Sam dealt: another good hand—two tens, and his heart thumped when he picked up his three cards and saw that he’d drawn a third one. He had no choice: he bet as before. Norman stayed with him, but, like Sol, Norman folded when Sam bet plate. Two hands, two hundred—but he should, he knew, have had at least five with cards like that. Something was up. “We’ll take a break at midnight,” Sol said. “Five minutes.”
“I ain’t got five minutes,” Norman said.
Sol reared back, laughing, then dealt. When he tossed Sam his fifth card, he winked. Sam had four hearts—seven, nine, ten, jack. The others took two cards each. Sam picked up his new card, didn’t look at it. “I pass to the power,” Sol said. Norman did the same. Sam looked at his card—seven of spades. He didn’t fight it: he turned his cards face down, pushed another white chip into the middle and passed the deck. He drew nothing on the next deal, not even a pair, and nothing again on the hand after that, and he felt reassured. Nothing was nothing. You couldn’t bet what you didn’t have.
Norman, he saw, was trying to prove otherwise. And Sol could, by now, if he’d wanted, have driven out a strong pair by betting heavily. It didn’t matter, though. He’d wait for the cards to come. With a pair of aces in his hand, Sam let Norman send the pot to a hundred and twenty. Sol watched them, expressionless. Norman saw Sam, Sam showed his aces. “Yeah,” was all Norman said, and he turned his cards down. Sam now had about thirteen hundred left, Norman had fifteen, and Sol had the rest. But a pro, Sam thought, could never play the way Norman was playing and be back a second and third time. Making sure the pot never built, protecting his game—he was up to something else. Sam heard noise in the corridor and Norman’s neck snapped to the left. Sam saw that, briefly, Sol had tensed. Sam spun the cards around the circle. “My father,” he said.
“I hear women,” Norman said. “No women in this room, you hear? They spook me.”
Sol laughed. “I like women,” he said.
Ben passed the open doorway, and Sam turned, looked at him. It was, he realized, the first time Ben had ever seen him—Sam liked the phrase, and smiled—at work. He looked at the cards: two tens. He glanced up, but Ben was already gone. Sol put a chip in the middle, and Norman did the same. “Make it two,” Sam said, still smiling. Sol shrugged, threw a second chip in the middle. “No funny business,” Norman said. “They gotta stay far away, you hear?”
“How many?” Sam asked.
Sol asked for three, and Norman took three also. “Dealer takes two,” Sam said, and kept a jack with his two tens, picked up his two cards, one at a time: a six, then a king. He closed his hand, waited a split-second. “One and chip,” he said, pushing a blue chip into the middle, taking a white one back. He heard a woman’s voice—then another. They were laughing. The widows—that, Ben had explained to him was another option: if only the thoughtful senior citizen will take a full and frank inventory of his assets and possibilities…
Sol laughed, turned his cards over. Norman touched a chip, looked at Sam. “You don’t sucker me,” he said, and turned his cards over also. Sam took the stack in, passed the deck to Sol. He went out on the next hand, and the next, then stayed in when he pulled two pairs, nines and jacks. He bet twenty before the draw and Sol and Norman saw him. They each took two cards. “Last card,” Sol said, dealing. “Down and dirty.” Sam picked up the card, a third jack, and felt his stomach tighten, bounce. Outwardly he showed nothing. “Oh Ben—!” he heard. The woman’s voice squeaked. Sam realized that his father’s small eyes had been glazed. “We’ll pass to the power,” Sol said, and Sam bet one and chip. Sol saw his bet; Norman looked at Sol. “Thanks, sport,” he said, “for saving me nothing.” He went out.
Sam hesitated, but only for an instant; he pushed three chips forward, one for each jack. “Good,” Sol said. “I see your three and we’ll make it three more.”
Sam put three chips forward. “Plate,” he said.
Sol’s mouth moved downward. “There’s twenty chips in there, right?”
“Right,” Sam said, and slid two red chips forward.
“I believe you,” Sol said. “But I have no choice.” He put two red chips in the middle, tucked his upper lip into his lower one. “So?” he asked. “I paid to see.”
