“Ooh,” said Joel, “You got all the terminology, don’t you,” as I sipped my beer from the chilled glass.
I said, “What a shame he wasn’t here in time to buy these drinks.”
“Really,” said Joel with a grin. “Because he wouldn’t want us to get drunk now would he?”
I asked him, “How come he comped me and not you?”
“I think he’s seen me here before. Knows I’ll probably be back.”
“Is that the idea, to make you come back?”
Joel said, “It’s to make you think you’re doing the right thing and you should do it more.”
I said, “Like, I can always come back another evening?”
“Yeah,” we both laughed, “You have to admit, he has a way of making this dump sound like the Ritz Plaza.”
I said, “I wonder what a suite here looks like.”
We were both quiet for a moment. I was wondering very much what a suite might look like. What it might look like with me in it. And Joel, maybe. In the shower, perhaps. Other places perhaps on a rug – I wondered if they would have rugs.
From the look in his eye, I wanted to believe that Joel was wondering something similar. Still, why would he? He was a good-looking guy and he didn’t seem fucked up at all.
Joel was maybe a year or two older than me. He looked at me over his glass and I was reminded of the guy who’d watched me from this same bar as I came in.
When he said, “Want to get into some more trouble?” I nearly jumped at him. This was definitely my night for holding my emotions in check. Not moving too soon. He went on, “I think I’m good for a few more rolls.” His eyes sparkled. I was a little crushed. But my mind wouldn’t stop picturing him. Rolling.
I tightened my lips. Either way, either kind of rolling would work for me. I wanted it very much but tonight was not the night.
I gathered up my purse as I told him, “Sorry. I have to do something and it’s going to take me at least an hour or two.” I thought about how much I had made. And about how very much more I needed.
I didn’t think I could do it all in one night, but the progress I had made – from fifteen bucks to almost a hundred times that in less than an hour. I couldn’t afford to stop now. Not while I had momentum.
“Could be I’ll wait,” he said, “I can play some more, maybe hang around.” He beamed brightly. His puppy-dog eyes had a dazed look of wonder, spurred at least in part from his run of luck. I tried to guess how much he carried away from the table. A couple of thou at least.
Thinking about that made me realize that he had come after me while his luck was still running. Was he really that dumb, or might he be very smart? He didn’t look all that smart right then, but that wasn’t surprising. As Daddy would say, he was ‘in the glow.’
I told him, “I really don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“That’s okay,” the disappointment in his voice made my heart thump and I tingled right down to my pelvis. He said, “I understand. Let me give you my cellphone number, okay? Then… well, you know. It’s up to you.”
It was hard to leave his smiling face. I felt him watched me cross the floor. Or maybe I imagined it.
I found my way to a poker room. Small and dark, the room was apart from the main casino floor. Five sullen men hunched sat and watched me enter. Three seats were vacant, but I stood against the back wall. Only one player, a big man with wiry ginger hair and a thick mustache, flicked a glance over his shades at me. It was not a welcoming glance.
The dealer, a smart, black-haired woman with dark skin, slender hands and high, wide cheekbones didn’t acknowledge me. Light in the room was low, even lower than the main room. Three of the players wore shades. The jangle from the slots outside was muffled.
Two players had cards face down in front of them and four of the five community cards were face up. One to go. A pair of jacks was showing, plus a four and a nine.
I watched each of the players. Of the two with cards, one sat behind the tallest chip stack at the table. He had the look of a well-dressed construction worker with a rough, reddish complexion and a black leather suit jacket. He seemed relaxed and he did not wear shades.
The other was slight with thinning gray hair. His big, mirror shades would have looked right on a biker in a TV show, or on ‘man-playing-executive’ in a porn video. His stack was the lowest at the table.
Only one of the other players looked like he might know what he was doing. He was a small, nervy younger man. Unruly black hair, sharp green eyes and a college-boy look. The chips at his elbow were the second highest pile.
When the dealer waved her hand over the table to check that all the bets were done and she turned the last card, the river, it was a ten. The man with the black leather jacket turned his two cards to show a jack and a two.
He won on a pure bluff, the thought jumped into my head. When he bet on his jack, it was all that he had. ‘You don’t play the cards, you play the man,’ Daddy said.
The gray-haired man threw in his cards without showing them and stood to leave. He could have been carrying a pair of aces, or a pair of kings through that whole hand, I thought. Dangerous game.
The ginger-haired man directed his voice at me. His tone was neutral, neither hostile nor friendly. “Sit in or leave.”
