After a few more hands Dean fired a joint, and Charlie smoked it with him. To everyone's surprise, Bobby asked for a hit.
“So you're not so pure after all,” Nelson said.
With a shrug Bobby said, “It's only weed.”
“No, it isn't,” Dean declared. “It's Rocket Fuel.”
Bobby sucked hard on the fat tube of reefer and then, turning away, used his tongue to force the smoke out his nostrils without inhaling. He finished the deceit with a coughing fit.
Pretending to be stoned, Bobby changed his style and began to play cautiously, folding early on most hands. He stopped badgering his opponents. After moving them from fear to hostility and back to fear, he wanted them to forget about him for a while. Each time someone raised, he folded, removing himself from the action and watching quietly as the others played.
Presently Dean won two hands in succession, the last an impressive win over Alex that put him a hundred thousand ahead. He celebrated with a glass of rum.
“You like that weed, Bobby?” he asked.
“Pretty potent shit, Deano. I can't play cards when I'm loaded, and that weed, man, I dunno. I don't know anybody who can play stoned, but a lot of folks try. How 'bout you, Stud?”
Dean laughed and tossed his ante into the pot.
Your turn, Bobby thought, and said, “My deal. Five stud.”
Dean cut the deck and Bobby slowly passed out the cards, dealing sloppily as though he were stoned out of his mind. Blinking, clearing his throat, rocking in his seat, calling out the cards haphazardly. “Nine to Charlie, ah, what's that? A six to Nelson, yeah, a six, and another six to Alex, a queen to Deanâhey, that rhymes, and a jack
to me. That right? Yeah, queen is high. Jeez, I guess I'm stoned. Whoa.”
“Queen bets five.”
“Okay, I'm in,” Bobby said and tossed a chip into the pot. It landed on edge and rolled across to Nelson who caught it and placed it in the center of the table.
“I see it,” Charlie said.
“Out,” Nelson declared.
And Alex, “Likewise.”
“Next card, another queen to the stud for a pair, and another jack to me for a pair, and a nine to Charlie for three pairs showing on the table. That's pretty nifty. Queens.”
“Twenty-five on the queens.”
“Ooo, ladies showing their teeth. Twenty-five it is.”
“Too rich for me,” Charlie said, and turned over his cards.
Bobby seemed to lose interest in the hand and stared at the photo of Wyatt Earp as though it were the most fascinating image he'd ever seen.
“Bobby, you gonna deal?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Let's see, whose in? Dean and me? Okay. A ten to the queens and a seven to the jacks. Queens still lookin' good.”
“Fifty.”
“Movin' up there, queenies. Fifty, fifty, okay. Fifty and up one fifty. Jeez, that weed. Wait a minute. Is that what I wanna do? Yeah, what the hell. Up one fifty, Deano.”
“You losin' it, man? You okay?” Dean asked.
Bobby chuckled. “I dunno. You gonna see the raise?” “I'm in.”
“Last card. A deuce to Dean and Dean's queen to me. How about that. Your bet.”
“One fifty,” Dean said.
Bobby leaned over the table and knocked over his stacks of chips. “Shit,” he swore. “Maybe I am losin' it, betting into such a pretty pair of queens. Oh, dear, what to do.”
He halfheartedly tried to stack his chips again, snorted, cleared
his throat and said, “One fifty, okay, and I'll raiseâwhat d'ya got there, Stud?”
“Four eighty.”
“Keepin' track, hey? Four fifty? No. Four-eighty.”
“And I got my boat.”
“Your boat? Oh, yeah, your hot rod boat. You want to bet your boat? What's it worth?”
“Two large.”
“Two grand? That's all?”
“Two hundred grand,” Dean said. “It's a Cigarette Racing Top Gun with twin Mercury Marine Bulldogs that I tweaked myself, a hell of a boat. I bet my boat.” Dean got the giggles. Laughing, drinking more rum, he repeated, “Hell, yes. I bet my boat, the
Queen of Diamonds.”
“Two hundred thousand dollars for a speedboat. That's an expensive toy, Studley. What else do you have? A business, right? Your garage or machine shop or whatever it is. Wanna put that in, too? Against Charlie's business, naturally. You think about it. Here's four eighty plus another two hundred for the boat.”
