“Call,” Butler said.
“Pot’s right,” Rahy said, and dealt the fourth card around. Thompson paired his fours, killing any chance of the baby straight flush Deaver was predicting for him. However, Deaver got a jack of spades, which kept his chances of a royal flush open—except for one thing.
Butler got a ten, giving him a pair of tens and making him high man on the table.
“I’ll go a hundred,” he said.
“Call,” Thompson said right away.
“Now, how come I’m the onliest one you ever raise, Mr. Thompson?” Deaver asked.
“Maybe it’s because you got a big mouth, Mike,” Rahy said.
“Now you’re a dealin’, Ed, but otherwise you ain’t in this hand, so why don’t you shut up?”
Rahy just rolled his eyes.
“Make your play, Deaver,” Butler said. “None of us is getting any younger.”
“Well, all right then,” Deaver said. “Here’s your hundred and I raise three. How about that?”
“Call,” Butler said.
“I call,” Thompson said.
“Oh, now yer just callin’?” Deaver asked, smiling, showing gaps where teeth used to be. Butler wondered if he’d gotten them knocked out in a poker game or two.
“Last card,” Rahy said, and dealt them out quickly. Nine of spades for Thompson, no help. Ace of spades for Deaver, who now had the jack, queen, king, and ace.
“Woo-wee,” Deaver said, “Lookee that. All I need is the ten—or do I already got it in the hole?”
Butler’s last card was an eight of hearts. He was still high man with a pair of tens.
“Two hundred,” he said.
“I call,” Thompson said, immediately.
“Ain’t nobody afraid of my itty-bitty royal flush?” Deaver asked. “Mr. Thompson, with them fours you’re likely to keep yer luck runnin’ poorly—”
Suddenly, Ben Thompson’s gun was in his hand. Rahy and Kane, spectators, pushed their chairs back, as if to jump up and run, but all Thompson did was put his gun down on the table.
“You gonna bet yer gun, Ben?” Deaver asked. “Runnin’ short of funds?”
“No,” Thompson said, “I’m gonna kill you if you say one more word. Just play your cards, boy. You been runnin’ your mouth at me since you sat down. It stops now. Just play your cards and shut the hell up.”
“Now, Mr. Thompson, I didn’t mean—”
Thompson cocked the pistol and the table fell quiet. Suddenly, people around them noticed the gun and the room quieted as well.
“Play, you pansy fucker, and don’t say another word except ‘raise’ or ‘call’.”
Butler watched Deaver closely. The younger man bit his lip, eyed Thompson’s gun. If he’d been trying to goad Ben Thompson, he certainly didn’t want to make his play with Thompson’s gun already on the table.
Finally, he made up his mind and pushed all his money into the pot.
“I have three thousand and some dollars here,” he said. “I bet it all.”
Butler looked into the younger man’s glassy eyes and knew he was bluffing. He knew there was no royal flush, but he also knew that both he and Thompson had the boy beat. Deaver was desperate to bluff them out and take their money—especially Thompson’s.
“I’m going to have to go into my pocket to call this bet, Ben,” Butler said to Thompson. “That all right with you?”
“Go ahead,” Thompson said. “I have no beef with you, Butler.”
Butler pulled some money from his inside jacket pocket. It was the five thousand he’d gotten from Three- Eyed Jack for the marker the kid had written him. He peeled off three thousand and put the other two back.
“I call,” he said, and tossed the money into the pot.
“You call?” Deaver asked, in disbelief.
“Not only don’t you have a royal, son,” Butler said, “you’ve got nothing at all.”
“H-how do you know that?” Deaver demanded. “I could have a royal.”
“No you can’t you stupid shit,” Rahy said. “I folded your ten of spades. If you’d watch the cards you’d know that.”
“Huh?” Deaver thought a moment, then said, “I want my money back.”
“Leave it!” Thompson shouted.
By now everybody in the Alhambra was either watching or, if they were too far away or blocked, listening.
“He’s right,” Thompson said, “we both got you beat. I’ve got three fours, but I’m folding because I think Butler has us both beat.”
Ben Thompson turned all his cards facedown.
“You’re called, Mike,” Rahy, the dealer, said. “Whataya got?”
“Huh? Oh, I got…well…”
“Just turn the card over,” the dealer said.
Deaver did. Butler had been wrong. He did have something. A pair of kings. Still would have made him third in a three-handed pot. Butler turned over his third ten.
“Three tens is the winner,” Rahy said.
“Nice hand, Mr, Butler,” Thompson said, putting his gun away.
“Thank you, Mr. Thompson.” Butler raked in his money.
Mike Deaver sat with a stunned look on his ace. Butler watched him carefully, now that Thompson’s gun was off the table.
“You still playing, Mike?” Rahy asked as Ben Thompson gathered the cards for his deal.
“Huh? Oh, uh, no, I’m…busted.”
“Then get the hell up and let somebody else play,” Thompson said to him. “Go on…get!”
Deaver stood up and Butler saw the silver gun with a pearl handle on his hip. The boy was no gunman, just a show off.
As Deaver left and new players sat down, Butler thought it had been a hell of a first hand.
CHAPTER 13
Two hours later Butler was still ahead, most of it on Mike Deaver’s money. Since that first hand he’d been playing pretty evenly, while Ben Thompson—his mood improved by Deaver’s absence—got hot.
“I’m gonna have a beer and come right back,” Butler said, pushing away from the table.
“You can have a beer at the table,” Rahy said. “We don’t mind.”
“Sorry,” Butler said, “but I ain’t smart enough to do two things at one time like that.”
That made Ben Thompson laugh, and he asked, “You mind if I join you for one? These boys can play three- handed for a while…right boys?”
“Sure, Ben,” the other echoed.
Thompson stood up and said to Butler, “Come on, I’ll buy.”
“Much obliged, Ben.”
As they walked to the bar, men moved and formed a path for Ben Thompson and his new friend.
“Two beers,” Thompson said when they reached the mile-long Alhambra bar.
“You really don’t have to—” Butler started, but Thompson cut him off.
“This is for busting that big-mouthed kid out of the game,” he said. “For some reason I just couldn’t get it done myself. What you did was a thing of beauty.”
“Thanks,” Butler said. “He wasn’t really that hard to read.”
He froze, for a moment wondering if Thompson would take that as an insult.
