The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  “Hi, Connie,” I said.

  Breaux showed me a shit-eating grin and a one-up wink, then said to Connie, “Ain’t we invited in?”

  Her gaze flickered hesitantly. “I don’t know. There’s this guy . . . Bodie, he’s not my man or anything, but, well, he’s here now. And some friends of his.”

  “No sweat about that,” Breaux said. “He’s got friends, you got ‘em, too.”

  She frowned in thought. I’d just met Connie, but it was already apparent that her IQ was somewhere around the score of your average football game. Make that your average defensive battle. Finally she brightened, shrugged her slim shoulders, clutched Breaux’s hand, and led him inside. Apparently she’d forgotten about me; probably two people at once were a bit much for her to keep up with. In a few seconds I got lonely on the porch and went in after them.

  I was standing in spooky, greenish light from a single painted bulb hung from the ceiling of the living room. Bodie and Connie, hand in hand, were just disappearing through a doorway that led farther into the house. They left me alone with a long cabinet-model stereo that was playing a heavy metal tune by Twisted Sister, and a long tall brunette who was seated on a cloth divan. She wore a short, Dorothy Hamill hairdo along with bikini panties and a wispy half-bra. Her eyes were dark holes in her face. A Sherlock Holmes pipe hung loosely from one corner of her mouth. She was freebasing; I got a whiff of crack smoke, followed by a quick, heady rush.

  The girl took the pipe from her mouth and pointed its stem at me. She said in a childlike monotone, “Want to get high with Crystal?” I shook my head and went on through the living room. As I passed through the doorway, Crystal gave a hollow, mirthless laugh.

  I entered what had once been a formal dining room, a pretty nice one. There was a chandelier hanging dead center from the ceiling, putting out clear white light from teardrop bulbs. The wallpaper was a tasteful beige. A portable bar stood close to one wall in front of a glass breakfront cabinet. Connie and Bodie were at the bar. She was filling two stemmed glasses from a bottle of white wine.

  A second guy was at the bar, mixing bourbon and water, and I’d seen him someplace before. He was tall and stoop-shouldered, about forty, with close-cropped brown hair and jug handle ears. I rattled my memory bank. Nothing. As I approached, the guy regarded me through sleepy-lidded eyes that showed the barest flicker of recognition. I was trying to place the guy and he was doing the same to me. As I leaned against the bar, he said from the side of his mouth, “This one with you, Connie?”

  She encircled Breaux’s bicep with her hands and looked at me. “Him? Yeah, yeah, he is. I invited him.” Connie Swarm might have been an airhead, but she was a pretty good liar. Probably had a lot of practice.

  The stranger nodded to me. He didn’t seem to want an introduction; he picked up his drink and retreated toward the living room. Probably this citizen was more interested in getting high with Crystal than he was in meeting me. I mentally filed his image away; when I had more time, I was going to remember where I’d run across the guy. Connie and Bodie carried their drinks farther into the house with me trailing a step behind. The two of them and the one of me. I took one long step into the next room and froze in my tracks. I blinked.

  I’ve seen a lot of poker games, and normally it takes some observation to figure out who the sucker is. He’s the guy who gets the most sympathy from the other players when he loses a pot, and who gets the loudest laughs when he tells a joke that isn’t very funny, but it takes a while for a newcomer to the game to get the drift. That’s in most poker games. But in the game that was going on in the back room at Connie Swarm’s house, the sucker stood out like a sore thumb. I probably would have known Skeezix even without the description that Breaux had given me, just with the information from Ace the Book that Skeezix was the pigeon in the poker game. The guy might as well have had a spotlight trained on him.

  He was fat, all right. The folds of his neck puffed out over his collar like water-filled balloons, and his cheeks were round as Porky Pig’s. He was dressed like Liberace off his diet, in a maroon silk blazer with velvet lapels. A full ten inches of snow-white cuff protruded from each sleeve, and he had thick, dark, wavy hair. There were rings on three of his stubby fingers—one diamond, one ruby, one emerald. He wore a maroon bow tie that matched his coat. The coat was unbuttoned and even with his chair pushed back, his belly spilled out over the edge of the table. On the table in front of him were three foot-high stacks of poker chips. They were professional, monogrammed chips, probably straight from Vegas. One stack was white, one blue, the other hundred-dollar blacks.

