About seven o'clock, simply because we felt we should do something else with the day, we walked down to the strip mall, to the Baskin-Robbins, and sat by the window in the frosty air conditioning. I had two scoops of vanilla; she had a butterscotch sundae. We ate while the high school girls back of the counter listened to the same Fiona Apple song again and again, arguing over the content of the lyrics as if they espoused an abstruse dialectic. Jo and I talked, or rather I talked and she questioned me about my childhood. I told her my father had been a saxophone player in New Orleans and that my mother had run off when I was seven, leaving me in his care. Jo remarked that this must have been hard on me, and I said, “He wasn't much of a dad. I spent a lot of time running the streets. He was primarily concerned with dope and women, but when he was in the mood, he could be fun. He taught me to play sax and guitar, and made up songs for me and got me to learn them. I could have done worse."
“Do you remember the songs?"
“Bits and pieces."
“Let's hear one!"
After considerable persuasion, I tapped out a rhythm on the tabletop and sang in a whispery voice:
* * * *
“I said, Hey, hey! Devil get away!
Get a move on, boy...
I'll lay the saint's ray on ya.
Shake a calabash skull,
Make the sign of the jay...
Don't you give me no trouble, or as sure as you're born,
I'll make you jump now, Satan,
'cause I got your shinbone."
* * * *
“They most of them were like that one,” I said. “The old man was a bear for religion. He'd haul me down to the temple once or twice a week and have me anointed with some remedy or another."
“I can picture you singing that when you were a little boy,” she said. “You must have been cute."
In the darkened parking lot, I saw the black car I had noticed a few days earlier, the occupants invisible behind smoked glass. The sight banished my nostalgia. I asked Jo what she had told Pellerin the previous day when she talked to him about Ogun Badagris.
“I told him about Donnell,” she said.
“About the big copper veve and all?"
“Yes.” She licked the bottom of her spoon.
“How about your theory? About the Ezawa process being an analog of possession. You tell him about that?"
“I couldn't lie to him anymore."
What'd he say?"
“He was depressed. I told him if we got out of this situation, he'd live a long time. Long enough to understand everything that was happening to him. That depressed him even more. He said that didn't motivate him to want to live that long. I tried to cheer him up, but...” She pinned me with a stern look. “Did you sic those girls on me?"
“What girls?” I asked innocently.
“You know which ones."
“I was pissed at you. I'm over it now, but I was seriously pissed."
“Then you would have been delighted by my reaction.” She dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Once they came in, that was it for the conversation."
“So y'all had some fun, did you?"
“Maybe,” she said, drawing out the first syllable of the word, giving it a playful reading. “I thought the dark-haired girl was very attractive. You never know, do you, when love will strike?"
“Is that right?"
“Mm-hmm. Think I should have gotten her number?"
“We could invite her on the honeymoon, if you want."
“Is that what we're having? A honeymoon?"
“It might have to do for one,” I said.
Not long afterward, we left the Baskin-Robbins and, as we crossed the lot, I noticed a motorcyclist, the same one, judging by his bike, who had tailed me the day before. He was parked about ten slots down from the black car. I thought Billy must be getting paranoid, now that he was close to his goal, and had doubled up on security. We walked along the shoulder through the warm black night. Moths whirled under the arc lamps like scraps of pale ash. Jo's shampoo overbore the bitter scents of the roadside weeds. She slipped a hand into mine and by that simple gesture charged me with confidence. Despite the broken paths we had traveled to reach this night, this sorry patch of earth, I believed we had arrived at our appointed place.
* * * *
There was some talk that we should approach Ruddle prior to the game, but I convinced Pellerin and Jo that the wisest course was to wait until we had a better idea of the connection between Ruddle and Billy Pitch. We held a strategy session before the limo picked us up, but since our strategy was basically to throw ourselves on Ruddle's mercy, the meeting was more or less a pep rally. Pellerin, however, was beyond pepping up. As Jo and I led the cheers, he glumly flipped through channels on the TV and, instead of his usual pre-game ritual of slamming drinks, sipped bottled water.
