“Butler, around the table starting here are Dick Clark, Charlie Coe, Jake Johnson, John Tunney, and that feller there is Jack Archer, otherwise known as—”
“—Three-Eyed Jack,” Butler finished.
He circled the table and shook hands with Jack, who he had last seen in Wichita over two years ago. Jack rose and the two pumped hands.
“You two obviously know each other,” Short said.
“A coupla years back me and this young feller terrorized the gamblers in Wichita for a time,” Jack explained.
“You know,” Butler said, “I never did hear your last name back then.”
“Don’t use it much,” Jack said.
“What’re you doing here?” Butler asked. “Last I heard you were going to stay in Wichita.”
“I did for a while, but then it dried up real bad. I had no choice but to leave. Found my way here a couple of weeks ago, decided to stay.”
“He can’t leave,” Clark said good-naturedly, “he’s got all our money.”
“Your money, maybe,” Coe said.
“Can we get this game back on track?” John Tunney asked. “The only way I’m gonna get my money back is to keep these cards in the air.”
“Sorry,” Short said, “didn’t mean to disrupt the game. I was just bringin’ Butler in to fill the last chair.”
“Good,” Johnson said, “maybe that’ll change Jack’s luck.”
“Buy in’s three thousand to start, Butler,” Short said.
“Not a problem,” Butler said.
“Re-buy as many times as you want, after that,” Short said.
“No chips?” Butler asked, seating himself at the table.
“Cash plays,” Jack said, reseating himself as well. “I like the sound of paper money.”
“Especially other people’s, huh, Jack?” Clark asked
Butler knew Dick Clark by reputation. The man had made a fortune in the mining camps of Colorado, and had never dirtied his hands. It had all been done with cards.
He also recognized Charlie Coe’s name from the circuit. He’d never played against him, but knew men who had.
He didn’t know the others, but he intended to. He’d spend a few hands getting to know them real well before he actually began to get involved in the game.
CHAPTER 6
“Your friend doesn’t seem to want to cross swords, Jack,” Dick Clark said.
“Don’t worry about Butler, Dick,” Jack said, with a smile. “He’s waitin’ for the right moment.”
“Seems to me he’s just takin’ up space,” Tunney remarked.
Butler knew this jibe was designed to get him mad so he’d make a mistake, get involved in a hand he wasn’t strong in. But Butler always maintained his composure at the poker table. It was one of the reasons he won as often as he did.
As he watched the players he ranked them in his head. Three-Eyed Jack was a good poker player, but he wasn’t in the same league with Dick Clark and Charlie Coe. He had taken so much of their money because he was on an incredible hot streak. In fact, since Butler sat down Jack had taken money from Tunney and Johnson, who kept going in with him, but the two professionals, Clark and Coe, had started to stay away from him.
Butler laid back a little longer than he usually did, but poker players who knew what they were doing were harder to read than total amateurs. With an amateur you know almost immediately how often they bluff. In point of fact professionals only bluffed when the size of the pot warranted it. A huge pot was worth trying to steal with a bluff. A small pot was a waste of time.
Jack was not bluffing. He had the cards every time he bet. That’s what happened when you were on a hot streak.
The few times that Jack folded, either Coe or Clark would take the ante. The other two men—Johnson and Tunney—were losing heavily.
After almost an hour Butler started to play his game. From that point on, whenever Jack sat a hand out, it was Coe, Clark, or Butler who took the hand.
They played that way for hours, and Butler wondered where Johnson and Tunney got all the money they were losing?
And then it happened.
Three-Eyed Jack cooled off, and tried to bluff.
Jack was the only man Butler had played against before, and he needed only a few hands to remind him how the man played. When his luck cooled, Butler was able to see it before the others.
On the hand where Jack’s luck turned, Coe and Clark had already folded, believing that the man once again had the goods.
The other two chased him again, while chasing their hands.
The hand was seven-card stud. Five cards were out when Jack made his big bet.
His bluff.
Jack had a jack, queen, and king of hearts on the table, and two cards in the hole. But he wasn’t high on the table. That honor went to Tunney, who was showing two nines.
“I bet two hundred,” Tunney said, ignoring Jack’s three to the royal.
Next came Johnson, who had a small pair of fours. He raised, going another two hundred, which led Butler to believe the man either had another pair in the hole, or a third four. He wasn’t going to make four of a kind, though, because Coe had folded a four. Butler doubted Johnson remembered that.
It was four hundred to Butler.
“Call,” he said.
He had a deuce, a five, and a ten on the table, mismatched.
“You callin’ with garbage like that on the table, Butler?” Tunney asked. “You must have some pair in the hole, or just some pair of
“The play is to you, Jack,” Charlie Coe said.
“I’m gonna raise four hundred, boys,” Jack said with a smile. The smile was not a giveaway—he always smiled when he raised. But he looked at his hole cards. Jack never looked at his hole cards, he always knew what was there. The fact that he looked led Butler to believe he was bluffing, wanted the table to think he either already had the royal, or at least had four to it. The fact was he’d probably take the hand with just a flush. However, Butler had seen four hearts go under when Coe and Clark folded, and both Tunney and Johnson had one on the table. He had one in the hole. That meant that ten hearts were gone, and Jack only had three more in the deck he could catch—unless they were already in his hand.
But Butler didn’t think they were.
Tunney—the original bettor—called both raises, and Johnson called Jack’s raise.
Butler could have reraised there, but he decided to wait. He just smooth called and waited.
Coe was dealing, so he said, “Pot’s right. Comin’ out.”
He dealt each player their sixth card.
CHAPTER 7
Butler paired his deuces. No one else improved. Tunney still had nines, Johnson fours, and Three-Eyed Jack
