Step to the Graveyard Easy (5 page)

The play started off slow, on the conservative side, the way the bigger-money games among strangers usually do. Feeling one another out. Cape paid particular attention to a different man through each of the first six hands—faces, eyes, body language, the way he held his cards, when he bet and how much and how often, if and when he folded. Mitch from East Rutherford looked to be the strongest player. Scott from Cleveland and Charley from Seattle were scatterguns, more interested in drinking and yacking than working at their games. Boone was the hardest to read—loose but casual, not drinking much, folding quickly unless he had the cards to back up a bet, raising only once. The sandbagging, check-and-raise type.

It was forty minutes before Cape won a small pot. Another thirty minutes before he won a second. Bad cards again, the kind of streak you had to just ride out. The play had picked up by then—larger bets, a couple of pots that exceeded three hundred each. Winners so far were Mitch from East Rutherford and Boone, who claimed both of the three-hundred-plus pots: kings full in a hand of draw dealt by Charley from Seattle, trip aces in five-card stud dealt by Joe from St. Louis.

Cape lost slowly but steadily. His buy-in five hundred was gone in less than two hours; another five hundred went even faster. Scott from Cleveland, Charley from Seattle, and Perry from Sarasota were even bigger losers. Mitch from East Rutherford kept winning. So did Boone. Four or five medium-size pots, another fat one that Cape dropped out of halfway through the betting. He figured his three queens wouldn’t be enough, and he was right.
Boone had an ace-high spade flush to Charley-from-Seattle’s small straight.

“Boone,” Charley said, “you’re just plain-ass lucky. Drop-dead gorgeous woman like Tanya for a sister, and here you win all the big pots.”

Perry from Sarasota said dreamily, “Amen on both counts.”

Boone said, grinning, “Hell, if I was really lucky, I’d win every pot and Tanya’d be my wife instead of my sister.”

Everybody laughed except Cape.

Not long after midnight, Charley from Seattle quit the game. He was sloppy drunk by then and down better than twenty-four hundred, by Cape’s count. Forty minutes later there were just five of them; Perry from Sarasota cashed out at around nineteen hundred in the hole. Mitch from East Rutherford began to lose a little; Joe from St. Louis began to win a little. Scott from Cleveland kept throwing good money after bad, drinking Scotch and bitching the whole time; he was into the game for four thousand by then. Cape’s losses were close to fifteen hundred. Boone remained the heavy winner.

Biggest pot of the night came at one-thirty, on a hand of seven-card stud dealt by Joe from St. Louis. Cape caught wired aces in the hole, a pair of sevens faceup and a third seven on his last down card. Mitch from East Rutherford had three hearts showing, and the way he bet after his last down card, he had two more hearts buried. Scott from Cleveland stayed in for a while with what was probably trips. Boone was the fourth man in; he had a pair of fours showing, nothing else.

They went back and forth, raising, Boone bumping every time. Scott from Cleveland dropped out. Mitch from East Rutherford showed less and less confidence in his heart flush, finally dropped out too.

“Just you and me, Matt,” Boone said cheerfully. “Raise you another twenty.”

Cape raised him back, got another raise in return. “All right,” he said. He slid his last white chip into the pot. “Call.”

Boone flipped over two of his hole cards. “Four times four.”

“Yeah. What I figured.”

“Your pot if you got more sevens hidden there.”

“Just a boat full of losers. It’s yours.”

“Whoo-ee.” Boone grinned all over his chubby face, began raking in the chips. “This really is my night. I haven’t had the cards run this hot for me in years.”

Cape slid his hand together, picked it up, made as if to toss it onto the fan of other discards. Instead, leaning back slightly, he let his elbow bang against the edge of the table and the cards slide from his fingers into his lap, off onto the floor. He said as if he were annoyed with himself, “Dammit, I can’t do anything right tonight,” and scraped his chair back.

When he hunched over and leaned down, he did two things. The ace of diamonds was still in his lap; he palmed it with his left hand. With his right he picked up one of the sevens and bent it nearly in half. “Shit!” he said as he straightened. “Now look what I did.” He tossed the bent seven onto the table a couple of seconds before he dropped the remaining five cards onto the discard pile. The others looked at the damaged seven; their faces said they didn’t notice the missing ace.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Boone said. “No harm done. We still got one more virgin deck.”

Cape played two hands with the new deck, losing both. On the third deal he folded a pair of jacks and said, “I’ve got to take a leak. Deal me out of the next one.”

In the bathroom, with the door locked, he took the diamond ace out of his pocket and held it up to the bright fluorescent light above the sink. He studied the front, turned it over, and studied the back. Then he tucked the card into his wallet, went back out to the table.

The five of them played for another ten minutes, Cape folding all but the last hand. He had just enough chips to make one bet, one raise, on his pair of kings. When Boone bumped him, he folded again. He was down exactly seventeen hundred.

“That’s it for me,” he said.

A few seconds later Joe from St. Louis lost yet another pot to Boone. He threw his cards down in disgust. “I’m done, too. Just not my night.”

“Same here,” Scott from Cleveland said. “Christ, I gotta be close to four thousand in the crapper.”

“Get it back tomorrow night,” Boone said. “My run of luck can’t hold, and yours is bound to change.”

“Uh-uh. Wife finds out how much I lost already…”

“You win it back, shell never know, right?” Boone looked at Cape. “How about you, Matt? You want to try goosing Lady Luck again tomorrow night?”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Do that. If you decide to play, give me a ring and I’ll make sure you have a seat. If not… well, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Has it?”

“Sure. For me so far.” He laughed. “No kidding, I hope you can make it. Really like to see you again.”

“You will,” Cape said. “You can bet on it.”

