Dead Man's Hand

by Otto Penzler

  Cantor grabbed a pair of tweezers off the lab table and took the dollar bill from Bosch.

  "Can you do it?" Bosch urged.

  "Yes, I can do it. But the prospect of contamination is very high."

  "It's unofficial. If you find something, we'll make the arrest and do it all over again according to protocol."

  "All right, then."

  "Good, Ronnie. I'll go get the hot chocolate and be right back."

  Gunn offered to make the hot-chocolate run, but Bosch told her to stay in the lab and watch Cantor work. He said she might learn something. Going for hot chocolate wouldn't teach her a thing.

  Bosch was gone fifteen minutes. When he came back with two black coffees and one hot chocolate, Cantor said he was finished analyzing the one-dollar bill.

  He put the foam cup containing his drink off to the side and gave his report. He spoke without inflection, using the tone and words he employed when testifying in court.

  "SEM analysis shows quantifiable amounts of primer, powder, projectile material, and the products of their combustion. While the amounts identified in this analysis are low, I would be confident in testifying that the last person to handle this currency had recently discharged a firearm."

  Bosch felt a stab of excitement go through his chest. For a moment, he visualized the scene of Tracey Blitzstein sitting dead in her car. He nodded to himself. Her killer wouldn't get away with it.

  "Thank you, Ronnie," he said.

  "I'm not finished," Cantor said. "Further analysis reveals microscopic particles of blood in the material being examined as well."

  Bosch raised his coffee cup to toast Cantor.

  "Cheers, man. We gotta go hook this guy up."

  Bosch and Gunn left the lab quickly. While they waited for the elevator, they talked about what needed to be done next. First, they would officially charge David Blitzstein with murder and put a no-bail hold on him. Mickey Haller would not be getting him out today. That was for sure. Second, they would seek another search warrant allowing them to use adhesive-tape disks and chemically treated swabs to collect gunshot residue from the suspect's hands and arms. They would additionally ask the judge to allow for a luminol test which would reveal microscopic blood spatter on the suspect's body as well.

  Relief showed in their faces. They felt good about where things stood with Blitzstein. Less than four hours into the investigation, they were about to make the arrest.

  "That was smooth," Gunn said. "You were smooth, Harry. Kiz Rider was right about you."

  "Yeah? What did she say?"

  "She told me to never to play poker with you."

  Bosch smiled. The elevator opened and they got on.

  Strip Poker

  Joyce Carol Oates

  That day at Wolf's Head Lake! Nobody ever knew.

  Of my family, I mean. Not even Daddy. I did not tell Daddy.

  It was late August. Humid-hot August. At the lake you'd see these giant thunderhead clouds edging across the sky like a mouth closing over and in the mountains, streaks of heat lightning that appear and disappear so swiftly you can't be sure that you have actually seen them. For kids my age, nothing much to do except swim—unless you liked fishing, which I did not—or "boating"—but we didn't own a boat—and the only place to swim for us was on the far side of the lake at the crowded public beach since the lake on our side was choked with seaweed so slimy and disgusting only young boys could swim through it. That day we're over at the beach swimming, trying to dive from the diving board at the end of the concrete pier, but we're not very good at diving, mostly we're just jumping from the high board—twelve feet, that's high for us—seeing who can jump the most times, climb the ladder dripping wet, run out on the board and grab your nose, shut your eyes, and jump, reckless and panicky and thrilled, striking the water and propelling beneath and your long hair in a ponytail trailing up, bubbles released from your dazed lips, closest thing to dying—is it? Except sometimes you'd hit the water wrong, slapped hard as if in rebuke by the lake's surface that looks like it should be soft, red welts across my back, murky water up my nose so my head was waterlogged, ears ringing and I'm dazed and dizzy staggering around like a drunk girl all of us loud-laughing and attracting disapproving stares. And there comes my mother telling me to stop before I drown myself or injure myself, trying not to sound angry as she's feeling, and Momma makes this gesture—oh, this is mortifying!—makes me hate her!—with her hands to suggest that I might injure my chest, my breasts, jumping into the water like that, as if I give a damn about my breasts, or anything about my body, or if I do, if I am anxious about my body, this is not the place, the public beach at Wolf's Head Lake on an afternoon in August, for Momma to scold me. I'm a tall lanky-lean girl almost fourteen years old with small-boned wrists and ankles, deep-set dark eyes, and a thin curvy mouth that gets me into trouble, the things I say, or mumble inaudibly, my ashy-blond hair is in a ponytail straggling like a wet rat's tail down my bony vertebrae, except for this ponytail you'd think that I might be a boy and I hoped to God that I would remain this way forever, nothing so disgusting as a grown woman in a swimsuit, a fleshy woman like Momma and her women friends that men, adult men, actually looked at like there was something glamorous and sexy about them.

