The other five gentlemen at the table held divided opinions. Two of them looked as happy as Shriners at a hookers' convention, while the other three exuded all the warmth and personality of stale cigar smoke. One of the happy ones-a chubby old man with a prominent nosedealt the next hand of five card draw.
Ann tossed her head to one side, sending a cascade of gold over her shoulder. She drew her cards to play them close to her chest-which the lechers in the crowd finally appeared to notice.
The betting proceeded calmly, except in the case of George. He bet nervously and thoughtlessly. He was a plunger, all right, and a desperate one at that.
The pile of chips near Ann's elbow stood in shoulder high stacks. Dozens of stacks. Had it been piles of paper money, there wouldn't have been as much a mystique about it. Something in the way poker chips look and sound instills an almost religious reverence in people.
I lit a cigarette and stepped toward the table to kibitz.
Ann drew two cards and raised when her turn came about. The three grumblers-who looked as if they'd all come off the same boat from Sicily-folded immediately afterward. The fat man and a smiling, gaunt old gentleman remained in, hoping the odds would shift against her.
George stayed in, tossing his chips in angrily. His dark, tousled hair hung down in his eyes-eyes as furious as a cat cornered in an alley.
'Call,' he said after the second round of raises. The chips skittered across the table to land in the center with the rest.
Ann laid down her cards. Three queens.
The plunger ground his teeth together and threw down his hand. Two pair with an ace kicker.
The other two players shook their heads at him and laid their cards face down.
'Lady Luck is certainly with you tonight, my dear.' The fat man leaned back in his chair.
Ann smiled. It was George's turn to deal.
The skinny young man picked up the cards to shuffle them. He slammed the two halves of the deck together as though trying to hammer luck into it.
Ann gazed around the smoky room to find me. She smiled again and winked. Her eyes turned toward George, then back toward me.
The owner of StratoDyne dealt a round of five-card draw. Ann took three cards after the first round of bets, then immediately folded. This did little to endear her to several of the players, who would have forced her to stay in the game if the rules had permitted it.
One of the three little guys at the far end brightened visibly when he won the round.
George nearly bent the remainder of the deck in his fist. His right hand slid back toward the edge of the table, stayed there just long enough to tremble hesitantly, and safely returned to shuffle the cards.
I didn't like the looks of that particular motion.
'Stud,' George muttered through thinned lips. He knocked a curl of black hair out of his eyes before dealing the hole cards.
Ann scanned the first round of face cards. Her gaze lighted on the fat man's card-a king.
'Fold,' she said, sliding her cards forward.
George's knuckles popped.
Her face card had been a jack. To me, that meant that her hole card had been a king or lower. She didn't gamble-she played poker.
The kibitzers muttered among themselves as the rest of the hand played through. No one could help noticing that, while she wasn't winning anything at the moment, she also wasn't losing much. By the last round of betting, the fat man had squeezed out everyone but George. The younger man called.
He shouldn't have.
