Three Moments of an Explosion (6 page)

I didn’t know if it would still be there when I got home. But I sat in my bathroom and rolled up my sleeve and there it was, waiting to be folded back into the deck so it could leave as it arrived.

“You’re going to have a long wait,” I whispered.

Four chimneys, two by two, two facing up, two down, blowing smoke in strong dark blue and black lines.

I felt shy. I put it away.

“What a game,” was all Belinda or I ever said about that night. We carried on. We won more than we lost.

I kept the card in stiff clear plastic in my wallet. I didn’t want to scuff it. Sometimes I’d take it out and glance at those block-print chimneys for a couple of seconds, until I got all anxious, as I did, and turned it over and looked for a lot longer at the back.

I’ve played with super-expensive decks as well as with the gas-station plastic. Pros aren’t that precious; mostly we use the workhorse deck produced by Bicycle, as close as you can get to a default. It’s had the same meaningless filigree on the back for years. You want choice? It comes in red or blue.

We’d been playing a red-backed Bicycle deck when I got dealt the Four of Chimneys.

I kept up my finger exercises. I listened for stories about the hidden cards. I maybe listened extra hard for stories about hands with Chimneys. I was never superstitious but I did develop one tick. I liked to hold the card against my skin. I liked to feel it pressed against me.

Before a big-pot game, I’d take my Four of Chimneys out of its little case—always with a thrill of excitement, surprise, regret and relief that it was still there—and slip it under a little band on the inside of my right forearm behind my wrist, under my shirt, a kind of simple cuff holdout. It made me feel lucky, is how I thought about it.

Some freight shipping companies put aside a few cabins for paying customers. You can cross the Atlantic that way. We got word that one of them had set up a floating big-money game. Of course we booked passage. It was expensive, even though it wasn’t as if we were tripping over pleasure-seekers or looking down from our deck onto a sculpted pool. It was a merchant ship: our view was a deck full of containers.

For two days we kept to ourselves. On the third day, before play, I was out under the sky and someone tapped me on the back.

“Kid.”

“Sugarface!”

I was astonished he was still alive. He looked almost exactly the same.

“Should have guessed I’d find you here,” he said. “Been following your career.”

Belinda liked him a lot. He flirted with her and stayed on the right side of sleazy. He told her exaggerated stories of our first meeting. He showed her the face he said I’d worn when I saw the Dowager of Bees, not even hesitating to find out whether she’d been inducted before he told the story.

In the evening I tucked my card face down into its little band on my right wrist as usual and flicked it before covering it with my shirt and jacket. We gathered in the makeshift state room and sipped mojitos while the sun went down.

Seven players. I’d sat across from all but one before: it’s not that big a world. Besides me and Belinda and Sugarface, there was a Maronite computer programmer I’d once beaten at Pig; a French publisher who’d partnered me during a devastating hand at Bridge; a South African judge known as the Cribbage Assassin; and the captain. He was a puffed-up little prick in a blue brocade shirt. He was new to all of us. We realized this whole gig was his brainchild, just so he could play big.

He named the game, of course. Texas Hold ’Em, of course. I rolled my eyes.

The Lebanese guy was weaker than I’d remembered. The judge was cautious but smart and hard to read. The publisher built up slowly with sneaky bets. Sugarface played exactly like I recalled.

Belinda was my main competition. We tore into each other.

The captain could barely play at all but he didn’t even realize. He preened. He barked at people that it was their deal, their bet, told them what they needed to win. We all pretty much hated him. His ship, his trip, his table were the only reasons we didn’t tell him to go fuck himself.

I was playing well but Belinda was playing better. She beat me with two pairs. Furious, I made one of my cards spin over my knuckles. The programmer toasted me and the judge applauded. Belinda smiled kindly and took several thousand dollars off me with an offhand bluff.

Deep night and the sky was like a massive sheet of lead. We changed the cards. The captain took a new pack from a drawer and tossed them to Sugarface.

Bicycle cards. Red-backed. Sugarface opened the packet and dealt us our two hole cards.

Usually most serious players just keep them facedown in front of them but that night I wanted to hold mine up like in a cowboy film. Pair of Threes. Good start.