  The round table was about five feet in diameter, covered in off-white burlap stretched taut over a cushion of foam rubber. Besides Skeezix there were five players in the game. Two were women, a Mexican pepper pot with giant boobs rolling out from a teeny-weeny string bikini top, and a black girl with blue mascara worn on lashes long as taut fishing lines. The black girl wore jean shorts and a halter, like Connie’s outfit. The women sat on either side of Skeezix. The Mexican broad had a few chips in front of her, the black girl none. As I watched, Skeezix tossed some black chips into the pot, then peeked groggily at his hole cards. “Bet five hundred, Joe Bob. How you like them apples?” He sounded like Froggy the Gremlin.

  The black girl sat on Skeezix’s left, and had first action on his bet. She peeked at her hole cards—they were playing seven stud—then wiggled around so that she brushed against Skeezix, and stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “I got nothing to call you with, darlin’. Missy’s cupboard is plumb bare, bay-be.”

  Skeezix rubbed his fat palms together. “Don’t matter, hon, it’s all coming home to papa anyway. Here.” He handed her some black chips from his own stack. She batted her long lashes and called the bet. There was a white powdery residue on his upper lip, below his nostrils.

  I’d been watching the Skeezix Show so closely that I hadn’t taken a look at the other players. Now I did, and two of the three remaining poker players I recognized. Joe Bob Cleveland was directly across the table from Skeezix. Joe Bob was a rawboned, cigar-smoking, straight-off-the-range type who’d finished high in Binnion’s World Championship a few years back. He wore a flowered western shirt and a black Stetson tilted back on his head, and smoke curled upward from a fat cigar resting in an ashtray by his elbow. Sitting beside Joe Bob was Hubie Peters, an ex-N.B.A. basketball player. In his playing days he’d been a real showboat, behind-the-back passes and alley oops and in-yo-face slam dunks. The league had booted Hubie for shaving points, and from what I’d heard he hadn’t hit a lick since except for booking sports and playing poker. He was nearly seven feet tall, sprawled out in a chair with his knees bumping the table from underneath. His arms and legs were pretty thin, but his midsection had expanded at least as much as Jack Brendy’s, maybe even more. Hubie was now built like Big Bird. He saw me and raised a hand. I nodded.

  I didn’t know the remaining player, but the guy had all the moves. He was young, probably middle twenties, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and wearing a blue knit Polo shirt. At the moment he was shuffling a stack of chips one-handed, click-click-click, with the practiced ease of a Vegas dealer. I’d say this for Skeezix, he wasn’t picking on any softies. Jesus, Amarillo Slim himself might have been a slight underdog in this game.

  Joe Bob Cleveland studied his hand, scratched behind his ear, dragged at his cigar, and blew a wispy line of smoke at the ceiling. “Well, I’m a fool for it,” he said, “but I just got to see what you’re so proud of, Skeezix man. Call. Here, I’m calling you.” He gently nudged a cylinder of blue chips into the center of the table. Hubie Peters folded, airplaning his hand across the table to fall among the discard. The young guy, looking bored, did the same.

  “What you got, Skeez?” Joe Bob said.

  Skeezix peeked at his hole cards. Then he peered squint-eyed at his four face-up cards. Then he checked his hole cards again. “I got ... I got . . . shit, I ain’t got nothing.” He giggled as though he’d just
said the funniest thing in history. “I ain’t shitting, I don’t even have a pair.”

  “Well, I do,” Joe Bob said, rolling his cards over. “A little bitty pair. Threes.” He raked in the pot while Hubie Peters and the young bearded guy shot Jesus Christ glances at one another.

  Skeezix’s face screwed up into a sullen frown. The Mexican girl consoled him with a kiss on the cheek, palming a couple of blue chips from his stack as she did. His eyes rose and, for the first time, met mine. He stood up pretty fast for a dumb fat guy. His stomach bumped the edge of the table.

