Victor approached me holding his refilled glass of whiskey. Softly, he said, “You sure you don’t want a real drink? We’ve got stuff above top shelf here. I actually had to build a special shelf.” He laughed at his own joke.
I told him I was sure.
“And you feel ready for … this?”
On the poker table, the chips were already divided and placed in front of each of the six positions. Also on the table were two decks of cards in their seals.
“Of course I’m ready,” I said, forcing a smile. “Why do you ask?”
“I know you’ve come all this way in the weather, but I wonder if maybe you shouldn’t play.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I just mean it’s a lot of money.”
“I know it is. That’s why I’m here.”
“No. I mean it’s a lot of money. A quarter million dollars …”
“I know how much it is.”
He nodded. “I have a beautiful home, don’t I?”
I agreed that he did.
“The video screen, 4K projector, the Bose speakers and soundproofing and seating … it’s all top of the line. That’s a fifty-thousand-dollar home theater. And this?” He rapped his knuckles on the game tabletop. “Nineteen thirty-five, genuine Cuban mahogany. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what it cost.” He sighed. “I didn’t always have all this.” He gazed around the room, as if skeptical of what he’d just told me. “For a long time I had very little. My point being, I know how hard it is to accumulate—”
“Victor?”
“I’m not saying you aren’t a good poker player. Emily says you’re good, and I’m sure she’s right. But you should protect your assets. You don’t have to play tonight.”
“Victor—”
“Please. Hear me out. It’s never good to get in over your head. That’s when you make poor decisions.”
“Victor?” Finally, he stopped talking. “I’m starting to think your concern for me is an attempt to psych me out.”
He examined me the way he’d probably examined that Civil War drum before deciding to call the deal final. “All right, Nora. Good luck. I hope everything goes well for you tonight.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You hope I lose all my money.” I let him watch me a moment, perhaps surprised by what I’d said. But I wasn’t being rude, only blunt, and maybe a little flirtatious if he chose to think of this as banter. I reached out and touched his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Here.” I patted the tabletop to my right. “Sit next to me.”
He placed his drink in the recessed holder in the table. Immediately, Ellen appeared beside us and placed her own glass in the spot to Victor’s right.
“We have him surrounded!” She laughed, and winked at me as if we were pretending to be in cahoots.
Ellen wouldn’t begin to stack the deck for at least an hour. We wanted everyone to loosen up a little first—to become less attentive, more inebriated, and readier for the excitement of a big hand. That meant doing whatever we could to reduce any drama in the game before then. We would try to keep the wins and losses small. We would play tight poker. We would be careful.
The other men placed their drinks on the table, found seats, touched their poker chips. On the large video screen across the room, the Fiesta Bowl was on, the sound turned down. The men glanced at the game and made grunts of interest, and Jason explained that UCF wasn’t supposed to be ahead. We all drew cards from the deck. Victor’s was a jack, higher than anyone else’s. He’d deal first.
As we began to play, I made a point to call small bets and fold prudently but not fearfully. I played my best poker. While we played the hands, chatter was sparse and perfunctory.
Been a solid winter without the snow. The BMW Seven Series is a hell of a car.
Heard you on the radio, Vic. Sounded real good.
I gotta get a new lawn guy.
How close, really, are we to self-driving cars we can buy?
I found myself tuning out the music and the chatter and focusing on my cards, on betting or not betting, on deducing what the other players might have in their hands. Gradually my heartbeat found its natural rhythm. Cards in my hands, cards in my thoughts. The cards brought me back to myself. But I knew that before long Ellen would need to make her move. Jason was already way down, just as Ellen had predicted. Danny was close to even. On the table were two decks of cards—blue-backed and red-backed, one to get shuffled while the other got dealt—and from the time Ellen first started controlling cards and palming them off to the time I dealt the fully prepared deck, there would be a minimum of eight hands played. That would take a while. We couldn’t wait too long.
Whenever it was Ellen’s turn to gather the played cards and shuffle the deck, I would glance at her in my periphery. It was after almost exactly an hour of play when she finally clasped her hands together and set them on the tabletop in front of her, an attentive pupil in school. That was our signal. When the hand ended, she gathered up the cards to shuffle.
And with so little fanfare, it began.
2
We had another signal. There was no predicting exactly how many cards Ellen would be able to locate, control, and palm off the top of the deck during a single shuffle. She had to locate a total of nine cards: three jacks, three queens, and three additional hearts. We hoped she could find five of them during her first shuffle. Five would leave four more the next time the deck came around for her shuffle. But even if her
