A Dream of Kings

by Harry Mark Petrakis

  "Get a new deck and let's play!" Fatsas said to Cicero. "I'm ninety dollars out. Let's get on with this bloody sport!"

  Cicero ripped the cellophane wrapping from a new deck of Bicycles and threw the jokers out. Matsoukas watched with pleasure the way his long pale fingers shuffled in a dancing rhythm, the cards becoming an extension of his hands, slicing between one another in swift sure passage.

  Old Gero Kampana raised his head and sniffed the air. "New deal!" he cried with delight. "New deal!"

  Cicero passed the deck to Fatsas for the cut. Then he rapped the table lightly to signal the deal. He held the deck securely in his hand and with a deft snapping motion of his fingers skimmed the cards toward the players, each card coming to rest face down before each man's money. At the end of the round he barely altered the position of his fingers and the second card was pitched face up with the corner just touching the rim of the first card.

  "Queen, ten, five, eight, jack," Cicero quietly called the quick and silent fall of the cards. "Queen bets."

  With a five as the highest of his first two cards, Matsoukas folded.

  "You play cautiously," Roumbakakis chided him.

  "We are doomed to the dictates of our natures," Matsoukas smiled. "Mine is cautious, conservative."

  Fatsas released a snort. When Roumbakakis looked sharply at him, he stared innocently at his cards.

  "The game loses savor when played cautiously," Roumbakakis said. "I like to play by driving forward boldly. That is the Greek tradition in warfare and in life." He won the pot by pairing his queen on the last card. Fatsas threw in his jacks with disgust. Charilaos sighed. Poulos stared idly at his fingernails.

  Fatsas threw in a dollar ante somberly. "Forty years I have been married to these pasteboard bastards and bitches," he said. "Nothing but grief and despair."

  "A man makes his own destiny," Roumbakakis smiled broadly showing an awesome structure of gold fillings.

  If I could pluck a few of those, Matsoukas thought, they would carry Stavros and me three times to Greece. "The gold of Troy," he said aloud.

  "Pardon me?" Roumbakakis said, fearing there was a compliment he might have missed.

  "This game is becoming a bloody bridge session," Fatsas grumbled. "A man can't concentrate on the bloody cards."

  "Your disposition is less than congenial," Roumbakakis snapped. "The way in which a man loses reveals his character."

  "Jack-five, ten-nine possible straight, pair of sixes, king-seven possible flush," Cicero called. "Pair of sixes bet."

  Matsoukas played no-stay for the next seven hands. He could not afford to remain without a solid pair. One hand he held to the fifth card feeling certain that Roumbakakis was preparing nervously to bluff. He bet lightly into the "Fig King."

  "Your five and twenty dollars more," Roumbakakis said.

  Matsoukas hesitated, to suggest indecision and then, as if agitated by his prudent nature, turned his cards over.

  Roumbakakis laughed with delight and scooped in the pot. His flushed cheeks were clear evidence he had pulled off a bluff.

  They played through the afternoon. Big Carl, heavy-bodied and lynx-eyed, replaced Cicero for an hour. When Cicero returned he walked a little unsteadily toward the table and a certain limpness marked his lips. Matsoukas looked at him with concern but his fingers did not waver as he resumed the deal. In his absence Matsoukas had strengthened his stake by winning about a hundred and fifty dollars.

  The tide turned against Roumbakakis and he began to lose. He continued to play as boldly as he had played when he had been winning and lost quickly and heavily. Matsoukas began to win more steadily and little by little the hands narrowed into a battle between the "Fig King" and himself. Fatsas and Charilaos and Poulos dropped from the game and the two of them played on alone with the limit raised to fifty dollars. Falconis had entered the room and stood watching silently, a slight nervous twitch in his cheeks.

  "Your twenty and raise you thirty," Matsoukas said.

  Roumbakakis cursed under his breath and put in thirty dollars. With a sharp look at Matsoukas he threw in three more tens. "Back to you," he said.

  "Triple ten raise to the sevens," Cicero said quietly.

  "Of course," Matsoukas smiled. "Add fifty more to that." He put eighty dollars into the pot.

  Roumbakakis trembled with agitation and frustration. He cleared his throat with the sound of ice being crunched. He threw in the fifty dollars almost in defiance and flipped over his cards.

