Dead Man's Hand

by Otto Penzler

  London pulled his sunglasses down his nose and stared at Shiny. Shiny smiled back. If Forrest can't read me, fella, I'm not that worried about you. London pushed his glasses up, shoved in $300, and leaned back, the smirk back again.

  "Pot's right," said the dealer, patting the cloth. The flop came, two more diamonds, a four and an eight, and a queen of clubs. London raised another $100, and Bill called. Shiny nodded, and bumped it to $400. London called, and Bill dropped out.

  Shiny pegged London for a pocket pair, middling, and figured London had put him on a pair as well, or maybe a big card waiting to pair up. Probably did not see the flush, yet. He smiled at the boy. London did not smile back.

  The dealer turned over a queen of hearts, and the kid raised $500. Shiny stared at the cards in the middle of the table and reran the mental film of the previous hands. This time London had pushed in the stack instantly, the first time in fourteen hands that he'd deviated from his routine, a one-thousand, two-thousand count before acting. Was he really on two pair as he represented? Or even trips—three queens, maybe? Or was he bluffing? Or was the change in routine meant to make Shiny think he was bluffing? Shiny counted his stack and pushed all but $500 in. "Raise seven thousand, two hundred," he announced.

  London took off his sunglasses and dropped them into his pocket. "You trying to fill or you got something, Shiny?" Taunting him. Shiny did not answer, but smiled.

  "Call," the boy said. He counted out his chips. The other players at the table sat engrossed, trying to guess what each player had.

  The dealer turned over a five of diamonds. Shiny felt his mouth go dry. He looked at London and smiled again. London counted out $500 in chips and held them ready. "You've got to go all in, Shiny. Either you're bluffing and you have to see it out, or you really did fill and you've got to protect it." Shiny nodded, and pushed the rest of his chips in. London dropped his on top of Shiny's stack. "What you got?" Shiny turned over the two diamonds. There was a collective gasp as the table stared at the straight flush. Shiny looked at the pile of chips. Almost a semester's worth.

  London laughed and flipped over another queen and a five of spades. A full house. The table gasped again. "I guess I got lucky," the boy said.

  Marc glared at him. "He got a straight flush, London, the second-best hand in the deck. How do you figure you got lucky?"

  "Because I put him on a little flush, and with my hand I would have followed him home like a lost puppy. I'm lucky he didn't have a better stake to work with, or I'd be down twenty grand instead of seven."

  Marc snorted. "You had no clue he had a flush."

  "You're lucky you didn't have a pair of deuces, or you'd be down seven thousand, too," London said with a grin.

  The whole table laughed. Marc turned a dark red. "What does that mean?"

  Bill raised his hand. "It didn't mean anything, Marc. He's just a smart-ass. You were a smart-ass, too, when you were that age. He's busting your chops to get you off your game. That's all."

  "No," said Marc, standing. "He's been sitting here winning everything in sight, and I think it sucks. Shit-eating grin on his face. Maybe he's winning for a reason."

  London looked back at him evenly. "I'm winning because I'm good."

  Marc stepped out from the table. "Oh, and so the implication is I'm not? Is that what you're saying? What do you say, Shiny, why do you think I'm losing? You're the guy who beat Johnny Chan." All eyes turned toward Shiny.

  "I'm not in this," Shiny said. He continued to stack chips.

  "Well, I say you are in it," Marc said. "Give me a reason why I'm losing to this punk, or I'm going to take my money back right now."

  "Oh, for Christ's sake, Marc, it's only ten grand. Hell, I'll give you the money if it's that big a deal. You're ruining a great game here, buddy," said a sandy-haired lawyer named Brad.

  Marc slapped at the man's chips, sending them skittering across the table and the floor. Brad stood up, clenching his fists, redness creeping up his throat. The dealer dropped both hands beneath the table.

  "You're losing because you play bad hands and because Ray Charles could read you," Shiny said.

  "What was that?" the cardiologist responded.

  "Every time you get a half-decent hand, you put your tongue up against the inside of your left cheek and hold it there. And when you bluff, which you do way too much, you drop your eyes and peek out to see if the rest of us bought it. You're one of the worst poker faces I've ever seen, and you might get by with it online, but in a real game you're just here to give away chips. He doesn't need to cheat to take your money," Shiny said evenly, without looking up. He carefully sorted two blue and one red chips from the pile and tossed them back toward the lawyer.

