The Girl From Blind River

by Gale Massey

  Itchy Nose ordered a round for the table. He lifted his glass toward them and downed it.

  “Fucker,” Jack said. He took out another bill, and Jamie took the cash. She hesitated, but she had made this mess and he was trying to help. She took the money and the chair opposite the dealer.

  “Yo, Hoodie sent his girlfriend,” Itchy Nose said, and the men at the table laughed.

  She saw their sideways glances, their subverted smiles, and sensed these guys had a history, that she was an outsider. Her throat constricted. The dealer counted out two hundred chips and slid them to Jamie. Her hands trembled as she collected her chips.

  The dealer shuffled the cards and sent them around the table. She lifted the corners of her hole cards. A five/seven off suit. Not worth the cost of a big blind. She fumbled the cards when she slid them back to the dealer and was sure the other players noticed. They’d be watching for any sign of weakness. She jammed her fingers under her thighs and sat on them while the hand played out. The salami rumbled in her belly.

  Up close she could see Itchy Nose’s tattoo. It was a colorless black job, cheap, like he’d only paid for the outline. She counted backward from ten to try to slow her breathing. He caught her looking at him and smirked. “Name’s Damon,” he said. “Tough break for your boy.”

  Jamie nodded. She didn’t care what his name was and there wasn’t any reason to talk to him. She owed him nothing.

  His nails were chewed, the calluses thick but clean, a few nicks on his knuckles. His hair was the color of sawdust and he was jumpy in the forearms. She guessed he worked some kind of labor that needed muscle but didn’t involve grease. He raised the blinds, picked up a few dollars, and watched her watching him.

  She ignored the hot nausea burning the back of her throat and waited for the next hand. Playing in a casino was a much bigger rush than playing online where no one could see her face or the movements of her hands or stare stupidly at her. An old guy at the end of the table stared openly at her chest, dropped his hands to his lap, and smiled. She clenched and unclenched her fist, testing her fingers. They were steadier now but she didn’t trust them yet.

  “Excuse me, miss?” Itchy Nose was talking to her. “You got a vein, right here,” he said, pointing to his temple. “It’s blue and for some reason it’s throbbing.”

  Another player laughed and Jamie knew she was going to blush. In ten seconds her whole face would turn red and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it.

  For her thirteenth birthday her uncle had taken her and Toby hunting. They’d sat in a deer blind for hours, Toby bored and carving his initials on the wall, waiting for the sun to rise. When it did, a buck stepped out into a meadow just fifty yards away. Loyal lined up the shot for her with a new rifle he’d bought from the Walmart and told her not to be a pussy. The buck stood solid and gray, morning dew setting around his flanks, and Jamie saw something she’d never seen before, something innocent, something majestic, something proud. “Now,” Loyal had whisper-shouted and she’d pulled the trigger. The blast crushed her eardrums and ripped a hole in the buck’s neck. He staggered sideways two steps and then his front legs folded. His back quarters hit the ground less gracefully, legs twitching like he was peddling a bike. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, off what she’d done. That’s when the trembling had first started. That’s how she felt now.

  The dealer tapped the table in front of her and said, “It’s on you, miss.”

  She peeked at her hole cards and found a pair of queens. Another shot of adrenaline hit her bloodstream. She did the math. The right bet was forty. She reached for her chips and knocked the stack over, counted them out, and tossed them to the middle.

  Itchy Nose said, “I’ll see the flop,” and he and another player called the bet. It was her hands. They were giving her away. Guys like these would call her all the way to the end, thinking she was trying to outplay them. Heat flushed up to her ears.

  The dealer laid out the first three cards, and the ten of diamonds was the highest card on the flop. Itchy Nose bet a hundred and she knew he was trying to bully her. If she called him, she might as well bet her whole stack. Chances were her queens were still the best hand, and besides, if she didn’t have the guts to play queens, she might as well fold and go home to face Loyal. Itchy Nose was staring hard at her and that jumpy muscle in his neck had smoothed out. His eyes went a little unfocused when she stared back. A classic bluff.

