by Mark Joseph
“Alex, for God’s sake,” Charlie pleaded.
Bobby looked around at the four men, riveting each with a glance, and calmly said, “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? You all believed it would come down to Alex and me, and you made a deal. He wins and gives it all back and you pay him off, or something like that. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but you guys have had a long time to work it out. Trouble is, maybe Alex doesn’t want to keep his end of whatever deal you made. If you make a bargain with the devil, well then, good luck. I don’t give a damn. I’m happy to quit winners.”
“All right,” Alex snarled. “Nelson, deal a hand of low hole card wild.”
“We’re gonna play?” Bobby said, delighted.
“Yeah, we’ll play.”
“Excellent.”
Bobby sat down, cut the cards, and Nelson, awake now, dealt two hole cards to each player, calling out, “This is low hole card wild, gentlemen. The lowest card in the hole and all like it are wild. An eight to Alex and the queen of spades to Bobby.”
Alex and Bobby looked at their hole cards and then at each other.
“Let’s make this short and sweet,” Bobby said. “Fifty thousand on the queen.”
Alex had two deuces in the hole, the best possible way to start a game of low hole card wild, a hand that could only improve.
“I call,” he said.
“Next card. A deuce to Alex and a nine to Bobby. Queen still bets.”
“Hundred thousand on the queens.”
Jesus, Alex thought, three deuces and my deuces are wild, I’ll have four eights at least. He said, “I see your hundred and raise a hundred.”
“We have a game here, Wiz. That deuce must have done something for you. Glad to see it. I’ll go easy on ya. I call.”
“Fifth card, a queen to Alex and a six to Bobby. Queen nine still bets,” Nelson said.
“You got my queen again. I check,” Bobby said cheerfully.
Four queens, Alex thought. Four mother loving queens.
“I have a hundred and ten in whites, seventy-five in blues, and one thirty in reds,” he said. “That’s the bet, three fifteen.”
“Alrighty.”
“A four to Alex, no help, and a five to Bobby, no help. The queen nine still rules.”
“Wanna see the last card, Alex? The down and dirty last card? Gee, what can we put in now? You don’t have any chips left over there, Wiz, so let’s have some fun. I’ll bet the boat against the cars,” Bobby offered.
“Fair enough. Deal.”
Nelson dealt the last card, bellowing out the ritual, “Down and dirty!”
Before Alex could look at his card, Bobby said, “I’m not going to look at my last card, Wiz. I put in Dean and Charlie against you and Nelson. All in, Alex, everything.”
Alex studied Bobby’s cards, the queen of spades, nine of hearts, six of clubs, and five of diamonds, and figured the only possible hand that could keep Bobby in the game was three or four of a kind or a hidden flush. What could beat four queens? The odds! The odds! To hell with the odds. Bobby was bluffing again, like the last hand.
“I call.” Alex turned over his cards. “Four queens.”
Everyone leaned forward to see Bobby’s cards.
“What can beat four queens?” Bobby asked, and then turned over a natural full house with three sixes and two queens. Six was his low hole card, and with three wild sixes, he had five queens.
The fifth queen, the wild card, the ghost of the queen of hearts.
50
Alex closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, struggling to accept his loss. He failed. Paralyzed, his mind went blank.
Nelson, Dean, and Charlie looked at their hands, chewed their lips and stared at the shuttered windows as though they were open. Bobby recognized them from a thousand games, the forlorn, sagging, sad faces of the defeated.
“Oh, my God,” Charlie said.
Bobby rubbed his hands together and paused to admire two and a half million dollars in fine ceramic chips. He selected one blue and put it in his pocket with the six rounds from Nelson’s revolver. Encountering the bullets, his fingers began to have ideas.
“Unless you have something else to play with, it looks like you boys are wiped out,” he said, standing up to stretch.
“Game’s over,” Alex mumbled.
“No, it isn’t,” Bobby said.
Stunned, awkward silence.
“Oh, God,” Charlie moaned.
“You have everything,” Dean said.
“No, not everything,” Bobby replied with an edge in his voice.
