WORLD SERIES OF MURDER
by John
Vorhaus
c. 2009 John Vorhaus
all rights reserved
WORLD SERIES OF MURDER
By John
Vorhaus
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................ ix
1. Do Not Leave Your Cards Unattended .............................................................. 1
2. POKRPRO ....................................................................................................... 14
3. Running Bad .................................................................................................... 27
4. LUCKY-23 ...................................................................................................... 40
5. Babydoll Sedoso .............................................................................................. 47
6. Just Because You're Paranoid .......................................................................... 60
7. World Series of Dealers ................................................................................... 69
8. Headhunter Hold 'em ....................................................................................... 80
9. Mook You ........................................................................................................ 89
10. We Play Poker................................................................................................ 99
11. Poker Porn .................................................................................................... 111
12. Crimes Against Dealers ............................................................................... 125
13. High Low and Behold .................................................................................. 138
14. AK-47 .......................................................................................................... 151
15. Tetrahead...................................................................................................... 164
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16. Double or Done ............................................................................................ 174
17. Drawing Dead .............................................................................................. 187
18. Crash Course ................................................................................................ 197
19. Shuffle Up and Dead .................................................................................... 207
20. Good to Go ................................................................................................... 217
21. Heads Up ...................................................................................................... 227
22. Down to the Felt........................................................................................... 237
23. Duckwater .................................................................................................... 249
24. Vic the Tic.................................................................................................... 259
25. All-In ............................................................................................................ 269
26. Last Hand ..................................................................................................... 279
Introduction
In 1988, the Writers Guild of America went on strike and I, a journeyman sitcom
writer, had two problems: too much time on my hands and not enough money coming in.
To address the first problem, I indulged in a longstanding atavistic urge and dropped in to
the Commerce Casino, a place I had ogled from the freeway on many occasions, but
never, until the time of that strike, had the fortitude to enter. I plunked down $20 in a
seven card stud game and watched, dumbfounded and horrified, as my savvier, more
experienced opponents went through me like the proverbial freight train through the
wind.
I was hooked. Instantly, totally, hopelessly hooked.
I had found a marvelous way to fill the empty hours endowed upon me by the job
action of my union. I had not, as it happened, addressed the problem of not-enoughmoney; nor was I foolish enough to believe that I could turn myself into a good enough
poker player fast enough to fill in the then-gaping holes in my income. I needed an
alternative.
I noticed, as I slinked around the card rooms of Southern California, a new
magazine ubiquitously available in those places. It was called Card Player, and the
publisher, judging from her editorials, was a genial, sensible woman named June Field.
Since it was a new magazine, not yet set in its editorial ways, I thought there might be an
opportunity there for an eager, articulate scribe such as myself. At that point I invoked
one of my all-time favorite life's strategies, viz: If there's something you don't know how
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to do, but you'd like to find out how, find someone to pay you to learn. I had already
used this strategy effectively to acquire skills that ranged from word processing to stilt
walking. Now I turned my attention to poker.
I contacted June Field with the following somewhat shocking proposition. "I
know nothing about poker," I confessed, "but I'm keen to learn. And while I learn, I'll
report on what I find in column form. And I'll call that column, 'Notes from the Nervous
Breakdown Lane.'" I don't know if it was my snappy title or my charming, disarming
honesty, or the borderline brilliant sample column I wrote, or perhaps the great unfilled
editorial needs that a new magazine faces; whatever, June hired me to write a column
and thus were the first years of my poker education subsidized by the (modest) fee I
received for writing my column.
Well, the strike ended, as strikes will, and I went on to other pursuits. I wrote
scripts for television shows and I wrote books. I traveled and taught overseas
extensively. Eventually I stopped writing for Card Player and, after a brief stint with the
late, lamented Poker World magazine, stopped writing for the poker press altogether. I
settled into the happy habit of writing for a living and playing poker for fun. I thought I
was done writing about poker, because my interest had shifted to fiction and there didn't
seem to be much market for that.
Then June started a new magazine, Poker Digest, and she asked me if I would add
my name to its masthead of poker luminaries. I was flattered, but also shrewd; I told her
I'd be happy to write for her little mag, but I really wanted to write poker fiction. If she'd
take what I wrote, fiction in serial form (and if she'd take it without monkeying around
too much with my prose) then I'd be honored to come on board. She accepted my terms,
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such as they were, and from the first issue of Poker Digest forward I was a contributing
editor.
My first contribution was a six-part piece called Surf Las Vegas. In my fancy, I
called it a novella, but it's really a long short story, as you'll see when you read it, for it is
appended as a prologue to the end of the book. What, you may ask (and would certainly
be justified in doing so) is the prologue doing at the end of the book? I can't say for sure,
except to say that it seemed to make sense to me to put it there, so there it lies: a prologue
at the end. Call it cognitive dissonance or just sheer cussed-mindedness, but in any case
let me reiterate: It seems to make sense to me.
When Surf Las Vegas concluded, June asked me what I'd like to write next. At
that point in my writing career, I had a serious, strong itch to write long-form narrative
prose; a novel. Now mind you, I had never written a novel before. I didn't really know
how to write one, but I was keen to find out. And, once again, June was offering me the
opportunity to learn how to do something on someone else's nickel; a consummation, as
they say, devoutly to be wished. So I blithely proposed a 26-chapter novel called (just
because the title seemed resonant) World Series of Murder. Why 26 chapters? Because
the magazine publishes every other week, and 26 chapters would take me through exactly
one year, and I figured that that would be plenty long enough for a novel. It was a
completely and utterly arbitrary choice, but in the dark days to come when I became lost
in the confusion of the tale, it became the holy grail upon which I fixed my attention and
focused my will. "I promised 26 chapters," I told myself, "and 26 chapters it shall be."
When I started the story I had no idea where it would go. I had a first line –
"Dealer, you're killing me" – and the vague notion that someone was murdering rude
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poker players for reasons of their own. That's it. No, that's not it. I also had lead
characters, for I had decided to revisit Megan Moore and Jim Rafferty, the heroes and
romantic leads of Surf Las Vegas. And I had the vague notion of throwing Vic Mirplo
into the mix, for I had invented him in another context and thought he'd be a good fit for
this material. That's it. Honest. That's all I had. No outline, no ending, no bad guy,
nothing.
I told my writer-friends my strategy for this novel ("Throw it out the window and
see if it lands") and they concurred without exception that I was deranged (a charge that
has often been leveled at me by many level-headed writer-friends over the years, but
what the hell.) To my perspective, though, I didn't have that much to lose. I figured that
there were about four possible outcomes. One was that my will or imagination would fail
and the novel would never get finished. Or the magazine could fail and then I wouldn't
have to finish. Or June would get tired of the tale and tell me not to finish. Or I'd finish.
That seemed about it.
So I plunged in. "Dealer, you're killing me." I let the first sentence suggest the
second and the second suggest the third and the third suggest... I'll tell you right now that
I would not recommend this hair-raising (and hare-brained) strategy for writing a novel to
anyone. It's terrifying not knowing where you're going in a story, and also knowing that
you'll have another chapter due in two weeks whether you've arrived at a clue or not. At
the same time, though, it was exhilarating. I even coined a phrase to describe the
sensation of having written right up to the end of a sentence or paragraph or page and
having nothing but blank page ahead, as far as the eye could see. I called it being on the
xiii
face of the wave. There, if I was skillful and diligent, I could continue to ride the wave,
or if imagination or will failed, I could wipe out.
I was determined not to wipe out. Sheer cussed-mindedness, I sometimes think, is
a writer's best friend.
So I played chicken with my twice-a-month deadlines and somehow carved out
the time to bang out a (one hopes) cogent chapter every two weeks. To give myself a big
head start, I wrote the first six chapters of the novel before the first one went into print.
That big head start lasted... about six chapters, by which time I found myself struggling to
stay ahead of the rolling deadlines which threatened to break over me like, well, like
waves. But I was astounded to discover that this structure actually suited me. Left to my
own devices, without the pressure of a deadline, I might have lost momentum and just...
stopped... writing. Or, knowing obsessive me, I'd have tried to write the whole thing over
a weekend, and left everything undercooked. But with the semi-monthly deadline to deal
with, I found that the chapters rolled out at their own measured pace. I found the groove.
And then I found – as I had hoped that I would – that the story took on a life and a
logic and a momentum of its own. I stopped talking to the characters; they started talking
to me. I stopped asking myself, "What happens next?" for the answer to that question
started to seem self-evident as the world of the story took shape. Then it became just a
question of wrapping everything up in 26 neat chapters like I'd promised.
Somewhere around chapter 19, I got the bright idea to start including excerpts
from the as-yet-unwritten poker textbook, KILLER POKER: HOW TO PLAY LIKE A
MANIAC AND WIN. I liked the device so much that, as you'll see, I went back and
added prefatory excerpts from that book to every chapter of this one. Although KILLER
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POKER was notionally written (for the purposes of this fiction) by one Conrad Ploche,
you will know (since Ploche is not credited in the copyright) that the author of KILLER
POKER is me. I enjoyed generating prose in that (fictional) author's nasty, superior,
arrogant tone, and I hope you take no offense. He's not a bad guy, Conrad Ploche; he's
just trying to drive home a point.
You will note that there are two Conrad Ploches in this story, the one who wrote
KILLER POKER, and his grandfather who... well, you'll see in the fullness of time what
his grandfather did. These Ploches have one curiosity in common: Thanks to my bad
eyesight, I got their names wrong. They were meant to be Conrad Pioche, both of them.
True fact. Here's why: Early in the game I decided that I would name as many of my
characters as possible after towns and cities in Nevada. Again, no particular reason, just
sheer cussed-mindedness (or let's call it frivolity) on the author's part. So I pulled out my
map book and started looking for the names of places that seemed to fit the names of the
characters as they came to life before me. Not all characters share this quirk (I leave it to
the obsessive reader to determine which do, if the reader is so inclined) but Conrad
Ploche was intended to. However, when I looked at the tiny type in my map book, an i
looked like an l, and thus Pioche became Ploche. By the time I had discovered my error,
it was too late: Ploche was in print, so Ploche the name remained.
Now that I could change it, I won't. I like the name Ploche, have grown
accustomed to it, and it pleases me to serve the Goddess of Casual Mistakes and Bad
Eyesight and not the God of Consistency. And one thing I've learned about writing a
novel (in the more than two years that I've lived with this one) is that you'd better try to
xv
please yourself as you go along. Otherwise, the writing becomes just a chore and No Fun
with a capital NF.
Which is not to say that I haven't tried to make it rewarding for you, the reader.
Especially in this rewrite, I have attempted to beef up what was slender, clarify what was
vague and, most of all, make the poker make sense to poker players and non-players
alike. For those of you who know the game inside and out, I hope you'll grant me
indulgence while I bring the others up to speed. And those of you who are new to the
game, I hope that this story inspires you to try your hand at the game.
You will be hooked. Instantly, totally, hopelessly hooked.
And so, without further ado, let us begin.
"Dealer, you're killing me..."
1. Do Not Leave Your Cards Unattended
Can I get it through your thick skull that poker is not about fun? It's about
money, power, domination. If you want to be a Killer Poker player, you
have to know this from the outset: You will make enemies. Losers will
hate you and loathe you for the tricky, manipulative bastard (or bitch, let's
be fair) that you are. Do you care? Will you care? Why the hell should
you care? Those losers are holding your money!
You think you know how to play poker, but you don't. What you play is a
vestige of that friendly, family kitchen-table chaos that started when you
were, what? six years old? Seven? With your parents and older siblings
and that one crazy uncle who was always welcome to visit but never
welcome to stay too long. You played games like baseball, pass-the-trash,
one-up-two-up-high-low-strawberry. For God's sake, that wasn't poker.
That was nonsense! And as far as I can tell you're still playing nonsense,
not poker. But this book will fix that. If you have the courage to let it.
– from KILLER POKER:
HOW TO PLAY LIKE A MANIAC AND WIN
Chapter 1: Your Thick Skull
"Dealer, you're killing me."
Angry Pete Bonner threw his two cards away with a backhand sling and chomped
hard down on a toothpick. It splintered and poked him in the lip, ratcheting up his rage
another degree. He pushed his chair back from the poker table, giving room to his ample
girth. Pete had been sitting there playing Texas hold 'em for ten straight hours, and his
hemorrhoids had been screaming for the past four, which did not do much improve his
mood.
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Texas hold 'em is a deceptively simple game. Like chess, it takes minutes to learn
and a lifetime to master. Unlike chess it can win you a fortune if you play well and lose
you your shirt if you don't.
In hold 'em, each player gets two cards. There's a round of betting, and then the
dealer turns over three common cards, commonly called the flop. The flop belongs to
everyone. If those three cards fit with your two cards – like an 8-7-6 to go with your 109, or three spades to go with the two in your hand – then you're happy. If the flop doesn't
fit, you fold; at least you do if you're smart. After the flop comes another card, the turn
card, and another round of betting. Should players still care to contest, there's a last card,
the river card, and a last round of betting. Then the showdown. Best five-card hand
wins.
Texas hold 'em is a beauty, and Texas hold 'em is a bastard. Texas hold 'em will
give you the biggest adrenalin rush you've ever had, and also the biggest heartbreak.
Sometimes on the same hand.
When chess dreams, it dreams it's Texas hold 'em. You bet it does.
Megan Moore glanced at the two cards she'd been dealt. Queen of diamonds, jack
of clubs; Q-J offsuit. Not in this position, she told herself, for there were still five players
to act behind her in this round of betting, and she couldn't be confident that none of them
would raise. She slid her cards gently toward the muck – the pile of discards in the center
of the table – then tented her chin on her interlaced fingers and languidly studied Pete
Bonner. Angry Pete, she said in her head, invoking the nickname that opened her mental
file on him: Medium to strong player, but prone to this sort of moody misbehavior.
Bluffs with bad aces, holdings like A-4 or A-3. Once fluked a win at the World Series of
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Poker. Hasn't stopped wearing the bracelet. Thinks it makes him invulnerable. It does
not.
Megan kept such mental files on all her opponents. It was a strength of her game,
and hers was a game of many strengths, including memory, discipline, patience,
intelligence, card sense, and the built-in deception that strong (female) players gain when
they're curtly blonde and dead bang cute.
The action folded around to the player on the button. Last to act, he made the
standard position raise. Pure real estate, thought Meg, knowing that the button was just
attacking the two players forced to post blind bets and therefore unlikely to have hands
any better than random. Sure enough, the blinds couldn't defend, and both folded.
Next case, thought Meg. She watched Brad, an earnest young dealing school
graduate, scramble and shuffle the cards. She noted the machine-tooled precision with
which he worked, squaring the deck over a blank plastic card, the cut card, to conceal the
bottom card on the deck from prying eyes. As she looked at the deck, though, she briefly
left the table and found herself in her mind back at McCarron Airport, back in the middle
of the day. What the hell happened there? she wondered. Then, instantly, Think about
that later. Think about this now. A $20-40 limit Texas hold 'em game against a tough
line-up of Las Vegas locals was no place to let the mind float free. Megan knew this.
There was nothing about the day-to-day play of this game that she did not know.
Always, though, it was a question of focus, of marshalling the resources. Do that and you
win; fail, you lose.
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Cards came. Meg received 10-3 offsuit, made the routine fold, then watched the
others play. Fold... fold... Angry Pete was next to act. He sat motionless, not touching
his cards.
"Up to you, sir," said Brad. He wore a white dress shirt with silvery sleeve
garters and the signature mylar bow-tie that the dealers at the Galaxy Casino all wore.
Pete didn't move. "Sir? It's up to you."
"Time," said Pete. He stared pointedly into the middle distance.
"Player asks for time," intoned Brad.
Megan drifted again, drifted back to...
Rob and her parked at the curb at McCarron. Rob with his cell phone and laptop
and his briefcase filled with post-convention reading for the plane; and Meg behind the
wheel of her red Mazda Miata, the one thing in the world, bar poker, she could honestly
say that she loved. Meg and Rob: Both of them baking in the dry desert heat, and
neither even trying to pretend that this wasn't goodbye for good. A loudspeaker overhead
droned, "The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. No
parking." Rob halfheartedly invited her inside for one last drink, but she said she
couldn't leave her car unattended. "Car?" he'd said wryly, "or cards?"
And then he was gone. Gone Rob, gone for good. Gone back to Scranton, PA,
for God's sake, the place that he lived and the place he had wanted her to come and live
too. The thought of which had made Meg shudder, for how far away was the nearest
workable poker game from Scranton, pee a? What sort of life could she hope to have in
that wasteland of white collar jobs and blue blood churchgoing protestants and red brick
two-story homes with stately elms out front that shed leaves in the autumn which needed
5
to be raked; and bake sales outside the local Safeway store conducted by Blue Birds or
Brownies in the company of their mothers which, if all went according to Rob's plan, she
would one day be? And the nearest workable poker game where? Atlantic City?
Foxwoods? Or maybe Rob would indulge her and twice a year they could fly out here
where Meg, her poker skills atrophied by disuse and neglect, could get her hat handed to
her by the locals who would never move to Scranton and never go weak; no, if you
wanted to swim in these waters, you had to stay shark. So, in sum, though she liked Rob,
and loved the feel of his ripply muscles against her back while they slept (though in
fairness how long would it be before he lost his muscle tone? Probably no longer than it
would take for her to lose her game) she had to admit it was true: She couldn't leave her
cards unattended, and she wasn't strongly motivated to try.
Now it formed a mantra in her mind: I will not leave my cards unattended. I will
not leave my cards – She caught herself in mid-wander suddenly was back in this card
game in this card room, trying to squeeze her living out of other players' mistakes. Not a
lot of margin in this business. I'm losing it, she thought. Time to go home.
Angry Pete still hadn't picked up his hand.
"Sir?" said Brad. "Please? You're holding up the game."
"I called time, damn it. I'm thinking."
"Here's something you don't see every day:" said Dev Nelson, a dry Australian
expat slouched deep in the three seat, three positions to the left of the dealer's box, far out
on the apogee of the oblong table's frozen orbit, "A man contemplating the play of cards
he has not even seen."
"Shut up, Limey brat."
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Dev sat up. "Floorman!" he barked. "Abusive language! I want this man
barred!"
Staunch floor manager Brenda Belmont had been on shift, and thus on her feet,
since two p.m. Corns made her feet ache, but they couldn't carve into the callous of her
cynical good cheer, for Brenda loved her job and appreciated the fact of employment in
air conditioning most of all. She walked over to the table, prepared to adjudicate with
confidence and conviction, for it is the floor manager's creed, if you can't be right, be
loud. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Pete called me a bloody Brit," said Dev. "I want him barred."
Brenda rolled her eyes. "Sure thing, Dev," she said wearily. "Is ten years long
enough? Or if that doesn't suit, I could make it 20."
She turned to walk away, but just then Angry Pete proclaimed, "I'm not playing
this hand till the dealer apologizes."
"Apologize?" said Dev. "For what?"
"For dealing me swill all night."
"Mate, he's only been in the box ten minutes."
"He dealt to me earlier, and he dealt me swill then too. They all have." Pete
crossed his arms. "It's a conspiracy."
Brenda turned to the dealer. "Brad?"
Brad shrugged. "It's his turn to act. He's asked for time, but he won't look at his
cards."
"What's the point?" said Pete. "They'll just be swill. They're always swill when I
play in this swilly swillhole." He made a broad gesture with his hands, meant to
7
encompass the card room, the casino and, perhaps, existence on this mortal plane as Pete
Bonner understood it to be. A run of bad cards can make a man existential.
Megan watched Pete self-destruct with wry interest. She knew that tilt – the
sudden, explosive and total loss of a player's control – happened fast, but this was fast.
The Galaxy Casino had recently toughened its rules on player behavior. Pete could
actually get himself barred. Not that his sunny personality would be all that much
missed.
Brenda kept her tone light, for this was an absurd, almost comical, situation.
"Pete," she said, "if you don't act, I'll have to kill your hand."
"Kill it! Kill it! It's dead already!" Pete savagely flicked away his cards. They
landed face-up in the muck. Aces.
Aces. One diamond and one club. Two aces. A hold 'em player's wet dream.
"Oh," said Pete. "Oh. I'll play those." He snatched the cards back. Megan glanced at
Brenda. She knew what was coming.
"Sorry, Pete," said Brenda. "You can't. Your hand hit the muck."
"Oh for Christ... First you deal me swill all night and then when you finally give
me a hand you won't let me play it? What kind of gyp joint is this?"
"Knock it off, Pete," said Brenda sternly. "I mean it." Megan silently applauded
the floor manager's brass. A bleeder like Pete was good money for the game, but it got
old listening to him whine.
Pete held onto the pair of pickles. "I'm playing this damn hand."
"Sorry, Pete. No."
Pete turned and glared at the dealer. "You froze the deck."
8
"What?" said Brad? He was new enough to the job that the out-of-line antics of a
guy like Pete Bonner still struck him as novel – and distressing.
"You shipped me aces just to make me look bad."
"Mate," said Dev, "you need medication. Really. Fiorinal, Ritalin, something."
"Pete," said Brenda softly, "can we move on?"
Pete slid the pocket aces back and forth between his fingers. "Fine," he said at
last. "They wouldn't have held up anyhow. They never do." He fired the cards at the
dealer. Brad's hands shot up to block them, but one ace got through, hit his cheek, and –
incredibly – drew blood, the way a paper cut will.
Brad started to his feet, fury reddening his face like rosacea, but Brenda gently
held him down. "I'll handle this, dealer," she said. She turned to Pete. "Cash out, Pete.
We'll see you next week."
"Wrong, girly girl," said Pete. "You'll never see me inside this gyp joint again."
Pete left. Brad picked up a paper napkin from a nearby drink trolley and wiped the blood
from his cheek. He looked at the napkin incredulously, and then looked up at Brenda, as
if to say this is my job? This is what my job's all about? Brenda shrugged expressively.
She patted Brad on the shoulder, and the young man resumed dealing. The game went
on. You could die at a poker table – fall down dead with your face in your chips – and
the game would still go on. Such is the nature of poker. Soon the game resumed its
natural rhythm: bet, bet, raise, fold, call, re-raise, fold, fold... next case.
Eventually Brad finished up in the box and went on break. A few minutes later
Meg racked her chips and walked to the poker room cashier. She'd won a little more than
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$500. As she cashed out, she kibitzed with Brenda about Pete Bonner. "He went off so
fast," said Megan. "I wonder where that came from."
"You know what they say, honey. To an asshole, the whole world looks dark."
"In any event, I thought you handled it well."
"Sugar," said Brenda, "no one goes off on dealers in my card room. That does not
take place."
Megan said goodnight and worked her way slowly across the Galaxy Casino's
mammoth gaming floor, past the slot machines and Flip-It machines, the video poker and
video keno terminals; past the sports book, hollow and silent at this late hour, its counters
and chairs littered with Racing Forms, tout sheets and parlay cards. This was Meg's
decompression time, and she found herself in the familiar state of being simultaneously
wired and tired, keyed up from hours of intense concentration, yet at the same time
drained by same. Eventually she landed at the Quasar Bar, climbed onto a barstool and
ordered a beer. Now that she was done playing, she could allow herself a drink. She
sipped her drink and, as was her practice, reviewed the night's play in her mind, studying
the mistakes she'd made, doing her best to learn from them.
I had pocket kings in late position, she mused. I raised before the flop and the big
blind called. What would he call with in that situation? A smaller pair or an ace with
any other card. An ace had fallen on the flop, and that's where Meg had blundered,
choosing to believe that her opponent would continue to chase with an underpair, instead
of crediting him with the ace that she knew he had. She drove the betting all the way, but
her own hand failed to improve, and she had lost $70 to the big blind's A-8. It was the
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only mistake she'd made all night, but still... one's too many. Even one. If you're not
going to play perfect poker, Meg, you've got no business playing at all.
Megan Moore had come a long way in a short time. Just six months earlier she
had been first-string flunky to a wannabe badass, one Jack the Hack Aldrete. He'd been
building a theme restaurant, Gangster's, and hired Meg to do the bird dog's job of hunting
up Las Vegas memorabilia and paraphernalia to trick the joint out. She'd found a treasure
in the hands of a salty collector named Jim Rafferty who, in the way of salty collectors,
had refused to part with his trove. This made Jack mad, and he'd tried to seize Rafferty's
collection by force. That's when Meg shifted sides and helped Rafferty out of his bind.
Raff had thanked her with a fair payout, and for the first time in her life, Meg had found
herself with a bankroll that matched her poker ambitions. And so she went to work.
She put in her hours, concentrating fiercely at the table, studying the better
players, emulating their bully tactics and tricky moves. Away from the table she thought
about the game and read about the game and talked about the game for coffee-shop
eternities with other players, thus deepening her poker understanding to the point of
instinct. Gradually she worked her way up through the limits, starting at the $1-4 tables,
where the minimum bet was one dollar and the maximum bet was four, and no one made
much money, not even the house. When her play improved, she moved to the middle
limits, $4-8, $5-10, and finally up to the lower high limits, $10-20 through $30-60, where
a working professional could earn a decent wage if she stayed sharp, stayed sane and
never strayed from the path of perfect poker. Not even one mistake. Even one's too
many...
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Now, six months into her pro career, she had a solid game and solid prospects.
With steady profit in the cash games and a couple of small tournament wins, she was
starting to earn the respect of her peers, and starting to grow into herself as a confident,
competent young woman. One day she hoped to be counted among the top top pros.
And if it cost her a Rob-minded boyfriend or two along the way, she guessed she could
live with that.
It's just that I'm lonely tonight. It's just –
"Well if it isn't Megan Moore, the bright new star in the poker firmament." A
scrawny young man hopped up onto the next stool, his tight white polo shirt clinging to
his stick frame. He leaned against the bar and began polishing its smooth surface with
the palm of his hand. Meg clicked open her mental file on him: Vic Mirplo, AKA Slick
Vic. Low-limit rail rat with delusions of competence. Attack his blinds; he defends them
much too much.
"Not tonight, Vic, okay? I've had a long day."
"What? I just wanted to congratulate you on your monster big win." Meg had
bagged first in a hold 'em tournament at the Sherwood Casino earlier that week.
"Thanks. I got lucky."
"I guess. To the tune of what? Two grand? Three? You couldn't uhm..." Vic
put on what he imagined to be his best puppy dog face "...spare a taste?"
"Gee, I would Vic, but I lost it all."
"No way, man. You? Where?"
"Keno."
12
"That's a joke, right?" he said. "A joke. I mean, hey, whatever, but you don't
strike me like the type to take a bad gamble, y'know? Like I could see you playing keno
for instance when hell needs a heater."
"Funny, Vic. You should be a comic."
"You think? Because I've thought, you know, I'm a pretty funny guy. I could do
stand-up, a lounge act, like. Like I could do stuff on poker players, how they're always
hitting you up for money. Like even just twenty bucks or so to beef up a bankroll?"
Again the puppy dog eyes.
Megan allowed herself a smile. Vic was the worst kind of wheedle, but for some
bizarre reason, she found the disingenuous mooch engaging. "You don't quit, do you?"
"Nope. It's my special gift. Tenacious is my middle name."
"Can you make your last name Go Away?"
"For twenty bucks, sure."
"Ten." Meg unspooled a sawbuck and bestowed it on Mirplo, whose mind
immediately turned to other things. Among the many yawning holes in Vic's poker
game, he had the attention span of a saucepan. He bummed a cigarette from the
bartender, then wandered off in the direction of the sports book.
Meg finished her beer and left by the south exit, which dumped directly into the
Galaxy Casino's big south parking garage. Heat punched her when she stepped outside –
relentless Las Vegas summer night heat, the kind that doesn't let go until just before
dawn. A reek accompanied the heat, the characteristic stench of a parking garage that
had baked all day in the sun and now yielded up a stew of smells: asphalt, rubber dust,
13
oil, exhaust, gasoline, and the urgent perspiration of the thousands of gamblers who had
parked their cars here and walked inside the casino searching for a dream come true.
Do not leave your cards unattended. The phrase floated back into her mind
unbidden as Meg traversed the garage. Rob had told her he couldn't get serious about a
professional gambler. She'd tried to explain that she was a poker player, not a gambler.
The distinction had been lost on him, and that, as they say, was the proximate difficulty
right there. Fine, thought Megan, let him grab his debutante or grad school girl. I never
wanted to be those things to begin with. I will not leave my cards unattended.
Meg noticed the blue-bubble lights of several police cars, out back behind the
parking garage, near where she'd parked her car. She slowed as she approached. When
she got close the cops stopped her.
When she whispered, "That's my car," the cops let her through.
There, right where she'd left it, right up against the back wall of the big south
parking garage, was her perfect red Mazda Miata. Perfect no more, alas, for something
had caved in the windshield and dented the sheet metal hood. Something big. Angry
Pete Bonner.
Well anyway his corpse.
14
2. POKRPRO
Short of one-card Indian, I know of no purer form of poker than Texas
hold 'em. In seven-card stud they know half your hand. But in hold 'em,
it's all guesswork. Do you have two aces? Or 7-2 offsuit? They don't
know, won't know, and can't know, unless you're dumb enough to give
yourself away. In hold 'em it's all deduction, deception and spy-versusspy. Did that raise represent real strength or fake strength? Is he
checking to induce a bluff or checking because he doesn't want to call?
Make the right move and you make money. Make the wrong move and it
all goes to crap.
But what if you didn't have to guess? What if you knew what cards your
foe held as surely as if he were playing one-card Indian? Well, guess
what: you can know. If you're smart enough and shrewd enough – if
you're willing to work hard enough – you can develop strategies that will
make your enemies' actions and motivations utterly transparent to you,
while at the same time veiling your own play in shadow and smoke. Don't
believe me? Don't trust me? Fine – then get the fuck out of my book.
Why would I want to waste my secrets on a loser like you in the first
place?
– from KILLER POKER
Chapter 2: Texas Chainsaw Hold 'Em
Detective Dan Swertlow had seen leapers. The guy didn't look like a leaper.
Leapers looked peaceful, like they finally got what they came for. The guy didn't look
peaceful. The guy looked deeply cheesed off. Swertlow tilted his head back and let his
gaze drift up the sheer outside wall of the parking garage up to the roof, a couple hundred
feet overhead. He wondered how many stories the guy fell and whether he felt cheesed
off all the way down. Swertlow always called the corpse the guy. It was, of course, his
way of disconnecting from the fact of murder so that he could concentrate on the
circumstance of murder. That's what a detective does: Concentrate on circumstance.
15
Dan Swertlow had been a cop in Las Vegas for 15 years, first as a uniformed
grunt, then later as a detective in vice, robbery, and now homicide. For fifteen leaden
years he had jousted with the special breed of scumbag bottom-feeders that loved to call
Las Vegas home: loan sharks, sex heads, bet junkies, forgers, frauds, pimps, prostitutes,
dealers and addicts of every shape and description. And if he had a quarter for every bad
guy he'd ever sent away he still wouldn't play the slot machines because gambling, to
Dan Swertlow, was the fundamental flaw of Las Vegas, the original sin which
condemned everyone here to a life of, at least, borderline depravity. Even Swertlow
himself. Like it or not, gambling paid his salary just as it paid, directly or indirectly, the
salary of everyone in town. So if Las Vegas was guilty, then Swertlow was guilty too.
He tried not to think about it too much.
The night wind kicked up hot dust from the building site next door, where the
Galaxy Casino's massive extension rose 50 stories into the sky. The Galaxy was
growing. Getting bigger all the time. This extension would make it the largest casino in
the world. For about ten minutes, thought Swertlow. Then the Phoenix Casino's
extension would open, and it would be the biggest. For about ten minutes. Bunch of
chumps. All the way around. Guys chasing money. Guys chasing power. Bigger,
bigger. What for?
But Swertlow wasn't bitter.
Detectives don't get bitter. They just get bored. It comes from having seen it all
before. A woman finds her husband in bed with another man and blows holes in them
both with a Glock? Seen it. A man screws his business partner out of money-for-thekids'-meals and runs off to Brazil with a chippie? Seen it. Strung out druggies try to rob
16
a casino wearing Bozo masks because of course all those casinos have cameras, only
they're so junked up that they try to rob the karaoke bar instead? Seen it. Seen it all.
You don't get medals for service in this town, just little disclaimers claiming seen it all
before.
Swertlow turned his attention back to the corpse, and to the car. He noticed a
vanity license plate – POKRPRO – and wondered about its meaning. No immediate
answer came to mind. For a jaded Las Vegas detective, Dan Swertlow was – by design,
he'd be the first to admit – aggressively innocent about the actual act of gambling.
Swertlow's partner, young Andy Bates, made his own circuit of the car, drinking
in the detail. Walking... bobbing. Swertlow's voice jabbed him between bobs. "Bates,
what the hell are you doing?"
Bates blinked. "Skanking."
"Skanking?"
"It's like dancing," Bates explained carefully. "To reggae music." He tapped his
temple twice with his index finger. "It's in my head," he said.
"Keep it there," growled Swertlow. "Any witnesses?"
"A maintenance guy heard the thump, but..." Bates rubbed his nose. "You know.
Nothing useful."
"Nothing useful?" Swertlow shook his head as he regarded his young partner.
Dumb as toast. He said sardonically, "Good work, Bates."
"Thanks. Oh," Bates pointed to Megan, "and that blonde gal there owns the car."
Megan stood twenty feet away with her hands pressed tightly against her mouth.
She was in shock. Swertlow knew shock. That was shock.
17
But as he approached her, he saw a strange thing. Her shock went away. He
didn't know where, but it was gone, and then she was in complete control, as if a corpse
on a car were a regular thing for her. He made a mental note to keep an eye on that, for
in his experience people who took pains to hide their emotions were often hiding
something else. He walked up and introduced himself. "Detective Dan Swertlow," he
said, "LVPD."
"Megan Moore."
"Sorry about your car, Ms. Moore."
"Is it your fault?"
"What?"
"Is it your fault that he fell on my car?"
"Of course not."
"Then don't be sorry."
Swertlow took a beat. "Good point." Another beat. "How do you know he fell?"
Megan looked at her car, its shattered windshield and dented hood. "Kind of
obvious, isn't it?" she said. Swertlow found Megan's tone extremely strange. And the
way she shook off her shock before...
Bates walked up. Tall and lanky, he wore his height awkwardly, like one of those
high school kids big enough for basketball but utterly inept at the game. "Got
something, Dan."
Swertlow said to Megan, "Wait here." He started off. She came with him. He
stopped. "Which part of 'wait here' eluded your grasp?"
18
"It's my car," she said. She met his gaze frankly yet blankly. Her intelligent eyes
gave absolutely nothing away. She didn't move, didn't blink, just carefully waited for
him to make up his mind. It seemed to Swertlow a devious vibe, but it was just Megan's
poker head, her state of attentive awareness within a situation. Shields up, she called it,
her standard behavior in poker and her standard reaction to stress.
"Don't touch anything," he said at last.
Bates led Swertlow back to the car, where the dead man's arm had snapped across
a fender and lay at right angles to itself, half on the hood, half dangling down. On the
ground near the right front tire lay a thick gold bracelet. "Some hunk of tin, huh?" said
Bates. He bent closer. "It's inscribed. I can't quite read it. World Series of something."
Meg stood on the far side of the car, bent over the litter of glass in the driver's
bucket seat. "That would be poker," she said, without looking up. "World Series of
Poker."
They both looked at her. "Thanks for the update, citizen," said Swertlow. "Mind
telling me how you know what we're looking at over here?"
Damn she wanted to bluff. In a split instant she ran the simulation. It's mine, she
could say, I dropped it earlier. But the thing was huge, sized to Bonner's thick wrist, plus
engraved with his name. Plus lying to the cops is almost never a great idea. "It's his,"
she said. "He wore it all the time."
Swertlow's eyebrows shot up. "You know the guy?"
"That's a coincidence and a half," said Bates. He rotated his pinkie in his ear.
"Maybe three quarters."
"His name is Pete Bonner. We played poker together."
19
Of course, thought Swertlow, POKRPRO. She's a degenerate gambler. That
would explain her bland indifference to this violent intrusion into her life. She was
probably so far gone into the gamble that she just didn't care. Swertlow found this sad.
Not that he generally really cared about the fate of other people; they mostly got the exact
hell they deserved.
Just then a couple of cops walked up with skinny Vic Mirplo in tow. Talk of
degenerate gamblers, thought Swertlow, who knew Vic well, knew him to be a petty
thief, petty mook, petty pretty much everything.
"Before I talk," said Vic, "I want it clearly understood that I've got dibs on any
reward money. If Brad the dealer turns out to be the guilty perpetrator, remember I
fingered him first."
Detectives just get bored. "Yeah, Vic, whatever."
"I want it on the record." Vic turned to Megan. "You hadn't mentioned him, had
you? Brad the dealer?" She shook her head. "Good. So look, in advance, no hard
feelings about the reward, right? But I did think of it first."
Swertlow didn't bother to hide his surprise. "You know Mirplo too?" he asked
Megan. "How?"
Megan cocked her head toward the casino. "In there," she said with a sigh, "it's a
very small world."
"Yeah," said Vic. He caught the glint of gold on the ground. "Oh hey look, you
found my bracelet!"
ΔΔΔ
20
Forensic photographers shot Pete Bonner from every conceivable angle, then the
morgue guys took the body away. While this went on, Swertlow took Meg's statement.
Impatiently waiting his turn, Vic twitched and fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to
foot as he stood near, or alternatively slouched against, the construction site fence. Bates
kept an eye on him, and Mirplo tried to bum a cigarette from Bates three times before
finally yielding to the possibility that Bates didn't smoke.
"No, seriously," said Vic, "spare me a smoke."
"I told you, I don't smoke."
"Really? Because you, yeah, you know, you look like a smoker. As such."
"As such?"
To a liar, the whole world looks like liars.
Meg told Swertlow about Pete Bonner's run-in with Brad the dealer. Swertlow
was struck by Megan's precise and detailed description of events, right down to the cards
Bonner held, and how much money he had lost on the night. Usually from witnesses you
got vagueness and bent recollections, but Meg had the whole chain of circumstance
seared into her memory. Swertlow imagined that Meg would make a credible witness if
it turned out that Brad the dealer had, in fact, gone off on Pete Bonner. But for that he
had only Mirplo's word, and the word of a Mirplo wasn't worth a bucket of spit.
Swertlow finished with Meg for the moment, and went over to chat with Vic.
Meg sat on a curb near her car, resting her back against a concrete waste receptacle. She
contemplated the act of falling. She wondered how it felt to plummet a hundred or two
hundred feet, knowing that your life was done. Did you regret? Or were you just too
21
startled by circumstance to think? That time must last forever, she thought. She found
that she felt bad for Pete Bonner. Even a loudmouth didn't deserve to go so hard.
Because a talented poker player gets useful information through all senses Meg
had taught herself to be a keen and precise listener, so that even as she mused about Pete
Bonner, she listened to Swertlow's staccato debrief of Vic Mirplo. True to his nature,
Vic was long on opinion and short on hard facts, but the sum of his story was this: He
had been on the roof of the parking garage and heard Brad and Bonner arguing. Later he
saw Brad running away. From which he concluded that Brad had given Bonner the toss.
"What were you doing on the roof?" asked Swertlow.
"Just admiring the view. No law against that, is there?"
"Nope. So long as you stay out of people's cars."
"Chop, you hurt my feelings."
"I feel your pain. Now get out of here. But don't leave town."
"Does that mean I'm a suspect?" asked Mirplo with shining eyes.
"Don't flatter yourself. Now beat it."
Vic skittered off down a corridor of hurricane fence between two sections of the
new construction. Swertlow went back to Meg and asked where she wanted her car
towed. Meg was surprised. "Don't you want to impound it as evidence?"
"What evidence?" said Swertlow. "If the guy hits the pavement do we impound
the pavement?" Meg admitted that that would be impractical and functionally useless.
"Right," said Swertlow. "So where do you want that tow?"
"Can I just drive it home?"
22
"Knock yourself out," said Swertlow, and quickly turned his attention to other
matters, for a uniformed officer had called in to say that they'd found Brad. Swertlow
collected Bates and went off to question the dealer.
Meg attended to her wounded car. She punched out carpety remnants of
shatterproof glass and made empty space where her windshield had been. Bad beat, she
told herself. Now put it behind you. She swept tiny mosaics of glass from the black
bucket seats, then got in and fired her baby up. The engine throttled hot for ten seconds,
then dropped into a comforting idle. She sat for a moment, gripping the steering wheel.
Shaking. Finally shaking. You can only keep a lid on so long.
"So what do you say? Wanna go halves on a lawyer?" Megan looked up. Mirplo
had sneaked back, and now leaned in on the passenger side, fingering the dent left in the
hood by Pete Bonner. "Yeah, because hey, there must be someone we can sue. Right?
The casino maybe. Maybe Bonner's estate. Let's go for coffee or, you know, decaf if it's
late for you. My treat."
"Well. Generous Vic Mirplo." She shook her head. "Another time."
"No really, let's go for coffee." He lowered his voice. "I need to show you
something." His eyes gave a conspiratorial dart. "Something I didn't show Swertlow."
"Oh brother. I don't want any part of this."
"No hey, yeah, yeah you do. Really you do." He took on what, in Mirplo's
limited lexicon of expressions, passed for a Look of Grave Importance.
Meg thought about it for not very long. "Sorry, Vic." She buckled her seat belt.
"Look, please? I need some advice and you're a smart cookie."
23
Vic Mirplo came from a long line of extremely needy people. Perhaps it was
genetic, a survival mechanism honed for generations, but over time the Mirplos had
perfected the art of being needy, so that helping a Mirplo was akin to helping a stray cat;
it made you feel good.
"Okay, Vic. Coffee. Where shall we meet?"
"Oh. Yeah." Vic jammed his hands in his pockets. "Plus I need a ride."
Megan rolled her eyes. Mooked again. "Get in," she said. "Watch the glass."
They drove to Rudi's Eatateria, a post-modern diner just south of Tropicana, far
east of the strip. From where they parked, in the side lot, they could see the distant row
of behemoth Strip casinos marching left and right into the desert distance, vast blocks of
artificial light carving rectilinear holes in the moonless, starless night. It's just a funny
thing about Las Vegas; you know the stars are up there somewhere, but with the billion
kilowatts of light pollution spilling skyward by the moment, the stars don't stand a
chance.
They went into Rudi's and grabbed a booth halfway back along a long L. From
where she sat, Meg could see the street, and she watched the lazy late night traffic pass as
Vic ordered coffee – what the hell, and some pie – and loudly let the waitress know that
he, Vic Mirplo, would be picking up the tab. Meg, who could read minds as well as any
competent poker player, felt confident that she knew what the waitress was thinking:
LIGARA; like I give a rat's ass.
