Double down, p.30
Double Down, page 30
Now, three hours into the game, Waverly had taken his measure and arrived at the conclusion this Arab, this dandyish prince, was something less than the dangerous opponent whose formidable reputation preceded him. Without a doubt he knew his mathematics, perhaps too well, for he played with a certain mechanical predictability, devoid either of imagination or daring and seemingly oblivious to anyone else at the table, as if the contest were exclusively between himself and the cards, an extended version of solitaire. Nor was he a reckless wagerer, aggressively forcing hands through the sheer weight of his limitless resources. As a result, with just those three hours behind them, Waverly was up over 60K. The heavy hitter. So far.
Although Jock, possibly out of deference to his titled guest, had managed to stifle some of the nonstop chatter that normally characterized his play, after Waverly’s third consecutive win he was moved to remark, “Look like you got your booster rockets on tonight, Mr. Waverly.” This observation was delivered in a musky drawl, cornmeal persona still intact. Some constants yet in this world, thought Waverly as he raked in the chips, a nice little haul lifted directly off the prince himself, who backed away on the last card of a lowball hand.
A couple of other such constants were Bulldog and Buel. The former played with his usual taciturnity, strategies and emotions concealed equally behind the ossified overbit grin; the latter with the same desperate incaution that had brought him to grief only a week before. What poor little B.B. was doing here was anybody’s guess. Fulfilling some darkly prophetic, dimly understood, self-abasing need, maybe (Waverly had seen that kind of player, a welcome addition to any game). Or maybe he’d been strong-armed by Jock, since Orton and Demerit had wisely opted against sitting in, though they were present tonight as spectators. Also looking on was Robbie, who, after passing Waverly an envelope full of bills at the door, had discreetly avoided him ever since.
And that was it: five players, three railbirds, and one manservant/ bodyguard. No ladies of the night, by fiat of the prince, who preferred his pleasures compartmentalized and who, after graciously absorbing the loss, said in an unruffled voice betokening noble ease under all circumstance, “Nimrod, a cigarette, please.”
Like a fearsome genie emerging from a bottle, Nimrod rose off a bulbous couch, whose cushions deflated beneath him on the ascent, and approached the table. He stood four or five inches over six feet, had to go an easy two-seventy. An immense slab of a man, all but neckless and with a square huge head that seemed either to have sprouted from the beefy shoulders or to have been lowered onto them by a crane. His kinky hair was clipped short, with a razor slash part on the left side. His skin was a midnight blue-black. A prominent Neanderthal brow ridge hooded eyes utterly blank. The remainder of the face looked stepped on, the nose flattened, nostrils wide and flaring as a baboon’s. In a series of deft moves, each one executed with deliberate precision, as if form were all, he produced cigarette and flame. A hush settled over the table, and every eye in the room (the prince’s excepted) followed those moves. Watching him, Waverly was reminded of the Jacktown superdudes he had known, predatory blacks with abundant reserves of brutality, the sort who could come at you like a rockslide, and not infrequently did. Men not to be messed with.
“Also a glass of white wine,” the prince directed, and in a flash Nimrod vanished behind the door to the kitchen. Another flash and the wine appeared before the prince, who took a fastidious sip. Nimrod loomed over him, hovering. An image, quite unbidden, came to Waverly: Nimrod turbaned, bare to the waist, scimitar slung from garish pantaloons, palm leaf fan in hand—the Nubian slave ministering to an effete master’s every whim. The prince set down the glass, lifted a dismissal finger, and Nimrod returned to his place on the couch.
The game resumed.
Antes in, Bulldog’s deal. He called seven-stud, shuffled expertly, and spilled out the cards in a blur. Waverly caught a split pair, ten-nine in the hole, pairing nine up. Sequentially from his left there was B.B. showing a queen, Arab an ace, Jock a six, and dealer sitting on one of his tens. The Arab peeked daintily at his down cards, pursed the moist lips, and pushed in five thousand in chips. Everyone stayed.
For a fourth card Waverly pulled another sweet nine. He felt a momentary adrenal rush: trips, must be living right today. B.B. got the Arab’s ace, Arab a meaningless five, Jock a jack, Bulldog a four. Almost imperceptibly, Bulldog nodded at Waverly and said, “Nines driving.”
