The Music of Chance (6 page)

“Flower.”

“—right, Flower. He came up to me and said, I like your style, son, you play a mean hand of poker. And then he went on to say that if I ever felt like getting into a friendly little game with them, I was more than welcome to drop by their house. So that’s how it happened. I told him sure, I’d love to play with them some time, and last week I called up and arranged the game for this coming Monday. That’s why I’m so burned about what happened last night. It would have been a beautiful experience, an honest-to-goodness walk down Jackpot Lane.”

“You just said ‘their house.’ Does that mean they live together?”

“You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s what I said—‘their house.’ It sounds a little strange, but I don’t think they’re a pair of fruits or anything. They’re both in their fifties, and they both used to be married. Stone’s wife died, and Flower and his
wife are divorced. They’ve each got a couple of kids, and Stone’s even a grandfather. He used to be an optometrist before he won the lottery, and Flower used to be an accountant. Real ordinary middle-class guys. They just happen to live in a twenty-room mansion and get one point three-five million tax-free dollars every year.”

“I guess you’ve been doing your homework.”

“I told you, I checked them out. I don’t like to get into games when I don’t know who I’m playing with.”

“Do you do anything besides play poker?”

“No, that’s it. I just play poker.”

“No job? Nothing to back you up if you hit a dry spell?”

“I worked in a department store once. That was the summer after I got out of high school, and they put me in the men’s shoe department. It was the pits, let me tell you, the absolute worst. Getting down on your hands and knees like some kind of dog, having to breathe in all those dirty sock smells. It used to make me want to barf. I quit after three weeks, and I haven’t had a regular job since.”

“So you do all right for yourself.”

“Yeah, I do all right. I have my ups and downs, but there’s never been anything I couldn’t handle. The main thing is I do what I want. If I lose, it’s my ass that loses. If I win, the money’s mine to keep. I don’t have to take shit from anyone.”

“You’re your own boss.”

“Right. I’m my own boss. I call my own shots.”

“You must be a pretty good player, then.”

“I’m good, but I’ve still got a ways to go. I’m talking about the great ones—your Johnny Moseses, your Amarillo Slims, your Doyle Brunsons. I want to get into the same league as those guys. You ever hear about Binion’s Horseshoe Club in Vegas? That’s where they play the World Series of Poker. In a couple of years, I think
I’ll be ready for them. That’s what I want to do. Build up enough cash to buy into that game and go head to head with the best.”

“That’s all very nice, kid. It’s good to have dreams, they help to keep a person going. But that’s for later, what you might call long-range planning. What I want to know is what you’re going to do today. We’ll be getting to New York in about an hour, and then what’s going to happen to you?”

“There’s this guy I know in Brooklyn. I’ll give him a buzz when we hit town and see if he’s in. If he is, he’ll probably put me up for a while. He’s a crazy son of a bitch, but we get along okay. Crappy Manzola. It’s a hell of a name, isn’t it? He got it when he was a kid because he had such crappy, rotten teeth. He’s got a beautiful set of false teeth now, but everyone still calls him Crappy.”

“And what happens if Crappy isn’t there?”

“The fuck if I know. I’ll think of something.”

“In other words, you don’t have a clue. You’re just going to wing it.”

“Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. I’ve been in worse places than this before.”

“I’m not worried. It’s just that something has occurred to me, and I have a feeling it might interest you.”

“Such as?”

“You told me you needed ten thousand dollars to play cards with Flower and Stone. What if I knew someone who would be willing to put up the money for you? What kind of arrangement would you be willing to make with him in return?”

“I’d pay him back as soon as the game was over. With interest.”

“This person isn’t a moneylender. He’d probably be thinking more along the lines of a business partnership.”

“And what are you, some kind of a venture capitalist or something?”

“Forget about me. I’m just a guy who drives a car. What I want to know is what kind of offer you’d be willing to make. I’m talking about percentages.”

“Shit, I don’t know. I’d pay him back the ten grand, and then I’d give him a fair share of the profits. Twenty percent, twenty-five percent, something like that.”

“That sounds a bit stingy to me. After all, this person is the one who’s taking the risk. If you don’t win, he’s the one who loses, not you. See what I mean?”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“I’m talking about an even split. Fifty percent for you, fifty percent for him. Minus the ten thousand, of course. How does that strike you? Do you think it’s fair?”

“I suppose I could live with it. If that’s the only way I get to play with those jokers, it’s probably worth it. But where do you fit into this? As far as I can tell, it’s just the two of us talking in this car. Where’s this other guy supposed to be? The one with the ten thousand dollars.”

“He’s around. It won’t be hard to find him.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. And if this guy just happens to be sitting next to me right now, what I’d like to know is why he wants to get involved in a thing like this. I mean, he doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall.”

“No reason. He just feels like it.”

“That’s not good enough. There’s got to be a reason. I won’t go for it unless I know.”

“Because he needs the money. That should be pretty obvious.”

“But he’s already got ten thousand dollars.”

“He needs more than that. And he’s running out of time. This is probably the last chance he’s going to get.”

“Yeah, okay, I can buy that. It’s what you would call a desperate situation.”

“But he’s not stupid either, Jack. He doesn’t throw his money
away on grifters. So before I talk business with you, I’ve got to make sure you’re the real thing. You might be a hell of a card player, but you also might be a bullshit artist. Before there’s any deal, I’ve got to see what you can do with my own eyes.”

“No problem, partner. Once we get to New York, I’ll show you my stuff. No problem at all. You’ll be so impressed, your mouth will drop open. I guarantee it. I’ll make the eyes fall out of your fucking head.”

