Double down, p.34
Double Down, page 34
Bennie didn’t turn. For a moment he was silent, and when he spoke again there was an edge of pleading in his voice. “Maybe I ain’t gettin’ through to you here, Timothy. With Dietz there ain’t no middlin’. It’s deliver in the morning or catch your own lunch for breakfast. You understand what I’m sayin’ to you?”
“I understand. And I’m telling you how it is at that table.”
Bennie’s fatty shoulders seemed to sag. “Well, you can’t, you can’t,” he said dismally. “So we better start thinkin’ on another plan. Do that, I gotta have me a drink.” He crossed the room, flopped onto a counter stool, mashed the burnt-out cigar in a saucer, and poured a glassful of bourbon. “You?”
“That’s the last thing I need.”
He took a long gulpy swallow, peered into the glass. Furrows of doubt pinched his forehead. At last he said, “Okay, here’s what we do. You go out there, play till the break, midnight, then you gimme a call, fill me in on where the numbers at. If it’s lookin’ anywhere near close, I just might be able to cut a deal with Dietz.”
“How close is close?”
“Two balloons. Nothing less.”
“And if I’m not close?”
Bennie’s reply was quick, professional, the accents of rueful experience in it. “Then you blaze outta there. I know them condos. Shooter’s parked in front, you leave the car, duck out the back, shag on up to the hotel, call a cab, get to the airport, get in the wind. Don’t forget to hold back a little bail-out cash. You’re gonna need a nut, you get that far.”
“What about you? They’ve got to be tracking both of us now.”
“Try and do the same, I s’pose. Maybe I can twist some cover outta O’Boyle. Have to find a way somehow. I’ll give you the number of a fella in Miami. He’s okay, standup. If you make it—”
“Heavy on that if,” Waverly broke in.
“Yeah, well, if you do, you call him. But give it a couple months first. Better we don’t know where each other’s at, case one of us gets tagged.”
Waverly shook his head slowly. “That’s your plan?”
“Best I can do. Get this deep in the caca, it’s hurrah for me and fuck you. You’re a Jacktown gradu-ate, Timothy. You know that’s how it’s gotta be.”
“I know.”
Bennie drained his glass, held up the bottle. “Sure you won’t have one?”
Waverly came over and joined him at the counter. “One,” he said, “For old times.”
Bennie poured. “Could be some new times ahead yet, too,” he said, gazing at his partner steadily. “Y’never know. Maybe the gods’ll be smilin’ on you tonight.”
Gods that smile. On B. Epstein, and only on him, was it a speculation never outworn. “Stranger things have happened,” Waverly said.
They touched glasses.
Bennie’s gaze fell away, seemed to turn inward. All his features slackened. “Y’know,” he said ruminantly, “next month I hit the big six-o. Sixty years young. Don’t ever kid yourself, boy. Life begins at sixty.”
Waverly felt good. No accounting for it; tote up the score and it made no sense whatsoever. Here he was, held hostage by forces utterly outside his control. Look at them: Up ahead a showdown game that may, or may not, be stacked; directly behind him, filling the rearview, all pretense of guile or subtlety long since scrapped, the black Mustang bearing the agent of his own death; an escape plan so flimsy (cut and run, it reduced to, don’t look back, hope for the best) it had the surreal quality of a Saturday morning cartoon—the innocent deathless Roadrunner, here he comes, beep! beep!, there he goes, exempt from the laws of nature, physics, miraculously survived again; and Caroline Crown, don’t forget Caroline, appeared out of nowhere, the past, to touch his life for the twinkling of a moment with the swindle of hope, and almost certainly gone now, and gone for good. All those oblique, slippery forces. Yet in spite of them, in defiance of all reason, he felt good, driving north on Ocean Boulevard, covering the length of Singer Island. Better than good, golden, as if reality had lost all sense of scale and proportion, as if for him there were no such things as defeat and disaster and bottomless grief to be drawn from the neutral air. Timothy Waverly, Roadrunner: quick my wit, keen my eye, fleet my foot. The elevated delirium of invincibility. Bennie’s smiling gods.