Waverly upped the bet to ten. The Arab glanced at him with passionless distaste, flipped over his cards. B.B. and Jock called the bet. “Dealer folds,” said Bulldog. A hint of a scowl, more a tightening at the eyebrows, crossed the upper elevations of his face, counterweight to the static smile. Thus far he was the principal victim, had to be down a full balloon, maybe more. A serious flogging.
Fifth card. Worthless duck for Waverly, big queen for The Big Guy, and Waverly’s rightful ten dropped on Jock.
B.B. said twenty thou, winning hand written all over his joyous little face. Curiously, for there was no evidence in his exposed cards of even a flush in the making, Jock called the wager. Must be double-paired, Waverly thought, chasing the full boat, undervaluing the balls of the The Big Guy. Not so Waverly, who turned down his cards. Too much eager luster in B.B.’s pinprick eyes.
Sixth street. Just the two of them left. B.B. was dealt a four, Jock a six, his first pair showing. Puny sixes. Nevertheless, he called B.B.’s bet, which was stepladdering, 30K now.
Last card out. B.B. studied his hand, but only briefly. “Better make it forty,” he said.
Amazingly, rashly, Jock called, saying, “I got me a loaded schooner here, Mr. Beebee, sixes on top a jacks. I’m thinkin’ maybe you ain’t holdin’ all the spot cards you need.”
He was wrong.
And that’s what B.B. said, squealy voice resonant with ill-suppressed glee: “This time your thinking’s wrong, Jocker”; and he rolled over a queens-high full house. With his diminutive hands he scooped in the substantial pile of chips. Revenge of the dwarfs.
After another hour of play the prince called for a break. Nobody argues with a prince. He stood while Nimrod slid back his chair, then swayed over to a couch, Nimrod in escort, and eased himself into it. B.B. and Bulldog, joined by Orton and Demerit, headed for the kitchen, Demerit lecturing both players on their blunders. Jock got to his feet heavily, stretched his arms overhead like a man coming out of a none too restful sleep, fired up a Macanudo. Waverly stayed where he was. So did Robbie.
The prince said, “A bit more wine, Nimrod.” As soon as his servant was out of the room, the prince remarked, to no one in particular, the three of them generally, “Nimrod, you see, is my good-luck charm.” A giggly heh heh heh trailed this intelligence.
Nobody seemed certain what to say to that, so Jock, playing at agreeable host, filled the breach of silence with, “Boogie that size charm the socks off you right quick.” Signal for Robbie to deliver an obliging gust of laughter.
In a moment the good-luck charm was back, bearing wine. The prince lengthened his ample mouth, laid two fingers on his lips. Recognizing the gestured command, Nimrod instantly produced another cigarette. Once it was lit, he took a position behind the couch, standing with his legs apart and hands crossed over the small of his back in something like a soldierly parade-rest stance.
The prince held the wineglass by its stem. He smoked with a wrist flung back, cigarette aimed at the ceiling. “Actually,” he explained, straining smoke between the perfect teeth, “his name is Kanavis. We changed it to Nimrod when he came into my employ. It seemed more fitting somehow. Heh heh heh. He comes from—what is the name of your quaint city, Nimrod?”
“Carbondale,” was the answer, a low bass rumble, Nimrod’s first utterance of the evening.
Jock came over and flopped into a chair opposite the prince. “That right,” he said, addressing him directly, doing his best to be cordial though his natural antipathy for all the duskier shades of skin did not conceal well. “Midwestern boy, huh?”
“He is a former professional athlete,” the prince went on, as though relating the attributes of a fine breed of animal. “Your American game of football, I believe. What was your team again, Nimrod?”
“Hamilton Tiger Cats. Played in Canada.”
Ghetto gunburst seemed to be Nimrod’s preferred style of speech. If he had any thoughts on this conversation, himself as its centerpiece, none of them could be read from his impassive face and empty eyes.
“Nimrod is a man of extraordinary physical strength and athletic prowess,” the prince declared. “He is also an expert at weaponry. Show these gentlemen your latest toy, Nimrod.”
