THE UP AND COMER

by Howard Roughan

  Not only was I unlucky, but my head wasn't exactly at the table — not a good thing when you're playing high-stakes poker. I looked down at my chips. The three grand Jack had staked me was nearly depleted.

  But it's not every day you decide to kill someone. At least, it wasn't for me. It is every day immediately afterward, though, that you think about it. Every waking moment, to be exact. After stumbling out of that Irish pub and crawling into bed forty-eight hours prior, I'd woken up the following morning with a few sobriety-induced reservations. I pushed them as far out of my head as I reasonably could.

  The decision to do it was one thing. How to do it and get away with it was something else. I needed a plan and fast, but the only relevant experience from my chosen profession was back-stabbing. Too messy. If I was going to pull this off, I was going to need something more clever and a little bit cleaner. As to what that would be, though, I hadn't a clue.

  For two days I had racked my brain, and for two days I had come up with nothing. The end of the week was quickly approaching — deadline for when I had to get back in touch with Tyler. I considered the idea of trying to buy a few more days for myself. Trouble with a certain money transfer, I'd tell him. There was a chance he'd buy it. Unfortunately, there was a much greater chance that he wouldn't. Plain and simple, time was running out for me.

  Think, Philip, think.

  That's when I heard it. Jack's voice. It was a couple of hands later and his turn to deal. He took a puff of his Hoyo de Monterrey, positioned the deck in his palm, exhaled, and announced, "Five-card draw, one-eyed jacks and the suicide king are wild."

  Of course! Suicide. That was it. I'd make Tyler's death look like a suicide. If done right, it would be an open-and-shut case. After all, Tyler had tried it once, so he was predisposed. He had motive. Who wouldn't believe that he was capable of trying to kill himself again? It was so logical. Perhaps the only stretch, especially for those familiar with Tyler's knack for failure, was that this time he was actually going to succeed with it. But hey, everyone gets lucky at least once in life, right?

  I was still thinking of Tyler's impending suicide when Jack finished dealing five cards to everyone. I picked mine up and looked at them. For the first time that night I liked what I saw. Meanwhile, Jack pulled out his silver IWC pocket watch and realized that eleven-thirty had come and gone. "Gentlemen, I do believe we're now playing at pot-limit stakes," he declared.

  It was Chapinski's initial bet. "Check," he said.

  On me. "Check, as well," I said.

  To Valentine. "Open for a hundred," he said, splashing the hundred and fifty already in the pot from the antes with a lazy toss of chips.

  Markelson didn't hesitate. "Make it two-fifty."

  "You call that a bet?" said the CEO, Lisker. "That's not a bet. This is a bet." He counted out five hundred in chips. "I see the two-fifty, and I raise another two-fifty."

  "Uh-oh, here we go," said Markelson.

  He was right. You could feel the adrenaline snowballing. A fast one thousand sat in the center with five hundred owed by Jack if he wanted to call. He wanted to. Said Jack, "You guys are gluttons for punishment."

  The betting was back around to Chapinski.

  "'Pinski, that'll be a half-grand to play with the band," rhymed Valentine.

  "You gotta be fucking kidding me!" he answered, chucking his cards into the center. Chapinski and his sphincter were out.

  My turn. For sure, they all thought I too would fold. Hell, I didn't even have enough chips in front of me to call the bet. I did a quick count. Exactly four hundred on the felt. After mulling it over for a second, I reached for my checkbook. Despite my not being the first to have done so that evening, a certain quiet fell over the table. In that moment, I felt like I could read everyone else's mind. Poor kid; in over his head and he doesn't even know it.

  It was beautiful.

  As I was making out the check, I glanced over at Jack. He knew what he paid me as an attorney at Campbell & Devine, and he knew who I was married to. Losing the hand would sting, but it wouldn't exactly put me on food stamps. Still, he looked uncomfortable. It was his invitation that had brought me to the game, and I could see in his face that, just like at the office, he felt somewhat responsible for what happened to me.