  Momma is glaring at me, speaking my full, formal name Annislee, which means that she is disgusted with me, saying she's driving back to the cottage now and I'd better come with her and Jacky, and I'm stubborn, shaking my head no, I am not ready to leave the beach where it's still sunny and maybe will not storm and anyway my bicycle is at the beach. I'd biked to the beach that morning, so I'd have to bike back. And Momma says all right, Annislee, but if it starts storming, you're out of luck. Like she hopes it will storm, just to punish me. But Momma goes away and leaves me. All this while I've been feeling kind of excited and angry—and sad—why I've been jumping from the high board not giving a damn if I do hurt myself—this fiery wildness coming over me sometimes Why should I care if I hurt myself if I drown! Missing my father, who isn't living with us right now in Strykersville and resenting that my closest cousin Gracie Stearns went away for the weekend to Lake Placid in the Adirondacks staying with a new friend of hers from Christian Youth, a girl I hardly knew. People at Lake Placid are likely to be rich, not like at Wolf's Head Lake where the cottages are small and crowded together and the boats at the marina are nothing special. All this day I've been feeling mean, thinking how could I hurt Gracie's feelings when she came back, our last week at the lake before Labor Day and I wouldn't have time to spend with Gracie, maybe.

  This guy I met. Wants me to go out with him. He's got a boat, wants to teach me to water-ski.

  There was no guy. The boys I went swimming with, hung out with were my age, or younger. Older kids at Wolf's Head, I scarcely knew. Older guys, I was scared of. Mostly.

  At the lake we stayed with my mother's brother Tyrone and his family. Momma and my younger brother Jacky and me. Uncle Tyrone's cottage which wasn't on the lake but a hike through the woods and a haze of mosquitoes and gnats and the lake offshore choked with seaweed and cattails and I wasn't comfortable sleeping three to a room, Momma and Jacky and me, anxious about my privacy, but Wolf's Head Lake was something to look forward to, as Momma was always saying now that my father was out of the picture.

  Out of the picture. I hate such a way of speaking. Like Momma can't bring herself to say exactly what the situation is, so it's vague and fading like an old Polaroid where you can't make out people's faces that have started to blur. As if my father wasn't watching over his family somehow or anyway knowing of our whereabouts every day of our lives you can bet!

  Him and Momma, they were still married. I was sure of that. This time Daddy said, I will lay down my life for you, Irene. And the kids. Just tell me, if ever you wish it.

  Momma doesn't even know how true that statement is. Momma will never know.

  There was a time when I was seven, Daddy had to go away. And Momma got excitable then. We were cautioned b
y Momma's family not to upset her. Not to make loud noises playing and not to get up at night to use the bathroom if we could help it, Jacky and me, because Momma had trouble sleeping and we'd wake her and might scare her. Momma kept a knife under her pillow in case somebody broke into the house, sometimes it was a hammer she kept by her bed, but never any kind of gun for Momma hated guns, she'd seen her own brother killed in a hunting accident. She made Daddy keep his guns over at his brother's house, his two rifles and his shotgun and the handgun called a revolver with a long mean-looking barrel he'd won in a poker game in the U.S. Army stationed in Korea at a time when I had not yet been born, that made me feel shivery, sickish, for my parents did not know me then and did not know of me and did not miss me. And if they had not married each other, it would be that they would never miss me.

  So we were told not to upset Momma. It is a scary thing to see your mother cry. Either you run away (like Jacky) or you do something to make your mother cry more (like me). Just to show that it's you your mother is crying about and not something else.

  "'Anns'lee'—what kind of name's that?"

