Bluff

by Michael Kardos

  Something occurred to me. “You said you have a quarter million dollars saved, but we need twice that. There are two of us. Two buy-ins, right?”

  Her face became a frown. “I’ve got it covered.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t need to know how.”

  “I’m your partner,” I said. “I’m putting myself at risk. I need to know where the money’s coming from.”

  She glanced down at her hands. “Let’s say I’ll be taking a cash advance on the cardsharp’s credit card.”

  What did that even mean? “Are you talking about a loan shark?” She didn’t answer. And then an even worse thought occurred to me. What if she was overstating the amount she’d saved? What if she was borrowing all of it?

  “And what if you can’t pay it back?”

  “I’ll pay it back. I’ll pay it all back on January second. We’re gonna win, Natalie.”

  I still wasn’t sure how much she’d borrowed, but I knew I was no paragon of candor. I had yet to breathe a word about knowing Victor Flowers—about having been in his house all those years back, and about what he’d done to my father. At first I hadn’t told her because I was afraid she’d ditch me as her partner. Now it was too late. We were too far along. And I told myself it didn’t matter anyway, especially with more important things to consider, like Ellen’s still-bleeding thumb.

  “Let me take you to the ER,” I said. “We have to know how bad it is.”

  “I told you, it’s not bad,” she said, and winced. “I really want to get out of Jersey. So help me, I do.”

  “Damn,” I said.

  “A fucking onion,” she said. “A fucking fancy-sauce onion.”

  Online, I found an urgent care center that was on her way home and open late. I offered to drive, but she waved me off, told me I was better off using the time to practice my Greek deal. I found some masking tape and helped her tape a fresh wad of paper towel to her thumb, and when she left I fretted, passing time with a deck in my hand. It seemed cruel for a simple slip of the knife to upend all our planning and preparation. I put the TV on and found a show where ordinary people sang their hearts out trying to become famous. When it was over I shut off the TV and kept shuffling and dealing cards.

  Finally, my cell phone buzzed.

  “I just got home,” Ellen said. “Four stitches and a tetanus shot. Could’ve been worse. I’m gonna get some sleep.”

  “But how is it?” She knew what I wanted to know.

  Silence. Then: “I don’t think I can deal the cards, Nat. Not the way I have to. Any other game, I swear I would just go ahead and take the chance. But not this game, you know?”

  “And what about shuffling and controlling the cards?”

  “My hand is still kind of numb right now.” Her voice sounded flat from exhaustion and disappointment. “I think I can probably do it.” Not the reassurance I had hoped for. “I have to see how it is tomorrow. I’ll let you know.”

  K

  Our decision to switch roles—for her to become the shuffler and me the dealer—happened gradually, over a series of phone calls during the next two days. There was plenty of incentive. Neither of us was ready to give up on the plan.

  Ellen would still get the winning hand. Instead of her dealing it to herself, I’d be dealing it to her. But I wouldn’t be throwing either one of us the occasional high card to rush the two worst players, Jason and Ian, out of the game prior to our prearranged hand. Ellen had planned to speed their loss along, same as she did every day as a cardsharp: pull an ace or king from the muck to improve her odds. But she didn’t trust me to improvise, and I didn’t trust myself. If Jason and Ian happened to lose quickly, so much the better. If not, that was okay. Maybe they’d get caught up in the excitement and go all in anyway. Maybe they’d fold. If they folded, Ellen would bleed them after the hand was over, once Victor and Danny were out of the game. She would have almost all the chips then and was the superior player. It wouldn’t be hard.

  But Victor and Danny, they could really play.

  We focused on what we had total control over: the cards. Ellen didn’t trust her deal, because the thumb was so important in holding the deck, but she promised that her shuffling and card controlling were relatively unaffected. I chose to believe her. And as for me, I’d been working on the Greek deal anyway, but now I worked on it as if nothing else mattered. My Charlie Miller pass was coming along, too, but I decided to shelve it. My classic pass was among the best in the business. If Victor didn’t complete the cut, I would simply complete it for him, and then, locating the corner that Ellen would have bent at the end of her shuffle, I’d execute the classic pass.

