Stone Junction

He woke in the late morning. Except for a raging thirst, he felt wonderful. He was dreaming again. His luck had changed. He picked up the whiskey bottle to celebrate. Under it, side by side in the depression, were two stones, virtually identical, each a flat, smooth, elongated oval, one black, one white. He hefted them, one in each palm, then closed his hands into fists. He stood with his eyes closed, the stones warm against his palms. Bad Bobby was in trouble.

Transcription:

Denis Joyner, AMO Mobile Radio

Hang on, honey, we’re going up high! Yasss, sweetness, wrap your ears around me and I’ll get you there. Yup, and you didn’t even have to guess it, you got the DJ, the Devil Jubilee, coming at you hot and heavy on mow-beel, multiple-frequency, pirate, jack-your-ass-up, ray-dee-oooo – and oh my goodness, talk about diversity, you got me if you want me on KPER, KINK, KUZZ, KLUE, and KYJL (the only gay station in Malibu). And now that you got me, just try turning me loose.

You figure on that while I cue up tonight’s musical treat. Hold still now, cuz for the next three hours you’re gonna hear something so old, so moldy gold, you’re gonna remember back through seven lifetimes at least. Three solid hours – count ’em, Jack – of uninterrupted Voodoo Trance Jam that I recorded live, scared to death, on my recent trip to Haiti. And while you’re digging the movies on your skull walls, the DJ here is gonna be getting comfortable with a little sweet thing who just dropped by the van to discuss the price of opium in Shanghai. So I’ll catch you ’round ’bout midnight with DJ’s bedtime story and quasiphilosophy lesson, yet another installment in this metaphysical potboiler he’s beginning to suspect is his life. So spoon June’s moon and stay attuned. Be here now or there later. This has been the DJ babblin’ in your ear. Till then, all over and far out.

After he’d showered off the sand and changed clothes, Daniel found Bad Bobby where he’d said he’d be, playing Hold-’Em in Clay’s game room. Bobby had towers of neatly stacked chips in front of him, so he was either doing well or had bought a bunch. Before Daniel could say a word, Bad Bobby stood up, said to the table of players, ‘Deal me out a few hands,’ and motioned Daniel outside on the patio.

‘Daniel, we’ve blundered into Poker Heaven. There’s lawyers, producers, actors, directors, drug dealers – and they are all loaded with cash money and hot to prove they have the huevos to play no-limit Hold-’Em.’ Bad Bobby glanced around and leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘And about half of them, it’s maybe the third time they’ve played Hold-’Em in their entire life, and they didn’t learn shit from the first two. They think a pair of treys in the pocket is a mortal lock and that a kicker is some Hungarian who boots field goals for the Rams. The only reason not to be in that game is if you absolutely hate money. How much you have left in your roll?’

‘I’m down to about twenty grand.’

‘Get it in there.’

‘I’m saving it to play you.’

Bad Bobby blinked slowly, about the only sign of agitation he ever displayed. ‘Jesus, Daniel, not now.’

Daniel reminded him, trying to keep any hint of mockery from his tone, ‘“Any man, from any land; any game he can name; any amount he can count; any place, face to face; any time he can find.”’

‘You got it close to right,’ Bad Bobby acknowledged, his drawl considerably tightened. ‘Now you go find the time and come back and tell me when it is, and I’ll see if I’m available. In the meantime, I’m gonna keep on repairing the dent Guido put in my bankroll. And since I can flat fucking guarantee I won’t be available till this game breaks up, you might as well sit down and get rich. You lose your twenty grand, your credit’s good with me.’

‘Give me fifty thousand.’ Daniel was half bluffing. His credit line had always stopped at twenty-five, which Bad Bobby claimed was a safeguard against Daniel going so tilt he couldn’t recover.

But without a word Bad Bobby dug out his roll and started counting. When he ran out of bills he shook his head. He handed the wad to Daniel. ‘Only forty-seven. Little short myself.’

‘Thanks,’ Daniel said, moved that Bobby had given him his last penny. ‘I’d use mine first, but if I lost it, I’d have to borrow from you to play you heads-up, and I’d feel bad about making you gamble against your own money.’

Bad Bobby cocked his head. ‘That don’t make a drop of sense to me. It’s all money, and when it isn’t, it’s all chips. Like I told you, it’s just a way of keeping track.’

Daniel looked at him and said, ‘How do you always manage to get in the last word?’

‘Same way I usually manage to get in the last raise. Why? You want to say something?’

‘No, not really.’

‘All right, then – let’s go shear sheep.’

Good Shepherd Bobby destroyed the personal finances of a famous young actor, nearly drove a prominent Hollywood law firm into Chapter Eleven proceedings, and cost Clay Hormel a point off his next teenage horror flick. Definitely one of Bad Bobby’s better days at the office.

Daniel won eight hundred fifty dollars, or, according to a chuckling Bobby, a little less than he’d tipped his personal hostess. Daniel had been ahead almost ninety thousand. With a pair of tens in the hole, the flop had brought another ten and a pair of sevens. He slow-played it, not raising till the end, but when Bad Bobby had reraised a whopping hundred thousand, Daniel had put him on four sevens and threw his hand away. He’d been right – Bad Bobby showed the hand down when Clay Hormel, with ten-jack, called what he thought was a bluff, thus losing one percent of his profit in Torn Teenage Flesh VIII. When Bad Bobby saw that Daniel had laid down tens full, he’d nodded with respect. ‘Besides being smart, that took some real balls. The more I see of you, Daniel, the more I see a player.’

Daniel said, ‘Wait till we play the game I’m going to name. And I promise you it won’t be cards, because you’re the best.’

‘I’m looking forward to it, Daniel. I really am.’

So when the game broke up Daniel was right behind Bad Bobby as they cashed out. Daniel handed him the fifty grand he’d borrowed and said, ‘You ready?’

Bad Bobby shrugged. ‘Sure. But you don’t want me now – sweet Jesus, son, can’t you see I’m on a supreme heater? There should be flames shooting out my ass, I’m that hot.’