by T. K. Chapin
I gave him a nod, but I didn’t say anything.
Opening the door, a bearded giant of a man answered. While his face was covered in a dark and thick patch of wool, his head was bare. His eyebrows were long and looked to have plans of their own as they went in a few random directions. His appearance unsettled me, and I felt my anxiety percolate.
In a deep and smooth voice, the large man said, “Who dis?” He looked over at me. His eyes were as dark as his beard.
“This is Blaze. He’s with me,” the kid said, patting the giant’s chest with the back of his hand. He strolled by him without an ounce of fear.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, following after the kid.
The giant remained quiet and furrowed his eyebrows as I walked past him. We heard the door slam shut behind us as we kept walking.
“Bobby!” A man with a cigar between his teeth shouted from a table that sat in the open and dark warehouse. The warehouse was relatively dim as the only light source hung down above the poker table. The man smiled as he rose up and pulled the cigar from his teeth. He had a ridiculously tiny mustache. His hair was black as the night’s sky, and it was combed over to one side. He wore a gray, pinstriped suit and a pair of white shoes. He stood with open arms toward Robert, just barely in the edge of the light.
There were four other guys at the table that looked over at us as we approached, but there were no introductions for them.
“Lincoln,” Robert said with a gracious nod as he took off his leather jacket and laid it across the back of one of the empty chairs that sat at the table. “This is Blaze, or Rick Alderman, the firefighter I was telling you about.”
“Ahh, I see. Welcome, my friend,” Lincoln said as he sat back down and picked up his cigar, eying me.
“Thanks for having me,” I replied, taking a seat next to Robert. I pulled out my wallet to get the money for the buy-in.
Lincoln laughed a little as he shook his hand at me. “No . . . don’t do that. We make it right at the end, yes, my friend?”
Looking around the table, I felt a jolt of uneasiness settle into me. Standing up, I said, “I forgot that my daughter is coming into town tonight. I gotta get home.”
“I understand,” Lincoln replied, nodding slowly. “I have kids myself.”
Lincoln took a puff of his cigar and blew the smoke out of his nostrils as he shook his head. “Have a good night, but it is a shame. The way Bobby talks about you, it seemed like you’re pretty good. I was looking forward to playing.”
I looked over at Lincoln. “Okay, I’ll play.” I sat back down in my seat.
“I understand your nervousness, Rick. I would be too, coming down to a warehouse to play some poker.”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Little odd.”
He smiled. “Let’s play.” He looked over at the guy with the deck of cards and said, “Go ahead and deal them out, Frankie.”
Frankie shuffled the cards a couple of times and then began dealing. After the dealing was done, he grabbed stacks of chips and pushed them across the table to me.
“Thanks,” I replied.
Frankie said nothing; he just sat back down.
Picking up the corners of my cards, I saw that I had a two of hearts and a nine of clubs. I folded.
Glancing past one of the other guy’s shoulder, I saw giant cloth blankets faintly in the dark, draped over something in the distance.
Lincoln looked over to see what I was looking at, and then he looked back at me. “You curious what’s under those covers?”
Shaking my head, I said, “No.” I started to worry until Lincoln broke out in laughter.
“Bear,” Lincoln called over the man from the door I came in at. Bear came over to his side. “Pull the covers off for our friend. He’s lookin’ a bit nervous still.”
Bear glared at me and then walked over to the blankets. He pulled them off to reveal pallets and pallets of diapers.
Lincoln took a puff of his cigar as he grinned at me. “I buy and sell diapers, my friend.”
Relieved at the sight of the innocent diaper boxes, I smiled. My imagination made me think it was drugs or weapons or something crazy like you see in the movies. My nerves settled, and I felt my anxiousness fade away.