  Marc stared at him. "Bullshit!" Weaker now, trying to save face.

  Shiny finished with his chips and looked up. "You playing or leaving?" Marc turned and stomped out. The kid shrugged, studied the ceiling. Shiny looked around the table. "I need to step out and smoke a cigarette." And rest. Shiny felt the tiredness and the heaviness settling in his arms.

  Shiny sat on a concrete bench beside the pool and smoked three cigarettes in a row. He wished he had a little more stamina these days. And a better stake. He'd be way up right now if he'd had the chips to play with.

  By 1:00 A.M., Shiny was down to $3,000, bled dry by a succession of almost-good-enough hands losing to better hands that filled on the river, hands that Shiny would have won if he hadn't been playing with rich men who stayed in way too long because his raises were nothing to them. The kid had gotten real hands, and had $27,000 in front of him.

  "Hey, Shiny," Brad said. "What's the secret to being a pro? Tell our prodigy here." Lincoln fingered his sunglasses down his nose.

  Shiny laughed. "Not being afraid."

  "Afraid of losing?" Brad said.

  "Or winning," Shiny answered, staring down the kid.

  London dropped his glasses and held Shiny's eyes. "What do you do in your spare time, write fortune cookies?"

  "Last round," said Dr. Bill. "I'm cycling tomorrow and have to get up early." Shiny winced, calculating how much he needed to win in the next six hands to satisfy Malek. He ran the numbers. Something for Miranda was still possible, but not looking good. A chip and a chair, though. Anything is possible as long as you have a chip and a chair.

  On the second hand, Shiny caught an ace and a king, "Big Slick" in poker vernacular. He carefully counted his pile of chips with his eyes and waited. As the big blind, he would be the last to play. Everyone folded around, except for the boy, London, who had not glanced at his cards. He looked over at Shiny. "How much you got there?"

  Shiny told him.

  "And what do you need to get right?" the boy asked.

  Shiny shrugged. "Seven all in, maybe. Why?"

  "Because I'm going to put you all in, and I want to give you a chance to walk away whole. I'm offering you a thousand for the watch."

  Shiny carefully pushed up his sleeve and looked at Stuey's watch. Ungar himself had come around the table and clicked it on Shiny's wrist. The man had been so coked out, he'd half-fallen across the table as he did it, not that it took anything away from the win. Stu was the best even when he was so stoned he couldn't talk. The best.

  "Not that watch," the kid said. "The other one."

  One of the lawyers snorted. "I think the Rolex is real, London. The other one is an old piece-of-crap Timex."

  London turned toward the speaker. "You should study the game, Mr. Michalak. Nobody's ever taken Shiny the Shark's Timex. I walk in any casino in the world wearing that watch, and somebody will stand up to give me a seat. Johnny Chan will walk across the room to shake my hand."

  Sarkisian felt the tiredness again, and with it the numbness in the neck and shoulder that the doctor said was the heart thing. "Nah, I don't think so," he said. And waited, the trap set.

  The kid leaned forward, licked his upper lip. "All in. I'll put all of it up. Twenty-five versus the Timex. What do you say, Shiny?" He cupped h
is hands behind the big stacks of chips and pushed them forward a few inches.

  Shiny looked at the pile. Thought about Miranda. He checked his cards again. The king and ace were still there. He laid the cards back on the table, nodded, and fumbled to unstrap the watch with swollen fingers, and gave up. "You want to help me, kid? My hands are a little slick." He stuck out the arm with the watch. London's hands shook as he gently unstrapped the watch and laid it on top of the chips. Shiny's arm suddenly felt light, floating like a balloon without the watch to hold it down.

  "But you haven't looked at your cards yet," the lawyer said to the young man.

  "It doesn't matter. From now on, it's between me and Shiny. The cards don't matter at all," London answered.

  Shiny smiled at the boy. "You're good enough." He flipped over his king of diamonds and an ace of spades. London turned over an ace of hearts and a queen of diamonds.

  The kid smiled ruefully at the cards. "If you'd brought twenty or thirty thousand, I'd already be home explaining to my dad how I lost his Lexus. Now I'm behind again," London said.

