Company Ink

by J. A. Cipriano

  The next poker player at our table, Thurston, was uneasy about being in this game because his third-quarter portfolio earnings were down a few million more than he wanted, but he thought he could bluff his way to winning and recover his losses, because the few billion he was worth just wasn’t enough. Finally, at the end, Greg was a pharmaceutical executive who was by far the worst of the lot. I might have been here for other reasons, but damn if it wasn’t going to feel good taking down a man whose faked drug trials put profits over lives.

  As the game started, everyone played conservatively for first several hands. I went along with it, keeping a close eye on Thurston and watching for his bluffs. I even let him take the pot with a bluff a time or two, making sure he was complacent.

  Then the opportunity came along to force him out of the game, and I took it.

  I had a pair of eights in the hole, and the dealer had turned up an eight on the flop and another on the turn. Everything else on the table was crap. When the second eight came up, both Greg and Manny folded, but Thurston hung in there and kept tapping a finger on his hole cards every time he checked or raised, a telltale sign he was bluffing.

  When the river turned up a useless three of clubs and the bet came to me, I let out a sigh and feigned worry, peeking at my hole cards and staring from the pot to Thurston’s chips. Finally, I pushed a hundred thousand into the pot and gave Thurston dare-you look that suggested I was trying to bluff him. He responded by tapping his hole cards and adding a hundred thousand of his own, then raising another two hundred thousand. It was a classic aggressive bluff strategy, and I would’ve seen right through it even without the pen helping me.

  I let out a low, mocking whistle. “That’s a pretty rich bet, Thurston,” I said. “Sure you want to risk that much? I heard your portfolio’s a little on the rocks, if you know what I mean.”

  He looked at me, angry and indignant. “Just who the hell do you think you are? Who have you been talking to?”

  “Oh, you know. People who matter,” I said as I fiddled with my chips, added two hundred grand to the pot and raised him another hundred grand. “People who can afford to lose a million or two.”

  Thurston didn’t hesitate. “All in,” he growled, shoving his remaining chips into the middle of the table.

  I held back a grin, since that was exactly what I wanted him to do, and once again feigned worry, checked my cards, and stared at the pot. I released a slow breath as I pretended to count my chips, and finally matched his bet by counting out the correct amount slowly. “I guess I’ll call,” I said.

  Thurston’s mouth fell open for a few seconds. Then he recovered with a brittle smile. “You’re bluffing,” he said. “And you’re terrible at it.”

  “Really? Because I thought you were bluffing, and you’re terrible at it,” I said as I fingered one of my cards, then turned it over and flicked it forward on the table. “Oh, look, three of a kind,” I said, relishing the look of horror on Thurston’s face. “But wait, there’s more!” I said as I turned over my second eight and sent it to join the first. “Gee, that’s too bad for you. Thanks for the chips, Thurst’.”

  Suddenly there was a burst of laughter and applause from the audience as Thurston turned bright red and started sputtering. Without even bothering to turn his cards over, he shoved his chair back, stood and walked stiffly away from the table.

  “Player 19 has been eliminated,” the dealer said in a monotone as he rounded up the cards and I collected my pot. “Game play will continue.”

  Not long after that, Greg the pharmaceutical executive was forced from the game on a hand I folded from early on, when he went all-in on a straight against Manny’s full house. That left me and the cheapskate baseball team owner, and I was determined to get his team along with his money.

  “Hey, Manny,” I said as he raked in his pot from defeating Greg and the dealer announced that game play would continue. “How about a little side bet?”

  A faint sneer flashed across his face, but I doubted he’d even realized it. That was just his natural expression when someone who wasn’t known to be terribly important addressed him. “Why would I possibly want to make a side bet with you?”

  “Because if you win, I’ll triple your jackpot,” I told him. “I’ll give you a hundred million on top of the fifty mil prize.”

