece. He let his hand drop and the container fell between the cars. It had left a dark smudge on his finger. Why do I have to frig around with all this chickenshit stuff? I didn’t want their dimes. I wanted to see if I could take them. Jesus, the only thing you can depend on is your brains!