When their coffee came, Vic busied himself with dumping in improbable
quantities of sugar and cream, so that Meg found herself making conversation out of
sheer tedium. "Why did you call him Chop?" she asked.
24
"Who? Swertlow? It's like my nickname for authority. Top Chop, don't bust my
chops. Respect, like."
"Does he know that? He might think you're calling him names."
Vic smirked. "No, because also it stands for pork chop. As in stupid and lame,
which he is. Plus vindictive. He considers it his divine mission to see that yours truly
never catches a break. Anyway, forget him. Wait till you see what I've got." Again
Vic's famous furtive glimmer. No doubt about it, he was the star of his own show. "It's a
thing," he said. "A thing I found on the roof. This thing is like a gold thing, but I think it
might be heavier than that."
"Heavier than gold?"
"It's old. I bet it's worth plenty."
"Let me see it."
"Oh, like I'm wearing it around my neck." He gave her a glare of distilled
disdain. "It's stashed." Vic looked away. "Anyway, yeah, the thing is, you mentioned a
guy once. Who went around collecting giveaways and crap? What did he call it?
Sailing, snarfing?"
"Surfing," said Meg. She thought of Jim Rafferty and how he relentlessly surfed
Las Vegas for collectible goods. More than once in the months since she'd seen him last
she had come across an interesting casino commemorative or an unusual poker chip and
contemplated tracking down Raff to give it to him. Somehow – and this was true of
almost everything in her life not directly related to poker – she had never quite gotten
around to it.
25
"Yeah, anyway, you said he had a pretty great eye. For trinkets and shit. Think
he might take a look at my thing? Identify it, like? I'll give you a taste of course."
"Let me see it."
"Ten percent is good, right? For your end? I could do 15."
"Stop before you say 20. Just let me see it."
"I told you it was stashed."
"Yes, and you're lying."
"How do you know?"
"God, Vic, do you want a catalog of your tells?"
"Uhm... not right now."
Megan looked past Vic, out the window. A Chevrolet Impala pulled up in front
of Rudi's Eatateria. Old one. Gunmetal green, with archaic steel skirts over the rear
wheels. Must be a bitch to change those tires in the rain, thought Meg. Two men got
out. Meg thought there was something odd about them, something not quite right.
Vic dug in his pocket and came out with a clenched clammy fist.
They're wearing overcoats.
"Okay, yeah, I got it here. Check it out."
In summer?
In Vic's hand lay a gold pyramid, two inches high, intricately carved with
unreadable script. In the center of each face was a sad old eye with a miniature crystal
poker chip for a pupil. Spellbinding – but Meg barely glanced at it. "Put it away," she
said.
"What?"
26
"Come on."
Meg slid out of her seat. Vic pocketed the pyramid and nervously followed.
They walked back toward the bathrooms and, Megan hoped, an emergency exit. The
men burst in the front door.
Shotguns first.
27
3. Running Bad
Of course you're running bad. How could you not be? You're running bad
because you're running scared, and until you stop running scared you
can't possibly, conceivably win. You coward! How do you expect to play
Killer Poker when you sit back on your timid lily ass all the time checking
when you should bet and calling when you should raise? Lead the
betting! Take control! If you don't have the courage to get in there and
fire your chips then I don't want to have anything more to do with you.
Give this book to someone who can use it!
Or, alternatively, set yourself free. Grasp, if you can, the underlying
symbolic connection between money and survival. In your weak reptilian
mind, money equals food, shelter, clothing, crap like that. You take that
attitude to the poker table and you're hampered, hobbled, crippled from
the start. See those chips in front of you? They're chips! That's all. Tiny
discs of composite or clay. See them as that and you can use them like
they're meant to be used – as weapons. But see them as money and you're
lost. What could be simpler than that?
– from KILLER POKER
Chapter 3: Fear of Cowardice
Meg ran out the back door of Rudi's Eatateria. Vic followed behind, only
momentarily distracted by the Maxx Racks postcard display near the bathrooms. They
heard the rumble of a shotgun blast as they dashed past parked cars and into the dark of
an adjacent vacant lot. In the deep shadow of a billboard they stopped and looked back.
Overhead on the billboard, towering to a height of fifty feet, a buxom honey with breasts
enhanced both by surgery and by airbrush, claimed without fear of contradiction that no
nudes in town were nuder than the ones at her club.
"Man, Megan," said Vic, wheezing asthmatically, "you are having one bad day.
First your car gets flattened by a corpse and then you're there when a heist goes down."
28
Plus I lost a boyfriend, don't forget, thought Meg. She looked back toward the
restaurant and whispered, "Check it out." A men stood backlit in Rudi's back door,
throwing a long – armed – shadow onto the pavement in front of him. Meg and Vic froze
in the billboard's deep dusk. The man scanned the parking lot and beyond. He half-lifted
his shotgun and took a few steps toward the billboard.
Megan held her breath.
A few more steps. He shielded his eyes and peered into the dark.
"I'm gonna puke right now," whispered Vic.
"Swallow it."
And then there were sirens. Distant, but coming fast. Suddenly the Impala came
slewing around the side of the building. Meg heard the unmistakable crunch of metal as
the Chevy hit another car and bounced it across the parking lot. The armed man raced to
the car and jumped in on the run. The Chevy blazed off into the night.
"What was that?!" Vic Mirplo started dancing in the dark, adrenaline wicking off
him like a physical force. "What the sweet pudgy drooling baby Jesus was that? Whoo!
Woo-hoo!" He grabbed Megan by the shoulders and kissed both cheeks. "Megan, man,
you're too smart. I want to be you when I grow up. You play great poker. You evade
robbers – "
"They weren't robbers. They wanted us."
"What?"
"Us. Me. You. What did you think they were looking for back here? Recycling
bins?"
"Man, you're high."
29
But the art of great poker is to make intuitive leaps with limited information.
"That pyramid you showed me... where'd you get it?"
"That? Boring story."
Megan clamped a hand on the fleshy part of Vic's upper arm, hard enough to hurt.
"One time, Vic. I'm saying this once. If you want my help, you tell me the truth right
now, everything that's important, and no little revelations tucked away for later. Do you
understand?" Vic nodded. "Then start talking." Squad cars, Meg noticed, were already
converging on Rudi's Eatateria. She saw Dan Swertlow get out of one. "And Vic, I think
you better talk fast."
ΔΔΔ
Vic Mirplo is on the roof of the Galaxy Casino's south tower parking garage,
checking door handles. According to Vic's shaky subjective morality, he would never
actually break into a car. That's over the line, out of bounds, JNC, you know, Just Not
Cool. On the other hand, anyone dumb enough to leave their car unlocked in these highcrime times pretty much deserves pretty much exactly what they get. So Vic's checking
door handles, in much the same way he always checks the coin returns on pay phones.
Who knows? You might catch lucky.
Now here comes Pete Bonner, muttering dark obscenities as he heads for his car.
Vic ducks behind a Trooper III, crouching in the shadow of a great, nubbly steel-belted
radial. And now here comes Brad the dealer, yelling for Bonner to stop and face him like
a man.
Vic wants to look, but he's much too scared. He listens as Brad threatens Bonner
exactly this much: "If you ever throw a card at me again, I'll break your face." They
30
bluster back and forth for a moment, exchanging obscenities, pushing and shoving. But
when push comes to shove neither really has the stomach for a fight. Eventually, Brad
flips Bonner the bird and heads back to the casino. Bonner continues on toward his car.
Then he stops. Right where Vic can see him. Vic watches the fear bloom on Pete
Bonner's face. Vic knows fear, and there's no way that's anything but fear. Now Bonner
reaches into his pocket, takes something out and tosses it away. Why would he do that?
Mirplo doesn't know, doesn't care, just tracks the shiny object as it rattles across the
concrete and comes to rest beneath the Trooper III. Then Bonner takes off running. A
moment later two men race by. Vic doesn't see any part of them except their feet, for he
has crawled under the car to find the thing that Pete Bonner threw. He assumes that they
eventually catch Pete Bonner and pitch him off the roof.
Vic, meanwhile, looks at what he's found: A pyramid. And it's gold. Beautiful,
beautiful gold.
ΔΔΔ
"Did anyone see you leave the parking garage?"
"Just some locals. Casino employees maybe. Plus the cops."
"Plus the cops." Megan was a poker player; she understood devious behavior.
She even understood greed. But self-destruction? "Why did you lie to Swertlow?"
Vic fondled the pyramid. He pressed it against the palm of his hand, leaving an
imprint of the ancient eye in his flesh. "And get this beauty impounded? No way. This
is my money play."
"Vic, read the neon. Those men with the shotguns was after you."
"Man, you're high."
31
"Stop saying that. Look, someone felt strongly enough about Pete Bonner to give
him a virtual bungee jump. Maybe they were looking for what Pete had. Did you ever
think of that? Maybe they're mad they didn't find it."
"That's a big fat stack of maybe."
"Maybe. But I'm stepping off it right now. You should too. Tell Swertlow
everything."
"He'll know I was lying before."
"Trust me, Vic, it won't come as a shock."
"Man, why does everyone doubt my credibility."
"Because you have none." Megan sighed. How did she acquire a three-year-old?
"Vic, you lied to the cops. Come clean now, before it's too late. Let them take away your
toy. Get on with your life."
"That's good advice," said Vic. "Totally top drawer. And if I were smart like you
I would take it." He started edging away in what he imagined to be stealth Mirplo mode.
"But, you know, who's that smart? Except you, I mean. Oh and Meg, sorry about that."
"About what?"
"About if those guys were after me and now they're after you too." Vic ran off.
Meg watched him zig away across the dark vacant lot. Then he disappeared from view
and all she heard was a muttered fuck as he evidently barked his shin on something in the
night.
Finally his words hit home. After me? Megan had a sick feeling, the kind you get
when you're driving what you think is a strong hand, only to discover that your opponent
has been sandbagging and trapped you for many bets. After me? Before she could
32
contemplate this further, Meg realized that she had another problem, for from where she
stood, she could see two policemen in the side parking lot, checking out her Miata.
But that's not where I parked it!
A flashlight beam caught her face. "You're not in shock again, are you?" asked
Detective Swertlow. Megan stepped out of the weeds, past Swertlow, not even seeing
him really. All her attention was focused on her car.
What did they do to my baby?!
"And," said Swertlow, "while it's nice to see a familiar face at a crime scene, do
you mind telling me what you're doing here?"
Megan strode quickly to her car. "Running bad," she said. The Chevy had broadsided the Miata and slammed it into a minivan – crumpling, among other things, her
POKRPRO license plate. "Really, really running bad."
"What's that, poker talk?" asked Swertlow.
"Yeah." Megan ran her fingers through her hair and struggled to find her control.
Swertlow admired her toughness. She'd taken a lot tonight, yet still gave every indication
of not losing her cool.
But she was nevertheless a witness, so he questioned her heavily. She gave him
full, honest answers, and when she was done, Swertlow had to put her in a category that
surprised him: chump.
"Okay, so a solid gold pyramid," he said with a wry smile. "Well, that's a twist."
"What do you mean?"
"Usually with Mirplo it's Elvis's actual pillbox or counterfeit tickets to the shows.
Gold pyramids, that's new." Meg started to speak. Swertlow held up his hand. "I know,
33
I know," he said tiredly, "you saw it with your own eyes. And it was solid gold." He
allowed himself a smile, for this poker toughie had vexed him up till now by being even
more nothing-gets-to-me than Swertlow. "A lot of things look like gold," he said. "You
saw a thing and heard a story. He'll ask for money next. You'll see." He shook his head
smugly. "I thought you poker guys were sharper than that."
Swertlow's partner Andy Bates walked over. "We got descriptions, Dan." Bates
bent his neck to the right until his head lay flat on his right shoulder, sighing with
contentment as the muscles in his neck extended.
Swertlow turned to his partner. "Bates, what are you doing?"
"Stretching. It cuts stress. You ought to try it."
"I'd like to cut stress to the tune of one partner," growled Swertlow. "What've you
got?"
Bates tilted his notebook sideways so he could read it at that awkward angle. "A
couple of street rats with sawed-offs. Crackheads most likely."
"That's not – " said Meg. "They were straight, clean-cut."
Bates bent his head the other way. "Nope. Sorry, Ms. Moore. I got 12 witnesses
say street punks. Robbery, straight up and down."
"Did they take any money? I'll bet they didn't."
Bates cocked his head to the left. "Yeah, no, yeah they did." He consulted his
notebook. "Couple hundred bucks."
"But the guy came out back – "
" – to catch his ride," finished Swertlow.
"That's not how it happened. You have to do something."
34
Swertlow said, "Do you play a whole lot of poker, Ms. Moore?"
"I'm serious, they could still be around – "
"I'm asking you a question. Do you play a whole lot of poker?"
"Yes, I guess I do."
"How many hours a day? Ten? 12?"
"Sometimes."
"I think you should cut back." Megan blinked at him. She suddenly saw herself
through his eyes: burnout, mark; a fool. Meg always tried to keep ego out of her game,
and mostly she did a good job.
But not this time.
A city tow truck barreled past, flipped a U and circled back. Pointedly ignoring
the tow truck, she gave her car a quick once-over. It was badly thrashed, but none of the
wheels were blocked. She got in.
"Ms. Moore," said Bates, "I don't think you should – "
"Drive?" she barked angrily. "It's my car. I'll drive if I want."
Swertlow said curtly, "Let her go." Bates shrugged and sniffed. Megan started
her car. It ran rough, with an assortment of strange new noises, but she thought it might
go.
It did, too.
For about seven blocks.
Then a slow leak turned into a flat. Megan pulled over. She got out to change the
tire, hot with self-loathing. My own damn fault, she thought. Too damn proud to take a
35
tow. It had taken a lot to put Meg on tilt, but she was on tilt now, and she understood
something new about that state: When you're on tilt, anything is possible.
Like you might have two flat tires.
And of course only one spare.
There was a gas station about half a mile down the road. She decided to go there,
call for a cab and just... deal with all this tomorrow.
Megan trudged along the shoulder, moving well back from the road when traffic
passed. On the plus side, she thought, I'm not thinking about Rob at all. In fact, Rob
who? She allowed herself a reassuring chuckle. Okay, fine, she was alone, back alone,
but that's a common state of being for a professional poker player. In the event, she was
able and strong, self-reliant and – idiot! she suddenly thought. You have a cell phone in
the car! She turned to head back.
And watched her small red Mazda Miata go up in a big red ball of flame.
36
4. Lucky-23
Luck? Man, don't even talk to me about luck. Luck is for losers. Luck is
for the unenlightened drone sitting next to you who thinks that poker is
about having the best hand. Luck is for the whimpering simp who plays to
break even. You don't play like that, do you? Of course not. You play
Killer Poker. You're beyond all that. You don't want to break even. You
want to crush, annihilate! And you don't do that with luck. You do it with
muscle. With out-of-position raises and re-steal bluffs. You do it with the
cool, certain knowledge that boldness is the road to poker glory, and that
luck won't save the simps when Killer Poker takes control.
Fuck luck! Luck sucks! The only thing luck has going for it is that it
keeps weak players in the game. Remember that! When they beat you –
by luck – they're really only borrowing the money that will eventually,
inevitably, be yours. You don't have to be lucky to win. You don't want to
be lucky to win. Because luck makes you think you're better than you are,
and how can anyone win with that lie gurgling around in their brain?
You don't like my tone? Tough luck! I'm trying to train you off luck. I'm
trying to get you sold on the notion that you are exactly as lucky as
everyone else. Never won the lottery? Sad you – I've never won the
lottery either, and you know why? Because I've never played! I know that
to five significant figures my chances of winning the lottery are exactly the
same – zero – whether I play or not. So I'll never win the lottery – so
what? That's not bad luck. That's common sense.
Luck? Yuck!
– from KILLER POKER
Chapter 4: Luck is for Losers
Rafferty looked at his watch. In another ten minutes it would be six a.m. Shift
change. By the rules Raff laid down for himself, it had to be shift change before he could
claim salvage. He'd already invested close to three hours in waiting, but it would be
worth it. The salvage would be worth it.
37
Jim Rafferty surfed Las Vegas, collecting things that were free – and premium
items unclaimed until shift change counted as free in Raff's book. Like this petite virgin
rollaboard suitcase he'd been camped out over. Tucked behind a Flip-It machine at the
end of a long slot bank, the suitcase lay on its side, wrapped in plastic, apparently
forgotten or abandoned by the man or woman who won it. It was a small thing, more
tote than travel-all. And it didn't look too sturdy, but of course Raff would never use it
for portage. It would go straight on display in his home, for this was a quality item, with
the Phoenix Casino's striking logo realized in full color silkscreen on the front and back
sides against a dazzling background of bright yellow ripstop nylon.
So Raff waited for six, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup as he sat on a bench
outside a bathroom and kept watch on his intended treasure. He didn't marvel that no
one had touched it, not in all the long hours he'd waited, for these things were invisible
to most people. Most of the things that interested Jim Rafferty flew well below the radar
of so-called normal folks.
Take a beer mug. To the common perspective, that thing is just a vessel, a useful
tool for transporting malt beverage from bottle or barrel to throat and stomach. But Jim
Rafferty was far more focused on how that vessel was marked than on what it might
contain. If it bore the logo of a given casino, or the commemorative stamp of a certain
event, then it had value to Jim. All casino giveaways interested him on some level, but
the ones with intricate, eloquent or complex designs interested him most. And that's
what drew him to the Phoenix. For Jim Rafferty the Phoenix was Mecca. A Mecca for
collectors.
38
Of all the new megasinos, the Phoenix was the most lavish, most generous in its
premium items. Join their slot machine players' club, the Firebird Funfederation, and you
could win jackets, clutch bags, ice buckets... luggage. All with a stunning rainbow bird
rising from ashes, clutching in its talons the immolated legend LUCKY-23! Raff already
owned most of the Phoenix's premiums, but not this pristine rollaboard. It must be a new
item in the premium stream, and as such it should have had him drooling with the desire
to possess.
Not long ago, it would have. Not long ago, he'd have been thrilled to invest his
night in a vigil like this, mapping his campaign for seizing the collectible, spiriting it out
of the casino and taking it home to be cherished and prized. That's what surfing was all
about: the transcendent communion of man and place and thing. But lately surfing Las
Vegas had stopped thrilling Raff in the old familiar way. Something had shoved surfing
aside in his mind.
Poker.
Poker and that blasted computer.
Just after Christmas the Sherwood Casino had retired its outdated computer
system. Raff, a thorough and diligent surfer, had come across an abandoned check-in
terminal, and snacked it up mostly on the allure of its paint job, for it was bright, bright
green, as if it had been dunked in a bucket of liquid spring. And on the sides and back
and top, the Sherwood's smiling Robin Hood fired an arrow through a sheaf of milliondollar bills. At first Raff didn't even recognize it as a working computer, but later he
found some software at a trade show, where a careless vendor had left a box of computer
39
disks behind. One disk contained a poker simulator, complete with an on-screen tutor for
expert play.
Raff had remembered Megan Moore, the bright kid who helped keep Jack the
Hack Aldrete from throwing him down a borax mine.
Didn't she play poker?
Didn't she say it was fun?
So he loaded the program, and that was that. Texas hold 'em took over. He
played in virtual tournaments and virtual ring games. He played fixed-limit, spread-limit,
pot-limit, no-limit. He played for hours on end and won tons of simulated money.
When that challenge wound down, he started building new player profiles, toughening up
his opponents so that they came at him relentless and hard. He taught himself to fight
them off with sharp raises and deep deceptive moves of his own. It was like fencing! It
really turned him on.
And totally supplanted surfing in his mind. Even in this moment, camped out on
the choicest of Phoenix Casino flotsam, all he could think about was A-K suited, late
position, how do you push your edge? He couldn't wait to get home, fire up the
simulator, and find out.
He looked again at his watch, a rare Boulder Dam commemorative, and found
that it was now six straight up, and time to go claim salvage. Rafferty stood, to the
accompanying pops of his protesting knees. 98 percent of Jim Rafferty felt much
younger than his 63 years. Two percent – his knees – felt old. Not that he looked that
old. Weathered maybe; tempered certainly, but mostly what Jim Rafferty represented
was strength, the kind of quiet strength that comes to a man once he's collected sufficient
40
years and experience to live in peace with himself and his days. Also, Raff still thought
of himself as young, so that though his hair had long since receded to a fringe around his
ears (and tufts within his ears), and deep furrowed wrinkles filled his face, the light of
enthusiastic youth still shone in his eyes – especially when they focused on something
like this nifty rollaboard suitcase.
He closed in quickly and confidently. The key to claiming possession, Raff knew,
was claiming possession. Act like you own it. Raff reached behind the Flip-It machine
and grabbed the handle of the suitcase, feeling nubbled vinyl through the thick plastic
sheath which surrounded the item and sealed it. Mint condition, he thought. Nice. He
walked away, exuding an air of this belongs to me. But as he crossed the cavernous
expanse of the casino's main hall he found himself pondering the play of suited
connectors in middle position, and wondering if the familiar fierce joy of surfing had left
his life forever.
Near the sports book, two men wearing the uniforms of Phoenix Casino security
fell in beside him. A woman in slacks and an ice blue blazer stepped out from a bank of
slot machines and moved to block his path. "Sir," she said without preamble, "I need you
to come with me."
She wore a cloisonné pin on her lapel, an intricate, delicate rendering of the
casino's firebird logo, and the lettering LUCKY-23, plus, much smaller, the word security.
Raff's eyes went to the pin. "Where can I get one of those?" he asked.
The woman glanced briefly at Rafferty's face, then pointedly ignored the question.
She took the suitcase from his hand as the tall, young security guards grabbed his elbows
and guided Raff smoothly and quietly off the casino floor. They went through a door
41
marked Employees Only, then down along a series of service corridors and stairs. At first
Rafferty saw busboys and cocktail waitresses and off-duty dealers, but soon there was no
one, and no sound except the dull thrum of turbines. They were nearing the heart of the
Phoenix's physical plant.
Jim couldn't imagine what these people wanted him for, but he knew it wasn't for
surfing. When they don't want you surfing in their casino, they just put you out, like a
cat. They don't drag you to the noisy bowels where they take card counters and check
kiters to put the fear on them.
He wasn't particularly scared. He really wanted that pin. It pleased him to want it
under these circumstances. Call it extreme surfing, but extreme or not, it convinced him
that poker hadn't totally infected his heart. They took him to a drab office with a dented
steel desk and sat him in a folding chair. The woman asked his name and took some
personal details. Then she took the suitcase and left the room.
One of the young security guards stood by the door. The other perched on the
edge of the desk. They were placid, handsome and completely clean-cut. They made no
conversation, and it wasn't in Rafferty's nature to talk unnecessarily. Instead he went
inside himself and, to pass the time, conducted a mental inventory of the cloisonné pins
in his collection. Riviera Fight Night... Carnival de Rio 1993... Hard Rock Café...
Venetian Grand Opening... "I Survived the Boomtown Bonebreaker Buffet..."
Eventually the woman returned. "Who told you to take the suitcase?" she asked.
"No one. I just decided to take it."
"Are you a kleptomaniac?"
"I'm a collector," he said with bruised pride. "I judged it to be abandoned."
42
She looked him over. He noticed the hard lines around her mouth and her
chemical red hair, which really didn't work with her ice blue blazer at all. "Why did you
wait three hours?" she asked. That shook him, to think they'd been watching that long.
He knew that casinos had surveillance cameras, but never imagined them trained on him.
That was for hold-out artists or slot mechanics, not harmless old surfers.
Jim Rafferty was a sophisticated man, but he had a strongly bent perspective, and
it made him seem naïve to many people. He knew that most people didn't understand
surfing, and that pained him, but he accepted the reality of it. The best thing to do in
many circumstances, he had learned, was simply to tell the truth.
Even if the truth made him look like a nut.
So he explained in aching detail his ethic of waiting for shift change and the
underlying morality of claiming salvage. From there he segued into a list of his current
broad holdings in casino carryalls: make-up cases from the Sands (complete with Sands
brand cosmetics); Tropicana "Island Getaway" totes; mylar sports duffels from the
Andromeda; flight bags from Holiday Airlines' gambling junkets of the 1960s; fanny
packs from the Periwinkle Ranch. "Those ones have matching condoms," said Raff,
"because of course the Periwinkle is a brothel." He continued his verbal inventory. "I
have two steamer trunks. One's from the came out of the Riviera costume shop. The
other belonged to a couple who pawned it when they went bust on their honeymoon.
Later Joey Bishop owned it. After that – "
A cell phone rang. The woman answered it, listened for a moment, then clicked
off. She turned to Jim and blankly intoned, "Mr. Rafferty, I'm sorry we detained you this
morning. We obviously have you confused with someone else. I hope this won't
43
prejudice you against the Phoenix Casino, or affect your thinking in terms of where to
enjoy your gambling entertainment. Please allow these gentlemen to give you a ride
home."
"That won't be necessary."
"No, yes it will. They'll have a look at your collection. Then we'll know for sure
that you're who – what – you say you are." A thin reed of threat leaked into her voice.
"Does that seem fair?"
Rafferty considered where he was, in the deep depths of the Phoenix Casino,
where they take the card counters and check kiters to put the fear on them. Yep, pretty
fair. On the other hand... "Could I trouble you for that pin?"
Call it extreme surfing.
ΔΔΔ
Rafferty unlocked his front door and led the men inside. While they looked
around, he crossed to a velvet-covered cork board and added their boss's pin to his
collection of security badges and buttons. They sniffed around in his foyer, noting his
collection of golf tournament umbrellas and his Wrestling-in-Vegas action figures and his
Horseshoe Signature Brand bingo daubers, neatly arrayed in a souvenir Margarita glass
from the short-lived and unlamented Key West Kasino. Exchanging nods of agreement
that Raff was indeed as loopy as he seemed, they left without a word.
Raff stood at his front door and watched them drive off. He stood there for a long
time after, watching the sky grow light and trying to put his best guess to the night's
events. Possibly a Phoenix employee was smuggling goods or money or chips out of the
casino in premium giveaways and they had mistaken Rafferty for a courier or mule. Or
44
maybe it had something to do with drugs. Whatever, thought Raff. Just take the Phoenix
off your surf list for a while, that's all.
Raff owned a small house on a quiet street called Calle Ventana. It enjoyed a
slight elevation and a view to the east. When the air was clear (less and less frequently in
those booming Vegas days), Raff could see all the way across the city to Frenchman's
Peak. The sun had just cleared that summit and begun its daily ritual of pouring heat
down on the Valley of the Meadows.
Raff turned and went inside. Soon it would be time for closed blinds and air
conditioning, but for now he left the door open to catch the last filaments of cool night
air. A blinking light on a low table caught his eye. His ancient answering machine had
captured a call. He punched playback.
"Hey, Raff, it's Megan Moore." The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
"Funny how we said we'd stay in touch, huh? Hey, I know it's early but wake up if you're
there." She sounded out of breath. "Well, okay, I guess you're not there. Hope you're
running good." There was a pause. "Hope you don't mind, I might drop by." Then
another pause, then a click.
Raff stared at the answering machine, not quite knowing what to make of the call.
Six months ago when they'd finished with Aldrete, Meg had made some vague noises
about keeping in touch, but she'd never followed through. Raff could understand that.
She was young and keen, and avid about poker, and why would she make time for an old
(let's call a spade a spade here, thought Raff) fart like him. He couldn't imagine why she
wanted to see him now.
45
Still, the thought of her, the sound of her voice on tape, brought a smile to his
face. Megan Moore. Just on general principal he wouldn't mind seeing her again. She
seemed like a nice kid. Plus she knows about poker.
Well, if she called she called. There was nothing he could do about that now.
Raff yawned, suddenly quite tired. Though he knew he should sleep, he thought he might
spend some time at the computer first. He'd been thinking a lot lately about pocket jacks.
Big starting pair, should be big power, but highly vulnerable to overcards. Do you push
'em or play slow? Maybe just a few quick hands...
He went to shut the front door.
And found Megan Moore leaning against the door frame, sweat streaming down
her face.
All he could think to say was, "You've been running."
"Some," she said. "It's not a problem. Can I come in?"
"Of course."
She came in. He shut the door behind her. She looked him up and down. "Jim
Rafferty. How the hell are you?"
"Fine. Great. You?"
"Great." Raff had no experience in reading tells, the characteristic physical
giveaways that betray the strength or weakness of a poker player's hand. Still, he knew
that despite her bravado and bright smile, Meg was about as far from great as a person
can get. But whatever she had in mind, she wasn't ready to spill it yet, so there was a
moment of awkward silence. Raff filled it in at last.
"Can I ask you a question?" he said.
46
"Shoot."
"How do you play jacks before the flop?"
ΔΔΔ
There's such a thing as good sleep hygiene. If you have good sleep hygiene, you
conduct an orderly and thoughtful routine at bedtime. You brush your teeth and wash
your face, take off your clothes and get into a real bed. Perhaps you read a little to wind
down; maybe you write in a journal. In any event, your ritual allows you to make a
smooth transition to sleep and contributes to the overall health of the body.
Dan Swertlow did not have good sleep hygiene. Arriving home after his long,
wearying shift, he turned on the television, knocked back two quick vodka sours, watched
a nature show of copulating animals, and conked out in his clothes on the couch.
Four hours later, the phone woke him up. It was Bates. "Day shift called,"
sniffed Bates. "They've got another corpse."
"Deal with it," growled Swertlow. "I was dreaming of showgirls."
"Me too," said Bates. Swertlow could hear Bates blowing his nose with a lusty
honk. "Day shift wants us to see it," said Bates. "The guy was wearing a World Series of
Poker bracelet, just like Pete Bonner."
Swertlow hung up the phone, and heaved himself off the couch with a bloated
sigh. Two poker corpses within 24 hours, he thought. Both champs. How likely is that?
Two poker corpses.
One more and we'll call it a trend.
47
5. Babydoll Sedoso
You can be anyone from anywhere and the minute you call yourself a
poker pro you are one. In this sense, poker is pure democracy. You can't
be a doctor without a degree but if you want to be a poker champ, all you
need are deep pockets, brass balls and of course this book. So why are
you whining? This is the choice you made. Stick it out and see it through.
On the other hand, why should I bother to give you this pep talk? If you
don't have the stones for great poker then I'm just wasting my breath, and
why would I want to do that? In fact, you know what? Forget it. The
odds against your making it as a poker pro – despite the freedom you have
to call yourself one – are pretty much astronomical. So why don't you
give up and go home, back to that cushy career in car wash management
or advanced data proctology? Safer for you, less taxing for me. You're
not anyone from anywhere. You're just fodder, most likely. Quit now
before you embarrass yourself.
You're still here? Good. You passed the first test. Maybe you are anyone
from anywhere after all.
– from KILLER POKER
Chapter 5: Anyone from Anywhere
Babydoll Sedoso came from Mindanao in the Philippines, the hot-blooded
descendant of Zamboanga Sea pirates. Where his ancestors had spent generations
terrorizing anyone who dared to ply the trade routes of coastal China, Babydoll spent his
days dishing pasteboard to the stiffs, proles and mopes of Las Vegas. Babydoll was a
dealer, but in his heart he lusted for the sea.
Babydoll Sedoso had frail black hair and a waxy face still marred by scars of acne
from his youth. Wisps of beard hung limp from his chin, which disappeared seamlessly
into the flab of his neck. A man of significant corpulence, he had blocks of fat around his
middle and breasts larger than those of the skinny strippers he favored when he went to
watch them on his nights off. Something about those strippers routinely pissed Babydoll
48
off, but then again something about almost everything pissed Babydoll off, for he was a
man of rich, florid anger. Prozac kept the lid screwed down, but it was hard. With poker
players like they were these days, it was getting harder all the time.
"You get cursed at," raged Babydoll in the break room of the Sherwood Casino,
"spat at, ridiculed. It's focking ridiculous." "Focking" was Babydoll Sedoso's new
favorite word because it sounded like "fucking" but you could say it on the job without
getting docked. He fiddled with his unlit cigarette. Among other stupidities in this
hellish desert, the Sherwood had recently banned indoor smoking, and Babydoll took it as
a personal affront, which, if you gave it a good close look, was how he took most things.
"They call you a cheat. Throw cards. Throw chips. And it's getting worse all the time."
Fellow dealer Sparks Henderson had his feet up on a table, his hand-tooled boots
jutting from his regulation black dealer's pants. He said nothing, just inclined his long
cowboy neck in a sympathetic nod.
Babydoll blamed big money. The more the poker industry grew – through
tournaments and magazines and corporate sponsorships – the ruder the players became.
It was the money. Greed drove common courtesy out the door. "They question my
decisions, bitch about how I deal." Babydoll mimed shooting cards around a nine-handed
table. "Like they could do better." After a moment of silent funk, he continued. "Guys
tease-tip. Did you ever see that?" Sparks shook his head no. "They go to flip you a
redbird, then send you a buck or nothing instead. What the fock is up with that? Next
time someone does that to me, I'm gonna just kill 'em."
"Kill them?" asked Sparks laconically.
49
"You're focking right," said Babydoll Sedoso. One thing he knew, his pirate
ancestors would never let these insolent assholes get away with the crap he put up with
every day. They'd call 'em baitfish and throw them in the Zamboanga Sea.
"Kill them," repeated Sparks. "That seems harsh."
"It's a harsh world," said Babydoll Sedoso.
"That it is," said Sparks with a nod. Soon their break was over and they both
went back to work.
ΔΔΔ
"I went home for an hour," said Meg, "but I couldn't stay put." She sipped coffee
from a Tennis International Vegas Cup cup. "I didn't feel safe." Meg looked around Jim
Rafferty's living room. She found the place surreal, from the dozen painted glass slot
machine backpanels hung on one wall to the two matching display cases given over
entirely to blackjack and baccarat shoes. "I thought they'd blown up my car."
"But now you don't think so?"
Megan shook her head sadly. "No, I did it myself. I turned down a tow." And
that's what happens when you let ego drive your play. Damn, some lessons learn slow.
"Oil leak... gas leak... something... I don't know," she said softly. "Then... boom." She
stared into her coffee cup. Close it down, Meg, close it down. The cops got it right:
Mirplo's on the make and the rest is just random noise.
Megan took out a piece of paper and handed it to Rafferty. "Okay, this pyramid I
told you about... I did a drawing." She spoke off her breath. "Please tell me it's
worthless, so the next time I see Vic Mirplo I can Velcro his skinny butt to a bus."
Raff looked it over. "Why would I recognize this?"
50
"The eye is a poker chip. I couldn't draw that part."
Raff nodded thoughtfully. "Hang on." He opened a footlocker and poked around
inside. Megan watched as he stooped over his trove. She found that she felt good in his
company. He was so comfortingly single-minded. But what's this about pocket jacks?
"Hey Raff, Since when do you play poker?"
"I don't, except on computer. Is it much different for real?"
Meg chuckled. "A little bit, yeah."
Raff brought out a cigar box, Howard Hughes Brand, stunningly rare. The cigars
inside were long gone. Now it housed 24 pyramids in four neat rows. Meg picked one
up and examined it in the light of a halogen baby spot. It glittered, but it didn't sit right in
her hand. Not heavy enough.
"What's it made of?"
"I'm not sure. Possibly brass. Electroplate."
"But not gold."
"Not gold."
Then that was that. Vic's treasure was a weekday antique, nothing special. And
Vic's story was a weak con. But why? Just because you lend a rail rat a couple of bucks
he thinks he can mook you? It doesn't make sense.
"Where are they from?" she asked. "The Luxor?"
"The Luxor has nothing to do with these. And they're not movie props, though
that's what some people think."
"So then what are they?"
"I don't know. I have a theory."
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"Only a theory?" Meg smiled. She felt herself untangling at last, coming down
from the adrenalated hours of the sleepless night. "Raff, I'm surprised." She stretched
out on Rafferty's couch. It was old and overstuffed. From some casino or cathouse no
doubt. "I thought you knew everything." Comfy, though. Damn comfy. "What about the
poker chip eye thingie?"
"That's why it's not a movie prop. Too much attention to detail. If it were one of
a kind, that would be different, but as you can see..."
"Dime a dozen."
"I paid twenty for these."
Megan examined a couple more pyramids. She noticed the seeping weariness in
each eye. "They look sad."
"I think," said Raff, "that that's where they went wrong."
"Where who went wrong?"
"Some casino's marketing department. I imagine they cooked these up as lucky
charms. But the eye came out so downbeat it could never be used. Too scary for
gamblers."
"But in any event nothing to blow up a car over."
"Not that I can see."
"That's a load off," said Megan. "Thanks, Raff." She yawned. "Now about those
pocket jacks."
He leaned forward with bright eyes. "Yes?"
"The short answer is bump 'em or dump 'em. The long answer is... let's go find
out."
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"Great," said Raff. "I'll turn on the computer."
"Not there, Raff. For real. In a casino. I know just the place."
"No," said Raff with mustered authority. "I'd need to know much more first. The
procedures, the rules..."
"No sweat, I'll teach you the rules. And here's the first one: Never play tired."
With that, Megan Moore buried her face in a couch cushion and quickly fell asleep.
ΔΔΔ
Detective Dan Swertlow wrapped up the murder scene, his second in 24 hours.
He didn't like murder scenes, especially on short sleep. And especially when young
Andy Bates, on equally short sleep, somehow still managed a peppy whistle.
"Knock it off, Bates," growled Swertlow.
"Knock what off?"
"That whistling."
"Was I whistling?" Bates thought about this in silence. He tugged at a nose hair.
After a moment, he resumed whistling.
"Bates..."
"What? It's Gary Owen. General Custer's theme song." As if that explained it.
Swertlow watched a morgue team take the guy away. His name was Luther
Gerlach. He'd been bludgeoned, then dumped, incongruously, here at the entrance to
Beloved Friends, a pet cemetery in Summerlin. What's going on here? wondered
Swertlow. In the space of a day, two world champion poker players turn up dead, but
their identifying hardware isn't stolen, nor is their money touched. So if robbery wasn't
the motive, what was?
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And how does that poker gal's car fit in?
The fire department had logged a marshmallow last night. Meg's Miata. When
the plates matched up with ones in Swertlow's prelim, they'd sent him word.
Aside from Meg's car, Swertlow had fuck-all to go on. Brad the dealer had been
questioned and cut loose. Turns out he never left the casino floor last night, and had
witnesses to prove it. Which meant – news flash – that Vic Mirplo lied when he put Brad
on the parking garage roof with Pete Bonner. Which left Swertlow short on suspects. He
thought again about Megan. Nothing connected her to events except the coincident
landing of Pete Bonner on her car. But to have that car burn up on the same night...
What was that expression she used? Running bad? To Swertlow, people made their own
luck, and if Megan Moore was running that bad, he'd want to know why. He had just
about decided to track her down and ask her when Bates fielded a phone call. He
scrawled a couple of quick notes, then switched off the cell phone. "Interesting," he said,
scratching his elbow with his pen and leaving a web of black ink lines there. "Gerlach
had a record."
"Yeah?"
"Yep. Assault and battery." Bates fiddled with his notes. "Some North Vegas
card room. Dalton's? Denton's?" He squinted. "I can't read my writing. But here's the
fun part." Bates rubbed his eye. "The complainant? It's your friend Megan Moore."
ΔΔΔ
They played downtown at the Corral, because the Corral spread one of the few
bottom limit hold 'em games left in town. Raff drove them over in his vintage El
Camino, while Meg briefed him on buy-ins, blinds and procedures. "You can buy in for
54
just twenty bucks, so that's pretty limited exposure. The limits are one and two dollars.
That means you can bet or raise one dollar before or after the flop and two dollars on the
turn and the river."
"Fixed limit." Jim nodded. "Just like on the computer."
"No, Raff, it's nothing like on computer. Real money's at stake. It makes you
play different."
"Why? It's just money."
"And that's a good attitude to have. Just don't get carried away. Play tight, play
strong." She smiled. "Just like on computer."
They reached the casino. As they crossed to the poker room, Raff noticed an
abandoned slot card in the card reader of a video poker machine. He didn't even think to
take it, which he found strange. But excitement swarmed over him as he approached the
card room. In all the years he'd surfed Las Vegas, all the countless card rooms he'd
cruised for collectibles, it had never occurred to him to take a seat in a game. Now that it
was about to happen, he felt his fingers tingle and his blood rise.
Meg walked Raff to the sign-up desk and greeted the floorman by name. "Hey,
Jiggs," she said. "Got one in the one-two?"
"You're playing one-two, Meg? What'd, your fortunes fall?"
"It's not me." She threw her arm around Rafferty. "It's this guy. Initials JR."
"As in Ewing," nodded Jiggs, adding Jim's initials to the short waiting list for the
$1-2 limit game.
Meg turned to Jim. "Jiggs'll call you into the game when a seat comes open," she
said.
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"How about if you play, and I just watch?" suggested Jim. In truth he was eager
to try, but his cold feet didn't give up without a fight.
"Nope, it's all you. Baptism of fire." Again her killer sly grin. "Don't worry,
you'll do fine." She kissed his cheek. Why'd you kiss him, M? He's going to think you've
got a crush.
But Meg was in a poker room, where every action has an angle. She knew that
the regulars in the higher limit games would be watching her. Over in her normal haunts
of $20-40 and $30-60, they'd see her breaking in this newbie and jump to some tawdry
conclusion. Maybe they'd take it for sentiment or distraction or some other sort of hole
in her game. A hole they would sometime later try to, and fail to, exploit. So it was
misdirection, long-term image stealth.
Or else she just kissed him for luck.
Soon he joined the game, $1-2 fixed-limit hold 'em, with no ante and a single
forced blind bet of one dollar. The house took 5% of the pot, up to two dollars, though
pots rarely grew to such lofty sums as the $40 necessary to collect a two dollar rake.
Cheap enough place to collect an education, thought Meg. Anyway get his feet wet.
Jim watched with avid interest as the dealer took his $50 (never buy in for the
minimum, Meg had cautioned, it makes you look timid) and gave him fifty blue one-dollar
chips, in two stacks of 20 and one of ten. Raff immediately pocketed one chip for his
collection. Meg made a mental note to clue him in that you're not supposed to take chips
off the table. She turned a chair around backward and settled in behind him to watch him
play.
56
The first cards Jim received were the jack and ten of diamonds, as Meg could see
from the glimpse he gave her, cupping his long, slender hands around the cards to protect
them from prying eyes. J-T suited. Meg silently assessed how that hand was likely to
perform in a game like this. Low limit poker, Meg knew, could be a real horror show of
loose and wild betting, but the absolute bottom limit, the $1-2 game, tended to be weak,
tight and passive. People who consider $20 a lot of money may come to play poker, but
they rarely come to gamble.
Jim called with his J-T suited, and there were no more raises before the flop.
