by Grant Mccrea
Now don’t you start on Sheila. She saved my life, you know.
I know, I know. My competition. Anyway, tell you what. Next time you’re going to throw another stack of cash away at the casino, call me. I’ll be your, what do they call them? Your sponsor. Pull you back from the abyss.
Please, baby doll, no AA jokes. I get enough of that at home.
I’m sure it’s a laugh riot, darling.
You’re too kind.
I’ll try not to step on wifey’s toes again.
Damn. It was hard to keep that girl away from the edge.
43.
I WAS A BIT SURPRISED when Jake invited me back to his game. Maybe I hadn’t made as much of an ass of myself as I’d thought. Or the rest of them had been as drunk as me, and hadn’t noticed.
I asked him if I could bring my buddy Butch along. With him there I’d be more likely to behave. Jake checked with Mike. It was okay. They’d squeeze him in.
I didn’t tell him what Butch did for a living.
The game was in the back room of an arty little joint in the Village. The Dane wasn’t there. I was relieved. The rest of them were there. Jonesie, with a cowboy hat, two diamond earrings. Maybe he really was a famous actor. Andrea, in a black leather bustier and very red lipstick. She made me nervous, in a nice kind of way. High school nervous. Unworthy of talking to such an enticing creature.
Mike was in the captain’s chair, looking fierce in a shirt with Chinese characters that he claimed said ‘death to transgressors.’ Riverstreet, looking sharp in a blue pinstripe with thirties-style pleats. Straight Jake, all Armani and carrying a large black portfolio. Preparing a grant proposal, he said.
Early on, the banter was loose and the play desultory. Just a bunch of players having a good time. Butch fit right in. He always did. He was that kind of guy.
There wasn’t much check-raising, no big bluffs, at least that I was able to ferret out. And Drunk Jake stayed relatively sober.
The feel of the game turned when I took Drunk Jake for a big pot.
It was heads up. The flop came Jack of hearts, spade Ten, spade Three. I bet my Ace Jack. Pair of Jacks, Ace kicker. Pretty good hand. Jake called. The turn was a third spade. I bet, Jake put in a big raise. I called, feeling a little queasy about it. Jake’s confidence was palpable. He could have the flush. But the pot was big, he could be bluffing, and my Ace was the spade, so. I had a twenty-five-percent chance of improving to the nuts, the best possible hand, even if he hit the flush. I hung in. Swallowed hard. And saw that fourth spade hit on the river. Jake stared at it. You could read him like a New York Post headline. He knew that card could be big trouble. He looked at me. I smiled. He shook his head.
He checked.
I bet big.
He stared me down. He looked at me for a long time. Wondering. Calculating. Going back over the previous rounds of betting. Had I been getting the odds to try to outdraw him? If I wasn’t on a draw, could I have something big enough to have stayed in the pot? There was a Ten on board. I could have pocket Tens. Trip Tens was certainly enough to play with.
I was still smiling at him. He didn’t know if my smile was real or manufactured. I could just be happy, to have hit my Ace-high flush. But I wouldn’t want to show him that. So maybe I was bluffing, trying to make him think I had it. Or maybe I had it, knew that he’d know that I’d know that he’d know that I wouldn’t want to show it but might be bluffing, and was …well, you get the picture. Poker’s not an easy game.
In the end, he couldn’t take the chance. That I’d gleefully turn over a pair of fours while pulling in his money. If I had the spade Ace, he could say I was lucky. Outdrew him. If he folded and I didn’t have it, he’d look a fool.
He called.
I showed my spade Ace. He looked away.
Fuck, he said. I knew it.
He turned over his spade King Queen, threw them into the middle of the table. He got up, walked to the beer keg, drew out a pint into a plastic cup. Sat back down.
This was a new Jake. Normally he took the beats good-naturedly. He was drinking less this time. He wasn’t playing the buffoon. He was playing well. You could feel his ambition.
He wants to crush me, I thought.
