Dead Man's Hand

by Steven Meehan

  Patrick attempted to roll the slight twitch of his eye into another movement altogether. And he managed to do it wonderfully. In fact I would have missed the twitch altogether if I hadn’t been carefully watching for it. But I had seen it and that was all that mattered. This master was human after all. He had a weakness, slight as it was, but it was there. Thank goodness for pride. Unfortunately from what I could tell he had a reason to be proud, but he took it just a hair too far. He was so proud of how well he could read people that he couldn’t suffer any to question his skills.

  Still wrapping himself in the emotions of a stone, Patrick looked me right in the eye and asked, “So if you’re not a fan of what I do, what do you do to gain your edge?”

  “I’m a simplistic man. I’ve always just enjoyed basic study and observation.” I replied smoothly.

  But I must have struck a nerve because he replied all too quickly. “But in a situation like this, that kind of strategy becomes increasingly difficult with the lack of time.”

  “The lack of time does play against me, I’ll agree. As I said every option has its flaws, but I can pick things up that most people would miss a thousand times over.” Then my tongue kept on wagging despite the fact I had intended it to remain silent. “Besides I’ve noticed that it works very well even with those who, as you have said, are wrapped in a false persona.”

  As Patrick listened to my words he took a couple long drinks from his bottle and I could tell he was thinking about what I had said. I knew that I had probably lost my edge with him. He might not know what I had seen but he knew that I had seen something I thought I could exploit. But just as he was forming his next words Bella jumped into the conversation and anything that had been gathered up in his mind was washed away under the tidal wave of her anger, maybe we shouldn’t have gone down our little rabbit hole.

  “Excuse me gentlemen.” Bella glared at each of us in turn making sure she had our complete attention before she went on. “The two of you seem to have forgotten that you’re not the only ones sitting at this table. Can’t you two simply agree to disagree? So what if you two have different ways to read people. You also are different body types. It happens. You each have a favorite technique because it works for you. That’s one of the reasons we play the game, you know. To see who has the better game. But right now, it is not about our game, this is supposed to be a short little pampering session. So would the two of you stop and play nice?”

  Patrick, as stone faced as ever, somehow managed to laugh, not a great belly laugh or anything but it was still a laugh. With a smile stretching across my face I lifted my glass and offered a toast, “To each of us, may we have smooth sailings to the final table and may we discover who can play the game the best.”

  “Here, here Marcus, well said.” Patrick chimed in with what seemed to be genuine cheer, though I could see the lie in his eyes. “Each of us can only perform with the gifts with which we were born. And unfortunately not all gifts are equal.”

  I knew he was still trying to provoke me. No not provoke me, he was just trying to get an honest reaction out of me. Calm or provoked he would learn something about me. So I decided to use this for my advantage. “Patrick you truly are gifted with a great array of tools. And you are truly gifted in the ones you choose to employ.”

  “Some of my skills are indeed hard to learn.” Patrick said with trace amounts of caution coloring his words.

  It was as if he knew I was up to something but he had no idea what it was. Again I was thankful for the prideful. And he was squarely in my trap, now I just needed it to actually work. “No it’s actually not hard to learn. In fact it is very easy to learn, most children master it fairly early on in life. The difficulty comes in the mastery of its implementation. And that’s the half of the skill that I lack.”

  Again, if I hadn’t been looking I would have missed it, but I didn’t. It was the slightest of motions, I may have gone a little too far with the children comment but I needed to be sure I got the reaction. And now I was sure, normally he had an endless supply of patience, but when it came to something he had pride in, he held a very short fuse. It didn’t matter that he was so disciplined that he was able to club the temper back down almost instantly, he had a vulnerability. And more importantly it was one I could exploit over and over again.

  It did have a nice defense though. There were very few opportunities to really expose that weakness. Granted I had proved that he could be provoked, but he had the discipline to clamp down the weaknesses and bury them. He just hadn’t been quick enough. But now that he suspected I knew something, it was only going to be harder to expose it later on. It was unfortunate that I had to sacrifice that kind of advantage so soon. Though now he was sure to be thinking about what I had collected. And that should hopefully lead more accessible avenues later on.

  “You’re right of course, Marcus. I have heard that half of the skill is the hardest to master and without its mastery the skill is of course quite useless. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me, I see someone that I must speak with.” And without another word Patrick stood up and left the table, beer in hand. With the calm I had come to expect from him, he casually walked to a small group of people about twenty feet away and instantly embedded himself into their conversation.

  “Did you have to provoke him Marcus?”

  “Bella, do you think I intentionally tried to provoke him?”

  “Absolutely.” With an insincere scowl on her face she said, “I enjoy spending time with him. Besides I need to get a better read on him.”

  “I would think he would need to get a better read on you.” I replied.

  Flashing a coy smile she answered, “Of course he doesn’t understand how I tick and it just drives him crazy.” The smile widened as she added, “But I never intentionally tried to aggravate him like you just did. He won’t forget that.”

  Looking into her wondrous grey eyes I agreed, “And neither will I. Don’t forget he was slinging insults my way as well.”