When the dealer turned over a flop of A-K-K, Rafferty quietly folded his hand, rather
than trying to draw to an inside straight. Meg approved. Chasing, she knew, was the
single most potent force for the spontaneous combustion of a low limit player's game.
God, it feels good to be thinking about poker, thought Meg. In the middle of a
calm Sunday, in the middle of a calm card room, Megan allowed herself to believe that
things were returning to normal. True, her car was gone and the insurance company
would probably ask prickly questions. But for a while there during the night she had
thought that her life was sliding sideways. Apparently... thankfully... she was wrong.
About ten hands into his session, Raff had just posted the big blind and found
himself looking at pocket kings. When the dealer gave him the blind hand's option to
raise, Rafferty took it, and three other players called his bet. The flop came T-3-2
rainbow – all different suits – and Raff bet again. The player to his left raised and the
other two dropped. Rafferty called. The turn card was a seven and the river card a
queen. Rafferty bet and got called each time. His kings gave him a final hand of K-K-Q-
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T-7. His opponent held A-T, for a final hand of T-T-A-Q-7. A routine win, but it was
Rafferty's first, and it made his pulse race as the dealer pushed him the pot.
Meg leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "It's just money, right?"
"It's not just money," he whispered back with the throaty urgency of a true
obsessive collector, "it's chips."
Raff played for a couple of hours, then declared himself tired. He offered Megan
a ride home, which she accepted. As they drove to her apartment, she pointed out some
errors in his play and gave him tips on how to fix them. She found him eager and
attentive, with no inflated sense of his own card-sense to flatten out his learning curve.
"You'd make a good student," she said.
"And you're a great teacher. When's our next lesson?"
Soon, Meg wanted to say. She liked being with Rafferty.
But she feared some tawdry conclusion.
Best to pass this hand.
"I play at the Galaxy and the Sherwood mostly," she said equivocally. "You can
check me there." There followed an empty silence which Meg could not leave unfilled.
"So anyway," she said with forced brightness, "how does it feel? Your first big win."
"I wouldn't call thirty bucks a big win."
"Better than a sharp stick in the eye."
"That's true." In fact it was more than true. It was electric. Raff felt wired to his
winnings, more wired than to any treasure he'd pried out of Vegas in quite some time.
Live poker, he had to admit, made computer play seem like naptime at nursery school.
He had the sudden urge to build a bankroll.
58
They reached Meg's apartment building, a six-unit two-story box facing another
six-unit two-story box across a sere lawn and a sorry little pool. She told Raff he didn't
need to see her up, but he insisted. Meg had a flat on the second floor in back, and as she
climbed the outside stairs two at a time to reach it, Raff found himself, as a point of pride,
hustling to keep pace. Look at you, he chided himself, chasing a kid.
But a poker kid. That's not nothing.
Megan opened the door. "Fuck me," she said simply.
Someone had been in her apartment. Someone had torn it to shreds.
ΔΔΔ
Babydoll Sedoso kept his temper through most of his shift but when three
drunken tourists decided that his name was a big huge joke, his teeth began to grind.
"Babydoll," one sneered. "What the hell kind of name is Babydoll?"
It so happened that Babydoll's people had a custom of using nicknames instead of
real names, for they believed that you sacrifice personal power when you use your given
name too freely. It's a sea pirate thing; you wouldn't understand. Though baptized
Montello, Babydoll had been Babydoll since before he was born. None of which he
bothered to explain to the plastered tourists, who nevertheless continued to give him the
needle.
"And isn't sedoso Spanish for silky?" one wondered.
"What if it is?" grumbled Babydoll.
"Well, Babydoll Silky, my god – it sounds like a porn star's name." This set the
tourists, and in fact the whole table, off on a round of hearty laughter at Babydoll's
59
expense. He loosened his collar with his finger. Damn collar was always too tight for his
neck.
Five minutes later, Sparks Henderson, working brush, watched Babydoll Sedoso
explode.
It was over nothing, really. A card got exposed and a humorless semi-pro named
Turk Nixon complained that Babydoll's carelessness had cost him a pair. Babydoll
snarled something sharp and Turk barked back. Soon the two were at it, face to face,
neck muscles bulging. They traded curses and loud insults and almost came to blows
before half a dozen players jumped in to pull them apart.
The floor manager told Babydoll to clock out and go home, and furthermore to
expect a suspension. Babydoll fumed and muttered in a murderous rage. He wanted to
throttle Turk Nixon, or the floor manager, or both. But a man needs a job, even a
descendant of pirates. Shaking with fury, Babydoll stormed away.
Sparks Henderson went back to tidying up the tables. After a few minutes, he
vectored over to the house phone and placed a quick, quiet call. "Yeah, it's me," he said.
"I think we've got a horse."
60
6. Just Because You're Paranoid
Slaughter! Not just subjugation but total annihilation of your unworthy
opponents! That's the goal of Killer Poker. That's your consummation
devoutly to be wished. Present yourself to your foes as a breaking wave of
relentless poker fury. The good players will know enough to respect your
play, and they will back off. But the bad players... hah! That's where you
make your money.
The bad players don't know enough to be afraid and they'll stick with you,
pouring money into the pot and leaving it vulnerable to your subsequent
attacks. You'll be astounded (and profitably delighted) by how many times
they'll call, then call, then call, then fold, if you just keep betting. So just
keep betting! To that old expression "you cannot win if you do not play,"
let's add the caveat, "you cannot win a lot if you do not raise a lot."
Afraid to raise? Then you're a putz. Get out of the game before you lose
your milk money, you wimp.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 6: Raising Hell
Megan surveyed the damage: dresser drawers yanked out, contents strewn all
over; closets emptied; pillows slashed; books ripped from their spines. The fridge had
been bare-walled and all the condiment jars emptied into the sink. In the bathroom she
found the contents of her medicine chest swirling in the toilet, and lamented the loss of
her emergency valium stash. It seemed to Meg that her apartment hadn't just been
searched, but raped, violated. "I thought I was just being paranoid," she said.
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you," said Jim.
"I'll call 911."
He reached for the phone, but Megan stopped him. "Not just yet," she said.
"No? Why not?"
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In her mind Meg had a picture of Dan Swertlow and his smirking disapproval.
Somehow, she felt, he'd make this out to be her fault, and she really didn't want to deal
with that right now. So she managed a wan smile and said, "Just because I'm paranoid."
"Well it's your, uhm..." Rafferty looked around, at a loss for words. "...shattered
wreck of a life, I guess."
"Raff! What a thing to say!"
"I know. I'm sorry. I'll help you clean up."
"No, it's all right. You can go." Meg pushed her hair off her face. Where to
begin?
Rafferty set a chair upright. "I'm not going," he said.
"Yeah you are. Raff, Mirplo dragged me into this. I'm not dragging you in too."
"Maybe you already did."
"Maybe I did," barked Megan. "What do you want to do, shoot me?"
"No, I want to help you."
"Oh for God's sake. Raff... Jim... this is serious shit. Look around. Look what
they did to my place. You want them doing it to yours? Looking for some unnamed
needle in a highly breakable haystack?"
"I don't care about that," said Rafferty, and he meant it. For a moment he flashed
on a nightmare snapshot of his museum-quality collection reduced to rubble and dust by
careless searchers. But Rafferty had some old-school values, polished over time and
aged like wine. According to those values, you didn't turn your back on someone in
trouble. You just didn't. And it had nothing to do with the fact of her being curtly blonde
and dead bang cute.
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You just didn't, that's all.
Megan's sizable library of poker books had been swept from a shelf. As Rafferty
re-racked them, the titles caught his eye. Zen Mind, Poker Mind. The Pro Poker
Playbook. Cards in the Air. He speculatively flipped through a copy of Killer Poker:
How to Play like a Maniac and Win. "This looks good," he said.
"It's a classic," said Meg.
"Can I borrow it?"
Megan almost had to laugh. Could this man even buy a clue? Again she felt
warm toward him, protective almost. So she repeated, "Seriously, Raff, I don't need your
help."
"Really?" Jim looked around. From what he could see, there were no
photographs of family or friends. Beyond that, the apartment had the feel of someone
who inhabited it in isolation. He recognized the vibe, for his own home gave off the
same sensation. "Really?" he repeated. "Is that so? You have better help than me? Tell
me you do and I'll leave right now." He caught her eye and held it in his gaze. "Do
you?"
She wanted to lie; for his own good she wanted to harsh him off, drive him away.
Could she sell it? Into that steely gaze? She didn't think so. "They say you can't bluff a
new player," she sighed. "They don't know enough to know they're being mooked.
Okay, Raff, you win. At least you can help clean up."
"All right then."
"Not responsible though, okay? That's all. I'm just saying not responsible up
front." Meg caught herself. "Oh God, I sound like Vic Mirplo." She turned to face him.
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"Thank you," she said. Suddenly she felt like she needed a hug, so she took one. Megan
thought that his solid trunk felt good. She closed her eyes. But when she opened them,
the wreck of her apartment was still there, still to be dealt with. Where is this going? she
wondered. Where is this going to end?
"All right," said Jim, as if everything were settled, and clearing up the mystery
would be no more difficult than cleaning up a few rooms. "Let's get started. The sooner
we get to the bottom of this nonsense, the sooner we get back to my lessons."
"Lessons?"
"Poker lessons." He winked. "You don't think I'm doing this for free, do you?
As of now you're my poker coach, okay?"
She blinked. "Okay. I guess."
"Good. Then let's hurry up and get this place square. I have some research to
do."
"Now that you mention it," said Megan, thinking of Vic Mirplo and of the
answers she wanted from him, "I have a little research too."
ΔΔΔ
There was a rented room in an industrial park. Too small for effective office
space, it stood vacant most of the time. But lately it had been leased, in cash, by a
taciturn man named Ely Lovelock. Periodically, Ely held quiet small meetings in this
room. It was a good place for quiet meetings. Evenings and weekends the industrial park
was deserted, and people could come and go without being seen, except by the security
service, who earned a healthy retainer to take no note. Late Sunday afternoon, Ely met
with Sparks Henderson, and given the quiet nature of both men their conversation was
64
brief. The laconic cowboy dealer recounted the confrontation between Babydoll Sedoso
and Turk Nixon. He suggested that both men could be used for the current purpose, and
Lovelock nodded his approval.
"You talk to the dealer," said Lovelock. "I'll get the pyramid launched."
And with that the meeting, such as it was, stood adjourned.
ΔΔΔ
Vic Mirplo sat in the six seat. The white-haired lady in the five seat routinely
flashed her hole cards, and Vic routinely peeked. He didn't call it cheating, just gathering
data. Vic could often beat up on much weaker opponents when he had the advantage of
knowing in advance exactly what they held.
Though sometimes not. Vic was such a bad player in so many ways. He went on
tilt, overplayed rushes, antagonized better players, underplayed powerful hands, and
made suicide bluffs into multiple opponents. He gave advice to tourists – annoyingly
provided and spectacularly misguided. He played hunch hands, called raises out of
position, bought in for underfunded minimums, played tired, played scared, played
stoned, played sick, and somehow clung to the fantasy that he was a pretty nifty little card
sharp just the same.
Sunday evenings, the Paladin Casino held a small fry Omaha/8 tournament, $15
buy-in, no rebuys. Perfect for bottom feeders like Mirplo – who had nevertheless
managed to dig himself a hundred-dollar hole in a $1-4 stud game while waiting for the
tournament to start. And though the four Purple Marys (vodka and grape juice – a Mirplo
original!) he'd slugged back in the last hour could not be said to have helped, the fact is if
65
you're a really, really, really bad player to begin with, drinking won't materially hurt your
game.
The dealer dealt. The five seat flashed her hole cards. Vic saw a pair sevens, a
fair complement to the ace the old lady showed on top. Then he looked at his own hand
and found that he held split nines with a king. Power! thought Vic, overlooking both a
nine and a king among the other players' upcards. "You know," he whispered to the
woman on his right, "you should always raise when you have an ace showing. To drive
out the shoe clerks, like."
"You think?" asked the woman. She announced a two dollar raise, and Vic
pounded over the top with a full raise to make it six to go. Everyone folded around to the
woman, who stared quizzically at him, and then called. Triumph! he bellowed in his
mind. Isolation!
Fourth street brought Vic an eight, and his opponent a jack. She checked, and Vic
paused to declaim before betting. "Well I don't think that ace and jack have anything to
do with your hand, so I bet four. What's your name, sugar?"
"Pearl."
"Well Pearl, if you're smart, you'll fold now." It was a standard Mirplo ploy, the
el goado, double-reverse psychology. Against a certain kind of opponent, it was one
Mirplo trick that actually worked, and it worked here. Pearl called.
On fifth street, Vic paired his eight, and Pearl caught a brick, that is to say a
useless card. He bet out. "Now you should raise me," he coaxed, "because I'm obviously
bluffing." The old double-double. But the woman just called.
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Sixth street brought Vic a reversal. Pearl paired her jack, and he caught a
worthless four. Now she was ahead, jacks and sevens to his nines and eights. He
couldn't bet now, and didn't want Pearl to, so he tried to shoot an angle. "Check," he said
forcefully, and sure enough the dealer started to deal.
"Excuse me," said Pearl, "but I haven't acted yet. I believe you played out of
turn." She bet four dollars.
Vic ran the odds to the best of his addled ability. He'd be calling a $4 bet into a
$33 pot, and thought he had four outs among the 37 cards not yet seen. Okay, 8 to 1 odds
on a 5 to 1 shot, he concluded, both miscalculating and misinterpreting the odds, and
raising as a result. "Oh my," said Pearl. Vic allowed himself to hope that she might fold
right here, but she shakily administered four dollars into the pot.
Seventh street. Mirplo squeezed out his hole card. Blast! A three! A stinking
lousy three!
"I check," said Pearl.
Mirplo knew she had him beat. He couldn't win unless she passed; therefore, he
had to bet. He banged another four-bagger into the pot. Then he screwed down his face
into his mask of inscrutability, and went to work on his chant.
Mirplo actually believed that he could sway his opponents' play with psychic
waves. Of course it never worked beyond coincidence, but that didn't shake Vic's faith in
the strategy. And so he beamed it out, in a rapid silent chant: fold fold fold fold fold fold
fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold
fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold
fold fold.
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She called.
Vic threw away his hand in disgust. "You and your lousy sevens!"
"I don't have sevens." She turned over her hand. "Just a pair of jacks." Her hole
cards were a deuce, a seven... and a six. I misread her hand! I misread her goddamn
hand! Vic scrambled to retrieve his own hand, but it was already deep in the muck.
"Why didn't you fold?" Vic asked, his face red with alcohol and fury.
"Well, young man, with all your raises, I was getting quite favorable odds. If you
even only bluff one time in ten I figure to make money by calling." She smiled sweetly
at him, and began stacking her – formerly his – chips.
Vic took his fury and his few remaining chips and left the game. He went to the
floor manager and loudly demanded his tournament buy-in back. "No way do I play in a
tournament in a place as unlucky as this." The floor manager pointed out that he hadn't
actually paid his buy-in yet. Vic stormed off. Someone followed, but Vic was far too
busy seething to notice.
He walked through the casino, savagely yanking slot handles, and began looking
for a hot craps table. Sometimes when a craps table got hot, players got generous – or
careless – with their chips. Maybe he could recoup his losses with a quick snatch and
ramble.
But the craps tables were all pretty dead, so he gave up on that. He went up the
escalator to the mezzanine and down a long hall to an unoccupied banquet room where he
knew he could catch a snooze. He slipped inside, lay down on his back beside a table and
closed his eyes. He was just nodding off when he felt a weight on his chest and opened
his eyes to find Megan Moore kneeling there. She pinned his arms behind his head.
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"Hello, Vic," she said softly. "Let's chat."
ΔΔΔ
Sparks Henderson tracked down Babydoll Sedoso at the Oasis Casino, where a
qualifying satellite for the World Series of Dealers was just about to start. Sparks took
Babydoll aside and had a few words with him. Remarkable words. Words which blew
Babydoll's mind.
Yeah, casual talk of murder for hire can have that effect.
Descended as he was from Zamboanga Sea pirates, he was not opposed to murder
on principal. But the tournament was starting, so Babydoll said he'd hook up with
Henderson and deal with this later.
About that time, Turk Nixon discovered a padded manila envelope on his
doorstep. It bore no markings, no return address. Inside the envelope, Turk found a
pyramid identical to the one that Vic Mirplo had scored two nights before in the parking
garage of the Galaxy Casino.
Turk examined the treasure. Its color and heft pleased him, but the sorrowful eye
on each face gave him the creeps. He brought it in to show his wife. "Come see my
anthrax," he might as well have said, for from the moment he touched the pyramid, Turk
Nixon was a dead man walking. Within 24 hours, he would be just dead.
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7. World Series of Dealers
Okay, here's your homework: Go play poker today as if you are the most
pissed off person in the world. Seek to irritate everyone. Insult the
dealers. Insult the players. Bend the rules. Hell, bend the cards! Be as
obnoxious and angry and confrontational and just generally assholic as
you can. Now play like that all the time! Of course it's unpleasant, but it
works. The more you misbehave, the more likely your opponents are to
make mistakes. No they won't like it, and they probably won't like you, but
who gives a shit? Killer Poker is about winning money, not friends. God,
do I still have to remind you of that?
If you want to win, you have to take control. If you want to take control,
you need an image. You need your enemies playing your game, not theirs.
And if your image makes your foes uncomfortable? Good! Great! That's
what it's supposed to do. What the fuck good are comfortable opponents?
If they don't like it, they can quit.
Funny thing is, your most worthy opponents will quit because they'll know
that your destabilizing behavior is bad for their game. But your weaker
adversaries – the very ones you want to hang around – will likely stay in
the game. You've made them angry, and they want to pay you back. They
will, you know. With money.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 7: You! Asshole!
When you opened the door to Benny's Historicals, a bell didn't ring. Instead you
got a short sound-bite from some point in the past, a different one every time you entered
the store. Maybe you'd hear a paddy wagon's siren or a speech by Father Coughlin or
play-by-play from a prize fight or the roar of a ramjet engine. They were all authentic
recordings, captured or collected, then digitized and programmed into the doorbell, by
round little Benny himself.
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Benny's Historicals sold the crème de la rare of documents and artifacts, big on
signatures, long on presidentials. If you wanted the knob from Old Hickory's walking
stick or draft versions of the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, you'd visit Benny's
Historicals, in the shopping arcade of the fabulous Ragnarok Hotel and Casino. If you
were Jim Rafferty, and you wanted another trained eye trained on the question of a
certain strange pyramid, you'd take it to Benny Storm and see what he had to say.
It was Sunday evening, near closing time. The two old friends had the place to
themselves. Raff leaned against a glass counter. Benny sat on a high stool. Peering
through a jeweler's loupe, he turned the pyramid over slowly in his hand, patiently
studying each face, and the tiny crystal inlay at the center of each sad eye. The stones
were quartz or possibly white sapphire, cut in the old-fashioned Empire style.
"Creepy little bastard," said Benny, for the pyramid projected a sense of weary
dread. "And you say hard guys are after it?"
"Not this one. One like it."
"Why?"
"That's kind of what I'd like to know."
"Hmm. Well, I can't help you there, but I can give you a guess on the age. Early
20th century."
"Yeah? Based on what?"
Benny gave Raff a sidelong glance. "Based on me being a smart son of a bitch."
He smiled. "Based on how it's cast." He pointed out rough edges along the pyramid's
seams. "They used pretty crude dies back then." He rubbed one face of the pyramid
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gently. "But this is not a bad job. Some work went into it. How many did you say you
had?"
"Couple dozen."
"Then you've got a bunch, because they couldn't have struck more than 200 or so.
After that, the old dies broke down and you started to lose detail."
"Could they be pieces from some children's game?" asked Jim, "like checkers?"
Benny thought of children looking into that death-drawing eye. He shivered. "If
you were a kid, would you play with this?"
"Not at gunpoint," chuckled Raff. Benny noticed the light that danced in Jim's
eyes. A light, thought Benny, that hadn't been there for quite some time.
"They could be lodge tokens," said Benny.
"What, like the Elks or VFW?"
"Not quite that benign." Benny crossed to a display table with locked storage
space underneath. "All over the west there used to be these men's clubs. Sons of
Nevada, Cattlemen's Grange. They used tokens to identify one another."
"Like a secret handshake?"
"Like that, yeah." Benny unlocked a storage drawer and took out a pair of carved
ivory skulls, not much bigger than cufflinks. "These belonged to the Social Justice
League."
Raff looked at the foreboding skulls. "Vigilantes?"
"Of course." Benny returned his attention to Jim's pyramid. "Couple dozen, huh?
Where'd you get 'em?"
"Benny, I wish to hell I knew. But it's been so long..."
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"I understand," said Benny, tapping a temple. "Senior memory." The two were
roughly the same age. Their common path took them back through thirty years of
obsessive collecting. They'd each buried a wife. They knew their way around life.
Benny regarded his friend. Last time they met, Raff had been flat, torpid, disconnected
from the world on all terms but surfing. Now he seemed plugged in, jacked up... juiced.
"Jim, let me ask you a question."
"Shoot."
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Oh I don't really think it's dangerous. I mean, the girl got robbed, but that – "
"It's the girl I'm talking about."
"What?" Rafferty blinked. "What?"
"How old did you say she was?"
"I don't know. Young. What does it matter? I'm certainly not dating her. She's
my..." Rafferty folded his arms across his chest. "She's my poker coach."
"Whatever." Benny smiled knowingly. "Just remember: safe sex." He gave the
pyramid a final glance and handed it back to Jim. Scary son of a bitch, he thought.
Raff thanked Benny for his help, then hurried to go. Benny watched him walk
away, noting the spring in his old friend's step. Poor sucker's in love, thought Benny. He
thought about the pyramid, and a shiver passed through him again.
ΔΔΔ
Babydoll Sedoso played poker like his pirate ancestors plied their trade: with
intimidation, assault and pure terror. In the middle stages of the qualifying satellite for
the World Series of Dealers, he'd used these bludgeons to muscle open a huge chip lead.
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The World Series of Dealers. Ask any dealer and he'll tell you that no other
tournament matters. Not the big one at Binion's, none of them. Because until you've
beaten the dealers, you haven't beaten the best. Ask any dealer. He'll tell you. It's the
real deal, that tournament; the show. To dealers, the only show in town. And this year
Babydoll Sedoso was determined to win it all.
But he had to win a satellite first, and he'd already blown several grand in the
attempt. Babydoll figured that God blessed the screwheads, because how else could you
explain the fact of his consistently superior play leaving him short of his goal? Every
time he got close, it seemed, some long-odds loser would suck out on him and send him
to the rail. But now here came a whole new spin. According to Sparks Henderson,
Babydoll could have himself a sponsor, someone willing to punch his ticket to the show.
Plus a generous cash contribution to the Babydoll Sedoso Benevolent Welfare Fund for
the benevolent welfare of Babydoll Sedoso. And all he had to do was kill. That's not so
much.
Especially when you considered who they wanted whacked and why. The reason,
as explained by Sparks Henderson, had made Babydoll laugh with dark delight. "Serves
the fockers right," he'd said. "They've had it coming to them for a long, long time."
Babydoll was fed up with satellites anyway. Win or lose, this was his last one.
Win or lose.
ΔΔΔ
"That piece of crap? I got rid of it."
"You're lying," said Megan calmly, still kneeling on his chest.
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"No, yeah, I did," said Vic. "I tried to pawn it, but... like five bucks, where's that?
So I dumped it in a bum bucket. You know, Slavation Army? Anyway, what's your
shot? I thought you were all go to the cops about it."
"I went to the cops. Swertlow thinks you're trying to hustle me with a bogus
collectible."
Vic snorted – but minimally, for Meg had his chest completely constricted.
"Mook you? Give me a break. I am not that stupid."
"Vic, you are that stupid. Has anyone tried to take it from you?"
"I told you, I couldn't give it away."
"I'm serious. Someone strip-searched my apartment."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Maybe those guys from Rudi's Eatateria. Where you ran away,
remember?"
Vic looked pained. "Strategic withdrawal, come on."
"They shredded my flat. Anyway somebody did."
"What about loan sharks? Do you owe – ?"
Meg leaned into his chest. "Where is the pyramid now?"
"Like I said, I tossed it."
"Man, Vic, why do you do this the hard way?" She grabbed an ear and twisted it
till he squealed.
"Ouch! Jesus! Okay, all right!" Meg relinquished his ear. "Could you lift that
left knee? Just the left one. It's kind of crushing my lung."
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Meg didn't move. "Go on," she said. The banquet room door was open behind
her, but she wasn't worried about anyone walking in and seeing them. To the casual eye
they'd look like frisking romantics.
"Well, you know, I wanted to wait. I wanted to talk to that surf guy of yours. But
you were frosty on that, so... I found a market."
"A mark, you mean. Who was he?"
"No, you know, some old couple. Their son's a big civil war buff, so I convinced
them that the pyramid was the, like, regimental token for General Crookstaff's army."
"I didn't know armies had regimental tokens."
Vic mustered a grin. "They do now."
"And who was General Crookstaff? North or south?"
"You know, they didn't ask. I think I'd have said north, because anyway I made
him up too." Mirplo glowed with liar's pride. "You want me to go buy it back? I could
for, you know, some kind of commission."
"Shut up, Vic."
"Or I could do that."
When Meg replayed poker hands in her mind, she tried to look for the thread.
Often if you examined a string of bets in retrospect, you discovered who was really
driving the action and why. For instance, when a powerful player traps an overly
aggressive opponent, the aggressive player is putting in the bets, but the power player is
actually in control.
Meg reviewed recent events in similar fashion, looking for the thread. She had
thought that the thread was the pyramid, but...
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Pete Bonner fought with Brad the dealer on the roof of the Galaxy Casino's
parking garage. Then Pete died by falling, landing on my car which, so far as I can tell,
was just a coincidence. But what's not a coincidence is Mirplo's involvement. He found
the pyramid that Bonner threw away. Someone must have followed him – and me – to
Rudi's Eatateria. Why? To get the pyramid. But how would they know that Vic had it in
the first place? And why would they think he gave it to me? They don't know anything
about us. They only know we were together at Rudi's.
Megan laughed suddenly, so suddenly that Vic flinched. "They don't want the
pyramid." She patted his cheek. "What they want is the witness."
"What witness? Me? I didn't see a thing."
Meg stood up. "Doesn't matter. They saw you on the roof and decided that you
saw them spill Pete Bonner. Now they're trying to find you."
Mirplo struggled to his feet. "By trashing your apartment?"
"Looking for a lead."
"Oh good guess, Shylock."
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"See the murder."
"No way."
"But they saw you leave the rooftop."
"Okay, yeah, there, well, there," said Vic, "there I might of made a slight mistake.
See, I was singing."
"Singing?"
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"For bravado, like. Nonchalance. As such."
"As such. Guess that didn't work, huh?"
"Guess not." Vic thought about it for a moment. "On the other hand, maybe
you're just playing back at me. Maybe you made this up to scare me. For payback, like."
"Believe me, Vic, I have better things – "
"In fact, yeah, definitely." A feral firmness came into Vic's voice. "You know
what, Meg? We could've hooked up over this pyramid. Made some crisp. Bonded,
even. It would've been great." He spread his hands. "We didn't. Hey, that's cool. I can
live with that. I dished the pyramid on my own, without your help. Vic Mirplo is a
capable guy." He drew himself up to his full height of five feet, eight inches. "So stop
trying to fright me up with fairy tales, huh?" He gathered as much dignity as a man with
knee-bruises on his chest can muster. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go
parlay my new bankroll into a serious stake."
Meg glanced at the door. "I don't think so."
"No, yeah, I am."
"I seriously don't think so." He followed her gaze to the door of the banquet
room.
Two sober young men stood in the doorway. They were tall, angular, smoothshaven, dressed plainly in black pants and white dress shirts. Like missionaries, thought
Meg. Or dealers.
"Well this is complete horseshit," said Vic. "I am so out of here." He started
toward the door. But the men held Beretta 92 Compacts, and when Vic saw the guns he
retreated quickly to Meg's side. "Or, you know, not."
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"What the hell is this?" Meg challenged the men.
"We just want to ask you some questions," said one of the pair.
"Oh so it's like a game show," said Vic. And it was too. Exactly like a game
show. Except in this case your lovely parting gift could be a bullet in the brain.
ΔΔΔ
Late in the tournament, Babydoll Sedoso took his big chip lead and his pocket
kings over the top of an early-position raiser. Everyone folded to the first raiser, who reraised all in. Babydoll called with predatory delight, and put his pocket kings on their
backs.
And what did his opponent have? Weakness! 9-8 offsuit! When the flop came
K-J-2, Babydoll let out a whoop. After this hand he'd be in boss command, with a clear,
straight shot to a satellite win. I'm going to the show! And then I'll show all the losers
and lunatics in this sad, pathetic town how a pirate plays poker!
But the turn came a ten and the river a seven, goring Babydoll's kings with a
runner-runner straight. After that, he went on terrifying tilt, and was quickly trapped,
played back at, and eliminated. He didn't even money.
Babydoll bulled across the casino floor, blind with fury. He bounced off a young
woman, knocking her slot winnings away in a rainbow of quarters. "Hey!" said her
boyfriend indignantly, "watch where you're going." Babydoll balled a fist, but someone
grabbed his hand. It was Sparks Henderson, who chilled out the irate couple and then
gently led Babydoll away.
"Bad beat?" asked Sparks as they walked on.
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Babydoll sucked air fiercely through his flared nostrils. His dark eyes smoldered.
The blood of Zamboanga Sea pirates boiled in his veins. "Not as bad as the beat I'm
going to put on someone," he said. "Who do I get to kill?"
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8. Headhunter Hold 'em
Ignorance is bliss. That's what they say, and maybe it's true if, for
instance, your best sweetie is sleazing around behind your back and you'd
just as soon not know. But ignorance is death in poker, and I'm here to
tell you that your game contains far more ignorance than you know, or
even imagine. Of course it does! You're too ignorant to know even how
ignorant you are.
Do you study your opponents? Do you remember what you see? Do you
even remember what cards have been played? Pay attention or pay off,
baby. Those are the only choices you have. But I'll put it to you this way:
Playing poker without analysis and keen awareness is like swimming in
concrete underpants. How long, exactly, do you think you'll stay afloat?
And I hear you whining. I do. I can hear you whining from here. You
think awareness is too much work, but I know that that's not it. Awareness
isn't too much work, it's too much awareness! To be a Killer Poker
player, you have to know your principal enemy inside and out. And your
principal enemy is... yes, that's right... you. Well, if you're afraid to know
yourself, then put all your money in an envelope and send it to me now,
because you'll never be a winning player, not ever, and I kind of feel sorry
for you.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 8: Ignorance of Ignorance
Megan glared at the two young men, trying to make her scared look like angry,
and not like scared. Vic stood beside her. His scared just looked like scared.
"Where's the pyramid?" asked one of the gunmen.
"Gone," said Meg. She jerked a thumb toward Mirplo. "He sold it."
"I guess you'll want the money." Vic fumbled in his pocket without conviction.
The other man gestured toward the door. "Let's go," he said. Meg and Vic
walked out. The young pair fell in behind them, and Meg and Vic each felt a cold steel
tickle in the small of their backs.
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They close-marched down the hallway toward escalators connecting the
mezzanine to the casino floor below. Just as they stepped on the escalators, Meg whirled
on Vic and shouted, "You fucking pervert, take your damn hand off my ass!"
"What?" said Vic. Not that he hadn't ever thought about grabbing her ass, but this
moment, even to the routinely wildly inappropriate Mirplo, seemed not even remotely
like the time or the place.
The sudden unexpected outburst drew the attention of random tourists, and the
gunmen cast their eyes around, nervous at the exposure. In two fluid motions, Meg fisted
one man in the crotch, and shoved the other back hard against the escalator's toothy metal
steps. She fled down the escalator, hoping she'd bought a large enough lead. Mirplo,
somewhat belatedly grasping the obvious, dashed after her. They hit the casino floor. In
the sports book a frenzied crowd watched some big event on ten giant screens. Meg
buried herself in the crowd and allowed herself to hope that if she kept low and caught
lucky, she might get out of there alive.
Outside the Paladin Casino, Jim Rafferty parked his vintage El Camino and
walked across the parking lot. He felt splendidly alive. Could he actually be falling for a
scrap of a girl a third his age? Or was he just in the midst of some mid-to-late-life crisis
that cried for adventure? Either way, Raff didn't care. Mysterious pyramids and sparky
young girls – when was such flotsam likely to wash up on his beach again? And the
poker. Don't forget the poker.
All the years he'd spent surfing Las Vegas, all the things he'd accumulated... but
what about human contact? "I'm not dating her," he had protested into Benny Storm's
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knowing smirk. "She's my poker coach." Well, thought Rafferty, coaching is contact
too.
Just as he reached the entrance, Meg came spilling out, followed by a skinny
scarecrow-looking man in a faded Nitrogen Narcosis t-shirt, and jeans from a previous
decade. "Raff!" shouted Meg. "Come on!"
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Where are you parked?" He pointed. She ran. Vic scurried after her, and Raff
fell in behind them, loping across the parking lot back to his El Camino. He jumped in
and drove off like a stunt man, with Meg in the passenger seat, and her companion
bouncing around in the truck bed.
"Is that Mirplo?" Rafferty asked.
"One hundred per cent," said Meg.
Vic flinched and ducked as a bullet whanged off the truck's tailgate. He banged
on the window, expressively communicating his urgent desire to get the hell out of there.
Rafferty floored it and headed for a nearby boulevard. He glanced in his rearview mirror
and caught a good look at the two men chasing after him on foot. A moment later he had
power-merged into traffic and left his pursuers behind.
"I know those guys," he told Meg when they were safely away. "They work at the
Phoenix Casino." He recounted how he'd been detained at the Phoenix by a lady security
boss and her two uniformed brooms. "Those were them," he said. "Same guys."
"I know them too," said Meg. "They chased Vic and me out of Rudi's Eatateria
on Saturday night.
"That's a coincidence," said Raff.
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"A coincidence and a half," agreed Meg, unconsciously echoing Andy Bates.
"Maybe three quarters."
They went back to Jim's place. He didn't think twice about taking trouble home.
This was better than surfing.
Maybe even better than poker.
ΔΔΔ
Andy Bates could hum Achy-Breaky Heart through his nose, a skill he
demonstrated for Swertlow as they walked across the floor of the cavernous Corral
Casino, nearly a ghost town this Monday mid-morning. Bates' searing discord clashed
against the occasional bonk and bong of the slot machines. Swertlow felt a headache
coming on, like the gateway drug to misery addiction. He desperately needed some
coffee, but that would have to wait. First he wanted to interview a dealer on duty the
night that Luther Gerlach had assaulted Megan Moore. Meg had filed charges against
him, but later dropped them. Swertlow wanted to know why. He had tried all night to
reach Megan by phone, but there had been no answer, not even a machine. He'd sent a
squad car around, but they'd found her place locked up tight and dark. She'd gone to
ground. Why?
The card room was crowded. Packed, in fact, which Swertlow found strange for
an otherwise dead casino. An avid young woman rushed up to greet them. In her red
calico jumper, she looked like something out of a bad western, the kind where the shy
cowboy wins the schoolmarm's heart but has to kill ten bad guys to do it. "Welcome to
the Corral card room," she said perkily. "I'm Virginia. As in City?" She allowed herself
a chuckle at her own joke. "Are you here for the Headhunter Hold 'em Tournament?"
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Swertlow drew a breath to speak, but she didn't give him a chance. "Ten dollar bounty
every time you eliminate another player." She wore her crisp auburn hair in a pageboy
cut. It bounced as she talked. "Plus another ten in Corral Cash, which you can use for
live play. You can even not money and still have a winning day. Plus, collect five
bounties and we throw in a Corral denim shirt with real mother-of-pearl snap buttons.
Pretty terrific, huh? Wanna sign up?"
Swertlow pulled out his badge and held it up before Virginia's eyes. "Citizen," he
said, "may I please have your attention. I'm looking for a woman named Chris Currie.
Do you know where I can find her?"
"Sure. She's dealing table eight."
"I need to talk to her now."
"Well, she's dealing right now. Can it wait till the break?"
"You know what? No. Do you deal?"
"Yes."
"Then go deal."
"But – "
Swertlow waggled his badge and smiled. "Go get her. Now."
Virginia retreated in the face of Swertlow's legal authority. Bates had wandered
off, and Swertlow found him standing near a poker table, intently following the action.
"It's a pretty simple game," he whispered as Swertlow walked up. "You get two cards in
your hand, and then they put five in the middle, and those cards are ones everyone shares
–"
"Bates," said Swertlow softly.
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"Yeah?"
"Ligara. Know what I'm saying?"
Bates seemed hurt. "Always make room for the new idea, Dan." He returned his
attention to the game, soaking up detail as he massaged his left eyebrow with the knuckle
of his thumb. In addition to tournament chips, Bates noticed, some of the players had
tokens or coins which they set on top of their cards to protect their hands from being
fouled or accidentally swept up by the dealer.
Directly in front of Bates, a man glanced at his hand. He held, Bates saw, 9-3
offsuit. The man put down his cards and placed a tiny pewter panda on top. Bates had a
vague idea of hand values, and those cards didn't seem so terrific. But the man put in a
raise, then called the capped betting when it came back around. The dealer flopped a J-T6 of mixed suits, seemingly no help to the panda man's hand. But the man bet just the
same, and without hesitation. Two opponents dropped and two remained. The dealer
turned over the next card, a 4. Panda checked. Bet... fold... and Panda just called. The
last card was an ace. Panda checked, then raised when the other man bet.
"Figures," said his opponent, "you hit your damn straight. You played that
cheeseball king-queen again and you got there."
"That's how you win tournaments," the panda man said as the other man folded.
But he didn't have that, thought Bates. He rubbed his cheek with the back of his
hand. This is an interesting game...
A narrow, angular woman of middle years, build, and disposition walked up and
introduced herself as Chris Currie. She led Swertlow and Bates to a small office behind
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the poker room. There she told them what she could remember of the night Luther
Gerlach attacked Megan Moore.
"Luther's a blowhole," she said. "Was, rather."
"'Was?'" asked Swertlow.
"Well he's dead, right? I mean, it's all over the card rooms. Pete Bonner and him
both."
Swertlow shook his head. These poker people. Didn't they have anything better
to do than gossip and play cards? "Why did he hit Megan Moore?"
"He didn't exactly hit her. More like pushed her, like. He put his hand on her
face like this." She demonstrated by spreading her fingers and splaying them over her
eyes, nose and mouth. "He pushed her over backward in her chair."
"She must have really provoked him," said Bates.
"She drew out on him, that's all. It pissed him off. Shouldn't have. She had
something like 20 outs, what do you expect?"
"Outs?"
"Outstanding cards that could help her hand."
"Was she hurt?"
"Surprised more than hurt."
"Why did she file charges?"
"You'd have to ask her that."
"Is she the type of person to hold a grudge?"
"With Meg you'd never know. She keeps it all inside. Rips up the games,
though."
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"She's good?" asked Bates with sudden animation. "Does she bluff?"
"Bates," growled Swertlow. Bates shut up. The right corner of his mouth
twitched twice.
"She was in here yesterday," said Chris. "With some older guy. Her new sugar
daddy, so they say."
"I'm sure they do," said Swertlow. "In fact, I'm positive they do."
"I'll tell you one thing," said Chris, "no one's going to miss him much."
"Luther Gerlach?"
"Or Pete Bonner either. He was a blowhole too."
By the time they left the card room, Swertlow's headache was an evil spreading
thing, with tentacles and talons sunk deep into his brain. He stopped at a coffee cart near
the Cowboy Lip Saloon and beat the thing back with a double espresso, straight up,
swallowed in a single throat-searing gulp. Bates called in to the LVPD switchboard and
cleared their messages while Swertlow mainlined his vasoconstrictor and waited for its
magic to work.
Not extremely well liked, thought Swertlow. Neither of them. Maybe they pissed
off the same man. The coffee kicked in and the electroshock assault on his temples began
to wane. Or woman.
Bates walked up and asked, "So, Dan, how do you like Megan Moore for a
suspect in this thing?"
"I don't," he answered. "Never wanted to consider her, and wouldn't if she didn't
keep turning up."
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"Well guess what? She's turned up again. Left us a message. She wants to meet
us at the Sherwood Casino."
ΔΔΔ
Las Vegas is a big city, much bigger than you imagine if all you know of it is the
Strip or the (God help us) Downtown Experience or the half-dozen places named
Something Station. More and more it has begun to resemble Los Angeles: a vast and
vacuous sprawl of pocket malls and pink stucco nightmares. Here and there, though, the
desert makes a last desperate stand in tracts of undeveloped land where tumbleweeds and
empty beer cans accumulate. Pick your spot and you can almost disappear in these
undeveloped tracts.
Two neatly dressed young men stood before Ely Lovelock in the vast middle of
one such tract. Though they had jobs as security guards at the Phoenix Casino, they had
taken on some freelance work for Ely, through Sparks Henderson. Sparks stood by Ely's
side, silent and impassive, his Stetson pulled down low against the relentless summer sun.
Word of last night's short, aborted chase through the Paladin Casino was hot news
in the netherworld of gamblers' Las Vegas. No one knew who chased whom or why, but
there was a buzz about it, and the last thing Ely wanted was a buzz about his business.
Las Vegas is a big city, bigger than most people imagine. It is possible for a gun
to fire two sudden rounds in the middle of a vacant tract of land in the middle of the day,
and have nobody notice or hear. Later, circling carrion would draw attention to the
bodies of the two young security guards, or maybe kids skipping school would find them.
For now, though, their blood just drained into the sand, providing some lucky desert
creatures with an unexpected drink.
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9. Mook You
If you play your cards right (by which I mean, of course, playing your
game right irrespective of your cards) you don't have to bluff your
opponents all that much because – and here's the shocking news – they'll
do your bluffing for you! How does this work? Simple. Your relentless
attacking style puts your opponents in the state of mind where they're
thinking, 'Oh no, here comes that bastard (okay, or bitch) again.' In this
state of mind they make one of two mistakes. Either they flee in terror
(and you win) or they get brassy and try to play back at you with
'indiscriminate holdings' (i.e. crap) (and you win again). To paraphrase
the only good line in an otherwise dreadful book, 'Killer Poker means
never having to say you're sorry.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 9: Bluff Enough
It had been a long Sunday night, most of which Jim spent staring out he window,
making sure no cars got too cozy with the street. Meg jotted notes on one of Rafferty's
many scratch pads, relics from the in-room stationery sets of a dozen dead casino-hotels.