We bet—we bet big—everyone stays in. Sugarface deals the flop: three community cards, faceup. A Six, a Ten, Jack of Clubs. I have a good feeling, then a bad feeling, then a good feeling. Sugarface winks. This round of betting we lose Mr. IT. I can read him easily and I’m not surprised.

Fourth shared card, the turn. Hi there, Charlemagne: the King of Hearts has been shy till now but there he is. There’s some muttering and murmuring. Belinda is rock-still while she calculates, even stiller than usual, so she’s either in good shape or bad shape and I’m guessing good. The judge goes out. Publisher blows me a kiss and follows.

Sugarface makes us wait a long time, puffing out his cheeks. In the end he joins them.

It’s me to bet, and as I consider and see the red backs of my opponents’ hands, floating like unmanned boats into my head comes the name of a hand I’ve heard about over the years.

They call it a Boiler-Room: a Ten; a Jack; a King; a Three; and the Four of Chimneys.

I start to consider what that would win me. What would be the takings from this table, not just in money. And I realize that I’m thinking with a sort of calm wonder, almost wryly,
Oh,
this
is what I’ve been waiting for
.

And as I’m thinking that, with my hands stock-still to anyone watching, my fingers are snatching my no-longer-helpful spare Three and sending it to Hell via my sleeve, and coaxing my stolen card out from under its band, toward my cuff and fingertips, a clean sleight, bringing it back up and slipping it into position, all in a fraction of a second, all unseen.

Belinda’s in, and the captain’s in, of course, which I was banking on, and I don’t care what piece of shit he’s holding, he’s not going to beat my hand—my winning hand—now. I’m ready.

The betting’s done and Sugarface deals the river, the fifth shared card. It skitters down. The lights flicker and everyone’s gasping and everything goes slow, because the last card out of the deck, the last card face up on the table, is a new color.

It’s the Four of Chimneys.

“Oh hell yes,” I hear Sugarface say, “Mon Dieu,” I hear, and “Oh my God.”

That’s Belinda.

I stare at the blue in the red and black. A shared hidden card. Everyone can have a hidden card in their hand.

The boat pitches, and for a fraction of an instant I see the night beyond the windows and it’s as if I hear a drone, as if someone’s walking on the deck, someone tall and stiff and dignified in a deep coat, smoking, looking in at us with austere curiosity, with satisfaction.

I can hear the captain saying, “What is this? What does this mean?” and Sugarface saying, “Just keep quiet and watch, and show some respect, this is your induction,” and Belinda is staring right at me, her mouth open, her eyes wide.

My frantic little fingers are fumbling deeper in my sleeve than you’d think possible but I dropped that Three to nestle I don’t know where against my skin, there’s no retrieving it, and I can’t swap it back in or its replacement back out again, and everyone can see I have two hole cards in my hand, just as I should.

And one of them’s my Four of Chimneys, like the one on the table, and there’s only ever one Four of Chimneys, if there’s ever a Four of Chimneys at all.

Sugarface is looking at me and saying, “What’s the matter, Kid?” and he looks at Belinda and down at the table and at the back of my cards and up at me and his face falls and he says, “Oh no, Kid, oh no, no, oh Kid, oh no,” and there’s more sorrow and fear in his voice than I’ve ever heard.

“What is this?” the captain blathers. “What is this card?”

I go to fold but Sugarface takes hold of my wrist.

“Kid, I don’t want to see what I think I’m going to see,” he says gently. “Judge,” he says. “Get the rule book.” He starts to pull my hand down. “I need you to look up ‘Hidden Suits,’ ” he says.

Everyone is watching my descending cards but Belinda. She’s staring at her own hand.

“I need you to look up ‘Cheating,’ ” Sugarface says. “I need you to look up ‘Sanctions.’ ”

Belinda’s cards twitch with a tiny instant motion of her fingers as with her free hand she grabs my wrist too. She’s stronger than Sugarface. Pushes my cards back up.

“I call,” she says.

“We’re mid-play,” he says.

She says, “Look up a ‘Link Evens,’ Judge.”

Even the captain’s silent while the judge turns pages. “Two Four Six Eight Ten including a Chain,” she reads out. “She can preemptive call with that. Nothing can beat it. Wins … any single object in the room she chooses.” She looks up.

“And everyone keep your paws off that prize,” Belinda says. She’s staring at the hand in my hand. “No looking, no touching, no turning. Just slide it to me face down.”

