Last Ditch Effort

by Isobella Crowley

  The usher stared at him.

  “Oh,” he chortled and waved a hand airily, “don’t worry. She’ll already be over it by the time I’m done. You know how fairies are. Borderline Personality Disorder and all.”

  The man shrugged and escorted him to the poker table. He found a place between an especially dour-looking, iron-bearded dwarf to the left and a scrawny gnome to his right. Two or three of the other players appeared to be human.

  The last hand had just ended and the winner, a red-bearded dwarf, smiled as he claimed his pot.

  “Deal me in,” Remy said. “What are we playing, anyway?”

  The dwarf to the left turned toward him. “Five-card draw. Any objections?”

  “None,” he stated and beamed. “That’s possibly my favorite variant. The essential poker. Pure and uncorrupted by excessive innovation or creativity.”

  It also happened to be the one he had the most experience with—and the best winning record. He could feel the power of luck hover around him like an aura. Casinos often seemed to prefer seven-card or Texas hold ʼem or God knew what else. He could deal with any of those but nothing beat the elegant simplicity of five-card draw.

  The passage of time lost all meaning as he found himself totally consumed by the game. He won nine out of fifteen hands.

  The dwarf and the gnome to either side glared at him and most of the other players, as well as the dealer, did not look particularly pleased, either.

  He fondled his pile of chips. “It’s a natural talent, really, and runs in the family. Our above-average intelligence seems especially well-suited to games of chance. That’s probably why we’re also so successful in business. My father even said I might be the best poker player he’d ever personally met, and it’s not like he was simply saying that because I’m his son. Once, this asshole I knew in college had a poker table at his twenty-first birthday party, and—”

  Someone walked up and planted himself directly behind him to interrupt his monologue.

  “Excuse me,” the new arrival said in what was very much a New York accent, “but it seems you’ve exhausted the possibilities of this table.”

  All eyes were now on him. He breathed deep, betrayed no particular concern, and leaned casually around the edge of his chair to examine his new friend.

  The man was human—or at least capable of assuming human form. He was tall and slightly overweight, but he looked muscular enough to carry it. He had a round, dark face and wore a pinstriped suit, a jacket, and sunglasses, for some reason. Remy would have been shocked if there wasn’t a gun under the jacket.

  “Well.” Remy sighed. “I guess I won too much, didn’t I? If that’s the case, I suppose I can go quietly. Let me cash in my chips quickly and—”

  “Actually,” the goon cut him off, “the proprietor of the establishment wanted me to invite you over to the high-stakes table.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Well, that’s interesting. I accept his invitation.” He turned to the other players, who all looked relieved to be rid of him. “So long, gentlemen. It’s been fun. You’re all getting better, though, really. Keep practicing and one day, you might even be good enough for Vegas. Assuming they have a place for…uh, preternaturals there.”

  “Of course they do!” the scrawny gnome snapped. “You gonna keep talking shit or you gonna go play with the big leagues?”

  Rather than reply, he merely waved and left. He followed the pinstripe-suited man to the far corner of the main floor, where there was a double door that he hadn’t seen previously.

  His escort held the left side open. “After you,” he said and smiled.

  Remy stepped through. In the back of his mind, it occurred to him that maybe this was some kind of trap or shakedown or something…but probably not. At worst, they might punch him in the stomach a couple of times, throw him out the back, and tell him never to return.

  That had happened at least once that he could recall. Maybe twice, although substance abuse did odd things to one’s memory.

  More likely, however, they merely wanted to seat him next to the heavy hitters, humiliate him, and win their own money back. He couldn’t wait for them to try.

  The hallway beyond the corner door was dark aside from a single hanging lamp, which lit a choice of three blank walls and one corridor to the left. Looking down it, he saw a well-lit room beyond, where a few more men were seated around another, smaller table.

  “Ah.” He sighed happily. “I’ve come home.”

  The man stepped up behind him. “Don’t keep the proprietor waiting,” he advised.