Lincoln, Robert, the others and I played poker for the next couple of hours. I felt all the more comfortable with every minute that ticked by. Lincoln told me about a trip down to Cancun he and his wife had just went on last week and about his daughter, Emalia’s, latest hobby of collecting rocks that she found around the yard. He seemed like a relatively normal guy. The fact that my chip stacks were growing quite nicely through the evening was also adding to my easygoing feeling. Each time I beat someone off the table and took all their chips away, my confidence swelled, and I could see winning the fifty grand within my sights.
By the eight o’clock hour, it was just down to Lincoln, the kid and myself. Frankie dealt the cards out to us as Lincoln lit up another cigar from his metallic cigar holder that he had sitting next to his bottle of whiskey.
I glanced at my cards. Ace of diamonds, king of diamonds. My face stayed stone cold and emotionless as I was bursting inside with excitement. I relaxed the cards back onto the table and waited for my turn.
I raised to four hundred.
The kid kept his usual one earbud in as he stayed stone-faced, debating somewhere in his mind what to do, I suspected. My eyes went to his chips. He had about two grand worth of chips left in his stacks. It wasn’t much compared to Lincoln’s or mine. The kid called.
It was now up to Lincoln, who seemed to be busy on his phone while he waited for his turn. He paused and looked at the table for a minute. There weren’t any cards down, just the ones in front of him that he had failed to even look at yet.
“How much?” he asked, looking at the both of us.
“Four,” I said.
“Thousand?” he asked.
I looked at the pot. “Hundred.”
“Okay.” He grabbed for his chips.
“You haven’t looked at your cards, though. Don’t you care what you have?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It will be okay.” He tossed in his chips to match and continued to do whatever he was doing on his phone.
Shaking my head a little, I thought to myself, this is easy money. I had hardly been there for three hours, and I was already almost done wiping the table clean.
The pot was good and Frankie burned a card. Then, he turned the flop. Three cards.
Ace of hearts, king of hearts and a two of hearts.
If my internal emotions had a set of external speakers, I couldn’t ever play poker. I was jumping up and down inside with excitement. On the outside, I kept my cool and raised the pot by a thousand dollars in chips.
The kid rubbed his chin as he removed an earbud. “Blaze . . .” he said, shaking his head. “Why you gotta kill me like this?” he laughed.
I said nothing.
“Screw it.” He shoved in the rest of his chips, which raised me another six hundred on top of mine.
Lincoln looked over at the cards from the flop and set his cellphone down. He looked to be a little more concerned now that there were a couple of grand on the table. Glancing at his cards, he laughed and then looked over at me. “Rick. You married?”
I nodded.
“Your wife ever get on to you about forgetting to take out the trash?” he asked, setting his cards back down on the table.
“Of course,” I replied.
“My wife is texting me to inform me that I haven’t taken the trash out in three days, and she’s looked every day to see if I would take it out, but I haven’t.”
I laughed. “My wife can be cute like that too.”
“When’s your garbage day? Mine falls on Monday, and it just agitates me like no other. Monday is already a busy day.”
“Thursday is our garbage day,” I replied. Realizing he was taking a short break from the game to chat, I relaxed in my seat and turned my attention to him.
“I know how that can be. I’ve been married to Susan for over thirty years, and we still seem to get into it once in a while. You’d think after a while you just wouldn’t have anything to argue about anymore.”
Suddenly, Lincoln took his stack of chips and matched the kid’s raise and then raised it another grand.
Looking at the cards on the table, I wondered what he could have. It had to be a bluff; he didn’t even look at his cards before the flop. I raised his bet—this time, ten grand.
Robert was already all-in and said, “Woah . . . looks like things are heating up.”
I smiled over at him. “Don’t have all night, right?”
Lincoln called my bet without hesitation.
The turn card came—two of diamonds.
It was up to me. The two did nothing for me, but I had to play my two pair. I raised it another grand.
He doubled it.
I tripled it.
He called. “Feeling confident, Mr. Alderman?” he asked.
Shrugging, I laughed. “Been rockin’ it so far. Just hoping to ride the wave.”