He turned west on PGA Boulevard, into the misted violet afterglow of sinking sun. And also into reality’s first rude intrusion, the line of evening traffic ahead of him worming to a stop at the drawbridge, two concrete slabs of road, rising magically above the Intracoastal Waterway while a slow-motion barge chugged on by. For five minutes, maybe more, seemed like more, he waited. This unwelcome breach in the fanciful bubble of serenity set his nerves on edge. He drummed the wheel impatiently, smoked a cigarette. Finally the bridge descended, the barriers lifted, and the traffic inched forward, gradually accelerated. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to eight. He was going to make it, time to spare. Can’t get rattled now.
Except there was another breach waiting in the person of Robbie Crown, planted outside the condo entrance, glaring at him as he drove up the street and pulled in behind the Arab’s Rolls Corniche. They approached each other on the walk. Robbie came hurrying toward him, gripped him by the elbow, and steered him back to the car, rumbling under his breath, “Jesus, where you been? We’ve got to talk.”
Waverly disengaged his arm. “About what?”
“What!” Robbie sputtered. “About what happened last night. What went wrong. What you’re going to do about it. That’s what.”
The full face boiled up crimson, looked on the fine point of breaking out in a violent sweat. The jowls quivered when he spoke. The hands swatted air. Shades of B. Epstein, Waverly thought, but then he quickly amended that thought; for apart from their shared agitation and obvious panic, these two sometime friends, or more accurately representations of the two antipodal sides of his strange life, were nothing at all alike. “I lost,” he said simply, and he didn’t bother to disguise the contempt in his voice. “You were there. You saw it.”
“Lost,” Robbie said, giving back some of the contempt. “More like stomped on. Punished.”
“With cards, nobody writes any warranties. You knew that going in.”
“I didn’t know you were going to piss it all away. You’re supposed to be the professional here.”
“Look, I’m not into critiques or recriminations, either one. Last night was last night.”
“All right, then, what about tonight? What do you intend to do about it?”
“Go inside and try and win our money back, that’s what I’m going to do. Nothing left to do.”
Waverly was getting mightily sick of these conversations. Everybody a strategist, everybody ready with advice. Let them play the game. He started for the door, but Robbie stepped into his path. “Hold on a minute. We’re not finished yet, you and me.”
Waverly looked at him narrowly. “What else is on your mind? Besides money.”
Robbie didn’t flinch. “Not Care, if that’s what you’re talking about. That one’s already settled.”
“You’re sure, are you?”
“Sure enough.”
“Then I think maybe we are finished. You want to get out of my way?”
Robbie didn’t budge, but his sneering tone softened some, turned wheedling, lawyerly, honeyed with sweet reason, though with an undertone of desperation, too. “Listen, Tim, never mind our other, uh, differences. They’re behind us now, forget them. I have. Tabula rasa.” A swipe of the air and they were gone, those differences. “You want to score in there,” he continued, “so do I. We both need to lay our hands on that cash. And tonight’s the flash point. You know that.”
Waverly glanced past him. Parked under a tree along the curb at the end of the street was the Mustang, its natural blackness deepening in the shadows and the falling light. “Don’t I though,” he said.
“So what about those special skills you pros are supposed to have?”
“What about them?”
“If there was ever a time to use them, it’s got to be now. It only makes sense, Tim. For both of us.”
“We’ve been over this ground before,” Waverly said frigidly. “You already know my answer.”
Robbie exploded. “For Christ’s sake wake up, will you!” Then, remembering himself, he lowered his voice. “Everything’s on the block here. Everything. It’s the only way.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. There’s another way. Tonight I’ll win.”
“How the fuck can you know that?”
“Call it a hunch,” Waverly said, and again he started for the door and this time Robbie made no move to block his way.
But he was mistaken. The first hour he took several hands, small ones, but enough to elevate the perilously whittled stake over the 100K mark and make him believe in his hunch. And then, second hour, he leveled off, losing more often than he won, just scraping by. Third hour and the plunge began, the long greased slide, down down down. Nothing seemed to come his way, or when it did there was someone, always someone, waiting to pounce, outgun him, put him up against the wall. And not infrequently, more times than a few, more times than the laws of probability and chance dictate or condone, that someone was the prince.