I looked around the table for where to sit and I checked the position of the white button. It determined who made the compulsory ‘blind’ bets and it was due to move to the college boy in the coming deal.
If I take place to his left, I figured, I’ll need to push twenty-five dollars in for my first deal. I thought, If I sit to his right, I won’t be compelled to make a bet for the next three hands, but then I’ll have to chip in fifty. It’ll cost me less to pony up straight away. And it looks like a ballsier entrance.
I dropped two tens and a five into the center of the table, then took the chair to his left. The ginger-haired man with the mustache was an empty seat away to my left, and he scowled as he pushed in his fifty dollars afterwards. The dealer slid two cards to everyone.
I lifted the edges of a red three and a black eight. With resignation I thought, I’ll fold these. But I’ll be on the end of the first betting round, so I held back to watch.
Left of the ginger mustache and the first to speak was an unkempt dark-haired biker with shades and, now, the smallest stack of chips. Immediately he pushed in all of his chips and stood. His fingertips rested on the table. All in. Dumb bluff, I thought.
My thighs shook as I thought, I could have a chance at this table. I’m not the dumbest player here.
The player to his left folded. The college boy didn’t look up but straightaway folded next. My choice was to fold or to match the biker’s bet and see him to the end of the hand. I was sure he had nothing, but there were five cards to go. Anything could happen.
And if ginger went in too, the stakes would be huge. The odds were a mess and there was no scope for any kind of play. Reluctantly, I folded. Either the biker takes the blinds, or he and the other guy sweat it out until the river card.
Either way, I thought, I can learn something about my opponents. And one of them may well leave. Pity, I thought, That will make it one less deal before I have to pony up again.
I was sure I made the right choice. Still my palms were damp and tingling and my heart thumped. If I’m this nervous just folding, how am I going to react when I get a playable hand?
Ginger mustache didn’t take the bait, so the biker scooped the pot and stayed in and nobody got to see his cards.
My chips were precious, so I played them and my cards carefully. My nerves jangled. My aim was to play a quiet game. Spend as little as I could in the games I wasn’t going to win, steal one pot, maybe two if it went well, and get out of there. The men at the table stayed tight-lipped between hands, and barely spoke during play.
The college boy took two of the next four hands. Ginger took one, but it was a big pot. His lead was growing. The next pot went up to about four hundred a
nd fifty, and the biker and the quiet man split it with pairs of fours.
On the next hand the college boy got three tens and he took a big piece of ginger’s stack.
All of my cards were drab and my position was bad on every hand. On the sixth deal, I pulled up the corners of the cards and saw a pair of queens.
I made the minimum bets and I was sure that my signs of nerves were no greater or less then before. When the flop put out a queen and two nines, I didn’t raise. I didn’t want any attention.
All three of the men stayed in the hand for the turn card, which was a king. The college-boy quietly raised. My hands shook as I matched his bet. More than half of my bankroll was in play. If he has a pair of kings, I thought, I’m dead.
Ginger re-raised and the biker folded. The quiet man on his left did the same.
College boy went all in. I couldn’t match his stack, so I would have had to put all of my remaining five hundred dollars all in, too. That or fold and lose half of what I had won. Just two hundred dollars was protected in my purse.
I trembled as I stood and shoved in all of my precious chips. Ginger mustache had enough chips to match the college-boy’s stack. He looked at his cards, then he looked a long time at me. Then he studied the college boy.
HE could have the pair of kings. College boy could be betting on a pair of nines. I had to hold on to the back of my chair for support. My breath labored and my chest pounded. As my knuckles whitened on the chair back, ginger shoved in eighteen hundred dollars to match college boy.
The college boy turned his cards over. Two nines. When I flipped my cards, he made the first sound I’d heard from him.
“Awwwww, maaaan!” it was an agonizing whine. I heard it only distantly. My concentration was on watching Ginger. His face was impassive as he turned over a queen and a king.
The last card, the river had still to be turned. If it were a king it would give him the pot. The dealer waited for just a moment and I watched her eyes as she relished the drama. One full house in play, and possibly two. One with queens and one with kings.
Slowly she took the top card off the deck and put it in the discard pile. Then she turned the next card for the river. It was the jack of spades. My knees almost gave way and a long, low sigh escaped my lips. The pot was mine. Now I really did need that bourbon.
College boy stalked noisily out of the room. Ginger got out of his chair and he faced me with real warmth in his smile. He held my arm as he shook my hand. I almost teared up.