  He strode into the room. There were five players besides himself. One was dressed in a white shirt and tie with no jacket, and the others all wore charcoal-colored suits.

  The individual at the head of the table stood and walked over to greet his guest. He was of average height, lean, and somewhere in his forties, with narrow, suspicious eyes that glanced constantly around the room.

  “I’m glad you accepted my invitation,” he said by way of greeting. “You can call me Albert. I run this place. Tony here tells me you’re fairly good.”

  It occurred to Remy that the man’s accent was slightly off—he sounded like a Chicagoan trying to imitate a New Yorker.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he responded. “I’m Remington. And yeah, fairly good is one way to put it.”

  “We’ll see about that. Have a seat over there.” He pointed to the foot of the table and returned to the head.

  He settled into the chair that had already been set up for him—simple but comfortable leather, a definite improvement over the cheap seats at the rookie table. “So, tell me,” he began, “how high are the high stakes I’ll play for?”

  The five men all regarded him with a kind of superior amusement. Tony, the guy in the pinstripes, waited in the doorway, conveniently blocking it.

  Albert eyed him. “We usually start at triple what they were playing back there,” he replied and gestured down the hallway with his thumb. “It gets higher, though. Depending on how the game goes, of course.”

  Remy tried not to smile too broadly. “Awesome. I love poker, honestly. They say it’s easy to be good at things you actually enjoy. In fact, I should probably gamble instead of working. Work is a waste of time.”

  A few of the men chuckled at this but it was difficult to tell if they were laughing with or laughing at him.

  Albert ran a knuckle across his nose. “That’s an interesting perspective, Mr Remington. What is it you do for work, anyway?”

  His elation ebbed slightly. Maybe he shouldn’t give these people too much information about himself.

  Noticing his brief hesitation, the man went on. “We merely like to know that someone has a nice steady source of income, you know? That way, if some scumbag loses at this table”—he pointed to the surface in front of him—“and tries to stiff us on his debt, we explain to his employer that we require their cooperation in garnishing his wages. It works out best for everybody that way, see?”

  He rolled his tongue around his teeth but finally nodded. There was a certain logic to that and since he owned the company he worked for, any garnishments were technically his own money, to begin with, anyway.

  “It’s Remington Davis, not Mr Remington. I’m with Moonlight Detective Agency,” he stated. “You might have heard of us. We do mitigations…cleaning up disputes between preternaturals and that kind of thing.” He decided not to mention the other two M’s. “Lately, the workload has been too intense for the existing staff to handle. Which, of course, is why they brought me on.”

  “That’s very good to know, Mr Remington. Make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before we deal you a hand and hopefully, we won’t need to contact your employers.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Deal me in. Maybe you guys can provide a real challenge, for once.”

  The men all chuckled at that. “He thinks highly of himself,” one pointed out.

  Remy shrugged. “I can’t help it. I simp
ly base my opinion on the evidence.” He paused. “Speaking of evidence, have any of you gentlemen seen or heard of a werewolf named James? He seems to have gotten in some trouble and I’m responsible for putting a stop to any further problems that might arise. Of course, I doubt a reprobate like him would stop at a fine establishment like this, but it’s worth asking.”

  “Never heard of him,” Albert snapped. He glanced at the deck, then looked at Remy. “Need I even bother to state that cheating of any type will not be tolerated what-so-fucking-ever?”

  He leaned back in his chair, smiled again and folded his hands behind his head. “Of course not. If I cheated, I wouldn’t have the right to be this cocky. I’m not so sure I believe you about not knowing who James is, though.”

  The bristling silence that followed his remark made him regret his too-cocky words.

  The man in the white shirt and tie shuffled the deck. The guy to his left cut it and handed it back. The cards became a blur as the dealer’s hands moved with expert speed and grace. They were tossed out in a concentric ring and each player drew theirs toward them until everyone had five.