Frankie flipped the river card over: it was an ace.
Secured the full house. Three aces and two kings. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was already almost nine now. I bet the same amount, only a grand.
It was up to Lincoln. He raised it to fifteen thousand.
Got him.
Pushing all my chips in, I said, “All-in.”
Lincoln grinned. “Flip ‘em.”
“You calling?” I asked.
He nodded softly as he tossed out a pair of pocket twos. “Four of a kind,” he said. My mouth fell open.
Robert flipped over his cards, a queen and a king.
And I flipped over my ace and king.
“It was nice playing with you, Blaze,” Lincoln said as he stood up from his chair and reached across the table to shake my hand.
Shaking off the shock, I stood up and nodded. “That was a solid win, Mr. ?” I said, shaking his hand.
“Lincoln’s fine, my friend,” he replied, smiling as he took his cigar and put it out in his ashtray. “You can pay Bear on your way out. I assume you brought cash?”
Nodding, I said, “Yes. And okay. Thanks for letting me come.”
Leaving the table, the kid followed right behind me. He patted my shoulder. “You were so close, man!” He began walking backward with a jump in his step.
Coming up to the door to leave, I pulled out my wallet. “Here you go,” I said, handing Bear the two grand in the form of hundreds.
He counted it out in front of me and then stopped. “Where’s the rest?” Bear asked.
“What?” I said. “That’s all of it. Should be two thousand there.” I leaned over his hands that held the money.
“It was twenty thousand,” he replied coldly.
A knot the size of a baseball twisted inside my chest as my anxiety came rushing back like a wave crashing up on a beach. “What do you mean?” I said with a shaken voice.
The kid pushed my shoulder. “Twenty G’s, just like I said.”
“You said two,” I replied sternly back to the kid.
“Yo, Link! We got a problem,” Bear shouted over my shoulder across the room to Lincoln. His voice bounced around the room, finally reaching Lincoln.
The knot twisted harder.
In a loud whisper, I said to Bear, “Hey . . . Robert said two thousand! What is this? I don’t have that kind of money.” Lincoln walked over to us from the table.
“What’s the problem?” Lincoln asked, looking at all three of us.
“Bobby’s friend here doesn’t have your money.” He growled under his breath my direction, setting my heart off in pounding that I couldn’t stop.
Lincoln pulled his head back and scoffed. “What? I’m sure Bobby’s friend can get it to us tomorrow, right?” Lincoln asked, looking over at me.
Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t have that kind of money lying around.”
“You told Bobby here that you were debating on Vegas. That’s a ten thousand dollar buy-in. Obviously a man of your caliber can afford twenty grand.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Robert . . . um . . .” I furrowed my eyebrows at the kid as my heart beat harder. Then I exploded in frustration. “This kid lied to me! He told me it was two grand! Not twenty!”
“Bobby, is this true?” Lincoln asked, shooting a deadly look over at Robert.
“It was twenty,” the kid replied, lying.
Lincoln looked back at me with a lowered eyebrow. “You thought you were going to sit down and have a chance at fifty grand with a two thousand buy-in?”
“I thought there were more than a few people playing when I heard it. Then when I got here, the thought never crossed my mind.”
Lincoln laughed as he raised a hand out to me and shook his head. “No. Don’t try to play me for a fool. Make it right, Rick. You’re a man of honor.” Lincoln slid his hands in his pockets and walked away without another word. On his way across the smooth cement floor of the warehouse, he stopped and looked back. He said, “Drop it off in the mail slot of the door you came in by tomorrow night at six.” He turned and continued his stroll across the floor.
Bear had hardly opened the door before I darted out and across the parking lot to my car. My heart pounded in my chest as sweat beaded on my forehead. I struggled to hold my key steady enough to unlock my door.
“Blaze!” Robert shouted, startling me from across the parking lot.