“Well played, young lady. You whipped us all fair and square.” He was still smiling as he sat back down. “Will you give us a chance to win it back?”
I managed a tight smile as I shook my head. Ginger smiled and he nodded approval. The dealer’s dark eyes twinkled as I tipped her. Then I left the gaming table, with more money than I had ever carried before, for the second time in my life as well as the second time that night.
Still buzzing, I took myself back to the bar and ordered a bourbon. I was about to pay for it when I remembered the comp coupons. In the bottom of the heavy tumbler, the bourbon swirled, dark caramel with gold and amber ripples. With a long, slow sniff of the dark, caramel fumes, my eyes closed and I took a sip from the heavy glass.
As the smoky spirit ignited on my tongue and tipped down to scorch my throat, I breathed deeply. Soon enough I could count the chips. The tally in my head made it about four thousand six hundred and some dollars. From a stake of fifteen bucks. Unbelievable.
But still a little under half way to what I needed. My muscles ached like I’d been running. I was exhilarated but weary. The half-dozen hands of poker had really drained me. There’s a reason they don’t have clocks or windows in these places, I thought. You lose yourself. You get carried away. Get careless.
If I go back into the poker room tonight, I thought, I’d be sure to get tired and goofy. The kind of luck I’d had at the craps game wasn’t likely to come again, now or at any time. It wasn’t a massive win, but it was a solid run of luck, and they don’t come often.
As the heat of the bourbon stirred me inside, I decided that I’d had a successful night and ought to quit while I was well ahead. One day would not be enough to get it done, but I had made a good enough start. The suite that Hemming Garland had comped me came back to mind.
Joel came back into mind, too but then I saw the college boy hunched over a table in the corner. An idea began to form in my mind.
I picked up the tumbler and took it over to the college boy’s table.
His lip curled as he looked up. “Happy with your haul, or are you going back to ream out some other suckers?” He had a clear, musical voice that sounded like it came from money. I thought about the casino and the neighborhood it was in. If he came from money, he’s a long way from home, I thought.
I told him, “I came to buy you a drink.”
He raised an eyebrow, “So you can see my face up close while you gloat?” There was no edge in his voice. Only in the words.
“No, just so I could catch a hot blast of your attitude.”
“All my money’s not enough for you.”
“I doubt that was all of your money. You look like you could find some more if you had to.” I watched his face. “I wonder if all of it was yours, too. You have a backer?”
“Why, are you touting your services?”
“Okay, it’s been fun.” I turned on my heel.
“No, wait.” His lips pressed together. “I come off as a jerk sometimes.”
“When are the other times?”
“Can we start again, go back to where you were going to buy me a drink? I’m Fitz. Pleased to meet you. Won’t you join me.”
The waiter came and Fitz ordered a Gibson. The waiter’s eyebrows twitched. I wanted another bourbon, but I decided against it. I might need to keep my head clear if I was going to try and get sense out of this attitude in clothes.
By tonight’s showing, I reckoned that I had the head for poker, but I was sure that I didn’t have the stamina. To make what I needed, and without counting on strokes of luck, I figured it could take two to three hours of straight play. That was more than I could be confident of.
My idea was to bankroll Fitz. Steer him to a game where he could earn better, put up some stake money and share the winnings, But, would I ever be able to work with his attitude? I watched him. With a little coaching, I thought, Fitz could play profitably. We could split the profit. If I could trust him.
The waiter brought the Gibson. Whatever it was, it was clear in a tapered glass with a little white onion on a stick. Seriously, I wondered if I could stand that much time in his company. He sipped his drink. He hadn’t thanked me for the drink, or asked my name.
He said, “Well, are you going to use my money to bankroll me?”
I stood up. “It’s been real,” I told him,
“Okay, look,” he said, “Wait, alright? I don’t win all the popularity contests. I know it. Maybe we can help each other though.”
Still standing I said, “What have you got that I need?”
“Good question. There must be something otherwise you wouldn’t have come, right?” The impression of a smile wandered across his lips. It didn’t make him look a lot better.
“There was something,” I told him, “but you’re so damned disagreeable, I doubt you can take ‘yes’ for an answer.”
“Why would you want to bankroll me? What can I do that you can’t?” He rubbed his chin. “You don’t look like you scare easily, so I don’t think you’re looking for protection.”
Hard Ride: Biker MC Motorcycle Club Menage Steamy Romance 4 Story Bundle Set (Hot Tales From a Hard Road Book 2) Page 10
