Dead Man's Hand

by Otto Penzler

  It seemed like an old, old song. The one I should have learned first.

  Had events not taken their next turn, I would have fallen to my knees and begged. Take my guitar, I would have said. Cut off my hands. Piss on me. Do what you need to do, but leave me my life. Please, I would have said, my voice high and keening. Please. In front of my friends—in front of Toni!—I would have begged and wept.

  Would he have killed me?

  The Baron had it in him. I believe that, I do. He swayed drunkenly at the far end of his arm. He grinned at me. A frightened boy facing the gun in his hand. I saw again everything he'd done and said that night; it was clear to me that the Baron had said and done them all because he knew, he had always known, he could do this, now. Whenever.

  Maybe he would have humiliated me. Maybe he was grinning because he thought of the possibilities.

  Maybe he would have pulled the trigger and gotten in his car and driven away.

  Maybe he would have kept on shooting. I don't think I am making up a recollection of his eyes quickly circling the room. Dook, Paulie, for certain. Maybe Toni and Bethany, too. And the Baron doing whatever mathematics he thought necessary.

  But I did not find out what he had in mind. That's because Old Billy Pritchett shot the Baron, then, through the living-room window.

  4. The Kraut

  It happened like this:

  The Baron said something. I can't remember what. My head rang with fear, and he opened his mouth and began to say a sentence, or even a simple word. Go, maybe. Boy, maybe. I closed my eyes and then the room exploded. I heard a crack! and, then, all at once: broken glass, screams, the ringing in my head exploding in volume until, for a moment, all else in the room faded into cottony silence. I thought—I remember clearly thinking—that being shot did not hurt. That it wasn't as loud as I'd expected. A little crack, almost from another room. I marveled that the sound of my brains exploding was the same as tinkling glass and screaming. I wet myself. I thought: I've been shot and I can still feel piss on my legs.

  Then hands were on my shoulders. I fell to my knees under their pressure. I opened my eyes and saw.

  It was Dook, pulling me down. He kept shouting my name. The girls were crouched low, in the corner, their arms over each other's shoulders. Paulie lay facedown on the floor, surrounded by glass.

  And the Baron:

  He sat on the floor in front of me, holding his arm, his hair falling before his eyes, his teeth clenched. Blood—the Baron was bleeding; more blood than I'd ever seen before leaked from between the fingers clamped around his arm, glistening in the light. My mother's pistol lay on the floor in front of him.

  I thought, crazily, that somehow I had done this. That for all my cowardice I'd somehow shot him anyway.

  But then I heard a voice, a strange one, from my left, outside the living-room window. It screamed: Got you, you Kraut son of a bitch!

  The Baron grunted through his teeth. He stared at me, shocked and hateful. It was then that my brain caught up with events, that I realized what must have happened.

  I hissed to the Baron: Run! Hide!

  Whatever the Baron thought of me, he didn't need to be told twice. He scuttled backward, out of the living room and into the dark dining room. There he rose and lurched away. I heard his footsteps thumping up the stairs.

  From outside, Billy cried: I'm coming for you! God damn it!

  Then Billy's face peered through the window. The sill was several feet above the yard outside; Billy's head barely cleared it. His face was smudged, red with exertion. Tears or sweat streaked down his dirty cheeks. He regarded us, all of us strewn on the floor. I held my breath.

  You all right there, Daryl? he asked.

  I could have wept.

  Yeah, I said, gasping. Yeah, Billy, I think so.

  I knew he was in here, Billy said. I just knew it. He looked from side to side, at the broken shards of glass. Sorry about that window.

  It's okay, Billy, I said.

  That Kraut run off? Billy asked.

  Yeah, I said.

  I better come in and finish him off, I guess.

  Oh Jeez, Billy, I said. I don't know. You got him pretty good.

  Very quietly, Bethany started to cry in the corner.

  Billy, I said, why don't we go to the back porch. Let's talk about this.

  Billy's eyes blinked behind his glasses. All right, Daryl. Then he vanished into the dark again.

