this night, this one iteration, that spade might well not have fallen. In fact, the odds were excellent that it wouldn’t. Four to one, in fact, a little worse. But tonight, it fell. And the other cards on the other hands for the rest of the night would also fall as they would, with no regard for anyone’s ambition or resolve.
But we’re all human. So Jake’s reaction to the beat wasn’t unusual. I didn’t hold it against him. In fact, I invited it. It pleased me. Because it was dangerously close to a tilt. When a player gets so angry at a beat or two, or three, that he begins to play irrationally, recklessly, making big bets against the odds as though to bully you out of the game, he’s on tilt.
You can make a lot of money from a guy on tilt.
But Jake wasn’t on tilt. Not quite. He was focused. Determined. He played cagily. Tight. But mixing it up a bit. Taking a small pot on a bluff, he showed me his Ten Seven off-suit. He wanted me to know I couldn’t peg him just for tight. A bit of unpredictability goes a long way.
But I outplayed him on that night. Caught him big a couple more times. I slow-played trip Sixes against his Aces. Just checked, called his bets. Checking and calling is bad poker, most of the time. And he should have known that I knew that. Had he stopped to calculate, he’d have known that I didn’t have the odds to be on a draw, waiting for a straight or flush card to hit. So my calling had to mean something else. The slow-play alarm should have gone off in his head. But it didn’t. I bet big on the end. He called, thinking I was bluffing. I won the pot.
More important, I won the ego battle.
He got darker after that. A couple of hands later I was looking at a small straight draw. I was in the big blind. Everyone folded around to Jake. He raised me in the blind. I looked down at a suited Seven Eight. A drawing hand. Not a good heads-up hand. But I felt like gambling. I was getting to see a pretty cheap flop.
The flop came Five, Six, King. Two clubs. I had a straight draw. But the flop had hit Jake hard. Or so he wanted me to believe. He threw in a serious bet, stared me down.
I just called. The odds said to fold. I only had eight outs: four Fours and four Nines. I didn’t have clubs. And pairing any of my cards wouldn’t do it for me. Not if he had the Kings. Or better. Or maybe he was on a semi-bluff. Had two clubs: nothing now, but enough outs to make it profitable. Because I would fold enough times. Add those to the times he hits the flush, and you’ve got a profitable bet.
I figured him for the Kings. It was just a feeling. But you learn to go with your feelings. Separate a hunch from wishful thinking. Too many times I’d argued myself out of a hunch at the table. Found out later I was right.
I didn’t see him on the semi-bluff. The bet wasn’t quite big enough. He’d have wanted me to fold without even giving it a thought. Especially in this aggressive mood.
Kings, then. Not a huge kicker. Not Ace King. He would have raised more pre-flop with that hand. I figured King Queen. I was almost sure of it.
Something about the situation felt just right. I wanted to fool with him. I flat-called.
A tiny flash of doubt crossed his face. More weakness. He didn’t understand my call. The situation would indicate a raise or fold. He knew I was doing something funny. But he didn’t know what it was.
I had him halfway there.
The turn card was an Ace.
Excellent.
I stayed calm. If he bet, I had him.
He looked at me.
He looked at me for a long time.
He pushed in another bet. Double the first.
Raise, I said, without a pause.
Goddamn, he said. I knew it.
He’d figured me for the Aces.
He folded his Kings.
Love them semi-bluffs, I said, showing him my busted draw.
He said nothing.
I saw in his eyes something that I hadn’t seen before.
Rage.
Butch leaned over to me.
Jesus, he said, careful. This guy could hurt somebody.
44.
I tried to sleep.
It didn’t work.
I went downstairs to warm some milk.
I glanced into the living room.
Melissa wasn’t on the sofa. She was on the floor. Face down. One arm limp across the ottoman. One bent behind her back. An unnatural position for sleeping.
But she wasn’t sleeping.
She was unconscious.
There’s a difference, I’d learned.
I didn’t stop to try to pick her up. I was too angry. I’d seen this pose before. She’d had the local drugstore bring some pills. Or come across the hiding place of some forgotten flask of vodka. Perhaps she’d even given in and breached the ultimate taboo, the talisman. It didn’t matter which. Whatever it was, we were back at the starting gate. Again. It hadn’t been an aberration. Tomorrow I’d try to deal. She’d tell some lies. She’d had a cold. It was cough medicine.
I didn’t have the energy to care. Let Steiglitz care. Let Steiglitz deal. I needed sleep. I climbed the stairs. I lay down. I slept.
In my dream the fog had eyes. The fog had eyes to see through me. Through the fog I could see nothing. Nothing but the fog around me. The fog had a mouth. A face. A name. Hello! The face was Jake’s. Jake laughed. He put his arm around my shoulder. Bought me a drink. I felt grateful. The fog had lifted. I turned to him.
I had my arm around a woman. Her name was Lola. Tall. Slim-waisted. Muscular. A snakelike thing. It broke my grasp. It got away. Escaped.
I woke up feeling strange. It was six in the morning. Too early to get up. I tried to place the feeling. I wasn’t just hungover. Or anxious. It was something more specific. After a while it occurred to me: unsatisfied. I felt unsatisfied.
I lay in bed for a while, thinking about what it meant. To be unsatisfied. It was different from being dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction implied a goal. Something expected or desired that hadn’t come to pass. Something specific. Being unsatisfied was different. It was an emptiness waiting to be filled. With something. Anything. Anything, that is, that would fill the emptiness.
But what that was, what that could be, I didn’t know.
45.
Eight o’clock arrived at last. I got up. I took off my wrinkled suit. I put on shorts, a golf shirt. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to go to the office.
Barefoot, I went downstairs. Kelly was in the kitchen. Her eyes were red.
She knew.
What are we going to do? she asked.
I don’t know, I said. I don’t know.
I sat at the kitchen table. I put my head in my hands. I smelled of nicotine. My chest was tight.