  The dealer dealt two clubs, a four and a nine, and another spade—a jack—into the center of the table. "Looking good, Shiny," said one of the lawyers. Shiny used his right arm to massage his left shoulder.

  The dealer turned over a queen of hearts, giving London two queens against Shiny's ace-high with one card left.

  London pumped his fists in the air. "Yeah, baby."

  There was quiet.

  "What are Shiny's odds?" Bill asked the dealer.

  Before she could answer, Shiny said, "About seven percent. Only three cards in the deck can help me."

  Shiny nodded to show the dealer he was ready, and tried to stand for the last card, tradition when you're all in and losing. His left leg refused to cooperate and he dropped back into the chair, exhausted.

  "Are you okay, Shiny? You want to lay down on the sofa for a while after we get done with this hand?" Brad asked him.

  "I'm great," Shiny panted.

  "Hey, London, are you going to put your watch on the pile?" Brad asked.

  "He doesn't need to," Shiny said. "Pot's already right."

  London reached out and slowly unsnapped his watch, a stainless-steel sports watch. "It's a TAG. I got it for high-school graduation." He dropped it on top of Shiny's Timex. "It will make a better story this way."

  The dealer turned over the last card, a king of clubs. The color drained from London's face. There was a perfect silence, the only sound the whirring of the overhead fan. Then Brad said, "Bad beat, London. Real bad beat."

  Shiny reached across the mountain of chips in the center of the table, picked up his Timex carefully, and strapped it on. Then, just as carefully, he picked up the TAG Heuer and tossed it back to London, who caught it with two hands, surprised. "There's your story, boy, The Shark gave you your watch back. Not many players can say that."

  Then he closed his eyes and let his hands hover over the chips, feeling their heat radiating up at him, enjoying their mass, his always-temporary wealth. Wondering if this was it. The last big hand he would ever play. The last cash game. And if the ride to the airport with DZ in the Escalade would be the last time he rode out of a town in a green Cadillac, leaving empty pockets and deflated egos behind him. Knowing it could well be.

  He heard London stand up, thank the others for the game, and leave, but did not open his eyes.

  "You okay, Shiny?" Brad asked finally.

  "Sure, sure," Shiny said. "I'm great."

  Pitch Black

  Christopher Coake

  1. Epics

  None of this would have happened if I hadn't gotten the guitar. How I came to own it is a brief, but epic, tale. You only need a few details:

  Me, at sixteen, in 1987. The picture of the guitar in a battered catalog. A summer spent out in an ag company's test field, cross-pollinating corn for minimum wage. A handful of dollars in a coffee can. Mom and Dad saying they'd pay half if I kept my grades up. Dad leaving at summer's end. Tears, recriminations, my secret shame: As I watched my father drive down our driveway and turn right toward the interstate, my mind held angry visions of the guitar—lost, I thought. Lost. My grades going in the tank. And then the blowout with Mom after she caught me and my buddy Dook smoking a joint up in the loft of the barn—the breeze blew the smoke right across the yard and into her open second-floor window. Mom in the barn in her bathrobe, screaming up: You stupid, stupid boys!

  But from despair, triumph! Mom and I at counseling: She told the therapist how she felt threatened by the changes in me. The long hair, the goatee, the black T-shirts with the skeletons. That awful music she heard in my room. And then the drugs. I told her that in the wake of losing my father, I just wanted to be different. That I was frustrated. That my music wasn't about Satan, that it was really just about being angry. The therapist—major dumb-shit—nodded like his head was on a spring. It's important for the children of divorce to be able to express themselves fully, he said. Just as Daryl is trying to do now.

  My voice trembled for the big finish: That's why I've been saving for the guitar.

  And so that next weekend, on a Saturday morning, Mom walked into the living room and told me to get showered. We were going to Indy, she said. I grumbled—Dook wanted me to come over and hang—but she had that look. Once we were in the car, she drove me to get a hamburger, and we chatted nicely, and then afterward she pulled into the parking lot outside IRC Music. My breathing stopped, a little.

  She sat still behind the wheel. It was raining and you could smell the water and steam outside the car.

  I know you haven't had much, she said. And it's going to be tight for a while. But I want you to have something that feels like yours. Like Dr. Markham said. She gazed at the shop's windows, at the guitars hung by their necks. Her face got tight. She said, Maybe someday soon you'll write a song for me?

