Last Call (Last Call 1)

Seen through his good left eye, the three cards he held were again just the Kings of Spades and Clubs and the Two of Clubs. Breaking up the Two Pair and keeping a Two for a kicker was not a move any Poker expert would approve, but the two cards the dealer spun to him proved to be the Kings of Hearts and Diamonds. He now had four Kings, almost certainly better than whatever the Englishman had.

His lone opponent now slid four twenty-five-dollar chips into the pot, and Crane raised with eight of his own, and the Englishman reraised, and so did Crane, and they alternated at raising each other's raises—pausing just long enough for Crane to drain his newly arrived drink and ask for another—until Crane's entire stack of twelve hundred and some dollars in chips was tumbled into the pile in the center of the table. There was cash in his pockets, and he wished the rules permitted him to buy more chips during the course of a hand.

He blinked curiously at the Englishman, who almost looked ready to fling a drink into his own face and then hoot. The man was trembling, and his lips were white.

"Well?" he said in a scratchy voice.

Crane laid down his hand, face up. "Four Kings," he said.

The Englishman blinked at him; his whole face had gone white, but he was smiling and shaking his head. Then he lunged forward out of his seat to stare hard at Crane's cards.

His lips moved silently, as if he were counting the Kings—and then he shuddered violently and rolled over backward, knocking over his chair and tumbling to the carpeted floor.

The house dealer stood up and waved, and in seconds two security guards had loped up, taken in the situation, and were crouched over the fallen Englishman.

"Looks like heart," said one of them quickly. "Yeah, fingernails already dark." He began thumping the Englishman's chest, hard, with a fist while the other guard unholstered his radio and spoke quickly into it.

In spite of what Crane had heard about the single-mindedness of Las Vegas gamblers, a number of people abandoned slot machines or even Poker hands to come over and peer at the man on the floor. As they speculated in whispers about the man's chances, Crane was glad they couldn't know that it was he who had felled the harmless Englishman. Again he cuffed tears out of his eyes. I could have just thrown all five cards away, he thought. But how could I have known? It wasn't my fault. What was he playing for, if he couldn't afford to lose?

The house dealer leaned forward across the table—the twin tails of his tie dangling under his chin, each with HORSESHOE lettered down it in silver—and with thoughtful deliberation turned over the Englishman's cards.

An Eight and four Queens. The man had certainly suffered a bad beat.

Crane closed his left eye and looked out at his own laid-down cards. The Kings and the speared cherub head were smiling triumphantly now.

"Get somebody over here with some racks for my chips," Crane told the dealer harshly. "I want to cash out."

The dealer gave him a blank look. "Bedtime at last."

When Trumbill saw Crane stand up from the table, he turned and waved to the young man in the sweat shirt, who was mechanically working a slot machine three rows back; the young man nodded and made a hand signal to someone further back.

"I'll take him as soon as we're outside," Trumbill told Leroy. "He's never seen me, and fat men are reassuring."

"If they smile," said Leroy tensely as he watched Crane laying the stacks of his chips into a wooden rack. "Can you smile?" He glanced at Trumbill.

Trumbill's cheeks tensed upward, and his lower lip pouched away from his teeth, and his eyes became glittering slits. "Ho-ho-ho," he said.

"Forget it," said Leroy. Crane had picked up the rack and started weaving through the crowd toward the cashier's cage, and Leroy strode after him, flanked by Trumbill. "Act sad, like you lost your life savings," Leroy said as they elbowed their way through the phalanxes of gamblers. "A sad, fat man is probably good enough."

Ahead of them Crane had lifted the rack onto the cashier counter, and the woman in the cage had slid it inside.

"Jesus, cash again," said Trumbill a few moments later, watching Crane take a roll of bills and fold it and stuff it into his pocket. "With his scores at the Dunes and the Mirage, he must have twenty grand on him."

"You can have it when we've taken him. He's heading for the door—Moynihan's boys will have a van out there at the curb somewhere. Get him into it."

"Right."

"Baaad luck!"

The picketers were still marching up and down the Fremont Street sidewalk, and the short-haired young woman was using her electric megaphone again.

"Baaad luck at the 'Shoe!" droned her flat, amplified voice on the hot air as Crane lurched out into the glaringly lit night of downtown Las Vegas. "Come on out, losers!"