Tommo & Hawk (24 page)

I turns to Hawk suddenly. 'Watch him tomorrow night. Forget the others. Watch if de Silva does anything different when he asks to see someone's hand. Watch him when he folds. Anything, you hear? Clears his throat, touches his nose or ear lobe, crosses his legs, wiggles his foot, sniffs, bites his nail, touches his eyebrow, runs his tongue over his lips. The smallest thing! Fingers his moustache, twirls it, taps his knee or the table, if he does anything before he makes his play. It just could be we've got a wild card in our midst.'

'What if he doesn't do anything?'

'Don't worry, he will. He can't help but show his excitement, though he fights with all his might not to show it. Look for his gesture. I promise it'll be there, it always is. Remember what Ikey said, "The flats be the other person in each of us." Outside de Silva be the calm one, inside he's got Mexican jumping beans in his stomach. Now listen well, Hawk. The lamplight be behind you and throws the shadow of all of us against the far wall where your head is the tallest in the outline. When you sees de Silva make whatever sign it is, clear your throat once, wait a moment, then lift your hand to your head as though to scratch your noggin, leaving one finger in the air. I'll see your sign in the shadow.'

Hawk grins and I know he is glad he has a part to play. There's hope for the lad yet, I thinks. A little corruption will do him the world o' good. Something to lighten up that heavy bloody conscience he's always carrying around.

As soon as his guests have gone, Nottingham is in to see us and loses no time in telling us of his extreme displeasure at me performance. He calls me a wee lad what couldn't win at a game o' marbles. He cannot trust me to win and demands that he take me place at the table and play with our stake. Of course we refuse, but after much argument and cussing from our friend, Hawk agrees to advance him our last five pounds against the fifty promised if we should win, an outcome which Nottingham seriously doubts. He jumps at the offer of having a stake in the game and leaves us a bit happier.

I has not told Hawk that I thought Nottingham would demand to sit in on the second game, nor how well this would suit us. But he has worked it out for himself. The lad is definitely progressing!

'That were well done!' I says to him after the gaoler has left.

'What was?'

'Bringing the bastard into the game!'

'What do you mean? We had no choice!' Hawk says. 'He was threatening to cancel the game tonight and we are down nearly fifteen quid!'

I spoke too soon. Hawk will ever be an innocent. Nottingham, as I expected, be just arrogant enough to believe he may save the situation if he should take me place at the table. As Ikey were fond o' saying, 'A compulsive gambler always feels at his luckiest when he watches someone else lose and very soon convinces himself that it will go different for him. This be just the perfect time to invite him into your game, my dears.'

'Right,' I says, trying not to laugh at Hawk. 'You done well.'

Hawk knows he's got the wrong end of the stick but not why. He shakes his head. 'What is it, Tommo?'

'You don't know, do you?' I laughs. 'Letting Nottingham into the game were a stroke o' genius.'

'It was? How so?' He is even more confused.

'Before the night be out I'll vouch we will halve our debt to him,' says I.

*

I lies awake the rest of the night, trying to work out what is going on. Finally I reckons there is only one way that everything fits. I knows I got to be careful not to imagine what isn't, nor see coincidence for someone's clever and deliberate ploy, what's easy enough to do when playing cards. By morning I realise there can be only one explanation. The Portugee whaling captain and Nottingham are in a scam together.

This seems most strange, and I don't wish to explain it to Hawk, for there is too much speculation involved and Hawk is one to work with the facts alone. But in me mind I see it clear as day. Nottingham was harping on a bit too much about playing himself. At first I'd thought his whingeing about me abilities with the cards were 'cause he be a compulsive gambler who thinks he can do better. Nottingham wants me to think this, but his real purpose is in fact to lose, so that he cannot be seen to be in league with de Silva. He will lose to me because it is a debt he can deduct from what we already owes him, and still we will be in debt to him. Now I feels sure that the reason de Silva has agreed to pay for new cards is that he will first mark 'em for himself.

