Ray and Jimmy reopened the club a week later. After a slow first couple of days, word got around and before you knew it the room was packed again.
From a financial perspective, they did better than ever. Though he refused to raise the rake, Jimmy introduced a $10–$25 game that proved extremely profitable for the house – as well as for him. Sitting in on the game regularly, he beat it for near two hundred grand over the course of the year. On top of the three hundred he cleared from his share of the business, it was his best year ever.
Somehow it didn’t matter. Just knowing that Dominic and Anthony were getting a piece of things – no matter how small – ruined it for him. He felt compromised. Diminished. No longer his own man. So after the holidays were over, a year after things had changed, he told Ray that he had decided to sell his piece.
Ray tried to talk him out of it of course. He certainly didn’t intend to buy Jimmy out himself. Besides, if Jimmy left, who was going to run the place?
As it turned out, one of the floor guys, Larry the Pirate, was dying for the chance. He didn’t have the upfront cash, but he agreed to pay Jimmy three hundred grand on a three-year instalment plan, and that was that. Jimmy was done.
For the next several months, he went back to being a player, going to various games around the city three or four nights a week. But it wasn’t like it used to be. He didn’t have the same hunger for the game that he had once had. He wound up spending too much time at home, driving Rosie and the kids nuts with his pent-up, unfocused energy. One day, while Rosie sat at the kitchen island, sipping a glass of Verdicchio, watching him shell and devein shrimp for a paella, she said, ‘Why don’t you start a restaurant? You know you want to.’
‘A million reasons,’ he said. ‘For one thing, I’d never be home—’
‘Yeah?’ She looked at him, clearly not perceiving that as a problem.
He continued, ignoring the jibe. ‘And for another, eight out of ten restaurants that open in New York fail . . .’
‘Uh huh.’
‘That isn’t enough? The fact that I’d be in a foul mood all the time and probably take it out on you?’
‘Which would be different how, exactly?’
‘Funny. Look, I know you think I’m good in the kitchen, but what if I’m not? I mean what if I’m just OK?’
‘Then you’ll have tried something. So what?’
It wasn’t as if they had never had this conversation before. It was just that this time he couldn’t seem to get it out of his head afterwards. It nagged at him for days, then weeks. He took it up with Ray when they met for lunch at the Hungry Giant one afternoon.
‘She’s right,’ Ray said. ‘You should try it. I’ll even put my money where my mouth is.’
And so it was that Jimmy Ahearn, with the backing of his good friend Ray Howie and several other poker pro friends, opened a home-style café and restaurant called Ahearn’s Folly in the neighbourhood near their Prince Street apartment. And while it wasn’t the huge success he hoped, it was also, against the odds, not a failure. In time, the Folly, as he called it, even became something of a local favourite, proving appealing even to his picky-eater children and their new private school friends, who took to hanging out there after school, much to Jimmy’s and Rosemary’s delight.
The day they showed up, Jimmy was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a stew. One of the waiters came in, a bit nervous, saying, ‘There’s a couple of guys out there say they know you.’
Jimmy stepped from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. The two men looked up as he approached, Dominic in a flowered shirt and brown leather jacket, Anthony in a shamrock green velour tracksuit with white stripes down the sleeves.
He had never kidded himself that this day wouldn’t come. In many ways, the restaurant business wasn’t so very different from the poker club business except that it operated out in the open and legally.
‘Nice place, Jimmy.’ They were standing just inside the glass door entrance, Dominic looking around, nodding in an appreciative way at the white-painted brick, the tasteful black-and-white photographs.
‘I like to think so,’ Jimmy said.
‘You know why we’re here, right?’
‘I got a pretty good idea.’
‘Look at him, Anthony. He’s starting to get nervous.’
The two men laughed.
Jimmy regarded them uncertainly.
‘Relax,’ Dominic said. ‘We’re just yanking your chain. We happened to be in the neighbourhood and thought we’d stop in, see how you’re doing.’
‘He don’t believe you,’ Anthony said.
‘Why should he?’
‘Why shouldna he?’
‘The truth is,’ Dominic said, looking Jimmy square in the eye, ‘if not for us, he probably never woulda opened this fuckin’ joint in the first place, am I right, Jimmy?’
Jimmy smiled. It was hard to deny the truth of that. In a funny way, he realised, he owed these two mooks a debt of gratitude.
‘You’re fuckin’ right I’m right,’ Dominic said. He picked up a menu from the rack near the door. ‘So tell me, what’s good here, anyway?’
‘Loads of things,’ Jimmy said. ‘The special’s a very nice lime-chilli marinated swordfish . . .’ A thought occurred to him. ‘But tomorrow, tomorrow is my personal favourite – bourbon pecan chicken. You guys really oughtta come back for the bourbon pecan chicken. As my special guests, of course. Assuming, that is, that we’re still open tomorrow . . .’
Although he said this in a joking way and with the confidence that it would be taken in that spirit, it was also possible he meant it.
With Jimmy Ahearn there was always that chance.
Author biographies
Co-author of One of a Kind, a biography of Stu Ungar (2006), Peter Alson has written three other non-fiction works, including Take Me To The River (2007). His forthcoming novel, The Lucky and the Good, is set in the world of New York underground poker.
Author of the poker classic The Biggest Game in Town (1983), the poet, critic and novelist Al Alvarez also published Poker: Bets, Bluffs, and Bad Beats (2001) among many other books on a wide range of subjects including an autobiography, Where Did It All Go Right? (1999).
