Hostile Witness (21 page)

“YES,” I SAID, LOOKING
over my cards, subtly trying to dig out the information I needed. “Zack told me about your games, said he had good times here.”

“Is that-a so?” said the old man whom I had first seen in the club and whose name I now knew was Luigi. “That’s very interesting, Victor. I’ll bet twenty. I don’t have nothing, of course, but I like to keep things interesting.”

“You’re raising just to keep things interesting?” asked Virgil, a huge man with fists like hams and a big-jawed face slackened by age. His voice was thick and slow.

“That’s right,” said Luigi.

“It don’t have nothing to do with the two ladies up and the third on her belly?” asked Virgil.

“If I had-a three queens I would have bet forty,” said Luigi.

“If you had bet forty I wouldn’t be thinking of staying in.”

“Okay,” said Luigi. “I’m going to raise my bet to forty.”

“What are you, senile?” said Jasper, a tall thin man with deep wrinkles around his eyes and a full head of bristly gray hair. His nasal voice had the tight, tense quality of a postman on the edge. “You can’t just up and change your bet like that. Once it’s down it’s down.”

“I’m changing it,” said Luigi. “What’s it to you anyway, Jasper, you were out before the first bet.”

“I didn’t have no hand.”

“You didn’t have no hand since Truman was president,” said Luigi.

“You still can’t raise yourself,” said Jasper. “There are rules.”

“Let him change it,” said Virgil. “What do I care?”

“Okay,” said Luigi, tossing in another four red chips with the boar’s head embossed in gold. “The bet is forty.”

“Forty dollars,” said Virgil. “Now I know you don’t got nothing. I’ll see the forty and raise ten.”

Luigi wheezed out a laugh and said, “Fifty to you, Victor.”

There were five of us around the table, four men to the far side of retirement and me. We were playing sevencard stud, high only. Giovanni sat by the door, slumped like a sack of cement in one of the red leatherette chairs, thumbing through a well-worn
Playboy
magazine. I couldn’t figure out what he was, guard, bartender. He sat around and got drinks for the players when they asked and sat around some more. I had played my share of poker before, but never at stakes this high. My jacket was off, my tie loosened, the top two buttons of my shirt undone, my sleeves rolled up to my forearms. Every now and then I checked my watch, aware that I had to be in court the next morning. But I had been tossing out asides all night, trying to build a conversation about Zack Bissonette, and still hadn’t learned what I had come to learn.

I looked at my hand again, lifting the down cards tightly so that no one could see. Down I had the four of hearts and the four of spades. Up I had two more hearts and the four of diamonds. Three fours wasn’t bad but except for Jasper, who had folded early, each of the other four had pairs up and were betting strong. We all had two more cards to go. If it was just the fours I might have folded, but there was still the chance to fill the house or maybe pick up the heart
flush. I looked at my chips. I had only about a hundred and fifty left of my original five-hundred-dollar stake and it was thinning fast.

“Let’s go, Victor,” said Virgil. “This ain’t brain surgery.”

“I’m in,” I said, tossing in two twenty-five-dollar chips.

Dominic, sitting next to me, a short dour man with forearms like bricks and a tight beer gut, tossed in another fifty. Dominic hadn’t said two words together all night, just bet money and scooped up pots. There was now over three hundred dollars in the middle of the table.

“So you were buddy-buddy with Zack,” said Jasper. “Is that what you been trying to tell us all night, Sport?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Zack was some distant relative of Dominic’s, like a second cousin twice removed, or something,” said Jasper. “I can never figure those things out. So we let him play with us when he wanted. Nice fucking guy.”

“Lousy ballplayer,” said Virgil. “Lousier poker player.”

“That’s why we let him keep playing,” said Luigi, and he let out another wheeze of a laugh that devolved into a spasm of coughs.

“Nice fucking guy, good loser,” said Jasper. “And the girls he had, I’ll tell you, Sport. What do you think? They loved him.”

“He had to beat them off with a baseball bat,” said Virgil.

There was a quiet, awkward pause and then Dominic spoke in a voice hard as slate. “That’s enough,” he said.

“You know what you are, Virgil?” said Jasper. “You’re an idiot.”

“I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“That’s your problem, you never mean nothing by it,” said Luigi. “I’m raising twenty.”