I was game for the challenge. I knew it was foolish. Poker isn’t like high jumping, or tennis. You don’t draw on extra reserves of energy and suddenly transcend your opponent’s performance. There’s too much luck involved. Like that last hand. I’d played it right. And over the long haul I’d make money playing that hand that way. But on this night, this one iteration, that spade might well not have fallen. In fact, the odds were excellent that it wouldn’t. Four to one, in fact, a little worse. But tonight, it fell. And the other cards on the other hands for the rest of the night would also fall as they would, with no regard for anyone’s ambition or resolve.
But we’re all human. So Jake’s reaction to the beat wasn’t unusual. I didn’t hold it against him. In fact, I invited it. It pleased me. Because it was dangerously close to a tilt. When a player gets so angry at a beat or two, or three, that he begins to play irrationally, recklessly, making big bets against the odds as though to bully you out of the game, he’s on tilt.
You can make a lot of money from a guy on tilt.
But Jake wasn’t on tilt. Not quite. He was focused. Determined. He played cagily. Tight. But mixing it up a bit. Taking a small pot on a bluff, he showed me his Ten Seven off-suit. He wanted me to know I couldn’t peg him just for tight. A bit of unpredictability goes a long way.
But I outplayed him on that night. Caught him big a couple more times. I slow-played trip Sixes against his Aces. Just checked, called his bets. Checking and calling is bad poker, most of the time. And he should have known that I knew that. Had he stopped to calculate, he’d have known that I didn’t have the odds to be on a draw, waiting for a straight or flush card to hit. So my calling had to mean something else. The slow-play alarm should have gone off in his head. But it didn’t. I bet big on the end. He called, thinking I was bluffing. I won the pot.
More important, I won the ego battle.
He got darker after that. A couple of hands later I was looking at a small straight draw. I was in the big blind. Everyone folded around to Jake. He raised me in the blind. I looked down at a suited Seven Eight. A drawing hand. Not a good heads-up hand. But I felt like gambling. I was getting to see a pretty cheap flop.
The flop came Five, Six, King. Two clubs. I had a straight draw. But the flop had hit Jake hard. Or so he wanted me to believe. He threw in a serious bet, stared me down.
I just called. The odds said to fold. I only had eight outs: four Fours and four Nines. I didn’t have clubs. And pairing any of my cards wouldn’t do it for me. Not if he had the Kings. Or better. Or maybe he was on a semi-bluff. Had two clubs: nothing now, but enough outs to make it profitable. Because I would fold enough times. Add those to the times he hits the flush, and you’ve got a profitable bet.
I figured him for the Kings. It was just a feeling. But you learn to go with your feelings. Separate a hunch from wishful thinking. Too many times I’d argued myself out of a hunch at the table. Found out later I was right.
I didn’t see him on the semi-bluff. The bet wasn’t quite big enough. He’d have wanted me to fold without even giving it a thought. Especially in this aggressive mood.
Kings, then. Not a huge kicker. Not Ace King. He would have raised more pre-flop with that hand. I figured King Queen. I was almost sure of it.
Something about the situation felt just right. I wanted to fool with him. I flat-called.
A tiny flash of doubt crossed his face. More weakness. He didn’t understand my call. The situation would indicate a raise or fold. He knew I was doing something funny. But he didn’t know what it was.
I had him halfway there.
The turn card was an Ace.
Excellent.
I stayed calm. If he bet, I had him.
He looked at me.
He looked at me for
a long time.
He pushed in another bet. Double the first.
Raise, I said, without a pause.
Goddamn, he said. I knew it.
He’d figured me for the Aces.
He folded his Kings.
Love them semi-bluffs, I said, showing him my busted draw.
He said nothing.
I saw in his eyes something that I hadn’t seen before.
Rage.
Butch leaned over to me.
Jesus, he said, careful. This guy could hurt somebody.
44.
I TRIED TO SLEEP.
It didn’t work.
I went downstairs to warm some milk.
I glanced into the living room.
