Pocket Kings

by Ted Heller

  UNSUCCESSFUL AUTHOR PERISHES IN NJ–NY TUNNEL

  Poker-Playing “Writer” Felled by Fatal Fumes, Coroner Suggests

  Failed Novelist Was on Way Into Manhattan to Make Up With “Wifey”

  Author Was So Hated and Ignored by This Paper That There Really Is No Reason for This Article

  The worst thing was the smog. It sat all over the hotel roof, it seeped in through the walls, and in the middle of the night, half-awake and half-asleep, I thought I was becoming a part of it.

  It was a dreadful atmosphere to work in but I kept writing. I kept playing, too, but the more I wrote, the less I played. The more I wrote, the less I needed to play. Once I got started I couldn’t stop. This was my salvation. Writing was a better, healthier, and more enjoyable addiction than gambling, even though gambling was a hell of a lot more lucrative. Playing poker, the gratification isn’t delayed. Writing, you sometimes have to wait years for the full punishment.

  Then one cold afternoon there came a pounding on my motel door.

  Hoping against hope it was Cynthia, I arose from my unheavenly bed and put on jeans and a sweatshirt over my thermal under­wear. (I’d begun sporting the Unabomber look since moving there.) Wifey knew where I was but even if she still felt one microbe-sized vestige of love for me why would she want to come feel it there?

  It was Marvis/Cookie, I saw between the orange and black curtain. He had on his gloves and regulation blue Port Authority winter coat, and smoke was blowing out of his mouth as he bounced up and down in place, trying to keep warm. For a week he’d been bringing me pizzas and muffins and Whoppers, but he wasn’t holding anything now.

  I opened the door for him and the freeze outside nearly sucked me out of the room and blew me down the highway.

  Marvis walked in and sat down on the motel room’s one chair.

  “Here,” he said, pulling a Snickers out of his coat. “You want this?”

  When I said no, he told me it was frozen solid anyway and put it back in his pocket.

  “You know, you could buy a car,” he said. “You got enough money.”

  “Maybe I will. Why?”

  “I’m just sayin’, that’s all.”

  He looked at my laptop and told me that I played poker way too much and I told him truthfully that I’d been playing a lot less lately because I had started writing again. He waited a few seconds and said: “Did you know that Second Gunman is coming back to New York again?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  One day, I reflected, I wouldn’t mind seeing Johnny-Boy again. But that wasn’t the day. Nor would tomorrow be.

  “And that the Swedish guy is still here? Bjorn whoever?”

  “He’s still around?!”

  “Dude must really want his money back, Chip.”

  I told THC that I’d won B2W’s money fair and square, that it wasn’t my fault I usually beat the Baltic Butcher, that a bet is a bet and that this wasn’t just a game but was a business and it simply wasn’t cricket for him to come and ask for his money back.

  “I don’t know if he’s gonna actually ask for it,” he said.

  “So why is Second coming? And when?”

  “He just said he was getting a plane, that’s all. Frankly, I’m not too anxious to see him.” He paused and said: “He did say he’s comin’ to save you and Wifey’s asses though.”

  “From . . . Bjorn?” Cookie nodded and I said, “Look, I told Wifey not to worry about him. He was coming after me, not her.”

  “Have you spoken to her recently? Are you sure she’s still alive?”

  Of course I was sure she was still alive! But then I thought about it. We hadn’t spoken in days. So I wasn’t so sure.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, “I’ll go into the city and make sure she’s okay.”

  “Tomorrow? Jeez . . .”

  “You think I should go now?”

  “What if she’s layin’ dead on your living room floor with all kinda knives and axes through her or she’s hanging from some hooks?”

  “She’s not! But just in case, can you lend me your car? Now?”

  While we walked to the toll plaza, where his blue Malibu was parked, I imagined opening the door to the apartment and seeing my wife’s bloodied body hanging from a hook and then I’d call the cops and they’d come to the apartment and take photos and they obviously would think that I killed her, which is what I’d assume, too, if I were them; then I’d have to prove I didn’t and that I’d been staying in the motel the entire time.

