Card Sharks

by Liz Maverick

  Marianne played to the camera, and then suddenly the announcer appeared and asked everyone to settle in, and day three was on. It started out slowly. Two players had squeaked into day three from the prior day pretty low in the chip count. The first went out almost immediately after going all-in on a decent enough pair of tens. Nobody dominated for the first few hours, with good-size wins being evenly distributed among the chip leaders at the table.

  Halfway through the day, with her lower back on fire, Marianne took a moment to stretch again and review the chip situation. She was pretty much smack in the middle of things, winning just enough hands at just the right time to stay above the danger line. But if she didn’t start ramping things up a bit, she was in jeopardy of draining the life out of her game. In other words, it was time to start playing a little riskier than she had been.

  In the next few hours she put the balls to the wall, changing things up and risking bigger amounts of money, limping in, then raising big after the flop, sometimes making faces opposite from what she was feeling in order to draw an easy bluff . . . and sometimes not. As some of the other men at the table gambled on all-in play and lost, she began to sense a change in the air. She began to sense . . . respect. Or if not respect, maybe a little concern that she wasn’t going down so easily. And there was certainly nothing wrong with currying either one of those sentiments.

  The concentration, the constant sitting, the ache in her back, the hot lights—it was all making her really tired. Marianne knew the day couldn’t go on and on. The end would come at some point, and she needed to hold on, as high up on the ladder as she possibly could.

  For what seemed like the umpteenth time, the dealer dealt out two cards apiece to the table survivors. Marianne looked at her cards—an off-suit ace and seven—and decided to limp in from the button, then raise big if she liked what she saw on the flop. Unfortunately, a quiet elderly man named Tran who’d only stepped up for one really big hand so far took this as an opportunity to go for glory raising Marianne’s bet. Willing to gamble on the possibility of flopping an ace, Marianne called. After all, Tran had bluffed several hands back, flipping his cards over at the end of the hand to prove he’d snowed his opponent well. So it was possible he didn’t really have anything.

  But when the flop came it turned over a king, a five, and a two. Marianne cringed inwardly. No immediate help at all, though it had remote straight potential and she’d committed a lot of her chips already. If she let this hand go down, she’d be horribly crippled for the rest of the play. If she pursued it with what she was holding . . . well, she might have to try the biggest bluff she’d ever done. She didn’t want to chase a straight under the circumstances, but if that ace popped up . . .

  She looked up at her opponent, mentally cycling through the stuff she’d read about tells, and unfortunately not seeing any of it reflected on his face. He smiled politely. She smiled back.

  What did he have? Okay, let’s see. Worst-case scenario, he had a pair of kings, pair of aces, or ace/king. If he’d had a superstrong pair, he would have raised higher. Maybe. Probably. And with one ace in her hand, the probability of his having one, much less two, was significantly decreased. So what to interpret? Sigh.

  “Your hand is not so good,” Tran said sympathetically.

  Marianne’s eyes narrowed in spite of herself. He was doing the chatty thing—the chatty thing she’d heard the commentators talk about on television, where your opponents struck up idle chitchat in hopes that you’d accidentally spill a piece of information they could use against you.

  Not so fast, buddy. Of course, the fact that she’d shot him a death glare at all was something of a tell. Control yourself. You’re good at that. Control yourself.

  Luckily, with Tran the big blind and Marianne acting behind him, he was first to bet. And he hadn’t made his decision yet, either.

  “Your hand is not so good,” Marianne echoed sweetly.

  A couple of the other guys at the table chuckled.

  Tran bet. Marianne called. The dealer flipped the turn and things didn’t really improve. A four.

  Chasing a straight, indeed. Should I get out? If he bets, I’m out. But Tran checked.

  Marianne studied his face. He stuck out his tongue good-naturedly and Marianne laughed. Well, if he wasn’t sure he really wanted this pot, she’d take it.

  Marianne bet. And Tran called. Huh.