  Skeezix said, “Connie, how many times I got to tell you about letting strangers in here?” He looked around frantically, and his gaze now came to rest on Breaux. “Jesus Christ, bring me a lobster,” Skeezix said. “What’s Bodie Breaux doing at this here poker game?”

  Connie let go of Bodie’s hand and stepped forward, her shoulders squared. “He came to see me and he brought along a friend. It’s my place, I guess I can have friends over if I want to.” She didn’t sound any smarter than she had outside on the porch, and I decided that Skeezix and Connie Swarm were pretty close to a dead heat in the brain department. I’ve had occasion to know a few dope dealers. There are some smart ones, but they’re definitely in the minority. Breaux was a rare exception.

  Breaux said, “How you doing, Skeeze man? Small world.”

  Skeezix sat down like a kid who’d just been told to stop playing Nintendo and take out the garbage. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “It’s okay this time, Connie, but that don’t change anything. This is your place so long as I say it’s your place, so from now on no visitors unless I clear ‘em first.” He peered once again at me. “I know Breaux, but who’s this dude?”

  Just when I thought Connie was stumped—I doubted that she could remember my name; it had been five minutes since she’d met me—Breaux came to the rescue. “He’s my buddy. Rick. Ricky, say hello to Skeezix. Big man on this street.”

  I grinned and tried to look impressed. The grin was easy, but the impressed expression was a little harder. Skeezix regarded me through fat-lidded eyes, then, without so much as a hello gathered the cards in front of him on the table. The black girl and the Mexican chick leaned closer to him and appeared interested. Skeezix began a butterfingered shuffle. “Come on, let’s play, I got to get even,” he said.

  The other players exchanged glances that told what they thought Skeezix’s chances of getting even were. Hubie Peters threw me a wink and a slight head shake that told me not to let on that I knew him. That was fine with me, and my nod told Hubie so.

  I moved over close to Breaux and whispered, “Since you’re the in-crowd around here, I guess you’d better stay at the party. I’m going up front to have a look. Time’s getting short.” As I spoke, I checked out the room. Nobody was paying any attention to us; they were all too busy watching Skeezix make an ass of himself. Bodie nudged me and his chin moved up and down. I went back through the dining room and into the living room.

  The stoop-shouldered guy I’d seen earlier and couldn’t quite place was on the couch with Crystal, getting high. They were on their sides with their noses practically touching, and were passing the crack-filled pipe back and forth between them. The guy was alternating hits on the pipe with swigs from his bourbon and water. He was headed for never-never land at breakneck speed. I tried to make him again and couldn’t; that was okay, it’d come to me. The two of them ignored me. He was stroking her bare thigh, but I doubted that either of them was getting any kind of charge from the contact. I went to the window and peeked outside between the drapes.

  Nothing yet. The cedar bush by which I’d stood earlier was outlined in moonlight across the drive. Down the road a piece, reflected light from the lake danced across my Corvette’s hood. The night was windless; the mesquite trees stood like stone carvings.

  I looked hastily around behind me, found a chair, and placed it beside the window. I sat down and looked outside again. The asphalt pavement on Hawley Road stretched in the distance into nothingness.

  I didn’t have long to wait. I’d barely lit up a Pall Mall and inhaled the first puff when headlights twinkled far away and came nearer. Whoever was coming was driving like a bat out of hell. As the headlights passed swiftly in front of the house, a sleek, long limo materialized behind them. It was probably a Caddy, though in the moonlight I couldn’t tell. The limo’s windows were one-way black. An antenna waved from the center of its trunk. The car moved away down the blacktop, made the same squealing U-turn I’d made earlier, and came back to stop behind my ‘Vette. Its lights went out. The front doors opened as one.

  Mr. T got out on the driver’s side, at least the guy looked like him. Light reflected from his shiny black forehead. He was solid muscle stretched over a frame the size of a jeep, wearing a sleeveless dark T-shirt that struggled to hold itself together. A lone strip of hair ran down the center of his head; the back and sides were shaved into a Mohawk. He was drinking from a can—in the dimness I wasn’t sure whether it was a soft drink or a beer—and I wondered whether he’d opened the drink with the conventional tab, or to save time had just poked his thumb though the top. He turned up the can, finished off the drink, crumpled the can and dropped it on the limo’s floorboard and closed the door.