  She pushed all her chips to the middle and felt the edges of the room tilt away when he and the other guy called the bet. Whether or not she won this hand, she’d never forget these bastards.

  “Three all-ins,” the dealer said. “Turn ’em over.”

  Itchy Nose flipped over a pair of twos; the other player turned over a jack/nine. They’d pegged her for weakness and come gunning. Idiots. Her fingers seemed like jumpy little animals but somehow she got the queens turned over.

  The dealer placed the fourth community card on the table, an ace.

  The jack/nine was drawing dead and Itchy Nose needed a two to hit a three-of-a-kind. The dealer turned over the last card, a seven.

  “Fuck me,” Itchy Nose said.

  “Queens are good,” the dealer said, and slid the pot toward Jamie. The relief was a lot like being high. Too high.

  Winning was supposed to feel good, but something dark twisted in her gut. She grabbed her chips and stood up. Part of her wanted to laugh, part of her needed to run.

  “Don’t leave now,” Itchy Nose said, the snake tattoo bunching at his throat. “You gotta give me a chance to win it back.”

  But she knew better. They’d each taken their chances and it could’ve come out different. She shoved the chips into Jack’s hands and hurried down the hall to the bathroom.

  A few minutes later Jack called to her from outside the bathroom door. “You need anything in there?”

  Jamie was slumped on the floor. “Got any disinfectant on you?”

  “Are you on the floor? That’s gross. Get up.”

  Jamie flushed the toilet and pushed herself up. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  She braced herself on the sink and cupped some water to her mouth. The nausea was gone. She bought a disposable toothbrush and some aspirin from the vending machine, ignoring the impulse to stock up on high-priced condoms.

  “Babe. Come out here. That was vicious.”

  Her legs were shaky but she managed to get out the door.

  “You look better, less green.” He pulled her to a quiet spot near the water fountain, his eyes wild like when he was hard. “You won six hundred dollars!” He grabbed her arms.

  “I got lucky,” she said, but she couldn’t deny it. She’d felt the rush, too.

  “It took guts to go up against that guy. It was more than luck; it was sick. You’re on a heater,” he said. “You need to strike while you’re hot.”

  “Maybe.” She leaned against the wall and locked her knees.

  Jack said, “We need a plan.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. The aspirin burned in her stomach, which meant that her headache would let up soon. “Here’s a plan. Those guys I just beat? I made them look like fools in front of their friends. They’ll come gunning for me now. I’ll buy back in and wait for the right moment to raise the stakes. They won’t back down. All I have to do is wait for the right cards to come along.”

  “What about Keating?”

  “I’ll call Toby. If he asks her, my mom will cover it. I mean, what’s it pay? A hundred bucks? I need three grand.”

  She realized if she won enough, she wouldn’t need the judge’s recommendation for Toby. She could pay for the summer camp herself.

  “I’m doing this.” She held out her hand. “And I need it all.”

  “You’re so hot right now. I love it when you get fired up.” He hugged her then and she felt him getting hard.

  She smirked and pushed him away. “Maybe we’ll get that room after all.”

  When she got back to the
table, Itchy Nose had bought in for another thousand. He joked with the new dealer and ignored her when she took a chair at the end of the table. She slid twenty-five hundred to the dealer, but the limit was two thousand. Already she looked like a rookie, not even knowing the table limits. She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t play the first round, let herself relax and tamp down her nerves, hated it when she saw the ace/king of hearts staring out at her from her hole cards. She was out of position and the first to act and a little horrified when five players called her hundred-dollar bet.

  The flop came. No ace, no king, all black clubs. She knew she should bail here, but checking would tell everyone she’d missed. She bet the pot, five hundred and change, and was proud of how still she was able to keep her hands. With nothing to back it up, though, her bet was too large.

  “Here she comes again,” Itchy Nose said. He tossed some chips into the middle and called the bet.

