The Sky's the Limit
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Fictionwise
www.Fictionwise.com
Copyright ©2004 by Lawrence M. Schoen
First published in All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, January 2004
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I am sitting with two prominent citizens in a booth of a Philadelphia restaurant where they serve a piece of prime rib as big as your head and I tell you this is not a thing I normally do, not just because I am rarely of an inclination to visit this city of brotherly love, but also as the price of this dinner represents the better part of my rent back in New York. But this is not concerning me as one of my dining companions, Joey Morlock, is also my host and his potatoes will be paying for my beef. Most nobody knows the reason, but Joey Morlock is called this on account of his peculiar reading habits in which he is having no time at all for the hard news or the racing form or the society page. Joey does not peruse the newspaper at all, saving his eyes, which look big as peaches behind his thick-as-soda-bottle-bottoms eyeglasses, solely for the reading of scientific romances.
I do not judge a man by the stories he favors, though personally I can find no use for tall tales of time machines or trips to the moon and guys know that I lose my patience with Joey on more than one occasion as he wants not just to read these stories but to talk of them too. His eyes pop open wide and glaze over like some bum who is sleeping one off in an alley and snaps up wide awake from some nightmare born of bad hootch. When this happens to Joey Morlock there is no stopping him and whosoever has the misfortune of being nearby can either rush for the exit or groan and endure the latest synopsis. But most times Joey is aces, a sport and a generous friend to have around. He is also the luckiest man I know in all forms of wagering and propositions, and I know more than a few. I am knowing Joey Morlock to wander up to Belmont on a whim with just a few dibs and leave there at the end of the day holding fifty large, and this is not an unusual circumstance for the guy. He is in fact so lucky that he is barred from most establishments and he is usually at a loss to find a track or crap game or card house that will let him in more than twice.
So when I hear word from Beans McAllister of a special card game that is forming in Philly, one in which there is to be no limit on the wagering, I immediately think of Joey Morlock and make mention of this development to him. Joey is delighted at this news and he insists I join him in Philadelphia as his guest, but this is also to his advantage as I can then introduce him to Beans and gain his admission to this friendly game whereat he plans to leave with as many potatoes as he can carry out. Joey is also kind enough to stake me to a seat at the game, which is entertaining for me but no loss to him as he will take all those potatoes back too, hand by hand. So knowing this now you should find no surprise that the third guy chowing down on the prime rib with Joey Morlock and me is none other than Beans McAllister who is making the acquaintance of Joey Morlock and enjoying a pricey bit of beef on his nickel.
Beans clearly favors the grub, but he looks on edge, nervous like, and the way he hunches over reminds me of a dog who gets beat six out of seven days as a pup and now is always flinching when you make to pet him. Not that I want to pet Beans, not even close. He is a little guy in a suit that looks like he slept in it under a bridge. But that is not why I do not want to be sitting with him; I am not the kind of guy who looks down on a Joe because he does not know how to dress. No, I do not much want to be sitting with him because he is an accountant for a group of Philadelphia lawyers and I like bean counters only slightly less than I like shysters, and when I look over at Joey Morlock I can see he is of the same opinion. But Beans knows people in this town, and he knows where the game is, and I have explained this to Joey Morlock before we come to the restaurant so for the sake of the game he stakes Beans to the best meal of his bean counting life, confident that this will lead to many potatoes in the end. All through dinner Joey Morlock talks, but he does not talk of games or bets or propositions for fear of putting Beans more on edge and instead yammers like a doll at the cosmetics counter of Wannamaker's, on and on about giant bugs and invisible men. Finally, as Beans wipes his plate with the last bit of bread Joey switches over to the business at hand.
"Beans, our friend here tells me you can get me into a game,” says Joey Morlock and he glances my way and I nod. “We are talking high stakes, right?"
"Highest you have ever been in,” says Beans McAllister, and he laughs and gives me an elbow in the side, which I do not much appreciate on account I have just filled myself to bursting with some of the city's finest prime rib.
The look on Joey Morlock's face must be telling Beans that we do not get the joke because right then he leans over the table, giving me a closer look at his rumpled lapels and says to us both. “You ever been on an airship before?"
I give him a laugh back and say, “Oh sure, we come down from New York in one of them zeppelins. We had to leave it across the river in Jersey on account of high winds."
"No, really,” says Beans. “You know what an airship is?"
"I have seen one,” I says. “About eighteen years ago the Brits landed one in New York."
And just like that Joey Morlock's eyes pop wide and glaze over like they do when he is talking about them books he likes to read so much. He reaches out to grab my hand and begins pumping it like I just mentioned I went to school with the kid brother he ain't seen since the war. “You saw the R.34 dirigible,” he says, but his voice is soft as a hush and almost reverent and does not sound the way you expect to hear him talk. “I have only seen the American Navy airships, and only two of them, the Shenandoah and the Macon."
I have no idea what he is talking about so I just smile and retrieve my hand and pretend to take a sip from my water glass. Beans McAllister breaks into a grin but does not look like he knows what all is going on any more than me. I am still trying to understand why Beans asked about airships at all, and then it clicks and I roll my eyes because sometimes I can be dumber than a mortician's daughter.
