by Graeme Hurry
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Carmody tilted his hand up and down.
“Back and forth,” he said. “He’s down about five-thousand, but the count is getting in his favor.”
Jolene threw out some more cards and I heard the grind of the adding machine In Bill’s lap.
“I can’t believe he didn’t bow out when he saw that Jolene was dealing.”
“He ran out of promotional chips an hour ago,” Bill grunted. “Now he’s playing with his own money. He’s an addict, alright, no doubt about it.”
I watched Farquhar hit his twelve against Jolene’s eight. A jack came up and Farquhar burned. I winced, imagining what it must feel like to have that tower of black chips pulled out from under my nose. Bill must have seen me, because his smile went from malicious to downright diabolical.
“Looks like your boy ain’t doing so hot,” he said, emphasizing the ‘your’. “I guess the jackal will have to find some other lion to scavenge from, huh?”
The cards came out. Again, Bill’s adding machine sang. Jolene showed a king, and Farquhar stood precariously on a fifteen.
“Hey,” Bill said. “How come he isn’t hitting that?”
I smiled in spite of myself.
Jolene turned over her hole card, a six. A few seconds and one jack later, her hand was busted and she was pushing a stack of black chips back across the felt towards Barry Farquhar.
“Shit!” Carmody and Bill said.
“A fluke, probably. Don’t worry, it will be fine,” I suggested. Bill shook his head.
“We trained her. We told her to give false cues.”
“He’s just broken even,” Carmody said. “No reason to panic. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” though, for once, he didn’t sound very sure of himself.
The next deal, Farquhar split a pair of aces, hitting to twenty and twenty-one, more than enough to beat Jolene’s paltry seventeen.
So it went for the next hour. Bill punched numbers into the adding machine like it had slept with his wife, Carmody paced more and more anxiously with each deal, and Farquhar kept winning. By nine o’clock Farquhar had won nearly 180,000 dollars.
Bill jolted out of his chair and threw the adding machine against the wall.
“God damn it, the count, Nash, the count!”
“What is it?” Carmody moaned.
“Minus thirty-three!”
Carmody looked ready to follow the adding machine into a headlong dive at the wall. Not only had Farquhar cracked Jolene, but now the arithmetic was on his side, too.
“Get down there! Stop the game!”
Bill jammed the headset of Carmody’s desk phone to his ear, dialed an extension, and shouted, “Graham, tell the pit boss to stop the game! Stop the game!”
Bill let the phone drop off the cradle and made a dash for the stairs. Carmody gazed at the screen in horror. It was near the end of the shoe, and the count was overwhelmingly in Farquhar’s favor. Farquhar knew it, too, because he pushed half his stack onto the felt. Jolene put a hand on the top card.
“Why isn’t anyone stopping her?” Carmody said.
The first of Farquhar’s cards dropped, a ten. The second was a four. From his reaction, she might as well have dropped a steaming pile of guts in front of him.
On the corner of the screen I saw Bill come hurrying up to the table. He practically climbed over Farquhar’s back to get a look at the cards. They were in play and, legally, the game couldn’t be stopped until the deal was over. He looked at Farquhar’s lousy fourteen and Jolene’s solid ten and relaxed a little.
That was the part in the western when the three gunslingers eye each other, waiting to see who would draw first. Bill stared menacingly at Farquhar, and Jolene nervously at Bill. But, the real action was between Farquhar and Jolene. Even over the security camera, I could tell that he was boring into her like an electric drill. She checked her hole card. Farquhar’s body language relaxed. He looked right up into the camera and winked.
Carmody swallowed. Bill fidgeted. On the screen, Farquhar waved his hand, declining to hit. Jolene made some gestures that might have been her asking if he was sure – after all, even a rank amateur knows that you always hit a fourteen against a face card. Farquhar repeated the wave of his hand. Jolene flipped over her hole card and Carmody nearly swooned.