“Three queens,” said Virgil, shaking his head as he tossed in another twenty. “I knew he had them queens.”

“In,” I said.

Dominic put in his chips and Luigi dealt the next round. No one tripled their pairs but I pulled the seven of hearts, leaving me four to the flush.

Dominic tossed in twenty-five dollars and Luigi saw it.

“What happened to Mr. Forty Dollars?” asked Virgil. “Where’s he gone?”

“You in or not?” asked Luigi.

“In,” he said, tossing in his chips.

“I’m in too,” I said. “What I heard about Zack was that he was stepping out with the wrong girl at the end.”

“Where’d you pick that up, Sport?” asked Jasper.

“That’s just what I heard.”

“Is that what you heard?” said Jasper. “Well, maybe you heard right.”

Dominic threw in his chips and then, without looking at me, said in his harsh voice, “Haven’t I seen you on TV or something?”

“
Wheel of Fortune
?” I said.

“Maybe that’s it,” said Dominic. “You on
Wheel of Fortune
?”

“No.”

“Funny guy,” said Dominic without a smile. “Deal them cards.”

Luigi dealt out the last round of cards face down. I slipped mine on top of my other down cards and pulled them to my chest. Slowly, carefully, I looked at my down cards. The four of hearts. The four of spades. I glanced around at the old men looking at me and then I looked at the new card. King of hearts. I had flushed, king high. I was finally going to win a hand. I let out an involuntary sigh.

“What’s that?” said Virgil. “What was that, did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear nothing,” said Luigi.

“You been deaf in your left ear since ’fifty-nine.”

“I heard it too,” said Jasper.

“What was it?” asked Luigi.

“He sighed,” said Virgil. “Victor sighed, three hearts up and he pulled his flush. That was a flushing sigh if I ever heard it. Something high too, an ace. He’s got an ace high flush.”

“Can’t be, no way, no how,” said Jasper, searching through and then turning over one of his folded hand. “I got the ace of hearts right here.”

“You cannot-a do that,” said Luigi. “You’re out, you cannot-a say what you had.”

“Aah, stop that,” said Jasper. “All of a sudden now it’s Hoyle from the guy who raises himself.”

“Believe it or don’t believe it, I don’t care none,” said Virgil. “But he’s got his flush.”

“I don’t-a believe it,” said Luigi. “Whose bet?”

“Dominic,” said Fred.

Dominic put twenty-five in the pot.

“I see it,” said Luigi.

“Count me out against the flush,” said Virgil.

“I’ll see the twenty-five and raise twenty-five,” I said.

“Told you,” said Virgil.

Dominic tossed in another fifty.

“Another raise?” said Luigi.

“You and your queens,” said Virgil. “You and your queens are worth zippo. You should have folded with Jasper.”

“Jasper bent over the day of his first-a communion,” said Luigi, “and he’s been folding ever since.”

“What? You want I should bet like you, Luigi?” said Jasper. “You want I should blow my check staying in like a douchebag with three queens against a flush? I don’t got no rich son-in-law running a funeral parlor in Scranton. I got to be careful or by the end of the month I’m eating Alpo.”

Luigi looked at Jasper, sneered gently, and said, “I see Dominic.”

“Is that what got Zack killed, the wrong girl?” I asked nonchalantly as I looked over my cards for the final bet. I only had fifty dollars left.

“Let’s just say,” said Jasper, “between you and me, Sport, his luck wasn’t rotten only in baseball and poker.”

Still looking at my cards, I said, “I heard he was playing around with Raffaello’s daughter,” and after I said it a silence crashed into the room.

I looked up. Around the table the four men were staring at me like I had blasphemed the virgin mother. Giovanni sat up in his chair. I started to sweat.

Finally I said, “I’m in,” and to break the silence that followed that declaration I said, “and I’ll raise my last twenty-five.” But the game didn’t continue just then.

“Hey,
stugatz,
” said Luigi. “Don’t be talking about things you should not-a be talking about.”

“It’s just what I heard,” I said, trying to shrug it off.

“From who?” asked Jasper. It had turned into an inquisition, four against one. “What greaseball you hear that from, Sport?”

“I just heard it,” I said. “It wasn’t like a secret.”

“You must not be from around here,” said Jasper, “because if you was from around here you would know you talk about a man’s family like that you might just wake up to find yourself dead.”

