Deadman's Bluff - James Swain [65]
“Two things,” Valentine said. “The first was because my old man was a gambler, and I saw what it did to my mother. The second happened when I was eighteen. I lent three hundred bucks to a friend of mine who thought he was a gambler. That cured me.”
“Did your friend blow the money?”
“Yeah.”
Lunch came, and they dug in. Once upon a time, food in Las Vegas was a real bargain. Then the corporations had taken over. Now, a burger cost ten bucks, and the french fries could be counted on the fingers of two hands.
“What happened?” Bill asked.
“It was the summer of my eighteenth birthday,” Valentine said, “and I was caddying at the Atlantic City Country Club. The pay was fifty bucks a week, and I’d saved three hundred bucks and was planning to buy a used car. There was another caddy named Kenny Keane. Kenny was a degenerate gambler and would bet on anything. One day, he begged me to lend him three hundred dollars, said he needed to see a doctor. I was pretty naive, so I lent it to him.
“Kenny immediately marched into the clubhouse and challenged the club champ to a match. Kenny was an eight-handicap, and the champ was a scratch golfer. They went out and started playing. Luckily, the champ played tight when there was money on the line, and on the last hole, Kenny sank a miracle thirty-foot putt, and won by a stroke. As we were walking back to the clubhouse, Kenny said, ‘I told you I could beat that guy!’
“I told Kenny I wanted my money. I was dreaming about owning that car. Kenny said sure, and we went to take a shower. When I got out, I found Kenny in a poker game in the locker room. I looked at his hand. He had absolutely nothing. A stone cold bluff. I begged him for my money. He said, ‘I can beat these guys.’ And he did. They folded, and Kenny won two grand.
“We went into the clubhouse, and Kenny headed for the casino in the back room. Gambling was illegal in Atlantic City then, but that didn’t stop anyone. I told Kenny to give me my money or I’d never speak to him again. He said, ‘Can’t you see I’m on a roll? I’m going to make us famous tonight.’
“I watched Kenny play blackjack and double our money. Then he played craps, and doubled it again. The guy was absolutely on fire. Then he went to the roulette table, and put everything on the black. The ball rolled and I remember saying a prayer when it dropped. It landed on the red.
“Kenny didn’t stop yelling for ten minutes. I remember wanting to cry, only there were too many people around. As we were leaving, another caddy came up and asked Kenny how much money he’d lost. Kenny said, ‘Just three hundred bucks that I borrowed from this dope.’”
Bill’s cell phone was lying on the bar, and began to crawl between their plates. It was on vibrate mode, and Bill picked it up and stared at its face.
“I need to take this,” he said.
Bill retreated to a less noisy area of the bar, and Valentine continued eating while watching the TV behind the bar. The players had taken a break, and the network was showing a replay of the monster pot DeMarco had lost. Valentine hadn’t paid much attention to it the first time—everyone lost when they gambled—but watching it a second time, he felt the hairs on his neck stand up. The player who’d beaten DeMarco was a scruffy Houston gambler named Skins Turner, a lanky guy with a hooked nose, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a vagrant wisp of hair on his head. But his arresting feature was his hands. They were large and delicate, with long tapering fingers and manicured fingernails. They could have belonged to a surgeon, or a concert pianist, but in the world of gambling, they belonged to another animal. They were a mucker’s hands.
The camera shifted to DeMarco, who’d lost a third of his chips to Skins. DeMarco was shaking his head, and Valentine sensed that the kid knew he’d been cheated.
Bill was still on the other side of the bar, talking