Cape rattled knuckles on the door marked 407. Not loud—it was close to 3:00 A.M. by his watch—but steadily, in a low staccato beat. In less than a minute he got a wary response.

“Who is it?”

He said, “Hotel security,” in a voice pitched differently than his own.

No response for a time. Then, “It’s the middle of the night. What do you want?”

“Security matter. Open the door, please.”

“Not until you tell me what you want.”

“In private, Miss Judson. Don’t make me use my passkey. Or call the city police.”

After that, she didn’t have much choice. The chain jangled, and she released the deadbolt.

As soon as the door cracked inward, Cape laid his shoulder against it and shoved. She backpedaled, off balance, cursing. He went in and shut the door behind him.

“You,” she said, spitting the word as she recognized him. “You son of a bitch, what’s the idea?”

This room was a large single, with a shallow entrance foyer. The bedside lamp was lit, and the TV was on low volume, some
movie with sappy music and a woman weeping. Tanya wore a lime-green silk robe, knee-length and gap-necked. With her makeup scrubbed off and her blond hair rumpled, she looked about nineteen.

She backed up near the bed, saying, “Come near me, and I’ll scream the house down. You won’t have enough time to yank it out, much less get it up.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then what the hell do you want?”

“Seventeen hundred dollars.”

“… What?”

“You heard me. That’s how much I lost tonight. Correction—that’s how much you and Boone stole from me tonight.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. The poker con the two of you are running.”

“Con? What do you mean, con?”

“He’s the jolly mechanic, you’re the sexpot roper and steerer. Insurance agent and graphic artist, hell. Couple of grifters working the convention circuit.”

“You’re crazy. Or high on something.”

“I’ll bet the local cops won’t think so.”

Nothing changed in her expression. Poker face as practiced as Boone’s. She wasn’t new at the game; seasoned veteran at twenty-five or so. “If you think you’ve been cheated, why didn’t you call the police?”

“Too much hassle. I don’t have the time for it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re wanted?”

“I won’t, because I’m not.”

“You say anything to Boone, the other players?”

“No. Same reason I didn’t notify hotel security or the city law. My freedom’s more important to me than putting a couple of scam artists out of commission.”

“Why come here, then? I suppose the night clerk told you where to find me.”

“Bellboy. He thinks you’re a stone fox.”

“Fuck the bellboy. Where’s Boone? My God, you didn’t do anything to him?”

“Not yet. He’s probably counting the take right now.”

“You just want your money back, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“And how much more?”

“Nothing more, not for me,” Cape said. “The other five marks get theirs back, too—that’s the second part of the deal.”

“What deal?”

“Me keeping my mouth shut, letting the two of you off the hook.”

“They all lost except Boone, is that what you’re saying?”

“Lost big, a couple of them.”

“I don’t believe he cheated any of you. My brother’s honest, you can’t prove otherwise.”

“Can’t I?”

“I know how he plays poker. Brand-new sealed decks, and the deal passes every hand. How could he cheat six men in that kind of game?”

“Marked cards,” Cape said.

“Using sealed decks? That’s impossible.”

He took the ace of diamonds from his wallet, showed it to her. “I palmed this from one of those sealed decks. It’s marked, all right. I checked to make sure. What’s known as shade work, right?”

Openmouthed stare.

“Let’s see if I’ve got the gaff right,” Cape said. “What you do is buy some decks of Bicycle cards, one of the most common brands. Blue-backs or red-backs, either one. You open the cellophane wrapper along the bottom of the box, taking care not to damage the manufacturer’s stamp on top. Slide the box out, use a razor blade to pry the glued flaps apart along one side. Then dilute blue or red aniline dye with alcohol until you’ve got the lightest possible tint, wash it over the red or blue portion of each card back with a camel’s-hair brush—tinting the white part just enough in different spots so you can see the shading if you know it’s there. How am I doing so far?”

Tanya kept on staring at him, not saying anything. The poker face had begun to lose a little of its passivity.

“Once you’ve got all the cards marked, you put them back in the box and reseal the flaps with rubber cement. Slip the box back into the cellophane sleeve, refold the sleeve ends along the original creases, and reseal them with a drop of glue. Do the job right, nobody
can tell the package has been tampered with. Then when you get up a game, you make sure one of your vies opens the sealed deck. You also make sure the lighting isn’t too good so nobody can spot the shading on the cards except you.”

She said, “Jesus. How did you—?”

“I told you at the Drake, I’ve always been interested in gambling. I also read a lot.”

She sat down on the bed next to the nightstand. “You mind if I have a cigarette?” Without waiting for an answer, she reached out to open the nightstand drawer.

Cape was across the room in five long, fast strides. He caught her wrist just as her hand came out of the drawer, twisted it, and made her yell and relax her grip. He wrenched the gun out of her fingers, backed away quickly to avoid the kick she launched at him.

“You son of a bitch!”

“You already called me that. Try a new one.”

She rubbed her wrist, panting a little. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”

Cape looked at the gun. Flat, lightweight automatic, toy-size. The safety was off; he put it on and managed to eject the clip. Five cartridges, a full load. Damn deadly toy.

Before he dropped it into his jacket pocket, he said, “What were you going to do? Shoot me for a prowler?”

“No.”

“Threaten me?”

“Something like that.”

“It wouldn’t have worked.”

Tanya shrugged, watching him through lowered lids. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, knees together, the folds of her robe drawn across her thighs. She drew back slightly, parting her legs so the robe fell away. Underneath she was naked. Slowly she lifted one leg, crossed it over the other. Sharon Stone in
Basic Instinct.

He gave her a mirthless grin. “That won’t work either.”

“What won’t?”

“First you try bluffing, then the gun, now sex. I’m not interested.”

“I could make you interested.”

“Before tonight you might have. Not anymore.”