Nottingham, I realises, has never believed I can win. Me skills with the flats he has seen as simply a young lad grown over-confident and showing off some trick. The gaoler just can't bring himself to believe that a 'wee lad' can take on the great de Silva and win. Tricks I may have, but five-card draw, he knows, is much more than sleight of hand.

How Nottingham knows of de Silva's skill, I don't know. But I swears the other four, what are also locals, ain't in the know, for they treats him too obviously as a stranger. I remember how very careful Nottingham were when making the introductions to say he were newly acquainted with the whaling captain, what he claimed had sailed into Kororareka only the previous day. If de Silva cleans up, Nottingham will say he thought the captain were just another patsy-mark off a whaling ship and, at the same time, point out that he too has been a victim of this cunning poker pirate.

Captain de Silva is certainly the best poker player of the five, and, I expects, also a master at relocation if it be necessary, though I have not observed him at this. Last night he lay low and watched the other players, so as to take greater advantage of them tonight. This is the sign of a very good poker player and a professional gambler. If he is playing with a marked deck this will not harm his confidence either.

By losing last night, I've shown Nottingham that he were right about me, that I does not possess the skill to win the fifty sovs required for our freedom. He thinks of me as the fool in the school, but still with a stake o' five pounds to lose in the second game and also what Hawk has loaned to him. Mrs Barrett, he knows, is the hasty type, what will think he is going through a lucky streak and so bring last night's winnings back to the table. Hori Hura, Maple and Syrup will argue to themselves that, if they can win when they is not entirely sober, there will be easy pickings to be had when their heads be clearer.

Nottingham, I feel sure, thinks that before the evening is out the Portugee captain will take all Hawk's money and Mrs Barrett's, the Hairy Horror's and the Parkhurst boys' as well - a clean sweep. I'd wager that the plan is to let Mrs Barrett lose all he made last night 'cept for his original stake and perhaps a trifle more. Then, before taking this also, de Silva will allow him to be last to fold from the game. A local player will have had a series o' good wins, so proving the game straight, despite the visiting captain surprising us all with his amazing skill.

I takes me hat off to Nottingham. It is well thought out. He has made only one mistake in all this. He knows that in the first game de Silva has played to hide his skill, but he don't know that the same is true of me. The fact that he has managed to get Hawk to stake him the five pounds to partake in the second game will only convince him of our callowness. Nottingham must feel himself a pretty clever fellow all 'round. He will still deliver Hawk and me to the law in Auckland without tarnishin' his name as a policeman, gaoler and servant o' the queen. What's more, he will do so at a profit to himself!

Me only concern therefore regards de Silva. Will he buy Nottingham's theory that I be just a brash lad? Or does he see me as his equal and therefore dangerous? If this be the case, he will be most wary and on his guard tonight. I decides to continue acting the amateur and show too much excitement when I chance to win. There is one last thing: if the new cards supplied by Nottingham be marked it will confirm that Nottingham and de Silva be in this together.

*

Well the first thing I gets right is that I has picked Nottingham for a compulsive gambler. In our game tonight, he loses his five-pound stake in the time it takes me to win ten pounds. I makes a right fuss each time I win a pound, as if I am a silly child what can't believe his good fortune. I even lend Nottingham five pounds against his promissory note.

Meanwhile Hawk, what through his years of being dumb has developed the habit of keen observation, soon sees a pattern emerging in the Portugee captain. Each time de Silva holds a good hand or has relocated a card, he taps the tip of his left whisker. It be the tiniest gesture but it be there. Hawk clears his throat, pauses, then scratches his head and his finger rises above the shadow thrown across the wall in front of me. I soon gets the drift and refrains from calling de Silva whenever he has a strong hand.

Nottingham soon takes out another IOU from me and then another, 'til he owes me twenty pounds. I ain't yet certain that the decks are marked but know that if they are, Nottingham cannot read them and the marking method be de Silva's own. When Nottingham asks one last time for credit, I refuse and he is the first to be forced out of the game, amid much mockery.