I steadied my hand enough to get the key in the hole and unlock the door. I quickly got inside my car and started it. The kid was just outside my car window now. “What do you want?!” I shouted through the still rolled down window. “Just leave me alone, kid!”
“Dude, I’m sorry; I didn’t realize I told you two. It was twenty.”
I rolled up the window and shouted, “YOU make it right then!” Backing out of the spot next to the Porsche, I sped over to the gate and waited for the kid. He came over and opened it. Not even giving him a look, I peeled out of the parking lot and back toward my side of town.
CHAPTER 7
After getting out of the Valley, I pulled into a grocery store parking lot to catch my breath. Still trembling as I turned off the car, I pulled down the visor and looked at myself in the mirror. I had never been through anything like that before in my life. I was terrified. Suddenly, I heard a honk behind me. With a quick jerk of my body in the seat, I turned around. I was relieved to see it was just a couple of cars honking at each other in the parking lot.
“Get yourself together, man,” I said out loud, slapping the visor back up against the roof. Flinging the car door open, I stepped out and took a deep breath of the cool night air. Taking another deep breath, I felt my nerves empty themselves out onto the wet pavement below. Leaning over the back end of my car, I yakked again. I wiped the brim of my mouth and stood upright, relaxing my back against the trunk for stability.
Suddenly, I let out a laugh.
“He sells diapers . . .” I said. Turning myself over on the trunk, I pushed myself fully upright with my hands. My nerves settled.
Shaking my head, I felt myself return to a state of normalcy—well, as normal as I could feel right then. I got back into my car and put it all behind me. My daughter and wife were at home with the grandkids. I needed to focus on that. Not some diaper guy from the Valley. Pulling out of the grocery store parking lot, I left feeling a lot better than when I’d arrived.
Back at home, I was greeted by two of my daughter’s three children. Natalie was seven years old. She ran up and wrapped her arms around my leg as she smiled up at me.
“Grandpa!” she shouted.
Philip, the three-year-old, came running also, and he latched onto my other leg. “Grampa!” he shouted up at me.
Smiling down at both of them while I patted their heads, I said, “I missed you two so much!” I lifted my eyes up to my daughter, Beth. “I wish every time I came home I could have this kind of greeting.”
She laughed a little as she came down the hallway to join us near the front door. “Hi, Dad.” Her smile was warm and beamed with joy as she put her arms around me. She was such a happy woman. Even if her husband was working a ton back in Coeur d'Alene, she never complained about it.
“Where’s little Gregory?” I asked.
“He fell asleep on the couch waiting for you,” Susan replied with a bit of an undertone to her voice.
I nodded, but I didn’t say anything.
“Game went pretty late?” Susan asked as I picked up the grandkids from my legs and brought them into my arms.
“Yeah. Almost won,” I replied, walking down the hallway past her.
“Funny . . . because Cole called asking to talk to you,” Susan retorted with a sharp and accusing tone.
My gut turned at her words. She caught me right in the act. My mind raced from idea to idea, trying to find a lie. “That’s odd. Kane invited him along with the others to come. Kinda wondered why he wasn’t there.” After I said it, I knew it didn’t make any sense and that she was on to me. Making my way into the kitchen, I set the kids on the floor and got drink cups for them.
As I handed them each a cup of water, Susan cut into me from over near the island. “He acted like he knew nothing about it,” she said, trying to be quiet.
“Hmmm . . .” I replied. Looking over at Beth, I asked, “How was the drive in? Hit a lot of traffic on the way?” I hoped Susan would drop it.
Beth shook her head. “It wasn’t too horrible. There was one wreck though that looked pretty bad. A semi-truck full of bees fell over into a ditch, bees loose everywhere. It was a mess.”
“Oh jeez, did you see it happen?” I asked, looking at her across the counter as she stood next to Susan. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Susan’s gaze fixated on me. If steam could come off the top of her head, it would have right then. I could sense it and I avoided looking at her.