Mr. Lucky

18

Gerry Valentine returned to Tex Snyder’s suite at the Holiday Inn at four o’clock that afternoon. He’d showered and shaved, and in the pocket of his sports jacket was the money Tex had staked him to play in his friendly little game.

Tex had the whole thing worked out. He’d bribed the hotel into bringing an authentic felt card table to his room, then stocked the place with top-shelf liquor and bowls of nuts and chips and a humidor filled with Cuban cigars. He’d turned it into a guy’s hangout, and all for the purpose of fleecing Kingman, the trailer park magnate.

Kingman was already into the Scotch when Gerry arrived. A native of Chicago, Kingman was a short, thick, disagreeable guy worth a cool hundred million bucks. He lay on the couch in such a way that no one could share it with him. He grunted when Gerry introduced himself.

Three other players drifted into the suite and introduced themselves. Bill, Bob, and Phil. No last names. Gerry guessed they were also “friends” of Tex.

They sat down at the card table, and Tex suggested they play Texas Hold ’Em. It was the most popular poker game in the world. It was also played on television in tournaments where players “exposed” their cards to the camera. As a result of these shows, millions of people thought they knew how to play. Professionals had a name for these new players. They called them suckers.

Kingman was definitely a sucker. He quoted the odds after each hand was played, and told other players when he thought they were bluffing. Bill, Bob, and Phil told him he was right every time, further convincing Gerry they were stooges. Kingman also continued to drink as he played. He was as raw as they came.

Gerry played conservatively for the first hour. Tex had told him to fold most of his hands and had explained that he wanted Gerry “in the game” later on, when Kingman was led to the slaughter and the two men scammed him.

Tex’s scam was as easy as they came. During a hand, he would give Gerry a prearranged signal. He would take a cigar out of the humidor, but he wouldn’t light it up. He’d just chew on it for a while.

That was the cue for Gerry to start raising the bet. It meant that Tex had a cinch hand and was convinced he was going to beat Kingman. But Tex didn’t want to scare Kingman away, so it was Gerry’s job to lure him in. After a few rounds of betting, Gerry would drop out of the hand and let Tex take over.

Card hustlers called this playing top hand. His father had told him that it was used by many of the world’s top players to fleece suckers. What made it so deceiving was that the person doing the raising never knew what his partner was holding. He simply did as told.

But Gerry also knew something else. Playing top hand wasn’t infallible. Texas Hold ’Em had three rounds—the flop, the turn, and the river. The sucker might draw a miracle card on the river and win all the money. It happened all the time.

Somehow, Gerry didn’t think Tex was going to let this happen.

An hour later, room service brought hamburgers and milk shakes to the suite. It wasn’t the kind of grub that Gerry would have used to feed a millionaire, but Kingman dived into the food like it was his last meal. Tex had obviously done his homework.

The suite had two bathrooms. While Bill, Bob, and Phil took turns using one, Gerry went into Tex’s bedroom to use the other. Only, the bathroom door was shut. From behind it, he could hear a low beeping sound. Gerry put his ear to the door. The sound was familiar. A hearing aid. Plenty of folks in his neighborhood in Florida wore them. When the batteries went low, they emitted a low, shrill noise.

Smiling, Gerry pulled his head away from the door. Tex was wearing a hearing aid. That explained how he could be so confident that he’d beat Kingman. Tex wasn’t just playing top hand. He was also playing the peek.

The peek was the oldest con known to card cheaters. A hidden accomplice would peek at a player’s cards and secretly communicate them to the table. Sometimes the peek was a hole drilled into the wall, or someone staring through a window with a pair of binoculars. Before the mob had been run out of Las Vegas, it had taken place at every card room at one time or another. And it was still a favorite among people who ran private games.

Tex came out of the bathroom tucking in his shirt.

“Got your battery fixed?” Gerry asked.

“Not so loud. How much you got left?”

“Twenty-five grand.”

“Good. Keep it up.”

Gerry glanced at the doorway leading into the room where they were playing. Kingman was on the other side, talking with Phil. He was slurring his words and had spilled ketchup on his pants. All the money in the world couldn’t stop him from making a jackass of himself.

“Why don’t you just play him straight?” Gerry said under his breath.

“Think that would work?”

“The guy’s a loser.”

“Sometimes losers get lucky,” Tex said, walking away.

