Dead Man's Hand (16 page)

Looking across the table
I stared into Patrick’s eyes.  After deftly maneuvering my way through
this tournament I had managed to make it to the final showdown, with skill and
a fair amount of luck.  So how had I managed to lock myself into this
hand? It was without question the worst hand that I had played all day. 
My pocket cards were the eight of clubs and the nine of diamonds.  Even
with this being heads up, why on earth had I decided to pay for the flop with
this? It made no sense whatsoever.  I shook my head when I couldn’t stop
the feeling of disgust from bubbling up to the surface.  I had the flush draw,
but so did Patrick, and that would beat the straight draw that I held thereby
making it mostly useless.  There were better hands to have waited
for.  For the first time today I was in a foul mood because I was staring
at almost sure defeat.

I looked across the table
and saw Patrick staring right at me, his eyes laughing at my discomfort. 
He was obviously studying me, which I couldn’t quite understand as he was
clearly sitting on the winning hand.  I could fold now, but as invested as
I had allowed myself to become, this hand was my tournament.  I might be
able to go one or two more hands if I was very lucky.  Or I could play it
out to the end and show everyone just how foolish I had been chasing down a
hand that simply wouldn’t come.  Or I could… no that was not an
option.  I would not change one of my cards to get out of this.

With my only two options
laid before me, I started to weigh them again.  But, with my stubborn
refusal to lose staring right back at me I could feel the mental pressure
threatening to snap me in two like a twig.  Matt had been right, neither
of those options were acceptable to me. 
What had happened?
 
I
had been doing so well too
.  Now I was suddenly quite aware of the
knot that had formed in the pit of my stomach, and it was quickly becoming
painful.  I stopped trying to think about my situation and instead started
to work the knot out, I tried at any rate.

As I was mentally trying
to relax I caught sight of Bella up in the stands.  She had only added
fuel to my desire to win, after Patrick had managed to eliminate her.  Her
plea to deny Patrick the satisfaction of winning was perfect, since that was my
plan.  Granted the tables had been running with me and I hadn’t thought
much about making her that promise at the time.  But now that my luck had
dried up and my back was against the wall I was feeling pretty foolish for
making it.  Looking up at her now I could tell that something was
wrong.  She wasn’t watching the game, she was studying something else.

We had only talked for a
short while before the onset of this tournament, but I felt like I had gotten
to know the real her.  Since she had joined my table, I saw a new persona
that, while not entirely different, was just different enough to confuse those
who didn’t know her.  She loved
hold’em
.  I
mean, she had a passion for the game that I was certain extended to watching it
unfold before her.  Besides, I figured she had been studying my game as
well in the hope of beating me next year. But now, instead of studying me or
Patrick, she was looking at something else.  Following her gaze as best as
I could I realized that she was looking at someone else.

But who was it?  I
needed to know what was distracting her, if only to distract myself from the
mess I was in.  So in the guise of stretching my neck I managed to find
whom she was staring at, it was her uncle.  Why would she be staring at
her uncle?  She didn’t like him very much.  But then, why was her
uncle down here, instead of up with the elite?  Was that why she was
staring down at him?  Or was it because of the man he was talking
with?  And based on how the man with Dempsey looked, he wasn’t one of the
elite but more probably one of his lieutenants.  This far away, without
any of my tools, I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about, and
frankly I couldn’t hold the stretch much longer, not if I wanted to avoid my
own set of stares.

As I returned my
attention to the hand in front of me I was still able to see her out of the
corner of my eye and I thought I saw confusion on her face.  With the
slightest movement of my head I managed to get her back in my line of sight,
more or less.  Even from this distance, now that I could see her more
clearly, I was certain she was confused about something.  It was the same
look that I had seen earlier when her uncle had called for the break.  I
noticed again that she didn’t wear confusion well, it was the only emotion that
I had seen that could sour her otherwise flawless face.

But her face wasn’t the
issue here.  The problem was that today I had been following my instincts,
it’s how I had managed to get myself this far.  Up to this point, I would
have said I would be foolish to question them.  Unfortunately, my
instincts were what got me in this mess of a hand in the first place.  To
be fair I had caught flushes on the last card at least five different times
throughout the tournament, including just a few hands earlier.  But now,
the time when it mattered most; the river swept me under its surface and lady
luck, my constant companion for most of this run, was no longer there to grab
my outstretched hand.

Since I was as invested
in this hand as I was, even if I were to fold, Patrick would simply bully me
into second place.  My day came down to this unfortunate and unmatched
pair of cards and they were unable to support my weight this time.  Unless
I did something drastic this was going to be the end of the night for me, and I
doubted that my exit would be any more elegant than Bella’s had been.

Hoping to see something
different I looked, once again, at the community cards.  Nothing had
changed.  Laying in front of me were the ace, six, and nine of clubs
paired with the ace of diamonds and the eight of spades.  They sat there
mocking me as I studied them, and I seriously thought about making a change to
one of my cards.  If only I had been dealt an ace in place of one of my
cards I would have had another full house, which would give me the best chance
of winning.  With that hand the only thing that could beat my hand would
be a better full house or a straight flush.  The odds for a straight flush
were long, and I just had a feeling he wasn’t holding a full house.

The dealer looked
squarely at me and with a determined voice he prompted, “Sir, the bet is to
you.”

In that moment I made a
decision to do something incredibly stupid, not to mention something I had
decided I absolutely wouldn’t do.  I decided to chance everything. There
was simply no way I was going to let Patrick walk out of this building having
won the tournament.  “I’ll call.”  I pushed my pile of chips towards
the center of the table and asked.  “What do you have?”

