Double down, p.18
Double Down, page 18
Again Waverly gave no response.
Jock gathered up the cards, squared the deck, and handed it to Drummond. “Better make it five-card, Bulldog. That’s all we got time for.”
“Five-card it is,” said the malleable Bulldog.
Jock’s place, his rules, his bank, his program. Wherever he sat was the head of the table. Over a dandruff-flecked shoulder he called, “Robber, you make them arrangements up at the hotel?”
Robbie was huddled with two other men in a far corner of the spacious room. “All taken care of, Jock,” he called back.
“Better be, or you’ll be back to ambulance chasin’.”
It got a general laugh all around, even from Robbie.
Drummond shuffled the deck and the last hand before Jock’s designated break came out. Waverly caught nothing. Another ante forfeited. Got to stop thinking that way, he lectured himself: it’s units out there, not money, and four hours of bad beat can’t put you on tilt. Still, he had to wonder how long this storm could last. Certainly he’d ridden through longer ones, but that was in days when time and a dangerously thin stake were not an issue. The cards were unforgiving, yes, but they were also amnesiac. They had to turn. One of the game’s immutable laws. But with his 5K and some decimal points left (units! units!) against all the basic money power at this table, they had to turn soon. That was another firm ordinance of the game.
He lit a cigarette and settled back and studied the play. The exercise helped steady him. Jock and Drummond wisely folded on the third card, leaving the three rabbits to battle it out. Demerit dropped on card four, and Orton and Buel went at it head to head. Clash of the titans. At showdown time it was Orton by a couple of low pair over Buel’s jacks. Orton scooped in the pot joyously, his second stroke of the evening. A win of maybe nine hundred, outside. Jock looked on with ill-concealed scorn, Bulldog grinned his static vacant grin, and Demerit explained Buel’s blunders to him.
“Okay,” Jock announced, “we gonna hang it up for an hour. Game resumes at one, sharp.” He turned to Robbie and demanded, “Robber, where’s that entertainment you supposed to be in charge of?”
Robbie came scurrying to the table. “Should be here any minute, Jock. Want me to call?”
“Damn right I do. You tell Zack to shag ass. Us old-timers got to have our R-and-R, too. Only take thirty seconds to get the job done anymore, but it’s that thirty minutes gettin’ ’er aloft cuts into your break time.”
To Waverly it sounded suspiciously like a set piece, but from this dutiful audience it got a nice howl. Robbie hurried out of the room, and Jock hauled himself stiffly out of his chair, signal for everyone else to rise, and they all did, all but Waverly.
“Bar’s set up in the kitchen,” Jock said. “You boys help yourselves. Food and other indulgences on its way.”
The room cleared. Waverly remained seated and the host regarded his guest critically, quizzically, a bug under glass.
“You not gonna stretch your legs, Mr. Waverly?”
“This is fine, thanks.”
“Care to join me in a little sip?”
Wanted some gloating time, no doubt. He wasn’t going to let it alone, so Waverly said sure and started to get to his feet.
Jock motioned him back. “No, no, you stay where you are, I’ll bring it in. What’re you drinkin’?”
“Ginger ale if you have it. If not, any kind of soda.”
Jock’s purplish lips retracted slightly. “Gonna lay in the weeds, huh, ambush us poor drunks?”
Waverly shrugged. “I play better on a clear head.”
“Me, it’s just the other way around. Get a little sozzled and it’s like I’m blessed, cards just won’t quit on me. Funny how that works.”
Remarkably crude psych job. Waverly was surprised; he would have expected something less transparent. Unless it was another tightly convoluted ploy, more innocent hayseed business: Oh, lucky old me, what do I know? Waverly agreed it was strange, and Jock directed him to wait there, be right back.
And in a moment he was, bearing two glasses and the burden of his simulated smile. He thrust a glass at Waverly and said, “Let’s flop in something cushy, give the buns a rest.”