  So imagine his face, and that of every other bigwig at the table, when I finished signing my name on the check and announced that I wasn't merely calling. I was raising. The pot limit, no less. I slid my remaining four hundred in chips into the center and placed a check for eleven hundred dollars right next to it.

  Pow.

  Valentine, who had started the whole thing with his initial hundred-dollar bet, dropped instantly. All eyes shifted to Markelson. He was two-fifty into the pot and owed another twelve-fifty if he wanted to call. He looked at his cards again. Clearly he thought they were good. How good, however, was the question. Ten seconds later, he too was south.

  Lisker. Maybe he had the makings of a great hand. Or maybe his earlier boasting, "That's not a bet. This is a bet," made folding out of the question. Regardless, after a slight pause, he counted out the thousand he owed and tossed the chips in.

  Finally, it was Jack's turn. He was already five hundred into the pot, and though you never wanted to throw good money after bad, his decision seemed the easiest. Or at least he made it look the easiest. The thousand he owed had already been counted out by him. Into the pot it went. The grand total so far: five thousand dollars.

  The hand was now Jack, Lisker, and me.

  Jack put down his cigar and picked up the remainder of the deck for the draw. He looked at me.

  "I'm all set," I told him, prompting a few relieved chuckles from those who had dropped.

  Meanwhile, Lisker took one card and Jack exchanged two for himself. I waited and watched as both of them looked to see if their hands had improved, not that I would know either way by their expressions. Maybe someone like Jessica had a tell. No chance in the world with these guys.

  It was my bet first. There would be no check and raise this time. Only a check — for the pot total of five grand. Announcing the amount, I placed it on top of what had come to look like the Ayers Rock of chips.

  Joked Markelson, "Nothing like a friendly game of poker, eh, boys?"

  Lisker looked me in the eyes. "I think you're trying to buy it," he said. "I think you've been tanking it all night to bluff out a big one. Pretty slick, kid."

  Odds were he didn't believe a word of what he was saying. A reaction. That's all he wanted from me. A laugh. A look down. Anything that might give him a better read on my hand. Five thousand dollars told him it was worth a shot. Though by that point it was becoming more and more obvious that the money was the least of what this hand, or the whole evening for that matter, was all about. A fact that Jack was all too willing to admit after a few more seconds of waiting.

  "You know, it would be a hell of a lot faster if we just grabbed a ruler and whipped our dicks out," he said.

  It was classic Jack. Funny, but with a purpose. In this case, getting Lisker to put up or shut up. As it turned out, it was put up.

  Lisker removed an alligator skin-covered checkbook from inside his suit jacket along with a stainless-steel Montblanc. "Call," he said.

  "Wow...." said Markelson, half under his breath.

  Valentine, eyes wide, spared us any rhymes and remained silent.

  As for Chapinski, he muttered something about it being a huge pot and resumed counting his chips.

  I looked at Jack. I knew what he was thinking. If he was to call and lose, he'd be out a fair amount of money. If he was to call and win, I'd be out a fair amount of money. Assuming that he'd feel guilty if I got my clock cleaned by him and his cronies, even if he won he would in a way be losing. I sensed an exit strategy in the making.

  "Hey, who the fuck invited this kid, anyway? !" said Jack, throwing his cards away into the center. As most everyone else chuckled, he looked at me as if to say, I hope you know what the hell you're doi
ng.

  I did.

  "Let's see 'em, gentlemen."

  I was about to show my hand when Lisker beat me to it. He was that sure he had the winner. With a huge shit-eating grin, he turned over a monster. Two aces', two sevens, and a one-eyed jack. A wild card.

  "I took mercy on you, kid," Lisker said, looking at me. "I could have fucking raised you!"

  I looked down at his full house. I looked up into his eyes.

  "I wish you had," I said back slowly. Almost as slowly as I laid down my cards. The nine of clubs, ten of clubs, jack of clubs, and queen of clubs. My last card? The king of hearts. The one and only suicide king.

  I watched his face. For a split second, Lisker thought he had me beat. But a split second later, he knew otherwise. What he thought was a straight was really a straight flush. I too had a wild card.