Sam showed the full house. “Good enough,” Sol said, and turned to Norman. “Some young men are polite, you see. It pays.”
Sam heard glasses tinkling in the other room. He took his chips in. Small and smart, and he was almost back even—instead of being under a thousand, he was over fifteen hundred. He held a pair of eights, they drew, he bet one and chip, the others folded. He knew he was all right now: with or without a pair, he could take a hand.
Sam heard Andy, talking about Ben—something to do with the taxi, but Sam could not make out the words. It occurred to him that the two men, more than fifty years before, had been boys, and that when they had been boys they had slept in the same bed. Andy had known Rabbi Katimsky.
“Close the fucking door,” Norman said. “They bug me.”
“There is no door,” Sam said.
Norman looked, saw that Sam was right. “Relax, son,” Sol said. “I don’t hear a word they’re saying.”
“Let’s pick up the pace, yeah?” Norman said, and he put twenty in the middle for ante.
“Loser’s choice,” Sol said, and added a blue chip to Norman’s. Norman dealt, bet twenty again, and then, for the first time all night, took four cards. Sam had a pair of sevens, drew a third one.
“Plate,” Norman said.
“I see your plate, and raise you plate,” Sam said.
“Let youth fight its own battles,” Sol said, and he went out. Sam looked at him, and Sol smiled, in a way that made Sam tense.
“I’ll see that, smart boy,” Norman said, and put in his two red chips, then two blue ones. He smiled. “And it’ll cost you plate again to see me.”
Sam forced himself to pay attention. Norman’s left eye was steady. Sam tried to close off his father’s voice in the other room, but only heard, in his head, Ben talking about what he had willed his son: about fading in and fading out. He put down five hundred, took twenty in change, and said nothing. One at a time, Norman turned over his tens: one, two, three. “It’s yours,’ Sam said.
His stake was cut almost in half now. The hands moved around: he paid attention, he ignored the sounds from the living room, he won his share of hands, but he wasn’t fooled. The pots were for forty or fifty dollars, Sam drew well, and his stack went from twelve hundred, to twelve fifty, to thirteen hundred. He drew a flush, against Sol, and reached fourteen hundred, but understood now, with certainty, where things were wrong. With a streak like the one he’d just had, he should have doubled his wins, and been ahead, but he wasn’t. Sol played steadily, and though he had not won a big pot for almost an hour, he was still ahead of both Sam and Norman. Neither Sol nor Norman would let the pot build, and Sam couldn’t tell when Norman was bluffing and when he wasn’t. He didn’t like it.
In her letter, Flo had said that she was worried about Tidewater. She had been with him in the basement, in the morning, and then had gone upstairs to the store. He had not, as far as she knew—and she had asked the neighbors—left the building, and yet, when she returned later that day, after locking the store, and had knocked on his door, he had not answered. The following morning, he did not appear. Worried that he might be ill, she had telephoned the landlord, who had come and opened the door to his room. The room had been as it had always been, but Tidewater had not been there. She had inquired in the neighborhood, but nobody had seen him, or heard about him. She had checked all the hospitals, and the police knew of his disappearance. For a day or two after Sam’s departure he had seemed unusually depressed, even for him, she said. And then—on the morning she had last seen him—he had looked as good as he had ever looked, and he had been especially helpful and cheerful. She wondered if Sam knew anything—about where he might have gone. There was no point by now, Sam knew, in telling anyone abou
t the other room.
It was past midnight—twelve-twenty—and they had him cornered, Sam saw, pounding into him one at a time, chopping away at him, first one, then the other—testing him, like fullbacks going through the line, first off one tackle, then off the other. When Andy had asked again, the night before, Sam’s decision had been there. He wanted to return, even if it was—as it had always been?—too late to do anything for Tidewater. He wanted to win.
He played what he had. Stick to the cards, guard your odds. With two pair, kings over fours, he let Norman raise the pot, then took the chips in. “Norman Noname,” Sol said, “you’re slipping.”