They took facing chairs by a wide glass slider overlooking the road and the golf course just beyond it. In the distance the lights of the Sheraton glittered against the night sky.
“What do you think of my little hideout here?” Jock asked.
The hideout was a luxury condo situated on the grounds of the PGA National Golf Course. Apart from this one room, to which he had been ushered directly on arrival, Waverly had seen very little of it and in his intense focus on the game taken notice of even less. Now he glanced around the room, what Jock had earlier described as the “cash flow” room. The card table, casino quality, was set squarely in the middle, and plush chairs and sofas, carefully arranged in conversation groupings, ringed the perimeter. A trophy case filled with gold-plated statuettes, club-swingers, replicas presumably of the redoubtable Jock, dominated one wall. Above it was a display of plaques and framed photos of Jock with assorted luminaries, and above that an enormous mounted fish of some species unknown to Waverly, no sportsman himself. “Very elegant,” he said. “Makes a statement.”
Jock chuckled complacently. Impervious, it seemed, to irony. “Also makes for a good spot to hunker down. Man’s got to escape the castle dragon and the kids now and then.”
“You have children?” Waverly said for something to say to his genial host.
Jock held up one splayed hand and lifted the forefinger of the other. “Six,” he said, and then his face suddenly clouded and the forefinger curled over his glass. “Well, five actually. Youngest boy got himself killed.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It was a while back. Motorcycle smashup.” His eyes misted over, the corners of his mouth dropped. He allowed himself a moment of silence, as though in grieving memory of the departed son, and then he reached for a cigar from a vertical stack in a lead crystal container on the coffee table between them. “You like one of these?” he offered.
“No thanks.”
“You oughta try one. Macanudos. About the finest tobacco you can find.”
“Maybe later.”
Jock put a flame to the cigar. Smoke filled his rapidly recovering face. The smile resurfaced. “Tell me, Mr. Waverly, you enjoyin’ yourself tonight? Reason I ask is you don’t seem too lively up there at the table.”
“It’s a game of few words. Doesn’t require a wide vocabulary.”
“How about the company? What do you think of these boys?”
“Seem like pleasant fellows.”
“I mean as players.”
“Drummond’s very good. So are you.”
The compliment was acknowledged with a hint of a smirk. “And the rest of ’em?”
“The other three, well, they’re pretty soft. Way off their level.”
“Let me ask you something else, speakin’ of the game of poker. You’re a pro, how much of it you think’s luck?”
“Hard to say. I’ve heard some very skilled players rate it as low as five percent. Personally, I think it’s higher than that.”
“About how high a percent,” Jock persisted, “your opinion?”
“Twenty maybe. Assuming we’re talking about real poker now, not the garbage games.”
“How’d you split up that other eighty?”
“Thirty of it simple arithmetic, the rest instinct. What some people like to call psychology.”
Jock took a long pull on his fine cigar. He made his mobile features thoughtful, heavy with skepticism.
“You don’t agree?” Waverly said.
“ ’Fraid not. Y’see, my thought is game of poker’s a lot like life: once you got the numbers down, rest of it’s pure dumbass luck. That psychology, that’s just another way of sayin’ human nature, which is another way of sayin’ luck. Some fellas luck’s a born gimme, others couldn’t catch it if you give ’em a Concorde jet airplane.” His tone left little doubt which category pertained to the fortune-flooded Jock Appelgate, and his enunciation of human nature implied there was considerably more in it to despise than ever to admire.
“Well, I can’t dispute your theory,” Waverly said, nodding toward the table. “You’ve got an Alps of chips up there in evidence.”
“Yeah,” Jock drawled, his best impression of humility, “cards been fallin’ right for me so far.” He knuckle-drilled his forehead, fastened Waverly with an innocent mocking stare. “Haven’t been doin’ so good by you though, have they.”
“Game’s just getting under way.”
