Foghorns and sirens moaned in the distance, klaxons of danger and distress. Closer, a streetcleaner whirred down New Montgomery, sweeping away bottles, memories, and cigarette butts. Inside the Enrico Caruso Suite the hefty pot from the last unfinished hand was pushed discreetly to one side, protected by Nelson's gun and cuffs. Dean continued to snore loudly on the couch while Charlie, fidgety and sweating, sat at the card table watching Alex cheat at solitaire.
“You look twitchy,” Alex commented dryly without looking up from the array of cards. “I bet you never read that book on Zen.”
“You wanna talk about Zen Buddhism at a time like this? Jesus. You can play the eight of diamonds.”
“No kibitzing! Four in the morning is a fine time to practice Zen. Perhaps I should compose a Tao of Poker. I'm sure it would be a best-seller.”
Charlie poured two shots of Dean's rum, passed one to Alex, and asked, “Why do you cheat?”
“I cheat at everything except poker.”
“Think they'll come back?”
Simultaneously revealing and concealing a Zen-like fortitude, Alex sighed and resigned himself to answering Charlie's impossible questions. “Nelson will, to collect his piece if nothing else,” he said, giving Nelson's pistol a friendly pat. “There's no telling about Bobby.”
“What would you do if you were Bobby?”
“Don't be a twit. How would I know?”
“What if Nelson can't talk him into coming back? What if he goes to the cops?”
“Come on, Charlie, take it easy. What are you afraid of?”
“You know damned well. Prison. San Quentin. Lethal injection.”
“Ooo, let's be melodramatic, whaddaya say? If it comes to that, you can run away to South America, and if that isn't appealing, you can jump off the bridge. What the hell, you can turn Japanese and slit open your belly. It's considered an honorable way out of an untenable situation. Maybe you can get Dean to whack off your head, just to complete the ritual.”
“I'm not gonna jump off the damned bridge, but you better believe I've thought about taking off,” Charlie said. “But then what happens to Hooper Fish? I have eighty people who depend on me.
Alex looked up smartly, freezing Charlie with sudden intensity. “Your soul is in jeopardy and you're worried about your business? You have it backwards, my friend. Your employees don't depend on you;
au contraire,
you depend on them. If you disappeared without a trace, you wouldn't be missed. The boats will go fishing, the supermarkets will carve up the catch for the great unwashed, the restaurants will boil lobsters for plutocrats, and the moon will continue to push the tides back and forth. Nothing you do is as important as you think. That goes for you and me and everyone.”
“I'm not like you, Alex. I enjoy my life. I'm not bored.”
“Boredom is not my problem,” Alex replied. “I'm tired. You see my Panama hat? In New York I wear a beret, and I'm tired of looking like a French peasant,
très chic
. What a crock.
Merde!
I'm a straw hat kind of guy. Don't you understand what's happening here? We've been forced to look at ourselves in the mirror. Maybe you like what you see, but I don't unless I'm wearing my Panama. So what? Maybe you can stay the same as you are, if you're lucky. Do you feel lucky, Charlie? You know it's going to come down to one hand, the hand you're dealt and the way you play it.”
“You're really crazy, Alex.”
“You don't know the half of it, pal, but let me ask you this: If you're so sane and responsible and worried about your employees, why do you play in the game every year? You always lose. If the
game continues this morning, you could lose Hooper Fish, and there you are, irrelevant and broke.”
“Do you think it'll come to that?”
“I hope so. I like fish. You're not going to bail out, are you?”
“I'm in, Alex. Don't worry.”
Charlie trundled off to take a shower and a few minutes later, wrapped in a towel, swept through the suite tuning all the TVs to
The Untouchables,
igniting a cacophony of Hollywood tommyguns blasting well-dressed bootleggers in both bedrooms, bathrooms, the living room, and kitchenette.
Pow pow pow pow pow. Come out of there, Frank. You don't stand a chance
. The noise was so loud Alex didn't hear Nelson and Bobby in the corridor. He looked up and they were standing in the foyer looking wrung out.
Nelson's eyes were guarded, his face blank but tense. Toting a small white bag of doughnuts, Bobby showed no trace of the anger that had propelled him out the door. His spiffy clothes had acquired a few wrinkles. Watching him, trying to read his features, Alex gathered up the cards, tapped the deck square and laid it on the felt. Bobby took his seat and met Alex's gaze.
Nelson went around turning the TVs down to a reasonable volume, pausing to prod Dean. “Wake up, Studley,” he demanded, poking the big guy in the shoulder.
“I'm awake,” Dean announced from the couch.
“You came back,” Alex said to Bobby. “How nice.”
“Nelson said this is a trial.”
“Oh, it is, but there are many ways to conduct a trial: by fire, by water, by the judgment of your peers, or even the turn of a card.”
“I'm in no mood for bullshit, Alex.”
