Wild Card

months for this day.

He went inside. Lois had taken the day off, and was in the living room, watching the local TV channel. To be safe, they’d pulled Gerry out of school, and sent him to stay with her relatives in New York City.

“No news yet,” she said.

By noon, they were both bored silly, and decided to go to the Boardwalk and get some lunch. As they rose from the couch, a special news report came on.

“Maybe this is it,” she said expectantly.

Valentine turned up the volume, then sat on the couch and took his wife’s hand. A male newscaster appeared on the screen, and read awkwardly from a sheet of paper.

“This morning, in what law enforcement officials are calling a major blow to organized crime, the FBI issued arrest warrants for sixteen reputed members of the New York mafia, over twenty employees of Resorts’ casino, and two unnamed members of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. The sting — called Operation Candy Store — uncovered a scam that was costing Resorts a hundred thousand dollars a day.”

The reporter seemed amazed at the figure, and Valentine found himself shaking his head. So it had reached all the way up to the commission. The newscaster touched his ear piece and said, “My director informs me that we’re going to a live news conference at city hall. Please stand by.”

Fuller appeared on the screen wearing a dark suit and tie. Speaking into a bouquet of microphones, he explained how the FBI had discovered the scam while tracking the Dresser months ago, and immediately set up shop. He sang the bureau’s praises, and made himself and Romero and the rest of his team out to be the best law enforcement agents on the planet. Not once were the local police mentioned as being involved.

Fuller read the names of the employees at the casino that had been arrested that morning. They included Mickey Wright and several in-house accountants, and a guy on the floor assigned to watch the cage. They were all people Valentine knew and liked. But he didn’t feel sorry for them. They’d made their choices. Who he felt bad for were their families and friends. They’d suffer through this for a long time, while wondering how their loved ones could have behaved so stupidly. More victims, he thought.

The press conference ended. Valentine went to the TV, and killed the power.

“I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”

His wife jumped up, and threw her arms around him. “Is that all you’re going to say? Not hurrah, or whoopee, or yeah — we did it!?”

He shook his head. He’d taken no pleasure from doing this, and wanted to put it behind him.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He pressed the tip of her nose against his wife’s. Then their lips touched, and the warmth of her love enveloped him. Despite all the bad things that had happened, he still had her, and Gerry, and his job, and all the other rewards a man could expect for living a clean life. He’d come out on top, and he knew it.

Epilogue

In the end, Izzie followed his heart, and went back to Betty.

But not right away. For a few months, he and Josh and Seymour barnstormed the east coast. The schtick that worked so well for them in New York — three funny Jewish boys looking for a friendly game of cards — didn’t play in towns like Raleigh and Spartanburg and Atlanta, and it had been slim pickings until they hit Miami.

Miami was hustlers’ nirvana. There was the dog track, the horses, jai alai, cruises to nowhere, and plenty of private high-stakes poker games played in beautiful surroundings. There was action practically everywhere they went.

Most of the private card games they found were crooked. There was nothing wrong with that — a man had to make a living — only the people running the games wouldn’t cut them in. Up north, it was common for hustlers to cut other hustlers into games. Not in Miami.

The hustlers in Miami were rotten. Not only did they bar the Hirsch brothers from their games, but they also broadcast it around town that the Hirsch’s were cheaters. Soon, they couldn’t get a game, and had to leave town.

Driving north into Georgia, Izzie had been overwhelmed by a memory. He’d remembered Betty singing the song Georgia to him after making love. She had a voice like a cat being strangled, yet it had still moved him. Pulling into a gas station, he called her on a payphone. “It’s me,” he said sheepishly when she answered.

“What do you want?” Betty snapped.

“I called to apologize.”

Josh and Seymour were hanging out of the open car windows, listening to every word. Izzie put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “I love you.” There had been a long pause on the other end. Then, Betty had knocked his socks off.

“I still love you, Izzie,” she said.

So they drove to Nyack. Izzie moved into Betty’s apartment above the butcher shop while his brothers rented a house in town. Not having Josh and Seymour around had been heaven; every day, he and Betty had made love, had breakfast, and made love some more. Delirious, Izzie had proposed to her on the fifth day.

“Wait,” she had cooed into his ear.

“But I want to marry you,” he insisted.

“I know you do. Make the proposal special.”

Betty was working at a bar called Finnegan’s slinging drinks. That night, she called him from work. “There’s a poker game in the back room. You interested?”