“That it is. But you know, that garbage poker you was mentionin’? After the next break we gonna have to open it up to them kind of games, keep Orton and B.B. happy.”
“I understand.”
“Then all your numbers, psychology, they go right down the Chinese toilet. You’re playin’ off fool luck then. Bets gonna be flyin’.”
Waverly met the steady probing gaze. “I came to play,” he said.
“Guess you did at that.”
A sudden jarring whoop rose from the next room.
“Sounds like our social chairman finally delivered the goods,” Jock said. He got out of the chair and started for the door. Again Waverly didn’t budge. “You’re not gonna come have a look at the meat show?”
“I’ll pass this time.”
“Players get first pick. That’s another house rule.”
“You can have mine. Think of it as a gift.”
“Gift, huh? No booze, no pussy, you’re what they call a disciplined man, Mr. Waverly.” The disciplined was pronounced with about the same accent and intonation as human nature had been.
“I’m working, remember?” Waverly said from behind his own wisp of a smile. Two could play at these head games.
Jock squinted at him like a man taking aim, drawing a deadly bead. “So you are,” he said, and for a flicker of an instant the hayseed mask was off. “I’m going to keep that in mind when we sit back down at the table here. Catch you later.”
FOURTEEN
“Look, if I stick my head out the window none of the smoke’ll get in here. There sure as fuck ain’t no breeze.”
“No.”
“No. Okay. How about I just step outside then, go stand at the back of the car.”
“Said no, brain-dead.”
“C’mon, man, we could be here all night. I need a weed.”
“What you’re going to get is a five-finger sandwich, you don’t stuff a rag in it.”
Sigurd muttered something under his breath and lapsed into a sullen silence. He had probably been more uncomfortable in his life, but he couldn’t remember when. Couldn’t smoke, couldn’t eat, couldn’t move, couldn’t talk—Jesus, might as well be doing a turn in the Stateville hole.
They were parked about thirty yards up the street from the Appelgate hideout, the LX concealed in a band of shadow cast by moonlight slanting across the cluster of condos. For well over three hours they had been sitting there, ever since the Jewboy dropped off his partner, and despite the fact both windows were wide open, the air in the car was muggy and close, sticky as flypaper. Middle of the night not a whole lot better than high noon down here, thought Sigurd bitterly; still felt like a goddam steam bath. Grab a handful of that soggy air you likely squeeze out a puddle of Mother Nature’s finer piss. Fucking Florida, you could keep it.
What he’d really like to be doing right about now is kicking back in the chilly room at the Spray, feet up on the bed, TV on, cold beer in one hand, Maylene or somebody like her riding the prong finger on the other, lubing herself up for him to climb aboard and bang the holy shit out of her. What he said though, tentatively and after a decent pouty interval, was “What do you figure’s goin’ on in there?”
D’Marco didn’t answer, which was not surprising, since apart from the scanty words required to deny the periodic requests for a desperately needed cigarette he’d said next to nothing in all the time they’d been there.
“You think he’s with that twat from yesterday, Greenhouse? Do a little wick-dippin’?” Sigurd’s conjecture was somewhat inspired by the image of a lust-maddened Maylene, or somebody like her, still spinning behind his eyes.
D’Marco sighed. “How many cars you count?”
“Look like seven.”
“Seven cars. You had something between your ears besides dog shit it might come to you he’s not there for any romance.”
“Could be a party goin’ on,” Sigurd said defensively.
“Try again.”
Sigurd thought a minute. “Maybe he turned up a game. You think it’s a game?”
D’Marco snapped a finger. “Now, how’d you ever hit on that? Here you got a dude with a jacket for a card mechanic, got a ring in his nose for going lame on your people, and got two weeks to bring up the loot. And out of those little clues you hit dead on your genius conclusion. You know what you ought to do?”
Sigurd figured it was going to be more wiseass but he said anyway, “Yeah, what’s that?”