  One of his eyebrows went up, and he froze in the middle of stacking chips. I could practically see the gears in his head turning. He was too damned smug to believe he could lose. “And in the extremely unlikely event you win …?” he said, trailing off like my losing was a foregone conclusion.

  “Then you agree to sell your baseball team to my friend Beau, over there,” I said and flashed a grin. “See, I figure he’ll make a hell of a lot better owner than you, because you should’ve kept Waldon. Esteban sucks, and you’re never gonna taste a single Series game again.”

  Manny bared his teeth at me. “Fuck you, and fuck Waldon. You’re on.”

  I already felt pretty damned good about being able to sell Beau the baseball team I was about to win.

  Manny and I went three hands without exchanging more than a handful of chips between us, and I could tell he was trying to read me. So, I started switching things up, throwing out crazy tells that didn’t actually point to any pattern of good or bad hands. Meanwhile, my pen-enhanced skills told me exactly what kind of hand he had, every time.

  By the sixth hand, Manny started to get aggressive. He tried to go all-in on a strong hand, but when I folded on him and he revealed he’d been sitting on four of a kind, he got pissed. “Are you going to sit there and jerk off all night, or are you going to play goddamned poker?”

  “Oh, you want to play poker? And here I thought this was a knitting class,” I said, drawing another good laugh from the audience. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Let’s both go all-in on this next hand, sight unseen, before we even get our hole cards. Winner take all.”

  Manny’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Are you insane?”

  “Hey, all you’ve got to lose is a million bucks and a lousy baseball team,” I said with a shit-eating grin. “Come on, Manny. I thought you were good at this game.”

  I knew he couldn’t back down from such an outrageous challenge, and he didn’t. “Fine. I hope you can actually afford to pay me a hundred million, because I absolutely intend to collect,” he said as he started pushing his chips toward the center of the table.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” I said as I produced my pen and wrote I get dealt the winning hand on my palm. After I finished, I added all my chips to the pot. “If you win, I’ll not only give you the money, I will literally get down on my hands and knees and kiss your feet.”

  “You won’t win,” Manny said angrily. “I hope you enjoy tasting my shoes, because they cost more than your entire net worth, you little nobody.”

  I laughed. “Whatever you say, Manny.”

  The dealer watched our little argument impassively, and then dealt the hole cards. I ended up with the ace and jack of clubs, and from Manny’s non-expression when he looked at his, I figured he had a pocket pair, probably high. This would be even better if he ended up thinking he’d won.

  On the flop, the dealer turned over the king of clubs, the king of diamonds, and the four of hearts. Manny’s face lost every trace of emotion, and it was all I could do not to laugh. I’d bet anything he had four of a kind, which meant the turn and the river were going to turn up the two cards I needed for a royal flush.

  Sure enough, the turn produced the ten of clubs, and the old maid came up on the river. Of course, despite the obvious possibility, there was no way Manny would even consider I’d built the flush.

  He broke into a grin when the last card was flipped. “Where do you want me to stand so you can kiss my feet?” he said.

  I assumed a crestfallen expression. “Come on, man. We haven’t even shown our cards.”

  “You might not want to bother,” he said as he turned over one king, and
then another. The audience, which had gone silent since I suggested the crazy no-peeking bet, gasped in unison. “And let me tell you something … Joe, isn’t it? Your hundred million is nothing to me. I could wipe my ass with a hundred million and never notice the loss. But it’s going to hurt you, and that’s the only reason I took your ridiculous bet in the first place.”

  I lowered my head, and my shoulders started to shake. I could feel the cold satisfaction radiating from Manny as he assumed I was crying, right up until I choked out a laugh and kept going until I was holding my sides and bellowing laughter.

  “Oh, Manny. You’re so damned predictable, it hurts. Did you know that?”

  As he stared at me, I reached to the table and turned over the jack of clubs. “You want to make another bet?” I said, tapping the last facedown card. “Tell me what this card is, and I’ll stop humiliating your arrogant ass.”