Gerry went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. Putting the toilet seat down, he powered up his cell phone and had a seat. He felt a tug at his conscience and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Tex was one of the best card players in the world. He didn’t have to be cheating Kingman; he could beat him ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But it was that one freak time he was afraid of. It just didn’t seem right.

He’d been working on the excuse he was going to tell Yolanda for not calling. They had a pact about him calling, and she would be angry that he’d broken it. He started to dial the number at his house when his phone let out a chirp, indicating he had a message.

He went into voice mail and retrieved it. The message had come in at two o’clock and was from Yolanda. He felt his face burn, feeling like he’d already been caught. They hadn’t had a fight since the baby had been born. It had been the best two months of his life.

“Hey, Gerry, where are you?” he heard his wife say. “I’m sure you’re busy and everything, but I missed hearing from you.”

Gerry felt the tension leave his body. Yolanda wasn’t mad.

“Anyway,” she went on, “there’s someone here who misses you and wants to talk to you. Hold on for a second, okay?”

He listened as she juggled the phone while saying something that he couldn’t quite hear. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of his daughter’s laughter. His wife was holding Lois up to the phone and was tickling the soles of her little feet. That was the spot that always got her laughing. Gerry stared at the bathroom floor, envisioning his daughter on the other end.

It lasted for a few more seconds, and then Yolanda pulled his daughter away and came back on. “Well, isn’t that something. She was crying her head off a moment ago. Then I told her I was calling her daddy, and she brightened up. I just wanted you to know that we’re thinking about you and hope you come home soon. Don’t we, honey?”

His daughter let out a peal of laughter, and Gerry guessed Yolanda was tickling her stomach, another weak spot. He heard his wife say good-bye, and then the connection went dead.

A knock at the door brought him back to the real world. He cracked it and saw Tex staring anxiously at him. “You fall in?” the old poker player asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“We started. It’s time to take Kingman to the cleaners.”

“I need to talk to you,” Gerry said.

“Can’t it wait?”

“No.”

Gerry shut the door. He’d put the cell phone on the sink, and he ran the cold water and splashed a handful into his face. Then he took a hard look at his reflection in the mirror. He’d flown to Atlantic City last month to see his family priest, Father Tom. Spent four hours in a confessional spilling his guts and trying to cleanse his soul. He’d been fucking up since he was a teenager, and hearing everything he’d done come out of his mouth had been the most excruciating thing he’d ever put himself through. But it had been worth it.

He slipped the cell phone into his pocket and went out. Tex was standing nervously beside the door. There was spittle at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were dilated.

“What’s wrong?” he asked under his breath.

“I’m backing out of our deal,” Gerry said.

“What the hell you talking about?”

“You heard me. Get Phil or Bob or Bill to do it.”

“But they’re pencil dicks. They’ll freeze up.”

“I can’t help you there.”

“But we had a deal.”

Gerry took the money Tex had staked him out of his jacket pocket and shoved it into the older man’s wrinkled hands. “Kingman is a chump. Beat him fair and square.”

“So what if Kingman can’t play? Why does that bother you, boy?”

“It’s like stealing from a little kid.”

“So?”

Gerry shuddered. Thank God he hadn’t gone through with this. It would have been a road from which there would have been no turning back. He started to walk away. Tex grabbed him by the arm. “You running out on me?”

“Call it what you want.”

“Boys get whipped in Texas for doing that.”

“We’re not in Texas.”

Tex clenched his teeth. They were crooked and badly discolored from years of tobacco stains. Through them he said, “You’re making a huge mistake, Gerry. I’m giving you a chance to reconsider. Go into that room and help me take Kingman’s money. I’ll give you the fifty grand when we’re done, and you can go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine. What do you say?”

He was smiling, like the world would be a better place if Gerry just saw things his way. He was a phony through and through, and Gerry realized how much he disliked him.

“I’d rather be a dog in Korea,” Gerry said.

Riding in the elevator to his floor, the enormity of what he’d done hit Gerry in the head like a shovel. He could use that fifty grand to get the wolves away from his door. He owed a lot of money and didn’t have much coming in. Fifty grand would have wiped the slate clean. The elevator stopped and opened its doors. As he stepped out, he considered going back upstairs. Kingman would never miss the money. How could that be a crime?

He heard his cell phone beep and removed it from his pocket. Yolanda’s message was still in voice mail. He hit play, then stuck the phone to his ear and listened to his daughter’s laughter. Someday, he was going to have the same influence on her that she was already having on him. It was scary to think about, and he went to his room, knowing he’d made the right decision.