  Bethany crawled over to me—past Paulie, who still lay face-down on the floor, shuddering—and clutched my arm. She was sobbing.

  You can't let him in! she said. He'll kill Lars!

  I have to try to talk to him, I said. I can talk him out of it.

  Toni said, quietly, We should call the police.

  Dook, I said.

  Yeah, he said behind me. His voice was husky.

  Call the cops, I said. I stood. I could barely feel my legs. My hands and arms felt as though, if I didn't concentrate hard, they'd spaz out all over the place. For the first time, I smelled my own piss.

  I made myself walk across the house. I saw little shining drops of the Baron's blood on the dining-room floor. They led right to the stairs. Even Billy and his big glasses would be able to see them.

  My hand shook, but I managed to open the kitchen door. I walked out onto the back porch. Billy was just coming up the steps. He was shorter than me by a foot, but wider by the same amount; he felt larger. He carried his rifle with the barrel pointing at a spot just in front of his feet. And he smelled. I'd caught a whiff of him before, out by the fence, but never up close, man to man, as we were now. He stank of weeks' worth of sweat, of unclean clothes and unwashed dishes, of the rotting undergrowth of his woods. I could see hairs growing out of his nose and ears, thick as clumps of weeds. It was everything I could do not to throw up. Billy smiled and held out his hand. Amazed, I shook it.

  Easy there, soldier, he said. That was close, I know.

  Billy, I said. I'm not a soldier. It's just me. Daryl Shepherd.

  Don't sell yourself short, Billy said. That Kraut could get the drop on anyone. I know. I've been after him a good long while.

  Billy looked past me, at the kitchen door.

  He still in the house? Billy asked me. Is he still armed?

  I couldn't remember whether or not the Baron had taken the pistol.

  Billy, I said. Maybe you'd better let the police handle this.

  He looked at me strangely. Son, he said, this is France. We are the police.

  Billy, I said, this is Indiana. It's 1987.

  His laugh was quick and wheezy and almost reassuring. More moisture ran down his cheeks, and I shivered. He was laughing and crying, all at the same time.

  You're a funny one, he said, creaking. How many hostages?

  This, at least, we had to make clear.

  There's four in the living room, I said. Two girls, two guys. Everyone's okay.

  He blinked.

  And just one Kraut?

  Billy, I said, I think we're all right here. You can go home—

  I saw it, Billy said. That Kraut had a gun on you. Billy squinted at me. What are you hiding, son?

  It was a good question. I closed my eyes, for longer than I'd planned.

  I thought of the whole night, all of it. I thought of Toni kissing me—she'd never do that again. I thought of the Baron squatting in front of my guitar, grinning as he carved. The look in his eyes as he held the gun on me. I thought about the police, on their way. My mother hearing the news, from the sheriff and then from me. The blood drops on the floor. That feeling—still fluttering in me, on bat's wings—that the Baron owned me. I'd held a gun on him. He'd beaten me.

  I saw all of this. And then the whole night condensed itself into two words, which I whispered:

  He's upstairs.

  Billy nodded.

  Probably that room with the awful music, he said.

  Probably, I said.

  You get the hostages to the yard, Private. Leave hi
m to me. Billy blinked and smiled. I been after this one a long while.

  I walked back into the house, swallowing dust, wobbling. In the living room I said, Come on. Billy said to get out.

  Bethany looked up from her hands, her streaked face eerily like Billy's.

  Is he going away? she asked.

  The others all looked at me. I shrank. I couldn't meet Toni's eyes.

  He said get out. Come on.

  Bethany stood. What about Lars?

  I could only look at the floor.

  Lars! she screamed. Lars!

  While avoiding the sight of her, I saw my mother's pistol, where it had fallen. I picked it up and stood with it in my hands. Toni and Dook saw it there. I looked at each of them and they looked back.

  Then, quickly, I took the gun, and all the money from the coffee table, back to the closet in my mother's room. As I put them away, I could hear my breath, harsh and rasping, and under it my heartbeat, and under that, the silence of outer space.

  Behind me, down the hallway, I heard screams.