“I'm sure that's true for all of us.”
“Any more cute tricks like Nelson's stunt with the microphone?”
“Definitely,” Alex answered with an impish smile.
“Christ almighty, what the fuck is going on? Are you crazy?”
“Charlie thinks so, but after all, we're only having a card game. Glad you could make it.”
Bobby took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. If Alex wanted to
be cagey and play games, maybe he really was crazy. He had a lot to lose while Bobby risked only his dignity if they really did get to the truth. He was a man; he'd cried before, but he didn't have many tears left for Shanghai Bend.
“Thirty-two years and counting,” Bobby said. “I've run out a patience. What's going on?”
“We owe you,” Alex said. “Nelson, did you tell him about the money?”
“No.”
“What money?” Bobby asked. “The stake? The twenty-five grand?”
“No, not the stake. We have something for you. Dean, would you care to do the honors?”
“Yo, boss. Comin' right up.”
Dean pulled himself off the couch, snorted, farted, groused into a bedroom, and returned with the largest of the heavy canvas bags he'd brought to the hotel. He tossed it on the table.
They were all smiling, grins all around the table except for Bobby who stared at the bag and didn't know what to make of it.
“That's full of dough,” Dean said. “It's yours, McCorkle. Take it.”
Bobby didn't budge. “Talk to me,” he said. “For all I know there's a smoke bomb in this bag, another stupid trick.”
“You tell him,” Dean said to Alex. “You're the mastermind.”
“Tell me what?” Bobby demanded.
“We've all been part of Dean's business for more than twenty years,” Alex said. “He grows five hundred pounds of premium marijuana on his barges every year, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, and we sell it in L.A., San Francisco, and New York. We've been doing it so long we never actually see it, let alone take possession of it. Dean takes almost all the risk, and so he gets the lion's share of the money. For the rest of us, there's a tidy sum every year to split up, from fifty thousand the first year to a million two this year. Every year when we divide the profits at the annual poker game, we put aside a certain percentage for you, twenty percent to be exact. It's yours.”
“You're putting me on,” Bobby said.
“Nope.”
Bobby blinked. “Why?” he asked.
Alex chuckled and said, “We thought it would make for an interesting card game if we increased the stakes.”
“There's a catch.”
“No catch. You can take it and leave right now.”
“Open it, for God's sake,” Charlie insisted, emerging from the bedroom, a bath towel wrapped around his shoulders, eyes red and face puffy but rubbing his hands like he was ready to play. He stood behind Bobby and put his hands on his shoulders. “C'mon, man.”
“No smoke bombs, no jack-in-the-box?”
Alex shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Bobby untied the knots, loosened the laces and poured the contents of the bag onto the table. It was all hundreds in thick packets bound by rubber bands and included several bundles of old silver certificates. It made an untidy but impressive pile on the green felt.
Staring at the money, they were silent for a long moment. In the background the TVs advertised cheap airfares and telephone psychics.
“Tell him how much,” Dean growled.
“One million eight hundred forty-seven thousand six hundred, rounded off,” Alex recited. “We could've invested it and made much more, but that would have been an accounting nightmare. I'm sure you understand why we stashed it in a safe deposit box every year and left it there. In fact, having so much unexplained cash will be your biggest problem. You can say you won it in a card game.”
“A million eight.”
“Yup.”
“For thirty-two years of silence.”
“Yup.”
“And continued silence in the future.”
“That's up to you. If you want to call the Yuba County Sheriff, we have his number.”
“You guys are dope dealers? I can't believe it.”
“Oh, we're a regular cartel,” Alex said with a chuckle. “Or we
were. Rocket Fuel exclusively, no pills or powders or anything else, but it's all over now, done
, finito.
We're not going to push our luck. We've retired. We're filthy rich, and now, so are you. Aren't you glad you came back?”
“Son of a gun,” Bobby said, scratching his chin, trying to tear his eyes away from the hill of cash. There had to be a catch, no matter how much they denied it. One point eight million dollars was simply too much moneyâan unbelievable amount of moneyâfor them to let him simply walk away. Was it a bribe? It smelled like a bribe, but he couldn't be bribed. Money didn't mean to him what it meant to them. If it did, he would've quit playing poker a dozen times when he was ahead with enough to live for the rest of his life. No, the money wasn't nearly enough. For the moment, however, he wouldn't mind playing cards with monopoly money.
“Anyone want a doughnut?” he asked.
“Sure. Whaddaya got?”
“Plain old-fashioned and maple bars.”
“Where you been, anyway?” Alex asked.
“We took a little tour of Noë Valley,” Nelson answered.
“The old neighborhood is still there, I presume,” Alex said, groping the sticky interior of the bag and extracting an old-fashioned.
“It's been gentrified and prettied up but it's the same,” Nelson said.
“As long as I was here, I wanted to see for myself,” Bobby said with a chuckle, adding, “They're still selling dope in Dolores Park where I used to score hashish.”