  Marvis gave me the car keys, and I said, “It’s not like Bjorn brought all his butcher knives and axes and whatever with him to America, you know.”

  “But he did,” THC said. “That’s what Second told me. Dude brought all of ’em.”

  After finding a parking space right in front of my apartment building, I nodded to the doorman, ignored his prying question (“Hey, where ya been?”) and took the elevator upstairs.

  I opened the door, walked in, and saw no corpse on the living room floor. Nor was Cynthia hanging from a hook, her olive shanks stripped of their delicious bounty. It was four in the afternoon, and if she were still alive, she would have been at work. I walked into my study. Nothing. No body. Then into the bedroom and bathroom. Nothing.

  I lay down on my wife’s side of the bed, curled up with one of her pillows, and slept for ten minutes. This was home. Our home. By far the safest, coziest place on Earth.

  I saw that she hadn’t thrown anything of mine out. Which was a positive sign.

  But she had thrown me out.

  I found a duffel bag and stuffed clothing into it. Some sweaters, a scarf, some shoes and gloves. I went to the refrigerator and opened it. General Tso and rice leftovers in a white container, some half-eaten lasagna, three bags of cold cuts packed tightly in some cream-colored wax paper. Another cold-cut bag in light blue wrapping. I took out two slices of prosciutto, dipped them in mustard, and they melted in my mouth. I undid the strange blue-colored wrapping but could not recognize what sort of meat it was and put it back into the fridge.

  I left her a note: “Came by to get some stuff. Call or e-mail to let me know you’re okay. I miss you and want you back. I’m sorry for everything. PLEASE give me another chance!”

  When I passed the doorman on the way out—did he and the other building employees think that Cynthia and I were now separated? (and maybe we were)—it occurred to me that I still had no proof she was alive. Maybe Bjorn 2 Win had murdered her the previous evening and, after eating some of the lasagna, deftly sliced her into several hundred choice cuts and was now on his way to dispose of them in woods, Dumpsters, and landfills in the contiguous forty-eight states as he nonchalantly tooled his way around the U.S. If she had been murdered, my little note to her would surely wind up being used as evidence against me and would show how truly heartless and cunning I’d been, to murder her and leave a note that supposedly attested to my innocence but ultimately only demonstrated my sociopathic cruelty. “These are the words,” the grandstanding Assistant D.A. would bellow as he wildly waved Exhibit C in the courtroom air and utilized some of the cheap alliteration that has occasionally marred this memoir, “not of a loyal, loving husband who misses his wife, but of a cold, callous, cruel, and calculating killer!”

  So I went to the Starbucks across the street and took my old stool by the window and looked out into the frosty air, and at 5:40 Cynthia wheeled around the corner, wearing the chinchilla coat that all my skill and good luck had gotten her, and unwittingly walked past the blue Malibu that had conveyed her husband momentarily back home. She was bundled up and still in one warm, furry piece and was alone and very much alive, and I began blubbering like an idiot into my third hot chocolate with whipped cream.

  I called her that night and she picked up the phone.

  “Will you take me back if I get help for my problem?” I asked. “I’ll check into a rehab clinic. I promise. I’ve looked into this Shining Path place in New Mexico. It looks perfect for my problem
. . . . I’m like the dream textbook case for them! I think they can help me there.”

  “Maybe . . . I don’t know” was all I could get out of her.

  But it was something.

  A few days later—I was writing ten hours a day now—I went onto the Galaxy and there was an e-mail for me from someone who had never sent me one before.

  Frank W. Dixon:

  Yes I know your real name. I know what you do. A bookwriter. 2 books. Plague Boy. Love: A Horror Story. I am in New York City looking for you now. I want my moneys back. I know where you live. I will be at your apartment on 16 Street tomorrow exactly at 1:30. Your wife will be at her job at the Soles Magazine at this time. We will play cards. It must be No-Limit. Three hands. Then I will go. 1:30 sharp. Do not disappoint me or I will come to New Jersey to get you. I know where you are.

