Judge & Jury - James Patterson [8]
Nordeshenko held an image of what it might be like to spear this buffoon through the windpipe, which he could do with a sharp thrust of his hand. He thought about raising back, the cards warranted it, but elected, as did the blonde, just to call.
“Well, aren’t we all nice ’n’ cozy,” Cowboy crowed, tilting back his chair.
The dealer flopped three cards: a six, an ace, and a nine. That gave Nordeshenko aces, almost surely the high hand. He bet $3,000.
Julie hesitated, tapping her polished nails on the table. “Oh, what the hell.” She finally smiled. “It’s only the rent money, right?”
“Well, the rent just got raised a little, darlin’,” Cowboy said, pushing in another $5,000 in chips.
Nordeshenko looked him in the eye. This asshole was making it very difficult. What could he possibly have? He had watched him chasing cards all night.
“What’s your ticket say, Ivan?” Cowboy fiddled with his chips. “You still on this train, or time to get off?”
“Maybe one more station.” Nordeshenko shrugged, looking toward Julie.
“All in,” she said, flipping her cards and pushing the balance of her chips into the pot.
Four spades. Nordeshenko had been right. He had read her trying to make a flush. He still had high hand. And the Cowboy was bluffing.
The dealer turned over a queen of diamonds. Nordeshenko didn’t even flinch. Now he had aces and queens.
Julie winced. She hadn’t made her flush.
“Well, what’ya say we just put a little more coal in the burner and see what the river brings?” Cowboy cackled loudly, pushing the rest of his chips into the center—$10,000.
Murmurs went up from the people watching. It was clear this would be the final hand. The winner would take the entire $30,000 buy-in.
Cowboy stared at him, not smiling now. “You stickin’ around, Ivan, or what?”
“Miraslav,” Nordeshenko said.
Cowboy took off his shades. “Huh?”
“My name is Miraslav,” Nordeshenko said, meeting the bet.
The dealer turned over his last card, the river. A deuce of hearts.
Julie groaned.
Nordeshenko knew his aces and queens should be a winner. He couldn’t even imagine what the asshole Cowboy had. He counted out twenty hundred-dollar bills and tossed them outside the pot as a side bet.
Then, amazingly, Cowboy countered with a $5,000 raise of his own. Nordeshenko was stunned.
“Ivan, still with us?” Cowboy tilted back in his chair, clucking unpleasantly.
Nordeshenko reached in his jacket, counted out $5,000 in hundred-dollar bills, and laid them in the center of the table. This was no longer just an amusing diversion.
“Aces and queens.” He flipped over his hole cards.
“Oooh.” Cowboy blinked, as if stunned.
But then he grinned. “This is gonna hurt, Ivan.”
He flipped over his hole cards. Two more deuces. The last card had given him three. Nordeshenko felt as if he’d fallen off a cliff. The moron had been pushing the pot the whole way with just a pair of twos.
Cowboy leaped up, ooo-eeing like a donkey, raking in his chips. Nordeshenko thought he’d like to wipe the grin off the fool’s face. But just as quickly, the irrational urge subsided.
Not tonight. He had work to do in the morning. Important work. Whatever he had lost tonight was just a fraction of his fee.
“You know what they say, Ivan,” Cowboy said, stacking his winnings, “sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. No hard feelings,” he said, stretching out his hand.
Nordeshenko stood up and took it. The imbecile was right about one thing: he’d been lucky tonight. Luckier than he would ever know.
The Israeli was going to let him live.
Chapter 7
IT WAS AFTER EIGHT O’CLOCK that night when I finally made it back to Casa Pellisante.
Home for me was the same rent-controlled apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan on Forty-ninth and Ninth I’d lived in for the past twelve years. I had a view of the Empire State Building from my study window and could kick back on the roof after work with a cocktail, looking out on the red sunsets over Jersey City. On weekends, I could step out the front door right into the Feast of St. Ignatius or a West Indian