Melissa wasn’t on the sofa. She was on the floor. Face down. One arm limp across the ottoman. One bent behind her back. An unnatural position for sleeping.
But she wasn’t sleeping.
She was unconscious.
There’s a difference, I’d learned.
I didn’t stop to try to pick her up. I was too angry. I’d seen this pose before. She’d had the local drugstore bring some pills. Or come across the hiding place of some forgotten flask of vodka. Perhaps she’d even given in and breached the ultimate taboo, the talisman. It didn’t matter which. Whatever it was, we were back at the starting gate. Again. It hadn’t been an aberration. Tomorrow I’d try to deal. She’d tell some lies. She’d had a cold. It was cough medicine.
I didn’t have the energy to care. Let Steiglitz care. Let Steiglitz deal. I needed sleep. I climbed the stairs. I lay down. I slept.
In my dream the fog had eyes. The fog had eyes to see through me. Through the fog I could see nothing. Nothing but the fog around me. The fog had a mouth. A face. A name. Hello! The face was Jake’s. Jake laughed. He put his arm around my shoulder. Bought me a drink. I felt grateful. The fog had lifted. I turned to him.
I had my arm around a woman. Her name was Lola. Tall. Slim-waisted. Muscular. A snakelike thing. It broke my grasp. It got away. Escaped.
I woke up feeling strange. It was six in the morning. Too early to get up. I tried to place the feeling. I wasn’t just hungover. Or anxious. It was something more specific. After a while it occurred to me: unsatisfied. I felt unsatisfied.
I lay in bed for a while, thinking about what it meant. To be unsatisfied. It was different from being dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction implied a goal. Something expected or desired that hadn’t come to pass. Something specific. Being unsatisfied was different. It was an emptiness waiting to be filled. With something. Anything. Anything, that is, that would fill the emptiness.
But what that was, what that could be, I didn’t know.
45.
EIGHT O’CLOCK ARRIVED at last. I got up. I took off my wrinkled suit. I put on shorts, a golf shirt. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to go to the office.
Barefoot, I went downstairs. Kelly was in the kitchen. Her eyes were red.
She knew.
What are we going to do? she asked.
I don’t know, I said. I don’t know.
I sat at the kitchen table. I put my head in my hands. I smelled of nicotine. My chest was tight.
Did you call Steiglitz? I asked.
I got his voice mail.
Did you leave a message?
I told him that we’ve got to get her back to the clinic.
More money. More post-tax money. For what? To give her another chance to torment us with false hopes and promises? Jesus. How much of this could we take?
I was trying to choke down a scalding cup of coffee when Steiglitz called back. Kelly answered the phone. He said we could bring her to the clinic. He wouldn’t be in today. But he’d see her tomorrow.
At least they could keep her off the stuff til then.
Kelly went to her bedroom, where Melissa was hiding. I drank another cup of coffee. I cleaned the kitchen. I put in a load of laundry. Kelly was gone for half an hour.
She’ll do it, she said on her return.
She’ll go to the clinic?
Yes.
Just like that?
What do you mean, just like that? I had to sell my soul.
I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll have to get you a new one.
I got a small smile for that one. She was resilient. She’d handle it. Hell, she’d handle it better than I would.
What did she say? I asked.
Never mind what she said. She said she was sorry. She made a mistake. She’ll never do it again.
That’s depressing. Yes, it is.
Should I go and talk to her?
She doesn’t want to see you. She’s too embarrassed.
I wasn’t certain how that made me feel. There was a kind of relief. That I wouldn’t have to deal with her. Too many emotions. Loud, insistent and inconsistent emotions. I needed a rest from emotions. But it was also a rejection, of a sort. She didn’t need me anymore.
But had she ever?
Everything I’d ever thought or felt about Melissa was suspect.
I called an office limo for them. I asked them to send Christof. He’d take good care of Kelly.
I went to my bedroom. Booted up the computer. Nosed around some paleontology sites. Sometimes old bones can be comforting.
I heard the limo pull away.