  Billy's voice said, It's all right. You're all safe. Go on out to the yard, now.

  Don't hurt him! Bethany wailed.

  Of course not, ma'am. Not if he comes peaceful. Now get.

  I heard the clatter of footsteps, and Bethany's screams. I walked carefully down the hallway. Billy stood in the entrance to the stairwell, one booted foot already on the first step. He turned quickly, then saw it was me.

  He saluted me, and then from his belt he drew a pistol. He put a finger to his lips.

  I saluted back. And with that Billy vanished up the steps, into the shadows, quiet as a spirit.

  ***

  What happened?

  We huddled in the yard, all of us, next to the Baron's car. We watched the dark upper floor of the house. When I couldn't bear the staring anymore, I turned and looked across the yard and the cornfields beyond the yard, toward the interstate. After what seemed a wait of many, many years, I finally saw the police lights, turning onto our road, a mile off yet. And in the meantime I could see lights coming on upstairs, one by one.

  I remember thinking that Billy was an old man. I thought, If Lars is smart he can take him. He's faster, stronger.

  Did I have a hope, a wish? I was empty, then. I remember thinking events had grown too powerful, too confused, for me to hope for any one outcome over another.

  Or maybe I did. The flashing lights turned down the county road. Half a mile away. My heart jumped.

  And then we heard it, from upstairs: A brief, muffled roar. And then a gunshot. And another. And another. Through the back window we all saw the muzzle flashes, and strange, leaping shadows. Bethany screamed and screamed, and Toni and Dook had to keep her from running into the house.

  The sheriff was just climbing out of his car when Billy opened the kitchen door and walked out. He was covered in blood. He sat on the top porch step and smiled at the sheriff.

  Got him, he said happily. Then he fell onto his side.

  We'd forgotten: The Baron still had his knife.

  5. And Now

  The rest isn't that exciting. Nothing happened after that, not really. Just twenty years.

  Billy died on the way to the hospital, a smile on his face. He said nothing of import to the sheriff or to the EMTs, and so the whole night became, in the end, his fault, his disaster. Quite a scandal. An old man, obviously troubled, allowed by the state and his children to keep his weapons. He'd murdered a young man. Troubled, the papers called the Baron.

  Yes. Murder. The Baron died on the floor of the study. Billy had hit him with all three shots, all in his massive chest, and after stabbing Billy, the Baron had fallen backward, over my guitar and my amplifier. The last time I saw Mephisto, before it became state's evidence, it lay on its back in a pool of the Baron's dark crimson blood.

  I will never forget that. Even then, it was beautiful.

  The rest of us: We got into trouble, but nowhere near the trouble we might have. The police questioned all of us. We told the same story, each of us following the path of self-preservation. We were partying quietly, and then Billy shot the Baron. Yes, we said, the Baron liked the Nazis. Yes, he shouted hateful things at Billy's property. Yes, he'd carved the pentagram on my guitar. Billy's tracks were found all over our property. He'd circled the house for hours. Looking for the best shot, it seemed. The sheriff lectured us, all of us. We were cited for drinking, possession of marijuana, and—given the circumstances—the judge gave all of us probation.

  Except Bethany. Her story was different. She was the only one of us who mentioned my mother's gun. But then, she was also the only one of us to be arrested for possession of cocaine and speed, and so her story was discounted. Not even her cousin from Alaska backed her up.

  I saw Toni only once, after that night. She was on her way out of the police station in Westover, and I was on my way in. We passed right by each other. I knew by then she hadn't told. The guys in the band, sure, but her? After everything? I was with my mother. I couldn't ask her. Toni knew I couldn't. She looked me in the eye, without any expression—drawn and pale and beautiful—and not long after went back to little Unalakleet without saying good-bye.

  She is, I hope—I hope—very happy.

  If she is, it might be because her cousin Bethany, once clean and sober and out of jail, married a car salesman and, to this very day, lives comfortably outside of Westover with her children.

  That the band broke up goes without saying. Paulie stopped calling us after the depositions. Dook didn't want to bring up the idea of another guitar, so we took up playing video games and not saying much. He kept on playing bass. We don't see much of each other now—he moved out west, to Las Vegas, and became a sound engineer. We e-mail each other every few months, passing on news.