Bobby pushed a huge stack of chips into the pot.
“You're really gunning for us,” Dean said.
“It's a poker game, isn't it? I didn't come here to lose, but maybe I will. You in? You see my raise? You aren't chickenshit, are you, Dean? You gonna fold like Nelson? This is a man's game.”
Dean's upper lip began to tremble, and with a violent shove pushed all his chips into the pot.
“I'm in, the boat, the shop, everything,” and he flipped over his hole card, a ten that gave him two pair, queens and tens.
“Wow, two pair, that's pretty good,” Bobby said and turned over his hole card, the jack of clubs for three jacks. “But not good enough.”
Shaking, Dean stood, fists clenched, sweat streaming down his temples. “You ⦠you, God
damn
!
”
“Wanna kiss me again?” Bobby asked, and when Dean leaned over the table toward him, Bobby snatched up the revolver, pointed it at the big man's chest, and commanded, “Sit down, captain, sir.”
Nelson dove to the floor, Charlie yelped and covered his face with his arms, and Alex calmly lit a cigarette. Bobby burst out laughing.
“I love this game,” he said, eyes locked on Dean's, and Dean realized Bobby wasn't stoned at all. He was sober as a judge.
“Nicely played,” Alex said.
“All's fair in love and poker.”
Dean sank into his seat, and Bobby put down the gun.
“Is this thing loaded?” he asked.
“Shit,” Nelson swore.
“I'm only teasing. I'm pretty sure it's empty.” He opened the gun and showed the empty cylinder to Dean, then pushed two hundred thousand in chips from the pot across the table. “I'll give you the same deal I gave Charlie,” he said. “You're still in, Stud. Ante up.”
In the dark hours before dawn on Sunday morning the light over the table shined brighter than ever. Bobby tried twice more to goad Nelson into putting everything into a pot, but the policeman was gun shy, as the saying goes, and each time stopped short of risking his fortune.
Where Bobby failed, Alex succeeded. With Bobby dealing a hand of seven stud, after six cards Nelson had four splendid hearts for a possible king high flush, and Alex showed a pair of sevens, a king, and an eight. Everyone else had dropped, and Alex and Nelson faced off, waiting for the final card.
Sweat hung in the air like smoke. Holed by cigarette burns and stained by spilled drinks and gun oil, the dark green felt exuded the raw odor of a battlefield. When the stakes are high enough, poker is war, and cards and chips become tokens for savage emotions.
Right and wrong, crime and punishment, life and deathâthe grand issues had been pushed aside by the power of the game. Nelson was not meditating on Shanghai Bend as he clenched his teeth and impatiently snapped the corners of his hole cards. He was trying to win the hand, and nothing else mattered.
“Câmon, c'mon, c'mon,” he muttered, transfixed.
Alex remained calm, fingers folded on the table. Only Bobby noticed a tiny artery pulsing in his left temple, partially hidden by the frame of his glasses. The Wiz was more anxious than he appeared.
Bobby dealt the last card, intoning the customary chant, “One down for Alex and one for Nelson. Sevens are still high. Alex bets.”
Alex glanced briefly at his seventh card and slowly raised his eyes until he met Nelson's. Without looking down, he pushed a tall stack of blues into the center of the felt.
“Two hundred thousand,” he rasped, voice harsh and dry.
“I don't have that much,” Nelson snapped in reply, blood pressure rising. “You can see that plain as day.”
Never taking his eyes off Nelson, Alex asked politely, “How much do you have?”
“Hundred forty-five thousand,” came the terse response.
“Okay, one forty-five it is,” Alex said, taking fifty-five thousand back.
Face flushed, jaw grinding, cheek muscles twitching, Nelson came out like gangbusters. “I'll tell you what, Alex. It takes a full house or better to beat a flush, and you've been bluffing all day and all night. You ain't the pro from Reno. You don't fool me with your cooler-than-thou attitude. I've seen it before. You're just a smart-ass punk from Alvarado Street and all you have is a pair of sevens, maybe three sevens. I'll put in the one forty-five and raise you my cars and the apartment buildingâif you have anything to put up against it, like guts.”
