by Paul Auster
“So there I am playing with these pillars of the community, having myself a real good time. Nice and steady, raking in my share of pots, but not trying to show off or anything—just playing it nice and steady, keeping them all in the game. You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. They play every month, those dumbbells, and I’d like to get invited back. It was hard enough swinging the invitation for last night. I must have worked on it for half a year, and so I was on my best behavior, all polite and deferential, talking like some faggot who goes to the country club every afternoon to play the back nine. You’ve got to be an actor in this business, at least if you want to move in on the real action. You want to make them feel good you’re emptying their coffers, and you can’t do that unless you show them you’re an okay kind of guy. Always say please and thank you, smile at their dumb-ass jokes, be modest and dignified, a real gentleman. Gee, tonight must be my lucky night, George. By golly, Ralph, the cards sure are coming my way. All that kind of crap.
“Anyway, I got there with a little more than five grand in my pocket, and by four o’clock I’m almost up to nine. The game’s going to break up in about an hour, and I’m getting ready to roll. I’ve figured those mugs out, I’m so on top of it I can tell what cards they’re holding just by looking at their eyes. I figure I’ll go for one more big win, walk out with twelve or fourteen thousand, and call it a good night’s work.
“I’m sitting on a solid hand, jacks full, and the pot’s beginning to build. The room is quiet, we’re all concentrating on the bets, and then, out of nowhere, the door flies open and in burst these four huge motherfuckers. ‘Don’t move,’ they shout, ‘don’t move or you’re dead’—yelling at the top of their lungs, pointing goddamn shotguns in our faces. They’re all dressed in black, and they’ve got these stockings pulled down over their heads so you can’t tell what they look like. It was the ugliest thing I ever saw—four creatures from the black lagoon. I was so scared, I thought I’d shit in my pants. Down on the floor, one of them says, lie down flat on the floor and no one will get hurt.
“People tell you about stuff like that—hijacking poker games, it’s an old hustle. But you never think it’s going to happen to you. And the worst part of it was, we’re sitting there playing with cash. All that dough is sitting right there on the table. It’s a dumb thing to do, but those rich creeps like it that way, it makes them feel important. Like desperadoes in some half-assed western movie—the big showdown at the Last Gasp Saloon. You’re supposed to play with chips, everybody knows that. The whole idea is to forget about the money, to concentrate on the goddamn game. But that’s how those lawyers play, and there’s nothing I can do about their rinky-dink house rules.
“There’s forty, maybe fifty thousand dollars’ worth of legal tender sunning itself on the table. I’m spread out on the floor and can’t see a thing, but I can hear them stuffing money into bags, going around the table and sweeping it off—whoosh, whoosh, making quick work of it. I figure it’s going to be over soon, and maybe they won’t turn their guns on us. I’m not thinking about the money anymore, I just want to get out of there with my hide intact. Fuck the money, I say to myself, just don’t shoot me. It’s weird how fast things can happen. One minute, I’m about to raise the guy on my left, thinking what a smart, high-class dude I am, and the next minute I’m flat on the ground, hoping I don’t get my brains blown out. I’m digging my face into the goddamn shag carpet and praying like a son of a bitch those robbers are going to split before I open my eyes again.
“Believe it or not, my prayers are answered. The robbers do just what they say they’re going to do, and three or four minutes later they’re gone. We hear their car drive away, and we all stand up and start breathing again. My knees are knocking together, I’m shaking like a palsy victim, but it’s over, and everything is all right. At least that’s what I think. As it turns out, the real fun hasn’t even started yet.
“George Whitney got it going. He’s the guy who owns the house, one of those hot-air balloons who walks around in green plaid pants and white cashmere sweaters. Once we’ve had a drink and settled down a little, big George says to Gil Swanson—that’s the lugger who worked out the invitation for me—‘It’s just like I told you, Gil,’ he says, ‘you can’t bring riffraff into a game like this.’ ‘What are you talking about, George?’ Gil says, and George says, ‘Figure it out for yourself, Gil. We play every month for seven years and nothing ever goes wrong. Then you tell me about this punk kid who’s supposed to be a good player and twist my arm to bring him up, and look what happens. I had eight thousand dollars sitting on that table, and I don’t take kindly to a bunch of thugs walking off with it.’