The judge looks at the cards on the table. “If she has a Two and an Eight,” she says, “she wins. But there’s a winner’s forfeit …”

“I have the Two of Hearts,” Belinda says. She sounds exhausted but she smiles at me. “And I’m holding the Eight of Chains.”

Everyone sits up.

“Wait,” I manage to whisper. “What’s the forfeit?”

No one hears me. Belinda is lowering her cards to show them.

“I win,” Belinda says.

“What is it?” I try to say.

“I win, and I choose a card as my pot,” Belinda announces.

She looks at what I’m holding as her own cards go down. She meets my eye and smiles. She could always read me. I know she’ll choose the right one.

IN THE SLOPES

McCulloch brewed a glass of tea and took it into the front room of his shop, where he found a young woman and a young man browsing. The bell had not sounded when they entered. It was fritzy.

They wore gray cargo pants with bulging pockets, rucksacks over their shoulders. McCulloch nodded at them and sat behind the counter on his high stool. He aimed the remote control at the TV on the wall and lowered the volume.

The girl smiled. “Not on our account,” she said. She was taller than her companion, dark-skinned and muscular, with long blond hair up in an artful tangle. She gave McCulloch a look of friendly, frank assessment.

“Where you from?” McCulloch said.

“Swansea.” He could hear the accent in her loud voice. “You don’t sound local yourself.”

“I am now.”

McCulloch’s shop was the converted front room of his house. Shelves covered three walls, and there were display units in the middle of the floor. The whitewash was peeling. He could see the whole interior by a mounted, curved mirror that had been there when he bought the place.

Like most of the shopkeepers, in summer he hung bright plastic balls and towels and buckets outside. He had packed them up and stacked them back in his storeroom a week before.

The young man sifted with slow attention through baskets of trinkets, toys, and bars of soap in the shapes of collaborators. McCulloch could see that his black hair was already thinning at the crown. The woman skimmed through the books for sale.

“How come you’re here?” McCulloch said.

“A dig,” she said.

“I think I heard,” McCulloch said. “In Free Bay.”

The visitors glanced at each other. “No,” the woman said. “We’re in a place called Banto.”

“I heard wrong. What’s in Banto?”

“You tell us,” she said. “Mr. Local.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Not much. Farms. About an hour away. You not been yet?”

“We only just got here,” the boy said, quietly enough that McCulloch strained to hear. “We got in late last night. We’re stocking up and heading there now.”

He brought a key ring to the counter, a twisted figurine in shoddily molded plastic.

“Four quid,” McCulloch said. The young man raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing’s made here,” the woman said. “It’s imported. You’d get it cheaper at home.”

“Yeah but that’s not the point,” he said. He counted out coins. “Jesus, Soph, you’re going to break the bank with that lot.”

“I’m not going without crisps.” She set her basket down and McCulloch rang up the goods and stacked them in paper bags.

“How long you here?” he said.

“Three weeks, me,” she said. “A month, Will. Our prof till February. Nicola Gilroy?” She looked at him for any recognition, and indicated the books he sold. There were photographs of the collaborators, cheap and outdated guides to their sites. There were speculative and absurd New-Age ruminations.

“I don’t keep up,” McCulloch said.

When the young woman opened the door the buzzer stayed silent again. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe see you.”

“Elam’s the only town, so maybe. There’s a club, ChatUp, up on Tolton.” He pointed the direction. He knew they were wondering what an unkempt man in his fifties who ran a store like this could have to tell them about clubs. “The best bar’s Coney Island. Two minutes from here. I’ll get a round in. Make up for the groceries.”

When they were gone he checked the books himself. Only two contained indices, and neither listed any Gilroy.

McCulloch stood at his entrance and looked south down the slope to the main square. The sky was still light but the dim neon of the old town was coming on. The municipality had just switched over to the winter schedule and, for a few weeks, the streetlights would start to glow pointlessly early. The streets of Elam were filling with fishermen coming up from the harbor, office workers ascending toward the parks to catch the late strong-smelling flowers.

Beyond his shop’s friendly competitors, beyond the amusement arcade, which had started its early evening
whoomp
ing as it filled with kids taking off their school ties, beyond the edge of the town, was a fringe of dark vegetation where the ground grew steeper, on the slopes of the volcano.