Vic Mirplo had made a quick inspection of Raff's vast Vegasania, lamely juggled three
pink styrofoam Circus-Circus antenna balls, pronounced Jim a certified nutball for
collecting all this crap, then crashed out on the couch.
"Okay," said Megan, "so Saturday predawn you're surfing the Phoenix Casino
when hotel security puts the bite on you. You're not who they're looking for so they let
you go. Then this evening, two guys chase Vic and me out of the Paladin. You say it's
the same guys. Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"And these same guys also tried to pop us at Rudi's Eatateria, and possibly trashed
my apartment too." Meg puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. "They've been busy." She
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walked to a bookcase and noticed a set of small glass ducks from the Hilton's "Duck In
and Win" promotion. God, I hope they never get busy in here. "Raff, I'm so sorry I
dragged you into this."
"Forget about it. I have to look out for my poker coach."
"Coach, huh?" She turned to face him. "Okay, pop quiz: You're in the small
blind with T-9 suited. It's folded around to the button, where a notorious blind-stealer
raises into you. What do you do?"
"What are the limits?"
"Five and dime."
"Blinds?"
"Two and five."
"I fold. I'm paying eight to five to complete. It's not worth it."
"You're just going to let him run over you?"
"T-9 suited is a drawing hand. I need more customers to justify my odds."
"But he's bluffing."
"But he has position."
"You're being weak."
"I'm being smart."
"If I were him, I'd come after you."
"I'd wait for a good hand and trap your youthful behind."
"You try."
"I will."
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"You try." Meg put her hands on her hips and glared pugnaciously at Rafferty,
surprised to find herself locked in, of all the unexpected things, a poker debate with him.
It felt like wrangling with an old, good friend. She suddenly felt self-conscious, and
broke the moment. "Good," she said, turning away. "Good, that's a good attitude. You
pass." Meg picked up the scratch pad and reviewed her notes. "Okay, so two busy bad
rogers. They hassled you, they hassled me. Let's say they also tossed Pete Bonner off
the roof of the Galaxy Casino's garage."
"Why?"
"That," said Meg, "is the $64,000 question." She fell into reverie. When Meg
first started playing hold 'em, she would fall in love with top pair and never let overcards
run her off, no matter how scary they looked. It cost her plenty. Once she learned how to
throw a hand away, she became a much better player. It was a skill she decided to
exercise now. "But you know what?" she said at last, "I'm done with it. Let's call
Swertlow, give him the damn pyramid and get some police protection."
"I thought you said the pyramid was gone."
Megan sagged. "That's right. Vic mooked the pyramid off onto some tourists. In
this zoo town, it might as well be thrown in the ocean." Meg paused, then added,
"Unless..." She crossed to Vic, who slept on his side, snoring softly. A threadbare denim
fanny pack lay exposed, holstered to his hip. Meg didn't bother unzipping it, just fished
around through a rip near the zipper.
"What are you doing?" asked Raff.
"Did I ever tell you about Mirplo's Law?" she replied quietly.
"No. What's that?"
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"Mirplo lies. Mirplo always lies." Her fingers closed around something. "He
told me he sold the pyramid, ergo..." She withdrew her hand, holding the pyramid.
Mirplo mumbled in his sleep, "15-two, 15-four and a pair for six."
"That's right Vic," said Megan gently, "play cribbage." She held the pyramid up
to a lamp. It shone like spun sunlight. Raff joined her, and together they studied the
implacable eye and its timeless tiredness. The pyramid rested heavily in Meg's hand.
Heavy? Meg turned to Raff, but he was already reaching for the set of pyramids he
owned. He gave one to Meg. She placed it beside the other in the palm of her hand.
"Raff..." said Megan in a hoarse whisper.
"I know," he said. "I see."
What was it Swertlow said? A lot of things look like gold. But a lot of things stop
looking like gold when you compare it to the real thing.
"They're different," said Meg.
"Struck from the same mold."
"Yeah, but not of the same stuff."
Meg was the only one to have seen both pyramids, and though she had only
glanced at Vic's for a distracted second back at Rudi's Eatateria, she now felt foolish for
ever thinking they were the same. One was a piece of craftsmanship; the other a cheap
knock-off.
"Well this changes the game," said Rafferty.
"No," said Meg. "Same game. Higher stakes." If it's two petty thugs chasing a
trinket, that's one weird thing, but if they're after gold... Meg had a sudden strong desire
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to just not be involved. "First thing in the morning we contact Swertlow," she said
forcefully. "First thing."
"Whatever you say, coach."
Vic slumbered on, dreaming Mirplovian dreams. Raff installed Megan in his
guest room, where she undressed and slipped between sheets bearing the monogram of
the old Frontier Hotel. Does he own anything he hasn't surfed? she wondered. She ran
odds in her head for a few minutes, then drifted off to sleep.
Raff didn't sleep. At his age that happened a lot. Anyway, he wanted to keep an
eye on the street.
ΔΔΔ
Later that day they waited for Swertlow in the Sherwood Casino's poker room.
They figured they be safe in a public place where Megan was well known. Or anyway
they hoped.
They arrived early, and Meg watched a $6-12 hold 'em game with deep longing,
for it was soft and loose, comprised equally of overnight losers chasing .500 and waxy
tourists trying to snatch a last buzz before the demoralizing plane ride home. The former
group, she knew, would be too tired to make correct decisions, and the latter too frantic to
play patient. But with Swertlow due any minute she didn't have time to attack the game
properly, so she declined to sit down.
Vic, of course, jumped right in.
He overplayed middle pairs on consecutive hands and blew through two stacks in
two minutes. Meg nudged Rafferty. "Check it out," she said. "That's why you don't play
short sessions."
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"Are you telling me you never hit and run?"
"Sometimes," admitted Meg. "Not when I'm waiting for the cops."
"But otherwise you can?"
Meg gave him a sideways smile. "Sure, no problem," she said. "Only how about
this: Suppose you sit down in this game here, pick up pocket aces on the first hand and
drive them all the way to the river – "
" – like I should – "
" – like you should. But some clownoid calls you down, catches lucky, and you're
out almost fifty bucks before your seat's even warm. How do you like your chances in a
short session now?"
Rafferty shook his head. "I hadn't thought about that," he said. "Damn, you have
to have discipline."
"Not discipline. Just common sense." She watched Vic burn through another
stack, then looked past him, out across the casino floor, and saw Swertlow and Bates
closing in. "Here they come," she said. She ran a thumb down Vic's spine. "Game's
over, Slick," she said. "Cash out."
"Can't I play off my blinds?" By way of answer, she squeezed his shoulder to the
point of pain. "All right," he said, but the dealer had already dealt him in. "Last hand."
Meg caught a glimpse of his hole cards. J-8 suited. She figured he'd pass, but instead he
raised. Two bad decisions at once, thought Meg. The boy has a gift. Mirplo caught a
draw on the flop and made a queen-high straight on the turn. Ignoring a raise and a reraise, he threw in several more bets before losing, inevitably, to two nut straights. He
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plunged his few remaining chips into his ratty fanny pack and rose furiously from the
table.
Megan asked, "Vic, are you immune to reality?"
"What?" answered Vic.
Meg shook her head. "Let's go. I want this over with." She led Vic and the
others to an empty seven-card stud table in the back of the room. She sat with her back to
the wall. No sense letting someone do a Wild Bill Hickock on my ass.
"You know, Ms. Moore," said Swertlow once they were settled, "we tried to find
you last night."
"I was busy."
"Doing what?"
"Not getting killed." Then Meg told Swertlow everything that had happened
since Saturday night at Rudi's Eatateria. As she described the chase through the Paladin
Casino, she noticed Swertlow and Bates exchanging looks. They know that part already,
she thought.
When she finished, Vic chipped in with tremulous bravado, "There it is, Chop.
We throw ourselves on your mercy." He offered his hands for handcuffs. "As such."
Swertlow swatted them aside. "I suppose you want protection," he said to Meg.
"With Pete Bonner dead and people trying to kill me, yeah, I think that's a good
idea."
"Where's the pyramid?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Meg saw Vic's hand spasm toward his fanny pack.
Nice tell, Vic.
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"Well, you know," Vic started, "I had it but – "
Swertlow cut him off. He turned to Megan with surprising ferocity. "Look, Ms.
Moore, I warned you that Mirplo was a mook, and now it looks like you're both trying to
mook me. If you want me to believe any of this, you'd better cough up the pyramid." He
glared at Vic. "As such."
"Trouble is," said Mirplo, theatrically clearing his throat, "I sold it yesterday.
Right Meg? To those tourists I told you about, right? Hey?" By way of answer, Meg
pulled the pyramid from her pocket and laid it on the table. Vic's jaw dropped. "Hey,
that's mine!" he blurted.
"Is that right?" said Swertlow coolly. "Then that's withholding evidence."
"I, uhm. Yeah. Well. I forgot I had it, I guess."
"Shut up," suggested Swertlow. He looked at the pyramid, but didn't touch it,
didn't want to. To him, its sadness spoke of broken lives, cracked on the wheel of
compulsion. It seemed a synecdoche of Las Vegas' tainted wealth: beautiful, corrupt and
depraved, all at the same time. Bates, Megan noticed, didn't look at the pyramid at all,
and all she could think was, when they don't look at the river card, they usually don't
need it.
Finally, Swertlow spoke. "Ms. Moore," he said, "the LVPD will not be offering
you police protection at this time."
"Why not?" said Rafferty indignantly. "Don't you believe her?"
Swertlow looked at the older man. This the sugar daddy? In his ancient faded
polo shirt and khaki pants he didn't look all that well-heeled. "Who are you in all this?"
asked Swertlow.
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"Her student," Raff answered simply. "She's teaching me to play poker."
Bates brightened. "Really? Hey," he asked Meg, "can you teach me too?"
"Buy a book," growled Swertlow. He turned back to Meg. "Why did you file
charges against Luther Gerlach?"
"I lost my temper."
"Why did you drop them?"
"I gained it back. What's that got to do with this?"
"Nothing, except he's dead too, and now that makes two dead world champions,
and two men you personally knew."
"I didn't know them. I played against them."
"A lot?"
"A fair amount."
"Nice guys?"
"Assholes. Bad for the game. They scared away the fish."
"Fish?" asked Bates.
"Bad players. The weakies you want in the game."
"Is everything about poker with you," Swertlow asked in a voice that bled
contempt.
"I'm trying to tell you what I know, you know? I'm trying to help. I don't see me
getting that much help from you. Now why won't you give me protection? Those men
who chased us – "
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"Those men are dead. We found their bodies this morning." Swertlow watched
Megan's face for a reaction, and marveled again at the way she swallowed shocking
news.
"How do you know it's them?" was all she said.
Swertlow looked up at a black dome in the ceiling. "The folks who run these
casinos, you know, they're trick 'em out pretty good."
"Surveillance video."
"Uh-huh. They see something interesting, sometimes they send us the tape." He
looked her up and down. "I must say, you move well through a crowd."
"Yeah we do," said Vic. And then, with surprising suddenness, he snatched the
pyramid off the table and ran away.
"Is he demented?" asked Swertlow. "Bates, go get him." Bates took off.
Swertlow stood and looked down at Meg. "Did you kill them?"
"Which ones?" she asked.
"Any of them."
"No."
"Yeah, no, I don't think so either." He started away.
"Wait," said Meg. "Who were those men? What did they want?"
"Look, citizen, you've done the right thing. Now the script says you go away.
We'll call you if we need you." He turned and walked away.
Raff and Meg sat in silence, each processing the news of the last few minutes.
Could they really be out of the woods? Just like that? "Now what?" asked Raff at last.
"Now?" Meg blinked. "Now? I guess... now we play poker."
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10. We Play Poker
Here's the key question: Do you have to be an asshole to play Killer
Poker? Your opponents will be generally freaked out and aggravated by
your style of play anyway. Should you go the extra mile and try to put
them on tilt with pure bad behavior? Should you buy drinks for drunks?
Well, definitely. The cirrhosis of their liver is not your problem; in fact,
you're doing them a service by removing loose money from their
irresponsible hands.
But if some poor slobberer just lost his mama, do you stick the knife in and
twist by telling him mother never loved him much? That's a hard call. I'm
not without sympathy, after all, but still... I'm here to win money, not
friends. I'd say that I'll do pretty much anything within the limits of the
law to put my enemies on tilt. I assume they'll try the same on me. Bottom
line: Killer Poker equals no mercy. If you can't handle that, go play
canasta.
If you can handle that, though, you have a hugely powerful weapon at
your disposal: You can put your foe on tilt. A foe on tilt is a cork,
bobbing on the sea of poker, and he's this close to giving it all away.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 10: Tilt Factor
It's 1901. The Vegas you see before you yet considers concrete a novelty. This is
a railroad town, now, a silver town; but a sin town soon, and destined to get good at it.
Better, in fact, than defending champs Sodom and Gomorrah on a good day, which fair
cities retired undefeated from the debauchery and debasement game. Across the Union
Pacific tracks, down among the dogwoods, a handful of Chinese have set up camp. They
hope to make Las Vegas their home. They open a store to serve the needs of their small
community and – if lower prices and better service provide any sort of lure – the needs of
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the greater community too. Some local men oppose the competition. A small group
meets and decides to take action.
Late at night there's a fire and the next day the Chinese store is gone. Apparently
an oil burner exploded, and no one is surprised because everyone knows how careless
those Chinee can be. The store owner might have had a different take on events, but who
can say since he (and his family, alas) died in the blaze. "Accidents will happen," the
(white-owned) newspaper reports. No charges are filed, and soon the remaining Chinese
decide to seek their fortune elsewhere. "Competition is fine within limits," the paper
announces (in an unrelated editorial) "but one must ask the question, 'Who was here
first?'"
Will you do anything for money? Does that include kill? Then join our circle of
friends. Help us defend our wealth.
Fast-forward to Prohibition. Who sells booze in a dry town? That man makes a
bucket of money. Between his Canadian trucklift and his desert distillery, he satisfies a
certain thirst. Perhaps he'll want something to identify his brothers by. Perhaps a
pyramid will do. And if someone tries to poach his franchise, perhaps his brothers can
set things right. That's a big desert out there to get dead in.
The question must be asked: Who was here first?
During World War II they feasted on government green, and you never called it
profiteering because you had no idea it was going on. In the building boom that followed
they played tough in construction, always with their terrible trump, the willingness to kill.
Did they build the casinos? Of course they built the casinos. Who do you think got
gambling legalized in the first place? They got Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra to
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front for them. Bugsy too, until he got too noisy. The mob never ran Las Vegas. The
mob was a prop, a bogeyman invented to scare small children.
Well, an organization is like an organism. It does what it must to survive. First,
create a favorable environment for growth. Next, breed.
Breed. Or recruit.
They've made money in everything, this circle of friends. Air force bases.
Uranium mines. Waste disposal. Restaurant inspection. Licensing boards. Real estate
speculation. Freight levies. Union dues. Skim. Pawn shops. Procurement and supplies.
Mortuaries. Junk bonds. Cable television. Pornography. Escort services. Bookmaking.
Commodities. Gold mines. Poker rooms. Cigarettes. Highway construction.
So who has the nerve and the tools to join us in keeping the wealth of this fair city
in the hands of those who know how to manage it responsibly? Who will help us tend this
wonderful garden? Who has the nerve? Who dares to deserve it?
They own banks. They own radio stations. They own television stations and
cable franchises and the telephone exchange. They don't fear the law. They are the law.
They are county commissioners and judges, state legislators and chiefs of police. Plus
scientists and businessmen, mathematical modelers, basketball coaches, university
professors, shop keepers, lodge brothers, CPAs, stock brokers, hoteliers, travel agents
and, yes, even dealers.
And how about you, young striver? You seem to understand that money is power.
Do you acknowledge that the defense of money requires the application of power. If we
let you join, you'll have both beyond your wildest imagining. But first you'll have to
prove you deserve it.
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ΔΔΔ
Vic on the run, poor skittering Mirplo, with the video cameras all stacked against
him, made his mad dash through the heavily surveilled Sherwood Casino, pinballing off
the slot queens and keno machines, then diving into a men's room, the pyramid wedged in
the coin pocket of his beat Levi jeans. He looked around the bathroom and found it
empty, but for a drunken old man in the corner, peacefully sleeping off the effects of too
many free drinks.
Stupid thought Mirplo. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Vic, what were you thinking?
He closed himself in a stall and climbed up on the seat to crouch with constricted
hot breath. Not that he expected the dodge to work, but it's a Mirplo's nature to hide.
When in trouble, go to ground. Stay low. Don't draw fire. In his way, Vic was as much
a creature of instinct as any field mouse freezing in the shadow of a circling hawk. Don't
draw fire. Stay low. So then why did you take the – ? He dug it out of his pocket to look
at. Its creepiness both appalled him and compelled him.
I just didn't want to give it up.
Someone entered the men's room. Vic recognized the voice of Andy Bates telling
no one in particular, "I'll look in here." Bates checked out the maintenance closet and the
shoe shine stand. "Though who'd be dumb enough to hide here?" he asked the urinals
and sinks, and the passed-out drunk in the corner. "Not even Vic Mirplo." He dropped to
the floor and glanced beneath the stalls, then quickly got to his feet. "Who, if he were
here though, should probably stay put for a while and wait for things to calm down."
Bates left, humming Sugar, Sugar, by the Archies.
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Man, thought Vic, mildly astounded that Bates hadn't bothered to open the stall
doors, he's even dumber than I am. It didn't dawn on his blunt understanding for quite
some time that no one is quite that dumb.
ΔΔΔ
Turk Nixon had been no world champion. He never sat at the final table of
anything. He never had the skill, he never had the patience, and he certainly never had
the luck, though his sour personality was clearly the kind to deny luck, or even actively
drive it away. Not to put too fine a point on it, Turk was an asshole. He glowered
through games, bitterly unhappy, needlessly needling other players for the extra slender
edge he earned off their tilt factor. Of course, since he routinely played in a state of rage,
he more than gave back the edge in tilt of his own. But his antics were legend; he
shredded whole decks of offending cards, fired chips at dealers point blank and uttered
the most obscene insults to his opponents. He had been barred from several casinos.
Turk Nixon had been known as a terrorist of poker.
The former terrorist of poker now lay dead in the bucket of a backhoe loader at a
construction site near the Boulder Highway. Swertlow and Bates half expected to find
this corpse wearing a World Series bracelet too, but Turk Nixon was never that good, not
even close. But he was, as it turned out, consensus winner of the World Series of Pissing
People Off. This they learned from a subsequent quick visit to the Celadon Card Room,
the last place Turk Nixon had been seen alive.
"Okay, so three dead poker players," said Swertlow as they left the Celadon by
car.
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Andy Bates studied his teeth in the sun visor mirror. "Two world champions and
one real son of a bitch."
"In fact, three sons of bitches. Gerlach and Bonner weren't exactly Queen for a
Day candidates either."
"Maybe we should put up some signs in the card rooms," said Bates.
"What, 'be nice or you might get whacked?'"
"Something like that, yeah."
Swertlow looked at his partner. He couldn't tell if Bates was jerking his chain, or
just dim beyond belief. He watched Bates pick his teeth with a pinkie nail. Last float in
the clueless parade. But still he's smarter than Mirplo, and Mirplo got away clean .
Now how did that happen?
"Maybe it's the dealers," said Bates.
"What?"
"No, I was just thinking, who'd want to kill off rude players?" Bates inspected his
nail, then went back to work on a tooth, apparently trying to dislodge a stuck seed.
"Players mouth off to each other, but they always mouth off to dealers." Pause. "I get
the impression." Pause. "So then maybe it's the dealers."
"Dealers."
"Pete Bonner had that big fight with that dealer... Brad?"
"But Brad had an alibi."
"Maybe he hired out. Anyway, Luther Gerlach fought with a dealer too, and Turk
Nixon fought with everyone."
"So a conspiracy of dealers to wipe out rude poker players?"
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"Cull the herd, yeah."
"Bump off the worst offenders, send a message to the rest? Is that what you've
got?"
Bates finally freed the seed. He examined it with languid satisfaction, then
flicked it out the window. "That's what I've got," he said.
Swertlow looked at his partner again. How did you let a mope like Mirplo get
away?
ΔΔΔ
After all they'd been through, Meg and Jim just wanted to play poker in peace, so
they drove up the Eealing Highway all the way to Thunderhead, a tiny town not far from
the Utah border, quiet and tranquil and bathed by a Mormon wind. There they found a
card room so placid and genteel that it played like a sepia photograph. And they broke
like a wave on the game.
Elation drove their play, making them giddy, loose and sloppy, as their bands of
stored tension snapped and fell away. They misread the board, misjudged their draws,
called too often and burned up buy-ins like flash paper. The locals were making phone
calls to their friends. Come on down, the salmon are running in Thunderhead.
As Raff gradually came back to himself, he was surprised that Megan could let
them both play so nose-open. Granted she was high on survival, just like he was, but he'd
imagined that her instincts – and certainly hoped her coaching skills – were better than
that. She took a busted bluff to the river and got called in three places. He turned to tell
her maybe they should go.
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But she brushed him with a glance, a knowing eye, and in a transfiguring instant
he realized: It's image! It's all image!
You'd never find Meg faking drunk. Nor would she use woozy affection as a
weapon. You wouldn't see her arm dangling over the back of some strange gentleman's
chair in a provocative way. She wouldn't feign interest and she wouldn't simulate rage,
not even to put her toughest opponent on tilt. She wouldn't unbutton her blouse that one
extra button that seemed to make such a big difference to men. But just then she had
authentic manic happiness going for her – a powerful image, and she worked it well. The
locals never caught on. Never saw her whole play as anything but loose fancy, the fluffy
euphoria of a woman blowing off money and steam.
But then she starts catching cards, and you're sure she's bluffing but somehow
she's not, and after a while you expect her to catch cards, so you don't play into her and
you fold a little too often. Then the other one joins in, the old guy, and catches lucky with
top set (though he did push those jacks before the flop though) and the next thing you
know they're out the door with a grand of your money and how the hell did that happen?
"That," said Megan as they drove home, "is how we play poker." She had her
bare feet up on the dashboard, hands behind her head. "Party poker," she said with a
satisfied sigh. Raff glanced over and noticed that her toenails were painted cherry red.
The color was pleasing to his eye.
Eventually Meg ran notes on Rafferty's game, with a dispassion that bordered on
the brutal. When he bristled at her tone she just said, "Thicken your skin, chief. I'm
trying to tighten your game." Then she added, in a gruff voice leavened by a smile, "And
stop questioning your coach."
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So he shut up and listened as she outlined his overplays: A-J and A-Q holdings
not sufficiently alert to the lurking A-Ks. He'd also hacked up his play of low pairs, and
she knew of at least two instances where he ran away from opponents with inferior hands.
But when he got his draws he pushed them correctly, and she seemed to be pleased with
that, which delighted Jim Rafferty. She likes how I push my draws. The woman likes how
I push my draws!
When the consultation wound down, Meg napped against Raff's shoulder. He
turned on the radio, tuned in some soft ranchera music, and mused about the pyramid.
He was starting to think that he'd actually seen it somewhere else long ago, back in the
heart of his surfing years. Or no, not it; its picture. A drawing or an etching.
Somewhere in his collection. Where?
Time passed. The desert flowed by on both sides of the highway like a dark,
smooth sea. Rafferty imagined a time when the desert had been a sea, the warm
Pleistocene home to creatures whose images lived on only in a fossilized footprint left on
the ocean floor. Millions of years later, some eager geologist digs the fossil out of a
dusty canyon wall and thinks he's clever to have found something that had been lost for
so long. To Rafferty it seemed that the clever one was the one that survived so long, even
in fossil form; survived to be discovered in the dim, distant future and once again see
light of day. It was the same with surfing, with the things he collected and saved. Chips
and dice and paper ephemera... they existed in fossil form, hidden in his house. One day
– in circumstances he could not now conceive – they would come to light again, and
someone would see them and know them and appreciate their value. Everything changes,
he thought. And everything beautiful dies.
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Megan woke up and drank some water. "Where are we?" she asked.
"Almost home," he replied. Ahead in the distance, the top of the Stratosphere
strobed in the deepening dusk. Meg stared at it for a long time and reflected on the
events of the last three days.
"So we're done with it, huh?" she said at last.
"Looks that way."
"Bad guys dead, pyramid gone, nothing left but the paperwork."
"I guess," said Raff.
"Yeah, I guess. Though we still don't know why they wanted it or who killed
them or anything." She sat cross-legged on the old red vinyl seat of Raff's El Camino,
suddenly quite animated. "I mean anything. Don't you want to know? Just kind of?"
"No." Raff stiffened. "Megan, look, I figured out long ago that there were two
kinds of problems in this world: my problem and not my problem. Let's let this be not
our problem, okay? We play poker, we get on with our lives."
"You think?"
"Yes I do."
She looked at him, noting his stiffness and his fixed-focus gaze. What they call
the liar's glaze. "In a pig's eye," she said.
"What?"
"You want to get to the bottom of this, admit it."
"I don't. I don't care." He gripped the steering wheel harder. Total tell, thought
Meg. But why lie? Then, suddenly, she had it.
"You are so busted."
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"What? Megan – "
"Wait, hang on. Let me see me like you see me for a second: Innocent chiquita
got mixed up with some goons, caught lucky and got away. Goons all dead, problem all
gone. But what if it's not all gone? What if new goons come? I know! Let Jim Rafferty
handle it! Veteran of decades, super senior! He'll go out and solve the big mystery and
make sure no one ever bothers the la chiquita innocenta ever again. All he's got to do is
tuck her away safe somewhere in a poker game first."
Raff didn't answer. All he could think was, I am so busted.
"Raff, it's okay. I know you want to protect me." She patted his thigh. "I want to
protect you. We're in this thing together. So what do you say we get out of it together?
And let's let this be the last time we have this conversation, okay?"
He was silent for a long time before he said, "all right."
"Good laydown."
"I haven't said you were right, you know."
"And I'll never ask you to. Now then, where do we start?"
"Actually? In my own back yard."
"What?"
"But first I think we should get you moved out of your place and into mine."
Meg blinked. "Really?"
"It's probably not necessary. But if, as you so poetically put it, new goons
come..."
Meg couldn't bring herself to fill in the blank. After a moment, she said, "We're
not really out, are we?"
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"I thought so. Now I'm not sure."
They drove on, and soon the city surrounded them. It seemed to Jim to be
throbbing. Or maybe that was his heart beating as he contemplated what he had to say
next. "Listen," he said, "there's something I want to tell you. I probably shouldn't, but..."
She squared around to look at him. "Go on."
"When I was in high school I had a crush on my French teacher."
"Oh God, Raff," Meg mocked, "I am so glad you told me. That really clears the
air."
"Quiet, child, let me finish. She was very beautiful, but that's not what got to me.
It's what she had. Knowledge. Knowledge that I wanted. I was a sick puppy for her
until I learned French. Then the crush went away."
"Okay."
"Do you get what I'm trying to say?"
"Sure, that you're madly in love with me, but only because I know how to induce
a check-raise bluff on the river and you don't, and when you do you'll get over me." The
ranchera music gave way to commercials in Spanish. Raff turned off the radio. "When I
was a kid," said Meg, "I had a pretty cool old uncle. I had a tiny crush on him too. Do
you get what I'm trying to say?" He nodded. "Good. Now can we get something to eat?
I am suddenly stupidly hungry."
Two hours later, Megan carried a suitcase down to Raff's car and threw it in back.
She climbed in. They drove back to Rafferty's place.
And Babydoll Sedoso followed them home.
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11. Poker Porn
You have to be a better player today than you were yesterday. If that's not
your goal, your dream, your passion, then you're just wasting your time,
and almost certainly your money as well. Why? Well, because there's
about a million men and women out there who are determined to improve,
and they're not wasting the day. So they're pulling ahead of you. And
when you meet them, you with your imperfect understanding of the perfect
principles I've been teaching you, why friend, they're just going to eat you
alive.
So drop what you're doing and pick up your studies. How many outs are
there on an inside straight draw plus top pair and overkicker? What do
you do when a jamoke check-raises from early position? What's the
difference between a semi-bluff and betting for value? Do you know? If
you don't know, absolutely know, then you're wasting your time. What's
worse, you're wasting mine.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 11: Do Your Homework!
Tuesday morning, his suspension served, Babydoll returned to work at the
Sherwood Casino. He dealt in sullen silence and took grim, hidden satisfaction in every
busted draw or bad beat he dealt. A little past ten he took a break and went outside for a
smoke. The heat of the day made the corpulent man sweat through the ridiculous green
nylon jerkin that the Sherwood required him to wear. To make matters worse, he
accidentally burned a hole in his shirt with a hot ash from his cigarette, and knew that the
cost of replacing it would come out of his pay. Fuck. Fucking, fucking fuck. Babydoll
angrily stubbed out his cigarette and angrily lit another one. Among other things that
drove him crazy about the current circumstances of his life was the need to stockpile
nicotine in his bloodstream and his brain from one break to the next. He'd just about
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smoked up his second Lucky Strike when Sparks Henderson came up to him and asked
quietly, "Is it done?"
"Not yet," said Babydoll. "What's your hurry?"
"The World Series of Dealers starts next week."
"So?"
"If you don't complete, you don't compete."
"I could always buy my way in."
"Really?"
"Or get someone else to bankroll me."
Sparks didn't even bother to dignify that ridiculous notion with a response, for the
foul-minded Babydoll Sedoso had about the same likelihood of finding tournament
backing as, say, Vic Mirplo. All Sparks said was, "They've scheduled the big event first
this year."
"Yeah, I know. That's my hurry, not yours."
"Just finish her off." Sparks found himself getting impatient with the big man, but
he knew better than to show it. To Sparks Henderson, the poker face was not just a game
strategy, it was a way of life.
"Like I won't," said Babydoll. "But I have a question. Why do you want to kill
Megan Moore?"
"You know the reason: Crimes against dealers."
"No sale, Sparks. I know Megan Moore. Bitch wouldn't give me the time of day,
but she's never crossed a dealer in her life."
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"Fine, she's Mother Theresa." Despite himself, Sparks let a little of his irritation
bleed through. "She's Little Mary Sunshine. I guess someone has an agenda."
"That's not good enough. If you want her dead, you tell me why."
"We're paying your – "
"I know what you're fucking paying. You want her dead, you tell me why."
So Sparks told him why.
Babydoll was right, Sparks admitted: Crimes against dealers was just the cover
story, a mislead. The real deal, according to Sparks Henderson, was a contest for killers.
With guys like Sparks running around trying to engineer murders, and a rules committee
off somewhere nominating victims and distributing hocus-pocus pyramids to designate
the targets. "They've been around for a while," he said. "Every few years they hold these
competitions. One year they targeted Sonny Bono. Took him right out. Don't ask me
why. Maybe they want to see if you can jump through their hoops. Anyway it's not me
doing the jumping, so I don't care."
Babydoll lit his third cigarette – it's a long time between breaks. "You're just a
working stiff, right?"
"That's right."
"So who's your boss?"
"You don't need to know. But if he wins the thing, he gets to join this group, this
circle of friends, and that is like a sick jackpot."
"So let's go for that instead."
"Can't. You have to be invited."
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Babydoll's eyes narrowed on Sparks. "This is all a big pile of crap, you know
that? Secret committees, weird contests. And you still haven't told me why Megan gets
capped."
"Because she's named, damn it. Look, if you don't want to do it, just say so."
"I'll do it," said Babydoll. "Don't worry about that. I just wish you'd get a better
story is all, because that is a big steaming, stinky pile of crap." Babydoll sucked the last
hit from his cigarette and flicked it away. "Kill Sonny Bono." He shook his head.
"What the fuck is up with that?" He turned to go inside.
"Just bring me her pyramid," Sparks said. "By Friday."
"By Wednesday," said Babydoll with a dismissive wave.
∆∆∆
It shouldn't have surprised her. Really. Not considering everything else the man
collected. Spent shotgun shells from casino-sponsored celebrity pro-am skeet shoots.
Hotel-monogrammed bathmats. And beer mats. And wallets. And coin wrappers. Even
toothpicks – toothpicks! – that some casino had dyed green for St. Patrick's Day and
packed in attractive boxes. If it had the least little thing to do with Las Vegas, Raff
collected it. Meg knew this. So therefore his shed shouldn't have surprised her at all, but
anyway it did.
In Jim Rafferty's back yard stood a corrugated plastic 10-by-10 shed, and as he
threw open its doors to the desiccated day, she saw several dense rows of piled, labeled
boxes. Some had come straight from the casinos, and held unused paper promotionals or
parlay cards or show programs. Others contained the sort of publications that Las Vegas
115
gives away free. Entertainment guides. Gaming instruction pamphlets. Escort service
brochures. Coupon books.
And then, not boxed, but neatly stacked against the walls, were the poker
magazines. Hundreds of back issues – likely every back issue – of Gambling Times,
Card Player and Poker Digest.
Meg whistled. "Look at all the poker porn," she said. "Where'd you get?"
"Surfed it."
"All of it? God almighty."
"What do you think I've been doing for..." He paused and thought about it.
Looking at all the magazines, seeing them through Meg's eyes, he suddenly felt selfconscious, ridiculous. "Too long, I guess. I think I've been surfing too long."
"Don't say that, Raff. It's special, what you have." Meg smiled. "Seriously
lunatic, but quite special." She bent to inspect a low stack. "Hey, you've got Poker
World! Man I liked that magazine. The guy that wrote fiction for them, whoo could he
turn a word."
Raff worked his way back through the stacks. "Why do you call it poker porn?"
he asked.
"You know, because it stimulates an urge. You read those magazines, you want
to play poker."
"Really?" he said. "Maybe I should read them."
"You've never read them?" Meg asked, incredulous.
"It never crossed my mind," replied Jim frankly. He bent to examine the side of a
sealed cardboard box. "Here," he said, "help me lift this."
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She squatted beside him. "What is it?"
"History."
Meg grunted theatrically as they hefted the box. "History is heavy," she said.
They carried it inside and set it down in Raff's den on a redwood end table that had once
graced the lobby of the Liberty Hotel. Raff cut the sealing tape carefully and opened the
box. He peeled back protective layers of polished cotton cloth. Underneath lay two
dozen issues of a cracked and yellowed broadsheet newspaper.
Meg read the masthead. "Desert Times?"
"Published in the 1930s. The editor was a crackpot."
"Pot calling the kettle – "
"Okay then not a crackpot. Say an opinionated and somewhat hysterical essayist,
one Conrad Ploche, who subsidized his rants with family money and gave his paper away
for free on the street. Today you would call him a conspiracy cultist. Back then they
called him a communist, seditionist... crackpot." Raff picked up the top copy of the
newspaper. "This was pretty hot stuff."
"Hotter than poker porn?"
"I guess so. It got him killed."
"Really?"
"Well, they say. He cooked up some theory linking local casino owners to
Adolph Hitler. When he named names, someone's enraged wife came after him. He got
dead, she got five years. I'll bet she didn't serve two. Anyway, I think I saw a drawing of
our pyramid in here somewhere. I'm probably wrong, but..." His voice trailed off as he
bent to the task of turning pages.
117
Meg picked up an issue and started searching as well. A headline caught her eye.
"Check it out: 'Government to poison desert.' She paraphrased Conrad Ploche's claim
that by the 1950s the federal government would "toxicate" the Nevada desert through
secret experiments with doomsday weapons. "What year was this published?"
"'38, '39."
"Not a bad guess on nuke testing. Oh hey, get this." She read him an editorial
claiming that the Great Depression was engineered by an industrialists' cartel to create
conditions favorable for war, and war profiteering. "That could happen," said Meg.
"That's not so far-fetched."
Leafing through the issues, Meg discovered that Conrad Ploche had an
extraordinary eye for the tiny beginnings of big changes. He had forecast a huge impact
from this new thing, television, and noted that the day was coming when women would
"protect themselves from the scourge of unwanted pregnancy by manipulation of their
very body chemistry."
Then again, Ploche wrote with equal fervor about kobolds and poltergeists and
secret animal languages. According to Conrad Ploche, Jesus Christ was an alien visitor
sent to free mankind from money, whom rich men killed to preserve the status quo. "Om
tat sat," Ploche had written. "As it was, so it is and ever shall be."
They read on in silence, the rants and warnings of the long dead Conrad Ploche
filling the room like a ghost. He'd predicted the depletion of the ozone layer – what he
called "Earth's fragile gaseous eggshell" – and corporate global imperialism, the fall of
Communism and a dozen other key social phenomena of the late 20th century.
"This guy was a wizard," said Meg in awe.
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"He had a knack," agreed Raff. Then, suddenly, "Here it is." He spread an issue
of Desert Times out on the table and pointed to a detailed sketch of a pyramid. Meg
recognized it instantly, for the artist – Ploche himself, it seemed – had captured and
conveyed the deep well of sadness in the eye. But the accompanying story focused more
on the hieroglyphic writing surrounding the eye. It was, claimed Ploche, coded
instruction from the "dark sphere," and if one cracked the code, one could enter the dark
sphere too.
"'But woe if the pyramid comes to you unbidden,'" read Meg, "'for surely death
will follow in its wake.'" She looked up. "Well, it did for Pete Bonner."
"What about Luther Gerlach? Do you suppose he had a pyramid too?"
"We could ask."
"Who? Swertlow?"
"No, I was thinking Helen Gerlach. Luther's wife."
"You know her?"
"She cuts my hair." He looked at her. "What? Don't you like it?" Her blonde
bangs hung to her eyebrows, with the rest feathered back behind her ears. I like it very
much, he wanted to say, but went back to turning pages instead.
They found one more reproduction of the pyramid, in the newspaper's final issue.
Beneath the headline, "Why Was She Killed?" it accompanied the story of a stabbed
brothel-keeper who made a crude drawing of the pyramid with her own blood as she lay
dying. This, according to Ploche, was hugely significant and should be taken as a
Warning To Us All. He called her death a "trophy murder," and promised to reveal more
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in the next issue. But the next issue never came, as Ploche himself was killed the
following week.
"What's a trophy murder?" asked Meg.
"Like, uhm... " Raff groped for a word. "Safari?"
"Hmm." Meg twisted a strand of hair around her finger. "Raff," she said, "I think
I'm due for a haircut."
∆∆∆
"Blame it on the bossa nova, the dance of love," Vic Mirplo sang tunelessly,
though the song on the jukebox wasn't even remotely bossa nova. He nursed a beer (and
a Mirplo can nurse a beer for a week if his budget demands it) at the Back Bar, a shack
off the Strip where Vic sometimes went to ground when the pressure of keeping up his
reputation as a poker stud got to be too much. Now, on this hot Tuesday afternoon, it
gave him a place to muse on the pyramid – still wedged in the coin pocket of his jeans –
and on his miracle escape from Detective Andy Bates. It had finally dawned on Vic that
maybe Bates let him get away on purpose, and he was trying to puzzle out a reason for
that.
Vic fancied himself a thinker. He liked to do crossword puzzles, though rarely
completed them, and imagined that if he'd only had the benefit of a college education he
could have been one of the world's Great Brains. Thinker that he was, he figured he had
the mystery of Andy Bates pretty well solved: The guy was gay and had a crush on Vic.
He was just trying to figure out how to use this potent information when he felt a
feminine hand on his shoulder. He turned, expecting to see Megan Moore, as she was
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pretty much really the only woman he knew in Las Vegas. "Me – " he started, then
realized it wasn't her, and finished in lame Spanish, " – llamo Vic."
A woman stood before him. She wasn't all that young, but she seemed young in
the dim light of the Back Bar's back bar. She had chemical red hair and wore a smart
suit, not quite a uniform, which simultaneously concealed, and focused attention on, the
swell of her breasts. Vic, who could reduce any woman to a sex object, up to and
including Gertrude Stein, let his eyes linger on her chest.
"Vic? Vic?" He drew his eyes reluctantly upward. She smiled, and the corners
of her mouth cracked. She extended a hand and said, "Hi. My name is Cherry Creek."
"Well, Cherry Creek," he said expansively, "what can I do for you?"
"The truth is," she said shyly, "I was hoping I could buy you a drink."
Vic laughed. "That shouldn't be a problem."
"Good. Another beer?"
"Scotch. 12 years old."
"You have expensive taste."
"You'll find that out if you hang with me. I lead a good life."
She looked around the seedy dive. "I can see that," she said. "Let's get you that
drink."
"Sure," he said, looking past her, "sure, this happens. Where's the hidden
camera?"
"Oh look, I know I'm being forward. It's just... I feel like I know you. You see,
I've watched you play poker."
"You have?"
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"A lot. I've been scouting you. That's what I do. I'm a poker scout."
"What, like a girl scout? What are your merit badges in? Bluffs? Tells?" Vic
thought he was really pretty funny.
"Vic, can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"Have you ever thought about playing in the World Series of Dealers? The big
one, I mean. The main event."
"Oh sure, I'm only... let me check my bankroll... about $9985 short on the buy-in."
"What if I said that wasn't a problem?"
"I'd say screw the scotch, bring on the Dom." He eyed her warily. "Why
wouldn't that be a problem?"
"I told you, I'm a poker scout. I'm recruiting."
"For whom?"
"Big names. Really big. Too big, in fact. Too big to say."
"I understand," nodded Vic.
"I hoped you would. Let's just call them blind backers."
"Blind backers. Okay, let's call 'em that."
"Vic, I've watched you play. I think you've got what it takes to go all the way. I
want you to join our team."
Vic found the idea altogether plausible. Who wouldn't want a nascent poker
power like Vic Mirplo on their team? In Vic's mind he'd always been an undiscovered
superstar, just waiting for the right circumstances to jack his poker career up to
appropriately lofty height. And if some hidden big names wanted to put up hidden big
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bucks for the thrill (and payoff) of backing a champion, why would Vic want to stop
them?
"Do I get a t-shirt or something? Hat with the sponsor's name?"
"No t-shirt. No hat." She ran her fingers down his chest and over a crease in his
jeans. He thought – wondered – dared hope where she was heading, but she veered past
his fly to his pocket, and patted the pyramid there. "Just use that to protect your hand
when you play."
"Why?"
"So the backers can recognize their horse."
"I'm a horse?"
"You're a horse."
"Are there others?" She nodded. "Well, they're racing for place and show, 'cause
this horse is gonna win it all."
"That's the spirit, Vic. Let me buy you that drink."
She bought him that drink.
Not till after Cherry left did Vic think to wonder how she knew about the
pyramid. But by then he had a fully-formed fantasy of winning the World Series of
Dealers, and enjoying the estimable charms of Cherry Creek as his reward; questions of
logic or motive had ceased to interest him. Vic wins! Vic wins! Vic wins! Oh yeah. Vic
patted the pyramid in his pocket. "Looks like I'm on a roll," he said. The bartender just
glared at him. For a guy on a roll, Vic still hadn't learned how to tip.
