Six is a short-handed game, and so more hands were playable. Still, I decided to be a rock for at least the first hour, while I watched how everyone else was playing.
In other words, I was trying to push everything that was strange or scary out of my mind and make this just another poker game. It seemed like the best way to keep from freaking out.
And there were moments when it almost felt like a normal game. We all shielded our hole cards with one hand as we lifted the corners with the other. Or, in Queen’s case, one of the others. The decks rustled when we shuffled; the Pharaoh managed without any problem, and I wondered just how feeble and fragile he really was. Leticia waved over the girl with the backward legs and ordered an apple martini, and while I had the chance, I asked for a ginger ale. Wotan fired up a pipe the shape and nearly the size of an alto sax and added its stinking smoke to the blue haze of the mummy’s cheroots.
And, off and on, the lords chatted. They talked poker, chess, archery, and horse racing, but also games and sports I’d never heard of. They gossiped about scandals I didn’t understand and told jokes I didn’t get. Still, it was table talk, and the tone and rhythm of it felt familiar, too.
Eventually I started to relax, at least a little. Whatever the tournament involved when the players weren’t at the table-and it would have been an understatement to say that I still didn’t have much of a handle on that- between midnight and dawn, it was cards. And cards, I understood.
I started playing more hands. A couple times, I opened from late position with garbage and managed to steal the blinds. I took a chance with suited connectors, made a flush on the river, and took down a nice pot from Leticia. Who revved up the bedroom eyes and teasing smile to congratulate me.
Fifteen minutes later, I caught pocket jacks and felt pretty good about it until Wotan raised from first position, and the Pharaoh came over the top. Then I mucked, and watched cards come out that would have given me a full house. I tried to swallow my annoyance and remember that folding had still been the right play.
See, just another night at the poker table. Until Wotan jumped up out of his chair.
In a way, that was normal, too. I’d seen gamblers get mad and even violent before. But I’d never seen anybody anywhere move as fast as Wotan circled the table. It was like watching a high-speed train hurtle down the track.
I tried to scramble out of my own seat, but I was too slow. Wotan would have caught me still sitting if he’d been after me. Fortunately, he wasn’t. He lunged past me, grabbed Gimble by the arm, and jerked him to his feet.
The tin man whipped his free hand back and forth, trying to hit Wotan in the face. The hard, fast sweeps made his body clink. Snarling like a mad dog, Wotan ducked, dodged, and yanked and twisted the arm he had in his grip.
I finished getting up and backpedaled away from the fight. The Pharaoh, Queen, and Leticia did the same.
Gimble’s forearm snapped away from his elbow. Wotan stooped and banged it repeatedly on the floor. On the fourth hit, a hatch above the wrist popped open, and half a dozen aces flew out. I guessed there was probably machinery in there, too, to slide a card into Gimble’s hand when he wanted it.
Wotan roared, stood up straight, and lifted the piece of arm to smash Gimble’s head. The metal man scrambled backward. Wotan started after him.
“Wait!” I said. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just wasn’t my night to mind my own business.
Wotan ignored me like a pit bull that’s decided to maul the neighbor kid no matter what its owner thinks about it. I took a step in his direction, and then he spun around.
His eyes had turned red. Not glowing red, like taillights, but completely bloodshot, like he’d had some kind of hemorrhage. Maybe it meant he couldn’t see, but as I got ready to dodge the first swing of the detached arm, I didn’t think I was going to be that lucky.
Then Leticia said, “Please don’t!” I felt her magic even though she wasn’t aiming it at me, like the breeze of a bullet shooting past my head.
“I agree,” said the Pharaoh. If he was using magic, I couldn’t feel it. Maybe he didn’t think he had to. I’d noticed early on that all the others, even Wotan, showed him respect. “Please don’t drag the game down to that level, especially so early in the proceedings. I came to Florida to play Hold ’Em. Didn’t you?”
“Gimble cheated,” Wotan growled.
“And you caught it,” Leticia said. “You spotted it ahead of any of the rest of us, and now he’ll pay the penalty.”
“All right,” the big man said. “He is a lord. But this one.” His eyes locked on me. “A human. Shouting orders at me. Interfering.” He shuddered.
“At least for the time being,” the mummy said, “punish his impudence at the table.”
Wotan turned on his heel and started prowling around the room. Everyone gave him plenty of room. Periodically he kicked a chair, or picked one up one-handed, swung it over his head, and smashed it down. Since it seemed to be the alternative to smashing me, I had no problem with how he was working out his aggression.
Meanwhile, Gimble called for his servants. They looked like ugly cartoon squirrels walking on two legs, or maybe like crosses between squirrels and chimps. After figuring out that his elbow was trashed, they bolted on a whole new arm at the shoulder. The boss stretched it out, bent it, and twisted it around to get the feel of it.
“Is it satisfactory?” the Pharaoh asked.
“It will do,” said Gimble, nodding, or maybe that was just the usual bobbing of his head.
“And it looks like Wotan is calming down. So let’s all resume our seats.”
When we did, Gimble posted an extra big blind six times in a row, and after that, nobody treated him any differently than before. Which was more forgiving than people would have been in the games where I generally played.
The difference was that cheating was considered legitimate play in the lords’ tournament. It was just that you tried at your own risk, because if somebody caught you, he was free to play back at you however he liked. But, except for having to throw in the extra chips, once the moment was over, it was over.
Or I guessed that was the way it worked. I wasn’t sure. If the lords really didn’t think like humans, how could I be?
What I did know was that, instead of holding a grudge against Gimble, Wotan kept giving
I’d had other players try to stare me down. But generally speaking, they’d hadn’t had eyes that were still mostly red where they should have been white, and they hadn’t warmed up for the staring contest by ripping a guy’s arm off. The next time it was my deal, I fumbled the shuffle, and cards squirted out of my hands. Wotan sneered, and Queen and Gimble laughed.
That made me angry, which was good. It pushed out some of the fear. I pictured the Thunderbird, and that helped a little more, although not as much as it had against Leticia’s power. Maybe that was because she’d used actual magic. Wotan was just giving me a good look at what he really was inside.
A few hands later, I raised on the button with ace-ten suited. Queen folded, and Wotan said, “All in.”
He was still the chip leader, which meant he was really putting
But he went on putting me all in whenever the play was such that he could be pretty sure it would just be him and me in the pot. Which got to be more and more often. The session was almost over, and the others were more interested in protecting what they had than playing any more big hands. They didn’t mind getting out of the way and letting the two guys who had issues pound on one another.
I prayed for a premium hand. Pocket aces, kings, or even ace-king. I didn’t get one.
I wouldn’t need a great hand if I could figure out when Wotan really had something and when he was raising with trash. But I’d watched him all night and never picked up a tell. I couldn’t spot one now, either. He just threw off a kind of steady hatred.
I considered simply protecting my own stack by folding the rest of the night away. But what reason was there to think that Wotan wouldn’t play me the same way next time? Hell, if I didn’t make a stand, the others were likely to decide they could bully me, too.
It came to me that maybe
I didn’t like the idea, but I needed to remember that at this table, it was all part of the game. Why, for all I