Six, making sixteen. The highest – and worst – hand a dealer is required to hit on. She took the top card of the shoe, the last one, and gave herself a hit.
A big, shiny queen of diamonds, winking into the camera every bit as sardonically as Farquhar had.
A stack of chips like a ziggurat was pushed in front of Farquhar who, by the way he was heaving up and down, looked to be laughing his head off. Bill slapped his palm to his forehead. Carmody watched it all take place before picking up the remote control and turning off the television. I came over and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Jesus, Nash, I’m sorry.”
“I should have listened to you,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a dumb idea.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, at least it wasn’t your idea.”
“He figured her out, the bastard.”
“Seems that way.”
Carmody sat at his desk and put his hands on his head.
“God damn it. God damn it,” he kept on muttering. After a while, he stopped looking sorry for himself and started looking mad. I couldn’t help but smile, knowing who he was getting himself mad at.
The next day I met with Barry Farquhar.
There’s a little diner by the interstate that no self-respecting casino brass would be caught dead in, so I figured that was the best place to meet.
I glanced at my watch. 12:30. He was a half-hour late. I’d be lying if I didn’t say some pretty unflattering thoughts went through my head. 12:45 rolled around and my misgivings were going in a whole other direction, one that involved a lot of phone calls and broken bones.
Fortunately, he came through the door, and not a moment too soon. I had been on the verge of doing something very vindictive, namely making a call to Rhode Island to let some interested parties there know the whereabouts of Barry Farquhar.
He sat down at my booth, looking like he’d been dragged there under a locomotive.
“You’re late,” I said.
“Sorry, man. Long night. Celebrating”
I pointed my chin towards a cut above his eye.
“This?” he said. “It’s nothing. Just some jerk at the bar.”
“It isn’t stitched up, so you weren’t in the hospital. I was beginning to think-”
“Oh, come on, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I nodded, lacking much else to do. He had come. That was all that really mattered.
“You have it?” I asked.
“Sure do.”
He handed me a paper bag under the table. I didn’t have much compunction about going through it in my lap – all sorts of similar transactions took place in that diner, and the staff made a point of looking the other way. Precisely why I had chosen it.
“You’re about fifteen grand light.”
“Yeah, about that… well, you know I owed a lot to those guys from Providence.”
“I know exactly how much you owed, Barry, and I’m telling you you’re fifteen-thousand fucking dollars light.”
For a guy who had mastered the cold read, he had a lousy poker face. His eyes darted around and he shifted in his seat nervously.
“Christ,” I sighed. “What was it? Horses? Roulette?”
“I’m sorry, Tom.”
I got up and reached into my pocket. Farquhar pressed himself against the vinyl of the booth and covered his face with his hands.
”Cut it out,” I said. I took a business card from my pocket and flipped it across the table. “This is an addiction counselor, Barry. I know her, she’s very good. You might want to give her a call.”
Addicts hate unsolicited advice, but Farquhar’s relief that it was only a card
I pulled out of my pocket put him in no mood to argue. He picked it off the table and stuck it in his shirt pocket. I laid down a twenty for the pie and coffee that had been my companions while I waited and walked out. Barry seemed a little sad to see me go. He probably wanted to reminisce and revel about our victory. Truthfully, so did I. But, ever since offering my services to him a year ago, I’d been babysitting the world’s most volatile drunk, gambler, and curmudgeon. Looking after one pathetic old bastard was enough, thank you very much.
I wished him luck as I left. He’d broken even, and sometimes breaking even is as good as it gets. It’s the closest thing to a second chance people like him ever get.
Rolling my luggage onto the porch, I saw I had a visitor. It was nine in the morning, three hours until our flight and a bad time to be entertaining guests, especially one like the hunched-over brute sitting on my garden wall.
I took a few moments to lean my suitcase against the rail and said, “Bill.”
“Tom.”
“How’d you find me?”
“Seriously?”
“Stupid question. Here’s some better ones: what the hell are you doing here, and how’s unemployment?”