  We talked on the phone several times a day, and every conversation ended with one of us asking, “Are you sure you’re going to be ready?” We always said we were. And with each call, our assurances became more assertive, more believable, and more true. Still. My Greek deal was performance ready, but performance ready, to my mind, wasn’t gambling ready. It wasn’t million-dollar ready. Or maybe it was. Maybe fear was clouding my judgment. I’d never done this before, and total perfection was perhaps an unreasonable goal. In the mirror, I fooled myself more often than not. But occasionally that second-from-the-bottom card seemed to drop at a different speed. Or it made a sound, a rustle, that to my ears was different from the other cards. Slightly louder. Slightly lower in pitch. I barely left my apartment. I barely did anything but deal cards. When the cards became too worn, I unsealed a new deck. I checked and rechecked finger positions, I slowed down the deal and went through the motions again and again.

  From my teenage years I knew the benefits of repetitive practice—improved technique and, yes, avoidance. You could lock yourself in a room, shut everything and everyone out, and call it useful. But what I did in these last days of December was of a whole other magnitude. When I remembered to, I ate. When I remembered to, I slept. I always thought I knew what it meant to woodshed, but I was only learning it now. And yes, I was aware of the irony—how I was becoming the best magician I had ever been just as I had ceased to be one.

  And on the afternoon of December 31, though I hesitated to put down the deck, I nevertheless drove to Edison, to Hār Salon, a business I’d driven past many times but never entered, where a chatty young woman named Celeste chopped off most of my hair—my hār—and bleached what remained.

  New Jersey was a little more than an hour into the new year. Still punctuating the transition were random bottle rockets and M-80s and whatever other minor explosives teenage boys and former teenage boys preferred to ignite on their porches and in the street. Pop. Pop-pop-pop. Then quiet. Then more pops. The irregular rhythm sounded like gunfire, a minor massacre.

  When the quiet returned and stuck around awhile, I knew I ought to sleep, but sleep felt as remote as another galaxy, so I slung a coat over my pajamas and left the apartment. For the first time ever, I wished I had a dog to walk.

  The lights of most of the apartments across the way were off. The storefronts up and down the street were closed. There were no stars overhead and the air smelled of smoke. The cold felt good on my face. As I stood on the silent street a few flurries fell. It almost felt like winter. It almost felt like someplace else. Then the flurries stopped, and I returned to my apartment and removed my coat. I sat on the loveseat and picked up the deck of cards from the coffee table.

  My parents loved your music, I said as I dealt. They owned both your albums.

  Card, card, card, card.

  My father worked for you.

  Card, card, card, card.

  But when he wouldn’t break the law, you broke his ribs and then you broke him.

  Card, card, card, card.

  You broke my family.

  Card, card, card, card.

  The outer doorknob rattled, and I heard Harley enter the building. She shut the door louder than usual, humming a tune. She trudged up the stairs, and when she entered her apartment she said, “Jasmine, baby!” She laughed and said, �
��It’s okay, baby.” The two of them descended the stairs and went outside. I would never sleep. A glass of wine would help. I made myself drink water instead. Harley and her dog returned and went upstairs again. My phone said it was 1:38 a.m.

  I turned on the TV, turned it off again.

  I tolerated my own company for another ten minutes. Then I left my apartment and climbed the stairs. Knocked quietly on the door. I waited a minute and knocked a little louder, and the dog, Jasmine, came clicking across the floor toward the door followed by human footsteps. Harley opened the door.

  “Natalie!” she said, stepping backward.

  “I know. My hair’s awful.”

  “No! It’s cute. It’s just a big change. But ring in the new year, right?” She was wearing sweatpants and a yellow T-shirt. She yawned. “I’m a little drunk.”

  In the year she’d lived upstairs I’d never seen the inside of Harley’s place. “So could I come in for a minute?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Come in. Grab a seat.”