  B2W

  When I read that, I instantly forgot all about the miracle cure of writing. Opium poppies began to sprout, tall, white and beautiful, from the dull plaid rug on my motel room floor, their bulbs bursting with blissful sap. The poppies were growing and their stems were reaching for me, wrapping around me and pulling me down, and wires were shooting high voltage straight into my cerebral cortex, and the raging inferno had been rekindled in my groin.

  I wrote back:

  Okay, Swede, IT’S ON. But leave my wife alone. She has nothing to do with this.

  A minute later he wrote back:

  You claim this yet does she not wear the expensive chinchilla coat and shoes purchased for her with no doubt some of the moneys that you have won from me?

  I logged off, pulled the window blinds down, turned the TV and the lights off, and propped the chair up against the door (which, given the neighborhood and class of clientele, I probably should already have been doing). A minute later my cell phone rang.

  “Holy shit!” is how I answered the call. “Do you know what’s going on?!”

  “I think I do, gobshite!” Second Gunman/Johnny Tyronne said. Man, was it good to hear his voice. My personal cavalry galloping over the ocean to rescue me!

  “Where are you?”

  He told me he was at a dive motel on Broadway in the twenties and had landed in New York only two hours before. “Even the feckin’ bedbugs,” he told me, “in this place are afraid to sleep here.”

  “You didn’t have to come to New York, Johnny,” I said.

  “I couldn’t have that Viking bastard cuttin’ me best mate’s head off with a horse butcher hatchet, could I?”

  I told Second that Bjorn wasn’t out to kill me—most likely—and that he just wanted a crack, in person, at winning his money back.

  “A throwdown, one on one, head to head, mano-a-mano then?”

  “Yeah. And it’s No-Limit too. Tomorrow at my place.”

  Second asked me when Bjorn was coming over and we agreed to meet at my apartment an hour earlier, at 12:30.

  “Seriously,” I said before I hung up, “thanks a lot for coming. I appreciate it.”

  The next day I was back in my apartment at eleven forty-five. I’d brought the laptop. All the lasagna and Chinese leftovers were gone from the fridge, but there still was that mysterious blue package of otherworldly cold cuts. The place, I noticed with dismay, was starting to smell more of Cynthia than it was of the delectable blend of Cynthia-and-Me.

  At twelve thirty the buzzer sounded and a minute later Johnny Tyronne was back in my apartment.

  We shook hands. His battered suede jacket was gone and so was his mustache and stubble; he was wearing a long, nice black cashmere coat and had lost a few pounds.

  “Your wife’s not coming home?” he asked me. “There’s no chance?”

  “She shouldn’t be. She’s at work. Why?”

  “Just because. You don’t need any distractions.”

  I asked him what he’d been doing in Blackpool but he didn’t tell me much. He seemed more concerned about the Once-and-For-All showdown than I was.

  “Do you think,” I asked him, “he’ll want to play real cards or play online?”

  He said he had no idea and told me to log on to the Galaxy. I opened up my laptop and did so, then he took a pack of cards out of his pocket and began shuffling them.

  “Do you want to practice with real cards, play a few hands?” he asked me.

  “For real money?”

  “What kind of practicing, Frank, would it be if it’s for fake money?”

  He said we’d play five hands with real cards for real money, just to get me primed and ready, then we’d play a few hands online, him on my desktop, me on my laptop. When I reminded him that the Swede had insisted on No-Limit, Second asked me if I was really up for that and I told him I was.

  I won the first hand. Three 6s. (Aw shucks . . . that was the first hand I’d ever won with on the Galaxy, way back when.) Up $3,500.

  “Do you want me,” he asked me, “to write a check now or should we wait until all five hands have been played?”

  “Let’s wait. I trust you.”

  “I was only kidding, mate.”

  I won the next hand. I was now up more than $6,000 on him.

  We folded the next two hands. Then he won the next three hands and suddenly I was out almost $40,000.

  My visitor came over to me, grabbed my elbow, and said, “You okay?”

  Unfazed, I wrote him a check (from an account not linked to the site). I was ready for more. A lot more. It was time to move to the computers, where I was more at home. That was my bailiwick. A pitch right down my wheelhouse.