  “Miss Marianne’s maybe not so sweet as she looks,” Pierce said to Tran, who merely raised an eyebrow.

  The dealer flipped over the river card. Oh, god. A ten. So not helpful, and she’d already committed so much. She should get out. No, wait! Marianne looked at the chips on the table and tried to calculate pot odds. Oh, hell. If Tran didn’t bail out, this would require the bluff of the century. And she was going to deliver it.

  Tran bet. Marianne raised.

  Tran’s eyebrow arched, giving away his surprise. She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he calculated the pot odds. And then suddenly, almost as if it were an impulse, he mucked his cards and swore.

  Several men at the table released a breath at the same time.

  Marianne considered turning over her cards to show them her bluff. Instead she just said, “It’s not ‘Miss Marianne.’ ” Raking the chips toward her current stacks, she looked up and smiled. “It’s Machine Gun Marianne.”

  Things seemed to only get better as the remaining hours dwindled. She was just playing really hot. Very few of her hands were completely horrible. Many of them were playable. And some of them were downright terrific. Luck, it seemed, was simply on her side today.

  Her average take wasn’t, perhaps, as lucrative as one might have expected, but she was raking in chips at a consistent pace. They said that with the top pairs one could generally expect to win small pots and lose big ones; she preferred to be on the winning side, regardless of the size of the pot.

  The next hand the dealer laid out, Marianne couldn’t believe her streak of good luck. A king and an ace, suited. Sweet! Marianne decided to play it strong this time, hoping to knock out some of her competitors before the flop. On her turn she bet and forced out a couple of players who had checked. The blinds called, but Noonan played back at her with a hefty re-raise. Marianne called. The blinds folded, leaving her heads-up with Noonan.

  Sure enough, Noonan bet; but Marianne decided to keep the faith, and raised. She couldn’t just call because that would make her look weak. A raise would give Noonan the chance to fold if he didn’t like his hand. It would probably also stop his betting on the turn, which would mean she’d get a free card. And, of course, an ace or a king might hit on the turn or the river. In which case she’d have him by the . . . well, by the nuts.

  The flop came with a lackluster array of rags of three different suits. If she was operating against a low pair somewhere on the table, things were about to get very sticky. Sure enough, a raise came in before it ever got to her, and Marianne decided to keep the faith, reraising with hopes of a second ace or king hitting on the turn or river down the line.

  Noonan stayed in, prompting some more warnings from Pierce about concealing her cards properly, and the dealer burned one and flipped over the next community card. Marianne got the ace she was looking for and had to work hard not to reveal any signs of elation. Her Coach sunglasses were doing their job, and she was doing hers. All she had to do was hang on.

  Pierce mumbled something again, and Noonan slapped his in-play hole cards down on the table, stuck his card cap on top of them and glared at Pierce. “You coaching her?”

  “What?” Marianne yelled out in outrage. “How dare you?”

  Pierce stood up, knocking his chair back, his fists curling as he threw some jabs into the air. “You talking to me, Noonan?”

  ESPN was all over it as a couple of tournament employees moved in to settle things down. Marianne requested a seat change but apparently there was no such thing. They told her to calm down, that nobody was accusing her of anything, and
that these guys were legendary for their extreme dislike of each other.

  Everyone sat back down. Marianne glowered at Noonan and bet an outrageous amount of money, immediately cursing herself for falling into the trap of playing hotheaded. Anything could happen on the river.

  Noonan had apparently decided that Marianne had officially sided with Pierce, which wasn’t entirely untrue. This day could not be over soon enough. She looked over her shoulder into the stands. Donny was leaning forward, his fists clenched. Peter was writing furiously in his notebook, and Bijoux was just staring at Marianne, her mouth gaping wide open.

  Meanwhile, Noonan was reviewing his massacred chip stack. He raised his hands as if to go all-in, and then stopped at the last moment.