  All the color drained from his face. “The ace of clubs,” he whispered.

  “Good job, Manny. At least you won something,” I said as I flipped the card over.

  The audience erupted into cheers, and Manny went from utter confusion to a genuine smile. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but … well played,” he said and extended a hand toward me.

  Okay, I didn’t expect that. I flashed a grin and shook with him, because despite his arrogance, he really was a good poker player. “You too,” I told him. “No hard feelings about the baseball team?”

  “Not really. I actually am a terrible owner,” he said as he grinned. “Tell you the truth, I only kept the team because it was pissing off the other owners. I fucking hate baseball.”

  I laughed hard enough to hurt my sides. “In that case, I’m happy to relieve you of ownership.”

  One of the attendants took my information to transfer the jackpot, and as the post-tournament crowd swirled and people shook my hand and patted my back, I mumbled thanks and pleasantries. As I made my way back to Gail and the Texans, all three of them were grinning like fools, and Gail threw her arms around me and treated me to a deep, hot kiss.

  “That was the best thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t even like poker,” she said.

  I smirked and gave a half-shrug. “Guess I just got lucky.”

  “Lucky, my ass!” Beau bellowed happily. “I only got one question for you, Joe. How much do you want for getting me my team?”

  Bella flapped an impatient hand in front of him. “Y’all can talk business later,” she said, flashing a sugary smile. “Marilyn tells me that you can help out with my charity, so I wanna strike while the iron’s hot. Beau, sweetheart, why don’t we all go and talk about this on the yacht?”

  “That’s my Bella. Always thinkin’ ahead,” Beau said as he threw an affectionate arm around his wife. “And she’s right, as always. You two should come out to the yacht with us. In fact, I insist.”

  I blinked at him. “You mean right now?”

  “Why not?” he said as he spread his hands out. “Game’s over, so there’s nothin’ more to see here. We can be on my jet in thirty minutes. What do you say, Joe?”

  I glanced at Gail, who nodded so excitedly that I was worried her head might fall off. “All right, you’re on,” I said. “Let’s go hang out on your yacht.”

  30

  Sixteen hours later, we were on a giant fucking yacht on Galveston Bay in Texas, watching the sun rise over the water while we drank mimosas and ate caviar and cold lobster, which was apparently a normal breakfast for Beau and Bella.

  As it turned out, those were actually their real names. I kind of thought that was hilarious since Beau and Bella sounded like a made-up Disney couple or something. Gail and I had come clean about our names because we were away from the tournament and didn’t have to worry about our presence there somehow getting back to Presley.

  I still couldn’t stop occasionally thinking about Ann, wondering what kind of emergency had taken her from the tournament even though I had a feeling I knew. From what I could tell or guess about her situation, she needed rescuing from more than just Mister Grabby Hands.

  At least I knew that would happen once I took down Henry Aaron for good.

  From Beau’s private jet, I’d checked in with the base, transferred the fifty million to the main account so Amy could add it to her investment strategy, and filled in Skye with what I’d found out about the guy from Beau. She was setting up a search for any information on major drug operations in and around Vegas, complete with hacked access to surveillance and traffic cameras, police databases, and anything she could think of to add to the algorithms. But it was going to take a while for all the information to compile.

  Meanwhile, I guessed Gail and I were going to hang out on this yacht for a while.

  “Well, now, isn’t this just a peach of a morning?” Bella said as she leaned on the yacht railing, sunglasses in place and mimosa in hand. “I do love a good, warm breeze.”

  Next to her, Gail closed her eyes and lifted her face to the gentle wind. “Me, too. This is amazing,” she said. “Thanks so much for having us, Bella.”

  “Oh, it’s my pleasure,” Bella said, flapping a hand in dismissal. “I just can’t believe you’re willing to give so much to our little charity, Roger. You have no idea how much good your hundred million is going to do.” She nodded emphatically. “I’ll make sure to have our people send the paperwork to the Medallion first thing tomorrow.”

