“Good analogy,” Florio said. “And what’s the lesson?”
Gondolier drew a three, and Florio showed a second king, the king of hearts, holding a sword in his left hand. But did he have a third one? Realizing he had the highest hand, Florio frowned and checked. No third king lurking facedown. If he had it, he would have anted up ten lousy dollars. By checking, he forfeited the right to raise when it got back to him. But Florio’s second king was enough to scare off Gondolier and his pair of sevens, and he tossed his cards away in disgust.
I dropped a ten-dollar chip into the pot and said, “Lots of lessons. Some about the morality of dispossessing a people, another about the strategy-”
“Fuck the morality!” Florio thundered. “Immoral battles are fought every day. Immoral wars are won by the meanest sons of bitches who ever lived. The lesson, Jake, is that you can’t fight if you don’t know the territory. It’s rule number two. If you’re on somebody else’s turf, you gotta co-opt the enemy. Infiltrate, buy ’em off, make ’em your partners. You can’t just ride your horses into their swamps, blowing your bugles, or you’ll disappear in the mud.”
Florio slapped a chip down, staying in the game, and dealt us into Sixth Street. Just the two of us. A six for me, a deuce for him, face up. Again, he checked. I was getting confident. I put in my ten bucks, and he called. He dealt the last card, facedown to each of us. He had his two kings, a nine, and a deuce showing. Four different suits. I had an eight, a six, a ten, and a three up, and my two eights underneath, now joined by the king of clubs facedown.
A king!
Diaz had drawn the king of diamonds way back on Fourth Street. Nick had the king of spades and hearts showing. I was right all along. Unless this was a deck with five kings, Nicky Florio had a lousy pair of kings, or maybe two pair, kings high, if he had a second nine or deuce underneath. No difference to me. My three eights take the pot.
Nicky opened with the required ten. I slid in my matching ten and raised him twenty. He did the same, and I did again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And then I simply called, feeling good.
Which is when he showed me the ten, jack, and queen that were facedown. Which he combined with his nine and king, giving him a king-high straight. Oh.
Nicky swept in the chips. About three hundred bucks’ worth, give or take a twenty. “Sorry, Jake, some days three of a kind is just a loser.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” I admitted. Then I laughed. “That’s funny, isn’t it? I mean I was afraid you’d draw a third king, and not thinking about you filling a straight.”
“Happens to the best of us,” Florio said. He signaled Jim Tiger to bring another round of drinks. Florio had switched to scotch on the rocks. Two with dinner, two after, another one when he started dealing.
We played another couple of hours as the storm built, lightning glinting off the black water below the windows, the thunder rattling the roof. I won a few hands, lost a few more, and was still behind maybe two hundred bucks when Florio looked me straight on. “I need some legal advice, Jake.”
“Shoot.”
“You have a way with words, Counselor.” His face was smiling, but I wasn’t sure about his mind. A bolt of lightning crackled outside, and the room brightened with its reflection. “It’s a criminal law question.”
Diaz was dealing the first two cards. Jim Tiger returned to his chair behind Florio. He was using a machete to cut slivers of sweet sugarcane from a stalk.
The third card arrived face up, but Florio didn’t look at his or anyone else’s. “What’s it called when somebody kills someone else, but he’s got a reason for doing it, a reason that’ll get him off?”
“A lawful excuse,” I answered, “like justifiable homicide. If somebody’s threatening your life or breaks into your home trying to rob you, you’re justified in killing him in the heat of the moment.”
He seemed to think about it. “Very interesting, Counselor. Now, how about if somebody you know has been fucking your wife?”
I had a jack showing. Spades. The jack seemed to be laughing. Jim Tiger was sucking on a chunk of sugarcane. Diaz and Gondolier were studying their cards.
“What do you mean, Nicky?”
My voice sounded weak.
Tinny.
Guilty.
Florio was tapping his face card with an index finger. The ace of spades. “Like a husband knows someone’s fucking his wife, maybe has been for a long time. The husband gets the proof. Dead-solid perfect proof, and it enrages him. Rocks him to the core. So in the heat of the moment, he kills the bastard. Think he’d get off?”
I felt my face heat up. “Depends on the circumstances. If he caught them in flagrante delicto,” I heard myself saying, sounding like old Charlie, “it wouldn’t be Murder One or Two, but it’d still be Murder Three or Manslaughter.”
“What would a guy get, eight years, out in three?”
“Maybe. But if it was planned,” I added, quickly, “an assassination, it could be Murder One.”
“But what if there’s no body recovered? Think the guy would ever be charged?”
I looked at Gondolier and Diaz. They were both staring at me as if horns had sprouted from my forehead.
Florio waited for an answer. Jim Tiger stood and moved to a position behind me. The machete hung straight down from his right hand.
I hate a blade.
Guillermo Diaz slipped his hand inside his nylon jacket. I was frozen. “What’s this all about?”
“I think you know. C’mon, Jake, talk. Were you billing me for the time spent screwing my wife? Or was that part of the overhead?”
“Nicky, I’m your lawyer. I-”
“And a half-assed one at that. I had to get Rick here to make up a story just to win a lousy civil case. And who do you think sweet-talked Abe Socolow into that little courtroom visit? I did, pal, not you. You see, Jake, we might be alike in some things, but not in others. I play to win! That’s the name of the game.”
“You warp the system, Nicky, and I don’t.”
“Listen to him!” Florio turned toward his buddies, then back to me. “Don’t give me that Boy Scout bullshit, you hypocrite. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘loyalty.’ A man who won’t lie, cheat, and steal for a friend is worthless to me. And one who stabs his friend is gonna get it back in spades.”
“Look, if you’re implying that Gina and I…”
“Implying! Want to listen to the tapes of your phone calls? How about a little letter?” He reached into one of the buttoned pockets on his shirt and took out several sheets of monogrammed pink stationery and slid them across the table.
Dearest Jake…
Five or six of them. All starting the same way.
You are so very special…
A different word here or there, the paper crumpled. Her rough drafts. Poor Gina. She wrote the letter a bunch of times to get it right. She must have tossed them in the garbage, where Nicky or one of his helpers salvaged them.
“There’s nothing in that letter that admits a sexual relationship,” I said. Ever the lawyer, making a fine point, not really lying but ignoring reality.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Jake. We both know the truth. Gina’s a beautiful woman. You’ve had a thing for her for years. A husband and a wife have problems. They drift apart. A woman is weak. She likes a shoulder to cry on, someone to listen. But you do more than listen, don’t you, you bird-dogging son of a bitch? You fucked your client’s wife. It’s a mortal sin, Jake, a goddamn mortal sin. You had free will, and you abused it. You’ve fallen from grace, and you’ll go straight to hell without collecting your two hundred dollars.”
