• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The little barmaid kept the drinks coming, and here I noticed one of Jerry G’s little tricks—he was not drinking. I had to watch the barmaid out of the corner of an eye to see that Jerry G’s tumblers were being filled not with Scotch but with tea from an under-the-counter pitcher—the boss was like his B girls out front, only pretending to get tipsy. At least he wasn’t talking patrons into buying him Dewar’s that was really Lipton’s.

The music was strictly Vegas—the barmaid was using the turntable, not the CD player, and spinning Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bobby Darin, Keely Smith, Steve Lawrence, that kind of thing. I could see Jerry G, with his heritage, being a traditionalist, but guessed (with that skinny tie of his) that our host might really have preferred Robert Palmer or Kenny Loggins, or in his darker moments maybe Black Sabbath. Most of his guests, however, were of an age that the Vegas lounge lizards were more their style than Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat.

We were set to take a bathroom break around three-thirty, and were playing one last hand before then. Jerry G was dealing a round of Chicago, seven-card stud with the high spade in the hole taking half the pot. There had been some grumbles at the table, since the high spade thing struck several players as damn near offensive as wild cards; but it was clear Jerry G liked to deal a hand of this now and then, so we were all stuck.

The first card dealt me down was the ace of spades. That gave me half the pot, even if the rest of my hand had been warm spit; but it wasn’t—by the time the last bet came around, I had a pair of deuces up, plus the ace of hearts, and a piece of shit. But the three cards in my hand included that ace of spades, the ace of diamonds, and another deuce.

I had been betting modestly, getting everybody to stay in. You might almost call that bluffing, or reverse bluffing, anyway. Everybody but the lawyer took the ride—the pot was huge, two grand and change already. I could tell the surgeon probably had either the king or queen or maybe jack of spades down, and he seemed to have a spade flush going. Between me and Jerry G, in betting order, came the contractor, who could have had a jack-high full house going, and if he had the jack of spades as one of his hole cards, he would have to stay in, with a pot like that.

But the bidding had been hot and heavy enough to give him pause. The contractor bet a modest white chip—fifty bucks.

I had half this pot in the bag, and almost certainly the rest of it. I would like to have raised. I would like to have raised maybe one hundred thousand dollars.

But I checked.

The surgeon was next in line, and he raised a blue chip—five hundred clams.

Jerry G, who had two queens up (and might have had the queen of spades down), saw that bet. The contractor said, “Fuck this shit,” and folded.

I raised another blue chip.

Everybody gave me looks to kill, since checking and then raising was bad manners, if kosher. But the surgeon took the final raise of another blue chip, which both Jerry G and I saw.

I’d been right on every assumption—the surgeon had the king of spades down and a flush. Jerry G had a queens-high full house and the queen of spades down.

But, like I said, I had the ace of spades in the hole, and an ace-high full house, so I hauled in the chips. Math was never my strong suit, though I had to be four grand ahead on just that round.

The players swore at me good-naturedly, and Jerry G nodded for me to follow him out the exit door.

I was near a little light over the door to the poker room, but he was in the shadows, an arrangement he’d contrived. He offered me a cigarillo, I declined, and he lighted up the little cigar, and regarded the rear expanse of the Giovanni kingdom. At three-thirty A.M. on a Wednesday, the graveled lot was damn near full. A big-hair hooker in a pink spandex minidress was leading a biker like a lamb to the slaughter (or maybe to the slattern) toward one of the eight little trailers that lined the lot