Sucker Bet

7

It had started out as a friendly game of poker, the hands being played for quarters and laugh rights. Then Rico had broken out the booze, and after everyone had a few belts the game had turned serious. With each hand the pots had grown, and now over four thousand dollars in chips was sitting on the table.

“I’m going to shoot the pickle,” Rico announced.

The other four men at the table fell silent. To Rico’s left sat Barney Swing, a retired New York mobster with kidney stones; next to Barney, another retired hood named Joey Clams; next to him, the ultrasmooth card mechanic Rico had hired from Las Vegas named Sporty. Next to Sporty, in the hot seat, sat Nigel Moon. He’d been knocking back Johnnie Walker straight, and his accent no longer had a nice ring to it.

“Shoot the pickle?” Moon declared loudly. “What in bloody hell does that mean?”

“It means Rico’s going to shoot his wad,” Sporty explained, having intervened several times when Moon’s bad manners had threatened to ruin the evening.

“That’s phallic, isn’t it,” Moon said. “You Americans are filled with the strangest bloody expressions. And all center around sex. All right, Rico, you have everyone’s permission—shoot the pickle.”

Rico pushed his chips into the center of the table. Rico had spent weeks planning this night, getting the right guys, hiring Sporty to work his magic, and the hardest part, teaching Candy how to talk Moon into playing cards with “some old friends of mine” without making it look as suspicious as hell. She’d done her job, and Moon had come to the Eden Roc Hotel on Miami Beach without a fuss.

Moon called his raise, then turned over his hand. He had a full house, kings over eights.

Rico did his best double take.

“You win,” he told the rude Englishman.

Moon raked the pot in. “What you got?”

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does,” he said drunkenly.

Rico revealed his hand. He had the straight that Sporty had dealt him off the bottom of the deck. Moon’s hand had also come off the bottom. Hustlers called it dealing a plank, and Sporty was the best in the business. An unassuming guy, except for his hands. They were as delicate as butterfly wings, and just as quick.

“Shoot the pickle, my ass,” Moon said.

Had it been anyone else, Rico would have shot him.

“I say we take a break,” Sporty suggested.

The others agreed and rose from the table.

They went onto the balcony and stared at the glittering lights on the cruise ships anchored off Miami Beach. Down below, girls in string bikinis and muscular boys were playing volleyball under the lights. Rico could remember when no one would have been caught dead in this crummy town. Then the clubs in South Beach had sprung up, and overnight it had become Party Central, with nose candy in every bar and enough gorgeous women to have a heart attack over. He’d come down for a weekend and never left.

He went inside and refreshed everyone’s drinks. Moon’s he made extra stiff, everyone else’s water with a splash of vodka, in case Moon got a whiff. Victor Marks, his mentor, had tipped this little trick. Rico had liked it, but then he’d liked everything Victor had taught him. He served his guests.

Barney Swing offered a toast. “Well, boys, here’s to not working.”

The others said, “Hear, hear,” and lifted their glasses. Barney was smiling. He was the only player besides Moon to win any money. Glancing at his watch, Barney said, “I’m flying to Newark tomorrow to see my new granddaughter.” He stared directly at Moon. “What do you say we play one more hand, head-to-head?”

Out of anyone else’s mouth, the line would have died. But Barney knew how to act. Moon agreed, and they went inside.

Moon and Barney took opposing seats at the card table. Barney picked up the deck and gave it a shuffle. His hands betrayed his advancing years, and cards flew around the table.

“Let me do that,” Sporty said. He was sitting to Barney’s left. He picked up the scattered cards, squared them, then shuffled.

Standing against the wall, Rico saw what really happened. Sporty had secretly taken another deck out of his jacket and placed it in his lap. This deck was in a prearranged order, what hustlers called a cooler. In the act of shuffling the cards, Sporty tossed them into his lap, then brought the cooler into view.

Moon saw none of it.

Sporty handed the cooler to Barney. Leaning back in his chair, he scooped up the cards in his lap, and hid them in his pocket. Rico was impressed. He had seen some gutsy plays in his life, but nothing like this.

Barney put a thousand in chips on the table.

Moon anted up. “What are we playing?”

“Five-card draw poker.”

“Anything wild?”

“Just the dealer.”

It was for guys like Barney Swing that the expression sweet had been coined. Barney dealt the round, then picked up his cards. Rico saw his hand clearly. Three kings, a jack, and a lowly four.

“Your bet,” Barney said.

Moon tossed a grand into the pot.

Barney called, and raised him a grand.

Moon saw his raise and asked for two cards. Barney dealt them off the deck without taking the cards off the table. Moon peeked at his cards. Then his face turned to stone.

The drunk Englishman was holding the eight through queen of hearts, a straight flush. You could play poker your whole life and never get a straight flush. Earlier that evening in the hotel bar, Rico had asked Sporty what the odds were of drawing one.

“Sixty-five thousand to one,” Sporty said.