Waverly watched hm. Resplendent in glistening plum-colored jacket and paisley-print silk tie, the prince played with a kind of effortless tranquillity, attacking and retreating with an uncanny sense of timing, his brown face stubbornly blank. When he spoke, which was seldom, there was a dulcet, phlegmatic quality to his voice, absent utterly of the exhilarating properties of risk and danger that now and again will kindle the speech of the most veteran of players. And when he raked in a pot, which was often, there was a pert, almost girlish edge in the motions of his delicate hands. His fingers were heavy with rings that occasionally caught the light above the table with a startling glint. His hair, lustrous as a coat of freshly laid tar, gleamed brilliantly under the same overhead light.
He watched the rest of the competition as well, Waverly did, moving his eyes carefully from face to face. Drummond, Jock—nothing to be read in their expressions other than the jaundiced sulk of defeat. Hard losers tonight, both of them. Not so the jubilant little B.B., who was, wondrously, the only other winner thus far and who, just then, was locked in a serious one-on-one with the charmed Arab. The game was seven-stud. The Arab had the deal. But B.B., to all appearances, easily had the better of him going into the last card. He displayed two pair, jacks over fours, and from the transparent sparkle in his eye, a boat already floating. The Arab, showing a lonely pair of nines and nothing else of any weight, called the bets with a calm so passionless it bordered on indifference. The pot, fed through the first four cards by the three dropouts, grew like a mutant weed. A big score in the making for The Big Guy.
Except it never happened. The final card came down, B.B. doubled the bet, and the Arab, after a studied hesitation, saw it and raised him back a sum large enough to capture the attention of everyone in the room—the three idled players, the three railbirds looking on from a discreet distance, even the motionless black figure filling the couch behind the table—and to send a quick shiver through the diminutive frame of the dumfounded B.B. There was nothing for him to do but call. He’d had his full house all along, of course, but it was the fours full. The Arab turned over three nines and a pair of lowly deuces, permitted himself a thin smile, and without a word gathered in the chips.
To no one in particular B.B. remarked, “Guess I got whacked good that time.” He was trying valiantly to mask his disappointment, but the corners of his mouth drooped and his eyes swam. For a moment it seemed he might burst into tears.
“Guess you did at that, big fella,” Jock allowed pitilessly.
Waverly thought about what he had just seen. Only a fool would have bet into the hand B.B. was showing, and the Arab was no fool. Or a clairvoyant, and he was not that either. Or a cheat. In less than three hours the pattern was emerging again. A replay of last night. Bennie had to be right. Somehow, some way, there was work down here.
The deal had passed to Jock, but before he could shuffle, Waverly said, “Call for a new deck.”
Jock arched an eyebrow. His upper lip curled slightly. “You fixin’ to change your luck with a different batch of cards, Mr. Waverly?”
“Why don’t we try it, see what happens?”
“Didn’t know you professionals played on superstition. Thought it was all science.”
“Whatever works,” Waverly said. He looked across the table at the Arab, who regarded him with a smile so amused and faint it might have been practiced before a mirror.
“Robber,” Jock directed, “go get me a fresh deck. Bottom drawer of the desk in the study back there.”
Robbie jumped at the command, exited the room and returned with the deck. Jock broke the seal, shuffled, and the game rolled on.
Twice the deal went around the table. Same pattern. Whatever the gaff was, Waverly couldn’t get a figure on it. The deck was so squeaky clean it could have served nicely at a ladies bridge club. So it wasn’t the cards. And the Arab wasn’t the only one to score pots off his own deal; Bulldog did it, even B.B. It was mystifying. Also unnerving. Crunch time an hour away, and hand by hand they were grinding him down. Five in a row he tossed in. A quick glance told him the 100K was slashed in half. At least in half. Finally he caught a promising run in a seven-card lowball game, a pot builder, and found himself, like the hapless B.B., squarely in the Arab’s fire path. For it was the Arab, once again, dealing the cards.
