Chapter 4
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 and 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.