  "Aces and fours," he said.

  "Three sevens," Matsoukas said gravely.

  "Three of a kind again!" Roumbakakis cried and slammed the table with his fist. The cards and money jumped.

  "New deal!" Gero Kampana came awake with a cry. "New deal!"

  Roumbakakis signaled impatiently for the game to resume. All his amiability had fled and he played with a harsh and reckless anger. The next hand he bet senselessly against a pair of jacks and lost seventy dollars to Matsoukas by remaining after he knew he was beaten. When his fury had robbed him of any capacity to play effectively he rose violently from his chair which fell backwards and struck the floor. Falconis scurried to retrieve it.

  "I cannot play for peanuts!" Roumbakakis said hoarsely. "I wish to play no-limit! I will put all my resources in this game and we will see!"

  Falconis approached the table and Cicero looked at Matsoukas.

  "No," Matsoukas said quietly. "We will allow the fifty dollar limit to remain or we will stop."

  "You are afraid!" Roumbakakis cried.

  "Man, you are unbalanced by anger," Matsoukas said patiently. "You could lose a small fortune before you regained your rattled senses. It would be plucking feathers from a dead pigeon."

  "Who are you to tell me what I am?" Roumbakakis shouted. "I am a man of considerable prominence in this city. I have intimate friends in City Hall. I demand to play no-limit!"

  "Not with me," Matsoukas said and calmly began to count the sheaf of bills before him. Roumbakakis watched quivering with fury.

  "Perhaps tomorrow," Falconis said shrilly. "The house will be honored to host the game again tomorrow."

  "Six hundred-forty," Matsoukas said. "Six hundred-fifty and the final twenty makes a total of six hundred-seventy dollars." He smiled amiably at Roumbakakis. "The way in which a man loses reveals his character," he said. "I am pleased you take it with such grace."

  Falconis cleared his throat nervously. Cicero glared at the "Fig King" with contempt.

  Matsoukas turned and handed the major sheaf of bills to Falconis. "We are square, old sport," he said and sadly he watched the money that could have taken Stavros and himself to Greece disappear quickly into Falconis' pocket. Matsoukas put away the balance of the money consoled by the hundred and twenty dollars that would go into his travel box. He started for the door with a final grin at Roumbakakis.

  "I see it all now," Roumbakakis said hoarsely. "I realize that I have been involved in a game with ... with a cheat!"

  Cicero let loose a fierce tight cry. His pale face was livid with fury, his lips as sharp as the blade of a knife. He lunged at the "Fig King" with his thin arms flailing the air. Matsoukas moved swiftly and caught him in the cradle of his arm. He held him gently but firmly as the dealer struggled to break free.

  "Let me at him!" Cicero cried. "I will tear off his goddam jackass ears!"

  "All right now," Matsoukas sought to console him. "It's all right, my friend. The bloody twit isn't worth a blow." Still restraining Cicero he turned to Roumbakakis. "Listen to me, 'Fig King'," he said softly, "when you make an allegation against me you also slander a dealer who is known all over the country for the relentless honesty of his deal. For that reason I will enlighten your ignorance." He paused. "While you have been accumulating figs I have spent some considerable time playing bank craps, open craps, blackjack, roulette, chemin de fer, baccarat, gin rummy, poker, draw and stud, keno and the match game. I have bet on horse races, lotteries, sweepstakes, pools, raffles, and varied and
assorted carnival and amusement park games."

  Roumbakakis shrugged scornfully as if the information confirmed his own observation.

  "Take the game in question, stud poker," Matsoukas said. "To suggest that I am a card carpenter, that I have thimble-rigged, switched, palmed, or stacked any card in the play is a stupid impertinence. To suggest that you have been trimmed, fleeced, flushed, and clipped requires an incredible pomposity. To cheat in a game with you is to resort to an enema for a sliver in my finger."

  Roumbakakis flushed and opened his mouth to cry out. Matsoukas cut him off sharply.

  "You are not listening,'' Matsoukas said. "Poker is a skill, and your arrogance, incompetence, and pomposity doom you to what you are in this game and will always be ... a bird, a greenie, a rabbit, and a pigeon."

