Somebody Owes Me Money

I wondered what would happen if I were to lean over close to him, as though interested in his hole cards (being out of the hand, so it was okay), and whisper in his ear, “Solomon Napoli.” Just that. And sit back, and innocently look around at the other hands still in the game.

I wondered, and I looked at Sid’s profile, and I decided not to find out. In spite of his not looking any different, I decided not to find out. No, that isn’t right, it was because he didn’t look any different. His surface was still the same, there was no sign of whatever it was that lurked beneath, and that was more intimidating than any kind of blatant toughness. He showed nothing at all, and that meant the reality could be anything at all, and that meant I didn’t want to know what it was. So I minded my own business, and did no whispering to Sid.

In the meantime Sid and his pair of Queens had pushed steadily but moderately through the hand, and at the finish there was no one left but Jerry with his probable Kings up. Sid made a limit bet, and Jerry had to stay in and make Sid show the trips, and Sid did. Jerry made that embarrassed unhappy laugh of his, and looked around the table to see if anybody had noticed his failure. We all know that move of his by now, so we were all looking some place else.

Fred dealt next. Seven-card stud again. Fred was the true gambling fool, he’d go back to the game that bit him time after time till he finally bit it back. This time I got a three and Jack down and a seven up, three suits again. I folded, naturally, and began to wonder if my luck with Purple Pecunia had been strictly a one-shot. These cards were costing me a quarter a hand.

Jerry took this one, with an eight-high straight that had obviously come in on the seventh card, against Doug Hallman’s unimproved aces up. Doug puffed a lot of cigar smoke over that hand, but didn’t say anything.

Sid was the next dealer. He switched to five-card stud and gave me a Jack in the hole, nine on top. I stayed, paired the Jack on the fourth card, and had only Fred to contend with at the end. Two other Jacks had been folded in other hands, which Fred had to be aware of. The highest card he had showing was a ten, so I had a lock, so naturally I bet the limit, which is two dollars, and when he bumped two dollars back to prove he had a pair of tens, I considered doing Leo’s Actors’ Studio bit, but then decided the hell with it and just threw in my two-buck raise. Fred called and I showed him my other Jack. “I didn’t believe it,” he said, and showed me his other ten. “I believed that,” I said, which was maybe cruel.

Then, as I drew in my first pot of the evening, I said, “You guys hear what happened to Tommy McKay Monday?” Fred and Doug and Leo all knew Tommy, and Sid and Jerry had both heard us mention him at one time or another.

Doug said, “I been trying to call him.”

“He’s dead,” I said.

None of them had heard. So I told them, and of course no more hands were dealt till I finished. When I told them Tommy had a beautiful sister from Las Vegas who was going to sit in a little later, though, all the other elements in the story suddenly grew very pale. At first the questions had been about Tommy, and then about the guy who’d given me the tip on the horse, but by the end there was nothing but questions about Abbie. “You’ll see her,” I kept saying. “She’ll be here around nine-thirty.”

Then Doug Hallman, who had a marker of mine, said something about me being rolling in dough now, and I told him not yet, with Tommy dead I hadn’t been able to get my payoff yet, I was going to have to see about that tomorrow. He nodded, and looked a little unhappy. Jerry, who also had a marker of mine, also looked unhappy.

Finally we got back to the game, and in the next two hours I did very well indeed. Doug Hallman was having a streak of cards almost as rotten as his cigars; Fred Stehl and Jerry were both chasing too much and staying in hands too long; and Sid was just about holding his own, which meant the money was all coming to Leo and me, and most of it was coming to me. By the time the doorbell rang at quarter to ten I was almost forty bucks to the good, which was fantastic for that game, particularly in only two hours.

The ring had come at one of the odd moments when I wasn’t in a hand, so I pushed my chair back and said, “That’ll be Abbie now.” I left the living room and went to the door and threw it open and there was Abbie, still in her orange fur and black boots. “Hi, there,” I said.

She came in and smiled and panted and waved at her mouth to let me know she couldn’t talk yet.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I understand.” I helped her out of the coat, and the boots continued on up under the miniskirt of her baby-blue wool dress. She was a very sexy-looking girl.

I hung up her coat and turned back to her, and she said, “Boy. Those are some stairs.”

“You don’t get used to them,” I assured her.

“I believe it.”