  This older guy must be in his late twenties named Deek—what sounds like "Deek"—oily-dark spiky haircut and scruffy whiskers and on his right forearm a tattoo of a leaping black panther so it's like him and me are instantly bonded 'cause I am wearing over my swimsuit a Cougars T-shirt (Strykersville High's mascot is a cougar), a similar big cat leaping and snarling. Just the look of this Deek is scary and riveting to me, him and his buddies, all of them older guys and strangers to me hanging out at the marina pier, where I've drifted to instead of heading back to the cottage where Momma expects me.

  I'm embarrassed telling Deek that "Annislee" is some weird name derived from a Norwegian name, my mother's grandmother was Norwegian, from Oslo, but Deek isn't hearing this, not a guy who listens to details nor are his beer-drinking buddies with big sunburnt faces and big wide grins like they've been partying a long time already and it isn't even suppertime. Deek is near-about a full head taller than me, bare-legged in swim trunks and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, winking at me like there's a joke between us—or am I, so much younger than he is, the joke?—asking how'd I like to ride in his speedboat across the lake?—how'd I like to play poker with him and his buddies? I tell Deek that I don't know how to play poker and Deek says, "Li'l babe, we can teach you." Tapping my wrist with his forefinger like it's a secret code between us.

  Li'l babe. Turns out that Deek is Rick Diekenfeld, owns the flashy white ten-foot speedboat with red letters painted on the hull Hot Li'l Babe you'd see roaring around Wolf's Head Lake raising choppy waves in its wake to roil up individuals in slower boats, fishermen in stodgy rowboats like my uncle Tyrone yelling after Hot Li'l Babe shaking his fist but Hot Li'l Babe with Rick Diekenfeld just roars on away. There's other girls hanging out with these guys, I am trying to determine if they are the guys' girlfriends, but I guess they are not. Seems like they just met at the Lake Inn Marina Café where you have to be twenty-one to sit by the outdoor bar. These girls in two-piece swimsuits fleshy as Momma spilling out of their bikini tops. And the guys in T-shirts and swim trunks or shorts, flip-flops on their big feet, and the names they call one another are harsh and staccato as cartoon-names: sounding like "Heins"—"Jax"—"Croke." And there's "Deek" who seems to like me, pronouncing and mispronouncing my name Anns'lee running the tip of his tongue around his lips, asking again how'd I like to come for a ride in his speedboat, quick before the storm starts, how's about it? Deek has held out his Coors can for me to sip out of, which is daring, if we get caught, I'm underage by eight years, but nobody's noticing. Lukewarm beer that makes me sputter and cough, a fizzy sensation up inside my nose provoking a sneeze-giggle, which Deek seems to find funny, and something about me he finds funny, so I'm thinking What the hell. I'm thinking, Daddy isn't here, I am not even sure where Daddy is. And Grade isn't here. This will be something to tell Grade.

  This guy I met. These guys. Riding on the lake, and they taught me to play poker.

  So we pile into Hot Li'l Babe, these four big guys and me. There's lots of people around at the marina, nothing to worry about I am thinking. Or maybe I am not thinking. Momma says Annislee, for God's sake where is your mind? Well, it looked like—I thought—these other girls were getting into the speedboat, too, but they changed their minds saying the clouds were looking too threatening, what if you're struck by lightning, the girls are saying with shivery little giggles, in fact there's only just heat lightning (which is harmless—isn't it?) 'way off in the distance beyond Mount Hammer miles from the lake so I'm thinking What the hell, lam not afraid.

  "Hang on, Anns'lee. Here we go."

  This wild thumping ride out onto the lake, full throttle taking off from the marina and the looks on the faces of boaters coming in—a family in an outboard boat, a fisherman in a rowboat—register such alarm, it's hilarious. Everything seems hilarious, like in a speeded-up film where nothing can go seriously wrong, nobody can get hurt. Deek steers Hot Li'l Babe with one hand, drinking Coors from the other, I'm hanging on to my seat crowded between two of the guys (Jax? Croke? or is this big guy panting beside me Heins?) trying not to shriek with fear, in fact I am not afraid, am I?—can't get my breath the wind is coming so fierce and there's a smell of gasoline in the boat and in the pit of my stomach that sickish-excited sensation you get on the downward plunge of a roller coaster. Overhead it's a surprise, the sky is darkening fast, the giant mouth is about closed over the sun, and the way the thunderclouds are ridged, and ribbed, makes me think of the inside of a mouth, a certain kind of dog that has a purplish-black mouth, oh God. Just these few minutes, there's nobody else on Wolf's Head Lake that I can see. The boat engine is roaring so hard, these guys are so loud, a beer can I've been gripping has spilled lukewarm beer onto my bare legs, can't catch my breath telling myself You are not going to die don't be stupid, you are not important enough to die. Telling myself that Daddy is close by watching over me for didn't Daddy once say My little girl is going to live a long, long time that is a promise.