“Before Gil has a chance to say anything, I walk right up to George and open my big mouth. I probably shouldn’t have done that, but I’m pissed off, and it’s all I can do not to punch him in the face. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I say to him. ‘It means that you set us up, you little slimeball,’ he says, and then he starts poking me in the chest with his finger, pushing me back into the corner of the room. He keeps poking at me with that fat finger of his, and all the while he’s still talking. ‘I’m not going to let you and your hoodlum friends get away with a thing like that,’ he says. ‘You’re going to pay for it, Pozzi. I’ll see that you get what’s coming to you.’ On and on, jabbing with that finger of his and yammering in my face, and finally I just swat his arm away and tell him to step back. He’s a big one, this George, maybe six-two or six-three. Fifty years old, but he’s in good shape, and I know there’ll be trouble if I try to tangle with him. ‘Hands off, pig,’ I say to him, ‘just keep your hands off me and step back.’ But the bastard is going crazy and won’t stop. He grabs me by the shirt, and at that point I lose my cool and send my fist straight into his gut. I try to run away, but I don’t get three feet before another one of those lawyers grabs hold of me and pins my arms behind my back. I try to break away from him, but before I can get my arms free, big George is in front of me again and letting me have it in the stomach. It was awful, man, a real Punch-and-Judy show, a bloodbath in living color. Every time I broke away, another one of them would catch me. Gil was the only one who wasn’t part of it, but there wasn’t much he could do against the four others. They kept working me over. For a moment there I thought they were going to kill me, but after a while they started to run out of gas. Those turds were strong, but they didn’t have much stamina, and I finally squirmed loose and made it to the door. A couple of them went after me, but there was no way I was going to let them catch me again. I tore ass out of there and headed for the woods, running for all I was worth. If you hadn’t picked me up, I’d probably still be running now.”
Pozzi sighed with disgust, as if to expel the whole miserable episode from his mind. “At least there’s no permanent damage,” he continued. “The old bones will mend, but I can’t say I’m too thrilled about losing the money. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. I had big plans for that little bundle, and now I’m wiped out, now I have to start all over again. Shit. You play fair and square, you win, and you wind up losing anyway. There’s no justice. Day after tomorrow, I was supposed to be in one of the biggest games of my life, and now it’s not going to happen. Ain’t a fucking chance in hell I can raise the kind of money I need by then. The only games I know about this weekend are nickel-and-dime stuff, a total washout. Even if I got lucky, I couldn’t earn more than a couple of grand. And that’s probably stretching it.”
It was this last statement that finally induced Nashe to open his mouth. A small idea had flickered through him, and by the time the words came to his lips, he was already struggling to keep his voice under control. The entire process couldn’t have taken longer than a second or two, but that was enough to change everything, to send him hurtling over the edge of a cliff. “How much money do you need for this game?” he asked.
“Nothing under ten thousand,” Pozzi said. “And that’s rock bottom. I couldn’t walk in with a penny less than
that.”
“Sounds like an expensive proposition.”
“It was the chance of a lifetime, pal. A goddamn invitation to Fort Knox.”
“If you’d won, maybe. But the fact is you could have lost. There’s always that risk, isn’t there?”
“Sure there’s a risk. We’re talking poker here, that’s the name of the game. But there’s no way I could have lost. I’ve already played with those clowns once. It would have been a piece of cake.”
“How much were you expecting to win?”
“A ton. A whole fucking ton.”
“Give me a rough estimate. A ballpark figure.”
“I don’t know. Thirty or forty thousand, it’s hard to guess. Maybe fifty.”
“That’s a lot of money. A lot more than your friends were playing for last night.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. These guys are millionaires. And they don’t know the first thing about cards. I mean, they’re ignoramuses, those two. You sit down with them, and it’s like playing with Laurel and Hardy.”
“Laurel and Hardy?”
“That’s what I call them, Laurel and Hardy. One’s fat and the other’s thin, just like old Stan and Ollie. They’re genuine pea-brains, my friend, a pair of born chumps.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself. How do you know they’re not a couple of hustlers?”
“Because I checked them out. Six or seven years ago, they shared a ticket in the Pennsylvania state lottery and won twenty-seven million dollars. It was one of the biggest payoffs of all time. Guys with that kind of dough aren’t going to bother hustling a small-time operator like me.”
“You’re not making this up?”
“Why should I make it up? The fat one’s name is Flower, and the skinny guy is called Stone. The weird thing is that they both have the same first name—William. But Flower goes by Bill, and Stone calls himself Willie. It’s not as confusing as it sounds. Once you’re with them, you don’t have any trouble telling them apart.”
“Like Mutt and Jeff.”
“Yeah, that’s right. They’re a regular comedy team. Like those funny little buggers on TV, Ernie and Bert. Only these guys are called Willie and Bill. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Willie and Bill.”
“How did you happen to meet them?”
“I ran into them in Atlantic City last month. There’s a game I sometimes go to down there, and they sat in on it for a while. After twenty minutes, they were both down five thousand dollars. I never saw such stupid betting in my life. They thought they could bluff their way through anything—like they were the only ones who knew how to play, and the rest of us were just dying to fall for their Humpty-Dumpty tricks. A couple of hours later, I went over to one of the casinos to horse around, and there they were again, standing at the roulette wheel. The fat one came up to me—”
“Flower.”
“—right, Flower. He came up to me and said, I like your style, son, you play a mean hand of poker. And then he went on to say that if I ever felt like getting into a friendly little game with them, I was more than welcome to drop by their house. So that’s how it happened. I told him sure, I’d love to play with them some time, and last week I called up and arranged the game for this coming Monday. That’s why I’m so burned about what happened last night. It would have been a beautiful experience, an honest-to-goodness walk down Jackpot Lane.”
“You just said ‘their house.’ Does that mean they live together?”