"Your card game is on an airship,” I says, and even I am not sure if I am asking a question.
"Yup,” says Beans McAllister. “The game is on an airship. Only it ain't my game. It is Manhole McGovern's game."
When he says that name I can feel the ice water running in my veins and almost count the time it takes for my heart to freeze. I do not want to say even one bad word about Mr. Manhole McGovern. I do not want to say even one because I most firmly believe that am I to do so there is a very good chance that somehow, someday, Manhole will know and the very next day I will wake up that morning to find I am dead in my sleep of the night before. This is the kind of fellow Manhole McGovern is, and I know this only by reputation for he lives in Philly and I live in New York and if he ever decides to move to New York that is when I decide to move away, pausing only to tell my seven best friends to likewise move, and sparing no more time to warn anyone else. I have heard stories that Manhole McGovern is usually very methodical and precise in all he does, but that he has a temper like a volcano and when he is losing it even delights in inflicting pain in great quantities just to hear the effect it creates. This is not a natural way for a man to be, even such a man as rubs other fellows out, but this is what I hear from everyone about Manhole McGovern and now maybe you understand why I am saying these things and not saying them too. This is not a man I want to cross, and this is not a man I w
ant to beat at cards, no matter how many potatoes may be involved.
I turn in the booth to explain all this to Joey Morlock and I am thinking if we hurry we can still catch the late train out of Union station back to New York when I stop dead. For if I am of the opinion that Joey Morlock's eyes are aglaze before then he is even worse off now and I know I am lost.
"An airship,” he says. “I have always wanted to ride on an airship. What a tremendously perfect idea."
Perfect. This is what I think to myself. Perfect that I am going to play cards with Manhole McGovern flying in the sky. Perfect because if I start winning it will be easy for him to shove me out a door or a window. And I will not be able to hold onto the door or window because Manhole McGovern will first take the time to break each of the joints in each of my fingers before aiming me to the outside. Perfect.
So it is the next morning that Beans McAllister and Joey Morlock and I are standing on the air field and we are looking at an airship which I must tell you is at once both an amazing thing to behold and also very silly looking. I think of fat fat birds when I look at it, and I feel my stomach begin to go queasy. Now to be fair, part of this may be from the scrapple which I eat with breakfast not an hour before, but scrapple is what they eat in Philadelphia and so I give it a try and hope I am not to be regretting it later, but which I am now. Joey Morlock does not appear to share my discomfort, for he is gazing upon the airship and he has that look in his eyes again. You will believe me I am sure when I tell you I am weary to death of seeing this look of his.
"Who owns it?” says Joey Morlock, for he explains to me over breakfast that the navy is ever making only three airships and each of these crash one by one, a fact which though interesting does not fill me with confidence in the mode of travel. “It is the property of a private concern,” says Beans McAllister, and then he gives us a wink.
"How is it that Manhole McGovern can hold his card game there?” I says.
"He has a controlling interest in the private concern,” says Beans.
"How controlling?” I says.
"Completely controlling. It being a gift from his cousins,” says Beans and he smirks in a way that tells me he is doing some book work for Manhole McGovern on the side, which goes to explain how a guy like him has the inside word on a high stakes game like the one we are about to join. This, and because it is well known to me that Manhole acquires ‘cousins’ the way other men acquire neck ties, though no doubt he squeezes the cousins for far more potatoes than a new tie costs.
A car arrives and when the passenger door opens a doll steps out and time seems to stop like in one of those scientific romances that Joey Morlock talks about. This is no ordinary Judy, believe me, and I am not such a one as tends to lose his head over a doll. But this is the kind of doll whose kisser launches ships, and lots of ships, several hundred at least, though not usually of the lighter than air variety. I am still staring at this doll when I hear Joey Morlock asking who she is, which impresses me because myself I cannot put two words together to ask a question.
"That is Miss Caroline Carrock,” says Beans, and even coming from this guy the name sounds like music. “But you can put your peepers back in your heads the both of you as she is Manhole's girl and I am advising you not to forget this distinction."
Manhole and his doll come over to us then and Beans McAllister makes with the introductions. While we are doing this, another car arrives, carrying the three other players in our little game but Joey and I barely notice them for we are still staring at the doll who is now on Manhole's arm and strolling with him across the airfield. We follow after, aiming for what looks like a tiny house which attaches to the bottom of the airship. Beans rushes on ahead, scurrying just behind Manhole and the doll, and the other three players are behind him. Joey Morlock and I are bringing up the rear, which is when he leans into me and says right in my ear, “I think I am in love."
Well this makes me stop in my tracks and I haul him to a stop too because there is something which I need to say and which he needs to hear. “Joey,” says I, “you are the luckiest guy I know, and you have always been straight with me. On account of this I will return the favor and remind you of what you should already know. Namely, that a if a palooka is lucky enough to be lucky, he is lucky in cards or he is lucky with love, but no guy can be so lucky as to be lucky with both. Any guy who has a sweet-looking Judy like Miss Caroline Carrock on his arm is lucky in love, and you my chum are already known to be of the card-lucky persuasion."
