George dabbed at droplets of sweat gathering on his chin. I sidled over to him, reaching around him to snuff my cigarette in an overflowing ashtray at his elbow.
'I'd suggest folding,' I offered softly. 'It'll fool her into thinking you know what you're doing.'
'I don't need-I can't. It's-' He breathed the stuffy air in short, frantic gasps.
Some people shouldn't play poker.
He raised his opponent by an idiotically astronomical amount. The crowd gasped.
'What a
,' somebody whispered.
Ann languidly threw in her chips. 'Call.' She had nothing to do but wait for the kill.
George dealt the final two cards. A deuce of clubs slid over to her side to join the ace of hearts, five of spades and nine of diamonds.
He dealt himself a queen of spades next to his king, ten, and five of diamonds.
Ann's lips pouted in disappointment. She looked again at her hole card, letting her shoulders drop. 'Check,' she said, listless as wet newsprint.
Lights seemed to flick on in George's eyes. He looked at the chips between them-enough to purchase several Central American countries. He calculated madly. Nervous hands shoved the remaining pile of chips forward.
Ann stared emptily until George had withdrawn his hands. A grin spread across her face. She added the last of her own chips to the stunningly huge mound between them.
'And I raise you.' The words didn't come out as a slap in the face, but the young man reacted as if he'd been socked. She had him pegged from the start.
I was pretty sure what their hole cards were now. Ann must have figured his out a few rounds back.
George bowed his head to stare at the table.
'I can write you a check.'
The gaunt old man bent over him to say, 'You know the rules, my friend. No checks or notes. No lending.'
It saved me from having to say it.
Ann straightened in her chair, making no sound. Her face had become as rigid as a stone carving. She gazed at George with wintry eyes and waited.
'I-' He glanced pleadingly around to the crowd. His gaze fell on Ann. 'I have some shares. In my name. A controlling interest.' He pulled some papers from inside his jacket.
I frowned. Had he been expecting to need them? Make that a
plunger-doubled and squared.
'A third of it should meet the raise.'
Ann glanced at the shares with a disdainful look. 'Oh, all right. You'll probably win them back anyway.'
That, I thought, was unnecessarily cruel. The young man's eyes blazed like oil burning on a polluted lake. He threw in five of the folded blue sheets.
'I call.' He reached to turn over his hole card.
'See you and raise.'
Their gazes locked like handcuffs. The crowd stood like a statue garden, their only similarity their stillness. Their expressions ranged from disapproval to glee to shock.