  “He’s a terrible, terrible player, this Bjorn guy,” Second said. “He shouldn’t even be allowed on the site.” He grabbed both my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye, and said: “Look, it kills me to say this but you’re one of the best players out there. Everyone knows that.”

  “They do?” I gulped.

  He went into my study and logged on to the Galaxy and I brought the laptop in. He sat in my chair, rubbing his hands together, and I sat on the floor right underneath my self-portrait.

  “He wants to play how many hands with you? Three, was it?”

  I nodded and Second looked at his watch. It was 1:10. Twenty minutes and counting to Swedish Horse Butcher.

  “We better hurry then,” he said.

  We created a private table in Ultra-High No-Limit. The betting would be through the roof. We both folded two hands, then . . .

  My hole cards were two Kings. Two cowboys. Unbelievable. I felt the juice, the fireworks. It was as if someone was plugging me right into a power plant.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked him.

  He didn’t say no and I bet huge. He saw it and then raised huge. I reraised and he saw it.

  Another King came up on the flop, along with an Ace and a 10.

  “Second, I can’t do this to you,” I said.

  “Play, Chip. It’s just a game. That’s all it is.”

  I was going to trounce him, I was going to smear him all over the rug. The pot went up, way up, past $70K, past $90K. Perhaps all the other 40,000 players currently logged on were now watching us. The turn card was a six. I bet $20,000; he raised me, I reraised. The river card was an Ace. I had a full boat, Kings full of Aces. I wanted to raise Second another $20K but felt sorry for him, so I only raised him half that . . . but he raised and I saw it.

  Second Gunman wins $162,000 with a Full House, Aces full of Kings.

  A fifty-pound lead baseball bat smacked me in the forehead. That’s how it felt.

  “Okay,” I said, my mouth drying fast. “I think I’m ready now.”

  “Another one. You need to win again.”

  I looked up at him from the floor. He wasn’t looking at me. The hole cards had already been dealt.

  I had an 8 of spades and a Jack of spades. He bet, I saw it.

  I drew a spade flush on the flop. I wanted to win my money back so I bet big.

  “I’ve got absolutely nothing here,” Second said. But he reraised.

  He
was, he told me, going to purposely lose the hand so I would win all the money back that I’d just lost to him. I kept raising, he kept reraising, I was barely paying attention until the pot went over $150K.

  I showed my Jack-high spade flush.

  He showed me his Queen-high spade flush.

  His Queen was his only spade. The three of spades on the river had killed me. I was now down to less than $200,000.

  “Chroist,” he gasped, his hand over his mouth. “Sorry.”

  I took a very deep breath. Bjorn 2 Win would be there in twelve minutes. Second told me he was now going to turn all the money back over to me with the final hand. That was good because I had garbage for hole cards. He told me he had garbage, too. To get my $350,000-plus back we kept raising and raising. I still had nothing, just a measly King high by the turn, which was a dumb five of diamonds. I looked at Second and he was shaking his head in dismay. “I got nuthin’ too,” he muttered. I bet, he raised, I saw it. The river was a two of hearts, another dumb card. Maybe he had three twos or fours or nothing at all . . . it didn’t matter.

  The pot was a staggering $198,000. If ever in my life I needed an adult diaper, this was the time. But I was safe.

  “I have a Jack high, Chip,” Second Gunman said. “If I beat you with this, we’ll keep playing until I can get all your money back to you.”

  “I have a King high,” I told him. “Other than that, just the big squadoosh.”

  When I win, I thought, I’ll have all my money back. If I lose, I’ll have only $1,000.

  We showed our hands.

  Second Gunman wins $198,000 with two 2s.

  “Huh?” I said. “You said you had nothing!”

  “I thought I did,” he said. “I didn’t see that second two.”

  “Okay, let’s play again.”

  He looked at his watch. Bjorn 2 Win would be over in one minute.

  He stood up and walked to the living room. I looked up at the walls, at the two paintings on the wall. They were bad, yes, but weren’t completely terrible. They were only terrible if you thought that they were any good. I stood up and went to the living room. Second was putting his coat on and was at the door.