With a wicked grin
splitting his face Patrick turned over both of his cards and revealed the queen
and ten of clubs.  As I sat there studying his flush, I could see
Patrick’s mocking smile.  With my index and middle fingers of my right
hand resting on my cards, I began tapping them for a moment before I drew the
bottom card.  I showed the crowd my eight of clubs and with that Patrick’s
smile began to crack.

I quickly formed an image
of the ace of spades in my mind and while retaining that image, I let my
fingers rest on the back of my nine of hearts.  I took in a deep breath
and began to quickly collect the image and poured body heat into my solitary
card and, through sheer force of will, I powered the card’s transformation into
the ace of spades.  I poured just enough heat into the transformation to
ensure that the card would retain its new identity for just about half an hour.

“Sir if you please, show
us your last card.”  The now sour-faced dealer ordered.

Well if nothing else I
was giving these people a wonderful show.  But since I really didn’t want
to annoy the dealer any more than I already had, I firmly took hold of the
corner of my last card.  Ensuring a tight grip I closed my eyes and
flipped the card over, laying it on top of my other card.  I was hoping
for a perfectly complete transformation.  And judging by the reaction of
both Patrick and the crowd I knew I had won the tournament.

Opening my eyes I first
looked down at the table and saw a perfectly formed ace of spades staring up at
me.  Then I shifted my gaze so as to see that Patrick had slumped down
into his chair, acknowledging his defeat.  The dealer shifted the pair of
aces and the eight away from him ever so slightly as he announced to
everyone.  “Aces over eights, Marcus wins the hand and the tournament.”

Forcing down my
uneasiness over changing my original card, I looked across the table and, with
a straight face and calm voice, broke the silence.  “You’re a good player
Patrick and you had quite the good run.”  Thinking back to his defeat of
Bella, my mouth couldn’t help but to throw one last dig at the man.  “By
the way I’m sorry I let you twist in the wind for so long.”

Instead of snapping back
at me, which would have been understandable, Patrick simply got up, walked
over, and offered me his hand.  In a voice that belied the venom in his
eyes, he spoke as I accepted his hand.  “I could have sworn you didn’t
have that kind of hand.  I was certain that I had an excellent read on
you.”  He paused to take in a deeper breath, “But I guess I was
wrong.  Congratulations.”  With that Patrick pulled his hand out of
mine and walked towards the bar, no doubt hoping to drown his sorrows in
something strong.

Victory in hand, no
matter how hallow, I took my eyes off of Patrick and searched the stands for
Bella.  When I found her she still had a glazed look of confusion
imprinted upon her face.  Now that I had won I didn’t care if people
watched me follow her gaze, so I did and once more, followed it to her
uncle.  This time he was talking to another of his men.  They seemed
to be very calm and I couldn’t figure out what her uncle was doing to make her so
unnerved. Truth be told, I was just a little too preoccupied with enjoying my
victory—despite transforming my one card—to try and work out any kind of
puzzle.  I plucked a five thousand dollar chip from my stack and in one
fluid motion, tossed it to the sour faced dealer.  “I hope you can cash
that in.”

As the chip landed in the
thug’s left hand, I thought I saw the briefest of smiles before he
replied.  “Thank you sir.”  With a slight nod of thanks he stuffed
the chip into his vest and started to collect the few cards that were on the
table before shuffling them, as if he had nothing else in the world to do.

Before I could make it a
step away from the table Dempsey walked up to me and enveloping my hand with
his own as he spoke with a reserved firmness.  “Congratulations,
Marcus.  That was quite the display you put on for us.  I can’t say
it was sportsmanly to let Patrick think he had won, but it was a good show.”

I had little choice but
to tighten my grip on his hand and widen my smile as I replied to his
comment.  “Thank you, sir.”  Looking past Dempsey and towards the
dealer I figured I should ask if my kindness was acceptable.  “By the way
will he be able to keep that?”

Without turning to look
at the dealer Dempsey answered my question, “People tip my workers every
year.  But only those from the final table can share any real
wealth.  You just gave that man five thousand dollars from your winnings.”

I thought about that for
a second but just shrugged as I spoke without thinking, “I can live with
that.  After all if he hadn’t dealt the hand just right I wouldn’t have
won.”  I almost broke down right there but, for once, I managed to keep my
mouth shut.

With eyes that seemed to
scream that he could see past my façade, Dempsey looked down his nose at me as he
replied, “Don’t sell yourself short there Marcus.  You were able to
convince Patrick to march into that hand with what turned out to be inferior
cards.”  He broke eye contact with me in order to glance over at Patrick,
who was now deep into his drink. While continuing to watch Patrick take robotic
gulps from his drink, Marcus continued, “That’s not a small achievement, he was
expecting to win this year.”

“What do you mean?”

With a slight grin
Dempsey looked back at me as he answered, “He was quite upset about losing last
year.”  I swear the man’s smile spread with each word until I was
surprised he could speak at all.  “I will say he looks to be taking his
defeat better this year.”

“Last year…”  I
managed to utter, but was unable to say anything else because that was when I
remembered the conversation I had with Bella.  “He lost to your niece
didn’t he?”  I asked without meeting Dempsey’s eyes.

I could feel the man’s
attention acutely focus upon me before nodding, “That’s right she did beat him
last year.  And she managed to do it in a similar way, though she lacked
your flair for the dramatic.”

With trepidation I
stated, “It’s hard to win a tournament like this year after year.”

With a shrug Dempsey
countered, “True enough.  But he had managed to do it for the previous
three years.  He had been hoping that last year was simply an anomaly, but
you managed to knock him off yet again.  Ever since he started coming to
my tournaments he’s managed to make his way to the final table, and more often
than not he has reached the final showdown.”