  Bella stared back at me with a mischievous smile and nodded. “Marcus you continue to impress me. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  “Let me guess. It’s my charming smile?”

  Laughing she shook her head as she corrected me. “It’s your confidence, the way you carry yourself. I know you didn’t see it but Patrick has a much more charming smile than you. But you carry yourself with a great deal more surety and, unfortunately for you, Patrick saw that as well.”

  “Here are your drinks.” The waitress interrupted.

  Looking over my shoulder I smiled as she handed me my glass. I immediately handed it over to Bella before accepting the second glass as well.

  I quickly neutralized the intoxicants before taking a sip of Simon’s handiwork. It was even better than before. That or was I simply riding a high from successfully beating one of the best players in this tournament at his own game?

  Chapter 5

  I must have spent a good hour and a half talking with Bella in the lounge. Along with Patrick Wallace’s intrusion there were a few others. Nothing really important, just players coming by to introduce themselves. Normally I would have just excused myself when one of those players broke our conversation. I had never wasted my prep time like this. But this conversation just felt right, natural, so I let it continue. And by the time my mental count of players reached one hundred, my confusion must have shown clearly on my face. Bella seemed to notice something was amiss so she asked, “Is something troubling you, Marcus?”

  Flashing her my best smile I kept trying to take in the entire room as I answered. “By my count the man who just entered makes one hundred. Shouldn’t we be getting ready to start the tournament?”

  With a slight chuckle, that she tried to hide, Bella replied, “I’m so sorry Marcus; it’s just that I forgot that you mentioned this was your first tournament.”

  “What does that have to with anything?”

  “We may have all the players but we are still missing the mo
st important person.”

  She was baiting me to ask the question, so in an effort to save time I bit the inside of my lip and did so. “And just who is this most important person?”

  Her face underwent quite the transformation when a new bout of laughter died without warming. Her words where little more than a whisper but I managed to hear her question. “You do know whose tournament this is don’t you?”

  Pulling a serious expression over my face I looked down at her and answered. “Yes, I am well aware that Bertrand Dempsey is the one who hosts this yearly get together.”

  Sheepishly she looked up into my eyes and inquired, “So if you know, why are you asking who we’re missing?”

  “Dempsey wouldn’t come to this.” I answered before I had a chance to think about it. I was so sure of myself, then I looked at Bella and saw that her eyes were full of shock. And in that moment I knew all of the arguments I had given to Matt were built on a false assumption. And even though I knew it was useless, I still tried to convince myself otherwise by running through my list of reasons.

  “The man has more important things to worry about.” Bella just shook her head.

  “He wouldn’t want to be caught anywhere near an event like this, he needs the deniability.” But she once again shook her head. And just like that I realized that I didn’t actually have another reason. I had thought that those two would have been good enough.

  As the shock died from her eyes, I saw the mirth build up instead as she explained why I had been so wrong. “Marcus keep in mind just how much money Dempsey makes off of this tournament. Half of every collected fee goes straight into one of his personal accounts. Now think about what you scrapped up for your entrance fee and multiply that by a hundred.” She leveled her eyes and gave me a “what were you thinking?” look as she asked, “Do you really think he has other places to be?”

  As a low whistle escaped from my lips I performed the simple math. “For twenty five million dollars in my pocket I think I’d be here too.”

  With a resigned smile she agreed, “So would most people. Now look around you. Do you see all of this?”

  When I nodded she went on, “Look at the décor and then the food and drinks that have no end in sight.” She explained with a shrug of her shoulders. “Now I’m not going to say he loses a lot of his money but someone has to pay for all of this, and who do you think he trusts to spend that much of his money?”

  As I fought my mounting worry I offered a weak thought, “Even so, he could delegate all of this to an underling. Why risk coming here himself?”

  Shaking her head she pressed on, “It’s precisely because of how much he makes that he considers it to be worth his wile to make a personal appearance. I’m sure you know just how fast these hundred seats fill up, right?”

  In hindsight I shouldn’t have been shocked by her explanation but I was. I was so shocked that I was unable to reply. Fortunately she didn’t need a verbal cue, she was able to read me as if I were a guilty two year old. “So with all these wealthy contributors to his personal bank of course he’s going to make a personal appearance. It’s what his clientele expect. Oh and as to your other reason, let’s just say that it’s highly unlikely to deter him. He simply has nothing to fear from either the law or the police, local, state, or even federal. He has enough of the right people on his payroll that they always manage to find out where we were just in time to clean up.”

  She slowly raised her glass to her lips to take a quick sip of her martini before educating me on all of Dempsey’s legal freedoms. “Every official east of the Mississippi knows about this tournament, they even know that it’s an annual event. But with the people he has working for him, no one is able to do anything about it. So I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but nothing is going to stop him from greeting the people who are lining his wallet.”

  Scratching the back of my head I couldn’t think of anything else to say other than the obvious. “Not when you put it like that. I just didn’t think…”

  “It’s nice to know that there are still some naïve, innocent men around.” She muttered just loud enough for me to hear and then only because I was straining my ears in order to catch it.