  Her voice went up at the end, like someone was bending the note.

  Yeah, Mom, I said, raspy. Sure.

  She followed me inside. There were of course four other dudes in the guitar room, all of them big and hairy and tattooed. They looked at me and my mother and I could see they all knew the score. One guy toward the back was shredding a Jackson to fucking pieces, head banging, hair whipping up and down. Mom stared at him like he was killing a goat.

  This one, I told her, pointing toward the wall before she lost her nerve. And, like a pussy: If it's not too much.

  There it was, in the so-to-speak flesh. An Ibanez RGX. Glossy black—black headstock, black pickguard, black pointy horns. The sort of black that reflected light in a gleam, but that swallowed up images. A Floyd Rose tremolo (black!), big frets, and a thin neck for speed. A metal forge, that guitar.

  She said, It's very pretty, isn't it?

  I have to get an amp, too, I said. I knew this would surprise her, so I added: I can pay for that.

  No, she said. I have a new credit card. I want you to have these things.

  Seriously. She dropped a grand on me, almost but not quite crying the entire time.

  I'd spent two summers looking over the catalog picture of that Ibanez. In the meanwhile, I practiced on Dad's old beat-up Kay acoustic, which was shitty even if all you wanted to do was play "Jimmy Crack Corn"—which I didn't. My buddy Dook had a decent bass and a piss-poor old electric whose tuners wobbled; sometimes I'd use that when we practiced together. We knew a guy, Paulie, who could drum. With my new guitar and amp, we'd be a band. A crushing trio. Our name—we'd already decided—was going to be Pitch Black. Dook and I had already drawn up the mascot who'd be on all our album covers: a little black imp with a pitchfork. On the cover of our first album, he'd be sitting on a hot chick's shoulder, grinning, the angel from the other shoulder impaled on the fork. I hadn't shown the designs to Mom.

  Didn't matter. Mom paid, signed the slip. Her hand shook a little. Rock on, the ponytailed counter guy said, and I wanted to be his best friend. I reached to pick up the case and the amp—both of t
hem wicked fucking heavy—and I nearly teared up, too. The big dude with the Jackson saw me walking out with my new axe. He grinned and flashed me the horns, but by then I was cool enough just to lift my chin a little. We were, I figured, equals.

  That night I drove my new gear over to Dook's without telling him what was up. His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw the long case hanging from my hand. Dude, he said. He wailed: Dude!

  We called Paulie and set up out in the barn. I slung that axe around my neck and watched it catch the yellow overhead light—we were in an old hayrick, where rusty tools and hooks hung abbatoirish from the rafters; we'd been banished from the house, of course, but the sound was good out there: The barn's damp old wood soaked up the sound pretty well, made metal sound chunky and wet. While we waited for Paulie, I did what I'd been dreaming of for two years: I plugged in, cranked up the amp, and hit a power chord. The sound shook the air, buzzed in my head. I took that chord everywhere with the whammy bar. Dook's eyes lit up; my heart thumped. We played "War Pigs" together, slow, sludgy. Paulie appeared in the doorway toward the end, holding a snare to his chest, and watched us in awe.

  We practiced day and night for two months. After every practice I wiped down the Ibanez—which I had named Mephisto—and laid it carefully in its case. Some guys called their axes by girls' names, but not me. This guitar was bigger than sex. Some guys covered their axes with stickers, let them grow scratched and worn. Not me. Mephisto was an otherworldly being, and I handled it accordingly.

  Was I a bad son? I was not. I wrote a little acoustic ditty, something sweet, melodic, and ran it through the clean channel, and then, because Mom cried when I played it for her, and because she asked, I had Dook help me record it to a four-track, so she could play it in her car when she drove to work.

  Don't tell anyone, I told him.

  But Dook liked Mom, and said, Dude, that woman made Pitch Black happen. He pulled on his cigarette and said: Do another take, and don't fuck up the last arpeggios this time.

  I helped out around the house. I'd feel the old surliness in me, then think of Mom putting her credit card on the counter, and I'd snap to. Sometimes on Friday nights I'd tell the guys I'd be over late, so I could sit with Mom and watch When Harry Met Sally on the VCR