“It’s been known to happen,” said Dominic in a flat, cold voice.

“Some men don’t like nobody talking about their family,” said Virgil.

“You should learn to keep-a your mouth shut,” said Luigi.

There was a long quiet while the men stared at me and I stared at my cards and then Dominic said, “Let’s play.”

Luigi shook his head at me. “No more talk, hey. Enough with the talk. I’m in,” he said, tossing in his chips.

Dominic put in his twenty-five.

“Now,” said Luigi, turning up his down queen. “Show me that-a flush.”

“Sure,” I said as I turned over my cards. I reached to rake in the pot but Dominic’s hand grabbed my forearm and squeezed.

He squeezed so hard I felt it in the bones.

“Full house,” he said, without turning over his cards.

“Of course he had the boat,” said Virgil. “Why else would he have stayed in against the flush?”

Dominic pushed my arm away and then slowly began transferring the chips from the middle to his piles. He still hadn’t turned over his cards.

“Let’s see it,” I said.

Dominic froze at the table, his hands still on the chips, and I could hear his breathing, slow, steady, dangerous as a leopard’s.

“If Dominic says he’s got a boat, Sport,” said Jasper, softly, “he’s got the boat.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t,” I said. “I just want to see it.”

“What you are saying,” said Luigi, the coldness back in his whispery voice, “is that you don’t-a believe him.”

“I’d just like to see it.”

“This is a gentlemen’s club,” said Luigi. “And since you have no more money your temporary membership is revoked.”

Giovanni rose from his red leatherette chair and moved to the table behind Luigi, his arms crossed in front of him.

“You’re ripping me off,” I said.

“It’s time to go,” said Giovanni.

I looked around at these old men, who had seemed harmless just a few moments ago, and what I saw was not a group of geriatrics needling each other in their weekly poker game but something much more ferocious. Luigi had the sharp hatchet face and Sicilian accent of a Mafia
underboss. Virgil was an aging enforcer, collecting for loan sharks, breaking legs when necessary. Jasper was the negotiator, the dealmaker, the man who set up the lucrative arrangements that the others enforced. And Dominic, silent and stolid, was as dangerous as a hit man. I never had a chance in that game, the goal of that night was to fleece me of all my money and I was lucky that was all they were after. But I had learned what I had come to learn, that Bissonette had played around with the wrong girl and had been killed because of it. And though these aged gangsters had refused to talk about it, their silence and threats and the absence of denials loudly confirmed that it was Raffaello’s daughter Bissonette had been playing with and that it was Raffaello who’d had him killed. And I wondered, for a moment, if it was one of these old men who had done the deed. Maybe Dominic, Bissonette’s second cousin, twice removed, whose grip, I knew, was still strong enough to wield a Mike Schmidt autographed bat.

I stood up and nodded at the men around the table and, without saying a word, self-consciously walked to the door.

“You’re forgetting your jacket, Sport,” said Jasper. “We don’t want you should forget your jacket.”

I returned to the table, avoiding the angry gazes of the men as I took hold of my jacket, and walked again to the door, moving as quickly as I could without running.

“Hey, kid,” I heard from behind me.

I stopped and turned around. Dominic was staring at me with a scary squint in his eyes. Slowly he turned over his down cards, one by one, first the ten of spades, then the ten of clubs, then the six of diamonds, which gave him a sixes over tens full house.

“No one calls me a cheater, kid,” he said. “Leastways no one who wants to keep breathing.”

I looked at him and expected him to smile at his joke, but he didn’t, his face was as hard as the squint in his eyes.
And then I dropped all pretensions of calm and ran out of the club, ran to my car, and tore the hell out of South Philadelphia.

I was filled with relief when I drove north past South Street, into the safety of Society Hill. It was relief at being out of that grubby little men’s club, away from the gangsters there with murder in their eyes. And, just as much, relief at learning that everything Prescott had been telling me might actually be the truth. He was right about who killed Bissonette and he would do his best, which was far better than my best, to make sure the jury knew about it too. I could now, with whatever good conscience I could muster, stay safely silent, following his orders as he tried my case, collecting my fat hourly fee by merely sitting next to my client, keeping my mouth shut and my tie clean as I slipped into my prosperous future.