  It was almost like he knew she was bluffing, and it made her think he’d picked up on some sort of tell. It was possible. She sat still, focused on the center of the table, but couldn’t help cutting her eyes at him to see if he was watching her. He smiled. One other player stayed in the hand. She ran the calculations. There was fifteen hundred in the pot. There was fourteen hundred left in her stack.

  The dealer turned the fourth card. A king. She had high pair now, but there were four clubs on the board. She felt calm as she thought it through. Neither of them had bet like they had a flush. This was the perfect spot to front the nuts and back it up with the pair. She’d made this move a hundred times online and it almost always paid off.

  “All in,” she said, keeping her hands in her lap.

  “I want a count,” Itchy Nose said.

  She slid her stack toward the dealer for him to count. Her hands were steady allies now.

  “Fourteen eighty,” the dealer announced.

  Itchy Nose watched her closely. She turned to face him directly to convey some confidence in her move and felt a little sick when he said, “Call.”

  He seemed unfazed. The top of her head went cold when he turned over the seven/eight of clubs. She’d played one hand. She’d lost it all.

  Jack shook his head, walked away.

  “Let me give you a tip, honey,” Itchy Nose said, laughing and stacking his chips. “It’s your hands. They shake when you got the nuts, but when you bluff, they’re still as pond water.”

  She followed Jack through the casino, to the entrance, and out to the parking lot. There was nothing to say. An hour later he dropped her at the curb in front of Angel’s house because there was no way she could show up at that game and face Keating and her uncle.

  CHAPTER

  6

  PHOEBE LOVED THE sounds of the game, the shuffle of the cards, the sifting of chips, the occasional snap of a beer can popping open, the strike of a match, the sizzling tobacco of a fresh cigar. She couldn’t remember when she’d been up this late in the company of men who weren’t wearing uniforms. It almost felt like old times.

  She had arrived at Keating’s house at five minutes to eight. Keating’s two-story Tudor and its sweeping roofline sat at the end of a long drive with the usual rides parked along the street: Cadillacs, Lincolns, and a sleek black Lexus. While they poured drinks, she made her way to the game room, took her place at the center of the table, and waited. She felt sure it wasn’t a parole violation to deal a poker game at a judge’s house, but she’d been in the system long enough to know that anything could land her in lockup if she came up against a pissed-off cop with a hard-on for trouble. Still, it was a chance she had to take. When Toby had come to the diner with the message that Jamie was going to miss dealing a big game at Judge Keating’s, Phoebe had seen it as an opportunity to do something to help her daughter, maybe build a little goodwill. Loyal would be angry at the change, but he might go easy on the girl if he had a decent night. She could throw him a few good cards for the sake of family peace. Besides, as much as she despised him, she owed him for taking in her kids when she’d gone away.

  “I took a cut for the dealer,” Keating said, handing Phoebe some folded twenties as the men took their seats at the table.

  Introductions were quick. Most of the players, Phoebe guessed, were men immune to losing money at poker from years of excursions to Atlantic City or Las Vegas. Three were from out of town and wouldn’t know her or her history, or that when she wanted to, she could pull an ace out of thin air.

  Six players, six thousand dollars less the dealer pay. Unless someone busted out early and bought back in. She pegged the linebacker for that. Pocket money for Keating and Loyal. The rancher and the state rep probably had the good sense to see their attendance here as just another hazing ritual along their climb to power. An invitation to Keating’s home game was an honor, and everyone expected a few laughs even if all they left with was a sick story about a bad beat. Hardly anyone was stupid enough to expect to win, but whichever way the night went, they’d all remember the moment when their luck ran cold.

  The big guy seated directly across from her was TJ Bangor, a retired NFL tight end who said he was in town to deliver a motivational speech to the men’s breakfast club at the Methodist church. Phoebe had to smile. Beating a guy like that would mean lifetime bragging rights to any man in this room.