Bobby saw the muscles in Alex's face relax. The sign of fear, the bluffer's tell, the pulse throbbing in his temple, was gone. An intrepid gambler, the Wiz had caught a hand on the last card and Nelson had walked right into the trap.
“What's the building worth?” Alex inquired.
“Two point one million at the last insurance appraisal.”
Alex bent over the table on his elbows and studied Nelson's cards. “We started with five grand, then went to five hundred grand, and now you're betting two million plus on a four heart flush. I never thought I'd see the day. Hallelujah, the poker gods must be appeased.”
“Cut the crap, Alex. I'm all in. Whaddaya got that's worth anything? I know you own your fancy New York apartment.”
“My assets, let's see,” Alex said slowly. “There's the apartment in Manhattan, yes, and the condo in East Hampton, and the stock portfolio, a nice combination of blue chips and high-tech. Pharmaceuticals have been good lately. All together I'd guess I'm worth a little less than two million, depending on the market, but close enough. That sound good enough to you?”
“You'd better not be bullshitting about the stock.”
“You pays your money and takes your chances, Nelson. Looks like it's L.A. versus New York. How about it?”
“I'm in,” Nelson declared.
“I call,” Alex said, and Nelson, hands shaking, turned over the fifth heart.
“Flush, king high,” he announced unnecessarily, a grin and a grimace struggling at cross-purposes on his bright, sweating face.
Alex sighed theatrically, adjusted his glasses and turned over a third seven and a hidden pair of aces for a full house.
Bobby lit a Winston, the double snap of his Zippo as sharp as a gun bolt.
There was a tiny delay as Nelson revved from zero to tornado. Eyes popping, face contorting like a Chinese dragon, he snatched up his cards and viciously tore them to pieces. “Motherfucker!” he shouted, gasping for breath. “God damned mother-Rrrrrrrrr!” Flinging the shredded cardstock into the air, he charged into the master bedroom, slammed the door, and a moment later they heard a crash, a thud, and another crash.
Bobby flinched, unsure what to make of Nelson's noisy fit of destruction.
“It's happens when he loses,” Dean said to Bobby. “Don't worry about it.”
“One of our finer traditions: Nelson loses and wrecks the place,” Charlie added. “It's an annual melodrama and usually adds up to about a grand in damages. They'd never let us come back if I didn't know the manager.”
“He isn't going to hurt himself in there, is he?” Bobby asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing toward the bedroom with genuine concern. With two and a half million dollars in cash in the suite, the last thing he wanted was a player launching himself out the window and attracting attention.
Dean shrugged. “You have the gun, Bobby. He'll be all right.”
“Nelson!” Alex yelled.
The muted reply: “Go to hell!”
“He's never lost so much before. None of us has,” Charlie said.
“Nelson puts on a brave front, but he's an emotional guy. It's hard to say what he'll do. It doesn't feel good to get wiped out. I can testify to that.”
“Yea, brother,” Dean chimed in.
“Stop whining and feeling sorry for yourselves! This is poker!” Alex shouted, and gathered in the hefty pot. Cooling off, he added in a normal tone, “We need a new deck. Any cards left?”
Dean looked away, embarrassed, and Charlie coughed in his hand.
“What's the matter?” Alex demanded. “It's a card game, not a popularity contest. There's always winners and losers.”
“You're a cold son of a bitch, Alex,” Charlie said. “You didn't let Nelson back into the game like Bobby did for Dean and me.”
“Poker is not a game that rewards compassion. Emotions get in the way.”
Easy to say, Bobby thought. Easy to say.
Dean laughed, sputtering in his drink. “You're so full of shit, professor. I'm tired of your pompous fucking pronouncements. You won the hand, good for you. That's terrific. Shut up and show some class.”
“I'm giving nothing back, Studley. I came to play.”
“Are we gonna play with four players?” Charlie asked.
“We're going to play until there's one player left,” Alex snapped.
Bobby tilted his head sideways and slowly nodded his head in agreement. “Last man standing,” he said. “The old way. It's okay with me.”
Charlie silently tore open a new, sealed deck to replace the one Nelson destroyed, removed the jokers, and began to shuffle.
“Roll 'em, Charlie,” Dean said and rapped his knuckles on the felt.