The Girl From Blind River

by Gale Massey

  The old guy looked at his cards for a full minute. She knew he would fold, and tanking on his decision like this was just his way of saving face. He didn’t fold until the other players started complaining, then mucked his cards faceup—a king/jack—and Jamie almost laughed. Old guys hated folding paint and they showed their hand every time as though to prove some point.

  He smirked and said, “Nice hand, little lady.”

  She hated the word lady but said nothing.

  Her next hand was a pair of jacks and she made the same play against him, knowing there was no way he’d let her keep stealing pots. He called her bet. They flipped their cards and he had a pair of eights. Her jacks held up and he was out.

  “A girl like you,” he said, letting his eyes drift from her face to her chest and back, “steamrolls like you got nothing to lose. Maybe you should slow down once in a while.”

  She said, “Yes, sir. I’ll pull up a little if it’s better for you.” She meant for her style to annoy other players, stayed unpredictable in order to throw them off balance, but hated when she won a hand and the loser told her how to play.

  His buddies chuckled and one of them said, “Watch yourself. That’s Loyal’s niece. You can bet she knows a thing or two.”

  She folded the next few hands, trying to stay under the radar. What she needed was to sit tight as long as possible and let things play out, give herself a solid alibi. A couple of small hands went her way and she built her stack a little more.

  Thirty minutes later, the dealers rotated and Phoebe landed at Tuckahoe’s table. Jamie glanced over and saw he was holding his own, but with the first hand Phoebe dealt him he shoved all his chips to the center. One other player called him and they turned their cards over. His pair of nines were up against a pair of queens. When another nine hit the river, Tuckahoe won and his opponent was out.

  Tuckahoe caught Jamie looking at him, smiled, and tapped his nose. She stared at his stupid face, caught up in remembering the satisfying smack of her elbow against Billy’s face last night.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Jamie had knocked out two more players and built her stack to fifty thousand chips, enough to coast for another hour or two. There were twenty-six players and three tables left in the game. When they got down to twenty players, Loyal moved Tuckahoe to her table. He sat down and touched his nose, and Jamie had to dig her fingernails into her wrist to keep herself from leaping across the table and punching him in the throat.

  An hour later they were down to sixteen players. If she kept her end of the bargain, she’d go up against Jack and then Keating. She hated this, hated the idea of losing a single chip to any of these men. When the dealers rotated for the last time, Phoebe landed at her table and dealt Jamie some big cards.

  She never knew who had taught her mother the mechanics of card manipulation, but the woman was a magician when it came to sticking aces. Sitting at the same table with her now brought the memories back: all those days and nights spent around their kitchen table when she was little. Phoebe’s fingers quick as lightning, Jamie soaking up the odds of making various hands, the thrill of catching her mother pulling an ace off the bottom of the deck for the first time.

  Everything had baffled Toby. He could never do the simplest trick, was always stunned when his mom pulled the jack of hearts from behind his ear. Jamie was thrilled when her fingers were finally long and strong enough to impose her will on the cards. Soon she was the one surprising Toby, like on his ninth birthday, when she had him shuffle the cards and then randomly counted out the date in diamonds.

  Three more players busted out and they got down to the final table. Tuckahoe was on her right and Jack was three players to her left, which was a good distance because she didn’t want to see his big sad eyes, the fake innocence on his face. Keating sat smug and calm across the table from her like he was holding court. Phoebe was still wearing that string around her neck and had yet to look directly at Jamie. Her mother was a pro and a pro would never give anything away through eye contact. But she would deal pocket kings to her own daughter on the very first hand.

  Jamie raised the blind by four, and Jack raised her. She let herself glance at him for the first time since he’d sat down, his sad fucking apologetic face. Fuck him and his stupid fucking designer scruff. Heat rose in her throat. If she looked into his eyes, she would burst into flames.

  She pushed all her chips to the middle.

  Phoebe told them to turn the cards over, but Jack refused when he saw Jamie’s kings. He tossed his cards into the muck and stood up. “Good game.”