∆∆∆
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Meg and Jim learned from Helen Gerlach that Luther had, indeed, received a
pyramid last week, just days before his death. Helen could not now think what became of
it. Rafferty showed her one of his knock-offs, but she was reasonably certain that the one
she'd seen was gold. Luther had been very excited about it. To Helen, it just gave her the
creeps.
It was late afternoon by the time they left, with shadows lengthening away from
the glowing red sun. "So Luther gets a pyramid," said Meg as they drove south along
Rainbow Boulevard, "and then he gets killed. Same script for Bonner?"
"If so, it's a pretty strange script."
"Too strange. I think we're overthinking this thing. It's got to be simpler than
we're making it."
"What's not simple? You receive a pyramid and then you die. The question is
why."
"What was it Ploche wrote?" said Meg. "'Woe if the pyramid comes to you
unbidden?'"
A sense of unease settled over them both. Raff turned right, onto Mountain Road.
The sun slanted low through the windshield. Meg flipped down her visor against the
glare. Something fell in her lap, something she assumed to be part of his collection.
"Damn, Raff, does everywhere have to be storage with you?" But then she picked up
what had fallen.
A pyramid.
And not one like Raff's.
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One like Vic's. Its brother, its twin. Pure, solid gold. Gold can often be treasure,
but this didn't feel like treasure to Meg. It felt like a death sentence sitting in her hand.
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12. Crimes Against Dealers
What amuses me, what really cracks me up, is when I win a pot or a string
of pots and some brickhead starts bawling about how lucky I am. 'Lucky
you sat down,' I want to say, though of course I don't. Except in certain
situations I'd just as soon the dolts not know they're dolts, so I don't point
it out. Sometimes, though, their asinine sniveling gets to me, like when
these pathetic charity cases complain that their seats 'aren't lucky.' Not
lucky? What the fuck is that? A seat is only luck as a function of the ass
that inhabits it. I’ll say it again: A SEAT IS ONLY LUCKY AS A
FUNCTION OF THE ASS THAT INHABITS IT!
Superstition is for subhumans. Never ask for a seat change unless it
improves your strategic position. Never ask for a deck change, unless
you’re certain it’ll piss someone off, maybe put him on tilt. Never, ever,
complain about your rotten luck. That’ll just make you look weak and
convince the morons you’re playing against that they can get lucky
against you. Why would you want to inspire your foes? Why the hell
would you want to do that? Do you want their sympathy? Fuck their
sympathy – you want their money!
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 12: Luck Schmuck
They didn't go home right away, Meg and Jim. They cruised slowly through the
streets of west Las Vegas, talking and thinking about the pyramid. Meg studied it in the
last light of the setting sun. She noticed again the intricate strange writing. "We need to
get this translated," she said.
"I know," said Raff. "I was thinking maybe the library at UNLV."
"Library? That's kind of 20th century."
"What do you mean?"
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Meg pointed to a corner strip mall. "Take a left in here."
They stopped at a Copytopia, where Meg had all four faces of the pyramid
scanned, digitized and saved to a disk as .gif files. Then she had Raff drive them over to
CyberSal's Cyber Café and Video Poker Lounge, where Meg logged on behind an ftp
firewall and, with staggering keyboard speed, addressed the scanned images to dozens of
cult web sites and conspiracy newsgroups. To field any possible replies, she created an
anonymous reply-request box: tetrahead@blindmail.com
Raff watched her hands blaze. "That's astounding," he said. "Can you teach me
to do that?"
"One thing at a time, chief. I'm teaching you poker, remember? Which, by the
way, pop quiz: If you flop an open-ended straight draw, how many outs do you have?
"Eight."
"And if you flop a flush draw?"
"Nine."
"So how come a flush outranks a straight when a flush is easier to get?"
Raff chewed on it for a moment, then answered, "Easier to complete, but harder to
start. There are more ways to flop a straight to begin with."
"Gold star," said Meg. She finished posting her messages and then logged off.
"There," she said. "If any contemporaneous crackpots know about our little buddy,
maybe they'll send word." They left CyberSal's and headed back to Raff's car.
"I've noticed," said Raff as they walked, "that talking about poker makes me want
to play poker."
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Meg chuckled. "There's all kinds of poker porn, my friend. That's, like, the aural
version." They got to the El Camino. "So let's go play."
He looked at her across the roof of the car. "You can't be serious," he said. "Just
drop everything and go play poker? In the middle of all this?"
"Why not? Raff, I'm a pro. I've got to log my hours."
"Come on, coach, you're never gonna sell that, not under these circumstances.
How can you bring out your best game with everything that's going on?"
"Poker's an energy. It feeds on other energies."
"Ooh, zen."
"Okay then, how about this? In the middle of real risk, I'll have no trouble
managing chip risk. Poker is risk management."
"I thought poker was energy."
"Management, energy, both. You'll see. I'll rip 'em up, you betcha."
∆∆∆
Detective Swertlow was not delighted, when he went to interview Helen Gerlach,
to find that Megan Moore had already been to see her. "What did she want?" he asked.
"Well, she wanted to know about the pyramid."
"And what did you tell her?"
"That we thought it was from Hiko, our daughter-in-law, because she knew how
much Luther loved his little poker tokens. He had a big collection."
Andy Bates stooped over a curio case. "I can see," he said. "Where's this one
from, this little Mt. Fuji?"
"Well, Japan I suppose."
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Bates nodded thoughtfully. "Japan..."
Swertlow shot his partner a glowering look, then turned back to Helen Gerlach.
"So then the pyramid?"
"Well, when it wasn't from Hiko we didn't know who it was from, but anyway it
came in the mail, and two days later my Luther was dead. Do you think there's a
connection?"
"Oh, yeah. That plus a solar eclipse and the harmonic convergence, it's all tied in
together. Why didn't you mention this before?"
"He got a bill from the water company on the day he died," answered Helen
Gerlach acidly. "Was I supposed to mention that too?"
One supposes that she could be forgiven her attitude, her being a new widow and
all; in any event, Swertlow didn't learn anything much new or useful from her, and he left
shortly thereafter. He found it more than vaguely annoying that Megan Moore was
sloping around town playing private eye. Citizens, felt Swertlow, should stay in their
houses when not engaged in gainful employment. They should not freelance as
detectives, no way.
Later Swertlow called Turk Nixon's widow to find out if Turk had received a
pyramid too. He had. Mrs. Nixon had seen it only briefly (on the day it arrived,
concealed beneath a garden gnome that had mysteriously appeared in their back yard
beside the koi pond) and hadn't seen it since. Maybe he hid it away. She hadn't had time
to go through his things.
Twilight found Swertlow and Bates sitting in Swertlow's leather brown sedan,
eating hoagies and discussing the case. "Here's what I think it is," said Bates between
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bites. "They joined a collectors' club, you know, like fruit-of-the-month, only for very
rich people exchanging very expensive treasures. Are you following me so far?"
Swertlow nodded. He bit into a juicy slab of pastrami and knew that his stomach would
make him rue the spicy assault before the night was done. Bates continued, "So you
know how when you join a record club they send you bills like every ten minutes? And
if you don't want the record you have to send it back, and if you don't you get nasty
letters, and the longer you don't send back the nastier the letters get? Maybe that's this,
only here if you don't return the product you pay a heavier price."
"Overdue fines from the library of death?"
"Something like that, yeah."
Drugs? thought Swertlow, "Is the kid on drugs? "I'm surprised you know what a
record is, Bates."
"I'm a historian," said Bates with a shrug. He bit into his sandwich and squirted
mustard all over his shirt.
∆∆∆
Meg and Jim drove to the Monte Casino, a little atoll of action far from the reefs
of the Strip and downtown. There Meg went to work on a $5-10 pot limit hold 'em game
and Raff went to school on her play.
Meg had a knack for waiting. Raff could tell she was pumped – he had come to
recognize adrenaline as her drug of preference – but she stayed rigidly within herself,
folding hand after hand while she felt out the game. From the way she leaked quiet
timidity, you'd read her for a tight player, maybe even weak. A rabbit, maybe.
Coiled snake, more like.
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Raff watched from the rail. They'd come in separately and no one knew they
were together. In fact, from Meg's perspective, they weren't together, for Raff had
dropped off her radar completely. With her face screwed down in a mask of quiet
contemplation, Meg had reduced her world to these players and these cards in this game,
with no past or future to muddy her thinking. In fact, if you asked Meg what she liked
best about poker (away from the table, where she allowed herself to contemplate such
things) she'd tell you what she liked best was the now of it all. Yesterday and tomorrow
didn't exist when she played poker. Only these players and these cards in this game. No
past, no future; only the perfect now.
An hour into the game she raised under the gun with pocket kings, making it $50
to go. She picked up three callers and dropped the blinds. The flop came J-T-3, doublesuited. She bet the pot, folding two players and leaving her heads up against, she
guessed, a straight or flush draw, or a K-J or K-T.
The turn came a brick – offsuit trey – and Meg thought it through. If she bet the
pot and her opponent was on a draw, he wouldn't be correct to call, unless he was openended on the top side, holding K-Q. Then he might justify jumping in for the overcard
value.
And if he's not on a draw?
She asked herself how she looked to him. I haven't played a hand yet. He's got to
put me on a big pair or big slick. What hand raises an A-K here? Any jack, any ten,
maybe even a frisky draw. Plus I haven't really contested for a hand yet. He's got to at
least think about trying to drive me off the pot.
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Unless he puts me on aces or kings. What can he raise with then? Two pair.
Does he call before the flop with J-10? I don't think so. Okay, then, eliminate two pair.
Would he come in with 3-3? I don't know. Jacks or tens for sure. A-J? A-10? Maybe.
Q-J? Could he get this deep into this hand with Q-J?
"Time, please."
What if I had a monster? How would I look to him?
Megan reviewed her play, trying to see herself through her opponent's eyes. Did
he think she was capable of raising with pocket jacks under the gun? Maybe. She
remembered the advice on pocket jacks she'd given Raff the other day – God, was it only
the other day? – to bump it or dump it.
He won't credit me with folding jacks pre-flop, not after I've waited so long to
come in. So it's possible he's got me on jacks, or maybe exactly the kings I have. But if
he puts me somewhere else? A-K or K-Q, does he make a move at me now? That's what
I want him to do.
"I'm sorry, this takes some figuring out."
Check or bet, Meg, check or bet.
"That's all right, young lady, you take your time."
Young lady? Again Meg examined herself from her foe's perspective. Does he
think I'm flaky? You can't be flaky and play pot limit, at least not for very long. And you
can't sell flaky and patient at the same time, and I've certainly sold patient so far. So
then he must think I'm faking flaky. Which I'd do if... I were sitting on a monster. Damn.
He's got me on a monster.
If I bet big he'll drop.
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But a check gives him a free card.
Meg hated giving free cards like some people hate spiders. She pushed $300 into
the pot.
"Time," said her opponent. Meg thought along with him. She'd bet half the size
of the pot. Was she trapping or just timid? What kind of timid hand raises $300? K-J.
A-x flush draw. But you don't raise those hands before the flop, not if you're timid. He's
got to put me on pocket queens at least.
Meg thought she'd made a mistake. Trying to disguise her strength, she'd actually
helped her opponent define it. She'd made it easy for him to get away from his hand.
Unless he thinks I'm trying to push a bad draw with a cheap bet. If he had queens, or
even A-J, he might try to push her back, in which case she'd have a big problem. She
wouldn't be sure if she'd induced a rash bluff or given his trips the freedom to come out
swinging.
"Well here's that three, and... what's the pot now, $1200?" Meg concentrated on
her breath sounds. "I'll just call." Okay, he's taking me seriously. Either that or he
thinks he's laying a trap. She mentally measured his stack and figured him for roughly
two grand, roughly the same as her.
An offsuit king fell on the river, giving Meg trip kings but making a straight
possible. Meg analyzed quickly. Only two hands had her beat: A-Q and Q-9. I don't
think he's there. Look at all the hands he could have. 3-3, T-T, J-J, J-Q, J-K, J-A, T-Q,
T-K, T-A, A-x suited, even T-J. Oh yeah, Q-Q or other pocket pairs. Okay, so all those
hands that lose, and only two that win. I definitely want to bet into him.
No, check that: I want him to bet into me.
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"Any time today, young lady."
"Oh, sorry. I did wander off, didn't I? Time, please."
What's that, Meg, the doofus image? Okay, if he missed his draw he can't call, he
can only lead, which he might do if I show weak and check. And if he puts me on A-K
and happened to hit two pair, he'll be only too happy to push in.
"I check," said Meg at last.
Her opponent bet the pot with quick confidence, often the sign of a bluff, but Meg
didn't credit his swiftness. She knew that her own deliberations had given him time to
plan his response. It's not a bluff, she thought. He thinks he's got winners. The pot now
held $2400. She raised all-in.
He thought for a long time before calling, committing his last $800 to a $4400
pot, and seemed legitimately surprised when Meg turned over her cowboys. His cards
flashed K-J as he shot them into the muck, and Meg realized that she'd been right: He'd
hit two pair and put her on A-K.
Reviewing the hand in her mind, Meg thought that her $300 bet on the turn had
been maybe not that bad. It had provoked a call from top pair, good kicker, a hand that
might have folded if she'd bet the size of the pot. And it had, in fact, baited his bet on the
river.
Hours later, substantially ahead, she uncharacteristically chased a flush draw to
the river against both pot odds and common sense, and got spanked pretty good for her
troubles. She stood up immediately. "Quitting time," she announced to the table. "If I'm
going to play stupid I'm not going to play." Her opponents were disappointed; they'd
hoped that she'd stay long enough to give it all back. She frequently disappointed her
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opponents that way. But when you play for money and not for buzz, it's easy to know
when to quit.
Jim worked his way over to the cashier's cage and idled nearby while Meg cashed
out. He checked a free-standing wire frame magazine holder for the latest issue of a
poker magazine – poker porn he now called it in his mind – but noticed instead a pile of
fliers in the otherwise empty rack. He picked one up and scanned it quickly. As they
walked away from the poker room, he showed it to Meg. Beneath the crudely shouted
headline, Executed for Crimes Against Dealers, Meg recognized pictures of Pete Bonner
and Luther Gerlach. A third photo showed a man she didn't know by name, but knew
she'd seen around. The flier was densely packed with rude punk graphics: skulls and
crossbones and other icons of death, overlaid in pink and green; someone's retarded idea
of art. But from within the funked up layout a grim message emerged: Rude poker
players were dying of extremely unnatural causes, and others were warned that if they'd
been dark toward a dealer lately, they might want someone to walk them to their car.
Meg and Jim walked to their car without incident. Having no better plan of
attack, they drove back to CyberSal's to check the nets. Nothing. Some spam. Meg was
astounded at how quickly the wolves of the internet found new targets of opportunity.
Her blindmail address was only a few hours old and already she'd received an offer for a
free vacation in Florida, porn from hotwetsomething.com and an update of the old
Spanish Prisoner scam out of Nigeria. Meg held the opinion that the internet might yet
be the death of western civilization. Raff, who could remember when computers were
the stuff of science fiction, felt that innovation was inevitable. "It's the engine of
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evolution," he said. "Without it we'd still be living in trees, wondering where our next
banana was coming from."
"I guess," said Meg, "but why does innovation have to come with so much
commercial noise?"
Jim just shrugged. "Price we pay," he said. Meg thought that this attitude was
funny coming from someone who still wrote letters by hand, but Raff declared that you
don't have to participate in new things in order to appreciate them. Meg chuckled. A
liberal conservative. How about that?
"I'm liking this," said Meg as they approached Jim's home on Calle Ventana.
"Liking what?" Raff asked.
"Hanging with you. Playing poker. Talking smack about technology. I don't
seem to be too worried."
"Does that worry you?"
"They say that the truth is revealed under pressure. I don't know, you know, but if
this is me under pressure, I'll take it." She squared around to face him. "Stop the car for
a second, okay?" Four doors up from his house, Raff pulled the El Camino over.
Meg composed herself for a moment before she began. "When I'm running bad,"
she said, "I ask myself why. And when I'm running good, I ask myself why too. It isn't
always luck. Sometimes my confidence is high. Or my opponents are weak." She drew
a deep breath. "In this thing," she said, "our opponents are clearly not weak. But I still
feel like I'm running good. And I ask myself why. Raff, I'm thinking it's you."
"I, uhm..." Raff trailed off.
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Meg nodded. "Good answer." She swallowed hard and thought, You're really not
vulnerable until there's more than money at stake. "Seriously, though, what do you
think? How am I doing? Am I okay company?"
Jim Rafferty's heart drained to the floorboards of the old El Camino and slithered
across the transmission hump to lie like a dog at her feet. "If only you knew how
ridiculous a question that was." He took her hand and said solemnly, "It is a privilege to
share your company."
"Oh, God." She leaned over and kissed him.
There's a theory of kissing that involves chemical receptors in the saliva in our
mouths. When we kiss, certain enzymes meet and mingle and check each other out. If
the tests come back positive, you can fall in love or at least enjoy smooching. If the tests
come back negative, it's like kissing your sister.
With Raff it was not kissing his sister. With Meg it was "at least enjoy
smooching." They got along fine with it, but then Raff got nervous.
"Time out," he said, and he broke off a kiss. After a moment of silence, he
continued. "This is crazy, you know. Because of our ages."
"Man, that's the least of why it's crazy," laughed Meg. "Come on, let's make out
some more. You're not too old and I'm certainly not too young." She cupped a hand
behind his head and drew his mouth back against hers. Hello, hello, said their enzymes.
Missed you, bud.
Funny what you notice when you're not paying attention. You can even be
kissing with your eyes closed.
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Two manholes punctuated Calle Ventana, about 50 feet apart in the middle of the
block, not far from Raff's house. Their covers were loose, so they both made noise when
cars rolled over them, and Raff had long since grown used to the sound. So when Raff
heard a car drive over the first manhole, but not the second, he realized that it had pulled
over.
Jim peeked over the dashboard. A dark blue panel van came to a rest at the curb
in front of Jim's house. Meg inched up beside him. "What's up?"
"Don't know." They couldn't see the driver, only the glowing coal of a cigarette,
reflected in the van's outboard mirror.
"I don't like this," said Meg.
"I liked kissing better," agreed Raff. They settled in to wait.
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13. High Low and Behold
Never give a free card. Never show fear. Never play soft. Never let them
live. Never buck the odds. Never play a hunch. Never stop learning.
Never piss away your chips. Never go on tilt. Never play drunk. Never
play tired. Never play stoned. Never play scared. Never imagine that
you're better than you are. Never let your ego interfere with your game.
Never get in a rut. Never feel good. Never feel bad. Never be trickier
than you have to be.
Never play down to their level. Never get
distracted. Never relent. Never lose focus. Never lose your temper.
Never lose patience. Never lose your cool. Never lose hope.
Never think like a loser, or you are one.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 13: Never Never Land
After an hour, the driver of the van got out. He paced impatiently by the open car
door and smoked a cigarette. A big man, he betrayed anger in his movements, smoking
aggressively, exhaling through his nose, and muttering a distempered cough at the end of
each exhale. When he was done, he dropped the butt and stomped it out. Then, after a
moment, he bent with a grunt to pick it up. He jammed it in his pocket and got back in
the van.
"There's a guy on tilt," said Meg.
"He doesn't want to leave evidence," said Raff.
"You sound like a made-for-television movie."
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"I feel like I'm in one."
The van started up, diesel exhaust refracting the light of a street lamp. "Well?"
asked Meg, "what do we do now?"
"What would they do on TV?"
"Someone would say, 'Follow that van!."
"'Follow that van,'" said Raff.
They followed the van to a Top Burger and parked across the street while the
driver drove through the drive-through, bought a large amount of food, parked and ate in
a hurry. Then he smoked two fast cigarettes. Then he went inside, evidently to use the
toilet.
Meg opened her door.
"Where are you going?"
"Don't worry, I won't let him see me." She crossed the street quickly and
crouched near a big window. When the man came out of the bathroom, she got a quick
look at him in the restaurant's bright light, then backed away into the shadows. The man
crossed to his van and drove off. Meg dashed back to the car.
"I know him!" she said breathlessly. "He's a dealer at the Sherwood. His name is
Babydoll Sedoso."
"Babydoll?" Raff threw the El Camino into gear and flowed out into the light
late-night traffic.
"That's what it says on his badge. 'Hi, I'm Babydoll, and I'm from...' wait, I'll
think of it... 'The Philippines'."
"How do you get a name like Babydoll?"
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"I don't know. Maybe it's Filipino."
"And you say he's a dealer?"
"That's right."
Raff arched an eyebrow, prompting Meg to say, "Don't look at me in that tone of
voice, mister. I've never been rude to a dealer in my life." She thought about it for a
moment. "It's a fake tell."
"A what?"
"The flier. It's a mislead. A fake tell. Someone's trying to steer someone the
wrong way." Meg looked ahead. "Speaking of steering..." Babydoll had sped up. Raff
goosed the gas pedal and quickly closed the gap.
They followed Babydoll back to Calle Ventana and waited at the end of the block
while he parked in front of Raff's house and shut his engine down. After a moment, he
got out and smoked another impatient cigarette.
"Guy smokes too much," said Meg.
"I'll get him some Nicorettes for Christmas," said Raff. "But what do we do in the
meantime?"
Meg smiled impishly. "We could go play poker."
"You have a one-track mind, you know that?"
"Two tracks now, Raff." She gave Jim a quick peck on the cheek. "But I'm
actually thinking we'd better call Swertlow."
"He'll be thrilled to hear from us again."
"No doubt," said Meg.
∆∆∆
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An hour later, Bates and Swertlow pulled up in Swertlow's leather brown sedan.
They got out and approached the El Camino. Bates massaged the back of his neck with
his left hand. Swertlow leaned in on the passenger's side. Meg caught a mixed whiff of
after-shave, pastrami and stale coffee.
"Well, citizen," said Swertlow. "did you and Helen Gerlach have a nice chat?"
"We got along," said Megan.
"She told you about the pyramid."
"That's right."
"You want to share what you learned?"
"Of course."
"Good. We'll get to that in a minute. Meantime..." Swertlow lifted his head and
looked around. "Where's this alleged stalker of yours?" A street sweeper chugged
slowly along the curb. Beyond that, aside from their own cars, the street was empty.
"Hiding in the bushes?"
"He's gone," said Meg. "He left about fifteen minutes ago. He doesn't seem to be
long on patience."
Swertlow looked at Megan long and hard. "You know what? Neither am I. Is
this what you poker guys call a bluff? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I'd expect it to be defter
than this."
"He was here," insisted Meg.
"Convince me," said Swertlow.
"Maybe let's get off the street," suggested Bates. "We don't want him coming
back and seeing us all loitering around like this. We'll spook him."
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"If there is a him," said Swertlow. Just the same, it seemed to Swertlow like the
first coherent or useful thought that Bates had had all week. They left their cars and
walked down the block to Rafferty's house.
Most people, when the first walk inside Rafferty's house and get a load of his
trove, they gawk. Swertlow and Bates gawked too. They gawked at the short red throw
rug monogrammed with the words Ali and Spinks, from a 1978 bout; at the banners
tacked along a wall up high from six consecutive World Series of Dealers; at the crystal
case containing numbered and dated dice from the night they blew up the old Crystal
Crown. "Implosion commemorative dice?" asked Swertlow. Rafferty nodded. Swertlow
shook his head. "Citizen, what are you?"
"A collector," said Raff.
"Man, that's like a landfill is a garbage bag."
"I'm making tea," said Megan. Meg rarely touched alcohol and hadn't smoked pot
since her last Grateful Dead show. She didn't even drink coffee – what they call poker
fuel – but she had a weakness for tea. It calmed and clarified her, and she felt she could
strongly use a cup just then.
"I'll help," said Bates. He followed her into the kitchen and surprised her by
asking if she thought she was good. "As a poker player I mean."
"I'm pretty good," said Meg. "I have holes in my game, but at least I know where
they are."
"What do you mean?"
"Some planks you play against – "
"'Planks?'"
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"Stiffs. Unimaginative players. Sometimes they think they're this entire force
field, impervious to all weapons. But they're predictable and blind to it. This you can
attack."
"What do you mean?" Bates rubbed a thumbnail back and forth against the grout
between two tiles on Meg's kitchen counter.
"Well, for example, a lot of players automatically raise on the button. They think
their position entitles them to the pot and so they try to steal it. If you know that this play
is automatic for them, you have all sorts of options. You can raise back or trap and fill or
–"
"Trap and fill?"
"Trap them into thinking they have the best hand and get them to fill the pot with
their money."
"Which you then take."
"Which I then take. The point is, you've got to randomize your play."
"Randomize," said Bates thoughtfully, continuing to abrade his thumbnail on the
rough grout. He seemed to be filing it. "How do you do that?"
Megan regarded the detective with growing curiosity. Where did this sudden
interest in poker come from? "Well," she said, "sometimes when I'm on a blind steal I
tell myself to play this hand exactly as if it were pocket aces. No matter how they play
back at me, I play it like aces, all the way to the end. Sometimes I'll get caught and look
stupid – "
" – and that's a problem?"
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"Not necessarily. If I look stupid exactly the right way, that's something I can use
against them next time. It's all about moves and countermoves in poker."
"And you're not afraid to look stupid," said Bates. "I admire that."
Something leaked. Meg wasn't sure what it was, but something definitely leaked.
Something in Bates' voice, his eyes, suggested that he connected with the concept of
looking stupid on a much deeper level.
"Do you play poker?" she asked suddenly.
"I'm picking it up," he said, and went to work on the other thumbnail.
Meg remembered an angle she used to shoot, the ol' what beats what. Early in her
pro career, back when she still wasn't known around town, she'd pretend she'd never seen
a poker game before, even going so far as to ask to be reminded of the rankings of the
hands. The ol' what beats what. It was a rookie angle and she quickly outgrew it.
She wondered what kind of angles a guy like Bates might shoot.
Raff kept his tea in a safe deposit box from the old Gold House Hotel, and even
Swertlow had to admit that it made an impressive display when Meg presented it to him
and asked him to make a selection. All the teas had come from some casino somewhere.
Swertlow had never imagined that a casino's branding effort would extend all the way
down to their teabags, but apparently it did. Dan chose a Darjeeling double dark; it
wasn't coffee, but it would do. Bates took his Earl Gray hellishly cut with milk and
sugar. Meg had a tart chamomile. Raff passed on tea; he didn't drink it as a rule, merely
collected it.
"Okay, citizen," said Swertlow at last, pointing a spoon at Meg, "cards on
the table time. What've you got on this pyramid?"
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Maybe Meg was getting tired of being called citizen, or maybe it was just sheer
cussed-mindedness on her part, but she decided not to mention the pyramid they'd found
earlier in Rafferty's car. Cards on the table, sure, but hole cards too. "We knew Pete
Bonner had one. We wondered if Gerlach had one too."
"Why would you wonder that?"
With a nod from Meg, Raff showed Swertlow Conrad Ploche's Desert Times
articles about the pyramid. Bates leaned in and read over Swertlow's shoulder, softly
humming an old bluegrass tune, Dixie Breakdown.
Do you mind?" growled Swertlow.
"You growl a lot," said Meg.
Swertlow growled at her. But then he finished reading and he laughed. "You put
Gerlach together with a pyramid based on that?" he said. "That's a leap and a half."
"Maybe three quarters," said Bates.
"Well, we made it," said Raff. "And we're not the only ones." He showed them
the flyer that he and Meg had found at the Monte Casino, with pictures of Bonner and
Gerlach, plus Turk Nixon.
"Crimes against dealers," said Swertlow, "yeah, we've seen that." His contacts in
casino security had sent him a copy that morning.
Raff pointed to Nixon's picture. "Do know this man?"
"Uh-huh. He's dead too."
"Did he have a pyramid?"
"Wife says he got one. It wasn't on his corpse." Swertlow paused to re-read the
flyer's dire warning that dealers were killing off rude poker players. For the first time he
146
noticed dozens of tiny pyramids buried deeply in the flyer's dense punk artwork like
iconic where's Waldos. He looked up at Meg. "Okay, citi – " Swertlow cut himself off.
" – Ms. Moore: Someone's killing rude players. What do you think it means?"
"It looks like they're trying to cull the herd," said Meg.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" asked Swertlow.
"Not at all. You'd have to be in the card rooms to know it, but rage is a big issue
these days. Players lose a pot, they go ballistic. It's become routine, and it's getting
worse."
"Children. They should learn to behave themselves."
"Yeah, they should. But they can't, and that's why you want them in the game in
the first place. Because people who can't control their behavior obviously can't control
their play." Bates, Meg noticed, incrementally raised his eyebrows at that. "When they
act out, the casinos suspend them or ban them, but it really hasn't helped."
"Hence this warning?"
"Maybe it's operant conditioning," said Meg. "Behavior modification by
example. Rude players are murdered, so live players will stop being rude."
Swertlow was frankly incredulous. "That's how it looks to you?"
"No. That's how it's intended to look."
"Meaning what?"
She gave a shrug. "People bluff. In my world you can't succeed without a certain
amount of deception. I assume that's true in other worlds as well."
∆∆∆
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It had been a strange request, but under the circumstances Vic Mirplo figured he'd
honor it, seeing as how it came from the mysterious – but inarguably hot – Cherry Creek.
And look where it had landed him: in the card room of the River Riviera in scenic
Laughlin, Nevada.
Of course Vic had signed on. Was there ever any doubt? Thinking it the most
natural thing in the world, he'd agreed to compete for Cherry and her backers in the
World Series of Dealers. In light of that, she'd told him, she was determined to keep him
under wraps until the day of the $10,000 buy-in main event, now just one week away.
"You're my secret weapon," she'd cooed in Vic's ear.
"And what good's a secret weapon if you don't keep it secret, right?"
"Exactly." So she'd padded his bankroll, booked him a room at the River Riviera,
and sent him down to, as she put it, "keep his game sharp." She'd told him not to return
to Vegas under any circumstances until the big one started. "I don't want anyone
knowing how good you are."
"No danger of that," Vic had answered with unintended irony. He imagined that
Cherry Creek was swiftly falling in love with him, and how could she not? He supposed
that after he won the World Series of Dealers she'd probably want to have an affair.
That'd be good, thought Vic, whose sex life for years had been largely rhetorical. I could
live with that.
"One other thing," Cherry Creek had told him, "don't show the pyramid to
anyone."
"Why not? It's snappy."
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"Snappy it is, but just don't, okay? For me?" She punctuated her request with a
light kiss, sealing Vic's loyalty to her lips.
Now, sitting in on a flophappy $4-8 Omaha/8 game, high-low split, eight or better
for low, Vic wondered why she didn't want anyone to see the pyramid. It was his marker,
right? It designated him as one of her star players. Wasn't she proud of that? Wouldn't
she want everyone to know?
Just then he picked up a raising hand, which according to Vic's flawed logic, was
any A-2 in Omaha/8. High low and behold! he thought as he overplayed it monstrously,
but flopped perfect and scooped a large pot. "High low and behold!" he declared as he
raked in his chips. Master of the short attention span, Vic didn't think about the pyramid
again all day.
When he went broke – which he managed to do in just a few hours of genuinely
wretched play – the poker room manager took him aside and explained to him quietly
that Cherry Creek had organized a liberal line of credit in his name. Acknowledging the
possibility of a Mirplo actually losing at cards, she'd left enough money for him to play
all week, pretty much no matter how badly he did. Vic just thought that was thoughtful.
It didn't occur to him to wonder why someone would want to keep him in Laughlin so
bad.
"High low and behold!" said Vic as he bought himself back in the game.
∆∆∆
The two men knew all of Mirplo's hangouts. They knew the cheesebag studio
apartment he called home; knew it well, right down to the mold in the shower and the
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sour milk in the fridge. They'd waited all night last night for him there, but little Vic
Mirplo hadn't come home.
So now they were checking his haunts.
A while past midnight, the pair walked into the Back Bar. One of the men hung
back, showing casual interest in two women shooting pool, while the other showed the
bartender Vic's picture.
"He was in here yesterday," the bartender said. "Shits tipper."
"Who was he with?"
"Why should I tell you?"
The man slid a folded Big Ben across the bar. "Because I'm not a shits tipper."
Thus motivated, the bartender described the hard, narrow woman who'd bought
Mirplo a drink, and took him away before dusk in her car. He'd thought he'd heard them
mention Laughlin.
An hour later, Sparks Henderson was on his way to Laughlin to kill Vic Mirplo.
∆∆∆
Swertlow and Bates got up to go. Swertlow was still not convinced that Meg and
Raff were anything but a couple of paranoid crackpots, facing no real danger that a stiff
deadbolt couldn't handle. He promised to check out Sedoso in the morning, but Meg
doubted he would. That was fine. Meg had decided that they were better off without
these two. Especially Bates. The more she studied him, the falser he rang. At one point
their eyes had met and she'd caught a flash of awareness before he dumbed down. He
knows I'm looking for tells, thought Meg.
The cops left before midnight.
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Five minutes later, Babydoll Sedoso kicked in the front door. He stood there
grinning, waving an assault rifle like a 4th of July sparkler. "Who wants to die first?" he
asked pleasantly.
After hours of waiting, exhibiting a patience he didn't enjoy and never really
mastered, at last Babydoll Sedoso was having some fun.
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14. AK-47
You are who you are? Is that what you think? Is that what you say? That
it's not in your nature to play Killer Poker and how can a panda change
its spots? You are who you are, you insist, and the style of Killer Poker is
not the style for you. Bullshit I reply with all due respect – all the respect
due, that is, to such an inane proposition. For I know that you are only
moments away from transformation to a whole new style of play.
And what does it require, this magical transformation? A desire to stop
losing money, for one thing. The courage to try something new. Total
abandonment of the weak, timid, nice poker you've played all your life.
That shouldn't be too hard to let go of, should it? After all, it's done you
no damn good. Killer Poker, my friend, will not just change your game, it
will actually change your life. And it's only a moment away.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 14: The Moment of Truth
Babydoll lurched around Rafferty's living room, his kinetic corpulence hidden by
a Hawaiian print shirt with the words "Wanna Lei?" written in script among flowers and
topless island girls. He took a keen interest in Raff's relics, as if echoes of dead Vegas
were, in their way, more important in this moment than the fact of his home invasion at
gunpoint. He had tied Meg and Jim's hands behind their backs with two bolo ties from
the 1949 Helldorado Days and laid them face-down on the living room floor. Then he
inspected Raff's collection at his leisure, considering the monogrammed ice buckets filled
with monogrammed cigarette lighters and the arrayed displays of beer mats and cocktail
napkins with a good deal more empathy than most of Raff's first-time visitors. Perhaps
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his pirate soul recognized the collection as treasure, and his pirate heart went out to it.
Eventually he turned to Rafferty, his stubby assault rifle cradled loosely in his pudgy
arms, and asked, "Got any Samarkand shit?"
"What are you looking for?" asked Raff, who knew of at least two dozen separate
items he owned from the Samarkand Casino, including souvenir glasses, key fobs,
paperweight and money clips.
"Chips," said Babydoll. "Samarkand chips. I worked there when I first came to
town. Assholes, they still owe me money." Babydoll walked over and put a heavy boot
on Raff's back. "Do you got any of their chips?"
Rafferty blinked. "Probably."
"Well, where?"
Raff nodded toward a closed cabinet. "In there," he said. "Third shelf down."
"It's locked," said Babydoll. Before Raff could respond, Babydoll smashed the
cabinet open with the gun butt and said, "Never mind."
Inside the cabinet a hundred labeled chip racks stood in rows of surgical,
alphabetical precision: Abdul's Kasbah to Barracuda Lounge; Fitzgerald's to the
Galaxy; Moulin Rouge to Nevada Dan's.
"Which one?" asked Babydoll, clearly frustrated with the alphabetic system.
Perhaps he was illiterate.
"Third shelf down, fifth rack back on the right," said Raff.
Babydoll took out the rack and started pawing through it, his beefy hands
scattering the chips on the floor. Meg could see Raff stiffen. She knew he hated to see
his slumbering gods disturbed. "Maintain," she whispered. "Don't go on tilt." He
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nodded, and Meg was pleased to see him snap his cool into place. Poker consciousness
was sinking in.
Babydoll found several chips of different denominations from the defunct
Samarkand venture. "These still good?" he asked.
"Sorry, no," said Raff. "That casino closed. Where would you redeem them?"
"I'll take 'em anyhow," said Babydoll, stuffing them in a pocket of the enormous
sweat pants he wore. "Maybe I'll use them for target practice." He mimed shooting
skeet. "Pull! Poom!" Then he looked back at the pair. "Now... that's one thing. Here's
the other. Where's the pyramid?"
Here we go, thought Meg.
"What pyramid?" asked Raff.
Babydoll kicked Raff in the ribs. Not very hard. Just hard enough to get his
attention. "Do not," said Babydoll Sedoso, "fuck. With. Me. Okay? Don't even
pretend. Now where is it?"
Rafferty directed Sedoso's attention to a cigar box on an end table, filled with the
knockoffs he'd found in his collection. Babydoll looked them over briefly. He seemed
confused. "These yours?" he asked Rafferty. Raff nodded. Babydoll pointed at Meg.
"I'm supposed to get hers."
"We share," said Meg.
"Bullshit. Anyway these aren't gold."
"You know gold?"
"My people know gold." Babydoll flashed on his mother's tales of her
grandfather, and the chests of Chinese gold he pillaged and brought home from the
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Zamboanga Sea. Poor pirate Babydoll, born in the wrong time. With an airy grunt, he
settled his bulk in an awkward kneel beside Meg. "Yours is supposed to be gold." He
frisked her back pockets.
Raff, Meg saw, was struggling to turn over onto his back. To distract Babydoll
from that action, she engaged him with, "I know you, you know. You deal at the
Sherwood."
"Quit that job." Babydoll reached around and checked her front pockets, probing
with chubby fingers. "Got a new gig now."
"What's that?"
"Winning the World Series of Dealers. And guess what? I just found my buyin." Babydoll pulled out the pyramid, clenching it in his fist as he put his weight on his
hands and struggled to his feet, not a lock-cinch task for a man of Babydoll's bulk.
Which Raff kind of figured.
When Sedoso reached a point of precarious balance between kneeling and
standing, Jim hit him hard from behind, driving both feet into Babydoll's kidneys.
Babydoll toppled forward and fell headfirst into a display case, shattering its glass front
as well as several ceramic liquor decanters from the Aladdin Hotel.
Raff got up and knee-walked toward the display case. "Help me with this," he
said, and Meg struggled to join him. As Babydoll muzzily worked himself free, they got
their legs behind the display case and brought it down on top of him. He grunted, and fell
still.
"Call 911," said Raff.
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"911," said a quiet voice. Rafferty looked up. Swertlow and Bates stood in the
broken doorway. "We thought you might need some help," said Swertlow.
"Guess we were wrong," said Bates, not quite picking his nose.
Swertlow crossed to Babydoll Sedoso and opened the big man's pudgy hands.
"Then again, you never said you had one of these." He picked up the pyramid with a
handkerchief, pulled out a plastic evidence bag and dropped the pyramid inside. He
tossed the bag to Bates. "Tag that," he said.
"Tagged," said Bates.
An hour later, Babydoll was patched and packed for travel. He sat, sullen and
handcuffed, in the back of a police cruiser. Meg and Jim stood on the doorstep with the
detectives.
"I want to be there when you question him," said Meg.
"What are you, high?" answered Swertlow. "You're lucky I don't arrest you
both."
"What for?"
"For being an attractive nuisance."
"Like a swimming pool," said Bates, "with no fence. Someone falls in and
drowns, it's your fault."
"Bates," said Swertlow tiredly, "they know what an attractive nuisance is. These
are smart people." He turned to face the pair. "And as smart people, they will take the
opportunity – now that the pyramid is off their hands, which it should have been already
– to mind their own business and let the police handle that which police handle."
Meg nodded toward Babydoll. "What about that guy?"
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"He won't bother you again, I promise." Swertlow turned and said to a uniformed
officer, "Take him away."
"I'll take him, Dan," said Bates.
"Sure, fine, whatever." Bates got in the black and white and drove off. Babydoll
squirmed in the back seat, wearing plastic handcuffs, the kind that don't come off till
they're cut off. They dug into his spongy flesh, and he almost looked forward to getting
to jail, just so he could have his hands back.
But they weren't, he discovered in the fullness of time, going to jail. Not unless
the end of a dirt road and the lip of a deep gorge count as jail. That's where Bates took
him, and that's where Bates dragged him out of the car. They walked to the edge of the
ravine. Bates asked a few direct questions. When he was done, and with surprising
swiftness, Bates kicked Sedoso's calves out from under him. As the big man lost his
balance, Bates gave him a shove.
Babydoll wondered as he fell whether this was how the Chinese merchants and
sailors felt when his pirate ancestors threw them into the Zamboanga Sea, stones tied to
their ankles like plastic handcuffs. In his last living instant, Babydoll Sedoso caught a
glimpse of things from the victim's point of view. It was a revelation. Perhaps it would
be useful in his next life.
Bates wasn't particularly concerned about anyone finding the corpse. It was a
pretty deep gorge. He pulled out the pyramid and looked at it. Besides, he thought, this
changes everything.
∆∆∆
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Later that night to keep looters at bay (and wouldn't Raff's trove be a looter's wet
dream?) Jim and Meg nailed a sheet of plywood over Rafferty's busted front door. Then
they got ready to go, stopping only long enough to retrieve the real pyramid from its
hiding place at the bottom of a fishbowl filled with casino-imprint golf tees. It had been
Meg's idea to carry a decoy; they'd tarted up one of Raff's knockoffs with gold gilt paint.
It wouldn't have fooled anyone who looked closely, but neither Babydoll nor Bates and
Swertlow had seemed to look that close.
"What do you think about Swertlow and Bates?" asked Meg as they walked down
the block to Rafferty's car. They were heading back to CyberSal's. This being Las
Vegas.
"Typical cops," said Raff. "Opinionated and ill-informed. Why?"
"I don't know. It's just... they're looking more like players than cops in all this.
Bates definitely is. That guy knows more than he shows. At least about poker. How
long till they learn they have a knockoff?"
"Not long, assuming they have Mirplo's for comparison."
"They must've caught Mirplo. How could they not?"
"And they've got Babydoll," added Raff. "At least he's off our back."
"But who was on his?"
"Good question."
"Yeah, good question. And I'm tired of not knowing the answer." They got in the
car and headed off.
"What would you do in poker?" asked Raff.
"How do you mean?"
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"When you need information and your opponent won't give it up, what do you
do?"
Meg thought about it for a moment, and then she said, "Active sonar. Pound him
with raises to make him define his decisions. See how he plays under pressure."