I sense his fury, though I am still playing the lucky clown, with me tongue sticking out from the corner of me mouth like some country yokel. I win a little then lose it again and then win a little more, all the while holding me own. De Silva is winning slowly but surely at the expense of the four local lads and is gradually wearing down the weaker players. This is the ploy I would meself use in his position. My mission at present is simply to stay in the game and match me skill with the whaling captain, letting him slowly build his winnings at the expense of the others while I build me own.

Three hours into the game and all the locals is cleaned out. But the process o' taking their money has been played with much skill by de Silva and, if I may say so, yours truly. We raise 'em in small amounts to suck them in and so keep them in the game right to the end of their money. They has all committed considerable more pounds above their previous night's winnings and it is a pretty example of how to empty an opponent's pockets. I exclaims at each de Silva win so that the attention is taken away from me when I too win a hand. It is joyous clever poker, for each of the locals is made to believe that at any moment their luck will change for the better while they is being drained of every penny they possess.

I admires de Silva's patience and skill and he now has a large amount of gelt in front of him. Although I has been winning and losing steadily I am still only fifteen pounds ahead, so the remainder of the winnings sit in an untidy pile in front of the captain - by my reckoning, nearly fifty pounds. It is now only him and me as we continues to play. I am long since convinced the deck is on the straight and has not been shaved or marked. I'm playing against a very clever fellow, a master at the game o' five-card draw.

De Silva will challenge all me wits, but I am confident that me talents are sufficient to match his and perhaps a little more. I make sure that I seems no different in appearance and skill to the others, just fortunate to have lasted in the game as long as I have. I doesn't have the funds I will need to take him on if he should want to raise the stakes. But he plays me the same as them, raising me only small amounts.

Gradually, though, I starts to work up the stakes while sustaining some narrow losses to him, so that those what watches us groans and exclaims at me bad luck and grows excited as I win. I don't know if they see that I lose with a small bet and win with a larger one, for they's took to drowning their sorrows at their own losses. I reckon that if you asked them, they would say that it be only a matter of time before the whaling captain has me cooked as a plump bird, ready to be carved up and eaten for his dinner.

But I am playing well and have clawed back half of de Silva's winnings, though he is still much the favourite and has not yet lost his confidence. He is touching his whisker more frequently and Hawk is practically took to having a fit o' coughing. Any observer of his fingers would think the lice in his hair be biting most vicious tonight.

De Silva is just beginning to be of two minds about me. He is far from a fool and I know he will soon see that he is against a superior player, or at the least, a player to match his every skill. Then he will panic and try to end the game.

At last we reaches the stage where I feel that if de Silva gets one truly big hand he will grow impatient and risk everything. I can see that he has finally worked out what is happening. He is angry at me for winning or losing each time by only a very small difference in cards and so encouraging his ignorance of me true ability. He thinks he deserves to win, so soon he will make his big move when he holds an unbeatable hand.

It is now that I must cold-deck him. The moment has come, there will never be a better one, to substitute the deck concealed on me person for the one on the table. The deck be already stacked and awaiting its chance. Up to this point Hawk's signals have kept me out of trouble and I has proved the better player, but now I needs extra luck, a deck stacked for me and not for the captain.

It's my turn to deal and, using the stacked deck, I deal de Silva a truly high hand, a medium running flush. I can almost hear his inward sigh of relief. God Himself has dealt him a hand he knows cannot be beaten. So the Portugee captain raises the pot by five pounds and I does the same; he bets another five pounds, and I raises him again. He would teach me a lesson, and puts down another five. I does the same. Now he can do nothing but fold or keep raising me. His temper is rising. He cannot believe his hand can be beaten and he must punish me. He raises again. Soon I have but five pounds left on the table in front of me and de Silva ten. De Silva's eyes are shining, he has lost his reason and now thinks only of the kill. He wants the lot, and with it my humiliation. He raises me five pounds. I has no option but to fold or see him, and I slowly pushes me last fiver across to join the heap o' money in the centre.

The moment me money touches the pile, de Silva is unable to restrain himself. With a huge smile what shows off his six gold teeth, and some fast babble in what I takes for Portugese, he puts down his medium running flush. His hands shake with the thrill 'cause he thinks he has won the night.