“You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s what I said—‘their house.’ It sounds a little strange, but I don’t think they’re a pair of fruits or anything. They’re both in their fifties, and they both used to be married. Stone’s wife died, and Flower and his wife are divorced. They’ve each got a couple of kids, and Stone’s even a grandfather. He used to be an optometrist before he won the lottery, and Flower used to be an accountant. Real ordinary middle-class guys. They just happen to live in a twenty-room mansion and get one point three-five million tax-free dollars every year.”
“I guess you’ve been doing your homework.”
“I told you, I checked them out. I don’t like to get into games when I don’t know who I’m playing with.”
“Do you do anything besides play poker?”
“No, that’s it. I just play poker.”
“No job? Nothing to back you up if you hit a dry spell?”
“I worked in a department store once. That was the summer after I got out of high school, and they put me in the men’s shoe department. It was the pits, let me tell you, the absolute worst. Getting down on your hands and knees like some kind of dog, having to breathe in all those dirty sock smells. It used to make me want to barf. I quit after three weeks, and I haven’t had a regular job since.”
“So you do all right for yourself.”
“Yeah, I do all right. I have my ups and downs, but there’s never been anything I couldn’t handle. The main thing is I do what I want. If I lose, it’s my ass that loses. If I win, the money’s mine to keep. I don’t have to take shit from anyone.”
“You’re your own boss.”
“Right. I’m my own boss. I call my own shots.”
“You must be a pretty good player, then.”
“I’m good, but I’ve still got a ways to go. I’m talking about the great ones—your Johnny Moseses, your Amarillo Slims, your Doyle Brunsons. I want to get into the same league as those guys. You ever hear about Binion’s Horseshoe Club in Vegas? That’s where they play the World Series of Poker. In a couple of years, I think I’ll be ready for them. That’s what I want to do. Build up enough cash to buy into that game and go head to head with the best.”
“That’s all very nice, kid. It’s good to have dreams, they help to keep a person going. But that’s for later, what you might call long-range planning. What I want to know is what you’re going to do today. We’ll be getting to New York in about an hour, and then what’s going to happen to you?”
“There’s this guy I know in Brooklyn. I’ll give him a buzz when we hit town and see if he’s in. If he is, he’ll probably put me up for a while. He’s a crazy son of a bitch, but we get along okay. Crappy Manzola. It’s a hell of a name, isn’t it? He got it when he was a kid because he had such crappy, rotten teeth. He’s got a beautiful set of false teeth now, but everyone still calls him Crappy.”
“And what happens if Crappy isn’t there?”
“The fuck if I know. I’ll think of something.”
“In other words, you don’t have a clue. You’re just going to wing it.”
“Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. I’ve been in worse places than this before.”
“I’m not worried. It’s just that something has occurred to me, and I have a feeling it might interest you.”
“Such as?”
“You told me you needed ten thousand dollars to play cards with Flower and Stone. What if I knew someone who would be willing to put up the money for you? What kind of arrangement would you be willing to make with him in return?”
“I’d pay him back as soon as the game was over. With interest.”
“This person isn’t a moneylender. He’d probably be thinking more along the lines of a business partnership.”
“And what are you, some kind of a venture capitalist or something?”
“Forget about me. I’m just a guy who drives a car. What I want to know is what kind of offer you’d be willing to make. I’m talking about percentages.”
“Shit, I don’t know. I’d pay him back the ten grand, and then I’d give him a fair share of the profits. Twenty percent, twenty-five percent, something like that.”
“That sounds a bit stingy to me. After all, this person is the one who’s taking the risk. If you don’t win, he’s the one who loses, not you. See what I mean?”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“I’m talking about an even split. Fifty percent for you, fifty percent for him. Minus the ten thousand,
of course. How does that strike you? Do you think it’s fair?”
“I suppose I could live with it. If that’s the only way I get to play with those jokers, it’s probably worth it. But where do you fit into this? As far as I can tell, it’s just the two of us talking in this car. Where’s this other guy supposed to be? The one with the ten thousand dollars.”
“He’s around. It won’t be hard to find him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. And if this guy just happens to be sitting next to me right now, what I’d like to know is why he wants to get involved in a thing like this. I mean, he doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall.”
“No reason. He just feels like it.”
“That’s not good enough. There’s got to be a reason. I won’t go for it unless I know.”
“Because he needs the money. That should be pretty obvious.”
“But he’s already got ten thousand dollars.”
“He needs more than that. And he’s running out of time. This is probably the last chance he’s going to get.”
“Yeah, okay, I can buy that. It’s what you would call a desperate situation.”
“But he’s not stupid either, Jack. He doesn’t throw his money away on grifters. So before I talk business with you, I’ve got to make sure you’re the real thing. You might be a hell of a card player, but you also might be a bullshit artist. Before there’s any deal, I’ve got to see what you can do with my own eyes.”
“No problem, partner. Once we get to New York, I’ll show you my stuff. No problem at all. You’ll be so impressed, your mouth will drop open. I guarantee it. I’ll make the eyes fall out of your fucking head.”