"Doesn't that sort of put you under pressure too?"
"Yeah. It helps if you're a better player than he is."
"So active sonar," said Raff, "how can we use that in this?"
"In this? I don't think we're the best players."
"Don't you? I do." Raff smiled.
"We don't even know who the other players are."
"So let's flush 'em out."
Meg looked over at him. His eyes were shining. "You're enjoying this, aren't
you?"
"Not that much."
She reached over and grabbed his knee briefly. "You're so cool," she said. "I
hope when this is over you'll still hang out with me."
You'll have to beat me off with a stick, thought Raff.
All-night online junkies packed the terminals at CyberSal's: gamblers, shoppers,
chatters, hackers, scammers, spammers, porn addicts, software pirates, day traders, chat
room lurkers and internet romantics. Meg bought some time tokens for an anonymous
relay terminal. She logged on with her screen name, tetrahead, and checked her
blindmail account. "Junk," she said – "junk" – as she clicked through the come-ons for
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internet stocks – "junk" – and free links to peep cams in streaming video – "junk. Man,
all this -- wait, here's something."
She opened an email from nevadaplacenames@amerikon.com. "'Tetrahead,'" she
read, "'you've touched the tip of the icebag. Careful you don't punch it! Ploche was right
about Jesus and you're right about the pyramid, it's bad mojo. Bad, bad mojo, but what
are you going to do? Read Wealth of Nations. Has the laissez ever really been faire?
Does self-interest = publik welfare? Some people think so & Smith wasn't the first.'"
"Smith?" asked Rafferty.
"That would be Adam Smith," she answered. "He wrote Wealth of Nations."
"And you know this how?"
"I went to business school," said Meg.
Rafferty eyed her. "That doesn't seem like you."
"It wasn't," she said without looking up. "Tell you about it sometime." She
clicked open another message and found a solid block of text in a language they didn't
know.
"Bingo," said Raff.
"Bingo? Why bingo?"
"Look at the pyramid."
Meg opened a file containing their scanned image of the pyramid and compared
the writing on it to the block of text. "Same stuff," she said. "Good catch, Raff. Now all
we need is an English-to-whatever dictionary."
"Which this is," said Raff of the text block. The symbols, he pointed out,
appeared in regular – and ultimately predictable – patterns. "It's a transcription key."
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"And you know this how?"
"I used to be a cryptographer."
"That doesn't sound like you."
"It wasn't." He smiled wryly. "Tell you about it sometime."
At that moment their terminal flashed incoming mail.
Meg opened the email and
they read a message from splash@coffeee.com. It read simply:
CONRAD PLOCHE LIVES!
"Great," said Jim, "we've hit the crackpot vein."
"Yeah," said Meg. "Let's crack it open."
"What do you have in mind?"
"What we talked about. Active sonar." Working silently and swiftly, Meg
constructed an ad-hoc website. She posted the material they'd received so far, using
Conrad Ploche Lives! as a banner. Then she sent email to all their respondents, and to
every cult board and conspiracy chat group she could find, alerting them to the website
and promising to reveal the full truth about the pyramid at the earliest possible moment.
"Which truth we don't have," Raff pointed out.
"Okay, so we're bluffing. Still, we're shining a light, and people who like the dark
won't like that."
"Active sonar."
"There you go."
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They printed out copies of everything they'd received, then logged off, securing
their files with a new password. Afterwards, they drove to the Tiergarten Hotel, a modest
casino fashioned after the decadent Berlin of the 1930s. They dove deep into the
underground garage, parking on the bottom level. Taking care to be sure they weren't
followed, they made their way from the garage to the hotel lobby. Meg took over at
check-in, and Raff swallowed his surprise when the desk clerk handing back her credit
card said, "Welcome to the Tiergarten, Ms. Fernley."
"Fernley?" he asked in the elevator.
"Ruth Fernley," she said. "It's sort of my corporate name."
"Your corporate name is Ruth Fernley?"
"I still pay the bill," she said. "It just comes to a different address."
"Handy."
"At this moment, yes. If someone were looking for us, it wouldn't be hard to flag
our names in a booking computer."
"But no one would flag Ruth Fernley."
"We hope."
"We hope."
The elevator stopped on their floor. As they got out, Meg caught herself scanning
for threats. Raff, she noticed, had done the same thing. "Think we need guns?" she
joked.
"I have one," Raff said quietly.
But the hallway was empty, and they made it to their room without incident. Meg
felt safer behind its locked door. Raff immediately started arranging his work materials
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for the task of decrypting the pyramid. Meg came over and stood behind him, not quite
touching his shoulder.
"Raff, we've been up for what, 20 hours?" She reached past him and tapped the
printouts. "Don't you need a crisp brain for this?"
"I suppose."
"Then let's get some sleep."
Rafferty turned, and as he did his arms slid easily around her. "Which bed do you
want?" he asked.
She linked her own fingers lightly behind his back. "The one with the gun under
the pillow."
"That would be mine."
"That would be right." She kissed him lightly. "I'll take the bathroom first."
From the window of the room Raff had an excellent view of the Phoenix Casino
not far away. Every hour on the hour in front of the Phoenix a huge firebird rose, not
from ashes but from a magnificent pool, to a height of twelve stories, where it seemed to
explode and then descend, only to lie dormant for an hour and then rise once again. It
was a metaphor for something, maybe the replenishment of a gambler's bankroll by
outside means. Jim contemplated this as Meg came out of the bathroom, slipped up
behind him and rubbed the top of his head with a clean, sweet-smelling hand.
"Shower feels great," she said. "Your turn."
When he came out, she had turned down the covers of one bed and slid in. All the
lights were off, save the reading lamp over the bed. Her bare shoulders lay flat against
the pillow as she crossed her arms modestly on top of the sheet.
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"You make this easy," said Raff.
"It's meant to be easy." She reached up and turned off the light.
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15. Tetrahead
I had this student once and man was he pathetic. He wanted so badly to
overcome his weakness but his timidity hung around his neck like an
albatross. I couldn't break his bad habits no matter how hard I tried.
He'd play a hand and then ask me to rate his play. I'd tell him, well you
only made four mistakes. You didn't raise before the flop, and you didn't
bet the flop, turn or river. Other than that you played perfect. Almost.
It's a sad fact, friends, and I admit my failure to you: Some people just
aren't cut out to play Killer Poker. But then again, is that my fault or
theirs? Theirs, I think. Yes definitely theirs.
What's holding you back? What aren't you willing to do to close the gap
between who you are and who you want to be? Could it be simply a
matter of owning your past, admitting that you used to be a fuckup and
resolving not to be that fuckup any more? Most people are congenitally
unable to own their past. The cost of confronting their former failures is
simply too high to pay. As a consequence, they turn former failures into
current ones, reinforcing bad habits with more bad habits and
compounding loss upon loss upon loss.
Well, what the hell, you know? There's two kinds of problems in this
world: my problem and not my problem. And friend, your failings are not
my problem. Face yourself. Face your flaws. Either that or stop wasting
my time.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 15: Nothing Ventured
"Bang bang," said Vic as he tossed his cards in the muck. "You know what that
means?" He directed this question to the player on his left, who, deaf in her right ear,
heard not a word Vic said. "Means I had an ace, a king, a four, and seven. AK-47, get it?
Bang bang, get it?" The woman gave no sign of getting it, and Vic silently took the pride
he routinely took in meeting anyone whose bulb burned dimmer than his own.
Under other circumstances, Vic would have raised like a mad thing with good ol'
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AK-47. Okay it's better suited, but even not suited you could flop 2-3-x – low bang – and
win with the stealth nuts.
But this time he threw it away. He'd been folding bad hands all night, and that
alone would have improved his game immensely, but there were other improvements too.
He was reading players well, picking off tells, attacking weakness, running measured
bluffs and making them work. Successfully selling his image, he seemed to be throwing
the party, but still he kept winning and winning, playing far over his own pathetic head,
for Vic had made an astounding discovery: He played much, much better with other
people's money.
Not borrowed money. Vic had played plenty on borrowed money; he knew how
furtive that felt, hoping that the guys you owe don't happen to catch you a little bit ahead
and make you pay back, but then again you never seem to be that ahead, so that never
seems to happen. But being bankrolled, though, that was something different. That made
you feel great. Here was Cherry Creek, signing him up for her poker team, giving him
phat credit, even buying him into the World Series of Dealers. The sum of all this
validation suffused Vic with a confidence rare – in fact almost historically unheard of –
among Mirplos. It transformed his game.
Cherry, my love, I'm doing this for you.
Inspired by passion and inflated self-worth, Vic shed his normal sloppy play like a
lizard sheds skin, revealing the devious cunning which lurks in a Mirplo as it lurks in any
weak creature that must rely on its wits, such as they are, to survive.
Mirplo the strong? Mirplo the cunning? Could this be? Mirplo the brave,
suddenly driving all before him with aggressive semi-bluffs? Mirplo the total chip
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weevil, stealing pots or, alternatively, inducing rash calls. Mirplo, the big stack (and
when did that ever happen?) hurling his chips like hand grenades. Mirplo the terrorist,
pummeling retirement queens for bets drained from pension checks. Mirplo the glib,
charming opponents with his clubby jabber, while foxing extra profit from their flawed
(even by Mirplo standards) understanding of the game. Mirplo the Magnificent! thought
Vic as he pressed a rich draw, hit one of his many outs and collected another substantial
pot. Man, where did you learn to play cards?
Or catch them. Vic knew he was running lucky – hitting his flops, making his
draws. But good draws, not bad, that's a difference. Besides, isn't luck is the residue of
something? Pluck? Hard work? Anyway, it's nothing I don't deserve. Hey, thought Vic,
maybe it's the pyramid. Maybe the pyramid's bringing me luck!
This thought brought him back to Cherry, who, he decided, must be pretty
seriously in love with him. Either that or the keenest diviner of hidden poker talent that
the world had ever seen. For in this moment of clarity, Vic now knew that his past play
had been pretty abysmal. So therefore Cherry had had to look deep to see his potential –
potential only now being unleashed upon the hapless denizens of Laughlin. Deeply in
love or just really sharp? wondered Vic. Both, he concluded. Maybe I should call her,
tell her how right she is about me.
When Vic realized that he didn't have her number – had, in fact, no way to get in
touch with her – he felt briefly disarmed. Who's calling the shots here, anyway? But
then the next deal came, and the thought skittered away. He looked at his cards. K-K-QJ, double suited. Double plus good, he thought. He raised in late position and got a
bunch of callers.
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But when the flop came 3-4-5 rainbow, and inspired a bet and an immediate raise,
Vic quietly released his hand in the face of made lows and probable straights. Good
laydown, he congratulated himself. Vic found it pleasant to make good laydowns, instead
of trailing in with bad draws and cringing at the turn of every card. Stay cool, Vic. More
cards coming. More hands coming. Stay cool, Vic. Do it for her love.
To kill time before the next hand, Vic went back to work on his chip wall. In
pairs of stacks 25 high, it marched in a proud crescent from his left elbow outward. It
was, he decided, the Great Wall of Mirplo, a monument to his glory. But it lacked
something. In the time it took him to forget Cherry's warning not to let it be seen, he had
the pyramid out of his pocket and up on top of the wall. It looked terrific. Now that's an
achievement! thought Vic. Man, I'm a man.
Vic felt a tap at his left shoulder. As he turned, a hand snaked past on the right
and grabbed the pyramid. "What the – ?"
"Let's go." A man in a pale cream cowboy hat stood over him.
"Give that back!"
"Happy to. Outside."
"What? Come on! What is this?"
"Do you want it back or don't you?"
Vic stood up. "No way I'm cashing out, man. I'm running real good here."
"We won't be gone long."
"Okay, then." Vic got up and left with the man.
At an empty stud table nearby, a woman in a dusty tobacco-seed vest sat reading
Poker Digest. She watched Vic leave, then waited a while like you wait to exploit a tell
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you just caught. After a minute or two, she left the casino, walked a hundred yards down
the blistering riverside boardwalk and placed a call from a pay phone baked hot to the
touch by the sun. She punched in a number she'd memorized and left some terse words
on a machine with no outgoing message.
Listening on the other end, Cherry Creek shook her head. This was not good.
This was a complication, and in Cherry's experience complications led to corpses.
Cherry erased the message, then placed a call. Within minutes, a maintenance employee
at the River Riviera had ceased his work on a balky circuit box and headed for the roof on
another errand.
Sparks Henderson, meanwhile, threw a seemingly friendly arm around Vic as
they walked outside the casino, but clamped his hand on Vic's narrow shoulder to make
sure that Vic didn't stray. They crossed a broad parking lot and entered the desolate scrub
beyond, for the River Riviera marked the spot on the Colorado River bank where
Laughlin ended and the desert began.
Vic tried to make conversation. "Hot, huh?" he said, looking up at the sun. It was
nearly noon. Vic, having played cards all night, felt soupy in his brain.
"Shut up," said Sparks pleasantly.
"Right," Vic agreed. They walked on, sidestepping low box cacti. After a few
minutes Sparks stopped and turned Vic around to face him.
"You're running pretty good," said Sparks.
"Yeah I am. And I'd like to get back before my luck turns, ya know? How about
you give me back my pyramid now?"
"Your pyramid?" asked Sparks laconically. "How do you reckon it's yours?"
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"I found it. It's mine."
"Uh-huh. Where'd you find it?"
"Why do you care?"
Sparks extended a weathered hand and cupped it harshly around Vic's jaw.
"Answer, don't ask. Where did you find it?"
"On the roof of the Galaxy parking garage."
"Pete Bonner was there, wasn't he?"
"If you know, why are you asking?" Sparks shifted his grip from Vic's jaw to his
throat. "Yes! Yes, he was there! Geez." Sparks relaxed his grip. Vic stumbled
backward and fell, scraping a cactus with his hand. "Ouch, shit!"
"Who was the woman you met in Vegas?"
Vic looked at his hand. It was throbbing, and already starting to swell. Vic, who
had read very few books in his life, and almost nothing of substance, had once read about
a woman who swelled up and died from the sting of a single wasp. Anapathetic shock or
something. Vic wondered if the same principle applied to cactus. Am I allergic? I could
die from this. "Man," he said plaintively, "look what you did to my hand."
"Who was she?"
"Megan Moore. She plays poker." Vic blew on his hand, which didn't help at all.
"Man."
"Not her. The one in the bar."
"Oh, Cher –" Vic caught himself. "I can't tell you."
Sparks pulled out a squat revolver and pointed it at Vic. "Who!"
"Why should I tell you? You're just going to kill me anyway."
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"Good point." Sparks cocked back the hammer.
"Cherry Creek! Cherry Creek!" shouted Vic. "Her name is Cherry Creek! She's
backing me in the World Series of Dealers."
Sparks laughed. "Why would she back a mope like you?"
"I'm not that bad," said Vic petulantly.
"You're pathetic. And now you're dead pathetic." He placed the gun barrel
against Vic's temple. Vic shut his eyes and whimpered. He could feel the dime-size
circle of steel pressing into his flesh. He imagined the bullet speeding down that shaft,
piercing the fragile crust of his shell and exploding deep in his brain. I don't want to die,
mourned Vic. I really would totally rather not die.
Then Sparks uttered an exhausted-sounding whuff, and fell forward past Vic,
impaling himself on a cactus. A neat red rosette formed on the back of his head. The
sound of a distant gunshot reached Vic's ear. He turned toward its source and saw the
tower of the River Riviera. For an instant something glinted on the roof.
"Whoa," said Vic. "Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa." He got up and backed away.
"Whoa." He searched desperately for some place to hide, but found none, for the desert
was as flat and open as a desktop. If they wanted him, he realized, they pretty much had
him. So Vic just stood there, waiting for a second shot, but still no shot came. He
watched the blood ooze from the hole in Sparks Henderson's head. Still no shot came.
After a few minutes he puked. Then he retrieved his pyramid from Sparks' pocket, and
beat cheeks back to the casino, deliriously glad to be not dead.
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The way things were running, Vic half expected his chips to be gone when he got
back to the table. But they were still there. He racked them quickly and cashed out.
Way ahead. Way, way ahead, when you think about it.
You would expect a brush with death to have an effect on a person, even one so
congenitally dense as Vic Mirplo. You would expect a certain sense of revelation to
wash over a person in that circumstance and endow him with a commitment to do things
differently. You'd expect even a Mirplo not to blow so major a second chance.
Against all foreseeable odds, you would be right.
Vic went to the gift shop, where he bought every available poker book, ten bags
of Baked Lays and a two-liter bottle of ginger ale, plus some salve for his cactus burns.
He retreated to his suite and went to work with a fever that no Mirplo had ever applied to
a problem before: in this case, the specific problem of how to overcome a lifetime of bad
poker play in just one week. Vic was suddenly determined not just to play in the World
Series of Dealers, but to win it. For Cherry Creek. And for his second chance.
Funny thing about Vic Mirplo. Once he started studying poker – really studying
it and not just putzing around – he turned out to have a real knack.
∆∆∆
Conrad Ploche had called the writing on the pyramid, "coded instruction from the
dark sphere," but when Raff broke the code he found the message – seemingly – much
more mundane. "Check it out," he said. "Good for one play."
Meg crossed to the desk where Raff sat and looked over his shoulder. She'd slept
much later than he had, well into the heart of Wednesday afternoon. A while ago she'd
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called room service to order some sandwiches. Now she sat quietly while Raff worked to
tease open the transcription key.
"Good for one play?"
"That's what it boils down to." Possession of the pyramid, Raff told her, seemed
to entitle the bearer to participate in a match or contest of some kind.
"It's like a satellite chip," said Meg suddenly.
"A what?"
Meg explained to Raff the concept of satellite tournaments, how ten competitors,
say, might vie for one seat in a bigger tournament, and the winner would receive a chip
that allowed her to enter that next contest. "Good for one play," she concluded.
Raff studied his notes again. "Yes, that fits. I mean you could interpret these
symbols that way. But which tournament?"
"Easy," answered Meg. "World Series of Dealers. Remember what Babydoll
Sedoso said?"
"That the pyramid was his buy-in. I thought he meant he was going to sell it.
How much does the tournament cost?"
"The main event? Ten grand."
"No collector would pay ten grand for that pyramid."
"Maybe you don't sell it. Maybe you just present it, and then that's your ticket.
Good for one play."
"But you could buy into the tournament with cash."
"And you can buy into something with the pyramid," said Meg. "Maybe it's both.
Some kind of overlay."
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"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure. But... this is just the thought I'm having now... what if there were
two competitions? One that everyone knew about, and then another one that was, like,
only for pyramid holders?"
Jim thought about this what-if proposition for a moment, and then asked, "When
is the World Series of Dealers?"
"It starts next Wednesday."
"Wednesday? I have to spend another whole week with you?"
"I know you're joking," said Meg. "You better be joking."
"I'll show you who's joking," said Raff.
Room service left the tray outside the door.
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16. Double or Done
You're committed to Killer Poker, that's great, that's fine. I'm having a
party for you in my mind right now. But let me tell you that commitment
means nothing if you can't back it up. It's how you act in the moment that
counts, and not your vague, well-intentioned promises. I know you, don't
think for a minute I don't. You have solid resolve – in the car. You have
pinpoint control – in the car. You plan elaborate scorched earth
campaigns – in the car. But once you get into the game (especially if
you've had to wait more than, say, fifteen seconds) and those sacred stacks
are placed before you, you fall right back into your old, scared patterns of
play.
You sit back. Tight tendencies take over. You think you're being cagey
and patient, but you're really just being weak. From the minute you sit
down – the minute, do you hear me? – you have to be ready to run all over
the game. The great players are. They don't wait an instant to establish
their image. They can't afford to, and neither can you. What do I have to
do, rap your knuckles? If you can't come out firing, you can't play Killer
Poker.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 16: Nothing Gained
The week passed for Vic in a blur of magnificent poker. No one, least of all Vic,
had ever predicted a winning Mirplo, but there he was, ripping up the ring games at the
River Riviera. He was unstoppable. Patient, aggressive, totally aware of himself, and of
his opponents' tendencies and flaws, he felt like he'd awakened from a dull dream into the
glory of his own fine play.
But his thoughts kept going back to the cowboy who'd tried to gork him on
Wednesday, and whenever he sat down to play he sat with his back to the wall. No one's
gonna do a Wild Bill Hickok on my ass, he resolved.
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He didn't know it, couldn't know it, but the eye in the sky had a special camera
trained on Vic the whole time, filling surveillance tapes with his play. Once a day, a
courier shuttled the tapes up to Vegas, to an office in the Phoenix Casino, where Cherry
Creek reviewed them with a practiced eye. She could see the radical transformation in
Vic's game, and it surprised her. He'd become a keen, focused, dangerous player. What
had started as a longshot for her, Cherry realized, had turned into a legitimate play. Well,
stranger things have happened. She decided to take a drive.
Midnight Saturday night found Vic bunkered behind a monstrous mound of chips.
He didn't know how far ahead he was – maybe four grand for the week – he just knew
that the other players were terrified of him, yet curiously unable to avoid playing into
him. He had the best of all possible worlds: a loose, aggressive, unpredictable image
backed by tough, solid play.
And an uncanny sense of when to quit. Feeling a wave of tiredness wash over
him, a state of mind he'd come to identify as oxygen-debt stupidity, he knew it was time
to call it a night. Vic racked his chips, pausing long enough to win one last hand as his
top pair, top kicker held up against a couple of ill-considered draws. He stood and
stretched. "I'm sure you'll all be sorry to see me go," he declaimed, "but a Mirplo needs
his sleep. See you all tomorrow." He grinned cheesily. "Bring money." The other
players forced smiles in Vic's direction. To their way of thinking, he was an intolerably
bad player on an incredibly good roll, and they all wanted to be there when he crashed
and burned.
His wallet fat with new Big Bens, Vic crossed the casino floor, waving to change
girls and pit personnel as if he were some sort of celebrity, someone they should know.
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They'll know me soon enough, he thought. After I win the World Series of Dealers
everyone will know my name. He stopped in the gift shop for a package of pork rinds,
and headed upstairs to his suite.
It never occurred to Vic to wonder how Cherry Creek got into his room. She sat
by the window, watching the Colorado River flow by far below. "Hello, Vic," she said
without turning around. As to why she was there, Vic naturally assumed that she wanted
to sleep with him, and of course would have been happy to oblige under other
circumstances. But now...
"Sorry, sugar. I'm saving my strength."
"Excuse me?" said Cherry.
"Yeah, training regiment and all that."
"Do you mean regimen?"
"Regimen, regiment, whatever. The point is, you'll have to wait till after."
"After?"
"After the World Series of Dealers. I mean after I win, I mean. Isn't that why
you're here? To sleep with me?"
Cherry wanted to laugh. Really, she did, but on the other hand she didn't want to
pierce the skin of Vic's confidence. So instead she just said, "You can imagine my
disappointment."
"Yeah I can."
"I guess we'll just have to talk instead."
"Talk's good," said Vic, slumping into a chair. "I can talk."
"Tell me about the man who tried to kill you."
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This brought Vic up in his seat. "You know about that?" he asked.
"If I didn't, sweetie," she said with an acid-etched smile, "it would've been you out
there dead in the desert and not him." She watched the shock settle in on Vic's face.
Confidence is one thing, but let's not forget who's running whom. "So now tell me, did
he mention my name?"
"He seemed to know who you were."
Damn, thought Cherry. That means Ely knows. She picked up one of the dozen
or so poker books littering Vic's room, a well-worn copy of Killer Poker. "I see you've
been sharpening your game. How's it going?"
"Great. I'm a regular Mason Caro now." Vic went to the minifridge and pulled
out a can of juice. "Clamato?" he asked.
"No thanks."
Vic opened the can and took a deep drink, accidentally dribbling some stainy red
beverage down the front of his shirt. "Anyway, who was he?" asked Vic.
"Who was who?"
"Who? Santa Claus. The guy who tried to kill me, that's who. Why would he do
that?"
"You displayed the pyramid, Vic. After I told you not to."
"You know about that?"
"I know about everything."
"Then you know who killed him, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You want to tell me?"
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"Are you sure you want to know, Vic?"
"Hell, yeah. Information is power."
"And ignorance is bliss."
"With all due respect, Miss Cherry Creek, you've kept me in a state of pretty
much total bliss since this whole thing began."
You've been in that bliss since the day you were born, thought Cherry. All she
said was, "It's for your own good. I don't want to tell you more than you need to know."
"Yeah, no, I know that. But people are trying to kill me. So I'd say that gives me,
like, a, you know, need to know."
"I told you, you're playing for a team."
"And I plan to carry that team."
"Do you?"
"Who else? But like I said, I'd really like to know who's behind the team and
why. It seems only fair."
"Fair? I'm buying you into the tournament, sugar. That sounds like about ten
grand worth of fair to me."
"I mean it, Cherry." Vic could not believe what he said next. "You don't tell me,
I don't play."
"Vic," said Cherry, genuinely surprised, "when did you grow a spine?" Vic said
nothing. Having essayed his bluff, he just stood there shaking, hoping she wouldn't call.
At last she smiled, the kind of smile that tries to be a smile but is not. "Okay, I guess I
can tell you. But not now, okay? I'll tell you in the morning. When you're fresh."
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"Honey, I am always fresh." Then, in his clumsy, ham-handed way, Vic gallantly
offered to suspended his ban on pre-tournament sex for Cherry's sake. She turned him
down in such a way as to make him think he'd been right with his first idea about saving
his strength. It occurred to her that she might actually have to sleep with the gerbil before
it was all over. The things we do for money, she thought with a shudder, but she knew
even as she thought it that money wasn't really the issue. It never is, not really.
She left him to his rest.
∆∆∆
Ely Lovelock walked slowly through the Oasis Casino to the pre-registration desk
for the World Series of Dealers. He was tall and whip-thin, with skin the color and
texture of an old dry chamois. Poker players and floor personnel nodded in his direction;
he was known. It made Ely smile to think how well he was known – and how little. For
he had two sides. One side, the side he presented to the world, was that of a fairly
competent poker professional still on the upslope of his career. The other side, the
hidden side, held his true burning need.
Ely had known about the Circle of Friends for years, and for years he'd ached to
join them and participate in the wealth and power they controlled. He knew that they
staged periodic competitions for membership, and had waited patiently – as patiently as
greed and avarice allow – for this one to come along. Having passed their first test by
murdering Turk Nixon and taking his pyramid, he now had to pass the second: He had to
win – or have one of his proxy players win – the main event at the World Series of
Dealers.
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Ely had two proxies. One, Sparks Henderson, had killed Luther Gerlach and
taken his pyramid. The other, Babydoll Sedoso, was to have killed Megan Moore and
taken hers. Ely did not yet know that both of his runners were dead. When he found out
(as he soon would, for Lovelock was well-connected) he would be irked but not deeply
disturbed. They'd never been more than hedges in the first place; a little extra edge.
Ely Lovelock was all about edge.
Ely thought it strange that the Big One, the $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold 'em
tournament, had been scheduled first, rather than last, at this year's World Series of
Dealers. He supposed that this, like everything else, was some string-pulling arranged by
the Circle of Friends to suit their own ends. They were some string-pullers, these old
boys. They could get you killed just by planting a pyramid on you and putting out the
word. If someone kills you, grabs it up and wins the World Series of Dealers, they join
the Circle. They're set for life. Easy. Easy as falling asleep.
But Cherry Creek is already in the Circle. Why would she want to run Vic Mirplo
and win a second membership? And how could she expect Mirplo to win in the first
place? What angle is Cherry shooting now?
Ely stepped up to the registration desk and pulled out a sheaf of Franklins.
Counting out 100 of them carefully, he passed them over to the registration cashier and
accepted his receipt.
Won't matter. They won't win.
Ten grand and a pyramid. Ely Lovelock was good to go.
∆∆∆
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Detective Dan Swertlow searched Sparks Henderson's apartment with the bored
precision of a man long practiced at the craft. He didn't know what he was looking for,
but Swertlow had a motto: When you don't know what you're looking for, keep looking.
So he sifted through the rubble of Henderson's life. Porno mags and TV guides, dirty
shirts, empty beer bottles and old cracked mugs, lottery tickets, string ties, take-out food
cartons. Cuff links and sleeve garters. Sweat-stained cowboy hats. Nothing Swertlow
found indicated what Henderson was mixed up in, nor how it was worth dying for.
Swertlow had teased out a tenuous connection between Sparks Henderson and
Babydoll Sedoso. They'd been co-workers at the Sherwood Casino and had been seen
together several times in the days before Sedoso attacked Megan Moore. Swertlow
would love to have questioned Sparks Henderson, but Sparks was found dead in Laughlin
on Thursday – cut down the day before, according to forensics, by a bullet from a highpowered rifle. Laughlin police were looking into the case, but Swertlow had no
confidence in Laughlin police. He'd been a cop a long time. He had damn little
confidence in anyone anymore. Even other cops.
Speaking of which, what about Bates? Swertlow hadn't seen his partner all week,
not since Bates had driven off in a police cruiser with a squirming, sullen, handcuffed
Babydoll Sedoso in back. Sedoso never appeared at central booking and Bates hadn't
shown up for work on Thursday or Friday. Swertlow guessed that Sedoso had somehow
overpowered his partner, killed him maybe, and run off. He'd put out an APB on Bates
and the cruiser, but gotten back zilch. Sedoso must've gone to ground. Swertlow hoped
that his strange young partner was all right, but Dan Swertlow was not in the habit of
worrying about things he couldn't control. And all he could control at this moment was
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his search of Sparks Henderson's apartment, so he continued with the task. When you
don't know what you're looking for, keep looking.
Eventually Swertlow found the thing he didn't know he was looking for: a solid
gold pyramid, hidden in a jar of peanut butter in the back of Henderson's fridge. Another
damn pyramid, thought Swertlow. He didn't log it into evidence. Time for that later, he
thought, without really knowing why.
∆∆∆
On Sunday morning, Meg and Jim went to CyberSal's Cyber Café to check the
nets. Through Thursday, Friday and Saturday their website had been silent; no hits, no
responses of any kind. Today, though, there was a change.
The site was gone. Someone had hacked into it, erased all its contents, and left
behind just three words in tiny block print: double or done.
"Double or done?" asked Raff. "What does that mean?"
"It's what they say in a no-limit, no-rebuy tournament," explained Meg, "when
you push all your money in. You figure either to double your chips or bust out."
"Sounds like a risky strategy."
"Usually it's a desperate one."
"And in this context?"
"I think it's a dare," said Meg. Then, thoughtfully, she added, "Or an invitation."
On a hunch, Meg clicked into the location field of her web browser and typed in:
www.doubleordone.com. She clicked on the go to icon, and the screen instantly went
black. After a moment, a dialogue box appeared, with the words, What kind of car do
you drive?
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"El Camino," said Raff. Meg filled in the query field with the words El Camino.
She hit the return key. A message popped up: Invalid password. Please try again.
Meg deleted the words El Camino, and typed in Miata instead. Again she hit the
return key, and this time a different dialogue box appeared. It posed the question, Where
does Rudi eat?
Meg answered in an instant, "Rudi's Eatateria." She typed in those words. Now
the screen went black, but only for an instant. Then a little animated memo pad came
swirling up out of the dark. It swelled and grew until it filled the screen.
Little Megan Moore, read the message on the pad, sorry about the Miata. We
know you loved your car. But wouldn't it be great if you won the World Series of
Dealers? You could buy all kinds of new car then. See you Wednesday.
No sooner had they finished reading the message than the memo pad went up in a
burst of digital flame. When the last flame died, a new message appeared: Unable to
locate the server www.doubleordone.com. Please check the server name and try again.
Meg re-entered the URL several times, but the fail message never left the screen.
"Well, we had a look," said Meg. "Apparently one is all we get."
"And apparently you're meant to play in the World Series of Dealers," said Raff.
"Just one problem," said Meg. "It costs ten grand to enter."
"That," said Jim, "will not be a problem."
"What are you talking about?"
What Jim was talking about was parceling off part of his collection to Benny
Storm of Benny's Historicals, with whom Raff had a standing invitation to sell his stuff.
The prospect of this made Meg feel uneasy. She didn't want Jim fronting her that kind of
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money; she was afraid that people might think she was a gold digger exploiting a sugar
daddy. But Raff brushed aside her protest. "I could stand a few fewer things in my life
anyhow," he said.
"I probably won't win, you know. The odds are way against it."
"By my math we should be dead already. What's a few more long odds?" He
cupped a hand gently around her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. "Meg, I want to
get past this," he said. "I think the only way past it is through it."
"And after?"
"After," said Raff intently. He sighed. "I am really looking forward to after."
"Me too." Then they kissed, and Meg suddenly didn't care what people might
think.
Rafferty went through his collection and put together an irresistible package for
Benny Storm, loading the deal with star memorabilia, the kind he knew Benny could
move. Original service contracts from old Vegas entertainers like Toots Shore and Joey
Bishop; Shecky Greene's mug shot from a 1965 arrest; a case of Rat Pack wine; a Kenny
Rogers costume collection; Elvis everything. They packed the trove in the back of Raff's
El Camino and drove it over to Benny's store at the Ragnarok.
After they closed the deal, Benny invited them to lunch, where Meg found her
eyes glazing over as Raff and Benny became lost in arcane conversations about
collectible spoon gaffs and dollar shims, 18-pay wires and hook 'n' pushers. She loved
Jim Rafferty, she knew that now, but his interests remained, to her way of thinking,
somewhat bizarre. One thing was irreducibly true though; in the consensus reality of Jim
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Rafferty and Benny Storm, everything was collectible and nothing had no value. Meg
admired the view in a way. It made the world seem more alive.
Then they got going on dead casinos, and the names they named flowed like a
memorial to a certain version of Las Vegas, innocent once and now long gone, blasted to
nothing by time, expansion and the restless human pursuit of bigger, faster, louder, more.
The Jolly Trolley, the Money Tree, the Wheel, the Big Wheel, Matty's Tropics, Nob Hill,
Honest John's Centerfold, the Little Casino, Big Al's Speakeasy, the Cove, the Bonanza,
the Zanzibar, Dan's Royal Flush... Ultimately it became a game between them, with Raff
and Benny challenging each other to name one last casino that the other hadn't thought
of.
"The Silver Slipper," said Raff.
"Foxy's Firehouse," countered Benny.
"Debby Reynolds Casino!"
"Spacequest!"
"Man, you two," muttered Meg. She watched this memory-tennis match and
waited for her Caesar's salad to come. When it finally arrived, and she proposed adding
Caesar's Palace of Salad to their now ridiculously long list, Jim and Benny both gave her
a strange look.
"Are you mocking us?" asked Raff.
"Yes," admitted Meg, "but in the nicest possible way."
After lunch they left Benny and returned to Raff's car. They were surprised to
find Andy Bates there waiting for them. And that much more surprised when he pulled
out a police standard service automatic and pointed it at them.
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"What's this?" asked Jim.
"A kidnapping," said Bates by way of the simplest possible explanation. He
reached over and frisked them briskly with one hand, removing Jim's gun. Then he
gestured them toward the car. "Get in and drive."
"Or what?" said Meg.
"Or what?" Bates reached down and scratched his leg. "Or lie here in a pool of
your own blood and die."
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17. Drawing Dead
You cowering coward! You check too much. You fold too much. You
raise too little. You play way too weak on the river. When no one else
wants the pot, why would you ever fail to go after it? Because you're
afraid of a check-raise? You cowering coward! If they raise you re-raise!
Play Killer Poker! Turn the balance of fear in your favor! Make your
foes fear you! Demonstrate that you play Killer Poker and there's no
telling what mayhem you may cause.
You cowering coward! If you want to beat the best, you'd better start
being a terrorist now. Right now. Put down this book and go yell out the
window. Set something on fire! Howl at the moon! Make a rude noise!
Wake someone up! Develop some attitude, you wimp. Good intentions
don't get it done.
And yet you just sit there, you cowering coward. Lord, why am I wasting
my breath?
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 17: You, Cowering Coward
Raff drove. Meg straddled the stick shift. Bates braced himself against the
passenger door, the snout of his automatic jammed just under Meg's right armpit. Struck
by the ludicrousness of the moment, Meg found herself muttering in her best tough-guy
voice, "You'll never get away with this, you know."
Bates rubbed his nose with his free hand. "You think I'm bluffing?" he said.
"From what I've learned about poker, it's only a bluff if you don't have the goods." He
twisted the gun gently in her armpit. "I have the goods."
They drove for an hour, heading northeast past the Valley of Fire. Eventually
Bates directed them off the main highway to a service road which led up a narrow defile
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into low sandy hills and dead-ended at a small grove of stunted shade trees with a dry
creek running through and, incongruously, a picnic table set in the middle.
Bates gestured them out of the car and sat them at the table. He backed off and
regarded them from a distance of ten feet. "Now then," he said. "I have a question."
"And you have a gun," said Raff, "so you have the floor."
"Say you're holding a pair of tens against three opponents, and the flop comes A9-8. What are the odds – "
"Hold it," said Meg. "Is this about poker?"
"Yes of course," said Bates. "You think I want your opinion on world affairs?"
Meg and Jim exchanged looks. What the hell is this? "Okay, so look," continued Bates,
"I want to know what are my chances of winning the hand."
"Will a ten do it?" asked Meg.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your odds of catching a ten on the turn or the river are pretty easy to
compute," said Meg. "Just 45-2 against plus 44-2 against; thumbnail it at ten to one. But
if one of your opponents has pocket aces, you're pretty much drawing dead. You'd need
to catch runner-runner tens to make quads, and the odds of that – "
Bates cut her off angrily. "Never mind," he snapped. "Damn, I forgot about the
aces."
"Plus," added Rafferty, "someone could have Q-J – "
" – or 7-6," said Meg, following Raff's logic. "Then your ten gives them a
straight, and you'd still need to pair the board to win."
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"The straight." Bates hit his forehead with the flat of his hand. "Forgot about that
too."
"On the other hand, a runner-runner 7-6 gives you the nuts," said Meg.
"Unless there's a flush draw," added Raff.
"Shut up!" screamed Bates. He fell into a long, funky silence; he seemed darkly
to be mulling a decision. At last he said, "Yeah, I was right all along." He looked at
Meg. "You're gonna have to play for me."
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, that game, that Texas hold 'em, it's not nearly so easy as it looks. I
thought I could lick it in time for the World Series of Dealers. But now I see that I can't,
so you're going to have to be my horse."
His plan, such as it was, turned out to be quite simple. Rafferty would stay with
Bates, and Megan would hitchhike back to town. She was to lay low until Wednesday,
then enter the main event at the World Series of Dealers. She'd use the pyramid to
protect her cards while they were in play and thus, in some bizarre fashion, declare her
presence in the tournament to some unnamed people to whom such things, Bates insisted,
mattered quite a lot. When she won she'd give her pyramid to Bates, after which she and
Rafferty would be free to go.
"What if I don't win?" asked Meg.
"I'll kill him," said Bates simply. "So you better win."
Meg looked past Bates. A distant wind pushed a dust devil across a dry lake bed.
What a strange place to find myself, thought Meg, out here in the middle of nowhere with
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a man I love and a borderline psychotic. Borderline? Nope, no borderline about it. "I
don't get it," she said at last. "You're a cop. You have to know that this can't work."
"Let me show you something," said Bates. He rummaged around in his pocket
and pulled out a paper, which he crumpled up and threw at Meg's feet. She picked it up,
unfolded it, glanced at it, then handed it to Raff.
"It's a pay stub," said Jim.
"Damn right," said Bates. "How much is it for?"
"$423.37."
"And that," said Bates with a sniff, "is how much I bring home every week, once
the government and the union and the health fund get done vultching it up. Know how
long I'd have to work at that rate to get rich? Nine zillion years, give or take."
"So you found a shortcut."
"I found a shortcut. You win the tournament, I cash in big."
"How?"
"That's not your concern. You just worry about winning."
"It's not that easy," said Meg. "There'll probably be 500 entrants."
"Then you better play well. And you better do one other thing too."
"What's that?" asked Meg.
Bates gestured with his gun toward the service road. "Start walking."
"How do I know you'll hold up your end?" she asked.
"You don't," said Bates. "You may already be – what's that phrase you used? –
drawing dead. But at least you're drawing." He waggled the gun at her. "Get going."
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Megan looked at Jim. He nodded his head slightly. She blew him a silent kiss,
then left the scraggly shade trees and headed down the service road through the hills and
back toward the highway. She wondered if she'd have a hard time hitching a ride. With
her luck, she'd probably get picked up by some nut.
Some bigger nut, that is.
∆∆∆
Vic Mirplo has a strange dream. In his dream, he's won the World Series of
Dealers, trapping his last opponent masterfully with a big pocket pair. "She never saw it
coming!" crows triumphant Slick Vic as he stands before his adoring fans, wads of cash
in one hand and his gleaming gold pyramid in the other. Cherry Creek sidles up to him,
her ice-blue eyes shining with frank admiration... or no, not admiration. In fact, not
admiration at all. In fact, pity. With a gently mocking smile, she relieves him of the
pyramid and the cash. Then – with a third hand and where did that come from? – she
reaches into his chest and pulls out his heart. She holds it up to his face. He watches as
the blood drains out of it and it quickly shrivels and dries. Vic snatches his heart from
her hand, but as he tries to stuff it back into his chest it crumbles and turns to dust. He
looks at Cherry. Her face has transformed into that of an old man with a flowing mane
of white hair. The man throw back his head and laughs and laughs and laughs...
Vic woke up screaming. He sat up and poked his ribs with his fingers, assuring
himself that his heart was still in his chest. With the curtains of his hotel room drawn
tight against the desert sun he had no way of knowing the time, but he guessed (and a
glance at the clock confirmed) that he'd slept away most of the day. It was late Sunday
afternoon. Where was Cherry? Why hadn't she come to see him?
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The blinking message light on Vic's phone caught his attention. He picked up the
receiver and punched in to retrieve two messages. The first was from Cherry.
"Hi, Vic. I know how much you top poker guys need your sleep, so I'm leaving
this message without ringing your room. I had to go back to Vegas, but I didn't want to
leave without giving you the explanation you asked for, so here it is. Hold onto your hat,
slick, it's a little hard to believe.
"As you know, the World Series of Dealers used to be open to dealers only but
now it's open to everyone. It so happens that there's a second tournament, a shadow
tournament, going on at the same time in the same place, and if you have trouble
imagining it, just pretend it's like an invisible net laid over the first tournament that you
have to have special glasses to see. The glasses, so to speak, are the pyramid you hold,
and other pyramids that certain other players will hold as well. You'll know who they are
because they've been instructed to protect their cards with their pyramids while they play,
and you must do the same. No one else will know what's going on; to them it will seem
like you guys just have the same lucky charm. But watch out for the players with
pyramids, Vic, and knock them out of the tournament if you can. I don't – " Vic heard a
beep, and Cherry stopped talking for a moment. When she resumed, she said, "Vic, I
have a call on the other line. I'll call you right back."
