Carny kill

13

I gave Billie a phony excuse for not meeting her that night after closing time and she seemed to go for it all right. What I wanted to do was look up Jerry before he got off somewhere with Bev. I went over to Dracula's Castle and got directions from one of the sweep-up men and scouted up a back door with Private on it.

The stairs inside went down and I went with them to another private door. This one meant it. It was locked. The barker who spieled for the nautch show opened to my knock. He knew me and he grinned and said, "Oh-oh, we better get out the handcuffs before we let you in here."

"Just sightseeing, Phil," I told him.

Jerry was in there but he was just hanging around watching a poker game. He and his boys had no more chance of playing than I did. I wanted to see him but there wasn't any rush about it. I decided to stick around and watch a few hands myself.

Dracula's basement was used nightly for a gambling hall. The membership was strictly exclusive. Neverland employees only. They had about four tables going. Gabby was at one of them with Bill Duff and Mike Ransome and a college kid named Smitty. They were playing draw.

Mike saw me and waved. "Hey, Thax! Over here. I'll let you deal for me."

It gave everybody a chuckle except Bill Duff. He gave me a look like an oldtime western gunman ready for a showdown and started to get up. I shook my head at him.

"Another time, Bill," I said.

It suited him. He looked at Mike and said, "One."

Mike dealt the cards around. He was drinking black coffee and he hummed happily as he made with the cards. The others were working on highballs.

"Grab yourself a drink, Thax," Gabby said.

"Just a beer," I said. "Jerry gets tired carrying me home."

Jerry laughed and said, "Jerry gets tired buying his girl new nylons." It was a private joke and meant nothing to the others.

I went around behind Mike and drew up a chair.

"I sure hate to give a lamb a fleecing," Mike said, "but the lamb is baa-ing for it. Right, Bill?"

Duff scowled at him but said nothing. I got the impression Mike had been riding him.

Mike opened for a five, Gabby bumped five, and Mike stayed out. When the hand was finished Mike laid down his cards face up, showing two jacks for openers. He opened the next hand and dropped out again and when the hand was completed he faced his cards up, exposing two small pairs.

"You should have drawn to that, Mike," I said. "You might have gotten a full."

He just grinned.

He passed four hands in a row and then drew three ladies. He opened, drew but didn't better it, and got out. Duff won on two pair and Mike showed his openers. Gabby stared at him.

"Don't you like to win, Mike?" Gabby wondered. "You had Duff's doubles beat."

Mike chuckled. "Wasn't good enough for my money. I want a big one when I catch old Bill's purse."

He let another two-three hands go by, then he saw a ten dollar bet and raised it the same amount. Gabby and Smitty called and Duff raised a ten. Mike raised twenty. Gabby folded and Smitty saw. Duff tipped it another twenty. It seemed to be what Mike was waiting for.

"Ha!" He shoved in two twenties.

The limit seemed to be as high as an Irish whore on New Year's Eve.

Smitty backed out and Duff studied Mike with glacial eyes. Mike grinned at him. I started to hold my breath.

"No," Duff said and tossed in his cards. "I ain't getting suckered into that."

Mike spread his cards up. The best he had was a ten high. The expression on Duff's face was a thing to behold, and it didn't help his disposition much when Mike started to laugh.

I thought I knew what Mike was up to. There's three ways to play poker. Play your hand for just what it's worth. Play hunches. Play against the man who wants most to win. Mike was trying the third method.

The man who is desperate to win will usually overplay his hands. The need to win shuts out his luck. And if you can get him mad on top of that, he's dead.

Mike lost a few small hands and let a couple of fat ones go by. Duff was the steady winner and he was starting to perk up. He didn't think Mike would try another bluff. Duff opened with a casual five. Gabby stayed, Smitty doubled it and Mike raised Smitty. Duff called.

They drew and again Duff teased them along for a five. Gabby must have smelled a mouse and got out. Smitty hung in there, apprehensively, and Mike raised a ten. Duff smiled and pushed in two twenties. Smitty traded his hand for a drink.

Mike could hardly sit still in his chair. He turned to me with a happy grin and showed me his hand and I looked at it pokerfaced. Then he counted out four twenties and tossed them in.

Nobody said anything. Duff stared at Mike.

"Are you bluffing again, you bastard?" he asked.

Mike grinned, drumming his fingers on the table top.

"No," Duff said. "You wouldn't try that twice." He flipped in his hand.

Mike yelled and spread out his own, face up. Nobody could believe it except me and I'd already seen it. A pain of trays. A very feeble pair of trays.

"Aw for crysake, what kind of poker is this?" Duff growled.

Mike laughed delightedly and scooped up the bills.

"How about a change of pace, Billy Boy?" he said to Duff. "Let's try a calm game of stud, five card."

"We're playing draw." Duff's voice was about as sour as buttermilk.

"But it's dealer's choice, isn't it?" Mike said. "And it's my deal, I believe."

Duff shot me a look I could feel at the back of my head. Mike caught it and grinned and said, "Don't sweat it, Billy boy. Thax isn't dealing-I am. You know I wouldn't give you a fast shuffle."