  “Opening ante,” Albert announced, “is one thousand dollars.”

  In the back of Remy’s mind—far back—he knew this kind of game could rack up sums he might have trouble paying but he didn’t expect to lose. He never lost anything he couldn’t win back.

  “Is everyone still in?” Albert asked with a smirk.

  “Of course,” he said and the others all grunted their assent.

  He examined his cards and slid his face into poker-mode neutral.

  Already, he had two kings—the spade and the diamond. It was a start. Otherwise, the others were honestly junk. He took a quick peek over the tops of his cards to check the faces of the other players.

  None of them betrayed any obvious emotion or agitation, but one of the gray-suited Italians had subtly adjusted his posture in his chair. It was difficult to be sure, but he suspected this meant the man had a decent hand.

  They all added another thousand to the pot, and he discarded two of his cards and kept a ten. Somehow, it felt lucky, despite being useless on its own.

  His new cards came in. One was a ten. The other was the king of clubs.

  Poker face, he reminded himself. He might still have to bluff a couple of these assholes into folding if they thought they had a good hand.

  “So,” Albert said, “Mr Remington. You said the workload lately was too much for the rest of the agency to handle. That sounds like some serious shit, if I may say so. You were, what, called in for special purposes?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Remy confirmed. “I’m the kind of multi-talented individual they need. I have certain skills that make me a nightmare for the assholes who’ve interfered with the agency’s business. Already, I’ve handled three completely different kinds of jobs and will be on my way to a fourth soon. Not everyone can survive in this line of work.”

  “I see,” the man said neutrally and glanced around the table. “Final bets, gentlemen.”

  It started at another thousand. One of the men folded. The others remained but Remy could have sworn that a couple of them looked distinctly nervous. “I’ll raise you five hundred,” he said.

  The remaining players saw him but did not raise it further.

  “All right, show your hands,” said the white-shirted guy.

  They all laid their cards down at the same time.

  A straight, a flush—of hearts—and two pairs, all beaten by Remy’s full house.

  “Ha!” He laughed. “I knew it. I knew that ten was lucky. And I could tell that you”—he pointed at the dude who’d fidgeted in his seat—“were banking on the straight. Maybe with players of a lesser caliber that would have been a safe bet. But, as you can see, gentlemen, the game isn’t the same with me in it.”

  They pushed their chips in his direction without speaking.

  Albert stared at him. “That’s some good luck you had, my friend. And maybe some skill as well. A man who’s both skillful and used to being lucky…he’d be a major asset to a mitigation agency, I would think.”

  “Damn right.” He grinned. “I’m basically their new secret weapon. Hell, I probably increased our stock value with that epic victory.”

  The men exchanged glances. Most likely, he assumed, they all agreed that he was a prick. He was used to it.

  Their host paused the next round of the game with a hand gesture and said, “Mr Remington…you know what? I believe everything you say. It seems to me you really are someone with a certain amount of clout and the ability to get things done—someone to be taken seriously.”

  “Thanks.” Remy brushed a fleck of dust off his shirt. “So, does that mean you’ll actually tell me—”

  “It means”—Albert raised his voice enough to cut him off—“that I’m gonna ask you a serious question. Do you wanna make this game interesting?”

  He assumed this meant increasing the pot to something in the five-digit range, a prospect that was almost irresistible. “Sure thing,” he replied.

  Another brief round of eye contact followed between the other men. Albert looked squarely at him. “All right then. Here’s the wager for the next round of the game—information on this James guy, which you seem to want fucking bad, against…hmm…” He pretended to pause to think. “Your life.”

  His smile froze in place for a moment and, as the import of the words sank in, it melted slowly off his face.

  “Uh,” he said, “that’s not exactly what I had in mind. If it’s money, then yeah, I’ll wager anything. But in this case, gentlemen, it’s been fun and all, but I really ought to get going—” He stood.

  A rustle of motion startled him and he blinked. Suddenly, every man in the room, including Tony at the exit, aimed a gun at him.