The message ended. Vic pressed a button to retrieve his second message. Cherry
picked up where she'd left off. "I don't have time for a whole big history lesson here,
Vic," she said. "Let's just say that the sponsors of this shadow tournament have been
around for a long, long time. They're powerful people and they appreciate good poker. If
you win the World Series – if any player with the pyramid wins – there will be a special
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payout that I can't tell you about right now. That's the good news. The bad news is that
anyone holding a pyramid who doesn't win... there's no nice way to say this... they'll be
killed. Not to put a whole lot of pressure on you, Vic, but if you do anything this week
except win the World Series of Dealers, you won't live to see next Sunday. Hey, you
wanted to know the truth.
"Now maybe you can guess why that cowboy wanted to kill you. He had a
pyramid of his own, and he was trying – understandably – to narrow the field. I'm glad it
didn't work. I like you Vic. I want you to win the tournament, because then you'll get the
special payout, and I don't mind telling you that as your sponsor I'll get a pretty nice
payout too. But if you don't win, you will be killed. I'm not saying I'll do it. I'm just
saying that it will be done. Please don't do anything stupid like talk to the police or try
running away. These secret sponsors, Vic, they've got more power than you can possibly
imagine. If you talk, they'll shut you up. If you run, they'll track you down. All you can
do is play, play well, and hope you win.
"Vic, I'm sorry if this news upsets you, but you said you wanted to know the truth.
Frankly, I had my doubts about telling you, but I think that a true appreciation of the
stakes here will focus your attention. You've come a long way in a short time, and
become a really hot player. I'm confident that you can win this thing. You just have to
stay tough. Good luck, Vic. I'll see you in the winner's circle."
There was a brief pause, and then Cherry added, "Better go ahead and erase these
messages. For obvious reasons."
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Then the line went dead. Vic stared at the phone for five minutes. Then he
listened to both messages again, all the way through. Then he dutifully erased them both.
Then he went into the bathroom and blew chunks.
∆∆∆
"Someone's here to see you, Dan." Detective Swertlow looked up from his
paperwork. Across the nearly deserted squad room, a uniformed officer named Jiggs
stood next to a man with shining white hair. Though obviously quite old, the man had
not begun to stoop, and stood ramrod straight to a height of well over six feet. He wore a
luminous gray suit, western cut, along with a tasteful Stetson and a silk tie held in place
by a tie bar topped with a large chunk of turquoise and raw silver. Swertlow rose and
crossed to the man, who introduced himself as Lathrop Wells. They shook hands, and the
old man's hand felt smooth, like worn velvet.
"Is there someplace we can talk?" Wells asked in a voice that was once agreeable
and compelling. Swertlow showed Wells into an interview room and offered him a seat
at the scarred metal table there. "No thank you," said Wells. "I prefer to stand."
Swertlow turned to shut the door. As he did, he felt the hair on the back of his
neck rise, for it seemed to him that he was being analyzed and inspected, although when
he turned back, the old man's hooded eyes remained fixed on the table top. "How can I
help you, sir?" asked Swertlow. It was not in his nature to be polite, and certainly not in
his nature to say "sir," but something about the old man seemed to demand it.
"I was wondering if you'd heard from your partner."
"Andy Bates? What do you know about Bates?"
"I know that he killed Babydoll Sedoso."
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"That's impossible."
"Detective Swertlow, I've been on this planet for almost one hundred years. I've
seen staggering advances in my time. Air travel, space travel, radio, television, nuclear
power... all these things were deemed impossible at some juncture in just my lifetime,
and yet they've all come true. When you say it's impossible for your young partner to
have killed a man, I say it's no more impossible than having steak for breakfast. All it
takes is one thing. Do you know what that thing is?" asked Wells.
"No," said Swertlow.
"Why, money, of course. And money, my friend, is what I'm here to discuss."
"I don't understand."
"No, but you will. First, though, may I see it please?"
"It? What it?"
"The pyramid. The one you took from Sparks Henderson's apartment."
"How do you know about that? That's – "
"Impossible?" Wells shook his head, his long white hair swaying gently beneath
the brim of his Stetson. "No. That's not even improbable, merely the task of clever
surveillance. And the organization I represent holds something of a corner on clever in
this town. Would you like to hear more?" Swertlow found himself caught in the old
man's gaze. "Would you like to know why Andy Bates killed Babydoll Sedoso?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to know who killed Pete Bonner and the others?"
"I would."
"Would you be willing to take some risks to have that information?"
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"Yes," said Swertlow, swallowing hard.
"Yes," agreed Lathrop Wells. "Yes, I thought you would."
197
18. Crash Course
You've lost your bankroll? Oh boo-hoo for you, how did that happen?
Did you get in a game too big for your britches? Hit a run of bad cards?
Astrological signs turn against you? Sonny boy, if you lost your money it's
your own damn fault, and I can tell you sight unseen what you did wrong:
YOU PLAYED WEAK! Weakness kills bankrolls, always has and always
will.
I'm not telling you to play stupid (you manage that on your own). I'm not
telling you to get all reckless. I'm not suggesting that you run your
mortgage money into the game. But I am telling you this: GO BIG OR
GO HOME. The only way you'll ever build a real bankroll, the kind of
bankroll you can use to leverage bigger and ever bigger wins, is just to get
out there and do it. Go big or go home. I can't put it any simpler than
that.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 18: Laughing All the Way to the Bankroll
Swertlow felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. He seemed to be
watching himself from a great distance. And from that distance, he seemed to be edging
toward entering the World Series of Dealers. How insane was that?
Not insane at all, not when Lathrop Wells laid it out for him. The idea, of course,
was ludicrous on its face. But there was something about Wells, a mesmeric or hypnotic
quality he had, that seemed to make even ludicrous ideas seem sound. In all his years as
a cop (and they'd practically invented the phrase "hard boiled" just to define Dan
198
Swertlow) he'd never found himself so completely spellbound by any other human as he
now found himself spellbound by this ancient man, this Lathrop Wells.
He wondered if Wells had drugged his coffee.
With hints and vague promises, Wells had spirited Swertlow away from the police
station and out to one of the ubiquitous Starbucks which now litter Las Vegas like
medical waste now litters the beach where you used to like to swim as a kid. There Wells
had put forth the above-mentioned ludicrous proposition: In exchange for everything
Wells knew about the deaths of Pete Bonner and the others, Swertlow would agree to
enter, and try to win, the big one at the World Series of Dealers.
"How could I win?" protested Swertlow, stating the self-evident. "I know nothing
about poker."
"Nothing?" asked Wells.
"Practically. I mean, I played as a kid, but... They still play with wild cards?"
"No wild cards," said Wells evenly, not even acknowledging the possibility that
Swertlow was joking. Nor, for that matter, acknowledging that Swertlow's ignorance of
poker was in any way a roadblock to tournament success.
"You'll have to pay the entry
fee of course."
"How much?" asked Swertlow.
"Ten thousand dollars."
"Ten grand!" Swertlow almost did a spit-take with his double non-fat one-Equal
latte. "I'm a cop," said Swertlow. "Where the hell am I going to get ten grand?"
"Not my problem." Wells stood up. "You could always just not play."
"It occurs to me," said Swertlow slowly, "that this is all bullshit."
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"Perhaps. But honestly, do I strike you as the sort of man who wastes his time on
bullshit?"
Wells angled his gaze down on Swertlow, and Swertlow felt himself swallowed
up by the compelling majestic presence of the old man's eyes. He thought that maybe
Wells' eyes matched the pyramid's for deep, knowing weariness. Maybe Wells had
modeled for it, once upon a dim and distant time. "I could arrest you," said Swertlow,
realizing as he said it how lame the statement sounded.
Wells didn't even challenge Swertlow to name a charge. Instead, he continued to
pierce the cop with his stare, and Swertlow felt the way he imagined a butterfly must feel
when pinned to a display board. "Detective," said Wells, "you have a unique opportunity,
and if you win the World Series of Dealers, you'll learn just how unique – and rewarding
– that opportunity can be. If, on the other hand, you decline to participate, then this
whole episode will be just another annoying interlude in the history of such interludes in
your life. And I'm sure they have been numerous. Eventually the irritation of these
weeks will fade, and become something you hardly even think about, just another
unsolved case for the LVPD and an unresolved mystery for you. You'll serve out your 20
years on the police force, collect your pension, retire to some place even more dry and
desperate than Las Vegas, live a while longer, and then die, like millions do every day, in
solitude, ignorance and despair. It's your choice."
"What choice?" barked Swertlow. "How could I possibly get good enough to
win? It'd be like dousing ten grand in lighter fluid and setting it ablaze."
200
"Again, not my problem. But let me just say that even a blind squirrel finds an
occasional acorn in the grass. If you don't know how to play no-limit hold 'em, play
blackjack instead."
"What? What the hell does that mean?"
But Wells didn't answer. Instead he just winked and said, "See you Wednesday."
"In a pig's eye," said Swertlow. But Wells didn't hear, for Wells was already
gone.
Swertlow subsequently fully rejected the idea of playing in the World Series of
Dealers. Rejected it with cool and measured deliberation. Rejected it repeatedly, in fact,
about a dozen times through the course of a long, turbulent weekend. But when Monday
came, with still no sign of Andy Bates or Babydoll Sedoso, Swertlow called in sick. He
drove to the Gamblers' Book Store and loaded up on poker texts. Some he found useful.
Others were so far over his head that they made his brain ache and his eyeballs bleed.
You may wonder how an intelligent and strong-willed man like Dan Swertlow
could be persuaded to risk 10,000 dollars, and possibly his career, on the vanishingly
small chance of winning a world-class competition in a game he didn't even play. You
may be comforted to know that Swertlow wondered too. He told himself that he was just
doing his job, going the extra mile to find out who killed Bonner and the others. To his
bulldog determination, that rationalization seemed to make sense. To the other, contrary,
voices in his head he ultimately said...
Shut up. I just have to see where this leads.
Late Monday afternoon, Dan Swertlow went out and broke his poker cherry at a
$2-4 limit hold 'em table in the Galaxy Casino, the very same casino where Pete Bonner
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met his end, the irony of which was not lost on Swertlow as he bought forty dollars'
worth of blue one-dollar chips and took his seat in the game. Initially bewildered by the
flurry of betting conventions, blinds, rakes and limits, Swertlow almost quit before he
started. How ridiculous is it, he thought, to prepare for a championship event by playing
for chump change with these bottom feeders? He nearly pulled the plug at that moment,
almost grabbed his meager stack of greasy bluebirds and walked away. But just then the
dealer slid him two cards, and in the manner of treasure hunters everywhere, Swertlow
couldn't resist taking just a peek.
Pocket aces.
Bang.
Wouldn't you know?
Dan Swertlow got pocket aces on his very first hand.
When you get the goods, bet the goods, Swertlow remembered from his reading,
so he growled out the word, "Raise," and pushed four dollars into the pot. This being a
typically weak-loose low limit game, he got six callers and no re-raise. Swertlow wiped
the palms of his hands on his pants and wondered why they were suddenly so sweaty.
The flop came A-A-K, and Swertlow did his best to disguise his stunned
stupefaction, though against more able opponents his tell would have been as palpable as
Braille to a blind man.
Swertlow bet. He got a few callers, and then a raise from the player to his right, a
pasty-faced kid who reminded Swertlow of every low-life check forger or pickpocket or
convenience store takedown artist he'd ever busted. Swertlow re-raised. Everyone
folded around to the raiser, who raised him back.
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"Can I raise again?" Swertlow asked.
"You're heads-up," said the dealer. "You can raise till Christmas."
They didn't raise till Christmas, but they did raise until all of Swertlow's money
got in the pot. He tried to take more cash from his pocket, but the dealer explained that
he couldn't go into his pocket in the middle of the hand. He was all-in at $40, and
couldn't risk any more. Then the dealer put down the turn card, a king, and the river card,
a three. Swertlow waited until prompted to turn over his hand. "Four aces," he said.
"That should be good."
"Hot damn!" shouted his opponent, turning over a pair of kings with manifest
glee. This perplexed Swertlow. Don't four aces beat four kings? Then everyone at the
table was jumping up and down, and the dealer was explaining calmly that Swertlow and
his opponent had cracked the bad-beat jackpot. They would split $8000, with Swertlow
collecting 25%. Plus the pot, of course.
Ten minutes later, the floor manager counted out twenty Big Bens and handed
them to the goggle-eyed detective. "Congratulations, sir. Well played," said the floor
manager, obviously angling for a tip. Swertlow, oblivious to card room protocol,
completely overlooked the pitch as he pocketed the bills. He couldn't believe it. Ten
minutes of play and he'd already scored 20% of his tournament buy-in. Hey, he thought,
this game's not so tough!
Amped to the point of lost motor skills, Swertlow cashed out and went for a walk,
circling the casino aimlessly while he waited for his vision to clear and his head to stop
swimming. A frothy endorphin cocktail made him feel feverish and high. The copper
taste of adrenaline filled his mouth. He experienced a fervor that he hadn't known since
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his rookie days on the force. And he knew, beyond all doubt, that he would enter the
World Series of Dealers even if he had to plunder his pension to raise the buy-in. He was
in it to win it, and the world was a beautiful place.
Can you rig a jackpot? You can if you're Lathrop Wells, and you have the
backing of a large, shadowy organization with hidden membership and subtle, farreaching power. All it takes is a bought floor manager, the cooperation of highly placed
casino personnel and a dealer with clever hands.
The jackpot was the bait. And Dan was the fish.
∆∆∆
I haven't slept, thought Meg. That's not good. Sleep debt, Meg knew, and
quality poker pretty much never got along. I'll be crap for the thing if I don't sleep.
God, Jim. How did your life land up in my hands? She recalled her ride back
from the desert. A Mormon salesman from Utah had picked her up, sweeping aside
sample books to make room for her in the passenger seat of his white Ford Deployer. He
didn't even turn out to be a creep, but he must have thought Meg quite the zombie, for she
uttered not three words the whole way back to town. When she got out, she said, "Thank
you."
Two words. Not three.
She took a cab to Rafferty's house on Calle Ventana and let herself in through the
back door with the spare key she found under a flower pot, silently chiding Raff for being
so predictable. She reminded herself to give him shit about it when she saw him again.
Make that if I see him again.
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That had been Sunday. I have to sleep. Now the clock by the side of Raff's bed
told her that Tuesday night had given way to Wednesday morning. What if I don't sleep?
The World Series of Dealers started at noon. If I don't sleep, I'm dead.
We both are.
A tournament is a marathon. Meg knew that. You don't enter a marathon without
proper preparation. Sleep equaled preparation. Worrying that someone would die if you
didn't perform, so far as Meg knew, comprised no part of proper preparation. Yet here
she was, deep into midnight, deep into sleep debt, and deep, deep into the cold cobalt fear
of never seeing Jim Rafferty again.
Meg tried to induce sleep by thinking of former major league baseball players
named Davis, one for every position on the diamond. Ron Davis, pitcher; Jody Davis,
catcher; Tommy Davis, third base; Chili Davis, first base; Willie Davis, center –
The phone rang. Meg thought twice, three times in fact, about answering it. Her
first thought – it's Raff's phone; it's Raff's business – gave way to but what if it's Raff?
followed more or less instantly by or maybe his girlfriend.
Girlfriend?
In the space between two telephone rings you can learn a lot about yourself. In
the space between two telephone rings, Meg discovered the depth of her feeling for Jim
Rafferty. In the space between two telephone rings, she found that depth strange, for she
really hadn't known him so long. In the space between two telephone rings, she admitted
that she really didn't know much about him at all.
Just that she loved him.
In the space between two rings.
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She reached for the phone. A princess phone, it had once graced Liberace's
dressing room, and its myriad sequins glistened beneath a coat of thick resin. She picked
up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Megan Moore," said a voice on the other end. "I hope I didn't wake you."
It rattled Meg to realize that someone knew she was staying at Rafferty's house.
How watched am I? she wondered. "You know you didn't," she said.
"Yes," agreed the caller. "Yes, I suppose I do." Meg measured the voice. It felt
smooth and dark to her ear. And male. And old.
"En lo que puedo servirle?" asked Meg, lapsing into Spanish. She had once been
fluent in Spanish, and at times – especially times of stress – it still spilled out unbidden.
"How can you help me?" asked the man. "I think you know the answer to that."
"Win the World Series of Dealers."
"Clever girl."
"But for you, not for Bates."
"Why do you say that?"
"Just a guess."
"I suppose that as a poker player you'd have to be good at guessing."
"I guess." Meg yawned. Oddly, she found the old man's voice relaxing.
Soothing, almost soporific. The guy's a goddamned lullaby. "Can I win for you both?"
she asked.
"I'm afraid not, no."
"Because the thing is, I'm trying to keep my friend alive."
"Jim Rafferty, yes. And Bates will kill him if you don't come through."
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"You seem to know a lot about all this."
"My dear, I know everything about this. You might say I'm the maestro of this."
"Okay, maestro, you want to tell me your name?"
"Lathrop Wells."
Meg laughed, and Wells asked what she found funny.
"It's a town," said Meg. "Lathrop Wells. It's near Death Valley."
"So it is," said Wells. "But in a larger sense, aren't we all?"
"Mr. Wells, with all due respect, I have a tournament to play tomorrow, and I am
not in good shape. Would you mind letting me go to sleep?"
"My dear, that's why I called. To wish you good night."
"Fine." Meg started to hang up the phone, but Wells' voice stopped her.
"Just one thing," he said.
"What's that?"
"I don't know if it's been made clear to you," and here Wells' tone suddenly
downshifted from smooth and cool to hard and cold, "but if you don't win the World
Series of Dealers, Jim Rafferty is not the only one who will die."
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19. Shuffle Up and Dead
When you play poker, your thoughts should be on just one thing:
destroying your foes. If you're a worrier or a whiner or just freaking
scared to lose, then you're sad and pathetic and I can't help you. But if
you lick your chops when sizing up the field, and your enemies' checks
shine like a beacon in your eyes, like the pillar of fire that Moses followed
in his trek across the desert, if the words 'shuffle up and deal' inspire you
to look around the table and say, 'shuffle up and dead,' that's a step in the
right direction.
However only a step.
It's one thing to have appropriate fury, but another thing entirely to focus
that fury and make it work for you. Many players want to win; some even
know how. But damn few (and I don't yet count you among them) have the
stamina and determination to focus all their concentration, all their
energy, all their heart and soul and grit and, yes, fury on the task at hand.
Your play must be just as sharp in the 10th hour as it is in the first. Until it
is, you're still just hacking around.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 19: Focus Pocus
Cherry walked Vic to the tournament area and murmured, "Good luck," very near
his ear.
"Yeah, thanks. I don't need it."
"I'm glad to see you're confident."
"I'm just going to crush, that's all."
"You'd better."
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"Yeah, I know, I know," said Vic. "Win or die, right?" Vic Mirplo, master of
denial, had decided that Cherry wasn't really serious about that threat. Vic Mirplo,
master of denial, had decided it was her way of flirting.
"Just do your best," said Cherry. "Don't forget to use your pyramid to protect
your cards."
"You already said that," said Vic wearily, "about a hundred times. Do you see the
word 'stupid' tattooed on me?" I'm sure it's there somewhere, thought Cherry as she
watched Vic walk away. With over 50 tables crowding the ballroom of the Oasis Casino,
Cherry quickly lost sight of him in the vast mass of poker players gearing up for the start
of the premier event of the World Series of Dealers. However, in scanning the room she
did glimpse a face she knew.
Ely!
She followed the face to the arms, and the arms to the hands where the fingers
played with a pyramid.
I thought I blocked you.
Because Cherry had kept Vic Mirplo's pyramid out of Ely's hands, she believed
she'd cut off his route to one.
Apparently not.
Cherry wondered how many pyramids would actually go into play today. She
knew there could be dozens: dozens of pretenders like Ely, trying to join the Circle of
Friends, or members, like Cherry, already in and trying to improve their position. Cherry
shook her head.
And all I've got going for me is a Mirplo.
209
She crossed behind Ely, well out of his view, and left the tournament floor.
Ely Lovelock stared at his pyramid, angling it back and forth to catch yellow
beams from the overhead spotlights. But he wasn't seeing the pyramid. He was far past
the sad eye peering out from each of four faces. He didn't even notice the relic language
etched into the gold. Hocus-pocus, he thought. That part's hocus-pocus. But the rest...
the money... real money, not just a tournament win, for what is a tournament win except
more bankroll?
These guys go way beyond bankroll.
Ely had been told – and sufficiently sold – that the Circle of Friends secretly
controlled Las Vegas, everything from the police to the casinos to the gaming
commission, politicians, city planners and the press. Money and power, the Reese's
Peanut Butter Cup of corruption, were Ely's favorite flavors, so he'd jumped at their offer
to join. And not at all shocked by their terms, which is why they invited him in in the
first place.
So first a murder or two, no problem, and then the right tournament win and
you're in. The pyramid goes back to the Circle of Friends, who'll put it back into play
next time recruitment time comes. Meantime, you concentrate on concentrating power
and wealth; you've earned it.
"Ely's coming, hide your heart girls." Lovelock looked up. A small, bald man
with round wire rim glasses stood nearby. Ely couldn't place the man's name, but knew
him to be the well-respected author of KILLER POKER: How to Play Like a Maniac and
Win. "How they hanging?"
"Well enough," said Ely. "You?"
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"Happy as a hot dog at a vegetarian barbecue," said the man. He patted Ely's
shoulder, a friendly gesture that made Ely's skin crawl. Then he turned and scanned the
crowd. "Damn, look at all these dealers," he said. "Bunch of clueless bastards, huh?"
He walked away, already greeting another competitor with humorless good cheer.
The World Series of Dealers had started years before as a private competition
among professional poker dealers in Las Vegas and Reno. When the tournament went
public in the late 1990s, equal opportunity laws forced its field open to all, but it
remained primarily a battleground for dealers. There were special prizes for top-finishing
dealer from Vegas, top from Reno, top from out of state, and a whole range of brotherly
bounties, the price that dealers, as members of their own (to their eyes) elevated
community, put on one another's heads.
And the dealers came out for it. They came out in huge numbers, wearing "gang
colors" – jackets and hats from their home casinos. They came via satellite wins and
toke-pool raffles. They came solo and they came in teams. They came sponsored and
they came with their savings. They came out loud and they came out rowdy, for this was
their tournament, their time. They came out like homecoming week, and you could tell
that they didn't love having to share their bash with non-dealers, not even if the law
demanded.
No dealer would admit it, but no dealer liked seeing non-dealers – the public –
win any tournament event, especially the big one. They wouldn't go so far as to collude,
of course because dealers (according to dealers) hold themselves to a higher standard.
But they always played hard against the public.
And dealers played hard to begin with.
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Or so they imagined.
Or so Ely Lovelock imagined they imagined. They figured themselves to be top
pros, but in only about one case out of ten, according to Ely's arrogant estimation, was
that even vaguely true. As for the rest, thought Ely, they were just chipping in to the
prize pool.
Not that the prize pool matters. He returned his attention to the pyramid and got
himself into his game.
∆∆∆
"I can't believe I'm doing this," said Swertlow.
"Doing what?" asked a woman, and Dan flushed red as he realized that he'd been
talking out loud.
"This," he said, of the line they stood in, a crush of last minute tournament
entrants.
"You don't think you can win?" she asked.
Swertlow took her in at a glance, cop's glance, just the salient details. Not young,
but funky, she had a healthy pink glow to her face and a bright, wide smile. She seemed
utterly genuine and thus, at least to Swertlow's way of thinking, completely out of place
in this place. "Hell, why not?" he said at last. "Anyone can win, right?"
"Have you played much no-limit hold 'em?"
"No."
"Interesting," said the woman in a way that conveyed how little she liked his
chances. But she followed by extending her hand. "Mina Logandale," she said. "I
probably won't win either." She studied him for a moment. "You're public, aren't you?"
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"Public?"
"Not a dealer. I'm a dealer. I deal at the Plasma. I won a super-satellite to get
here."
"A what?"
"Whoa, you are fresh meat." They lapsed into an awkward silence. Swertlow
craned his neck to see how the line was advancing. He reached into his pocket, fondling
the pyramid there. How stupid is this? he asked himself. I should just walk away. But
he didn't. Instead he turned back to Mina. "Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Anything but my age."
"Someone recently told me that if you can't play no-limit hold 'em, play blackjack
instead. What do you imagine they meant?"
"That old dodge?" Mina grinned. "Well, it's better than nothing, I guess."
The secret of a no-limit hold 'em tournament, according to Mina's bubbly
explanation, was getting all your money in at the right time. Not an easy thing to do if
you were, like Dan Swertlow, essentially clueless about the game. So, as a clumsy
shorthand, you could just throw away all hold 'em hands that didn't match a limited range
of premium blackjack hands: any natural 21 or any paired court cards or aces.
"And when you get those hands?" asked Swertlow.
"Push in every dime before the flop," said Mina, "and hope they hold up."
"Sounds iffy," said Swertlow.
"How many tournaments have you played in?" asked Mina.
"This is my first."
"That sounds iffy."
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They reached the front of the line, presented their registration cards, paid their
entry fees and drew for seats. Mina turned to Swertlow and smiled broadly, her dimples
carving divots in her cheeks. "Go get 'em, public."
"You too, citizen."
"On that blackjack thing?" said Mina. "There's one other thing you might try."
"What's that?"
"Don't talk. Don't say a word. Don't let them know you're as ignorant as you are.
One thing you've got going for you..." Mina winked. "They can't figure out your strategy
if you don't have one."
∆∆∆
Megan Moore squeezed between two tournament tables, looking for her seat. She
heard someone say her name, and then felt a tug. When she turned, she saw Vic Mirplo
leaning back in his chair, one hand extended to the hem of her denim jacket. "Hey,
cutes," he said.
"Vic?" Meg blinked. "Mirplo? What are you doing here?"
"Duh, winning the big one." He waved his seat card in her face, as if explaining
the color blue to a two-year-old.
"No, I mean... I thought the cops had you."
"Yeah, no," said Vic, "they let me go."
Meg always did have a good read on Vic, and as usual she knew she wasn't
getting anything close to the truth from him. But she decided to let it go. "Lucky break,"
she said.
"Hey, you know? You create your own luck."
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"Is that right?" So far the luck he'd created for her included a torched car, a
trashed apartment and several attempts on her life.
"Yeah it is. For example, take me. I went out and found a backer."
"You?"
"That's right. I'm on a team. In fact, that's what this is." He dug into his pocket
and pulled out a wad of bandana, in the midst of which lay his pyramid. "That's what it
was all along. A sign you're on the team."
"I see. Well, good luck, Vic."
"I already said you create your own luck. Aren't you paying attention?"
Just then the tournament director stepped up to the microphone. "Good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the World Series of Dealers. This year, as you
know, we're doing things a little differently – "
"Bass ackward, you mean!" someone shouted, against a background of wellintentioned hoots and catcalls.
The tournament director smiled. "As you like," he said. "In any event, this event
is the $10,000 No Limit Hold 'Em Challenge. Levels last two hours each. Blinds start at
$25 and $50. Antes start at the fourth level. Today we'll play down to 25 tables, which
means that half of you will have the rest of the week off." More hoots and catcalls.
"A couple of ground rules before we get started," said the TD, and then proceeded
to outline the tournament policy on rude behavior, playing out of turn, fouling one's hand,
and a dozen other issues which Meg understood intuitively, Vic understood roughly, and
Swertlow understood not at all. At last he said, "Dealers, high card for button, we'll start
with the red deck. Let's get those cards in the air."
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∆∆∆
Babbitt Wilkins was running late. Traffic up from Searchlight had been murder –
some yahoo jackknifed his truck – and Wilkins was seething with frustration and anger
by the time he reached the parking lot of the Oasis Casino. He knew he wouldn't lose his
buy-in or his tournament seat, for Wilkins had pre-registered. Nor did he mind missing a
few hands. The worst that could happen was the loss of a blind or two, and that was no
big deal. In fact, Wilkins often arrived late to tournaments on purpose, just to keep from
making rush blunders in the opening round. But this was the World Series of Dealers.
Old home week. He hated being late.
Babbitt Wilkins had been a dealer for years and years, before moving on to the
more lucrative business of... well, he called it securities consulting, but it was really just
an internet scam. Tell the mooks what stocks to buy, take a cut when the price goes up.
Babbitt got out of his car and patted his pocket. He had no idea why this trinket
had come to him, but the cash that accompanied it made him more than willing to display
it at the table today. In any case, a man needed something to protect his hand, and the
little gold pyramid would work dandy for that.
He popped open the trunk of his car and reached in for his sweatshirt. Hot as it
was out here, he knew that the air conditioners inside would be cranking, and without his
sweatshirt he'd have the chills as soon as he sat down. Just then he heard a sound behind
him, one he tentatively identified as the crunch of footsteps on gravelly asphalt. Before
he could turn to look, he felt sudden pressure on the back of his neck, as someone gripped
it firmly and slammed his head into the lock housing of the trunk hood.
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"What the – ?" A gush of blood flowed down his face. He tried to turn around,
but the hand held him fast. Then, with a second blow against the trunk lid, Babbitt
Wilkins felt his consciousness slip away. As his body fell limp, his attacker folded it
effortlessly into the trunk, then searched Babbitt's pockets, found the pyramid, and took
it.
Some people do not believe that silencers exist. They believe that silencers were
invented by the writers of movies or detective novels to allow bad guys to shoot good
guys in broad daylight without anyone noticing. Babbitt Wilkins had no opinion on
silencers one way or another, but if he'd opened his eyes just then he would have found
conclusive proof that silencers do, in fact, exist. For which reason, neither Babbitt
Wilkins nor anyone else heard the sound of the slug which penetrated his sternum,
shattered his ribs and exploded in his heart, killing him instantly.
Babbitt's attacker closed the trunk lid, then turned and walked away. He headed
into the casino, flipping the pyramid like a coin and whistling just exactly as if gorking a
stranger was the sort of thing one might do every day.
For Arthur Silverpeak, it was.
Arthur Silverpeak was that kind of guy.
Only now his name was Wilkins. Babbitt Wilkins. And he had a tournament to
play.
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20. Good to Go
When the blinds start climbing in a tournament, a certain subjective
reality overcomes weak players. Panic sets in, and the perceived strength
of their holdings starts to rise in their eyes. The value of their hands gets
magnified by fear – the fear of busting out without a fight – and they start
looking for an excuse to go to war. Look for players with dwindling
stacks, for their hand selection will become promiscuous and not at all
picky.
Especially after a beat. There's something in the nature of most players
(though not, naturally, in the mind of the Killer Poker practitioner) that
wants to get well in a hurry. If they've just been smacked back, for good
reasons or bad, they're twice as likely to try to climb out of their hole in a
hurry. This is a flaw, of course, and one you can routinely exploit. Put
them out of their misery! Sad losers, they don't deserve to win in the first
place.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 20: Beyond the Chip and the Chair
Jim Rafferty woke in darkness. He struggled to his feet – tough in leg shackles –
and walked to the back of the cave, where he peed into a pit. Then he moved as far
forward as his shackles allowed, and stretched out on the dry dirt floor. He hoped he
wasn't lying in scorpions.
By craning his neck around a sharp corner of rock, Raff could just see the postage
stamp of light which marked the cave entrance, and he judged from this that another day
had passed. It had become Wednesday. The World Series of Dealers would be getting
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underway. He wondered if Meg had made the starting gate. He wondered if she'd make
the first cut.
And what Andy Bates would do if she didn't.
He hadn't seen the renegade detective since Sunday, and had been living on the
Ritz crackers Bates left behind along with, in some twisted humanitarian gesture, a loaf
of Velveeta cheese, and a jug of Gatorade. Jim drank sparingly and ate only when hunger
insisted, for Bates hadn't left his itinerary, and Raff had no way of knowing how long he
might be alone.
As it turned out, only ten minutes more.
Then he heard a teenager's voice funneling down from the mouth of the cave.
"Dude, we are so lost."
Another teen voice answered, "No, man, we're right here. Check out this cave."
"'Here,'" said the first voice petulantly, "is not on the map. 'Here' is like a million
miles from the nearest anything. I told you we shouldn't have left the road. We are so
lost."
"Whatever. But check out the cave. Let's go spelunking."
"Dude, we have got to get back. If my brother finds out I kyped his ATV, I'm
going to be a shit sandwich."
"Come on, man, five minutes."
"No!"
It seemed that the argument might go for on some time, so Raff settled it with a
whistle.
The shit sandwich could wait.
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A laconic county patrolman named Hazen brought Raff to a clinic in Mesquite
and took his statement there. Hazen didn't seem all that interested in the murdered Pete
Bonner, or Bates, or Meg, or Vic Mirplo or the expanding web of pyramids which held
them all together. He took Jim to the bus station and put him on a Vegas-bound bus for
free. After that he stopped to place a short call at a pay phone.
And after that he didn't file a report.
∆∆∆
Mirplo's in a pickle, holding pocket kings in late position with three raises before
him and half his stack at stake if he decides to go. He's played with these mopes for three
solid hours now. He knows which ones are frisky, and the frisky ones aren't in this pot.
Which means he's looking most likely at paired eyeballs or, at least, many too many of his
good cards gone. Sad. But what can you do but muck? Vic mucks.
The flop brought an ace, and one player's pocket aces demolished two suited AKs. Vic realized that he would have been drawing dead from the start and silently lauded
himself for his disciplined release. As recently as one week ago, Vic would have crowed
out loud about his bold, brave laydown, betraying in the weakness of his insecurity the
desire to be noticed and admired and thought smart by everyone else. Now, he kept the
news to himself, his eyes darting like a lizard's tongue as he mentally measured and remeasured the stacks at his table. A couple were larger than his own, but not by much. I
can take these guys.
Vic snorted a laugh. He couldn't help it, it just kind of leaked out his nose. The
man in seat six asked what's so funny. What could Vic say, that he was amused by his
own self-confidence? Vic felt loose, relaxed, totally into the game. He wasn't mentally
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crippled like some people get when they think about how hard they worked or how much
they spent to get into a big tournament, so that they can't pull the trigger when they have
to when they're there. Nor did he seem anymore to be one of those bust-out artists who
go to the rail early and gripe about bad beats, never realizing that they played badly early
to avoid the challenge of having to play better later on. Vic had never played in a truly
big money tournament before, of course, never having had anything remotely close to big
money to play with. But now that he was here, he felt utterly at home, and it occurred to
him that top tournaments were, in fact, the meant-for-Mirplo milieu. He simply was not
afraid.
So when he picked up two blanks in late position, but knew that the blinds didn't
like to defend, he threw in $300, a nothing bet meant to look like something
masquerading as nothing. The small blind dropped right away, but the big blind, a pudgy
man in a bright vest covered with embroidered royal flushes, thought a long time before
folding. Thinking he smelled a trap, the fat man showed off just a little by flashing his AQ as he mucked. "Good laydown," said Vic.
He kept his smile to himself.
∆∆∆
Be present, be patient, wait, wait, wait, Megan instructed herself as the
tournament's fourth hour rolled by. Be present, be patient, wait, wait, wait. She kept
thoughts of Jim Rafferty out of her mind. For the sake of her concentration, she couldn't
afford to dwell on that now. Be present, be patient...
Her next cards came, two pieces of cheese. She ditched them with robotic
precision, not revealing whether her laydown was a borderline call or a routine release.
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Meg looked around. She'd drawn a tough table: eight serious-minded pros, including a
couple of big names and not including, so far as Meg could tell, any obvious fish. Seated
to her left was the tournament's defending champion, the Frenchman, a highly aggressive
player from New Orleans. Sitting over Meg, he was in the perfect position to neutralize
her plays, and except for a couple of stabs at ragged flops, she'd been able to muster no
sort of attack at all.
Meg stole a glance past the Frenchman to the player at the table's far end. He'd
introduced himself as Wilkins, and it struck Meg that he seemed to want his name
known. That was of interest. As was the pyramid he used to protect his cards, identical
to the one Meg used to protect hers. If he noticed hers, he didn't let on. Then again,
neither did she, though she desperately wanted to know how he came by his, and what he
thought it meant. But what could she gain by asking? At this point their pyramids were
just two coincident trinkets protecting their cards. The could have been silver dollars, or
jade frogs or refrigerator magnets or slot tokens or chunks of snowflake obsidian. If she
won, then the pyramid, presumably, would matter.
And if she lost?
She feared that nothing would ever much matter again.
Be present, be patient, wait, wait, wait...
Near the end of the second level, with the blinds at $50 and $100, Meg picked up
pocket nines on the button and weighed the merits of attacking the Frenchman's small
blind with a moderate raise. If he called, Meg could put him on a range of hands up to,
but not including, an overpair, with which he figured to raise her back. Based on his play
to this point, she thought he might come in with something as limp as A-4 suited. He was
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tricky and dangerous, but Meg had position and a playable hand. She felt that she had to
go after him. You don't back into a win at a tournament like this. She made it $2000 to
go. The Frenchman called and everyone else went away.
The flop came 6-3-8, all spades, and the Frenchman checked. Meg sorted her
options. One of her nines was a spade, but she didn't give much weight to the flush draw,
since the Frenchman could easily have a big spade. Or he could be there already.
Would he trap with a flopped flush? Meg didn't think so. She thought he'd play into her,
rather than yield the initiative.
Suppose he has one big spade and another, unsuited overcard. Then there's 14
cards left that help his hand and 31 that don't. So he's worse than 2 to 1 against
completing – if he has overcards to a spade. There's $4100 in the pot right now. I could
go all-in with less than ten grand. He's got 20 grand, give or take. Will he come? If he's
on the hand I think he's on, he'll have the worst of it, but not by much.
She decided to check the flop and come out strong if the turn bricked.
The turn, however, popped a fourth spade, the king. She fully expected the
Frenchman to bet – he'd been playing fast all along, and her check on the flop had shown
weakness. But he checked again. Meg called for time. Is he sandbagging a big flush, or
has he fallen out of love with his overcards?
Meg couldn't justify checking again. All her reason told her that she had the best
of it; he'd have bet any flush he felt confident in. She bet $4000. The Frenchman called.
Why wouldn't he come over the top? Meg pondered while the dealer burned and
turned. She thought that maybe he'd paired his king, but feared a flush from her. No,
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that makes no sense. If he's just paired, he has no draw to get past my flush. He must
have...
A set of kings!
What have I walked into?
The Frenchman, she now concluded, had her on maybe a flush and maybe not.
Between the possibility that he already had the best hand and the chance that he might
fill, he'd decided to flat-call the turn, and see what the river washed up.
The river brought the deuce of spades, making a flush on board.
The Frenchman moved all in. Meg quickly replayed the hand in her mind. It
added up to one of two things: He'd slow-played a big flush and trapped her, or called
along with a big pair and gotten trapped himself. The latter, Meg decided. Anyway she
hoped. And if you're wrong? Meg stifled the thought. She couldn't afford to be wrong.
She called with her last five grand and change.
The Frenchman said, "I'll play the board," and Meg knew she had him. Sure
enough, he turned over two red kings. Meg showed her nines, and tapped the winning
spade with the point of her pyramid. The man called Wilkins, Meg noticed, reacted
fractionally, although whether to her pyramid or to the play of her hand Meg couldn't say.
"The nine plays," said the dealer, pushing her the pot. Meg's stack now stood at
roughly $23,000. In one hand she had moved into a position of chip leadership at the
table, crippled the defending champ and dodged a serious bullet.
Not the last, she knew. Probably not even the last today.
∆∆∆
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The blinds were up to $100 and $200. Three times Swertlow had had cards that
fell into his narrow range of playable hands. Three times he'd gone all in. Three times
the others all folded, and Swertlow enjoyed a tiny replenishment of chips. Nevertheless,
now that there was an ante on top of the blinds, he could see his stack starting to shrink.
He thought that must be bad.
He still hadn't uttered a word. He'd been silent so long that his mouth had caked
closed. He feared to speak at this point, knowing that whatever he tried to say now
would come out as an arid croak.
In fact, Swertlow had it much easier than most of his opponents. His decision-set
was so limited that every choice was automatic. Blackjack? Paired paint? If yes, shove
it in. If no, throw it out. The hours passed for Dan Swertlow. Through a combination of
fold after fold after fold and his own soporific silence, he fell into something of a trance.
Then he picked up pocket aces.
And sat up straight.
And pushed his money in the pot.
Everyone folded around to the button, a cagey young woman with a loud mouth, a
big unlit cigar, and a great gaping ego. She gazed at Swertlow. "You look like you've
got aces," she said. "Only a fool would call. Unless..." she rolled the cigar around in her
mouth, "unless you're trying to fool the fool." She fiddled with her chips, trying to get
some kind of deeper read on Swertlow. Impossible. They can't figure out your strategy if
you don't have one. At last she called, with a stack not quite as large as Swertlow's own.
Brick, brick, brick, brick, brick, and Swertlow's pocket aces beat the lady's pocket
queens. She threw down her cigar in disgust and got up from the table. After a moment,
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an assistant tournament director came over and flipped Swertlow a $100 chip. "Your
bounty, sir," said the assistant TD. "Congratulations." Swertlow wanted to answer, but
he'd invested so much in his silence by now that he felt he should keep it going, so he just
nodded and shrugged.
The woman – one of many bounty-marked dealers in the tournament – went to the
nearest bar, knocked back three quick vodkas and bitched about her defeat at the hands of
the ignorant mute. Swertlow went back to throwing away his hands. But his stack was
bigger now, almost double what it was before.
He thought that must be good.
∆∆∆
In the closing hour of play on day one, Ely Lovelock took an abysmal beat, his
flopped nut straight gored by runner-runner clubs to a back-door flush. Then he was
badly short-stacked. With the cost of play more than $500 a round, he didn't think he
could limp to the clubhouse from here. And so what if he did? He'd just come back
tomorrow to face $200-400 blinds and a $50 ante. He had to take a shot. Now.
With a pair of sevens?
What are you going to get that's better?
He slid his short stack into the pot. The player to his left called, and the button
made a small raise. When the little blind raised all-in, the other two dropped, and Ely
silently thanked the raiser for such generous protection.
The flop came 7-5-5. Ely didn't even try to hide his relief. He just turned over his
cards and waited for the dealer to finish delivering a meaningless turn card and river card.
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The dealer pushed him the pot, and Ely sighed deeply, blowing out air between puffed
cheeks. He was in the clubhouse.
From a discreet distance, a disappointed Cherry Creek watched Ely make his
survival stab. She'd hoped he'd bust out, for he was a tough player, the kind you like to
stop short of second chances. If he encountered Mirplo, she knew, he'd crush him like a
bug.