Norman was, Sam saw, under five hundred. His eyes were bloodshot. But it didn’t matter. Playing like that, he knew, they could do anything they wanted—anything at all. He had been had: one played steady, one played wild, and if the steady player couldn’t win on skill, then the wild player was there, waiting to clean you out when, in the course of the night, he got his two or three lucky hands.
It didn’t matter to Sam, though. What they wanted, he supposed, was his swan song, but he didn’t figure he was ready for that yet. He had brains. He could, if he had enough time, figure a way out—he believed that. The hands went around, but the pattern remained the same. Every time he raised, one of them would go out—and every time he went out, one of them would stay in. He chipped away at the small pots, and whittled Norman’s stack of chips down. When he was under two hundred, though, Norman fooled Sam, and bought into the game for a thousand more, taking the bills from under his nylon jacket. Sam put them in the envelope. He heard somebody approaching, and felt himself tense. He looked at his hand: four cards of an inside straight, jack high. He looked up.
“I was only coming for some water—” Andy said.
Sam realized that he had been glaring at Andy; Sol chipped, asked for one card. Andy slid behind Norman’s chair, to Sam’s right, and smiled, but his lips trembled. Sol turned his body sideways and Sam saw a ring of sweat under his arm, through the jacket. Norman folded. Sam looked at his card—a queen: he had drawn the straight. “One and chip,” he said.
“I’ll see your one, and raise you five,” Sol said. Andy came back from the kitchen—he was dressed in a flowered silk shirt. Sam felt his anger pass. Let the guy linger if he wanted to. It wasn’t costing Sam anything. “I’ll see your five,” Sam said, and Andy coughed. Sol’s eyes fixed Andy momentarily, against the white dining room wall. Andy coughed again, but it didn’t matter to Sam. If the guy wanted to use him to transfer some funds, even from his own brother, that was okay with him. Since, thanks to Ben, Sam had never had a brother, he figured there were some things he would never know. “And I raise you plate,” he added.
Sol turned his cards over, face down. “But you should relax, son,” he said.
Sam took in the pot, and said nothing. Andy had not moved. “I’m sorry,” Andy began. “I didn’t—”
“That’s right,” Sol said quickly.
Andy hurried out, carrying a pitcher of water in front of him. All Andy had wanted, Sam realized, was to get some of Ben’s money without having to ask for it. Even kicking off, he wanted to stay the big spender in his brother’s eyes. Sam wondered if Ben suspected why Andy had set up the game. It didn’t matter, though, because Sam would fool him too, as smart as he thought he’d been. “If anything happens to my uncle,” Sam found himself saying, “I’ll personally take it out of your skin.”
“Don’t talk big,” Norman said. “You could be in the bay like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Sam turned the cards over, showing the straight. “That’s for free,” he said. “Nobody told me anything.” It was, he believed, something more than chance which had given him a hand like that at that moment, and he was pleased.
Sol would not return the steady look Sam was giving him. “Of course,” he said. “Why should you think—?”
“Let’s play,” Sam said.
Sol ran through the deck with his thumb. “I don’t figure it, though,” he said. “A nice young boy like yourself.” He set the deck down. “Look. You’re almost back even. You play a good game. I respect it, if you know what I mean. Maybe with”—he licked his lips—“maybe we should call it quits for tonight—Norman willing, of course. Then, you think it over, we can play again in a week or so, if you want. You’ll call me—”
“Deal,” Norman said.
“Well?” Sol asked.
“Deal,” Sam said.
Sol shrugged, the cards went around the table, nobody talked. A few minutes later, the voices in the other room became louder, and Sam realized that Andy and Ben and their two women were walking along the hallway corridor. He heard the front door close. Andy was a head taller than Ben—five-eleven, Sam figured—with large brown eyes, a straight nose, a squarish chin; his voice was high-pitched—still, Sam believed that they had come from the same mother. That did not mean, though, that he had to like listening to the guy, to all his sayings, to the stories he told about his women and how they went for him even more when they knew about his illness. Sam saw that Sol and Norman were getting tired. He could wait. Not to win—he would not, he now understood, win with the cards—but to figure the way out.