  It was hard to believe her apartment had the same bones as mine. Her living room looked like somewhere you’d willingly spend time. Soft lighting and a sofa that looked comfortable and modern, and throw pillows, and so much artwork on the walls, all that color.

  Harley went over to the sofa. Jasmine jumped up and pressed her body against Harley’s. There was a small patch on the dog’s back where the fur was missing. “She’s a little freaked out. I think because of the fireworks,” Harley said. “Do you want a glass of wine? None for me—whoa!—I’ve had enough. Don’t ever party with veterinarians. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I faked a smile and sat on one of the cushioned chairs opposite the sofa. “No,” I said. “Nothing, thanks.” The wall to my left was covered in photographs—posed shots, candids, Harley and others on the beach, in the mountains, people in medical scrubs, people in dresses and suits … the scenes of her life, the people in her orbit, now and in the past.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  We had each other’s phone numbers. The week she moved in, she gave me a spare key for emergencies. I gave her mine. Then she asked me for my number and entered it into her contacts as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I’d done it, too, as if we would become fast pals, the gal upstairs and the gal downstairs, like in a sitcom from my childhood. Now a whole year had passed. I wondered why I’d done nothing to become her friend. Why I’d done nothing to become anyone’s.

  “I’m supposed to do something tomorrow,” I said. “But I can’t do it. I’m not ready.”

  “Do you mean a magic show?”

  I didn’t know if I was choosing her because I thought she was trustworthy, or because she had patched up my hurt leg with gentle hands, or because she was my neighbor and there was no one else. A lifelong allegiance to keeping secrets can take its toll. Do it long enough, and there’s no one left to tell.

  “Kind of,” I said. She watched me, confused. “So I don’t know you very well. That’s my fault. But can you keep a secret?”

  “Sure. Okay, Natalie. What is it?”

  “That’s a nice dog, isn’t it?”

  “Jasmine? She’s the best.”

  “Do you think they’re all the best?”

  She smiled. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “This thing I have to do tomorrow. I want to do it, you know? But it’s not an honest thing.”

  “And that’s bothering you.”

  “No. Actually, it isn’t. Maybe it should. But I want it. I want to do it. But I’m not good enough.”

  “Oh,” she said, furrowing her brow.

  I didn’t mean the Greek deal, which was getting better all the time and might fool anyone even if it didn’t always fool me. I meant the entirety of it: facing Victor Flowers and those other men, playing the role assigned to me, keeping my performance going all night long until the money was ours and we were safe. Ellen refused to admit that anything could go wrong. I lacked her confidence. Everything could go wrong. And if it did, what would I do? I’d assured Ellen I was all in, but was I? Would I crumble? Would I cry? Would I spill everything to save my own skin? I hoped not, but I didn’t know. It was easy to keep a secret when the stakes of keeping it were nil. That was the thing: twenty-seven, and I still didn’t know myself well enough to answer the most basic questions about honesty and loyalty and survival. If everything went right, I would walk out of Victor Flowers’s house in less than twenty-four hours with two hundred thousand dollars and the knowledge that I had bested him. But if everything went wrong? I was afraid of what I might learn about myself.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Harley asked, which seemed like a polite and perfunctory question, until I realized that, actually, yes, there was something she could do—that maybe this thing she could do for me was what had been itching the corners of my brain and driven me upstairs.

  “My birds,” I said. “If for some reason something … happens to me, would you take them?”

  “What do you mean? What could happen to you?”

  “Nothing. I’m just being—” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. But I’d feel better knowing you’d take them. They’re really easy. They’re good birds.”