I am saying all of this with my most sincere tone, but if Joey Morlock really hears any of it then I am a baboon smoking a Havana cigar. Instead he gives me this moon calf smile, sighs, and says, “I guess it is my lucky day."
This is when I am sure that the sinking feeling in my stomach is due to more than just Philadelphia scrapple. I am about to be in a card game with Manhole McGovern, staked by a pal who is hearing chirping bluebirds for a Judy who does not know he is alive, in an airship that I fully expect will crash if its owner does not throw me out an open door first after breaking my fingers. What can possibly happen to make this a worse day?
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Understand, that while I know quite a bit about one Mr. Manhole McGovern, I do not know these things from direct observation, but have built up my knowledge from first hand accounts of a number of prominent citizens. Nor do any of these tales venture into the area of what games of chance Mr. Manhole McGovern favors. I know only that we are in a fancy room that does not look like what I am expecting to find under an airship but is instead bigger than any two rooms at a boarding house but more opulent and regal like. There is a fancy brass door at one end of the room that is our entrance, and another fancy brass door at the other end which leads to the second and less ritzy room. I come to know this because Joey Morlock is asking to see everything in the airship and Manhole McGovern very graciously obliges him, and looks to be taking an instant liking to Joey because he is getting to show off his fancy airship. In this way we learn that the other room is where the crew what pilots the airship sits and they are all decent guys who also like answering Joey Morlock's questions until finally Manhole McGovern pulls us all back into the main room. I am not such a guy as knows much about decor, but the room is pretty swell and reminds me of a posh hotel back in New York with all its dark polished wood and fancy upholstery with shiny brass buttons everywhere. Both long walls are overflowing with windows, the lead glass kind that must be murder to replace, and as he leads us back across the room I can see the air field on either side, and I am thinking that it is wholly unnatural for a pair of rooms to leave the ground and fly around, even for something as important as a high stakes poker game. We pass a tiny bar with three stools nudging up against one of the windows, and I am wishing for a drink to settle my insides but Manhole hustles us past the bar, closer to the first door that soon will lead to open air, where I spy two dolls what are just setting up chairs and a collapsible card table with lush green felt and no small amount of polish on the wood.
From these facts even Beans McAllister's mother can determine that we are here to play cards, and this woman is dead for some years may she rest in peace. I will go further though and say that even this posthumous mother of an accountant knows we are not present for just any game of cards, but specifically those variants which men of character know as poker. It does not enter into my mind even once that we will play canasta nor gin rummy nor bridge, though I confess in some circles they are recognizing me as being no slouch at this last game.
But no, we are here to play poker, and when Joey Morlock and I sit down it is poker I expect us to play. I am no stranger to high stakes games, and I know there are rules of the house and I am expecting there are rules of the airship too. This should be no problem I think, as high stakes games are simple and direct, and maybe there will be some slight quirks that are new to me but little other surprises. I am expecting draw poker and stud poker and maybe a hand or two of seven-toed Pete or the occasional wild card, jus
t to keep it interesting. And in this I soon find I am mistaken. Manhole McGovern does not play traditional poker and he makes this clear to us. It is not enough for him that a Pair beats a high card, or a Full House beats a Flush which beats a Straight, or any of the usual objects of play in poker. For I discover as he explains the rules of the house that Manhole McGovern plays with a complexity of shades and special hands that I have only heard tell of here and there, by ones and twos for flair, but never all together in a single game.
This is not a problem though as Manhole takes from the inside pocket of his coat a small book which any of us can see is a copy of Hoyle and the final word on the rules of the game. I will confess that I am never reading this book, learning all I know about cards and dice and horses from friends and other acquaintances, and I say this to Manhole, hoping he will not take it the wrong way. But Manhole is patient and it is only when he is reviewing all these special hands for the third time, pointing out each special hand in his book, that I detect a growl in his voice as he distinguishes a Big Tiger from a Flush, a Little Dog from a Straight, a Skeet from a Blaze, and a Skip Straight from a Round-The-Corner Straight. I am making notes to myself to keep them all clear and I fear I am not doing so well and I ask if I can borrow his book, just to review while we play at cards and he is most agreeable on this point. I offer to share the book with Joey Morlock, but he merely nods and winks, and looks like he knows all these things which have never come up in any game of poker in which I have the pleasure to participate before. He knows them, but from his wink he is telling everyone that they are not for him, or so I think his wink means, but it is only a wink and so there is no telling for certain.
Or maybe it is just that he is remembering the most basic rule of poker, which as any card player will tell you is that in the showdown ‘the cards speak for themselves’ even if you do not know what your hand is worth. When I think of this I find it very encouraging and decide I will not worry so much about looking up every hand in Hoyle over and again and this is when I return Manhole's book to him. Also because beating Manhole at cards is a foolish proposition; no matter how much I might win here and now I am losing some time soon after the game is complete.