The pots stayed small: thirty, forty, fifty, sixty—the pattern remained the same, more obviously so. Norman asked for a fresh deck of cards, and Sam passed one to him. Norman checked it, handed it back to Sam, and Sam liked the feel of the new cards, he liked the sound they made whizzing on top of each other, he liked the easy way they fanned apart. And, touching the new deck, he liked it for another reason, which hadn’t occurred to him until the deck had been in his hands. Silently, he thanked Norman.
The new cards moved around the table, Sam winning his share of hands. He felt ready for anything. He heard the front door open, the sound of Andy’s laughter. The two brothers said good night to each other, and Sam heard the door to a bedroom close. Sam thought of Tidewater again, and heard Ben’s voice, in his head, telling him that what mattered in this life wasn’t what you knew but who you knew. He had slightly over twelve hundred in his stack, Sol had more than four thousand, Norman had a bit more than Sam had. He sensed that they would make their move soon, and found that he was relaxed. Norman bet three and chip. Sam looked at a pair of kings and saw Norman’s bet. Norman bet plate, Sam saw plate, and then saw Norman’s pair of queens. He showed his kings.
Norman bet heavily on the next hand, Sam went out, as did Sol. Norman’s eye was twitching again. He wondered if Norman would let himself get wiped out a second time, but he did not want to be there if he did. He heard shoes drop to the floor in the living room. Norman anted with a blue chip and Sam saw two lovely ladies in his own hand, robed in tiny segments of yellow and red velvet, a yellow flower in each of their hands. Mirror-images, one in hearts, one in spades, with a pair of sevens guarding them. “Twenty more,” Sol said, and smiled. Sam and Norman saw the twenty.
“How many?” Sam asked.
“I’ll stick with what I have,” Sol said.
“Gimme two,” Norman said.
They would, this time, have to go all the way with him. Sam could hear his father, in the other room, wheezing, snoring slightly. He gave Norman his two cards, dealt one to himself, but did not pick it up.
“Your bet,” he said to Sol, and found that he was smiling.
“So it is,” Sol said. He did not look at his cards. “Plate again, my friend—and chip.”
Sam was almost ready to bet, having assumed that Norman would fold, when Norman surprised him. “Me too, smart boy,” Norman said.
Sam tried not to show anything. Sol looked puzzled. Sam picked up his last card, and waited. Again, he told himself to pay attention, to go slow and easy. He knew they were going to make their move but this wasn’t the way he had thought it would be. He calculated: he needed at least two grand to do what he planned to do, and he did not want to let them steal it away before he was ready. He relaxed, turned his card over and saw that it was the on
e he thought it would be: his third lady. “Plate and plate again,” he said, and he stopped himself from thinking about what Sol might have been holding. Play what’s there, don’t bet on air. Norman was in, he knew, to fatten him up—if not for this hand, then for the next—but there wouldn’t be a next one if Sam raked this one in, and he figured that Norman didn’t know that. “And chip,” he added.
“This I must see,” Sol said, and put his money in—five red chips—and took twenty in change.
“Yeah,” Norman said. “We’ll see who—” He stopped, laughed at Sam, and did what Sam wanted him to do. “And I raise plate again to the big shots,” he added.
Norman put his chips in the middle, one at a time, but he was shy by more than half the amount, and he stacked the amount of the loan next to his right hand.
“No,” Sam said, and Norman went for the chips, thinking that Sam had gone out; Sam put his hand on top of Norman’s—it was like ice. “No—I mean, no, I want to see the money. You counted right—nineteen-twenty. You put in eight-ten. I want to see one thousand one hundred and ten dollars, in the envelope.”
“What gives—you don’t trust me?”
Sam smiled. “That’s right.”
Norman’s chair moved backward. Sam kept his eye on Sol, let go of Norman’s hand, and let his own hand drop to his pocket. “If you don’t have it,” Sam said, “you can borrow it from your partner here—” Norman stood, his eye banging up and down. Sol wheezed. “—who is still in the game, for your information.”
“You watch your goddamned mouth,” Norman said. “What the fuck do you—”
“Sit down and play, son,” Sol said to him quietly. “You were very hasty. He’s right: I’m still in. You shouldn’t bet what you don’t have.”
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