  "Hold on now!" Roumbakakis cried in an outraged voice.

  "Let me clip the bastard just once!" Cicero pleaded for Matsoukas to release him.

  "Hold him, Matsoukas," Falconis pleaded.

  "I will spell it out in figs," Matsoukas said to Roumbakakis. "Poker is a game of deception, strategy, mathematics, and psychology. You play it as a game of chance, alibis, frets, frowns, and squawks."

  Roumbakakis tried to form words to answer but no sound passed his lips. His face had grown darker, his eyes strangely glazed, and he chewed helplessly against the fillings of his gold teeth.

  Matsoukas prodded Cicero—who had quieted slightly— toward the door. He turned in a final summary to Roumbakakis. "My advice to you, old sport," he said, "is to avoid poker. Find another game at which you might hope to achieve some modest success. Marbles with cross-eyed donkeys and demand they pass a saliva test at the end of each round lest your grievances accumulate and cause you to fart away the gas of your bloody figs."

  For a long moment after he finished the room remained totally still. Roumbakakis released his breath in fitful spurts. Fatsas and Charilaos and Poulos tried to suppress their grins. Matsoukas let the dealer go with a final look of warning. Cicero cast a scornful glare at the "Fig King" and started for the door. Matsoukas followed him, and Falconis moved quickly out of their way.

  "New deal!" Gero Kampana cried. "New deal!" And the old man's voice rose and became a wail that echoed and reechoed in the dark corners of the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Night fallen solidly across the city. The midway hour between six and midnight darkening the mouths of alleys, shrouding doorways, and enveloping the girders of the elevated. The store windows dark, people passing reflected dimly in the glass. Beams of light sweeping from cars across, the litter in the gutters.

  Through the evening Matsoukas came with long strong strides, hoarsely singing a martial song, ignoring the rebuking or amused glances of men and women whose paths he crossed. His arms, spread wide, were laden with large brown paper bags and money clashed metal in his pockets, no nickels, dimes, quarters or half-dollars but the deep resounding jangle of silver dollars. He whipped around the corner, his voice hurling from between the bags, freezing a heavy woman in a feathered crow's nest who lurched aside to keep from being run down. She stopped to glare after him with her battlemented head quivering in outrage.

  "Drunken pig!" she shouted.

  "Forgive me, my lovely!" Matsoukas called and then skipped adroitly to dodge another man. He paused an instant before the cigar store, breathing deeply the bracing ferments of aromatic tobacco. He considered stopping for a tin of imported Schimmelpennincks and then decided to hurry on. He entered the doorway beside the cigar store entrance, shifting the bags slightly to grip them more firmly as he started up the four flights of stairs. He took the steps two at a time, bags bouncing in his arms as he hummed in rhythm to the jumps. Before his door he set one bag down, brought out his key and inserted it in the lock, swinging the door open wide.

  "I am here!" he cried. He picked up the bag and entered the kitchen as if he were an actor sweeping onto a stage for the opening scene of a great play. He kicked the door closed behind him.

  The kitchen was full of steam, the aroma of mustard greens pungent in the air. His wife, Caliope, had her back to him and was washing a basin of soiled dishes. The dark drab housedress she wore hung limply at her knees and wrinkled across her broad and girdled hips.

  "I am here!" Matsoukas repeated. He put the bags down on the table with a loud thump.

  Caliope responded with a weary shrug of her shoulders. Matsoukas walked to her and stroked her bottom lightly. She looked at him then with cold black eyes.

  "Forgive me," he said with a leer. "I come laden with provisions to fill our larder and feel I have certain rights."

  "I know all about your rights," she said, and turned to face him fully for the first time, pushing aside a long strand of dark hair fallen loose across her cheek.

  "This kitchen smells of turpentine," he said. "Did your mother brew some of her heinous herbs for the children's supper again? That stuff would turn a dragon green."

  Instead of answering she rustled a corner of one of the bags he had carried in.

  "Just a few groceries," he said.

  Still watching him she reached into the bag and brought out a smaller bag of peaches and a block of white feta cheese. She stared down at what remained in the bag and then raised her head in a snap of impatience. "Wine and cheese and fruit," she said scornfully. "Children do not live on wine and cheese and fruit."