Bill stood and swelled out his chest. I kept on smiling. After all, it was my porch and Nevada has very lenient make-my-day laws.
“I’m not going to let you get away with it,” he said, though the “it” may have been a hiccup.
“Go home, Bill. You’re drunk.”
“I haven’t had a drink in six years.”
Ah, I thought. So that’s why he got kicked off the force.
“Don’t really care, Bill,” I said. “You’re not my problem anymore. Leave or I’m calling the cops.”
Bill made that same tiger shark grin I’d seen in Carmody’s office a few days ago.
“Go ahead. In fact, that’s exactly where I’m going to take you.”
“My ass.”
“It’s my fault, I guess. I thought you were scavenging off Farquhar. I never would have guessed you were working with him. But, the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense.”
“Last chance, Bill.”
“He was always able to read Jolene, wasn’t he?”
“That’s it,” I said, taking out my phone.
“While we’re at the station,” Bill sneered. “Remind me to tell them about the conversation I just had with the Deputy Director of the FBI.” He saw my hesitation and that rattlesnake grin grew even wider. “The Bureau isn’t just law enforcement, they’re counter-espionage, too. Getting a dossier on one of their former agents ain’t like picking up a birth certificate. It takes months of paperwork.”
“Like I said, I’ve got a friend in the Bureau.”
“That’s what interested the Deputy Director so much. Seems he takes issue with agents leaking classified information. He’d like to speak with you about your “friend”.
He wasn’t bluffing. The maniacal look in his eyes told me that I was either going to have to admit to the scam, or convince a roomful of Barry Farquhars that I had an imaginary mouse in their house. Either way, it would mean several years of small spaces and communal showers.
Bill took my silence for resignation and grabbed me by the wrist. I jerked my arm away and took a few steps back. He opened his blazer – still somehow not split at the shoulders – and directed my eyes to the .38 tucked in his waistband.
“Let’s go, punk,” he said.
I threw my hands down, feigning defeat long enough for Bill to relax his guard. The moment his hands dropped one of mine came up, a big, sloppy uppercut right below his chin. I heard his teeth clack together and saw his eyes swim. He fell into a sitting position on the brickstone. Before his eyes unclouded I reached down and pulled the gun from his open blazer.
“Dun shoot!” he said through a mouthful of blood. He had bitten off the tip of his tongue and, for a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“I’m not gonna shoot you, Bill. But I am gonna tell you why you’re going to forget about me and Farquhar.”
It was his turn to say “my ass”, which came out something like “ma ath”.
“Really?” I said. “Because, if you had thought this through, you’d have realized that you were Farquhar’s partner.”
Bill gave me that look dogs do when people dance in front of them. I put the gun in my pocket and explained.
“If you recall, Bill, it was your idea to propose the high-stakes game, your idea to use Jolene, and your insistence to not bring any outside people into the investigation.”
“That dothen’t mean a ting!”
“It’s pretty shaky on its own, I’ll admit. But, how about the fact that you were seen counting the cards, then went to the table the moment the count was heavily in Farquar’s favor? To stop him… or to signal him? Also, the Horseshoe paid you by direct deposit. I saw it when I reviewed your personnel file. It even had a nice voided check with your bank account number on it. How are you going to explain the 20,000 dollar cash deposit just a few hours after Farquhar cleaned the place out? Then, of course, there’s the record of the call you made to his cellphone.”
“I nev-” he began and, realizing what I was talking about, his eyes went wild with panic.
“So,” I concluded. “You’re going to keep your mouth shut about this whole thing. If you make trouble, I’ll have Graham start dropping hints about your ‘odd behavior’ during the investigation. He wasn’t hard to flip, by the way. He absolutely hates your guts, and five-thousand dollars to dawdle when it came time to pick up the phone and stop the game– well, even you can see it’s not the toughest decision in the world.”
Bill looked into his lap. He was licked. I knew it. He knew it.