The bones weren’t doing it for me.
I had to get away.
I called Dorita.
46.
WE AGREED TO MEET at Trois Pistoles, a nice French bistro near the park. If the mood struck us, we could take a stroll after lunch.
We ordered a nice but inexpensive bottle of Burgundy. We had steak frites. Dorita was a demon for steak frites. For any kind of steak. For meat. Red meat. Red bloody meat. When the waiter asked her how she wanted her steak, she made her usual scene.
Rare, she said. And I mean rare. With a capital R.
Certainly, madame, the waiter said.
No, she said, I don’t think you understand. Make it all caps.
Certainly, madame, he repeated.
Twitching, she said. I want it twitching.
Pardon me, madame?
If I can’t taste the fear, it’s too well done. Get it?
The waiter looked around for help.
Oh, never mind, she said.
Certainly, madame, he replied.
After he had left us, no doubt to regale the kitchen staff with tales of the tall, slim lady and her lust for blood and fear, I got right down to business. I didn’t want to give Dorita a chance to go personal. I’d been having serious second thoughts about revealing my secrets to her. I was not at all sure that our thing could survive. I’d seen a face of Dorita – the kind and sympathetic side – I’d always suspected but never confirmed was there. The dissonance between it and the jolly misanthrope I’d grown to know and love was highly disconcerting. It meant complication. Ambiguity. Doubt. In other words, the very things that defined my marriage. That I’d used my friendship with Dorita to escape.
I wanted to get back to being Nick and Nora, sexually ambiguous detectives.
We talked about Jules. I brought her up to date. The phone records.
That’s an interesting detail, she said. I thought they weren’t on speaking terms.
So they’ve both told me. But it reminded me of something FitzGibbon said when I first went to see him. Something about how Jules didn’t have the balls to call home. I mean, if they weren’t even talking to each other, why would he have expected Jules to call him?
Hm. Something to ask him about.
Jules?
Either or both.
No doubt. I’ll have to think about how to approach it, though. Clients don’t normally take it well, when they find out you’ve been surreptitiously looking at their phone records.
There’s that too.
We searched for benign reasons for Jules to be calling his hated father.
Asking for money? I suggested.
Possible.
Forgiveness?
<
br /> Unlikely.
Threatening him?
Much more plausible.
But with what? The kid’s a small-time loser. Daddy’s a big-time player.
I told her about the samurai connection.
Jesus, she said. Sounds like the kid needs a shrink real bad.
No kidding. But he thinks he’s Superman. Don’t need no help from nobody. You know.
Denial.
The alcoholic syndrome.
I guess you’d know about that.
I guess I wouldn’t be the only one in the room.
Sure. You got me. But you’re not his shrink, you’re his lawyer. What do you care? I mean, he did or he didn’t, right?
I’m not in the ‘he did it’ business, darling; I’m in the ‘he didn’t do it’ business.
Thanks for reminding me. So, what else?
I told her about my conversation with Kennedy. His fears about FitzGibbon.
My, she said. Maybe Daddy is more than just an obnoxious blowhard.
Could be. But.
But.
Well, say we do a little investigating. Turn over a few flat rocks. Find some slimy things.
Crawling things.
Slugs.
Centipedes.
Rot.
Ugh.
We find out FitzGibbon’s more than just a fatuous dickhead.
He’s a psychopathic fatuous dickhead.
He set up his son.
He killed Larry Silver.
And framed poor Jules.
Right.
And then what? I asked.
He goes to jail.
He goes to jail. Right. And?
You’re a hero.
Am I?
Sure. Front page of the Post.
Get an agent.
Book deal.
Movie rights.
Syndication.
You’d better be right.
How so?
Think about it, I said.
I gave her the under-the-eyebrows look.
Ah.
Right.
The firm just lost its biggest client.
I’m not on probation anymore.
No, you’re not.
Instead, I’m fired.
You’re fired.
And so are you.
Darn, she said. Aiding and abetting. You’re right.