  The table howled. Lisker cursed. Then he cursed some more. All of it, I was sure, heard by anyone and everyone remaining out in the restaurant. The CEO of BioLink had lost out to a young punk of a lawyer, a first-time player in the game, no less.

  "Nice hand," Valentine told me. "Glad I got out when I did."

  "Yeah, good one to watch," said Chapinski.

  "Hey, Lisker, maybe your company ought to clone this kid," said Markelson.

  Lisker was desperately trying to compose himself. "One's quite enough, thank you," he said.

  As for Jack, he folded his arms and waited for me to catch his eye. When I did, he cocked his head and suppressed a smile. What more could he say?

  I raked in the pot. It was fifteen thousand dollars. Not bad for a night's work, I told myself, and all of it hinging on one very fateful playing card. The one card that spelled the beginning of the end for Tyler Mills.

  Yes, indeed. It was time to plan the perfect suicide.

  TWENTY-ONE

  No loose ends. That's what I kept telling myself. If I was going to do this, and do this right, there had to be as little left to chance as possible. Regardless of how remote, I couldn't afford the risk of involving anyone or anything that could conceivably be linked back to me. Which is why even before the suicide idea surfaced, I ruled out hiring someone — a professional — to do my dirty work. Not that I knew how to arrange something like that anyway.

  No, this was going to be a one-man job, and I was the man.

  Method. I thought about lethal injection. I could get close enough to Tyler to do that. Remembering a case I had studied in law school entailing a hospital mix-up, I knew that a massive amount of potassium would be both deadly and untraceable come the autopsy. Except there was one drawback as it pertained to me. There'd always be the risk of a tiny puncture mark on Tyler's skin. And wouldn't you know it, he'd have Quincy for a coroner.

  I kept thinking.

  I was in my office, door closed, with Gwen holding all my calls. I had put a CD on my shelf system. The Tindersticks. For some reason, the lead singer's voice always brought out the worst in me. Sure enough, after three songs I had the idea.

  Tyler would hang himself.

  It made perfect sense. Since he'd slit his wrists to no avail, hanging was certainly a most believable Plan B for a guy bent on taking his own life. Of course, no matter how politely I could ask him, Tyler wasn't about to willingly dangle from his rafters.

  Enter: ether.

  Nothing like a little rubbing alcohol mixed with sulfuric acid to make a guy more amenable to putting a noose around his neck. More important, ether happened to metabolize in the body in super-quick fashion, probably no longer than the time it took for me to call the New York Public Library reference center and find all of that out. A good lawyer always did his research.

  That said, Target and Wal-Mart weren't exactly stocking a broad array of volatile anesthetics the last I checked. So where was one supposed to get ahold of this uncommon household item? The same place everyone else gets their hands on things they have no business getting their hands on: the Internet. If the average disillusioned seventh grader could use it to learn how to build a bomb, surely I could finagle 50 ml of ether.

  Covering my tracks, though, took some doing.

  The guy behind the counter at the mailbox rental place had obviously never seen a driver's license from the state of Iowa before. If he had, he would've known mine to be the fake that it was, bought for eight dollars and change at one of those East Village stores that, with their bogus picture IDs and eclectic collections of bongs, manage to do quite well with the underage set. When asked by the mailbox guy to produce the second piece of ID required, I intentionally fumbled around a bit with my wallet (the one I had bought earlier on the street for four dollars, not the Fendi one I usually carried). Finally, I asked if my business card would be okay. No problem, I was told with an "I'll cut you some slack" head bob. My handiwork from the do-it-yourself business-card machine at the Hallmark store near my office was promptly handed over. Hank McCallister, Certified Public Accountant, 114 Castleton Lake Road, Des Moines, Iowa, 50318, it read. Clean, simple, and believable. For the record, Hank McCallister was actually the name of my junior high school gym teacher. He hung around the boys' locker-room showers too much, if you know what I mean.

