Blind God's bluff

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The king of diamonds came out on the turn, and it really was the king of diamonds. Gimble made a big bet, and I had a decision to make. The chances of me picking up a straight or a flush had just dropped to thirty percent. And if I missed, I was going to end up seriously short-stacked.

But sometimes you just feel that you’re going to catch the card you need. And sometimes that feeling turns out to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Still, I had it, so I called, and the others who were still in the hand got out of the way.

The king of spades came on Fifth Street. Except that when I splashed the Thunderbird across the table, it blinked to the king of clubs, then back again.

Bingo! Or at least I thought so for half a second. Then I realized a flush wasn’t the nuts anymore. With a pair on the board, Gimble could have a full boat.

And if he did have me beat fair and square, would it matter if I proved that the one king was really a different king? The cards talk-that’s basic poker-he wasn’t even the one screwing with them, and the others all wanted me gone. That’s why they were colluding against me.

Suddenly scared, I looked at the Pharaoh and tried to figure out just how deep a game he was playing, just how exactly he was setting me up for kill. That shriveled, crumbling face didn’t give away a thing. All I saw was that his cheroot had gone out.

Gimble checked. I figured he wanted to sucker the man on tilt into bluffing, but it gave me a way out. I could check, too, and not risk any more than I had already.

But I realized I didn’t want to do that. I pushed all in, and Gimble beat me into the pot.

We turned over our cards. Gimble’s were the king and queen of hearts, which meant he only had trips. I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I felt a grin stretch across my face.

Reaching to rake in the pot, Gimble noticed my expression and hesitated. “What?” he asked in that scratchy voice.

“This.” I threw the Thunderbird, and this time, I put everything I had into it. I slammed it down on the tabletop like a sledgehammer.

Except, not a physical sledgehammer. It didn’t make the table break or even jiggle. Nobody’s chip stacks fell over. But all the other players felt it, and jerked back in their chairs. The king of spades turned into the king of clubs, and this time, it stayed that way.

I jumped up and stabbed my finger at it. Not the best poker manners, but I was excited. “I’ve got a flush, and that’s my pot!”

Gimble froze, not taking the chips, but not pulling his segmented tin hands back, either. Over the course of the night, he’d won enough and I’d lost enough that he’d had me covered. But not by much. Giving up this pot would cripple him.

“I felt you use magic,” he said. “I don’t know what you did with it. Maybe you changed the suit of the card.”

“Bullshit. You all know what the Pharaoh was doing. You were all in on it. But if I have to prove it more than I have already, let’s go through the deck. If I changed the card, there’ll be an extra king of clubs and no king of spades. If I just changed it back to what it really is, then there’ll be one of everything.”

Wotan shoved back from the table. “So you accuse us all of cheating?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, looking him in the eye not because it was easy but because something told me I’d better not flinch. “I understand it’s just part of the game the way you assholes play it. But you’re caught now. Let it go.”

He stood up. And up. Damn, he was big. “We don’t have to ‘let it go,’” he said, “if we dispute the claim.”

“I thought you guys cared about your reputations,” I said. “You’re going to look bad enough when the story goes around that you all teamed up to cheat a newbie. It’ll be worse if people hear that when I outsmarted you, you jumped me, four on one again, and murdered me because of it. Talk about bad sportsmanship! Who’s going to respect you after that? Who’s going to want to play with you?”

The Pharaoh chuckled in the ghostly whisper that was all the voice he had left. “The young man has a point. There’s gamesmanship, and then there’s mere brutality.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Wotan snarled. “Do you really think anybody’s going to care that we put an upstart human in his place?”

Timon stood up. “They will when they hear the full story,” he said.

Wotan sneered. “From who? You? Everybody hates you, and after he’s gone, you won’t be a lord anymore. What you say won’t mean shit to anybody.”

“What about what I say?” said a female voice.

We all turned our heads. Queen was standing in the doorway with white, glistening little creatures crawling over her body, and more scuttling around her feet. The things looked soft, like some kind of larvae, which I guess they kind of were. But if you looked close, you could make out the human shape of the heads.

A couple of Queen’s maids stood behind her. They had baby bug people crawling on them, too.

The Pharaoh chuckled again. “My dear lady. I assumed you’d returned home to complete the blessed event.”

“I asked Lord Timon to move me to a nice, quiet part of the hotel,” Queen answered. “Because I was still interested in knowing how the tournament would go.”

“And in getting back at me if the opportunity presented itself?” the mummy asked.

“Yes,” said Queen. One of her four hands gently caught a larva that was trying to clamber up onto her face. “What you did to me was… inappropriate even by our standards. And I promise you that if this human dies now, like this, I will tell all our peers just how lacking in grace and finesse the four of you truly are.”

Now it was Leticia’s turn to chortle. “Well, goodness. We can’t have that.” She winked at me.

“No,” said the Pharaoh. “I daresay we can’t.”

Gimble made a raspy noise that might have been his version of a sigh. He finally pulled his hands back and left the pot to me.

Wotan raked the three of them with his glare. “I can’t believe this. Who cares what people say?”

“Well,” Leticia said, “it’s more hurtful when you understand all the words.”

Wotan clenched his fists and shuddered. I winced, expecting another furniture-smashing tantrum if not worse. But then he got himself under control and just growled, “This isn’t over. Between me and any of you.” He threw himself back down in his chair. “Someone, deal!”

Leticia shuffled. The Pharaoh made a show of moving his cigarette case and lighter off to the side, where they couldn’t reflect the cards when he dealt. Queen, her maids, and the babies went to join the spectators.

As I pulled in the chips from the center of the table, I said, “When Gimble got caught cheating before, he had to post an extra big blind six times in a row. Since that last hand was rigged for his benefit, he should do it again. And so should the guy who did the rigging.”

The Pharaoh smiled around his cheroot. “I concede, that’s fair.”

It was also lights out for Gimble. The penalty ate up the few chips he had left in nothing flat. He made a move because he had to, everybody called, and Wotan knocked him out with a pair of sevens.

Gimble stood up and said, “Nice game, everyone.” Then he offered me his hand.

I hesitated, wondered if this was his idea of a joke, then decided the hell with it and shook with him. This time, nothing jabbed me. He shook with the others, too, and then headed over to sit with Queen. A squirrel guy came scurrying to see if he wanted anything.

As the rest of us played on, I could tell almost immediately that things were different. Everybody was playing against everybody. They weren’t all just gunning for me anymore. That trick had failed, and, shifting gears as fast as usual, each of them had moved on to the next strategy. I still flashed the Thunderbird once in a while, just to be on the safe side, but the cards stayed the same.

At dawn, we all had about the same number of chips. I stood up, yawned-even though I’d gotten up late, it had still been one hell of a long day-and then headed over to where Queen and Gimble were sitting.

Away from the table, the light was dim. I was careful not to step on any of the grub babies on the floor.