Dagger Key and Other Stories

The game was cash only, no-limit Texas Hold ’em. It was held in a side room of Harrah’s New Orleans with a table ringed by nine barrel-backed chairs upholstered in red velvet and fake French Colonial stuff—fancy swords, paintings with gilt frames, and such—hanging on walls the color of cocktail sauce. Geneva, who was a friend, let me sit in once in a while to help me maintain the widely held view that I was someone important, whereas I was, in actuality, a typical figment of the Quarter, a man with a few meaningful connections and three really good suits.

It wasn’t unusual to have a couple of pros in the game, but the following week Harrah’s was sponsoring a tournament with a million dollar first prize and a few big hitters were already filtering into town. Aside from Mad Mike, Avery Holt was at the table, Sammy Jawanda, Deng Ky (aka Denghis Khan), and Annie Marcus. The amateurs in the game were Pellerin, Jeremy LeGros, an investment banker with deep pockets, and myself, Jack Lamb.

Texas Hold ’em is easy to learn, but it will cost you to catch on to the finer points. To begin with, you’re dealt two down cards, then you bet; then comes the flop, three up cards in the center of the table that belong to everyone. You bet some more. Then an up card that’s called the turn and another round of betting. Then a final up card, the river, and more betting…unless everyone has folded to the winner. I expected Pellerin to play tight, but five minutes hadn’t passed before he came out firing and pushed in three thousand in chips. LeGros and Mike went with him to the flop. King of hearts, trey of clubs, heart jack. Pellerin bet six thousand. LeGros folded and Mike peeked at his down cards.

“They didn’t change on you, did they?” asked Pellerin.

Mike raised him four thousand. That told me Pellerin had gotten into his head. The smart play would have been either to call or to get super aggressive. A middling raise like four thousand suggested a lack of confidence. Of course with Mad Mike, you never knew when he was setting a trap. Pellerin pushed it again, raising ten K, not enough to make Mike bag the hand automatically. Mike called. The card on the turn was a three of hearts, pairing the board. Pellerin checked and Mike bet twenty.

“You must have yourself a hand,” said Pellerin. “But your two pair’s not going to cut it. I’m all in.”

He had about sixty thousand stacked in front of him and Mike could have covered the bet, but it wasn’t a percentage play—losing would have left him with the short chip stack and it was too early in the evening to take the risk. He tried staring a hole through Pellerin, fussed with his chips, and eventually mucked his hand.

“You’re not the dumbest son-of-a-bitch who ever stole a pot from me,” he said.

“Don’t suppose I am,” said Pellerin.

As I watched—and that is what I mainly did, push in antes and watch—it occurred to me that once he sat down, Pellerin had stopped acting like dead money, as if all his anxiety had been cured by the touch of green felt and plastic aces. He was one hell of a hold ’em player. He never lost much and it seemed that he took down almost every big pot. Whenever he went head-to-head against somebody, he did about average…except when he went up against Mad Mike. Him, he gutted. It was evident that he had gotten a good read on Mike. In less than two hours he had ninety percent of the man’s money. He had also developed a palsy in his left hand and was paler than he had been when he entered.

The door opened, the babble of the casino flowed in and a security man ushered a doe-eyed, long-legged brunette wearing a black cocktail dress into the room. She had some age on her—in her mid-thirties, I estimated—and her smile was low wattage, a depressive’s smile. Nonetheless, she was an exceptionally beautiful woman with a pale olive complexion and a classically sculpted face, her hair arranged so that it fell all to one side. A shade too much make-up was her only flaw. She came up behind Pellerin, bent down, absently caressing the nape of his neck, and whispered something. He said, “You going to have to excuse me, gentleman. My nurse here’s a real hardass. But I’ll be glad to take your money again tomorrow night.”

He scooted back his chair; the brunette caught his arm and helped him to stand.

Mike, who had taken worse beats in his career, overcame his bad mood and asked, “Where you been keeping yourself, man?”

“Around,” said Pellerin. “But I’ve been inactive ’til recently.”