  Albert smirked over the barrel of his semi-automatic. “Sit down, Mr Remington. You’re a lucky guy and a good poker player. Your odds can’t be that bad, right?”

  He returned wordlessly to his seat.

  Nodding, Albert went on. “Smart man. Now, the rest of us are gonna lower our guns so we can play us some cards. Keep in mind that Tony over there isn’t about to let you leave until the bet’s settled, though.” He gestured with his head toward the pinstripe-clad goon.

  “Yeah,” Remy said, “it’s kind of hard to forget that.”

  The handguns retracted. Tony’s remained visible, and although he kept it pointed at the ground, his gaze never left the back of Remy’s head.

  Albert looked at the guy in the white shirt. “Deal us out, Pat.”

  Pat shuffled the deck before passing it to his left to be cut, and the game proceeded as before—aside from the fact that no one placed any monetary bets at any point.

  He needed his poker face more than ever right about now and it was mostly functional, although he was sweating. Especially his palms. As cards appeared before him and finally reached five, he wiped his hands on the knees of his pants before he took them.

  Everyone examined their hand.

  Unfortunately, he had very little to work with, starting out. Three different clubs, so there was a chance he could manage a flush, but no matching ranks. If he only discarded two cards and made for the flush and that failed, his next best hope would only be three of a kind.

  But something almost imperceptible in the air suggested that no one else had been dealt a stellar hand, either. He looked up, hoping to read something on the mobsters’ faces. Nothing was immediately apparent. Even the fidgety guy managed to hold himself still.

  They will definitely kill me if I lose, he reminded himself. The thought was not encouraging. But if he won, it would be, in a way, his biggest victory ever.

  He discarded two cards and kept the three random clubs.

  The guy in the white shirt tossed two more at him. Breathing deep through his nose, he picked them up and looked at them. The eight of hearts and the eight of spades.

  Three of a kind it was, then. Three eights. It could be
worse.

  Albert cleared his throat. “Nobody folds this time,” he ordered. “Especially not Mr Remington. But the rest of you don’t stand to lose anything on the chance that he wins…so you might as well stay in the game.”

  This meant, Remy realized, that he would not be able to bluff his way to victory. He had already spent his one chance to strategize and win. Now, all that remained was luck.

  Albert waved a hand. “Show.”

  Everyone threw their cards down at once. He raised his sweaty hands to his neck and adjusted his tie as he looked around.

  Pat, the dealer, had managed to deal himself two pair. No one else had anything higher than a pair. The one exception was Albert, who had three sixes.

  They all stared, hard scrutiny in their eyes. Glances were exchanged. Remy double-checked the cards again. The vibe in the room was like ice.

  “Okay then,” he said a little too loudly and swallowed. “It looks like another win for me. Like I said, luck and skill in tandem. It’s a good combination to have. Sooooo…I get to keep my life, and I believe you owe me some information about this James guy.” Within his chest, it was as though a flight of birds had been released from captivity.

  Albert resembled a steel statue. After a moment of neither moving nor speaking, he ran a knuckle over his nose. “I don’t claim to be a nice guy but I am a man of my word, Mr Remington. Therefore…yeah, James was in here a few days ago. I don’t know the guy too well, but he’d come in every once in a while to lose money.”

  Remy did not cringe when the mobsters all stared at him with obvious disappointment at his continued existence. “That’s good to know, but it’s not much. It almost seems that, if you were willing to kill me over the issue of divulging info on him, you might know more. Like some other place he’s been where I could learn something a little more useful.”

  Silence ensued and the proprietor turned to Pat and asked him for a pen and piece of scrap paper, both of which the man provided. He placed the paper on the table and wrote briefly, set the pen down, and pushed the scrap toward the foot of the table.

  Cautiously, he took it.

  James had a second house, nice place upstate by the Catskills, that he hid from the tax collectors. Maybe you’ll find something that interests you there.