  The black man who exited from the passenger door was a lighter, coffee-and-cream color. Taller and slimmer than Mr. T, he was wearing a checkered sport coat, and even looked human. A black patch covered one eye. He went around the limo’s nose and talked to Mr. T for a moment, then the two of them walked up to the Corvette and gave it the once-over. Mr. T bent over, and for just an instant I expected him to lift the Corvette and look underneath, but he didn’t. He moved back to the limo, opened the rear door, and stood aside. Muhammed Double-X got out and looked around.

  I’d run across Muhammed Double-X several times over the years. The first time had been around fifteen years ago in New York, at an otherwise forgettable postgame party after we’d squeaked by the Giants at the Polo Grounds. We’d had a good-looking rookie cornerback that year, Willie Bowles out of Grambling, and it had been Willie who’d introduced Muhammed around as his “main man.” Before that season had ended they’d found Willie dead in his apartment, enough heroin in his veins to put South Dallas in orbit. Another occasion I remembered seeing Muhammed had been in downtown Dallas, on Jackson Street. Muhammed had approached one of Sweaty’s bond customers, a small-time coke dealer named Billy T, and had whispered something to him. Just whispered, nothing more. Billy T’s eyes had grown round as saucers and he’d looked as though he might have a stroke on the spot. Billy T never showed up for trial; Sweaty had paid off his bond and was still looking for the guy.

  Muhammed was wearing a tailored dark suit with skin-tight pants. Mirrored shades covered his eyes; he had sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. He adjusted his Windsor knot with an ebony thumb and forefinger, said something to Mr. T, and motioned toward the house. T and the man with the eye patch fell into step side by side and led Muhammed Double-X across the yard.

  I let go of the drapes and stood as they fell back into place. I didn’t have to worry about disturbing the pair on the couch; now the guy was on his back and Crystal was lying on top of him. They were looking into each other’s eyes and taking turns giggling. There was a small utility closet just inside the front door and I hid in it, knocking over a chrome vacuum cleaner extension as I did. I left the door open a crack and peeped through the slit.

  Mr. T didn’t bother to knock. He hit the front door like a battering ram; wood splintered and T came into the house accompanied by a rush of air and a loud crash. He never paused but headed straight over to the couch and put hands the size of hams around Crystal’s waist. Then he lifted her as though she was foam plastic and showed the guy who’d been lying beneath her a King Kong grimace. It was probably a good thing that the guy had been smoking all that crack and drinking all that whiskey; he grinned at Mr. T as though he was watching a cartoon. The hood with the black patch ov
er his eye now passed my line of vision; still holding Crystal aloft, T turned to his buddy and said, “Ain’t him.” Then he dropped Crystal back on top of the guy in a tangle of arms and legs, and lumbered purposefully toward the back of the house with Eyepatch close on his heels. Muhammed Double-X now sauntered through the living room and followed. As he passed the couch, Muhammed said to Crystal, from the side of his mouth, “Be cool, sister.”

  I decided that I’d better follow as well, slid out of my closet, and made tracks through the living room. Crystal grinned vacantly at me as I went by. From the rear of the house came a loud bang followed by a gargling, squawking sound, as though someone were strangling a rooster. I quickened my pace, double-timed it through the dining room, and came to a screeching halt just inside the poker room. I was digging my hand into my back pocket and wrapping my fingers around the handle of the Smith & Wesson.

  It was Skeezix who was doing the gargling. The Mr. T character had the fat guy by the throat and was holding him about a foot off of the floor. Jesus, Skeezix must have weighed close to three hundred pounds, but the big guy didn’t even seem to be breathing hard. Everyone else—Breaux, Connie Swarm, the Mexican cutie and the black chick, Hubie Peters and the two other poker hustlers—was lined up against the wall with Patch-on-the-Eye holding a big .45 pistol pointed loosely in their direction. Patch was watching with mild amusement as Mr. T choked the daylights out of Skeezix. Muhammed Double-X had his back to me, about two yards away. His shoulders and waist formed a V underneath the coat of his dark suit.