  Harley tilted her head, as if trying to see me from a different angle, and the motion reminded me of what the doves themselves often did. “Of course I will,” she said, straightening her head again. “Listen, Natalie, I know it’s not my business, but do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  I almost did. The late hour, the intimacy of someone else’s apartment, the fact that earlier I had sat and watched the ball drop over Times Square on TV, one more year of observing the thriving horde from my lonely sofa—it all made me want to reveal myself to her. But where would I start? I couldn’t tell her about Ace, and meeting Ellen, and the poker game, and how what began as the prospect of a magazine article had become something else. I couldn’t tell her about the Greek deal or the money Ellen and I planned to take. Whatever I said would require more, and then more still, filling in the gaps about who and why. But tomorrow the sun would rise, and I didn’t want Harley—who was not my friend, because I had never taken the time to become hers—I didn’t want her carrying around my burden. She had agreed to take my birds, and I was grateful.

  “Thank you,” I said, glancing away so she wouldn’t see my eyes suddenly welling up.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “They’re animals. I take care of them. It’s what I do.”

  “I think I’m going to go to bed,” I said. I thanked her again and left her apartment for my own, which felt all the more stark. I returned to the loveseat and picked up a fresh pack of cards. The last one. I pierced the plastic wrapping with my fingernail and removed it, opened the top flap, and slid out the deck. If the magician was a good magician, the false deal was a near-silent, frictionless glide of card against card. A distant ice skater making wide circles over a frozen pond. A bird lifting itself into the sky. Card handling was softness, lightness. Without that, there was nothing.

  I hoped I hadn’t told Harley too much.

  I looked up at the poster of Cardini. I watched him watching me. Easy for you, I thought, suddenly angry at the long-dead magician. Your wife was your fucking assistant. You could tell her anything.

  The way to handle nerves was extreme preparation. My Greek deal wasn’t quite there yet, not up to my standards, but I was getting closer all the time, and morning was still several hours away, and I was stone sober and a fast study and the owner of two remarkably capable hands.

  I went to bed as dawn approached and tossed long enough for sleep to feel like a hopeless goal—though I must have slept because I dreamed of the house in Plainfield and awoke to the fading echoes of my father at the piano banging out a beer-induced, over-the-top version of “Band of Gold.”

  Ellen wasn’t arriving until six that night. That left the whole day. Outside, it was gray and ordinary, with no indication that a new year
had replaced the old one. I settled into routine activities: I cleaned the house, picked up a few groceries at the mini-mart. I practiced the Greek deal. I repeated the name I would be using until it sounded natural. Hi, I’m Nora Thompson. I’m Nora Thompson. It’s nice to meet you, Victor. I’m Nora Thompson. And I repeated Ellen’s, as well: Emily Ross. I practiced the Greek deal some more. I walked myself, step by step, through the evening, picturing the game table, where to sit, what to say and do.

  Ellen arrived at my house precisely at six. It had been snowing lightly for the past hour. The forecast kept changing. Now they were saying we might get a few inches. But, crucially, Ellen had called me on the drive over and assured me that the game was on.

  Her eyes widened, taking me in. “Wow, love the pixie cut.”

  “All in, right?” I said.

  She smiled and came into the house. “I’d say you look exactly like a Nora Thompson.”

  Ellen’s light brown hair had a stylish wave to it, and she had traded her trench coat for a denim coat bordered with faux fur the same color as her hair. It was unbuttoned, and underneath she had on a black turtleneck. She wore flowy batik print pants, and no jewelry, and little enough makeup and lipstick that most men would assume she wasn’t wearing any. She truly was the embodiment of Emily Ross, hippie millionaire and rebellious heiress.

  I had dressed in a classy but casual outfit of royal blue top, dark blue jeans, and tall black boots.

  “Please,” Ellen said, handing me a small canvas bag with palm trees on it, “don’t lose this.”

  I unzipped the bag. Inside were two rubber-banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills and a third, smaller stack.

  “My own bag is in the car,” she said. “Not that I don’t trust your neighborhood, but how about we get going?”

  “What exactly are you implying about my neighborhood?” But I couldn’t pull off the casual humor. My whole body was shaking. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and went to the bedroom for my purse and a last glimpse in the full-length mirror. I stuffed the stacks of bills into my purse and we left the apartment together.