  “Uh, yeah. No problem,” I said from my ultra-comfy deck chair across the way from the ladies, where Beau sat next to me. “What does your charity do again?”

  “We provide clean drinking water, toiletries, manicure sets, and designer clothing to orphans in Ecuador,” she said, smiling brightly as she regarded her own manicured hands. “After all, there’s no reason those poor orphans shouldn’t feel pretty.”

  Beau snorted laughter under his hand. “That’s right, darlin’, those orphan kids just love dressin’ up in Pierre Cardin and Armani. Way more important than water,” he said as Bella gave him a playfully dark look. He eased out of his chair and looked at me. “C’mon, Roger. I’ll show you how to drive this thing,” he said. “Don’t worry, the ladies won’t hardly notice we’re gone.”

  I had a feeling he actually wanted to talk to me about something he didn’t want his wife to hear, so I followed him up to the bridge, or whatever the part with the controls was called.

  “So yeah,” Beau said as I caught up to him standing in front of the control panel. “You’ve got your steering wheel, your throttle, your push-button start, your rudder.” He pointed to various parts. “Those things tell you crap like where you’re going and how fast, and you’ve got the GPS tracker and a bunch more bells and whistles that probably do some cool shit.” He pulled a small object with a bunch of buttons from his shorts pocket. “But this here’s how I drive my yacht,” he said, handing it to me.

  “Holy fuck. Is this a remote control for a yacht?” I said, hardly able to believe it.

  Beau let out one of his trademark deep laughs. “It surely is, my boy,” he said as he clapped me on the back. “Thing is, when you’re as rich as I am, money will buy you damned near anything you can think of, like a yacht remote control. Or this here.”

  He produced something else from a pocket. It turned out to be a gold iPhone. “Yes, this is actually made of 24 carat gold, plus black diamond and all these precious stones, I don’t even know what they are,” he turned the phone on its side to show off the glittering gems set into the outside edge. “And it’s really an iPhone. This thing cost me sixteen million bucks. It’s actually Bella’s, but she never bothered using it.”

  I shook my head slowly and grinned. “I’ve always knew rich people were crazy,” I said.

  “Aha!” he shouted like I’d just admitted I was the second gunman who shot JFK. “I knew it. You’re still thinking in terms of us versus them, rich and not rich. Only you’re not counting yourself in the rich people category, are you?”

  “Uh, no,” I said, wonderi
ng why that mattered. I mean, sure, I was rich, but it was because of the pen. Even with the investments we were working on to grow real money from imaginary funds, everything I had still came from a magic pen. So, I hadn’t really thought of myself as ‘a rich person.’

  Beau threw his arm around me. “See, here’s why I like you, Roger. You’re clearly ballsy, and you’ve got plenty of money, but you’re not comfortable with it.” He nodded, as if convincing himself. “What I think you need is a mentor. Someone who’s used to the money and can show you how to really spend it.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said, gesturing at pocket he’d stuck his sixteen-million-dollar gadget back in. “So, you’re gonna hook me up with your gold iPhone dealer, or what?”

  “Not exactly. Take this, for example.” He pointed to the remote control still in my hand and led me to the back end of the bridge, overlooking the huge rear deck. “Point that thing down there and push the blue button near the bottom.”

  “Okay,” I said, furrowing my brow as I aimed the remote. When I pushed the button, there was a soft hum below us as a panel slid back, revealing a sparkling blue swimming pool built into the deck. And I couldn’t help laughing again. “You’re out in a yacht on an ocean bay, with your own private swimming pool,” I said. “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s what you do with money,” Beau said with a grin. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bathing in champagne and buying random hotels so you can bring a couple of sororities up to the top floors to impress a congressman.” He winked at me. “Sure, we give back too. Bella’s got her Armani for orphans thing, and I like to throw lobster at poor people like that guy in Wolf of Wall Street…”