  Asshole. She was just doing her job, and when good cards came her way she was going to play them hard.

  Her next three hands were crap and she knew Phoebe was cooling her off. It worked. Her gut calmed as she watched Keating take Tuckahoe’s entire stack by hitting a full house on the river. Keating took out the last two players in consecutive hands and it was down to her versus him in a winner-take-all final match.

  Loyal announced a fifteen-minute break to arrange the chairs on opposite ends of the table. Keating had about three hundred thousand in chips—twice her stack. She was supposed to lose to this man. The man who sentenced her mother and jailed her brother. He stood to stretch and saw her glaring at him. He winked and she’d never hated anyone more.

  Jamie went for a soda while Phoebe sat at the table watching over the cards and chip stacks. The crowd mulled around the table, speculating loudly about the two remaining players. Everybody had an opinion. Keating had the advantage. The girl, a child barely out of high school, was a rookie even if she was Loyal Elders’s niece. Walking through the crowd, Jamie watched as men exchanged cash. The side-bet odds were ten to one that the judge would take her out in two hands, no more than five.

  They could be right.

  Jack was sitting near the stage next to Lena Bangor and the two people who had been with her earlier. Jamie was surprised to see they’d come back, but this tournament was the only thing happening in town and it had been dedicated to Bangor. Mrs. Bangor, blondish-gray and gaunt, looked about fifty. She clutched a handful of tissues and sat tilted on her chair. The guy hovered over her as though he expected her to fall. Jack had already zeroed in on Lena. It was no surprise. The charming seducer with the stupid bouncy hair falling in his eyes. He stared at the floor, listening attentively to the girl, shaking his head. It made Jamie sick that she’d fallen for his act.

  When she got back to the table, Phoebe was counting out the deck and Loyal was hanging up his phone. He glared at Jamie as though he knew exactly what she’d done and it made the skin on the back of her neck prickle. His eyes stayed on her a little too long; it wasn’t her imagination. He knew what the cops were up to and suspected she was to blame. Her breath felt shallow and her heart beat too fast. She tried to feel the floor beneath her boots and guessed at how far Garcia might have taken things by now.

  Just then, Garcia and two uniformed officers slipped inside the front door. Jamie sat in the chair designated for her. Phoebe froze, staring at her hands, seemingly not even breathing.

  “Mom, chill out, okay?”

  Phoebe inhaled a sharp breath. “What’re they doing here?”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “I can’t do this.” Phoebe’s eyes widened as she scanned the perimeter of the room. She put her hand on her stomach and motioned toward Loyal, who was hanging up from yet another phone call. He came to the table and Phoebe whispered in his ear.

  He checked his watch and held up two fingers. “You got two minutes.”

  Phoebe grabbed her bag and went off toward the restroom.

  Loyal narrowed his eyes at the entrance. “What’s he doing here?” he said, motioning with his chin toward Garcia and the cops.

  “No idea,” Jamie said. She picked up a small stack of chips and shuffled them to stop her hands from trembling.

  “I’m serious,” Loyal said.

  Jamie recognized his tone. She stared at the far wall
to calm her nerves, trying to appear thoughtful. “Not much happens in this town. They probably just want to see the game play out.”

  The break was over. Keating pried himself away from his admirers and took his seat. Two minutes passed, then three. Loyal checked his watch. “Where is she?”

  “It’s her stomach,” Jamie said.

  “Go check on her,” Loyal said.

  Jamie walked down the hallway to the restroom. She saw her mother’s clunky work shoes beneath a stall door. “What’s going on, Mom? Everyone’s waiting.”

  The toilet flushed, and Phoebe stepped out, glancing toward the door, her bag hanging off her shoulder. “Why is that cop here?”

  “It’s not about you.” Jamie hesitated, trying to piece out what to tell the woman and what to keep from her until later.

  “How do you know? He’s been sniffing around all week. He’s got something on one of us.”

  “Okay, relax. Something did happen last night. But listen to me. You gotta keep your cool and play this out. We got to make it look like we got nothing to hide.”