  And, of course, there was a cop. There was always a cop. Carl Garcia sat in the chair to her right looking just like a detective—mousy hair, dull eyes, faded plaid shirt—but fit and muscular like a cop with ambition. She’d throw him some good cards to keep him happy. Chances were he was a decent player. Cops in Blind River sat on their butts a lot down at the precinct. Poker was their favorite pastime.

  “We’ll call the game at twelve o’clock. Winner takes all,” Phoebe said, and cut the deck. “Keep your cards on the table where I can see them, please. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  A cloud of smoke already hovered beneath the paneled ceiling. Someone lit another Cuban. Phoebe breathed it in and watched as Loyal reached over and took one for himself from the humidor on the bar. She shuffled the deck twice, then dealt the hole cards.

  She’d rummaged up a white button-down shirt and black vest and looked as legit as the pretty young dealers she’d seen in Atlantic City all those years ago. But she wasn’t a girl anymore. A girl could get away with almost anything when it came to poker and grown men, but prison had left her run down. Bad food, bad health care. Her left eye drooped a little now—an injury from a fight over a bottle of ketchup. She sat up a little straighter realizing she still had good posture and was glad she’d had the foresight to buy some blush and lipstick from the drugstore last week.

  Keating checked his cards and threw two chips in the pot. Loyal adjusted the extra weight that hung over his belt buckle and glanced over at her. She hadn’t looked him in the eye yet, hated him despite how he’d stepped up for the kids. She dealt him a pair of jacks and watched as he calmly trimmed the ash from his cigar.

  She held the deck in her hand and looked at the wall to her right while the action made its way clockwise around the table.

  When it was Loyal’s turn to bet, he stared stubbornly into space long enough that she had to say something. “The action’s on you, sir.”

  Her eyes finally met his and she remembered the day, more than twenty years ago, when Jimmy had brought her home the day after they’d crossed the state line and eloped. Loyal had done nothing when his father sucker-punched Jimmy and screamed that he’d married trash. Things were never the same after that and even though Jimmy had never held a grudge against his little brother, Phoebe had. In all the years since then, she and Loyal had barely spoken to each other.

  Keating knocked a knuckle on the felt and said, “Check or bet.”

  “Raise.” Loyal threw two black chips into the middle, but no one wanted the action and he took the pot.

  Phoebe pushed the chips toward him and said, “The raiser wins.”

  After an hour she’d worked Keating’s deck to
where she could read the cards like Braille, softened the corners on the aces, split the corners on the kings with her thumbnail. Queens got dented with a fingernail halfway down the side; jacks got the same indentation at the top. She barely had to glance at the cards when she turned them faceup on the table to know what had hit the flop, the turn, or the river.

  The whiskey flowed. The rancher and the politician got tanked early and didn’t put up much of a fight. They busted out in consecutive hands to Keating and neither seemed to care as they drifted out of the house.

  The detective made her uneasy, but it was time to cast to the shallow end. She sent him a king/jack and watched him suppress a smile and swallow some whiskey when TJ, that big football player, bet a hundred dollars before the flop. She glanced over at TJ’s cards, saw the warped corner of an ace, and gave him a little credit for trying to steal the hand with a single ace. The other men bailed but Garcia called the bet. Phoebe stuck another ace on the flop along with a jack and watched TJ’s pupils dilate like he’d fallen in love. He bet two hundred on the aces but Garcia called with the two jacks. The turn was a three and TJ bet another two hundred. Garcia stayed with him. When Phoebe stuck a third jack on the river and Garcia won with a set, TJ threw his aces in the muck, poured himself more whiskey, and tried not to pout.

  “Bad beat,” Garcia said.

  It was a typical nice-guy comment and Phoebe smiled because, deep down, she knew he had to be thrilled.

  “That a Super Bowl ring?” Garcia asked.

  “Yep.” A bet like that was nothing to a man like TJ and he played it cool. He was easily the largest man at the table and could have bullied anyone here. She wondered how many concussions he’d had in his twenty-year career and if he’d keep his cool after getting fleeced by Keating and Loyal. There was no way he would know what was coming.