Deadman's Bluff

23

Skip DeMarco sat frozen in his chair. There were cops in the room—he could feel the tension in the air—but he couldn’t hear what was being said. Had they figured out the scam, and were they about to arrest him? He tried to act nonchalant, and shuffled a stack of chips with one hand. What was his uncle’s expression? Never run if you’re not being chased. The chips fell out of his hand and spilled across the table. He felt himself shudder uncontrollably.

“Here you go,” the dealer said, pushing the chips back.

“What’s going on?”

“The cops just arrested some guy in the crowd,” the dealer said.

The dealer’s voice was strained, like he was afraid of something. Although his uncle had not explained how the scam worked, DeMarco knew someone in the room was reading his opponents’ cards and signaling them to him. He’d ruled out the dealer, simply because the dealer had a job to do. But now he sensed the dealer was involved. DeMarco felt a hand on his shoulder, and nearly jumped out of his chair.

“Sorry to startle you,” the tournament director said. “We’re taking a break. You’re free to get up.”

DeMarco rose from the table. He waited for Guido and his uncle to appear. When they didn’t, he grew nervous. Where had they gone? And why hadn’t they told him they were leaving? The guy sitting next to him announced he was going to the bathroom. His name was Bruce Ballas, and when he wasn’t playing cards, he was strumming a guitar in a band. DeMarco asked if he could walk with him.

“Sure,” Ballas said.

They walked together to the lavatory. The joke of the tournament was that the men’s lavatory had a dozen stalls, the women’s only three. Ballas led DeMarco to an empty stall at the end of the row, and he locked himself in.

Sitting, he buried his face in his hands. When his uncle had come to him with a way to scam the World Poker Showdown, he hadn’t hesitated to say yes. The scam would let him cheat the people who’d cheated him, and claim what was rightfully his. But he’d never considered that he might get caught. How stupid was that?

His chest was heaving up and down. He took several deep breaths, and told himself to calm down.

Ballas was waiting when DeMarco came out a minute later. “There’s a woman wants to talk to you,” Ballas said. “Said she was a big fan, wanted to say hi.”

“Nice looking?” DeMarco asked.

“A major league speed bump,” Ballas said.

DeMarco had promised his uncle not to talk to strangers. Only he’d heard the other players talking about the women they’d seen hanging around the tournament. Women beautiful beyond compare. He’d gone to bed thinking about them every night.

“Lead the way,” he said.

Ballas led him to a table in the corner of the room. DeMarco heard the woman rise from a chair, felt her hand clasp his. Her perfume was strong and lilac scented. He envisioned a long-legged, dark-haired beauty, and waited to hear what she had to say.

“Hello, Skipper,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

He felt something catch in his throat. Her voice was vaguely familiar, but he could not place from where. “I don’t know if I remember you or not,” he said.

“You were little. It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Twenty years. You were a child.”

“You worked for my uncle as a nanny, right?”

“No, I was before your uncle,” she said.

The tournament director’s voice came over the public address system. Play would resume in one minute, and players needed to return to their seats. Ballas touched DeMarco’s sleeve, said he was going back to the game.

“I’ll get back on my own,” DeMarco said.

“You sure?” Ballas asked.

DeMarco said yes. Ballas walked away, and DeMarco asked, “What do you mean, before my uncle?”

“You had a life before you went to live with George Scalzo,” she said. “I was a part of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I used to make you raisin cookies and sing you songs. On your birthday, I bought you a Roy Rogers costume, and you went to your party as a cowboy.”

DeMarco heard a series of rapid clicks in his earpiece. Play had resumed, the dealer sailing the cards around the table. The clicks were in Morse code, the dots and dashes telling him what cards his opponents held. He listened intently. His opponents had ace–king, a pair of deuces, 2–9, a pair of fours, 7–8 of clubs, and a k–9, also known as a Canine. He didn’t like missing the hand, but wanted to hear the woman out.

“You didn’t work for my uncle?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then who are you?”

The woman grabbed his wrist and tried to stuff something into his hand. It was stiff, and felt like a photograph. When he wouldn’t take it, she shoved it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

“What did you just give me?” he asked.

“A gift. I saw you on the television, and flew here from Philadelphia to see you.”

“Please let go of my wrist,” he said.

She released him and he stepped back. He wanted to tell this woman to stuff her head in a toilet. The only person in his life before Uncle George was his mother, and she was lying dead in a cemetery in New Jersey. Uncle George had taken him to her grave.

“I tried to contact you many times,” she said, “but your uncle wouldn’t let me near you. I even once tried to visit you at school. Do you remember that?”

“No,” he said.

“You were in the third grade. I came to the school, and the teacher pulled you from the class.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I need to go.”

“Your uncle sent his bodyguard to my house in Philadelphia,” she said. “He threatened me. Said he’d hurt my family if I tried to contact you. So I stayed away.”

“Good,” he said.

“You don’t care?” she said.

“Not in the least.”

She stifled a tiny sob. He’d wounded her, and heard her hurry away. So this is what it feels like to be a celebrity, he thought.

DeMarco let the noise of the poker room guide him back to the table. Before he reached his chair, his uncle was by his side, holding his arm and breathing on his neck. “Skipper, where the hell you been?” his uncle asked.

“Some woman grabbed me, started chewing my ear off,” DeMarco said.

“I don’t want you talking to strangers,” his uncle said.

“So tell the strangers that.”

DeMarco returned to his seat. The hand was still going on, with two players playing for a huge pot. It pissed him off to know he’d missed out, and in anger removed the photograph the woman had given him from his pocket, ready to tear it up. Ballas, who’d dropped out of the hand, spoke up.

“Man, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“What do you mean?” DeMarco said.

“The photograph.”

“What about it?”

“You haven’t changed since you were a kid. It looks just like you.”

DeMarco stiffened, then raised the photograph to his face, and stared at the little boy dressed in shorts and bright red suspenders staring back at him.