Dead Man's Hand

by Steven Meehan

  So instead of attempting something that had zero chance of success, I decided to use different tactics and try to keep him from learning things that would only upset him. One such tactic had been ignoring his phone calls so he wouldn’t be able to ask me who was orchestrating the tournament. When I originally found out about the tournament and entered my reservation, I honestly had no idea who was pulling the strings, and I hadn’t cared. I only knew that in order to play, one had to either have a direct invitation or a referral from someone who had one. I had the latter. Thus, I had a roughly vague idea of what I was willingly walking into. Matt, on the other hand, was never much of a risk taker, which is fine. There will always be men who dine upon caution, they balance men like me.

  But I had decided that I needed to keep his level of caution away from the game, and that was before I even found out who was in charge. Now it was a downright necessity. He would either politely ask me to withdraw, or somehow get down to New Orleans, and physically drag me away from the tournament. Okay, so I knew which was more likely, and I didn’t want to deal with that. Truth be told I had contemplated withdrawing for a day or two once I learned who was backing everything.

  I certainly could have done that, after all this tournament had quite a long waiting list, which those not fast enough with their reservation had learned very quickly. But I decided to stay in, despite the man behind the curtain. And it was not the money that kept me around. While it was quite the enticement, I didn’t really need it, I mean I could always make more on my own whenever it got a little scarce. No, the real reason I stayed was simply the allure of the challenge. I had a real weakness for hold’em, and it was getting harder and harder for me to find a game back home.

  Unfortunately, trying to keep Matt from finding out about the game now meant trying to withhold certain information, and that simply worked better when I wasn’t asked a direct question. So I bit my lip and decided to take my chances and try to fib my way out after all, “You know Matt, I haven’t quite been able to track…”

  “Not a chance Marcus!” Did I mention that Matt knew me fairly well? He sniffed out that lie from the word go. “I’ve known you far too long for you to try and pull something like that. Who’s running this tournament of yours? I knew that was why you’ve been ignoring my calls, so tell me now.”

  That was quite the leap, even for Matt; there was no way he could have known what I knew. But I wasn’t done trying to weasel my way out of answering the question so I decided to try and irritate him into forgetting the question entirely, it worked sometimes. I laced my voice with absentmindedness and started speaking, “Excuse me…”

  “Don’t play games with me, Marcus!” And there went that idea down in spectacular flames. I could plainly hear just how upset he was, there was real ire in his voice now. “Not with me! You only beat around the bush like this when you KNOW exactly what you need to say but, for whatever reason, you’re unwilling to say it. Now spit it out.”

  Resigned that I would be treading a potential minefield I took the necessary time to prepare myself for the ordeal. I could mitigate the blowup if I was careful and, at that moment in time, I had to be extra careful. “From what I have seen through my glass circle and the fact that he’s the only real power in that part of the city, my guess is that Dempsey is the puppeteer.” This was a lie, but it was rooted in enough truth that I thought, maybe, I could get away with it. Unfortunately for me, I knew Dempsey was the one backing the tournament. I had known this little fact for almost a week. I hoped that Matt would be too irate to realize how long I had known this information.

  After a few moments of silence that were being tortured into an eternity, I began to think that maybe I had unnecessarily feared Matt’s reaction. When had he managed to mellow out without my knowing about it? But I quickly dismissed this idea, there was no way he could be so calm. With a twinkle in my eye I thought that just maybe the call had been dropped. Perhaps even, maybe it had dropped before I had mentioned Dempsey’s name. Ever the optimist, I pulled the phone away from my face so as to check the display. No luck, we were still connected. Had I sent him into cardiac arrest or something, why was he so silent?

  As I was bringing the phone back to my ear Matt finally broke his silence. “What in the name of all that’s good and holy would convince you that walking into that tournament is a good idea?” I yanked the phone away from my head as fast as I could, but it barely helped. I hadn’t realized that the speaker on this phone was so powerful or that Matt had that type of lung capacity. With my ear drum ringing I latched upon the only positive in the tirade, it sounded as if he had truly missed the timing. Granted, it wasn’t much, but under the circumstances I would take what I could get.

  Matt was never one to remain irate for long so I let him get it off his chest. Fortunately, I was pretty certain he failed to notice the sound of my phone hitting the ground and he didn’t seem to expect an answer to his question, at least, not yet. Since I could still hear him with my phone on the floor, I figured I would wait until he finally took a break. Leaving the phone where it was, I went back to watching the surveillance, which I had lost track of since starting this wretched conversation. And, of course, it was in those distracted moments that something happened on screen, or at least I thought it did.

  I had been watching the feed for almost three days and had seen nothing. Granted, it was entirely possible that any and maybe all of the work had been done prior to my arrival, but I had figured that there would be something to see. Otherwise, I would have just skipped that little excursion. But as I was bringing my attention back to the camera I thought I saw some more motion. Before I could do anything with the camera I realized that Matt’s voice was no longer filling the room. When had he stopped talking? Shaking my head I quickly grabbed the phone off of the floor while straining to see something that might have moved, when my ears underwent another assault.