“What do you want?” Alex asked, mumbling, “As if I didn’t know.”
“I came to play for five thousand dollars, and that was fine. And when you raised the stakes to a half million, that was fine, too, because it was cash. But then I raised the stakes again and you lost a lot of property that I don’t see. The first question is: how do I collect?”
“Don’t you trust us?” Nelson asked.
“Since you ask, the answer is, no sir, I don’t. Poker like this is illegal in California, and gambling debts are damned near uncollectible.”
“You want markers? IOUs?” Dean asked.
Alex said, “Our word is good. We’ll sign over the property, at least I will.”
“I’m sure you will, Alex, because you want to walk out on your life, anyway. Dean and Nelson and Charlie, I’m not so sure about. No matter what you say now, you can wake up tomorrow and think, that guy can’t prove he won my building or my company. You’ll begin to get ideas. Just like Shanghai Bend, you can pretend this didn’t happen. No way. I want a lawyer to draw up papers,” Bobby said.
“A lawyer!” Dean exclaimed. “Jesus.” And Nelson added, “It’s five o’clock on Sunday morning, Bobby. Not too many attorneys are at work.”
“Oh, I know an ambulance chaser who’ll take my call. Reno is full of ’em. And if I don’t call a lawyer, what can I do to collect? Should Charlie and I go down to the fishwharf right now and tell his boat captains I own the fleet? How about you, Dean? Want to go up the river and give me the keys this morning? Any way we do it, you’ll have to explain why some guy is claiming he won your goods in a poker game. Your secret goes public, whatever it is. You’re exposed for what you are. Think about it. Want to go down to the wharf, Charlie?”
Prolonged silence. Gray faces.
“Charlie?”
No answer.
“Dean? Nelson? You didn’t think this through, did you? You don’t know what to do. Well, I have an idea. I don’t really want to call a lawyer, but I will if I have to. The same thing goes for the Yuba County Sheriff. I don’t want to call him, either, but I will. On the other hand, I’d prefer to sort this out in this room right now.”
Jingling the six fat .44 magnum cartridges in his pocket, Bobby reached under his seat, brought up Nelson’s pistol and laid it on the table.
Undisguised horror.
“Okay,” Bobby said. “You have a little common sense left, so here’s what we’ll do. We’ll let the cards decide. I think that’s only fitting. We’ll play five card no peeky heads-up one at a time, and the best hand wins. If I win, you tell me the truth about Shanghai Bend and I give you back your property. Not the money, I’m keeping that. And if you win, you can have your stuff back and say nothing. If you want to keep silent forever, you have to win, and all of you have to win. One loser and he talks. If you don’t want to play, I’ll start making phone calls. I’m making it easy. I don’t want your buildings or businesses or cars, and I sure as hell don’t want some damned silly boat. You want your lives back? Play cards, or by God I’m taking everything and holding you to it, and I’ll call the Yuba County Sheriff for good measure and you can tell him who cracked Sally’s skull. Who’s first?” Bobby snapped. Snatching the red deck, he began to shuffle.
“You want to play cards for the truth?” Alex asked.
“Why not? First I hear all this bullshit about the right thing, and it turns out you don
’t know what the right thing is. You think the right thing is to let sleeping dogs lie, to keep quiet, say nothing, do nothing. But you feel guilty enough to pay me off with all this dope money and the cash you lost in the game, but it went farther than you expected. The game got out of control and you forfeited everything you’ve acquired by pretending all these years that Sally never existed. You’re all respectable members of society, substantial citizens, men of means, but you know you’re frauds, and I know you want to continue being frauds. Fine. We’re going to decide everything on the turn of a card. If you don’t like it, we can do it the other way with lawyers and cops and the whole nine yards. Let’s cut the crap. Who’s first?”
“And if we lose and tell you what happened, then what?” Nelson asked.
“It depends on what you say. You’ve had a long time to work on your story, so it better be good.”
“We haven’t worked on the story,” Charlie said. “We—”
“Shhh,” Bobby hissed. “Who’s first?”
No one moved.
“What do I have to do?” Bobby asked, picking up the gun. “Put a bullet in someone’s knee?”