  Lounging in her chair she took another sip from her glass and I could only laugh at the comment, because she was right. I had been incredibly foolish in my assumptions. If Dempsey had people in the feds then the rumors of his empire stretching up to the capitol were absolutely true. Or was that just another assumption? What if he really did have an empire as big as the rumors? Or was it possible that he just controlled this city, maybe even just the state while allowing his lieutenants elsewhere as long as they remained loyal to him.

  That made sense. What was Dempsey’s official business again? I bit my lip as I tried to remember what the man did day to day, besides overseeing a criminal organization. I thought I remembered what it was, but every time I tried to reach through the haze in my mind its shadowy edges eluded my fingertips. I had already shown a certain level of ignorance that could get me killed had I been talking to the wrong person. As it was, I preferred not to rely on luck any more. But since no one else in this room was googling anything I guessed I was going to just have to remain ignorant of the man’s legal business, at least for the time being. And I hoped that was one of the topics that never came up in natural conversation.

  Looking into her eyes I could tell that she wanted to ask me another question, which only lifted my spirits. It looked like I was getting to know her about as well as she was getting to know me, only that was when the door opened again. Since I had made sure to retain a clear line of sight to the door I just sifted my glance so I could see who was joining us, whereas Bella had to turn around. But once she caught sight of who it was, she turned back to me, slumped in her chair, and grabbed her drink so she could gulp the rest of it down.

  As had I mentioned to Bella earlier, by my rough count we had our hundred players in the room, so that meant our host was arriving. So this was Dempsey. But why had Bella reacted like this? Was my count off? Was this another player? And if so what had he done to her? Wanting to confirm who it was, I leaned in to the table and asked, “So is this our esteemed host?”

  With a voice to match her apparent displeasure Bella replied. “Yes, that is our host. Though I’m not quite so sure that ‘esteemed; is the appellation he deserves.”

  I would have to figure out her dislike of the man later, for now I satisfied myself with studying this notorious man. After all he had a reputation that was larger than life. Which was most likely why the reality of the man just didn’t match my mental image of him. At first glance the man who was still standing in the doorway was nothing exceptional, at least physically. The only thing about him that jumped out at me was his clothing. But other than the outer wrappings, and judging by their look they appeared to be very fine silk, the man looked perfectly ordinary.

  A man of average height and weight, there appeared to be no physical trait that marked him as special. If pressed, I would say that he was lean. Built with muscles crafted from a life of constant running. He had close-cropped black hair that contrasted perfectly with his pale skin. In fact Dempsey was so pale I wondered if he ever went outside. I had the idea that Dempsey had little desire to do anything that didn’t directly benefit him, like tanning white skin.

  Then I caught sight of his eyes, his pale grey eyes. All I can say was I was fortunate to be sitting down. If I had been standing when my eyes met his, I wouldn’t have stayed like that for long. Those eyes were colder than ice and harder than steel. They captured my attention, promising nothing but trouble if I ever did anything to cross him. His eyes were his most powerful and distinguished asset. Everyone talked about his wisdom, but once I saw his eyes I was certain that those grey eyes were the sole reason people thought him wise.

  Of course it was his clothing that marked him as special. Which only proves the saying that what someone wears will tell you a lot about them. With that thought in mind I
went to work trying to figure out as much as I could about him, and none of what I saw put me at ease. As he stood there waiting for his effects to be collected by his henchman, his emotionless grey eyes began to register and catalogue everything and everyone in his waiting room. As he was taking everything in I could see why some of the rumors I had heard claimed that he was omniscient. But even this behavior could only explain a piece of those rumors. The slack in his omniscience must have been handled by some very serious and dedicated researchers, he certainly would have the money for that.

  But even armed with all of that data, it would require a special mind to process and use it all. And in that moment, I could tell that brains were no issue for Dempsey. I could see him processing everything that his eyes, ears, and researchers had collected. I could actually see his mind crunching the numbers so to speak. Even worse, I knew he was using what he had collected to make decisions based solely on what he was processing. And by the way he carried himself, I could tell that he rarely made mistakes, or if he did they were quickly corrected.

  For the first time since I had decided to come here I thought about following Matt’s advice. I felt like cutting and running. I knew if I tried to leave I would forfeit my entrance fee, but that might be the best use of the money if it kept me off of this man’s radar. It wasn’t like I was all that invested in the game. I mean it was just the entrance fee, and while it would be disappointing to leave it behind it was nothing I couldn’t recoup. But my life, or even my freedom those would be harder to salvage if Dempsey chose to take them.

  But did I dare try to leave? What would happen now that Dempsey was here? I was sure it would be noted and if half of the stories about Dempsey were true, then I would wind up dead in some alley. Not immediately perhaps, but eventually, it would happen. No, I couldn’t leave. I had to see this through to the end. I had made my bed, now I needed to lie in it. All the same, I should probably follow Matt’s other advice and not change any of my cards. Which was going to be harder to do than I cared to admit. He had been right about that much, I was next to useless when it came to showing restraint, at the poker tables at least. I just didn’t like losing. Well, I was just going to have to fight my instincts because altering my cards was no longer an option.