During the drive, Pellerin sat with a suitcase full of cash between his legs, flipping the handle back and forth, creating a repetitive clicking noise that I found irritating. I rested my eyes on Jo. She had on the black cocktail dress that she'd worn the first time I saw her. Whenever she caught me looking, her smile flickered on, but would quickly dissolve and she would return to gazing out the window. I managed to sustain my confidence by rehearsing what I intended to say to Ruddle. But as we pulled past the gatehouse and the lights of that enormous house floated up against the dark, like a spaceship waiting to take on abductees, I felt a tightness in my throat and, the second we stepped through the door, I realized that Plan A was out the window and, probably, Plan B as well. Standing with a group of middle-aged-to-elderly men at the entrance to the living room, wearing what looked to be powder blue lounging pajamas, was Billy Pitch. Clayton was not in evidence, but close by Billy's shoulder stood a lanky individual with a prominent Adam's apple and close-cropped gray hair and a cold, angular hillbilly face. I recognized him from New Orleans—Alan Goess, a contract killer. Clayton, I assumed, was too showy an item for Billy to take on a trip. Seven or eight young men in private security uniforms waited off to one side, watching their elders with neutral expressions, but contempt was evident in their body language.
Ruddle steered Pellerin away and introduced him to the other players, who were dressed in clothes that appeared to have been bought from the same Palm Beach catalogue. Clad in burgundy, olive, nectarine, coral, aqua, and plum, they bore a passing resemblance to migratory birds from different flocks gathered around a feeder. He introduced Billy as an old friend, not a player.
“Not a poker player, anyway,” said Billy, giving Pellerin's hand a three-fingered shake.
Goess's eyes licked Jo head to toe. She didn't seem as anxious as I would have thought, or else she kept her anxiety contained. With Goess in the picture, my best guess was that Billy planned to humiliate Ruddle, then kill him. Whatever his plans, the odds against our surviving the evening had lengthened. I tried to think of an out, but nothing came to me. Ruddle shepherded us across the living room, a considerable acreage with a high ceiling, carpeted in a swirly blue pattern that was interrupted now and again by a sofa grouping or a stainless steel abstract sculpture—it reminded me of the showroom of an upscale car dealer, minus the cars. I wanted to cut Pellerin out of the herd and tell him about Goess, but the opportunity did not arise.
A dealer had been brought in for the occasion, a motherly brunette carrying some extra pounds, dressed in a tuxedo shirt and slacks; a thin, sleek Cubano was behind the bar, dispensing drinks with minimal comment. Some of the men seemed to have a prior relationship with the dealer; they cracked jokes at her expense, addressing her as Kim. Goess and Billy took chairs on opposite sides of the central trophy case, separating themselves from each other, and from Jo and I, who sat in the corner, with Pellerin facing us at the table. Once everyone was settled and a few last pleasantries observed, Kim said, “The game is Texas Hold ‘Em, gentlemen. No Limit. The buy-in is five hundred thousand. Play will run until eight AM, unless an extension is agreed upon. If you go bust, you can
make a second buy-in, but not a third."
The buy-ins commenced, cash being traded for chips. The cash was placed in a lockbox and then wheeled off on a luggage cart by two of Ruddle's employees. This done, Kim dealt the first hand.
For the better part of an hour, some chips passed back and forth, but no serious damage was done and the men bantered amiably between hands, telling dumb stories about one another and chortling, huh huh huh, like apes at a grunt festival. As best I could judge, there were two dangerous players apart from Ruddle and Pellerin—a portly man with heavy bags under his eyes by the name of Carl, who rarely spoke other than to raise or check or call, and an ex-jock type with an Alabama accent, his muscles running to fat, whom everybody called Buster and treated with great deference, laughing loudly and long at his anecdotes, though they were none too funny. The remaining four were dead money, working their cards without discernable stratagem or skill.