Sporty was practicing as he spoke. The bar was empty, and Sporty was dealing cards into his lap. Only the cards weren’t coming off the top. Some came second from the top, others off the bottom, and some from the deck’s center. Most card mechanics saw sleight of hand as a means to an end. For Sporty, it was a lifetime passion.

“He gambles a lot,” Rico said. “He’ll know he’s being set up.”

“You said he plays BJ,” Sporty said, using the pro’s term for 21.

“That’s right.”

“BJ isn’t poker. BJ is about playing basic strategy, knowing how to count. Poker is about money. The more a guy wins, the more predatory he gets. And when the cards start to fall his way, he starts believing he’s Superman. Get it?”

Rico hadn’t believed him until he saw Moon raise Barney two grand. Barney called him, then watched Moon turn over his hand and reveal his straight flush.

“Jesus,” Barney whispered, turning over his four kings.

Moon counted the pot. “You owe me five thousand.”

Barney dug into his pocket. “Will you take a check?”

Moon hesitated. He wasn’t as drunk as he acted, Rico realized.

“Everyone in the room will vouch for me,” Barney said defensively.

“All right,” Nigel said.

Barney wrote him a check and started to hand it over. Reaching over Barney’s shoulder, Rico snatched the check from his hand.

“Barney, this is a friendly game, for Christ’s sake,” Rico said. Folding the check in half, he tore it up and tossed the pieces into an ashtray. “You being on a fixed income and all, I’m sure Nigel will understand.”

Moon’s mouth dropped open. He looked royally pissed. Rico dropped his hand to his side and opened his fingers, letting Moon see Barney’s finger-palmed check. Sporty lit up a cigarette and tossed the match into the ashtray. The fake pieces caught fire.

Moon blinked, slowly understanding.

“Don’t you, Nigel?” Rico said.

Rico smiled. Victor called moments like these turning points. It was the thing about being a con man that Rico liked. You got to peel suckers one layer at a time and see how much they could be taken for.

“And a friendly game it will remain,” the Englishman said.

Bingo, Rico thought.

Splinters drove Rico and Sporty to Miami International Airport in Rico’s limo. The moon was out, a big silver coin waiting for someone to pluck it from the sky, and Rico started to retract the roof. Sporty, who wore his hair in an architecturally complex comb-over, objected. Rico pushed the button in the opposite direction.

“You were great back there. That switch was awesome.”

Sporty took the switched deck out of his pocket. “Thanks.”

“How long you been handling cards?”

Sporty hesitated. “What’s today, Friday?”

“Very funny. Twenty, thirty years?”

“My father gave me a deck when I was five,” Sporty said.

The airport was a tomb. Splinters pulled in front of the Delta terminal and threw the limo into park. He had his Walkman on and was clicking his fingers and swaying his head like Stevie Wonder. He was a definite embarrassment, Rico decided.

Rico reached into his jacket to pay the mechanic. A gun appeared in Sporty’s left hand. Rico felt his nuts tighten. It was one of those plastic jobs the Israeli secret police had invented to sneak through airport security systems. He looked toward the front at Splinters. His driver was in la-la land.

“Take your hand out of your jacket,” Sporty said.

“With or without your money?”

“Slo-owly.”

Rico brought his hand out. Then, carefully, he grabbed his lapel and pulled it back, letting Sporty see the white envelope sticking out of his inside pocket.

Sporty wiggled the gun’s barrel. Rico reached in with his left hand and carefully removed the envelope. Sporty took it from his grasp, and said, “Sorry, but your reputation precedes you.”

Rico was shocked. What reputation? He’d killed two people in his entire life, which hardly qualified him as some major menace. One to get into John Gotti’s gang, one as a favor. Two people and the double-crossing Indian the other night. Make that three people. Among the guys he used to associate with, three scalps didn’t qualify for bragging rights. Judging by the way Sporty was clutching the gun, Rico didn’t think he’d killed anyone.

Sporty visually counted his money. Satisfied, he said, “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“What kind of scam you got going here? I’ve never been hired to make a sucker win. You setting this chump up for a killing?”

Rico nearly told Sporty the score. He wanted to tell someone, it was such a beautiful thing he and Victor had going. Only if Victor found out, he’d disown him, and Rico didn’t want that.

“None of your fucking business,” Rico said.

Sporty got out of the limo. The departure area was eerily quiet, the sliding doors to the Delta terminal wide open. He tossed the piece into a receptacle by the door, then glanced over his shoulder as he went inside.

Rico winced. He’d been suckered by a toy gun.

“Hey,” Rico yelled at his driver.

Splinters was singing along to his Walkman, his voice better than Rico would have expected, like he’d had lessons or sang in a choir once. An angel’s voice trapped inside a lunatic’s body. Rico stuck his arm through the window that separated them and tapped his shoulder. Splinters stopped singing and stared at him in the mirror, offended. Finally he disconnected himself and turned around.

Rico punched him in the face.