The room was thick with smoke, the primal vapor of gambling. They were into the game now, concentrating on poker. On the stereo Stan Getz dissected the universe with a saxophone, adding his screed to the sounds of cards scraping on felt, chips clinking in the pot, and the crisp vernacular of the game. The hands were coming faster, the red and blue decks alternating with drill-team precision, and the bets were creeping up.
Around eleven-thirty Charlie won a small pot by catching aces up in seven stud that caused everyone to fold. On the next hand, playing draw, he opened with a large bet and bought the hand when nobody called.
“Winners again,” he snickered, gathering up the antes.
On the other side of Bobby's empty chair, Dean's eyes glistened, beady and ferocious. He threw in his cards with a snort of disgust, glaring at Charlie and mumbling, “You prick. Show your openers.”
Pleased with his modest winning streak, Charlie flipped over three sixes. “Good enough, tough guy?” he bleated. “No guts, no glory, Deano. You can't
win
if you don't stay
in.”
“The poker gods shouldn't favor puny wimps with lucky cards,” Dean declared.
“What's the matter with you?” Alex asked sternly. “You've had a bug up your ass ever since you got here.”
Laughing, Dean started to sing, “Old lady river, that old lady river, she just keeps rollin' along.”
“Quit yer yappin',” Nelson snapped, dealing quickly. “Same game, jacks or better. Ante up.”
Alex thought playing with the boys from Noë Valley was better than not playing at all, but the game lacked the juice injected by
the annual wild card. They knew each other too well to generate real excitement. Without a fifth player, the game had a desultory, unbalanced feel that wasn't right. That was why they'd brought a wild card into the game in the first place. The wild card was noble prey, an intelligent victim, a stranger who had to be studied and understood before he could be manipulated, mind-fucked, and ultimately beaten. Poker was a contest of skill and guts and nerve, and that was the challenge Alex craved to satisfy his poker jones. Alas, since there was no wild card, he had to find another way to pump up the game.
The hand was dealt, the cards on the table. Alex let his cards lay on the felt as he watched Dean retrieve his, knowing the bickering had dropped the big man into a funk, priming him for exploitation. Dean moved the cards around in his hand in such a way that Alex knew he had three cards that went together, three cards to a straight or flush or perhaps three of a kind. Meanwhile, Nelson smiled and made pleasurable noises as though he had a good hand, indicating the opposite, and Charlie read his cards while silently moving his lips, saying “Queen” twice. Thinking this was the perfect time to bluff, Alex picked up his cards, glanced at them briefly, and put them back on the table as he always did in draw. He didn't have to bluff. Nelson had dealt him four threes, in all likelihood the best hand he'd see all night.
“I open for three hundred,” he said, dropping three blues into the pot. “Charlie's not gonna take another one without a fight.”
“I'll see your three hundred,” Dean announced without hesitation, “and raise five hundred.”
That was it, Alex thought. You don't raise that much on three cards to a flush or straight, but you do with three of a kind.
“Eight hundred to me,” Charlie said. “Um, um, um, okay.”
Alex winced, thinking playing with Charlie just wasn't fair, but that was poker.
“I'm out,” Nelson said. “Too rich for me.”
“I'll see your raise and raise another thousand,” Alex said mildly, staring at Dean and adding, “No guts, no glory.”
“Got another pat hand?” Dean inquired.
Alex cocked his head sideways, looked up at the light, and drummed his fingers on the felt. “Nope,” he said, lowering his eyes to face Dean. “Not this time.”
“I'll call,” Dean announced, and tossed two bumblebees into the pot.
“You don't want to raise again?”
“Go to hell, Wiz,” Dean said. “Charlie?”
Charlie waffled, shifting the cards around in his hand. “Shit, I dunno, I dunno. I'm out.”
“Okay,” Nelson said. “Dean and Alex. Cards, gentlemen.”
“I'm good,” Alex said. “No cards.”
“God damn,” Dean cursed. “You said you didn't have a pat hand.”
“I lied. Poker is a ruthless game that rewards deception.”
“Christâ”
“Dean,” Nelson interrupted impatiently. “How many cards?”
“Two.”
Nelson peeled off two cards and passed them face down to Dean. “You opened, Alex,” he said. “It's your bet.”
“I check.”
“You're gonna sandbag,” Dean snarled. “Alex, you can't raise if I don't bet. I check, too. That's it. Turn 'em over.”
Alex flipped over his cards, announcing each one. “One, two, three, four treys and the six of spades. It's not a pat hand. I could've tossed the six.”
“Jesus H. Christ, four of a kind. I don't know why I play this game with you.” Dean slammed his cards on the table, rattling chips. He stomped over to the stereo and jerked the needle off Stan Getz. “I can't stand this screwball jazz,” he steamed. “I want shitkicker music. What d'ya got here, Charlie? Johnny Cash? The Orange Blossom Special? All right.”
“Let's have some Elvis,” Charlie said. “Elvis was a shitkicker and proud of it.”
“Who cares about Elvis?” Dean mumbled. “He's dead.”