“Can the nostalgia,” Alex snapped. “Are you ready to play cards?”
Dean slid into his seat, reached into his jeans, and pulled out a huge wad of C-notes. “Let's play cards.”
“I told you I was in,” Charlie said to Alex as he sat down. “I'm in.”
Nelson sat down, stashed his pistol and cuffs under the seat, and said, “Let's play a little poker. Bring out the bags.”
Alex started to laugh. It began with a jelly roll in his diaphragm and burbled up through his throat and erupted in a brawling, bellowing howl. “Yes!” he shouted, “Yes! Poker doesn't matter unless
it hurts. Isn't that right, Mr. Professional? How about raising the stakes just a tad?”
Alex's laughter echoed through the suite, just loud enough to drown out the muffled exhortations of Elliot Ness.
Bust open those barrels, boys. I want to see a river of beer.
The first three cards of a hand of five stud had been dealt when Dean's beady, red eyes panned the table and his laughter turned provocative. “I'm gonna raise a buck,” he declared. “Any objections?”
Excited, Charlie exclaimed, “No way! What the hell is the point of a limit if you ignore it? There has to be a limit or the game will get out of control.”
“Isn't that the idea?” Alex said. “Isn't that why we came up this godforsaken river, to get away from the controls of civilization?”
“You're full of shit, Alex, right up to your brown eyeballs.”
Smack.
“God damned mosquitoes.”
“Gimme another beer. Where's Bobby?”
“He and the broad went off somewhere.”
Smack
.
“I raise a buck,” Dean repeated and slapped a dollar bill on the table.
“The limit is two bits,” Charlie protested vehemently. “It's always been a quarter. Shit.”
“Not anymore. You don't have to play, Charlie.”
“Damn right, if you can't play by the rules, I fold. Do you have any idea where we are?”
“Nope, but there's no waterfall on the Sacramento,” Dean said. “I know that for a fact. We're on some other river, maybe the Yuba or the American. I dunno.”
“I see the buck and raise a buck,” Alex said. “Nelson?”
“I'm in. Okay, roll 'em, big daddy.”
“A five to Alex no help, a three to Nelson no help, and a six to me for a pair of sixes. A buck on the sixes.”
“I raise a buck,” Alex said. “You don't scare me by raising the stakes, Dean.”
“I'm out,” Nelson said.
“I see your raise and raise you back two bucks.”
“I call,” Alex said. “Deal.”
“Another five to you makes a pair and a queen to me. Two bucks.”
“See your two and raise five.”
Alex had noticed that Dean bet conservatively when he had good cards and wildly when he was bluffing. Raising five bucks called his bluff.
Dean plunged. “I see your five and raise you a case of Schlitz.”
“You wanna bet beer? You run out of money? It was your idea to toss the limit, you jerk.”
“I raise you a case of beer, motherfucker.”
“Jesus, Dean, you really know how to screw up a card game.”
“What do you expect from a guy who throws all the maps into the river?”
“I'll see your case of beer. Deal.”
“Let's have a brewski before I deal the last card, okay? Hey, Charlie, I got a rule for ya. How about we drink a beer with every card? Ha ha.”
“You're doing that anyway, Deano. Is there anything to eat on this boat?”
“Beanie wienie.”
Secured against the current with a long rope tied to a stout tree, the boat was pulled partway up a gravel and clam shell beach on a small, wooded island. The boys had planned to erect a tent and set up camp, but because of the bugs the tent remained rolled up and stowed in the forward cabin. The moon and stars and a Coleman lantern provided enough light in the galley to play cards.
“C'mon, Dean, let's see the last card.”
“All right. A four to Alex and, ho ho, another queen to me for two pair. I bet two cases of beer.”
“Uh uh, cash only, Mr. Studley.”
Dean pulled out his wallet, picked out a twenty, and threw it on the table.
“Twenny bucks,” he said.
“See your twenty,” Alex said, magically producing a roll of banknotes, “and raise you twenty.”
“Holy shit,” Charlie said.
“That's all I have,” Dean said. “That's gas money to get us home.”
“I'll take your marker,” Alex said, turning over his hole card, the five of hearts. “Can you beat three fives?”
Dean screamed, “You motherfucker!” and raked the table with his forearm sending beer, money, and chips flying across the galley. Then he cracked up and, laughing and sputtering like a maniac, popped open another Schlitz and chugged it.
Nelson began to sing, “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.”
Alex and Charlie joined in. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall.”
Dean added a baritone, and the bottles came off the wall one by one as the old camp song echoed over the river. Somewhere around the thirty-seventh chorus the pungent odor of burning hot dogs and beans wafted into the air. Laughter, shouts, rollicking crashes and splashes, horrendous off-key singing, the bravura of young men, a cheerful tableau in a buggy paradise.