“We can’t all win. You know that,” Alex said.
“Stop stalling. Enough bullshit. What are you afraid of?”
“You,” Dean answered. “We’re afraid of you, Bobby.”
“You’re afraid of what I might do when I learn the truth?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the worst I can do? Call the sheriff? Shoot you with this gun? You’d better think about what’s gonna happen if you don’t play. I spent many years planning revenge on you people, but I put it behind me. I grew up, but now you’re pissing me off, stalling and trying to buy me off. I’m going to hear the truth, one way or the other.”
With a long sigh Alex said, “What the hell. I’ll play.”
“Then cut the cards.”
Alex lifted half the deck and covered it with the bottom half. Bobby set down the revolver, swiftly dealt five cards to Alex and himself, then turned over his first card, a ten.
Alex turned over an ace.
Bobby turned over a second ten.
Alex turned over a second ace, and when all the cards were turned, Alex won with a pair of aces.
“You’re a winner, Alex,” Bobby said. “The life you want to abandon is now yours again. You don’t have to say a damned thing. Who’s next? Who wants his stuff back the most? Charlie? Nelson?”
Dean took his seat at the table, reached over and, hands trembling, cut the deck. Bobby scooped up the cards and dealt two more hands.
“No need to prolong the agony. Just flip ’em over,” Bobby said.
Dean turned over all his cards and revealed a pair of threes.
“A pair, that’s good,” Bobby said, and turned over his cards one at a time.
“A seven, a king, a ten, a deuce, and another seven. Sorry, Stud, you lose. Want your business back? Start talking.”
Dean looked at the others, still uncertain.
“Go ahead,” Charlie said. “Tell him. There’s no way around it.”
Nelson nodded and Alex stared at the heroes on the wall.
“I thought,” Dean began, and faltered. “I was so drunk I thought—she—”
“I saw her in the river,” Charlie stammered. “I woke up and everyone was gone, so I went through the woods and I saw Dean and Nelson and Alex hiding in the trees, and then I saw her naked in the middle of the river near the rocks by the falls. Buck naked and a little chubby.”
The story began to spill from four voices at once.
51
“It isn’t fair that Bobby gets the girl all to himself,” Dean said, expressing his envy by drop-kicking a beer can into the river.
“Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, happens all the time,” Alex said.
“Let’s go give ’em a scare.”
“What? You’re nuts.”
“The boogie man, the boogie man, woo woo.”
“You’re drunk.”
“So what, Wiz? So’re you. Where’s Nelson? Hey, Chinaman!”
“What?”
“Wouldn’t you like to stick your dick into that girl?”
“I wanna go to sleep.”
“Sleep? With pussy aroun’? Whatsa matta wit’ you? Maybe you should crawl in with Charlie and fuck him.”
“You’re an asshole, Studley.”
“Well, at least I ain’t queer. Shit, I’m goin’ over there.”
“You’ll be sorry,” Nelson warned. “Bobby will kick your ass, and you know he can.”
“Bobby this, Bobby that, Bobby Bobby Bobby. Fuck ’im.”
Dean hopped off the boat onto the shore and started tramping through the woods.
“Christ,” Alex said to Nelson. “We’d better go after him or we’re gonna have big trouble.”
“Bobby was right this afternoon,” Nelson said with deep remorse. “We never shoulda let her on the boat in the first place.”
“Too late f’ that. Let’s go.”
“Shit, Alex. Bobby can take care of himself. Dean’ll get what he deserves.”
“Come on, Nelson. We gotta stop this pervert before he starts a riot.”
Awake in the forward cabin, Charlie waited until Alex and Nelson left the boat before following them unseen into the woods.
Lurching drunkenly through the woods, Alex and Nelson caught up with Dean behind a thicket of underbrush near the far end of the island. The moonlit night was clear, warm, and buggy, the tent silent and still, the river steaming with foam from the falls.
“Come back to the boat, Dean,” Alex whispered as loudly as he dared.
“Shut up, fool.”
“What’re you gonna do? Knock onna door and ask Bobby’s permission?”
