by Mark Joseph
A knock on the door punctuated the end of his speech.
“Be right with you,” he hollered, and added, “No hard feelings, hey, fellas? It was only poker. See ya ’round.”
He didn’t wait for any sign of agreement. He sauntered over to the table, spread the blue deck, picked out one card, and left the Enrico Caruso Suite with a wink and a wave.
He stopped at the front desk and collected the last of the canvas bags. Outside, as the bellhop piled the bags into a taxi, the rising sun caught snowcaps in the Sierra two hundred miles away. Bursts of silver and gold flashed across the red sky.
With a friendly wink Bobby tipped the bellhop an old silver certificate C-note.
“Thanks!”
“Where to, pal?” asked the driver, a young black man with a beret and gold earring.
“I’m gonna make your day,” Bobby said, climbing in. He leaned over the back of the front seat and fanned four hundred-dollar bills and the ace of spades.
“How’d you like to take me to Reno?”
Looking out the window, Dean watched the cab pull away from the hotel, took a deep breath, blinked, exhaled, bent over the stereo and put on the rock and roll classic “Jim Dandy” by LaVerne Baker.
“Okay?” he asked, popping his fingers to the snappy beat.
“Okay,” Alex answered. “It cost damned near four million dollars, but okay. It was worth it. What a rush. Thanks, Charlie. You hung in there like a champ.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Nelson?”
“He’ll never talk. It’s okay.”
“Boy, he really had me sweating,” Charlie said. “I was sure he was going to blow us away, even after we told him.”
“Maybe we should make sure none of us talks,” Nelson said, snatching up the revolver. He aimed the long, menacing barrel across the table at Charlie, whose eyes popped wide in a moment of sudden terror. Nelson shifted his aim to Alex and then to Dean, still crouched over the record player.
“Nelson? What the hell are you doing?”
Dean backed against the wall. Nelson pulled the trigger three times and there were three loud clicks and nothing else. Blanks. No gunpowder.
“Oh, Christ.”
Laughter, tears, shaking heads.
“You’re still crazy.”
Dean had the presence of mind to pour four shots of rum and pass out the glasses.
“To the royal flush.”
“The royal flush.”
“To Rocket Fuel.”
“Rocket Fuel.”
“And next year’s wild card.”
“The wild card.”
“Long live the game.”
“The game!”
ALSO BY MARK JOSEPH
FICTION
To Kill the Potemkin
Typhoon
Mexico 21
Deadline Y2K
NON FICTION
Forbidden Fantasies
(with photographers Mike Phillips
and Barry Shapiro)
Please be advised that this is a work of fiction in which the author has exercised the fictioneer’s license to rearrange facts for his convenience. Wolfman Jack first broadcast on XERB from Tijuana, Mexico, in 1965, not 1963 as represented in this novel.
THE WILD CARD. Copyright © 2001 by Mark Joseph. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
“Stay.”
Words and music by Maurice Williams
© 1960 (Renewed) CHERIO CORP.
All Rights Reserved
Used by permission
www.stmartins.com
Book design by Tim Hall
eISBN 9781429976008
First eBook Edition : June 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Joseph, Mark.
The wild card: a novel / Mark Joseph.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-26120-9
1. Poker players—Fiction. 2. Male friendship—Fiction. 3. Death—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.O776 W55 2001
813’.54—dc21
2001019171
First Edition: August 2001