  Phoebe turned white and leaned against the sink. “I knew it. I felt it all morning. What happened?”

  It was just like Phoebe to come unglued at the most crucial moment, but Jamie suspected the woman’s instinct was more survival than maternal. “Toby’s hurt, but he’s okay.”

  “What do you mean, hurt? Where is he?”

  “The hospital.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why tell you? There was nothing you could do.”

  “Nothing I could do?”

  “He’s still in custody. You can’t just walk in.” The lie came out like poison. Jilkins had told her a parent would be allowed to visit, but Phoebe had done nothing to earn that right.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this. I know how the system works. I’m his mother. They’ll let me in.”

  “You’re my mother, too, and I need you to keep it together.”

  “Come on, Jamie. You never needed anyone, least of all me.” Phoebe pulled the ring out from beneath her blouse, took the string from around her neck. “I can’t be near a cop with this thing.”

  It was bigger than Jamie remembered, as big as a golf ball, blinding with gold and diamonds. “That’s the least of our worries.”

  “Not the least of mine.” Phoebe pushed the ring at Jamie. “Get this away from me. Throw it in the river. I don’t care. Just get rid of it.” Her eyes darted around the room.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll figure it out.” Jamie slipped the ring into her pocket. “Just come back out to the table. Keep it cool or you’ll draw more attention.”

  Phoebe opened the bathroom window. “Someone else can deal the rest of that game. I’m his mother, Jamie.” Phoebe pointed at her chest. “I’m the only one they’ll let visit.” She threw her bag out the window into the alley behind the building.

  “Now you’re his mother? I fed him and sent him to school every morning for years but now you’re his mother. Scared is all you are. If you take off now, it makes all of us look guilty.”

  “Yeah, I’m scared. Scared that if I get locked up I’ll never see him again.” Phoebe crawled out the window. “Tell Loyal I got sick and went home.”

  “I knew this would happen, damn it. I knew you would leave like this,” Jamie said, but Phoebe kept walking.

  The alley was empty except for an overflowing dumpster. A plastic garbage bag caught in the wind and tumbled around the corner. Jamie watched as Phoebe neared the corner, pulled a card from her cuff, and threw it on the ground.

  Shit. The last thing Jamie needed was to have that deck of cards come up one card short. She crawled through the window and ran to get the card. The queen of spades. She slipped it into her cuff and climbed back inside.

  Jamie ran water in the sink, splashed some on her face. She should’ve seen this coming, should’ve known it would go down like this, that her mother would leave her to finish things on her own. Like always. She dried her face with paper towels, stared, pissed off at the mirror, hated that her eyes were the same grayish-blue as her mother’s, set too far apart with that same slope of eyebrow. A cleaning roster and a pen hung on a nail over the sink. She took the pen and scribbled ink on her finger, smudged it over one eyelid. She liked the effect it had and did the other side. Jamie stood back and checked her image in the mirror. Here was a new creature. One with the eyes of a warrior.

  CHAPTER

  36

  A CROWD HAD gathered around the final table when Jamie returned.

  “Where is she?” Loyal asked.

  Jamie sat down. “Dunno. It looks like she left.”

  “What the fuck?” There was a moment of chaos as his chair thumped backward and he went down the hall to the restroom to see for himself, as though Phoebe might have left a trail. By the time he came back he was angry and grumbling about a new plan. Lena Bangor would deal the final match.

  The girl refused to get up from her chair. “No, I don’t know how.”

  “Don’t worry.” Loyal pulled her to her feet. “I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

  “But I’ve never even played.” She flicked her eyes at Jamie, who dropped her gaze and pretended to count her chips. Instead, she was quietly speculating about allowing herself to lose, how much it would piss off Loyal if she didn’t take the beating, and how the cards might fall without her mother’s interference. Fades and bluffs. Regardless of the cards, she had to play to the man’s weakness, his ego.

  “It’s easy.” Loyal led Lena to Phoebe’s empty chair. He pulled his own chair up behind her and said, “In fact, it’s even better this way.”

  Keating said, “Your dad would be proud,” and the girl picked up the deck.