Co-founder of the Hendon Mob, Barny Boatman is a highly successful professional poker player, winner of many tournaments including two World Series of Poker bracelets.
New Yorker David Curtis’s Queer Luck: Poker Stories from the New York Sun was originally published by Brentano’s of New York in 1899.
Author of The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time (2005), Michael Craig was also blogger for the FullTilt poker website and edited its strategy guides.
The British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has published more than thirty volumes of poetry as well as plays and books for children. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The American-born British author David Flusfeder has written seven novels, including The Gift and, most recently, John the Pupil. He was poker columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, and edited the IFP handbook The Rules of Poker.
Grant Gillespie is an actor, novelist and screenwriter. He published his debut novel, The Cuckoo Boy, in 2010. He has also appeared in numerous TV and film roles.
Co-editor Anthony Holden has written forty books including the poker classic Big Deal (1999) and its sequel Bigger Deal (2007), as well as two manuals, All In (2005) and Holden on Hold’em (2008). From 2009–13 he was the first President of the International Federation of Poker.
James McManus is the author of Positively Fifth Street (2003), Cowboys Full (2009), and The Education of A Poker Player (2015), a collection of short stories, among eight other works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Oscar-nominated for his screenplay of Zoe Heller’s novel Notes on a Scandal (2007), the playwright and director Patrick Marber made his debut with Dealer’s Choice (1995) and has since written nine more plays, inclu
ding Don Juan in Soho and The Red Lion.
The actor and antiquarian book dealer Neil Pearson has appeared in numerous TV and film roles, not least the Bridget Jones series, and wrote Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press (2007).
Winner of the 2003 Booker Prize for his first novel Vernon God Little, the Australian-born writer D.B.C. Pierre has since published four more novels and two collections of short stories.
The English actor, comedian and writer Lucy Porter has made numerous appearances on radio and TV, regularly performing live shows at the Edinburgh Festival and touring the UK with her one-woman shows.
Shelley Rubenstein is a writer, broadcaster and producer. She learned to play poker at the age of seven, and has hustled her way through life ever since. She features regularly on TV, as both player and pundit.
The writer and journalist Grub Smith has published two books, Real Sex and Real Lover, and hosted several TV travel series.
The works of the Croatian-born playwright Tena Štivičić have been performed in a dozen European countries, including Fragile (2005) in Slovenia, 3 Winters (2014) at London’s National Theatre and Goldoni Terminus at the 2007 Venice Biennale.
The Canadian-American actress and professional poker player Jennifer Tilly, who won the WSOP Ladies’ No Limit Hold’em bracelet in 2005, has also appeared in numerous film and TV roles, winning an Oscar nomination in Woody Allen’s Bullets over Broadway (1994). For ten years, she wrote a monthly poker column for Bluff magazine.
Acknowledgements
The kernel of the idea for this collection of stories first emerged while Anthony Holden was President of the International Federation of Poker. In partnership with Bobby Nayyar of Limehouse Books, IFP published The Rules of Poker, edited by David Flusfeder, in 2012; and the plan was to develop the idea of an anthology of new fiction on poker to follow that. When IFP, Anthony and Limehouse Books parted company, however, the idea was put on hold, until Anthony and Natalie decided that they must take it forward and make it happen. And now, at long last, here it is!
The editors would like to thank our esteemed colleagues at Simon & Schuster for all their encouragement, advice and enthusiasm while this project came together – in particular, Ian Marshall, Suzanne Baboneau and Ian Chapman for their invaluable support. We are indebted to Al and Anne Alvarez for their simpatico reading of the book, especially to Al for writing such an elegant Preface. We also offer warm thanks to David Headley and all at DHH literary agency. Most importantly, to all our excellent contributors, without whom . . . we owe you a huge debt of gratitude for these wonderful stories and for all your hard work, patience and creative vigour throughout this labour of love. Each one of you did us proud and the result is a truly outstanding body of new writing on this most compelling of games.
Copyright and Credits
Preface by Al Alvarez, copyright © Al Alvarez 2017
Drawing Dead by Barny Boatman, copyright © Barny Boatman 2017
Jack High, Death Row by Grub Smith, copyright © Grub Smith 2017
Once More, Into the Abyss! by Jennifer Tilly, copyright © Jennifer Tilly 2017
Good Luck, Everyone by James McManus, copyright © James McManus 2017
Five Tables by D.B.C. Pierre, copyright © D.B.C. Pierre 2017
Lady Luck by Lucy Porter, copyright © Lucy Porter 2017
The Old Card Room by Patrick Marber, copyright © Patrick Marber 2017
Heads Up by David Flusfeder, copyright © David Flusfeder 2017
Primero Face by Anthony Holden, copyright © Anthony Holden 2017
‘Mrs Beast’ from The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy, copyright © Carol Ann Duffy 1999. Reprinted by permission of Picador, London
A Devil in New Jersey by Michael Craig, copyright © Michael Craig 2017
And on the Eighth Day by Shelley Rubenstein, copyright © Shelley Rubenstein 2017
Table Manners by Neil Pearson, copyright © Neil Pearson 2017
The Upper Hand by Grant Gillespie, copyright © Grant Gillespie 2017
He Played For His Wife by David Curtis, copyright © David Curtis 1899. First published in Queer Luck, published in New York by Brentano’s, 1899
Victoria by Tena Štivičić, copyright © Tena Štivičić 2017
Jimmy Ahearn’s Last Hand by Peter Alson, copyright © Peter Alson 2017
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2017
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Copyright © 2017 by Anthony Holden and Natalie Galustian
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