  “Marc, answer me.”

  I was so frustrated with Matt that a growl actually emanated from my throat before I could contain it. Not wanting to go deaf, I kept the phone a good six inches from my ear as I answered. “Yes Matt, I can hear you. In fact I think the folks in the rooms next to me were able to hear you.” Taking a short calming breath I pressed on before he could scream at me again. “There is no reason to shout like that. And on top of the auditory damage you’re causing me I think you just made me miss something on the video feed.”

  “No! You don’t get to change the topic that easily Marcus!” Matt exclaimed, still using the same volume. “I know you. You’re planning to run some kind of game on Dempsey and he isn’t just some local thug. He owns almost everything and everyone east of the Mississippi and south of the District.”

  Due to the nature of our conversation I was simply unwilling to place Matt on speaker. But, I had to do something; I turned down the volume. When he actually wanted to have a conversation with me, rather than just deliver a diatribe, I would turn it up. This was the reaction I had been expecting and had planned to deal with after the tournament. So I waited, hopefully it wouldn’t take him too long to calm him down a little. When Matt’s tirade paused, I assumed he was simply catching his breath or, who knew, maybe getting himself something to drink. Either way I decided to use the opportunity and started my well-rehearsed speech.

  “Matt, you know the story, and that’s all it is. I’m sure that all of Dempsey’s influence has just been exaggerated, most of the stories probably originated with him. Besides even if, and I cannot stress that word enough, he was controlling an empire of that size, you do remember who this tournament was engineered for, right? You do remember how we found out about it don’t you? The spoiled rich kid from one of our longer cons? He called me up and told me about it. But before you can object, I’m sure there will be a mix of pros and his goons, but the majority will be like our friend.

  After all who else can afford to throw that kind of money away on something like this? Now, also keep in mind that those very kids are by the
ir nature not the most tight-lipped, they don’t really understand what they have been given, for most of them it is just money. Dempsey has to know that this would eventually spill over and become known. I would be shocked if the local police didn’t already know of the game’s existence, they probably don’t know where it is, but I’m sure they know about it.

  Another fact for you to chew on is that our friend said this game is a yearly occurrence. Now, armed with all of this knowledge, we can safely assume that Dempsey views these people as walking, talking piggy-banks. I’m also willing to bet he likes to add banks to that collection. Yes, yes, he could break the little, well in this case I should say rather large piggy-banks, but then he would not be able to revisit them over and over and over again. Besides nothing that I am carrying with me tomorrow has been directly procured with any of my transformations. This is just a simple tournament and you know that I’m more than a fair hand at hold’em. You know that.”

  As I sat there waiting for Matt’s reply, a sudden chill ran up my spine. Was he simply gearing up for another verbal assault? But that would be out of character for him. Then I remembered what I had done less than a minute ago and quickly turned the volume on the phone back up. When I was able to hear his voice again I managed to catch the tail end of his response. “…cut and run.”

  With what I had already heard and what I knew about Matt, it wasn’t all that difficult to fill in the missing words. “Listen Matt, you’re worrying too much.”

  “No Marc. I’m not! You are only as good as you are at hold’em because you change the occasional card. The local tables you went to don’t use cameras and you’ve been lucky to boot. You can’t rely on luck to keep avoiding the trouble you’re due.”

  “Would it make you feel any better if I told you that Dempsey doesn’t use cameras on his tables either?” His rather loud scoff answered the question as clearly as anything he might have said. But I was getting impatient with the length of this argument so I elaborated. “When he first started this thing yes, he used cameras, five years ago he stopped it when it became painfully obvious that no one was cheating him.”

  Exasperated, Matt automatically replied, “Just because he stopped doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t bring them back.”

  “Matt, you just have to trust me, I’ll be fine. Besides I’ll fit the part of a spoiled rich kid.” Biting my lower lip I mentally hoped that his curiosity would latch onto that crumb. At least with that conversation I would be able to turn some of my attention back to the video stream.

  “Yeah? And just how are you going to manage that?” The resignation behind this question told me that while he was still reluctant to change the topic, he knew that I would never back down and withdraw from the tournament. He didn’t like it, but he was accepting that it was my decision. A decision that I would probably pay for later.

  “You’d be surprised just how far you can go with one million dollars, despite needing to keep half for my fee.”

  “You managed to loot a million dollars on your trek down there?”

  I had been hoping that the sheer amount of what I had been able to collect would bring him around, but while a part of him was definitely impressed as a whole, he was still distracted. I felt like screaming at him to forget that Dempsey was involved. I mean collecting that money had been part of the reason I decided to do this in the first place. While we had more than enough funds in our petty cash buckets to both pay the fee and deck me out for tomorrow, I had wanted to test myself and figured that a cross-country trip would allow me to do just that. Of course, I had had to start relatively small, but once I had managed to get the first quarter it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

  “Is any of what you’re bringing one of your transformed goodies?”