  Me? I was grounded. Went back to therapy with my mother. She felt betrayed. I kept saying sorry, sorry, sorry.

  My mother sold the house. Because of what had happened in it, she lost a lot of money. We moved to Indianapolis after that and lived in an apartment.

  The only way you can repay me, she told me, is to go to college.

  And so I did.

  Twenty years: I go to school. I am accepted by, and then graduate from, Ball State, with a degree in education. I get a job teaching sixth-grade social studies and basic computer programming. On the way I date a little. Nothing serious. At my first job, I make eyes with the kindergarten teacher and something happens: And then I'm in a house with a wife and a child.

  Which is where I am now. In that house. My wife and child asleep upstairs. I'm in the basement rec room, strumming a little on an old acoustic I bought ten years ago at a flea market. My boy not quite as old as I was when all this happened.

  When I'm alone like this, I can't help but think about the Baron. I can't help but tell the story to myself, again and again. And not just what happened—but what might have happened. If he'd lived. If he and his band had made it.

  Though he wouldn't have. Whorefrost, I know now, wasn't good. They had no future. A guy with swastika tattoos? He wasn't going to stare off the pages of guitar magazines, not here in the U.S. A guy like the Baron was bound, one way or another, for prison. Or he'd be living in a trailer park outside of Westover, beating his wife and frightening his kids and the neighbors' kids. He'd be on a first-name basis with the deputies who'd have to come out there every Friday night and tell him to turn down his goddamned music. I know it.

  But then again, you never know. I should have been that guy, too, and here I am. Wife, kid, decent house. Hair cut short and the Ibanez and all my old dreams long gone. I play poker with the men of my neighborhood, and we never bet worth a damn. That's understood. Someone with too many beers in him tries to pull out a $100 bill, and we'll say things like Easy, now. Let's think about this.

  So maybe the Baron would have made it. Maybe he would have gotten the bejeezus scared out of him that night and then pulled back—like I did—just enough to do something with himself.
Maybe in an alternate universe he's onstage right now, hair flying, brutalizing the guitar and nothing else, happy and alive, his stupid random youth safely behind him.

  Maybe.

  Nights like this, I stay awake, everyone upstairs sleeping, and here in the basement I strum and strum. I tell myself happy stories, then sad ones, and then the one that happened. Each time I fool myself into thinking I feel suspense. Each time I wonder what I'll say or do differently. With Toni. In the living room, a gun in my hands. On the back porch, with Billy, when he asks me what I'm hiding, and there's a moment where I could tell him anything.

  But what I say is like Old Billy, hunting the Baron room by room. It always finds me where I'm hidden. We tussle, and I pull out my knife, but, every time, the words force themselves out of my throat.

  I remember locking eyes with the Baron, a gun between us.

  Upstairs, I whisper to Billy. Every time.

  Deal Me In

  Parnell Hall

  Seth Beckman sat facedown at the poker table. His eyes were wide and unblinking. His mouth was open, his nostrils were flared, yet no breath was coming through. Mr. Beckman was done playing poker for the evening. His cards were on the table in front of him. As were the stacks of chips on which he lay. Due to which, the man presented at least a linguistic paradox. Mr. Beckman had not cashed in his chips because he had cashed in his chips.

  In the apartment flashbulbs were going off. The medical examiner hovered, waiting for the detectives to let him at the body. He had already pronounced the man dead. Now it would be up to him to determine why. The froth at the mouth and slight odor of bitter almonds pointed to cyanide. But poison was a woman's weapon. There were no women in the game, just a bunch of good ol' boys, who got together once a month to test their manhood at the poker table. A cross section of Manhattan's elite who had been gambling together over twenty years. Indeed, the game, or some variation, had been going close to fifty, though none of the original players remained. No Rockefellers or Carnegies, as there once were. But there were judges, politicians, and influential businessmen, even if Donald Trump wasn't among them. It was a prestigious game, and an honor to be asked.