“I just wanna give ’em a scare.”
“I don’ think Bobby’ll be scared by anything you can do. You’re trying t’ pick a fight ’cause you’re drunk and stupid and jealous. Grow up.”
Dean seemed to waver in his resolve, grinning sheepishly. “I’m the boogie man,” he said without conviction.
“Yeah, right.”
“I don’t hear nothin’,” Nelson said. “Maybe they’re asleep.”
“Come on. Let’s go back t’ the boat’n play cards.”
“Shh. I hear something. Look, the zipper in the tent.”
Alarmed, Alex whispered hoarsely, “Back up! Back up! Let’s get outta here! If Bobby sees us, holy shit.”
Hidden in the foliage a hundred feet from the tent, Alex, Dean, and Nelson watched Sally emerge nude, radiant, a river nymph, and their hearts raced and their cocks got hard. They remained stock still and waited for Bobby to come out after her, but he didn’t.
“Lookit. Damn.”
“Shh.”
She stepped gingerly over the rocks and sharp clam shells and waded into the water up to her knees, her back to the woods. She was singing, not any particular song, merely trilling la-la-la la-la-la and splashing water into her face and over her body. Then they noticed she had a deck of cards in her hand that she began flipping into the river one by one.
“La-la-la la-la-la.”
“It’s like a painting,” Alex whispered, overcome by the beauty of the scene. “You know, one of those old paintings in the museum.”
In the throes of rampant lust, Dean growled, “It don’t look like no painting to me. It looks like pussy.”
“If Bobby comes out, he’ll be pissed if he finds us,” Nelson said, trying to keep his head while his dick jumped around like a snake inside his pants.
“Like I give a shit,” Dean said.
They stared, imaginations pumping enough hormones into their bloodstreams to put all the rules of civilization to the test.
“This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be doing this,” Alex said, embarrassed and confused by the power of his emotions, yet he couldn’t make his legs carry him away. His eyes were nailed to the waif in the river as she turned, giving them a full view of her budding ad
olescent body.
“Oh, Jesus,” Nelson moaned, trying to squeeze his eyes shut which they refused to do.
Alex sighed, knowing he’d never have the charisma of a Bobby McCorkle to attract a girl like that. Just wasn’t in the cards.
Water streamed between her breasts and between her legs. The falls behind her creamed white and hissing as though the river had felt her presence, become aroused and was ejaculating all around her.
“Whaddaya think she’d do if I jumped inna water with her?” Dean snickered.
“I don’t know, but I know what Bobby’d do.”
“I can’t stand it!”
Nelson grabbed his dick and came in his pants, gasped, and thrashed off into the woods running right past Charlie without seeing him in the bushes. Charlie saw the stain on the front of Nelson’s Bermuda shorts and watched him rush to the boat and jump in the river away from the others.
Sally neither saw nor heard their shenanigans and continued to sing and splash in the water now up to the middle of her thighs. The liberated deck of cards spread out in a long line like uprooted water lilies drifting downstream. Delighted, she watched them float away, then spread her arms wide, threw her head back and thanked the stars for giving her this moment, the end of innocence and the beginning of love. A little woozy from the beer, she was glad she hadn’t passed out like Bobby. Boys did that, she’d noticed. They just drank themselves silly.
“She can’t swim,” Alex said. “She shouldn’t be out in the river like that.”
“Look a’ those titties,” Dean said. “Look at the hair on her pussy.”
“Dean, you’re just drunker’n shit, so shut up.”
“I’m gonna go get her.”
“No, you’re not.”
Alex abruptly walked out of the woods and across the rocky beach to the edge of the water.
“Sally!” he shouted as loud as he could. “Get out of the river! It’s dangerous!”
With the falls directly behind her, Sally couldn’t hear. All she saw was Alex gesturing wildly for her to come to him, and then she saw Dean walk out of the woods behind him. They were getting a good look at her in the moonlight, that was for sure, so instead of shrieking like a dizzy bimbo and trying to cover herself, she waved, did a little dance, and wiggled her ass. Alex started to laugh, but Dean was ready to rip off his clothes and plunge into the river.