  And Marianne knew that luck had to be on her side. Just had to be. Unless she was going to lose on the river. Noonan was saving chips in case he lost which meant he wasn’t feeling confident. Because if he went all-in, he would put himself out of the tournament, whereas if he saved some chips back, he still had a chance for a comeback. A chip and a chair. That’s what they said. It was all you needed to come back another day.

  And sure enough, Noonan checked. They looked at each other. Marianne could hear the drone of the announcer in the background as they flipped their cards.

  Noonan was left fuming as Marianne pulled in the lion’s share of the stack he’d been accumulating over the last few days.

  He reached over Marianne and stuck his index finger into Pierce’s chest. “You’re a bastard.”

  “You’re a bigger bastard,” Pierce said.

  Noonan smashed his fist down on the table and stood up again. Marianne sighed, jaded now, and very much engrossed in forming stacks out of the pile of chips she’d won off Noonan.

  Noonan apparently needed to vent. “I’ve been listening to your crap the entire time, and I’ve had enough, you miserable son of a bitch. We both know you’re good with a sucker punch, but can you keep up in a fair fight? Huh? Can you keep up?” He was literally out of his seat, jumping on the balls of his feet, left foot to right, shadowboxing.

  Marianne looked around at the others at the table, hoping to see them laughing. A few crooked smiles, a bit of uncertain tittering, but this was clearly getting out of hand.

  Marianne kept scootching back in her chair. Unfortunately the camera equipment behind her prevented escape. The two men were right over her head, grappling now. She scrunched down, but Noonan, leaning in from the left, and Pierce, leaning in from the right, were making it impossible for her to dodge the scene.

  There were shouts all around. Some of the other players and the tournament directors were trying to pull them apart.

  Marianne stood up and knocked her chair over, still crouching down as the blows rained above her head.

  Finally the two men were separated, raging and yelling at each other to take the fight outside. Marianne went to make her escape, but forgot her purse on the floor beneath her feet. She bent down to pick it up, and when she came back up Noonan flailed out with an arm that got away from his handlers and hit her smack in the head, knocking her sunglasses clear off her face.

  Splayed face-down on the ground beside the table, Marianne almost wished she’d been rendered unconscious. It was not to be. She could hear Donny swearing at the top of his lungs in the background and Peter requesting ice. “Um, Bijoux?”

  Bijoux knelt down and put her hand on Marianne’s back. “Yes?”

  “Is my underwear showing?”

  There was a pause. “Yes, but you’re wearing the cute black ones with the pink bow and lace.”

  Marianne felt her skirt flap back down to cover her ass. “Um, Bijoux? Is ESPN still filming?”

  There was another pause. “Yes.”

  “So my underwear—make that my underwear-clad butt—is being broadcast internationally.”

  “Well . . . yes. If poker is an international sport, I’d have to say that, yes, your underwear-clad ass is being broadcast, er, far and wide. But I’m sure the folks in Dubai don’t think any less of you.”

  Marianne looked over her shoulder at the gathering crowd. “I see. Could you help me up now?”

  Suddenly Donny’s face appeared. “I think you should lie still for a moment and make sure you’re really okay. Because if you’re not okay, I’m going to go kick somebody’s ass.”

  Working hard to keep the edge of hysteria in her voice to a minimum, Marianne said, “Actually, I’m really embarrassed, and I think I’d like to get back to the room as soon as possible.”

  Above her, Bijoux gave Donny a look and said, “It’s a girl thing.”

  He sighed. “Okay.” With one on either side of her, Marianne’s friends lifted her up, dusted her off, and helped her away from the table. Bijoux recovered the sunglasses and cleaned up Marianne’s smeared lipstick with a tissue and Peter reappeared to thrust a plastic cup of ice at the sore spot on her head. As they weaved through the tables toward the exit, the lookers-on began to clap.

  “Oh, my God. The group clap. I’ve done the gambling equivalent of dropping my lunch tray in the high school cafeteria.”