“We can gossip and trade antes all night,” said Ruddle, “but I call that a ladies’ bridge tournament, not a poker game."
“I didn't notice you stepping up, Frank,” said Pellerin. “You been betting like you playing with your mama's pin money."
The table shared a chuckle.
Ruddle took it good-naturedly, but there was an edge to his smile and I knew he couldn't wait to hurt Pellerin.
Truthfully, my mind was not on the game, but on Billy and Goess. The transfer of the lockbox to the vault made it clear that Billy's true interest did not lie in that direction. My uneasiness intensified and it must have showed, because Jo gave my hand a squeeze. The play remained less than aggressive until, several hands later, Pellerin check-raised Ruddle's bet after the flop by twenty thousand.
“I bid five clubs,” he said, causing another outburst of laughter.
Having watched him play every day at the Seminole Paradise, I knew this was a move he had been setting up ever since he'd arrived in Florida. He'd backed off a lot of players with it in the casino and it usually signified a bluff, something of which Ruddle would be aware. Now, I thought, he might have a hand. The flop was the four of spades, the seven of spades, and the seven of clubs. Pellerin bet another twenty thousand. From the way Ruddle had bet before the flop, I figured him to be holding a second pair, probably queens or better. If Pellerin wasn't bluffing, he might have a third seven. Ruddle, after thinking it over, called the raise. Everyone else got out of the way. The turn card was the queen of hearts. Pellerin pushed out thirty thousand in chips.
“You got the nuts?” Ruddle asked him.
“There's one way to find out,” said Pellerin.
Ruddle riffled a stack of chips and finally called. “Now we're playing poker,” he said.
The river card was the eight of spades. With four spades face up, both men had the possibility of a flush draw.
“I hate to do this to our gracious host, but I'm all in,” Pellerin said.
“Call,” said Ruddle. He didn't wait for Pellerin to show his hand—he slapped his hole cards down on the table. Ace of diamonds and ace of spades. He had made an ace-high flush.
“You got the high flush, all right.” Pellerin turned over his cards. “But mine's all in a row."
His hole cards were the five and six of spades, filling an eight-high straight flush.
The other players responded with shocked “Damns!” and “Holy craps!” Having lost close to half a million on the turn of cards, when there were only a couple of hands that could have beaten him, four sevens or a gutshot straight flush, Ruddle was speechless. Pellerin had been lucky, but he had played the hand so that if the cards were friendly, he was in position to take advantage.
“If you'd re-raised on the turn, I would have folded. Shit, all I had was a draw.” Pellerin began to stack his winnings. “Who was it said Hold ‘Em's a science, but No Limit is an art? I must be one hell of an artist.” He waved at the bartender. “Jack Black on the rocks. A double."
I expected Billy to be angry that Pellerin had moved on Ruddle so early in the evening, and I scrunched down so I could see him through the glass of the trophy case. He was sitting placidly, as if watching an episode of The Amazing Race, but I detected a little steam in the way his neck was bowed. Jo caught my eye and we exchanged a disconcerted vibe.
“Yes sir,” Pellerin said expansively. “You might have whupped a bunch of Leroys and Jim Bobs down in Tunica, but this here's a different world, Frank."
Ruddle stood and, walking stiffly, left the room. Some of the other gamblers followed him, doubtless to commiserate over the bad beat. Kim called for a short break, and Billy stepped over to me and whispered, “What's he doing?"
“I'll find out,” I said.
Billy's nose was an inch from my face—I could smell his breath mints. “I want the bastard to suffer! You tell him that!"
He went to join the commiserators. I pulled Pellerin aside and told him Billy was upset.
“He'll get his pound of flesh,” said Pellerin. “This'll make it easier to manage the game. Ruddle will play tight for a while, and that gives me time to clear out the garbage."
“Don't do anything stupid,” I whispered. “The guy in the camel blazer's a hired killer. I know him from New Orleans. Alan Goess."