“The twenty grand should cover you until you find a new job. Buck up. I hear the mall needs security guards.” I said.
Bill sat there shaking his head. I checked my watch and saw that the airport shuttle would be arriving soon, and airport shuttles, like time and tide, wait for no man.
I helped Bill up, having to catch him as he nearly swooned in my arms.
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“Car.”
“Are you okay to drive, or do you need me to call you a cab?”
“Fug gu,” he said, brushing me off. He kept repeating that all the way to the curb and well after he got in his car and was weaving down the street.
I went inside to retrieve the rest of my baggage, least of all my wife. She was standing in the hallway, supporting herself on the wall. For the second time that day, I rushed over and caught someone falling into my arms.
“I’m okay,” she panted. “A little vertigo, that’s all.”
That’s the way it is with Luisa. No complaining, no need for sympathy. The day the doctor diagnosed her with Von Hippel-Lindau Disease, she took it as stoically as if he were reading her the weather. Maybe that was because he went out of his way to stress that the tumors were benign. Benign, my ass. Try having them pressing up against your optic nerve and motor cortex, then talk to me about benign.
I steadied her on her feet. After composing herself, she asked, “What happened out there? I heard you talking to someone.”
“Just a salesman, honey. He’s gone.”
In my travel bag, I had 120,000 dollars in cash and two tickets to Switzerland. The Swiss may not have anonymous bank accounts anymore, but a few transfers up the Eurorail in Belgium they sure do.
You see, Farquhar’s sob-story about the sick wife was true – the rare disease, the specialist in Switzerland, every word of it. It just wasn’t his. As I helped Luisa out the door, I couldn’t help but think: maybe honesty isn’t such a bad habit after all.
NEW BATTERIES FITTED
DUMPSIDE
by D.L. Young
Deke stopped speaking when he glimpsed a naked woman crossing the hallway on the far side of the Dump Lord’s marble-floored foyer. It was only a second or two as she tiptoed from one doorway to another, but time seemed
to stop as he drank in her beauty— milk white skin, curly mane of blonde hair, pink painted toenails. He imagined how her hair might smell— rose petals or maybe jasmine— and how the warmth of her skin might feel as she lay on top of him, gazing down with a naughty grin. He continued to stare at the empty hallway after she’d disappeared.
Chang, the Dump Lord’s impeccably dressed right hand man, stood before him and smirked when he noticed where Deke’s gaze had drifted. “Such a shame women aren’t allowed dumpside. But it’s a good rule, I think. Can’t have distractions when you should be taking care of the bots, can you?” Chang’s face glowed the way it always did when he made wickedly pointed comments at Deke’s expense. “Must be hard living like a monk for so many years, yes?”
Deke turned his attention back to Chang and ignored the customary dig. Again he made his request, this time almost pleading. “Come on, I really need to see him. It’s important.”
Chang’s expression darkened and he waved his hand. “Running low on spare parts is not a crisis. I’m not going to bother my employer with small-time bullshit like this. And if you don’t want to end up scrounging for a living down in Tijuana, you’ll stop bothering me with these mini-dramas.” He fished around his pockets, pulled out some bills, and shoved them into Deke’s hand. “Here, this is more than enough for spares. Now go on, we have guests arriving any minute. How would it look if you were standing here stinking up the reception area?”
Deke sighed and tucked the bills into his pocket. Chang opened the door and impatiently motioned him out. “Out of here, go on.”
As he left he turned and took one last look toward the hallway. Chang slammed the heavy door shut, nearly hitting his nose. Deke stood facing the door for a moment, then turned and began to walk in the direction of the barrier wall, pausing as he always did to admire the estate’s ornate fountains and freshly sculpted gardens. He lingered when he came to the pool area, watching through a gap in the hedgerow as a dozen or so of the Dump Lord’s entourage laughed and drank and enjoyed the company of impossibly beautiful women. Lucky bastards, he thought. How long had it been since he’d even spoken to a woman? Three years? Four?