  “Nah, it’s not that bad,” Donny said. “This is more like twisting an ankle after yellow-carding someone in soccer and being clapped off the field.”

  Marianne turned to Bijoux. “Is ESPN still filming?”

  “Um . . . don’t worry about it, Mare. You look fine.”

  They led her into the elevator and the door closed. She leaned her aching, frozen head against Peter’s shoulder and then felt her head being moved to somebody else’s shoulder.

  Suddenly she bolted upright once more. “Oh, crap! I’m still in, right? The day closed out, and I’m still in, right? I’m not disqualified for fighting or anything? I mean, I was just standing there. I was participating. Not intentionally, anyway . . .”

  “You didn’t just finish, Marianne. You finished in the money. You’re guaranteed money now,” Bijoux said.

  Marianne gaped. “Are you serious? More than the ten-K entry fee?”

  “Would I lie to you about money? I just don’t remember exactly how much,” Bijoux said. “But since you won your entry online, it should be a decent chunk of change.”

  “Oh, my God! That’s incredible! I’m really good! I’m really, really good! I’m really, really . . . tired.” Suddenly Marianne just started to crash.

  “Ssssh.” Donny smoothed Marianne’s hair away with a gentle hand. “Everything’s fine. It’s been a really long day and you just need to rest. Because you’re going back out there tomorrow. I guarantee it.”

  The elevator doors opened. Marianne let them shuffle, drag, and carry her to the room. She barely felt Bijoux and Peter taking off her shoes before she crashed. “Day four, here I come,” she said as a kind of rallying cry.

  And then she slumped weakly back onto the bed and fell asleep.

  chapter seventeen

  By the morning of day four, the euphoria Marianne had experienced on the first day of the tournament had pretty much worn off, and if anyone had asked and she’d answered truthfully, she would have described her current playing experience as closer to finals week at college than anything else. Granted, this was more fun than that, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy, and as a first-timer, she was getting to the point where she just wanted it to end. To give 100 percent required an extraordinary effort as far as energy and focus were concerned.

  Energy could probably be mustered, but focus wasn’t coming easy this morning as Marianne nestled against the warmth of Donny’s body. Lying here with him felt positively divine, and she didn’t feel like getting up, much less playing twelve hours of poker.

  Donny shifted, pulling Marianne in closer. She smiled to herself in spite of the ache on the side of her head where she’d been punched.

  This waking up in his arms was beginning to become a habit again. A good habit, because it just didn’t get any better than this. Of course, she remembered thinking that before. Lots of times before. Before things ju
st didn’t get any worse. The two of them were merely on an upswing. But why couldn’t they ever just stay up here? Why couldn’t they at least try?

  Don’t do it, Marianne. You don’t start The Conversation with a boy during finals. It’s a bad idea.

  But maybe if they tried this time, really tried, they could make things work.

  Don’t do it, Marianne. It never ends how you want it to. This is not the day, or for that matter, the week.

  Donny moaned softly in her ear, his hand moving up to Marianne’s breast. “Oh, Mare,” he murmured.

  Marianne instantly overheated. It was so tempting. But lying on her side, she could see Bijoux buried under the covers. Bijoux was a light sleeper. The poor thing would wake up and then have to fake being asleep and lie there through the whole thing and that just wasn’t fair. Besides, a covert romp wasn’t really what Marianne had on her mind. “Donny.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Donny, stop.”

  “Is that a real stop or a take me now stop?”

  “Real stop.”

  He stopped, then sighed. “I thought it might help your game,” he whispered.

  “Can we talk seriously for a moment?”

  He stilled, as if every fiber of his being dreaded whatever sentence would follow. “Uhhhh. That never goes well.”

  Marianne rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s not fall into the same old trap, then.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t you think this is nice?” Fuck. She sounded like one of those needy girls. Maybe she was one of those needy girls. Maybe Donny brought it out in her, and maybe that’s why she always went away. Because she didn’t like to have to beg for something that should be natural.