Obediently, Nimrod stepped around the couch and planted himself in the space between Jock and the prince. He opened his jacket, exposing a gun side-holstered to his belt, and from an inside pocket he removed a cylindrical object wrapped in foam and small enough to fit easily in the palm of a hand. He lifted his arm and drew it to his shoulder, posed for an instant like a quarterback cocked and ready to release a ball. And then his wrist snapped suddenly, and with the explosive pop of a discharged rifle the innocuous-looking cylinder was magically transformed into a steel wand two feet or more in length, so polished and glittery it caught the light in the room, sparkled.
“What is it called, Nimrod?” the prince asked.
“Expandable baton,” Nimrod replied, adding in the flat tones of someone reading specs from a manual or reciting them from memory, “tempered steel, four sections, twenty-eight inches.”
“Give us a demonstration, please.”
The foursome from the kitchen, alerted by the whap of the baton, bunched in the doorway, and for the second time that evening Nimrod was the cynosure of all eyes in the room. He executed a series of abbreviated chops, forehand and back, followed by long looping swings, all his weight behind them, whooshing the air. There was in the display none of the Ninja’s art-and-dazzle grace, only a sheer elemental force, as though he battered a phantom adversary relentlessly and without mercy. Apart from the trace of satisfaction that sometimes underlines methodical concentration, his expression gave away nothing, and he kept right on swinging till the prince said mildly, “That will do.” Nimrod’s battering arm dropped to his side and he bent over and drove the extended end of the baton into the carpet, collapsing it back into its harmless-looking foam-covered handle.
The show was over. Beginning to end, it had all the quality of a carefully rehearsed performance, and whatever was intended as its point, a point was surely made. Something like a smile crossed the prince’s face, but in back of that smile was a labyrinth of ambiguous messages. To Jock he said, “Rather impressive, is it not?”
Jock gave a low appreciative whistle and said, “Sure as shit don’t want this boy yours gettin’ mad at me.”
Heh heh heh went the prince.
Waverly got out of his chair and shouldered his way through the dumbstruck group at the door. In the kitchen he searched the refrigerator for a ginger ale. No ginger ale. Another Appelgate ploy? Who could tell. He found a can of 7UP and took it to the window overlooking the street. He glanced right, he glanced left, and there at the end of the block, partly shadowed by a tree, but only partly, as if stealth and surprise were no longer of any great matter, was the outline of the black Mustang. Another point made. He turned away from the window and discovered Robbie at the counter, pouring himself a straight shot of Wild Turkey. Out of the side of his mouth Robbie whispered, “How we doing?” Waverly put a flat hand in the air, wiggled it in a so-so gesture. Hope and anxiety, equal parts, etched their way into Robbie’s otherwise sullen features, and he was about to say more when Jock appeared.
“How about fixin’ me one of them, Robber?”
Robbie dutifully poured.
Jock took the proffered glass, looked back and forth between them slyly. Around a chops-licking swirl of drink he said, “So. What’re you boys up to?”
“Just critiquing the game,” Robbie said quickly.
Jock fixed his gaze on Waverly. “What do you think of our Arab, Mr. Waverly?”
“As player or person?”
“Either one. Both.”
“He’s got a nice card sense,” Waverly said. “May be a little too exquisite for my tastes.”
“Does come on like a regular sissy, don’t he? You’d maybe figure him for a swish, except the Robber here says he goes through the tail like grain goin’ through a goose. That right, Robber?”
The Robber, clearly not comfortable at this unexpected caucus, agreed the homely analogy was right.
“Yup,” Jock said, mouth stretching open in a grin extremely wide, extremely nasty, “whole troop of our Florida blue-eyed blondes gettin’ their knees dirty out to his suite of rooms, Breakers.”
Waverly had nothing to say to that. The sexual appetites and proclivities of the Arab interested him not at all. Robbie, evidently even less comfortable with silence, put in, “All those ragheads turn into cocksmen once they get over here.”
“Well,” Jock allowed judiciously, “all that dick drive don’t seem to be servin’ him too good at poker. He ain’t showin’ me much so far. Matter a fact, cards all look to be goin’ your way, Mr. Waverly.”
“There’s a lot of game left,” Waverly said.