“You ought to sign up for the detective squad. Hear they’re looking for a few good men. They might even make you chief, that kind of deduction.”
Sigurd clutched his genitalia. “Deduct this.”
“Word on the street is it’s already been deducted, flea fucker. Now shut the fuck up and pay attention to what we’re doing here. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Thirty wordless minutes passed. Shortly after midnight a van came down the road from the hotel and pulled up in front of the condo. The driver got out, opened the side panel, and led a crew of tight-skirted women to the door. He hit the bell and a light flashed on above their head and the door swung open and a man appeared in it, throwing up his arms in boisterous welcome. The women did some on-cue squealing as he ushered them in.
“Look like they ordered out,” said Sigurd, whose mind remained fixed on basic appetites. “Box lunches, hey.”
D’Marco poked his head out the window for a better look, but cautiously, first glancing behind the car and up and down the dark street.
After all the women were inside, the driver went back to the van and then returned carrying trays, which he handed to the man in the doorway. Several such trips were made. At the last one the man clapped the driver on the shoulder and pressed some bills into his open palm. The driver gave a snappy little salute, the door closed in his face, and the light went out. He walked to the van, whistling tunelessly, and drove off toward the hotel.
D’Marco turned the key in the ignition and eased the LX into the street.
Sigurd looked at him puzzledly. “What are we doin’ here?”
“You ever heard of following? They do any of that in Chicago?”
“Can see that. What I’m askin’ is why? Just some pimp up there, right?”
“Pimps got good thoughts, too.”
The van pulled into the guest lot and parked at the far end of a long file of cars. D’Marco found a spot between it and the hotel.
“Okay,” he said, “what we’re going to do now is have a word with him. Only it’s going to be my word, me doing the talking. You keep it clamped shut unless I say something at you. You got that?”
“Yeah yeah, I got it.”
The driver came sauntering through the lot, still whistling, until two figures stepped out of the shadows behind a car and planted themselves squarely in his path. Then the whistling suddenly stopped. So did he.
“You,” D’Marco said, beckoning him with a finger. “Over here.”
The driver approached warily. He was a young man, early twenties, correctly dressed in jacket and tie, built like a surfer: tall, angular, trim. Under the shock of sun-bleached hair his face was lean, sun-darkened, blankly innocent, except for the eyes. Crafty, dealer’s eyes, which were just then shifting about the lot and discovering no one else in sight. He stuck a greeter smile on the innocent face and said, “What can I do for you fellas?”
“You employed by the hotel?”
“No, but I know my way around inside. Help you out with something?”
“That’s peculiar. You not working for them, I mean. Could of sworn I saw you making a delivery up the road.”
“Well, I don’t exactly work for it. The hotel. More like out of it. Sort of.”
“That right? What is it you sort of exactly do?”
“Catering. I’m a caterer.” The smile was beginning to come unstuck.
“Huh,” Sigurd said, unable to restrain himself, “cunt caterer.” He liked the alliterative melody of it.
D’Marco gave him a sidelong scowl. To the driver he said, “He got that right, what he just said?”
“What I do is my business. Who are you guys, anyway?”
D’Marco watched him. The smile was dismantled entirely now. Chummy didn’t work, try tough instead. An enterprising kid but way out of his league. “Vice maybe got an interest in your kind of business,” he said.
“Vice,” the driver sneered. “You two, Vice? You and the Pillsbury Doughboy there? Sure.”
Sigurd stiffened. He started to say something but D’Marco cut him off with a silencing gesture, so he stood there, balling impotent fists, jaws clenching furiously. All the shit he’d been eating lately, it wasn’t easy taking a cheap zinger off a pimp, punk one at that.
“What’s your name, boy?” D’Marco said.
“Zack.”
“Zack. Okay, Zack, so far we been real polite, way we’re supposed to be with you citizens. But you keep insulting my partner and I can’t be responsible, what happens. So I’m going to ask you again, still polite, what kind of catering business you got?”
