— he was just about even for the night. “I play all right but the odds’re still against you. Anything serious I do with money? I make sure the odds’re on my side.”
Lasky sneered. “That’s what makes you a man, for Christ’s sake. Having the balls to play even
“You tell
Lasky looked at him and snapped, “And fuck you
Keller said, “Think that means yes.” Everyone at the table — except Lasky — laughed.
The play continued with a series of big pots, Lasky and Tony being the big winners. Finally Wendall was tapped out.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here. Gentlemen… been a pleasure playing with you.” As always, he pulled a baseball cap on and ducked out the back door, looking hugely relieved he’d escaped without being arrested.
Keller’s cell phone rang and he took the call. “Yeah?… Okay. You know where, right?… See you then.” When he disconnected he lit a cigar and sat back, scanned the boy’s chips. He said to Tony. “You played good tonight. But time for you to cash in.”
“What? I’m just getting warmed up. It’s only ten.”
He nodded at his cell phone. “The big guns’ll be here in twenty minutes. You’re through for the night.”
“Whatta you mean? I want to keep playing.”
“This’s the big time. Guys I know from Chicago.”
“I’m playing fine. You said so yourself.”
“You don’t understand, Tony,” Larry Stanton said, nodding at the chips. “The whites go up to ten bucks each. The yellows’ll be two-fifty. You can’t play with stakes like that.”
“I’ve got… “He looked over his chips. “…almost forty thousand.”
“And you could lose that in three, four hands.”
“I’m not going to lose it.”
“Oh, brother,” Lasky said, rolling his eyes. “The voice of youth.”
Keller said, “In my high-stakes game, everybody comes in with a hundred large.”
“I can get it.”
“This time of night?”
“I inherited some money a few years ago. I keep a lot of it in cash for playing. I’ve got it at home — just a couple miles from here.”
“No,” Stanton said. “It’s not for you. It’s a whole different game with that much money involved.”
“Goddamn it, everybody’s treating me like a child. You’ve seen me play. I’m good, right?”
Keller fell silent. He looked at the boy’s defiant gaze and finally said, “You’re back here in a half hour with a hundred G’s, okay.”
After the boy left, Keller announced a break until the Chicago contingent arrived. Lasky went to get a sandwich and Stanton and Keller wandered into the bar proper for a couple of beers.
Stanton sipped his Newcastle and said, “Kid’s quite a player.”
“Has potential,” Keller said.
“So how bad you going to hook him? For his whole stake, the whole hundred thousand plus?”
“What’s that?”
“‘Rule number one is we play fair’?” Stanton whispered sarcastically. “What the hell was
Keller smiled and blew a stream of cigar smoke toward the ceiling of the bar. The old guy was right. Keller’d been going all the way with losing hands just to see how Tony drew cards. And the reconnaissance had been very illuminating. The boy had his strengths but the one thing he lacked was knowledge of the odds of poker. He was drawing blind. Keller was no rocket scientist but he’d worked hard over the years to learn the mathematics of the game; Tony, on the other hand, might’ve been a computer guru, but he didn’t have a clue what his chances were of drawing a flush or a full house or even a second pair. Combined with the boy’s atrocious skills at bluffing, which Keller’d spotted immediately, his ignorance of the odds made him a sitting duck.
“You’ve also been sandbagging,” Stanton said in disgust.
Score another one for Grandpa. He’d spotted that Keller had been passing on the bet and folding good hands on purpose — to build up Tony’s confidence and to make him believe that Keller was a lousy bluffer.
“You’re setting him up for a big hit.”
Keller shrugged. “I tried to talk him into walking away.”
“Bullshit,” Stanton countered. “You take a kid like that and tell ’em to leave, what’s their first reaction? To stay…. Come on, Keller, he hasn’t got that kind of money to lose.”
“He inherited a shitload of cash.”
“So you invited him into the game as soon as you found that out?”
“No, as a matter of fact, he came to
“You’re taking advantage of him.”
Keller shot back with: “Here’s my real rule number one in poker: As long as you don’t cheat you can do whatever you want to trick your opponents.”
“You going to share that rule with Tony?” Stanton asked.
“I’m going to do better than that — I’m going to give him a firsthand demonstration. He wants to learn poker? Well, this’ll be the best lesson he ever gets.”
“You think breaking him and taking his tuition money’s going to make him a better player?” Stanton asked.
“Yeah, I do. He doesn’t want to be in school anyway.”
“That’s not the point. The point is you’re an expert and he’s a boy.”
“He claims he’s a man. And one of the things about being a man is getting knocked on your ass and learning from it.”
“In penny ante, sure. But not a game like this.”
“You have a problem with this, Grandpa?” Angry, Keller turned ominously toward him.
Stanton looked away and held up his hands. “Do what you want. It’s your game. I’m just trying to be the voice of conscience.”
“If you play by the rules you’ll always have a clear conscience.”
A voice called from the doorway, Lasky’s. He said, “They’re here.”
Keller slapped Stanton on his bony shoulders. “Let’s go win some money.”
More cigar smoke was filling the back room. The source: Elliott Rothstein and Harry Piemonte, businessmen from the Windy City. Keller’d played with them several times previously but he didn’t know much about them; the two men revealed as little about their personal lives as their faces shared what cards they held. They might’ve been organized crime capos or they might have been directors of a charity for orphans. All Keller knew was they were solid players, paid their losses without griping and won without lording it over the losers.
Both men wore dark suits and expensive, tailored white shirts. Rothstein had a diamond pinkie ring and Piemonte a heavy gold bracelet. Wedding bands encircled both of their left ring fingers. They now stripped off their suit jackets, sat down at the table and were making small talk with Stanton and Lasky when Tony returned. He sat down at his place and pulled the lid off his new Starbucks, nodding at Rothstein and Piemonte.
They frowned and looked at Keller. “Who’s this?” Rothstein muttered.
“He’s okay.”
Piemonte frowned. “We got a rule, we don’t play with kids.”
Tony laughed and shoved his nerd glasses high on his nose. “You guys and your rules.” He opened an envelope and dumped out cash. He counted out a large stack and put some back into his pocket. “Hundred large,” he said to Stanton, who gave a dark look to Keller but began counting out chips for the boy.
The two new players looked at each other and silently decided to make an exception to their general rule about juveniles in poker games.
“Okay, the game is five-card draw,” Keller said. “Minimum bet fifty, ante is twenty-five.”
