Bobby’s hands. Always the black, though often he’d point to the other hand and guess white so Bobby wouldn’t suspect he’d somehow keyed in.
Daniel didn’t know how he knew, but it didn’t surprise him that he did. Wild Bill had hammered into his head that life was full of critical information that refused to pass through the rational circuits of knowledge. Or as Bad Bobby put it later, as he peeled off a hundred hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Daniel, ‘Simple arithmetic will tell you how much you lost, but only your ass knows how bad it’s been kicked.’
BOBBY: It’s Robert. Called to tell you Daniel’s ready to move on. Beat me the first try in some version of stick gambling. Whipped me bad.
VOLTA: That didn’t take long. You must be getting old, losing your edge.
BOBBY: You were right – he’s good. He’ll stand in and take his best shot. No seasoning, of course, and he’s got a weakness for the long odds and big moves, but there’s somebody home, know what I mean, even if he’s not sure who it is.
VOLTA: Any suggestions where to send him next?
BOBBY: I don’t know. I’m not good at figuring what’s next. Have enough trouble figuring out what’s now. And Daniel’s hard to read. He’s got gamble in his blood but no heart for the road – he was burning out on the life, not the game, but you really can’t separate them. Thing I can’t figure is how he can be such a restless soul and not have a taste for the road.
VOLTA: Maybe he doesn’t have a taste for the game and can’t admit that to himself.
BOBBY: (after a pause) I don’t know. He’s either a helluva quick learner or he’s got some card sense on the natch, because in eighteen months he was holding up against some of the best, and that was starting from scratch. He don’t have to admit
VOLTA: Any indication where his interests lie?
BOBBY: He mentioned the focus was too tight in gambling. He said he wanted to expand. Maybe send him back to the mountains for a while – he says he misses them. Maybe turn him over to Slocum Wright for a couple of years to learn boats.
VOLTA: Not enough challenge.
BOBBY: Well, you got me. By the way, before my senile ol’ mind forgets it, he said to be sure and tell you he had a dream and wants to talk to you about it.
VOLTA: Tell him I’ll talk to him later, unless it’s something urgent regarding his mother.
BOBBY: Sure, but where does he go? He seems real anxious to know.
VOLTA: Probably because he’s thinking of quitting.
BOBBY: (chuckling) Haven’t we all.
VOLTA: True enough. But okay, give him these instructions. He should fly to New York two weeks from tomorrow, on the twenty-seventh. Wait in the Silver Wings bar for a man named Jean Bluer. If Bluer isn’t there by 6 p. m., he should take a taxi to the Wildwood Hotel and register as David Hull. If he hasn’t heard from Jean Bluer in three days, he should call me at the Six Rivers number.
BOBBY: Who’s this Jean Bluer? Sounds like a Frenchy.
VOLTA: A recent addition. I just decided a few seconds ago he might be the one to open a different dimension. Could take me a few days to find him, though – that’s why the convoluted and contingent instructions.
BOBBY: You have anyone lined up for me?
VOLTA: No.
BOBBY: There’s a kid named Johnny Russo that looks good. Care if I take him on for a few months?
VOLTA: Not at all. But I’m a little surprised. I thought you preferred traveling that mean ol’ hard-ass gambling highway by your lonesome.
BOBBY: Guess it turns too lonely when a man starts losing his edge. Hell, I only won about half a million this week.
VOLTA: That’s nothing. I heard some guy named Guido Caramba won seven hundred thousand in two days.
BOBBY: Probably a good thing you have me to rag, otherwise you’d go around putting the boots to puppies. You know, Volta, any time you think you know something about playing cards, I’m sure you can find me and show me how it’s done.
VOLTA: You know I don’t gamble, Robert.
BOBBY: Right. And Pancho Villa couldn’t hide a pony.
Daniel sat in the Silver Wings Bar at Kennedy International drinking whiskey and waiting for Jean Bluer. He’d parted company with Bad Bobby in San Francisco twelve days earlier and hiked and fished in the Sierras till his departure for New York. He’d made his flight in Oakland with barely enough time to cadge a shower in the employees’ lounge and change his smoke-tanged clothes. Now, seven hours later, he was on the other side of the continent, his head still in the Sierra high country, New York at his feet, his heart dislocated and confused.
In the mountains he’d considered giving up his training. He didn’t feel it was going anywhere. Every teacher had demanded strict attention and ferocious concentration, but to no real point, or none he wanted. That, he decided as he ordered another whiskey, was the problem: He didn’t know what he wanted. He had no family, no lovers, no close friends. His vocational skills, essentially solitary occupations, were illegal in most states. Growing dope, cracking safes, and playing poker were potentially lucrative, and, if nothing else, he was comfortable with risk. The ten days in the Sierras hadn’t refreshed him as he’d hoped they would. As he waited, he decided if he didn’t like Jean Bluer, or if it was more of the same work in a different form, he would ask Volta for a two-year vacation. If