Five were out. Waverly showed a seven-three-deuce, and down below he held a sweet ace-five. A hand not all that far off perfect. So far. Good enough to spook everyone else. Everyone, that is, but the poised and patient Arab, who sat on a nine high backed by a six-five. Close, but no cigar. So far.
Wagers down, the Arab flipped them each a card. A pairing five for Waverly, big exposed queen for the dealer. Waverly bumped the bet to twenty thou. No other choice: His pair was concealed, on the surface he was mighty as Godzilla. Even a hard-rock player should understand when to back off. Not the Arab. Unblinking, he called.
Last card down. Waverly peeked at his and though his face revealed nothing, behind it was a dismay as acute as a stab of physical pain. The card was a king. His near-perfect hand ravaged, his strategy in ruins. On one card. But the four showing were still intimidators, and he was run out of options. And almost out of money. He counted out his remaining chips, shoved them in. “Twenty-three thousand there,” he said mildly. “Bet it all.”
Again the Arab’s wettish lips formed the mirror-cultivated smile, and the gaze he leveled on Waverly was deadly shrewd. Knowing. “I shall see your wager,” he said, equally mild; and after a nice dramatic pause and in a voice little more than a murmur, he added, “And I must raise it thirty.”
Waverly had the dizzying sense of sliding helplessly into a deep sinkhole. He needed space to think it out. No space. “You can see my plate’s empty here,” he said. “Would you take a marker, if it comes to that?”
The Arab’s gaze turned inward, contemplative. He steepled his hands, seemed to consider. The overhead light winked off a ring-weighted finger, and some inner monitor whispered a warning in Waverly’s ear.
“Perhaps I could do that,” the Arab said grandly, enjoying the moment. “This one time.”
“Then I’m in for the ride.”
They displayed their hole cards, let the hands speak for themselves. The Arab showed paired fours, but the queen was his highest card. With a certain simpery satisfaction he said, “I believe I defeated you, sir. Most unfortunate.”
He reached for the pile of chips, and again the light danced on the ring, and now the monitor set off a siren in Waverly’s head and he thrust out a hand and pinned the Arab’s wrist to the table. He seized a card and held it over the ring, which gave back a tiny reflection of the card’s face. “No,” he said, “this is what’s unfortunate.”
A collective gasp rose through the room. The railbirds came to their feet, Nimrod right behind them. “Fuck’re you doin’?” Jock spluttered.
“It’s called a shiner,” Waverly said, voice gone hard with scorn. “Oldest gaff in the game. What you’ve got here is a crossroader. An oily little cheat.”
“Cheat!” Jock bellowed on a flying wedge of spittle. “You’re way out of line, Waverly.”
“You saw it.”
“You’re not playin’ with your five-and-dime hoods here. Prince is my guest. Let go his hand.”
Waverly glanced about, searching for support. Orton and Demerit had faded back against a wall. Robbie’s face wore the stricken look of a shock victim. B.B.’s hands twisted in his lap, and he shook all over with a nervous little giggle. Bulldog’s protuberant teeth were set in a terrible smile. Jock’s fleshy jaw jutted aggressively. No support anywhere in this room. And across the table the Arab fixed him with liquid reproachful eyes. His brown face was on fire. Waverly released the pinned wrist.
There was a sudden sharp pop, and the foam-wrapped cylinder in Nimrod’s hand lengthened into the glittery steel wand. He slapped it in his open palm and came at Waverly. The Arab lifted a restraining arm. “Nimrod! No! Not here. Not yet.”
Nimrod stopped as abruptly as a trained hound coming to heel, but his free hand clenched and unclenched, a rhythmic fist-making. His eyes were cold as steel spikes. Death in them.
Jock turned to Waverly and snarled, “Get your ass outta here, you sonbitch. While you still can.”
Waverly pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and backed slowly toward the door. From the other side of it he heard Jock pleading, “I’m real sorry, prince. That scumsucker got no right to…”
And that’s all he heard before he took off running. Had he been in the room he would have seen the Arab scorning Jock’s apology, and he would have seen him turn to his bodyguard and heard him say in a voice corrosive with venom and wounded pride, “Now!”