  The term cyberholics popped into my mind. I was looking around at the geek-chic clientele hanging out at the OnLine Cafe where I logged on to the innocuous-sounding MRT Supplies Corp. for my ether. On the company's Web site, they were calling it "ethyl oxide" and passing it off as an industrial solvent. It was the equivalent of a legal end around, a loophole that I was more than happy to jump through. Well versed in the ways of anonymity, the company proudly displayed its money-wiring codes.

  The rather large woman who processed my MoneyGram was eating an egg-salad sandwich. There was a little glob of it on her chin, out of tongue's reach. It distracted me momentarily from staring at the mole on her cheek. Whereas Cindy Crawford's was thought of as cute and round, this woman's was huge, kidney-bean shaped, and had a thick black hair growing out of it. Still, the woman couldn't have been nicer. The way I saw it, she was either extremely comfortable with who she was or in complete denial. I couldn't exactly tell. I filled out the form and gave her the amount in cash that I wanted to wire, and we were done. The account for MRT Supplies Corp. would be credited within minutes.

  "Thank you very much," I said to the mole woman.

  "You're quite welcome, Mr. McCallister," she said back with a smile. In hindsight, I probably should've told her about the glob of egg salad.

  The prepping was proceeding nicely. No one could ever prove that Philip Randall had ever heard of MRT Supplies Corp., let alone purchased 50 ml of ether, or ethyl oxide, from them. No mailbox rental place would ever show any record of a Philip Randall, either. If there was any connection to be made, the only person who had anything to worry about was one Hank McCallister of Des Moines, Iowa.

  Like I said, no loose ends.

  The last chore of the day was a stop at Chase Manhattan to have funds from my and Tracy's brokerage account wire-transferred into our checking account. Call me nuts, but we didn't make a habit of keeping a six-figure balance in it. Once the wire went through, I could have the certified bank check that Tyler was asking for drawn up — exactly as I had told him. What I hadn't told him, though, was that the check wouldn't have his name on it. It would be made out to cash. It was my way of eliminating any paper trail between the two of us. He was never going to get the chance to cash the check, of course, but after I had it credited back to my account, the bank would still have a record of it on file. Making the check out to Tyler was a potential loose end. Making it out to cash was essentially subpoena proof. I'd simply chalk up the amount to a foolishly long-running gambling debt out on the golf course. Damn that double or nothing! Sorely needing lessons would be the worst anyone could ever accuse me of.

  * * *

  By Friday midafternoon, I had everything I needed, including a three-quarter-inch nylon rope for hanging and a pair of gloves for no fingerprints. The rope was a backup in case there were no
bedsheets to be found in Tyler's apartment. The makeshift nature of a bedsheet noose, I thought, would add that extra touch of authenticity to the event. It smacked of the right amount of suicidal desperation.

  Time to phone Tyler. Only not from my office. I didn't want records showing any more calls between us. That there was already one was okay, to be thought of as merely two old friends catching up. A series of calls, however, would possibly be perceived as something more.

  Wanted: a pay phone that listed its own number. Very hit-and-miss in Manhattan. The first two I walked up to on the street weren't even working. Hell, one was missing the receiver altogether. Time to move inside.

  Looking around I saw a Chinese restaurant up the block. I walked in and found their pay phone in the back by the kitchen. Its phone number was listed above the Touch-Tones. I paged Tyler and stood there waiting. Nearby, an elderly Chinese couple was tallying the lunchtime receipts at one table while all the waiters ate at another. After about a minute, my loitering caught their attention.

  "Could I get an egg roll to go?" I asked, thinking that might stop their staring.

  One of the older waiters said something in Chinese to one of the younger waiters. They both looked annoyed. The younger one put down his chopsticks, stood up, and walked over to me.

  "Is that all you wanting?" he asked me in quasi English. I nodded. He turned and walked back into the kitchen, coming out a few seconds later. "It come in couple minutes," he told me before returning to his lunch. Sure enough, everyone else had stopped staring.

  Within another minute the pay phone rang. At the very least, Tyler was prompt.

  "Hello?"

  "I thought it was you," he said. "Are we all set?"

  "Certified bank check for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Is that all set enough for you?"

  "I suppose I should expect you to be a little testy."