  To a man like Daddy, and maybe Deek, is given a certain power: to snuff out a life, as you might (if you were feeling mean, and nobody watching) grinding a broken-winged butterfly that's flailing beneath your foot, or to allow that life to continue.

  "Made it! Fuckin' made it! Record time!" Deek is crowing like a rooster, we're across the lake and okay. Deek cuts the motor bringing the speedboat to dock, it's a clumsy-shaped boat it seems now banging against the dock, Deek has to loop a nylon rope over one of the posts cursing Fuck! fuck! fuck! He's having so much trouble, finally Heins helps him and they manage to tie up the boat, we're in an inlet here in some part of Wolf's Head Lake that isn't familiar to me, short stubby pier with rotted pilings, mostly outboard-motor and rowboats docked here. Getting out of the boat, I need to be helped by one of the guys, slipped and fell, hit my knee, one of my sandals falling off, and the guy—Croke is the name they call him—big-shouldered in a T-shirt, thick hairs like a pelt on his arms and the backs of his hands, and a gap-tooth grin in a sunburnt wedge-face sprouting dark whiskers on his jaw, grabs my elbow, hauls me up onto the dock. "There ya go, li'l dude, ya okay?" Greeny-gray eyes on me, in that instant he's being nice, kindly, like I'm a kid sister, somebody to be watched over, and I'm grateful for this, almost I'd want to cry when people are nice to me, that I can't believe I deserve because I am not a nice girl—am I? Damn I don't care. Why should I care. The fact is, these new friends of mine are smiling at me calling me Anns'lee, Anns'lee-honey, c'mon with us, next thing I know the five of us are swarming into a convenience store at the end of the dock, Otto's Beer & Bait, where Momma has stopped sometimes but which direction it is to Uncle Tyrone's cottage, and how far it is, I could not say. The guys are getting six-packs of Coors and Black Horse Ale and Deek tells me to get some "eats," so I select giant bags of taco chips, Ritz crackers, and Cheez Whiz and at the deli counter some cellophane-wrapped ham sandwiches and dill pickles. Out of the freeze
r a six-pack of chocolate ice-cream bars, I'm leaning over and the frost-mist lifts into my warm face so cool it makes my eyes mist over so one of the guys, I think it's Jax, pokes his finger toward my eye meaning to wipe away a tear, I guess, saying "Hey, li'l dude, you okay?" This guy is so tall, my head hardly comes to his shoulder. Maybe he works at the quarry, those guys are all so big, muscular and going to fat, the quarry at Sparta was where my father was working, last time I'd heard. Up front at the cashier's counter there is this bleach-hair bulldog-woman older than Momma staring at the five of us taking up so much space in the cramped aisles not cracking a smile though the guys are joking with her calling her Ma'am trying to be friendly. A thought cuts into me like a blade This woman knows me, she will call Momma. How I feel about this possibility, I'm not sure. (Do I want to be here, with these guys? Is this maybe a mistake? But girls hook up with guys at Wolf's Head Lake, that is what you do at Wolf's Head Lake, isn't it? What people talk about back at school, next month? And Labor Day in another week.) The cashier-woman doesn't seem to know me, only just regards me with cold curious eyes, a girl my age, young even for high school, with these guys who must be ten, fifteen years older, guys who've been drinking beers for hours (you can tell: you can smell beer on their breaths, their reddened eyes are combustible), speaking to the girl in a kind of sly-teasing way but not a mean way so I'm feeling a stab of something like pride, maybe it is even sexual pride, my flat boy-body and dark eyes and curvy mouth and my thick ashy-blond hair springing from a low forehead like my Daddy's prone to brooding. Anns'lee is like music in these guys' mouths, this name that has made me cringe since first grade. Hearing Anns'lee-honey, Anns'lee-babe makes me grateful now. Deek tugs my ponytail and praises the "eats" I've brought to the counter and pays for everything with a credit card.