  "My father's children did," Matsoukas snorted. "Grew up strong as bulls on that menu. Your loony mother raised you differently."

  "The children need meat and milk," Caliope said, and he saw the surfaces of her eyes, the black pupils he always found hazardous to try and stare down. "What will I buy meat and milk with tomorrow?"

  He looked at her for a long measured moment as if sadly scourging her lack of faith. He reached into his pocket and brought out a silver dollar. He placed it on the corner of the table with a loud metallic ring.

  "One," he said gravely. He reached into his pocket and brought out another dollar. "Two," he said. He kept excavating with solemn ritual until there were thirty-six silver dollars lined up in a glittering rank. Fumbling in his pocket to determine the number left, he hesitated, torn between retaining a small stake for the following day's races or making his infrequent triumph as majestic an event as he could. He succumbed to the unrelenting hardness of Caliope's eyes and counted out his last six dollars to make a total of forty-two.

  "I need the rest," he said, tapping lightly at his empty pocket to suggest it contained more.

  She reached forward and with a peremptory sweep of her strong bare arm drove the dollars into the pocket of her frock where they hung like the swollen udder of a cow. He stared at them with a poignant sense of loss. He stepped in to kiss her, and she turned her head so he would not have her mouth. A scent of oil and sweat rose from her pores and a desire for her ridged his flesh.

  "Perhaps you are wondering about the money," he said, "and why I could not be here for supper. Well, I had a splendid day. Clients kept me busy all afternoon, and through the evening, most of them eager to return for future appointments. A brilliant young student wished assistance in translating some of Pindar's poetry and the Greek Consul sent the youth to me."

  "If he actually did recommend you," the searing voice of his mother-in-law erupted behind him, "they should recall the bloody fool and shoot him as he gets off the boat."

  "Good evening, Mama!" Matsoukas cried with a travesty of a courtly bow. "All day I am tormented by the thought that something might permanently close your blessed and saintly mouth!"

  The old lady answered with a snarl. She was in her middle sixties, sturdier than many women half her age. She had eyes like powder horns and a mouth curved like a scimitar. (Matsoukas swore she was festooned with a disposition to give a man scurvy.) Since she felt nakedness more indecent than murder, she wore black dresses high around her throat and low about her ankles. She scorned all recreation except the death notices, which she read with silent intensity until the sigh
t of a familiar name made her quiver with the ardor of a bride.

  Matsoukas ignored her and spoke to Caliope. "There were a number of clients who paid me in cash."

  "Clients, is it!" the old lady spit. "Who would bring you anything besides a barren sow?" She snorted, the closest sound to laughter she had achieved in forty years. "I warned you," she said balefully to Caliope. "You wouldn't listen. You followed him like a heifer in heat. Look at you now. God help your children if I didn't have a few dollars from my blessed husband's insurance to provide this house."

  "Blessed husband?" Matsoukas snickered. "The poor devil died in desperation to escape!" He gave her a rampant grin. "Thirty years of your groundhog teats and porcupine hump must make him feel that Hell is Miami Beach."

  The old lady opened her mouth and released a savage cacophony of outrage and curses.

  Caliope turned wearily to the sink again to scrub the dishes with a worn cloth, her fingers submerging slowly into the suds.

  "Listen to the old crow croak," Matsoukas said amiably when the old lady ran out of breath, "I think it loosens her bowels."

  Their voices had risen and his daughters, Faith and Hope, came shrieking to greet him. One clutched his leg and the other jumped to reach the bags on the table.

  "Get down!" he laughed with a playful tug at Hope's curls. "Let go, you little crocodile!"

  As they kept up their shrill cries, Caliope turned from the sink. "Stop it!" she shouted. "Do you hear me?" She reached down and with her hand dripping suds gave Faith a stinging smack across her bottom. Faith howled in shock and retreated to join her sister in hugging their father's legs.

  "Mama's right," Matsoukas said. "Now quiet down." He gave them both a broad wink and stroked the tip of his moustache. "If you both finished all your supper I have brought you a surprise for dessert. Ice cream for good little darlings."

  Faith started to shriek again but a warning look from Caliope made her close her mouth. She joined her sister in pulling with silent frenzy at the bag.