“Everybody in that record pile is dead,” Nelson quipped and then
added brightly, “Maybe we're dead. Maybe that's why we're stuck in a time warp playing an antique game with no redeeming social value.”
“Ah, bullshit,” Dean countered. “Life has no redeeming social value. Life is just life if you have the balls to live it. If you don't, then you might as well be dead.”
“Put on anything you like, then sit down,” Alex demanded, a little annoyed. “It's my deal.”
“Hold your horses, Alex. I just went from winners to losers, an experience that may be beyond your ken.”
“Are you in, Dean?” Charlie wanted to know. “Or are you gonna mess around with the records all night?”
“Yeah, yeah, deal me in.”
Dean put on Johnny Cash and they played a few more hands with no one catching cards worth betting. The game was like the sea in a squall, turbulent and dank but not really threatening. The big storm was somewhere beyond the horizon. As midnight approached Nelson looked at his watch every few minutes, Alex smoked Luckies, and Dean drank more rum. In normal years the game provided a superb diversion from the stress and anxiety of their lives, but tonight poker could provide only so much distraction from the gritty issue of whether or not Bobby McCorkle was going to arrive, what it meant if he didn't, and what might happen if he did.
“It's not the first time,” Nelson reminded them. “Remember, six or seven years ago we had a wild card who didn't show. Just crapped out and you got all pissed off”âhe jerked a thumb toward Deanâ“he was your guy and you got drunk and dragged some old gal from the bar up here. You wanted to play strip poker.”
“I did. With her. In the bedroom.”
“You're a horny old toad, you know that?”
“Well, I ain't dead the way you think we're dead. Time warp, my ass. I fuck women. I race my boat. I have a good time and mind my own business, and I sure as shit ain't dead. Not on yourâ”
“Listen,” Alex interrupted. “Maybe we're not dead, but we've always known we were living on borrowed time. When you borrow
and borrow and borrow, sooner or later you have to pay and pay and pay.”
“No, you don't,” Dean declared. “You can croak and nobody collects.”
He laughed at his own morbid joke and lit another joint.
“Look,” Alex said. “Somebody has to say this. The one thing we were most afraid of has happened. Our worst nightmare has come true. Now, it's up to us, including Bobby, to determine what we're going to do about it. I swear he'll show.”
“Who are you, the fucking pope?” Dean asked. “You gonna wave your magic wand and make him walk through the door?”
“Where do you think he is?” Nelson asked Alex. “Maybe he missed his plane. I can call the airline.”
“Nah,” Alex said. “My guess is that he hasn't been to San Francisco for a long time and he's taking a tour, Noë Valley, Baker Beach, you know, the old stomping grounds. It's hard for him. He doesn't know what to expect from us any more than we know what to expect from him.”
“Maybe we should do the same thing,” Charlie piped up. “Let's play tourist. Let's forget the game and go to one of the old Irish bars in the Mission. Let's go to the Dovre Club and get fucked up.”
“We're here to play cards,” Alex asserted, mildly alarmed that the game might be slipping away. “Even if Bobby shows, poker is the main event.”
“You're a poker junkie, Alex,” Nelson said. “We all know that. You're crazy. And you,” he said, pointing a finger at Charlie, “you're losing, so shut up.”
“The Dovre Club!” Dean exclaimed with a gleeful laugh. “Hot stuff. All right.”
“Shit,” Alex said.
“Sorry, Wiz,” Dean said, “but we have all weekend. Maybe Charlie can find another player tomorrow.”
“Nelson, would you rather play or party?” Alex asked.
“I don't care. If these guys want to go to the Dovre Club and make fools of themselves, I don't give a shit.”
“I have an idea,” Alex said brightly. “Let's make the game more interesting. Let's raise the stakes to a hundred dollar ante.”
“Leave it alone, Wiz,” Dean said. “Look, the game isn't working with only four players. That's too bad, but that's the way it is.”
“I didn't fly three thousand miles to go bar-hopping,” Alex protested, petulant.
“Then why don't you go down to Artichoke Joe's,” Dean hissed, naming a well-known local card room.
A look of undisguised horror blanched Alex's face. After a long, long pause he said, “You know I can't do that. I can't even think about that.”
Dean immediately regretted his
faux pas
and apologized. “Sorry, Alex. I'm sorry. Really, I didn't mean it.”
“Ah, what the hell,” Alex conceded. “Every year the game goes haywire one way or another, but usually not until the second night. The wild card usually keeps it interesting until he goes broke.”
“You mean until you skin him alive.”
“Yeah.”
“You've got a fat head sometimes,” Dean said. “And if it gets rough, you'd better have the cards.”
“Don't worry about it,” Alex said. “I used to beat him left, right, and upside the head.”
“Except for the last time.”
“Don't worry about it,” Alex reiterated.
Edgy, inhaling several slow, deep breaths, Alex started doing card tricks to keep his hands busy. For a moment he contemplated going to Artichoke Joe's, sitting down, and never getting up. Maybe he wouldn't lose everything, and if he did, so what? After tonight it might not make any difference.