  The crowd pushed in closer. There was no pretense here. No one expected Jamie, the strange-looking girl, the contender with the weirdly dramatic eyes, to bring much game. Jack leaned against a wall across the room and stared at Jamie. He pointed at his eyes with a perplexed expression but Jamie didn’t care. Fuck you all resumed in her head, drowning out everything else.

  “Shuffle up and deal,” Loyal said, but Lena spilled the cards on the table.

  It was better than a shuffle. Even if her uncle had stacked the cards while she was in the bathroom, Jamie knew he couldn’t plant a card in this situation if his life depended on it.

  She folded the first hand and Keating folded the second, trading chips and staying even. On the third hand, Keating made a big bet and Jamie raised it by three. She propped her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her fists. He tapped the shirt pocket holding his cigarettes, his eyes darting sideways and then back to center, and called her bet. Two jacks came on the flop. She bet again, hoping he’d fold. She guessed he had face cards, maybe a king and a queen. He hesitated, then called her bet. She pushed all in when a nine came on the turn.

  Loyal sat with his arm stretched possessively across the back of Lena’s chair, cleared his throat, and glared straight-faced at Jamie. He’d be pissed if she made Keating look foolish, but if the crowd of men betting against her wanted a show, she’d give it to them.

  Keating folded. “I’ll give you this one, little lady.” He turned over an ace and threw his other card into the muck.

  Jamie slid her cards facedown across the table and said nothing.

  Keating smiled his campaign smile. “Be a sport and show one.”

  “No, sir. I never show my cards,” Jamie said.

  “Oh, come on. This is a friendly game.” He reached for her cards and flipped the first one he touched, the ten. She gestured whatever, hoping he’d flip the other card, too. He did.

  When he saw the deuce he glanced hotly at Loyal.

  Jamie stacked her chips and willed a straight face. She’d pulled off a classic bluff with a ten/two and someone in the back of the crowd laughed. Keating couldn’t have expected a move like that in a game that was supposed to have been rigged in his favor. His face reddened, but the e
mbarrassment was his own fault. He shouldn’t have turned her cards over when she’d said no. He drummed his fingers on the table, tapped his shirt pocket again.

  Loyal shuffled the deck and handed the cards to Lena, who dealt the next hand.

  Their stacks were even now and any hand could end the game. Keating leaned back and stretched his arms over his head, smiled at Lena. It was pathetic. The old guy sucking up to a grief-stricken girl. He might appear to be consoling and fatherly, but Jamie saw how his eyes lingered over the girl’s breasts.

  “The action’s on the judge,” Loyal said.

  Keating peeked at his hole cards and tossed a few chips in the pot.

  Jamie checked.

  Lena turned over the first three community cards, two tens and a king.

  Keating fired a huge bet and Jamie folded her lousy pocket threes.

  On the next hand, Jamie turned the corners up on her cards and saw a good hand, the ten of diamonds and nine of spades. Her vision narrowed but her mind expanded with an odd but familiar awareness. This was the hand it would all come down to.

  Lena spread the community cards, the king of hearts, the ten and three of spades. A pair of tens was good in a heads-up match, but Keating was too calm.

  A murmur went through the crowd. Someone whistled, someone said, “We might get some fireworks now.”

  Keating bet half his stack and the crowd hushed. He might have big cards, but she was still in it with her pair of tens and the spades. She could hit a legitimate spade flush, but right now he was beating her and he knew it. She made her hands tremble slightly.

  Toby never folded spades. He’d always bet them, always believed they’d come through. This one’s for you, brother. She made her hands tremble a little more, fumbled the chips as she counted them out. Keating watched her closely, tried not to smile at what he would have to presume were nerves.

  Her mind was quiet except for the ticking of her heart. It had been so cold that day at the jail, Toby’s fingers nearly blue. She imagined his hands, cold and numb while he tied the hangman’s knot. He was so damn good at knots. She wondered how many times he’d changed his mind, tied it and untied it, before deciding to go through with it. How long had he spent trying to get the rope the right length?