  If I had not mentioned it earlier, this would have been a fair question. The only thing that absolutely had to be real was my entrance fee, the rest I could have simply made, but where would the fun be if I cheated even a little bit? And since everything I had, from the cash all the way down to my shiny new accessories, was legitimate, I felt like boasting. “I can’t speak for the money that I used to buy it all, but everything I have now is nice and clean.”

  “Wait a minute!” I could hear the shock in his voice, it was so thick I had trouble recognizing his voice. “That would mean that your current car is nice and legal.”

  Chuckling, I tried to comment but I was unable to get the words out past my genuine amusement. When I was finally able to speak my voice was still tinged with laugher. “That was an odd experience. Did you know this is actually the first car I’ve legally owned?”

  I could hear laughter emanate from the other side of the call as Matt replied, “That’s a disturbing little fact Marcus.”

  “Isn’t it?” Securing the phone with my shoulder I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and started fishing through it as I offered a quasi-explanation. “But I figured that I should get some practice at handing over that kind of money, so in an effort to grow in character, I decided to buy the car.”

  “Is that it?” Matt asked in amusement as I thumbed through the contents of my wallet.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked as I finally found what I was looking for.

  “What was her name Marcus?”

  Taken aback by his question I managed to respond without a significant break in the conversation. “Matt, what are you talking about?” I somehow managed to keep my voice from cracking.

  “If you won’t tell me her name, at least tell me you got her phone number.” Matt said, all too eager to pounce onto this topic.

  For the briefest of moments I actually wished that we were still talking about Dempsey, then I realized what I was wishing for and I hit my head on the wall. Did I really almost drive the conversation back there? Matt knew that there were only a handful of topics that I considered off limits with him, just a handful. This was one of those topics. There were some things that we simply don’t need to share. He knew this would get under my skin, and I knew he was already trying to get payback.

  “Who said the dealer was a woman?”

  With a snort he replied, “Yeah and…”

  Growling a warning I immediately cut him off, “Off topic, Matt.”

  Clicking his tongue, I could hear the glee in his voice. “So after spending all that money, you failed to get her number. No wonder you’re a little cranky.”

  Unable to restrain myself any longer, I released a pent up sigh as I pulled a card from my wallet. Turning it over I was able to see Robin’s cell number scrawled in crisp, clean numbers. I knew I was allowing Matt to run wild with an assumption, but I rather enjoyed guiding him down that path. It was good for my soul, letting him think he got back at me, just a little. “Matt, if you’re just going to give me grief…”

  As if on cue Matt broke in, satisfaction ringing in his voice, “Can I assume that you have a high quality, off the rack, silk suit to pair with that fancy new car.”

  Laughing, I placed Robin’s card on top of my wallet, which I had placed on the nightstand right next to the video camera. “You can assume that.”

  “You have a few nice, handmade silk suits here you could have worn you know.” He said with a scoff.

  “But that wouldn’t have been a challenge.”

  “You and your challenges.” Matt said before blowing air threw his lips. I didn’t think he was taunting me, but I also knew that I was getting awfully close to the end of his patience.

  “Yes me and my challenges. You know how alive I feel when I have to stretch myself both mentally and physically.”

  “We’ve beaten this to death, Marcus. You just need to accept that I’ll never agree with you. It’s all about the path of least resistance.”

  “I know.” I responded warmly. I knew I would never be able to convince him that challenges were not a waste of time and effort, despite the fact that “me and my challenges” have always netted us the greatest reward. But he also knew that I felt bored if I didn
’t have something to entertain me, so he mostly went along with those types of jobs, provided that I didn’t expect him to strive to overcome the challenge.

  “Well since I won’t be able to talk you out of this nonsense,” Matt began, all joviality draining from his voice. “Tell me that your reconnaissance has been going well.”

  I mentally began reviewing what I had managed to see ever since I set up my single surveillance camera. Unfortunately, the effort had only produced a steaming pile of nothing. The motion that I thought I saw earlier was the first sign of life, let alone activity, that I had seen from my sole vantage point. Not for the first time I began wishing I had been able to get more eyes on the warehouse. But there had been people, probably Dempsey’s men, guarding the building. And they did an excellent job making sure that everyone steered clear of the area while not making it look like that was what they were doing. Not even the homeless were safe from their interference, and that was just mean. I had spent the whole trip down here creating my homelessness persona only to have my efforts wasted.

  Normally the homeless are left alone, so I had figured I would be able to plant a few of my surveillance cameras. All I had to do was get close enough to touch the building and presto, my system would be in place. I would have been able to plant a good sampling of cameras pointing into the building. But the one time I tried to get close enough to place my cameras, a guard materialized out of thin air. Well he didn’t actually “materialize,” that would have been quite the trick, but it certainly felt like he had. If he hadn’t been carrying that rather large gun, I might have made another effort somewhere else along the wall. Instead, I contented myself with a simple perimeter search. This turned up only a single entrance, a door to the building adjacent to the loading dock. Disheartened, I decided to place a camera pointing at the entrance before I gradually made my withdrawal.