He made the rounds with the cards. He had the spade six showing. He didn't look at his hole card. Gabby opened on a black ace. Everybody stayed. Mike went around with the cards. He got the spade two. Duff had a pair of eights up.

"Ten," Duff said. They all went along with it.

Mike's next card was the spade three. Duff drew a jack. The pair eight was still high. He made it ten again. Mike still hadn't peeked at his hole card.

He got the spade five on the next trip around. Duff reached for a cigarette. He now had three eights and a little boy showing. He pretended not to notice Mike's possible.

"Time to separate the men from the boys," Duff said. He gave the pot a sixty dollar tilt. I knew him. He played a hand for just what it was worth. He either had another eight or another jack in the cellar. Gabby and Smitty went home in a hurry.

Mike gave me a wink. "I think we should give old Bill a run for his money, Thax."

I didn't say anything because I wasn't supposed to. The thing that bugged me was the sonofabitch still hadn't looked at his hole card. He's stacked it, I thought. He must have.

I think maybe the same thought crossed Duff's mind when Mike started counting out his stack of tens and twenties and said, "I believe we agreed on table-stakes, gentlemen?"

I looked at his up cards again. Two three five six of spades. Was the goddam spade four in the cellar or wasn't it?

"See the sixty, Billy baby," Mike said, "and bump a bill."

Duff wet his lips, studying Mike's cards.

A full, I thought. All Bill has is eights over jacks, or he wouldn't stall.

Duff decided to bull his way through. He threw in five twenties and followed that with two twenties and a ten and said, "Bump again." Mike chuckled and started to count his bills.

"Now," he said, "the game grows interesting." He paused and grinned back at me. "The plot thickens, eh Thax?"

Duff was about as taut as a fiddle string.

"C'mon, goddammit. What are you gonna do? See or fold?"

Mike looked at him in mock surprise.

"See or fold? That only separates the pansies from the men. I thought this was poker? Let's see here-"

He lifted one corner of his hole card with his thumb-nail. I couldn't see it. Then he went back to counting his bills, first wetting his slim thumb on his pink tongue, and then shuffling out one bill after another.

"I have ten-twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-ninety, one yard. And twenty-forty-sixty-seventy-eighty, two bills!" He grinned at Duff.

"I've got some odd fives here, Bill babe," he said. "But I think the bet's steep enough for you as is:,

Duff evidently thought so too. You could damn near see him sweat blood. His eyes bored auger holes into Mike's four show cards. I knew what he was thinking. We were all thinking it. No man would be kooky enough to try a wild bluff three times in the same game.

"I haven't got that much," Duff said in a small, tense voice.

"How much have you got?"

"Well-" Duff thumbed through his bills hurriedly. "About a bill-somewhere around there."

"Shove it in, old dear," Mike said.

"What about the rest of it? Pull it down a bill. I can't meet two."

Mike picked up his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair.

"I'm not an unreasonable man, McDuff. Tomorrow's payday. I'll trust you for the odd yard."

Duff didn't like it at all, none of it. I couldn't blame him. He picked up his hole card and looked at it close to his vest. Then he showed it to Jerry with a mute look and Jerry raised his brows in a Christ-only-knows expression. Duff looked at Gabby and Smitty. They were staring at him like a couple of expectant hanging judges.

Bill Duff was beat. He folded up is hand. "Take it," he said.

Mike tipped back his head and let out a laugh. It was a high trill of pure delight. Then he got up and picked up his winnings and stuffed them any old way in his pockets, like the Scarecrow of Oz, and handed me his hole card.

"Give it to Bill at Christmas, Thax," he said. "I've got a late date on."

He walked away and I looked at the card while all the other guys in that room looked at me. I could damn near feel Duff's eyes smoldering in my face.

"Well?" he demanded.

I didn't say anything. It was better than the punch in the mouth I figured I owed him to just quietly hand him the card. It was very red and it had two faces. It didn't go with a low spade straight flush at all.

I drew Jerry out into the hall. He was still all ga-ga over that last hand.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" he wanted to know. "I tell you that Ransome is wild! That was the bluff of the century."

Maybe. But I'd known Bill Duff a long time. He was the kind of cheap flashboy who begged for a cleaning. Anyhow, I had something else on my mind.

"Listen, Jerry. How are you in the Jimmy Valentine scene? Can you bust a box, if you have to?"

He drew back from me as if appalled by the question.

"Mister Thaxton! Are you suggesting that I, Gerald Malone, would stoop to cracking a safe?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said impatiently. "But can you?"

"No," he admitted and he looked disgruntled about it. "I don't have the touch, dammit. But Eddy does, if it's a simple box. What I mean, he doesn't go in for the soup and detonator bit. What's the pitch?"

"There's nothing in it for him," I said. "I'm looking for information, not for loot. So I don't think what we take will be missed. Nobody should call copper because of it."

"That's good. Because Eddy isn't looking for law problems."

"What would he want for the job? I could spring with my paycheck that's due tomorrow."

"Aw for crysake, Thax, you're talking to Jerry. Eddy works for me."

I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Well, amigo, one thing's for sure. I'm at least going to get you some new nylons for your girl."