“Yeah, that’s truth. Fat lady don’t yodel till Wednesday night.” He finished off the drink, cocked his head in the direction of his cash-flow room. “Well, expect we better get back in there. Before he sends that jumbo spade lookin’ for us, give another demonstration with the thumper stick.”
Twice the deck went around the table, and for Waverly the tickets ran nothing but cold. It rattled him some. And then he took his first pot, a small one, and he settled down, imposed an order on the whirl of odds and cards and numbers spinning in his head, studied the faces for shades of expression, watched the motions and gestures, attended to melody, pitch, and resonance in the voices. He found the rhythm of the game again, and all his fretful heat drained away in the icy focus of concentration. He won some more and then some more after that, hitting miracle hands, do-no-wrong cards falling on him, zinging in the bets when they did, whacking anyone foolish enough to get in his way right into the wall, blitzing them. He had no clear idea how far ahead he was. Far.
The hours passed. Very near the end of the session he got drawn into a three-cornered race with Jock and the Arab. Seven-stud again. Five cards out and not a pair showing anywhere. Contest of nerves. The Arab’s queen-jack-nine suggested a possible straight in the making or made, possible split pair or pairs, remotely possible high trips waiting in the wings, waiting to pounce. Possible anything. But his circumspect wagering, a steady five, supported none of these notions. Jock’s feeble-looking eight-three-deuce was an enigma. Why was he still in? Had to be some power, real or latent, lurking down below. Waverly was sitting on a hearts four-flush, three of them, jack-five-four, intimidatingly up, the fourth, a seven, in the hole along with another little insurance five. Potential flush, potential low trips—it was a hand with some degree of promise. Also, against these two, of manifold hazard.
Jock had the deal. He laid an ace on Waverly, diamond, no help in either direction. The Arab got an eight, tucking in one end of the straight but still leaving a gap, establishing nothing. Jock dealt himself a pairing three, and the power, such as it was, passed to him. He squinted at Waverly’s cards, drawled, “Huh, still could be a flush hidin’ down in the cellar.” He cast an appraising eye on the Arab’s hand. “Possible straight over here.” He looked at his own cards, tugged his underlip pensively. Nice theatrics. Finally he said, “These little maggies couple weak sisters up against all that weight. I better check.”
Bet to Waverly. Time to test the water. “Twenty,” he said, and the Arab called and, without a blink, bumped it twenty. Forty to Jock, who unhesitatingly pushed in his chips, counted out some more, and said, “Let’s put another twenty on top of that.” Very chilly waters, polar waters. Back to Waverly. Now he had to think about it a minute. The Arab’s bump could mean he had the bobtail straight filled in. Jock’s re-raise could mean he’d made the trips threes, maybe even a full load. Both wagers were, of course, calculated to sell those notions, but both players, Jock in particular, could be going down the river on bluff and dreams, each hoping to steal the pot on nothing at all. Astonishingly, only one other heart had surfaced, so the flush p.c. was good, not all that far off even.
“Mr. Waverly?” Jock said.
Two words, five syllables. But there was just a faint tremulous ripple under them, not much, just enough to give him away. “I’ll call,” Waverly said. Hit the flush and he was golden.
Out came the final cards. Waverly peeled back the corner of his. It was black. But it was also a five. Making three of them.
Jock’s two weak sisters driving. He bet a reconnaissance twenty, Waverly called, and the Arab coolly raised it twenty. Jock made some perfunctory spluttery sounds but he didn’t buckle.
Crunch time. “Put another twenty on top of that,” Waverly said, and he slid forty thousand in chips across the felt and into the swollen pot. He glanced over at Robbie, who straddled a chair behind and between Bulldog and B.B., and whose face had gone gray, pinched with alarm.
“Whoa,” Jock whooped, “now you’re doin’ the sandbaggin’.”
“Deplorable,” the Arab said. “Most deplorable.” Mocking or in earnest, it was impossible to tell. His lips parted in a viperish smile and he added quietly, “But I don’t believe you have anything, sir. I shall raise your twenty by the same amount.”
Now Jock hesitated. He shook his head ruefully, tried on an arid grin. “Jesus G. Gawd,” he said, “you fellas walkin’ me right to the gallows.” Nevertheless, he met the two raises: come this far, there was nothing else to do.