N
ashe understood that he was no longer behaving like himself. He could hear the words coming out of his mouth, but even as he spoke them, he felt they were expressing someone else’s thoughts, as if he were no more than an actor performing on the stage of some imaginary theater, repeating lines that had been written for him in advance. He had never felt this way before, and the wonder of it was how little it disturbed him, how easily he slipped into playing his part. The money was the only thing that mattered, and if this foul-mouthed kid could get it for him, then Nashe was willing to risk everything to see that it happened. It was a crazy scheme, perhaps, but the risk was a motivation in itself, a leap of blind faith that would prove he was finally ready for anything that might happen to him.

At that point, Pozzi was simply a means to an end, the hole in the wall that would get him from one side to the other. He was an opportunity in the shape of a human being, a card-playing specter
whose one purpose in the world was to help Nashe win back his freedom. Once that job was finished, they would go their separate ways. Nashe was going to use him, but that did not mean he found Pozzi entirely objectionable. In spite of his wise-ass posturing, there was something fascinating about this kid, and it was hard not to grant him a sort of grudging respect. At least he had the courage of his convictions, and that was more than could be said of most people. Pozzi had taken the plunge into himself; he was improvising his life as he went along, trusting in pure wit to keep his head above water, and even after the thrashing he had just been given, he did not seem demoralized or defeated. The kid was rough around the edges, at times even obnoxious, but he exuded a confidence that Nashe found reassuring. It was still too early to know if Pozzi could be believed, of course, but considering how little time there had been for him to invent a story, considering the farfetched plausibility of the whole situation, it seemed doubtful that he was anything other than what he claimed to be. Or so Nashe assumed. One way or the other, it wouldn’t take long for him to find out.

The important thing was to appear calm, to rein in his excitement and convince Pozzi that he knew what he was doing. It wasn’t exactly that he wanted to impress him, but he instinctively felt that he had to keep the upper hand, to match the kid’s bravura with a quiet, unflinching confidence of his own. He would play the old man to Pozzi’s upstart, using the advantage he had in size and age to give off an aura of hard-earned wisdom, a steadiness that would counterbalance the kid’s nervous, impulsive manner. By the time they came to the northern reaches of the Bronx, Nashe had already settled on a plan of action. It would mean paying out a little more than he would have liked, perhaps, but in the long run he figured it would be money well spent.

The trick was not to say anything until Pozzi started asking questions, and then, when he did ask them, to be ready with good
answers. That was the surest way to control the situation: to keep the kid slightly off balance, to create the illusion that he was always one step ahead of him. Without saying a word, Nashe steered the car onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, and when Pozzi finally asked him where they were going (as they drove past Ninety-sixth Street), Nashe said: “You’re all worn out, Jack. You need some food and sleep, and I could go for a little lunch myself. We’ll check into the Plaza and take it from there.”

“You mean the Plaza Hotel?” Pozzi said.

“That’s right, the Plaza Hotel. I always stay there when I’m in New York. Any objections?”

“No objections. I was just wondering, that’s all. Sounds like a good idea to me.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Yeah, I like it. I like to do things in style. It’s good for the soul.”

They parked the car in an underground lot on East Fifty-eighth Street, removed Nashe’s bags from the trunk, and then walked around the corner to the hotel. Nashe asked for two single rooms with a connecting bath, and as he signed the register at the desk, he watched Pozzi out of the corner of his eye, noting the small, satisfied smirk on the kid’s face. That look pleased him, for it seemed to indicate that Pozzi was sufficiently awed by his good fortune to appreciate what Nashe was doing for him. It all boiled down to a question of staging. Just two hours before, Pozzi’s life had been in ruins, and now he was standing inside a palace, trying not to gawk at the opulence that surrounded him. Had the contrast been less striking, it would not have produced the desired effect, but as it was, Nashe had only to look at the kid’s twitching mouth to know that he had made his point.

They were given rooms on the seventh floor (“Lucky seven,” as Pozzi remarked in the elevator), and once the bellboy had been tipped and they were settled in, Nashe dialed room service and
ordered lunch. Two steaks, two salads, two baked potatoes, two bottles of Beck’s. Meanwhile, Pozzi was marching into the bathroom to take a shower, closing the door behind him but not bothering to lock it. Nashe took that as another good sign. He listened for a moment or two as the water sizzled against the tub, then changed into a clean white shirt and dug out the money he had transferred from the glove compartment to one of his suitcases (fourteen thousand dollars wrapped in a small plastic shopping bag). Without saying anything to Pozzi, he slipped out of the room, took the elevator down to the ground floor, and deposited thirteen thousand dollars in the hotel safe. Before going back up, he made a little detour and stopped in at the newsstand to buy a deck of cards.

Pozzi was sitting in his own room when Nashe returned. The two bathroom doors were open, and Nashe could see the kid sprawled out in an armchair, his body wrapped in two or three white towels. The Saturday-afternoon kung fu movie was playing on the television, and when Nashe poked his head in to say hello, Pozzi pointed to the set and said that maybe he should start taking lessons from Bruce Lee. “The little dude’s no bigger than I am,” he said, “but look at the way he handles those fuckers. If I knew how to do that stuff, last night never would have happened.”

“Are you feeling any better?” Nashe asked.

“My body’s all sore, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

“I guess you’ll live, then.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I might not be able to play the violin anymore, but it looks like I’m going to live.”

“The food will be here any minute. You can put on a pair of my pants if you like. After we eat, I’ll take you out to buy some new clothes.”

“That’s probably a good idea. I was just thinking it might not be so hot to push this Roman senator act too far.”