“Is he? No lie?” His eyes flicked toward Goess and he smiled. “Hey, guy!” he said to Goess. “How they hanging?"
For a split second, the real Alan Goess came out from behind his rattlesnake deadboy guise, and I got a hint of his underlying madness; then the curtain closed and he said, “I'm doing well. So are you, from the looks of things."
“Looks can be deceiving,” said Pellerin. “Yea, I am a troubled soul, but a firm believer in the Light and the Resurrection. How about yourself ?"
“’ Fraid not,” said Goess. “I've never yet seen anyone come back."
“You just think you haven't,” Pellerin said, and would have said more, but I hustled him out of the room and told him not to screw around with Goess.
“I got it under control, boss,” he said. “I know exactly what I'm doing."
In the living room, Billy was having a chat with Carl, and Buster had cornered Jo. The other players were huddled up around Ruddle, patting him on the back, saying that Pellerin had been lucky, encouraging him to get back in the game. I gazed out the window toward the Mystery Girl, floating serene and white under the dock lights, impossibly distant.
Ruddle had had more chips than Pellerin, so the beat hadn't wiped him out; but he didn't have enough left to compete and he made a second buy-in of a quarter-million. The game resumed, albeit with a less convivial atmosphere. The room, small already, seemed to have shrunk, and the men sat hunched and quietly tense under the hanging lamp. Conversation was at a minimum ... except for Pellerin. He drank heavily and whenever he won a pot he'd offer up a disparaging comment, engaging the ire of one and all. After taking forty grand off Buster, he said, “Where'd you learn poker, old son? From some guy named Puddin’ in the jock dorm?"
Buster said, “Why don't you shut up and play cards?"
This notion was seconded by some of the others.
“In case you didn't notice, I'm playing cards,” said Pellerin. “Damned if I can figure out what you're playing."
When Buster won a pot at his expense, Pellerin said, “Jesus must love a hillbilly fool."
I had to admire Pellerin. Though he had a distinct advantage in the game, it took great skill to manipulate the fortunes of six other poker players. Ruddle gradually built his stack, winning back the majority of the chips he had lost. His mood grew sunnier and he began to joke around with the table, but when involved in a hand with Pellerin, he was barely civil, speaking brusquely if at all. By one o'clock, two lesser players had been driven out and another was teetering on the brink, down a quarter of a million, pushing in antes and mucking his cards hand after hand. At three-thirty, Buster decided to cut his losses and withdrew.
“Thanks for the contribution, Busted ... I mean, Buster,” said Pellerin, grinning hugely. “We going t
o miss you, sure enough."
Kim called for another break and everyone made for a buffet that had been set up in the living room. Billy gave me a thumbs-up before heading over to the food. Standing apart from the rest, I told Jo about Goess and said that we had better do something soon or else I didn't like our chances.
“I thought we were going to wait until the last minute,” she said.
“Far as I can see, this is the last minute."
She seemed amazingly calm. “I have go to the restroom. Just wait, okay? Don't do anything."
I watched her cross the living room, her long legs working the dress, hips rolling under the silky fabric, and then went back into the card room, where Pellerin was playing with his chips.
“If you've got something in mind,” I said, “now might be the time to try it."
“Right now?"
“Whenever you see an opening."
He nodded. “All right. Y'all be ready. I'll give you a warning beforehand.” He picked up a stack of chips and let them dribble through his fingers. “Life ain't never as sweet as it appears,” he said.
“What's that supposed to mean?"
“Just my personal philosophy."
“Fuck a bunch of personal philosophy. Get your mind right! Okay? When it comes time, I'll handle Goess."
“You take care of Billy. Leave Goess to me."
“You think you up to it?"
“It's a done deal,” he said.
“What are you going to do?"
He spread the deck of cards face-up on the table and started nudging out the painted cards with the tip of his forefinger.
Asimov's SF, April-May 2007 Page 34