A security guard tapped her on the shoulder and told her that Lathrop Wells
wanted to see her.
Now it starts, thought Cherry. Now it really begins.
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21. Heads Up
When you're playing heads up, either in a live game or a tournament
situation, you really have only two choices: attack; or trap and then
attack. If you're just calling along, if you surrender control to the other
guy, you might as well take all your money and pour it in his wallet. But if
he fears you – even when he's wrong to do so – you'll have an advantage
he can't possibly overcome. Heads-up play requires nerves of steel, acute
card sense, a keen nose for tells and a certain innate brutishness that the
Killer Poker player learns to develop and nurture and cherish over time.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 21: Heads Up or Heads Off
Lathrop Wells met Cherry Creek in the revolving restaurant atop the Oasis
Casino. He offered her a drink and a seat. She declined the first, accepted the second,
and settled into an upholstered round swivel chair with her back to a window. Neon
lights from outside formed a halo around her head. "You look like an angel," said Wells.
Cherry laughed. "Far from it," she said.
"Indeed," he agreed, in a tone that was slightly unkind and, thought Cherry, under
the circumstances slightly unfair. "How's your Mirplo?" asked Wells.
"In the hunt."
"It's only day one."
Cherry shrugged. "He's in the hunt."
"What about Megan?"
"I like her chances. She's a chip leader."
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"It's only day one."
"So you said." Cherry crossed her legs, and Wells caught a flash of silk panty.
Intentional, I'm sure, he thought. You never do anything by accident, Cherry.
Why do you suppose I recruited you in the first place? "What do you think of my cop?"
he asked.
"Swertlow?" She measured her words carefully. "It's an interesting approach."
"By which you mean foolish."
"Well, I mean, you take a man who knows nothing about poker, equip him with
some pig-eared strategy for playing no-limit, and send him into a world class tournament.
It raises questions."
Wells' mouth leaked a smile. "I like a long shot."
"With all due respect, Mr. Wells, it seems like a waste of a pyramid to me."
Anger flashed in Wells' eyes, but he stifled it quickly. "With all due respect, Ms.
Creek," he said levelly, "it's my pyramid to waste."
Cherry lowered her eyes in submission. The trouble with too far is you never
know you're going till you've gone. "Of course," said Cherry. "No offense."
"And of course none taken." He waved a vague absolution. "Well, I didn't ask
you up here to handicap the ponies. Whoever wins wins. As for the rest – I assume
you've made arrangements." She nodded. "Does it bother you?" he asked.
"Ask Bates if it bothers him," said Cherry. "It has to be done."
"Sometimes I wish it didn't," he said. "Still, it's not as though I make the rules."
Lathrop Wells was 98 years old. The Circle discovered him in 1923 when, as a
brash bootlegger, he drove into Vegas with a truckload of Canadian whiskey and a plan
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to take the city by stealth. They scooped him up and groomed him for recruitment. He
won the competition of '26 with a brilliantly engineered train wreck and subsequent
payroll removal, and moved into the Circle itself. He'd been through seven recruitment
campaigns since then, competing in some, organizing others. The MGM fire of 1987,
that had been his.
If you don't make the rules, thought Cherry, I wonder who does.
∆∆∆
All through the second morning of the four-day tournament, Megan made modest
gains by picking her situations with care, then attacking with courage. Just before noon
she busted out last year's top-finishing dealer and collected a double bounty on him.
Shortly thereafter, she found herself in a situation with most of her chips committed. She
had far the best of it, but still it was a heart-stopper. In that moment, when her money
was in the pot and the fate of Jim Rafferty lay in the next five cards, she wondered if,
when this was all over, she'd ever enjoy playing poker again. Once you've played for a
human life, she thought, what can money really mean? She hit her flop and doubled
through to over $60,000.
We live.
Five minutes later, though, Meg booted one. She defended her blind with a hand
that couldn't call most flops – against an opponent certain to bet almost any. If she'd
raised before the flop, she could have dropped him, but fear made her just call, and she
had to lay it down when he did, as predicted, bet the flop.
Stay strong, Meg.
Pretend it's only money.
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The other pyramid-holder at her table, the man she knew as Babbitt Wilkins, had
made periodic surgical strikes on the pot, but otherwise lain low. Just after the afternoon
break he hit a card flood and started to bully the table. While his cards ran hot no one
wanted to get involved against him, and he won several uncontested pots in a row.
You and I, of course, know Babbitt Wilkins as Arthur Silverpeak, passing for
Babbitt, and hoping to deliver his pyramid past the final table and into the Circle beyond.
Just then he felt like a race car driver moving up on the outside. It seemed he could do no
wrong.
What's that thing that pride goeth before?
Meg took no part in Silverpeak's destruction, only watched it happen in awe. His
rush had shown no sign of fading when he picked up pocket kings on the button. A call
in early position should have warned him – everyone knows you're going to raise; why
would anyone just call? – but Silverpeak, deep in his rush, saw only his gleaming kings,
so he pushed in his chips.
The second he moved his stack he saw his folly. Sure enough, his opponent
called instantly, matching Silverpeak's all-in bet, then revealed the inevitable pocket aces.
The board bricked out and Arthur was done.
Silverpeak stood slowly, anger and hot embarrassment reddening his cheeks.
Broke, hopeless, betrayed! he stalked away from the table. A floor supervisor came over
to administer the bounty, and noticed that he'd left his pyramid behind. She picked it up
and followed Silverpeak across the tournament floor.
To Megan it looked like a member of the tournament staff doing a favor for a
player, but that wasn't quite it.
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"You forgot your token, sir," said the woman.
"Fuck that," said Arthur Silverpeak.
"You really should take it," she said, with a coldness in her voice that made
Arthur reconsider.
"Fine, whatever." He held out his hand.
As she handed him the pyramid, Cherry Creek leaned in close and whispered, "Go
to the Phoenix Casino. Ask for the security shift supervisor. He'll take your pyramid."
"Then what?"
"Then you go home. Thank you for playing."
"That's it?" His voice rose in anger. "'Thank you for playing?' Do you know
what I fucking did to get into this thing?"
"Yes, we know. Please keep your voice down." Taking his elbow, she guided
him toward a street exit. "Go to the Phoenix." And gently coaxed him out the door.
Arthur stood blinking in the sunlight. He thought he'd throw the pyramid down a
storm drain.
Pocket aces!
He thought he'd throw himself under a bus.
Never saw it coming!
A yellow van pulled up.
God, I want to die.
Careful what you wish for.
Arthur looked up and saw the firebird logo of the Phoenix Casino as the van door
opened and a young man got out, wearing the ice blue blazer of Phoenix security.
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"In here, please," said the man.
"Buzz off," said Arthur Silverpeak.
"We just need you to sign a few papers."
"What for?"
"To collect your million dollars."
"Get bent. The whole prize pool is barely – "
"The prize pool has nothing to do with the pyramid. We want it back, and we'll
pay one million dollars. Now if you'll just step in here..."
Arthur stepped into the van. The man got in behind him and closed the door.
That's when Arthur noticed the gun and the silencer.
Instant karma, he thought as he died.
∆∆∆
You could say it was inevitable. You could say that someone with Swertlow's
retarded sense of poker shouldn't have lasted past the first hour, let alone deep into day
two. You could call his survival an aberration, and you wouldn't be far wrong to do so.
His demise was one too, in a way.
Swertlow had been well glued to his strategy. He threw away any hand in any
position that wasn't paired paint or ace-paint, and he raised all-in with any hand that was.
He never uttered a word – "to preserve an air of mystery" – which kept no one from
seeing right through him. But while his cards caught lucky, there wasn't much they could
do.
Then, just before the dinner break on day two, Swertlow was dealt pocket queens
and pushed in his chips as usual. He got one call from Jean, a local pro who, as it
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happened, held the other two queens. The flop came 9-6-5, and the final two cards 8-7.
Swertlow turned over his cards, and his opponent did too. The dealer examined their
hands and announced, "Board plays."
And Swertlow mucked his hand!
Jean shot up in her seat. "That pot's mine," she barked. When the dealer balked
at awarding it, she loudly demanded to see a tournament director. Swertlow slowly
realized what had happened. By releasing his hand, he had – technically – surrendered
his claim on the pot. I thought she said board plays, thought Swertlow, but his mouth
was so gummed from hours of inaction that he couldn't get it to open.
A tournament director came over and listened to the dealer's account of the hand.
The TD made his decision – "no hand, no pot" – and awarded the money to Jean. To
Swertlow's surprise, several other players at the table came to his defense. The way they
saw it, once the dealer uttered the words "board plays" the hand was over and the pot
should be split. But the TD just repeated, "No hand, no pot. Sorry," he added, "it's not
like I make the rules."
Swertlow sat stunned, floored by the sudden shock of ten grand gone in an instant.
On a technicality!
His parched lips parted a sliver. "Uhm," he said at last. "Uhm."
"It speaks," said Jean dryly.
Swertlow sat there for a minute, until it was clear that play wouldn't continue until
he vacated his seat. Finally, grabbing his pyramid, he stood up and stumbled away. He
paused near an empty table to still his throbbing pulse, but a security guard told him that
the area was restricted to players, and as he was no longer in the tournament he'd have to
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leave the tournament floor. Perhaps he'd like to try the cash games? Swertlow shook his
head as he lurched out the door.
Cherry Creek watching him go and whispered something into the button mic on
her lapel.
Swertlow stood on the sidewalk outside the Oasis Casino, blinking in the stark
afternoon sun. The sudden change from cold to hot rocked his system. Rivers of sweat
streamed down his face and glued his shirt to his chest. He thought he might be having a
heart attack. He thought that it might not be so bad. This feeling, this I've lost it all in an
instant and I just want to die feeling, is common to tournament players, but uncommon to
Swertlow, and he reeled beneath the staggering weight of sudden shock and despair.
At the same time, it was like waking from a dream. Dan looked around. An
image of Lathrop Wells flashed through his mind, and he wondered how the old man
could have taken him in like he did. What the hell was I thinking? wondered Swertlow.
He wasn't concerned about his lost pension money; the sting of that would come later.
For the moment, he felt just hot humiliation and rage, for he knew he'd been taken for the
worst kind of mook. But he couldn't understand how. Was I on drugs?
Or was it just poker?
That's when it hit him. He'd been chasing the buzz, and the chase had made him
lose his head. Just like every degenerate gambler and thrill junkie and sports book freak
in this town. Lathrop Wells hadn't drugged him or duped him or hypnotized him. All
Wells had done bring something out in Swertlow, something that was there all along.
The thought staggered Dan: He'd been serving the people of Las Vegas for 15 years, but
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only in that moment did he come to understand them and sympathize with them and yes,
even love them. He was reborn.
A yellow van from the Phoenix Casino pulled up. The door slid open and a
chipper voice called out from within. "Dan! Hey, Dan, heads up!"
Swertlow peered into the van, picking out a figure in the gloom within. "Bates?
Is that you?"
"Let me check." Bates studied the palm of his left hand with loopy, goofball care.
"Yup," he concluded. "It's me."
Swertlow noticed Bates' blue blazer. "What are you doing in that jacket?"
"Didn't I tell you? I moonlight."
"Moonlight? Bates, I gave you a prisoner to take downtown. That was last week.
Where the hell have you been?"
"Man it's a tale and a half. Maybe three quarters. Get in. I'll tell you all about it."
Swertlow stepped into the van. His nose wrinkled at a familiar smell. Blood. He
looked down on the floorboards and saw stains. Fresh, too. Swertlow looked up.
To find Bates holding a gun.
"Don't worry, Dan," said Bates as the door slid closed, "I'm not going to kill you."
Bates sniffed. "You know: yet."
The van pulled away from the curb.
∆∆∆
By the dinner break only a handful of players with pyramids remained; small
wonder, considering that the field as a whole had been cut down from 500 to under 100.
Meg continued to cruise among the leaders, and Ely Lovelock had gradually moved from
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survival mode to a comfortable position in the middle of the pack. Vic Mirplo rode a
wave of breaking tables to half a dozen different seats in the space of two hours. He
profited from each change by playing with reckless aggression at each new table, stealing
pot after pot from players wary of going up against a manifest maniac before they had a
firm line on his play. Soon he, too, was among the chip leaders. Though insufferably
pleased with himself (and where the hell was Cherry so he could boast?) he also knew
that only 27 players would advance to day three play on Friday. A long night of poker
still lay ahead. He gorged into the supper buffet with gusto, pounding down pork loins
and chili cheese fries, and calling it fuel.
Meg skipped the buffet; she had a stash of yogurt and fresh vegetables – her
preferred mid-tournament meal – up in her room. After she ate she lay down to nap.
She was just dozing off when she heard the feathery whisper of a piece of paper sliding
under her door. She picked it up, turned it over and read the words, "Got ice?"
Bemused, Megan took her ice bucket and her key, and she walked down the hall
toward the ice room by the elevator. She wasn't particularly afraid. She figured that
anyone wanting to kill her wouldn't preamble by sliding notes under her door.
She opened the door to the ice room and stepped inside. A man stood by the ice
machine, dressed in the coveralls of an Oasis Casino maintenance man. The coveralls
looked somewhat old-fashioned, out of date, though the logo on the breast pocket
remained in excellent condition, and the script beneath the logo still proudly announced
the employee's name: Beowawe. But Beowawe hadn't owned these coveralls in years.
Jim Rafferty owned them now. And Megan fell into his arms.
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22. Down to the Felt
How fast could you get down to the felt if you had to? If you wanted to get
broke right now, could you do it? Would you dare? Can you race your
opponents to the felt? That's how you should be playing! Race them!
Make them play your game! They can't stand to play that way, and they'll
self-destruct when they try. And when they're done, when they gawk and
mumble and stutter and wonder how that maniac managed to snarf all
their chips, you'll bask in the sublime glow of Killer Poker. And the sheep
fall victim again.
They have to. Here's why: To the sheep, you see, chips equal money and
money equals survival. They have been taught all their lives to protect
their resources, guard their security, not go broke. They believe if they go
broke they will die, and the profound fear of death infects their game like
a virus. But you are immortal; you are immune. You've disconnected
chips from money and money from survival. You don't fear to lose your
chips, and that's why you win and win and win. You play Killer Poker
now; you've arrived.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 22: Fold the Sheep
After a long moment, she let him go, stepped back and stared at him. "I guess the
obvious question," she said, "is how did you get here?"
"I escaped," he said simply.
"Resourceful Jim Rafferty."
"Always. Look, they probably have your room bugged."
"What? How? I mean, the hotel – "
"Honey, they are the hotel. This Circle of Friends? They're everything. You
won't believe what I've found out."
"Is Bates with them?"
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"He's with them, he's against them, I don't know. It's a whole tangled... " Raff
groped for a word. "...thing."
Just then they heard a ding, and the whoosh of elevator doors sliding open. Raff
waited a moment, then peeked out and saw a smartly dressed security guard walking
away down the hall toward Meg's room. Jim shut the door and quickly filled an ice
bucket, which he handed to Meg. "Go back to your room," he said. "Tell the man you
were just out for ice."
"Raff, let's just run. Forget the tournament. I don't care about the money."
"I don't either, but you still have to finish, Meg. You have to finish and win or
they'll kill you."
Meg almost laughed. "Great, I spend two days playing with your life in my
hands, and now I have to play for my own."
They heard a distant insistent knock on a door. "Go," said Raff. "You have to
make things look normal." He kissed her. "Don't worry about me. I'll see you at the
final table." She started to go, but suddenly stopped and turned back.
"Raff, I --" She wanted to complete the thought, but couldn't.
So he finished it for her. "You're gonna say you love me, right?"
"How did you know?"
"You have a tell." She kissed him hard. "Yeah," he said, "that's the one. I love
you too. Play hard," he said, urging her toward the door. "Go win this thing."
She walked down the hall to her room.
Raff waited.
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A few minutes later he heard her walking with the security man back toward the
elevator. Raff heard the man say, "You really watch ice melt?"
"Oh yeah," said Meg, "for hours at a time."
"Why?"
"To hone my focus. You know us poker players, always looking for an edge."
"Which watching ice melt is?"
"If you watch it long enough. But now," she said with an elaborate sigh, "I have
to get back to the game."
Raff heard elevator doors open and close. Then there was nothing but silence.
Then the ice machine's compressor kicked in and he listened to that for a while.
∆∆∆
185,185.1851, thought Mirplo. That is one cool number. He double-checked his
math. 500 starters at $10,000 each equaled five million dollars. Okay, that's the prize
pool. Divide by 27 and you get $185,185.1851, which'll be the average stack size at the
end of play tonight, and that is just a cool number. His own stack stood comfortably over
$300,000 with 28 competitors left. And number 28 is right here at my table, just waiting
to go night-night.
The short stack, sitting to Vic's right, raised the $3000 blind, going all-in with
$5500. Vic held the A-J of clubs. He glanced downstream to see if anyone else looked
interested, but at this point, after more than 10 grueling hours of poker, everyone just
looked tired. Vic overbet the pot, making it $15,000 to go and sending a clear message
that he wanted this limp victim all to himself. Everyone behind him folded in turn,
reinforcing Vic's impression that they wanted him to eliminate the 28th player so the rest
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could all go to bed. Vic was happy to oblige and preparing to do so, confident that his AJ was better than whatever desperation hand the short stack was playing.
But the small blind surprised him – surprised everyone, really – by calling.
The big blind dropped. The short stack just shrugged and waited for the dealer to
determine his fate.
When the flop came A-8-7 and the small blind moved all in, Vic thought he might
have a problem. He hated to be muscled off a pot, and he even thought he might be being
played at, but he still couldn't call. If I'm looking at a better ace or a middle pair – and
this opponent could have called his pre-flop raise with either hand – I'm in el vinagre
profundo. If I gamble and win, I'll be chip leader, but so what? I have a big stack
already, big enough to be strong tomorrow. But if gamble and lose I'll be crippled.
185, 185.1851, he thought as he folded, I only need to be chip leader when we're
done.
Vic's ego thus watched from the sideline as the turn and the river came blanks,
and the small blind turned over a set of eights to send the short stack to the rail, and the
rest of them home for the night. Vic stood up. That's fine, he thought. That's a good
day's work. Now let's find Cherry and tell her all about it.
Or, failing that, go to a strip club.
Vic checked out the other two tables. He was not stunningly surprised to see that
Megan Moore had also played through. He sauntered over, stretching his arms behind his
back as he went. Megan was counting down her chips. "Pretty healthy stack there,
Meg."
Meg didn't look up. "Can't talk now, Vic."
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Vic noticed Meg's pyramid; she hadn't yet put it away. "Yo, is that any way to
treat a fellow, you know, holder?" asked Vic. "Why didn't you tell me you're on the
team?"
A narrow-shouldered, craggy-faced man sat at the next table over. He had a
pyramid too. Meg decided it would be best to deal with Vic elsewhere. "Tell you what,
Vic, give me five minutes and then I'll buy you a drink."
"Now you're speaking French," he said.
"Great, I'll meet you in the bar."
"Yeah, no, yeah, but... hey!" Vic looked past Meg and spied a familiar face. "No,
yeah, this is someone you should meet. Cherry! Hey, Cherry, come here!"
Cherry Creek glided over, dressed in the white tuxedo shirt and smart black slacks
of World Series floor personnel. She supposed that this moment had to come. God, she
thought, I'm at the mercy of a Mirplo's discretion.
"Cherry," said Vic, "this is Megan Moore, my total, total bud."
"Hello, Megan," said Cherry.
Cherry's hello sounded informed somehow, and it rang like a tell to Meg. She
knows me. She's rehearsed this.
"This is that team I was telling you about, Meg. Cherry – " Cherry caught Vic's
eye, an unsubtle gesture that barely penetrated his thinking in time for him to switch
gears and say, " – is my poker consultant, that's all. Just my consultant. Right,
consultant? Right?"
Cherry inwardly grimaced at the sloppy lie. "Right, Vic. And as your consultant
I'm recommending that you go to bed."
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"Yeah, no, yeah, of course, but still, I was thinking maybe we could... all hang out,
you know? We have a lot in common. The – "
"We know what we have in common, Vic." Let's see where she's at, thought Meg
as she said it. She lifted her eyes in time to see Cherry react, and though the other
woman's face stayed placid, Meg noticed a tightening of the muscles in her neck.
"Okay, right, right, right" muttered Vic, "taboo subject. Won't say another word
about the you-know-what." Vic's head suddenly swiveled. "Hey, what're you looking
at?" The man at the next table had given up all pretense of not listening.
"Nothing," said the man, standing. "But it seems we have friends in common."
He nodded past Meg. "Hello, Cherry."
"Ely," said Cherry coldly. "Doing well?"
"Chip and a chair," said Ely. He leaned in to Vic. "And a you-know-what." He
flicked Vic's chin. "See you tomorrow, sport." Ely shot Meg a look and shook his head.
"What was your name? Morgan? Madison?"
"Megan."
"Too bad about you, Megan. You were pretty." He walked away.
Cherry said to Vic, "Go to bed. Don't get into trouble." Then she went off to
resume her floor personnel duties.
Vic turned to Meg. "So, then, drinks was it?"
Meg just shook her head. "Vic, you do know what's at stake here, don't you?"
"Oh, you mean like... " Vic waggled his hands spookily "...they'll kill you if you
don't win? That's just somebody's sick joke."
"Well, just so you know, Ely's in on it too."
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"Like I haven't figured that part out." Vic thought for a moment. "Wait, really?"
"Really."
"So?"
"So don't let him beat you. Goodnight, Vic." Megan walked off, leaving Vic to
ponder her words. He soon decided, with cool Mirplovian logic, that she was just trying
to scare him, and subsequently forgot all about it. Then Vic went straight to bed.
Well, three or four topless bars later.
∆∆∆
Megan wandered the casino for an hour, hoping that Raff would materialize from
somewhere dressed as a bell hop or a croupier or god knows even a showgirl, she
wouldn't put it past him. But Raff had evidently gone to ground, and Meg finally went
upstairs.
She felt awkward in her hotel room, now that she knew it was bugged. It
crossed her mind that they might have video too, so she undressed in the dark and
crawled into bed, where she ran odds in her head while she waited for her mind to wind
down.
The phone rang. Meg answered it, hoping it would be Raff, but it wasn't. Instead
an ancient, and now to Meg's ears familiar, oily voice said, "Well played, Megan. You're
doing quite well."
Meg supposed she should feel fear, but all she felt just then was tired. "What do
you want?"
"I want you to declare for me."
"I don't even know what that means."
"You will. You'll know when you win."
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Megan sat up in bed. Her sheet fell down, exposing her breasts, and Meg
wondered briefly if the cameras were infrared. Screw it, she thought. "Mr. Lathrop
Wells," she said, "named after a town near Death Valley, would you mind not... let me
think of the right word here... fucking with me for a while? I'm trying to win a poker
tournament, and according to you boo-hoos and your little pyramid cult, I'm playing for
my life, not to mention Jim Rafferty's, so – "
"Rafferty is free and walking around."
Meg's eyes opened wide in the dark.
"Nor," added Wells, "is that news to you."
"Okay, so you're wired."
"I want you to consider how wired I am, Meg, and how wired you will instantly
be if you declare for me."
Megan sighed. "Look, don't mind me being prosaic, but can I ask a question:
Will anyone kill me before I bust out of this tournament?"
"No. You have my word."
"And I'm vastly reassured by that, so good night." She hung up.
It was truly an odd experience for Lathrop Wells. In his 75 years within the
Circle – and this dates back almost to a time before telephones – no one had ever hung up
on him before.
Megan woke late Friday and took the elevator down to the casino level, where a
stout cleaning lady stood near her cart, grooming the sand in a stand-up ashtray. A little
chunky, that one, thought Meg as she passed. Then she heard a cracking voice behind her
say, "Miss? You dropped this." The cleaning lady handed her a matchbook, then hurried
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away. Meg did a double take. Could that be – ? She opened the matchbook and read a
note directing her to the third stall of the women's bathroom between the sports book and
the tournament hall.
Meg made her way to the bathroom and stepped inside the third stall. She locked
the door behind her, then looked around and found...
Nothing.
One empty stall.
She supposed she'd expected to see a note tucked in a toilet roll or an envelope
taped to the back of the tank. But the toilet roll was covered and locked, and the tank was
built into the wall. Meg turned in a tight circle, inspecting the walls and the back of the
door, looking for secret graffiti. She doubted that "Pedro and Lupe 4 Ever" was a coded
message from Raff. At last she sat down, and, for lack of anything better to do, did what
one does.
Presently she heard the labored squeak of a cleaning cart. The squeaking stopped.
A pair of tired-sounding feet shuffled across the floor. A copy of Card Player hit the
floor outside Megan's stall, and a white support shoe kicked it under the door. Then more
shuffling and more squeaking. Then silence.
Meg thumbed through the magazine and found a single sheet of paper: room
stationery from the old Flamingo Capri, demolished and gone these three decades.
Certified Raff, thought Meg, in every sense of the word.
Beneath the letterhead Raff had written, Caught a hot lead at CyberSal's. No time
to tell all, but here are the highlights:
And he ran a bunch of bullet-points down the left margin.
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
Circle of Friends controls wealth of Las Vegas and has done for 1 hun. yrs.

Circle stages recruitment drives at intervals. Always some competition built around
murder, very strange.

This time they warmed up by killing poker players: Gerlach, Nixon, et al. That was
round 1.

Round 2 is this tournament. If you win, your sponsor moves higher in the Circle &
you get to join. Apparently huge bucks & raw POWER UNTOLD (yeesh).

Bates' kidnapping of yrs. trly. was attempt to hijack sponsorship of you, from whom I
do not know.

No sign of any busted-out pyramid players. Suspect they may be dead. Swertlow was
one!

Bottom line: Play great and win. I love you. –raff
Guess the internet's no longer a mystery to him, thought Meg as she shredded the
paper and flushed it away. She unlocked the door and stepped outside, mulling the
unlikely news that Detective Dan Swertlow had played in the World Series of Dealers.
You know how you know when something is wrong and you can't put your finger
on it at first, but then you do? That's how Meg felt when she looked up and saw a man
leaning against a sink.
A man in the ladies room. That wasn't right.
Plus it was Andy Bates.
He stretched his neck to the left till it cracked. "What are you doing in here?" he
asked.
"Shouldn't I be asking that question?"
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He moved past her and looked in the stall. "You were in there a long time. He
picked up the magazine and leafed through it. "I thought you might need some help."
"That's one considerate cop."
"Ex-cop. Let's go." As they walked out into the casino, Meg looked around for a
security guard, but Bates said, "Don't bother."
"You read my mind," said Meg dryly.
"Your eyes were a tell."
"A tell? Bates, is that your poker education poking through?"
"I've been studying," he said. "I could take you now." She didn't answer. "I
could."
Knowing now that Jim was safe she wanted to rise to his bait, but instead she just
said, "Play starts soon. I have to go draw for my seat."
"Yes, but before you go, one thing: Later you're going to take a dive."
"What? No way."
"You will. You will if you still want to save your amigo."
He doesn't know! Meg swallowed her astonishment. She shifted her weight and
sank against a slot machine stool, leaking defeat. "Okay, you win. What do you want me
to do?"
"Go heads-up against Ely. Bust yourself out to him."
"Which one's Ely?"
"You know who he is." He grabbed her arm, the fleshy part below the shoulder.
"You'll do it, right?"
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Meg played her emotions strong, letting Bates read hurt, anger, fear and
humiliation in her terse, "Of course." But deep inside she thought, He doesn't know!
Jim's free, and he doesn't know! And for the first time in a long time, Meg felt like she
was holding some cards.
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23. Duckwater
Slow down? The late stage of a tournament is the last place in the world
you want to slow down. You can't tiptoe to the final table, you have to
take it by storm. Once your opponents fear you, your job is simple: keep
them afraid. Keep firing raises! Never slow down! I have three
tournament speeds for the late stages: fast, fast, and foot-on-the-gas.
Caution doesn't get it done. Timidity is for losers. Attack! Be relentless!
4-5 offsuit? Raise! Show no mercy! You can buy 'em all drinks when
you're done.
Yes you may bust out, but at least you bust yourself out. Neil Young said it
best, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Let's put it in more
practical terms: One first-place finish is better than ten or 20 weak crawlins. Better for your image, better for your ego, better for your wallet.
Better, better, better. So you better play fast when you get there, because
you can be sure that the Killer Poker players around you will tromp all
over you if you don't.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 23: Tournamental Health
At the start of play on Friday they redrew for seats at the final three tables. As
luck would have it, Megan, Vic and Ely all drew different tables. Or maybe it's not luck,
thought Meg early on. By now she assumed that invisible strings pulled everything.
Maybe we're like seeds in a tennis tournament and the fans prefer that certain matchups
not happen too soon.
Whoever the fans are.
An hour into the 13th level, Meg participated in a hand so strange that she knew
she wouldn't believe it until she saw it again on tape. The blinds were $5,000 and
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$10,000. A player named Luning, sitting to the right of the button with about two
hundred grand, bet $30,000. The button, McDermitt, called. Meg, in the big blind,
called with A-Q suited to diamonds. The flop came Kh-Js-9d. Meg checked, expecting
to have to lay down her hand, but Luning checked and, to Megan's surprise, McDermitt
checked too. One of them has to have a hand to that flop. So where's the bet?
The dealer turned the seven of clubs. Meg checked. When Luning and
McDermitt both checked, the crowd stirred. So it's not just me, thought Meg. The rail
thinks it's strange too. Meg had taken the flop at a discount and could be expected not to
get too frisky. But the other two... there was a bet missing somewhere and everyone
sensed it; the world knows a lie when it sees one.
The dealer burned and turned, revealing the deuce of spades, a brick by anyone's
standards. Meg thought about making a move at the pot since no one else seemed to
want it, but all this silence means something, she thought as she checked. Luning took a
long drink from his bottled water, set it down on a cocktail napkin, then went all-in.
McDermitt folded immediately, firing his cards low across the felt toward the muck.
Against the muck.
Just a little too hard.
They flipped over.
He'd folded a set of jacks.
Meg thought, Wow, he put Luning on a set of kings? That's showing a lot of
respect. Much more respect, in Meg's opinion, than a modest pre-flop raise and two
checks deserved. Could McDermitt credit Luning with leading into the pot before the
flop with Q-10 or 10-8? Unlikely. So then it's kings. But Meg knew Luning to be a
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straightforward player. He might have checked to trap on the flop, but no way does he
check the turn and give us the river for free. He has to be on a steal. And McDermitt
knows it. So why did he fold?
Meg called time, more to ponder McDermitt's actions than to decide about
calling, for she had no call and she knew it. But just as Meg started to release her hand,
Luning said, "Shit, I've got three cards." He lifted his cocktail napkin and revealed a
third hole card. "Where did that come from?"
"I want my hand back," said McDermitt, but it was long gone. Meg held onto her
cards and said nothing. The dealer called for a tournament director, who came over and
assessed the situation. Without really much thought at all, he declared Luning's hand
fouled and awarded the pot, including Luning's all-in bet, to Meg.
Megan's head swam. What just happened here? A solid player with a strong
hand folds when he should raise, then an all-in player, whose bet I can't possibly call,
fouls his own hand. And the TD validates the play. Luning stood and graciously excused
himself from the table. He didn't seem angry or disappointed. He looks like he's just had
a nice pay day.
She knew that Lathrop Wells wanted her to "declare for him," which she now
understood to mean acknowledging him as her sponsor to this Circle of Friends. How
many players and tournament directors could Wells buy if he wanted me to win that
badly? It reminded Meg of that old light bulb joke, "How many naked virgins does it
take to screw in a light bulb?"
And the answer was, "How many ya got?"
∆∆∆
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What's the cool number now, Vic? What's the cool fucking number right now?!
Twelve players left, five million prize pool, what's the average stack size, what should the
average be now? Come on, Vic, this is an easy one, Vic, how much money should you
have right now, Vic? HOW MUCH FUCKING MONEY SHOULD YOU HAVE RIGHT
NOW?!
Vic got up from the table. He walked around it once, then again. He stopped
behind his own chair and gripped it with both hands. He looked down at his stack.
$50,000. How much should it be, Vic? $416,666.666 Vic, 666 Vic, fucking 666,
repeating forever, Vic, that's what you should have. That's what you had. Now you've
got chump change. 'Cause you just got chumped.
Christ, what happened?
All day long this one player, Elgin Duckwater, had been bragging about how
poker dealers were this tournament's best players, citing himself as an example. Just now
he joked that those dealers remaining in the tournament should all gang up on "the
public" and shut them out of the money. It was a pretty bald call for collusion, and it did
not go unnoticed by tournament officials. Vic watched proudly as Cherry Creek,
working again today as an assistant tournament director, walked up and said, "That's over
the line, Duck. Keep it to yourself."
That's my woman! thought Vic.
But Duckwater shot back, "Don't tell me to shut up. Don't ever tell a dealer to
shut up. Dealers built this game. We built this town."
"I know we all owe a huge debt to dealers, Duck." She bent over and whispered
in his ear, "Let it go."
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He answered in belligerent subservience, "Sure thing, sweet cakes, whatever you
say." Cherry turned and left. Duckwater watched her walk away. "That..." he said,
whistling softly, "that there is some succulence."
"What do you mean?" Vic heard himself ask.
Duckwater cocked an eyebrow. "Well I guess what I mean is, I think that lady's
pretty enough to be a porn star. Tell me you don't agree." Vic didn't know it, but his
nostrils flared just then, a neon sign blinking tilt to everyone who noticed it, which
certainly Duckwater did. "Of course you can't tell just by looking," Duck went on, just
loud enough for Vic to hear. "You have to consider technique."
Cards came for the next hand. "Technique?" hissed Vic.
"And willingness. Willingness is crucially important." Duckwater glanced at his
cards and put in a sizable raise. The action came around to Vic and he looked down at
his cards: A-9 offsuit. "For instance," continued Duckwater, "does she swallow?" It was
a totally shocking thing to say, but it had the desired effect. Vic's primal mind kicked in
and he announced, "Re-raise! All in!"
"Well, now, you don't need to get hostile," said Duckwater. "Re-raise? Let me
see here... " He counted down his stack, arriving at just less than Vic's $400,000. "I
think I can call. Why not?" He pushed in his money and turned over his hand. Pocket
aces. He sneered at Vic, "Come and get me, pyramid boy."
When the flop came three queens, Vic was drawing dead. The fourth queen
would have given him his bets back, but it didn't come, and Vic mucked his hand without
showing it. Duckwater leaned back in his seat and peeled the cellophane wrapper off a
toothpick. He slid it into the corner of his mouth and looked across at Vic. "Public," he
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muttered. "So damn easy to mook." He stacked Vic's chips in a single tall tower and put
a pyramid of his own on top. Vic glared at the pyramid. Where did that come from?
Was that there all along and I just didn't notice? Where is your head, Vic?
Eventually Vic sat down. For the next several hands he barely looked at his
cards. What's the point? How can I possibly make 50 grand play? It's supposed to be
more, much more. Four one six, six six six point six six six six six fucking six six six.
On his big blind, Vic picked up a pair of sixes.
That figures.
The woman under the gun made it $50,000 to go. One player called before the
action got to Duckwater. He threw away his hand with exaggerated disinterest. Another
player called, and then the table's chip leader looked at Vic and said, "I guess I'll give you
some protection." He bet his stack. The small blind dropped. Vic called. The other
three players folded. That was nice, thought Vic, appreciative of all their dead money.
Really, that just couldn't have been nicer.
But he still needed help, and when the flop came A-K-Q, Vic figured he was
through. The turn was a jack, and so was the river. I'm dust, thought Vic. How can he
not have a ten or better? But the chip leader flipped over his cards. 8-7 offsuit. "Guess I
was making a play," he said sheepishly. He rapped the table in Vic's direction. "Good
hand."
Vic couldn't believe it! His sixes held up! He'd been to the brink, but he was
back! He glanced up and thought he saw a commiserating look pass between two of the
players who'd folded. Probably threw away winners, thought Vic, smug once again now
with his little fat stack. The Mirplo Man is back! Everyone look out! Vic checked out
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Duckwater with hooded eyes. Especially you, buttwipe. You chumped me first, but I'll
chump you last, you bet.
∆∆∆
In a corner office on the administrative floor of the Galaxy Casino, a top
executive sat before a plasma-screen monitor and followed the action from the World
Series of Dealers via live streaming video. As he studied Vic Mirplo he felt a certain
grudging admiration.
Not for Mirplo, of course.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number. After a moment, an old man's voice
answered, "Yes?"
"Hello, Lathrop."
"Halleck? Is that you?"
"Uh-huh. You watching this?"
"Of course. Is Duckwater's yours?"
"Of course."
"Well, that was cleverly played."
"And superbly countered," said Halleck. "Your guys work well together. They're
tight."
"They've been trained."
"It shows."
"By which you mean, of course, that it doesn't."
They shared a laugh, and then Halleck said, "I thought we might double the bet."
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Wells hesitated for just a fraction of an instant and replied, "I have no problem
with that."
"Then it's done."
Of course they wagered on the outcome. Why have an outcome you can't bet on?
Though to Halleck it didn't seem like much of a fair bet. After all, Wells was old, ancient
old. He couldn't have everything covered. Not everything.
But back in the Oasis Casino, Cherry Creek answered a page and picked up a
house phone. She found herself talking to Wells, accepting his congratulations for saving
Vic Mirplo. "No, it was my bad," she said. "I should never have given Duckwater that
opening. We both knew how Vic would react."
"Nevertheless, it was an elegant save."
"Thank you."
Wells said, "Halleck doubled up."
"Ouch."
"Ouch indeed."
Which was the point, really. Why bother with a bet that doesn't go ouch at least a
little?
∆∆∆
On Thursday, Andy Bates had stashed Detective Dan Swertlow in a storage room
deep within the Phoenix Casino, for he had access to rooms there that no one ever came
near. Bates didn't return until late Friday night, by which time Swertlow, tied up for
more than 24 hours (without coffee) had long since lost his last shred of cheer.
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Bates, on the other hand, remained gratingly chipper. "It's all pretty exciting," he
said, feeding Swertlow the takeout burgers he'd brought from Rudi's Eatateria. "Mirplo's
still in it, Megan is too, though I sold off my stock in her. I made a save with the guy
running Lovelock. I just don't think she can get past him. Lovelock's an asshole, but a
hell of a tournament finisher. He plays killer poker."
"Bates," said Swertlow (between ravenous bites, for he was really quite hungry)
"have you lost your mind?"
"Me? What about you? What sane person pays ten grand to play world
championship poker when he's never played poker before in his life? Huh? Answer me
that." Bates thought about it for a long moment, then he said, "You're backed, aren't you?
Of course you are. Who's your sponsor? Wells?" Swertlow said nothing. "You know, I
don't know if you believe this, but I'm actually trying to save your life. According to the
rules you should be dead, but I made you part of my save. If Lovelock wins, you get to
go free."
"So I should be grateful?"
"Look, you'll understand everything when this is over." Bates cocked his head to
one side and considered his last statement. "Or either that," he amended, "or you'll be
dead."
∆∆∆
If you went sloping around the Oasis Casino in the wee smalls of Saturday
morning and you happened to pass by the grand ballroom, you could pick up a flier
listing the names and chip count of the six remaining players in the $10,000 buy-in, nolimit Texas Hold 'Em Challenge at the World Series of Dealers.
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If you read it, it would read like this:
Elgin Duckwater, $1,731,000
Megan Moore, $1,015,000
Ely Lovelock, $805,000
Ruby Valley, $789,000
Vic Mirplo, $506,000
Carroll "Lucky Boy" Summit, $154,000
If you read further, you would learn that seats for the final table would be drawn
at eleven that day; that play would commence with $4000 antes and $25,000-$50,000
blinds; that play would continue until one player had all the money. As a final item, you
might note that half the remaining players, Duckwater, Valley and Summit, were dealers,
and read the tournament organizers' congratulations on their final table finish. The flier
made no mention of pyramids, though all six remaining players had them. Megan slept
with hers in a safe place, and assumed that the others did the same.
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24. Vic the Tic
The thing about Killer Poker – and make no mistake – it's not for the faint
of heart. But for me, I'd rather raise with a third rate hand than call with
a second rate one. I'd rather astound and confound and confront my foes
than just beat them with good cards. How many times do I have to tell
you? Anger is your ally; rage is your best friend. Play into them. Play
into everyone! So what if you lose? That's only money. You can get
more money – you will get more money – but power, now power is
irreplaceable.
It takes more than strategy to win at this game. It takes state of mind, an
all-consuming, overwhelming transition from not-player to player in your
mind. In the name of perfect poker you should be able to make any move
from any position at any time. More than that, you should expect to have
perfect body control, so that any action you take can be misinterpreted
from several different angles. Not only will you out-think your opponents,
you'll train them to out-think themselves.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 24: Anger is an Energy
On Saturday morning, the final six players drew for seats, and it came down like
this.
Seat 1: Vic Mirplo
Seat 2: Ruby Valley
Seat 3: Megan Moore
Seat 4: Elgin Duckwater
Seat 5: Ely Lovelock
Seat 6: Carroll "Lucky Boy" Summit
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They drew again for the button and Ruby Valley won it. Less than five minutes
later she busted out in sixth place as Lovelock doubled through her when they both
started with paired jacks, but he caught four flush cards to win. Meg, still seeing real or
imagined strings being pulled, thought, Someone's in a hurry. Then she dismissed the
thought from her mind, for it was not helping her think. If the game was iced, Meg
figured, then so was the outcome and there was nothing she could do. But if the game
wasn't iced, if she still had room to move, then she needed to make her moves count,
which meant concentrate, Meg. Keep your head in the game.
I wonder where Jim is.
Damn! Keep your head in the game.
Jim, as it happened, was not far away. He sat in the Oasis sports book, watching
the casino's narrowcast tournament feed on half a dozen large-screen TVs. If you'd been
looking for him, though, you'd have walked right past him, for he was convincingly
disguised in – of all things – Johnny Cash drag. He wore a black shirt and black jacket,
black pants, a big black hat, black boots and black glasses. He'd gotten the costume years
ago from the defunct Brigadoon Casino, home of the short-lived and ill-fated lounge act,
The Johnny Cash Experience. With his hat pulled down low over his Ray-bans, he gave
the impression of someone trying conspicuously not to be noticed, and he more or less
succeeded at the task.
Of course the eye in the sky misses nothing and generally finds anyone in
costume worth watching, so an iso camera was soon tasked to follow Raff's every move,
sending signals to the surveillance office and also upstairs to a certain VIP suite. Raff
figured he was watched, but knew there was nothing he could do about it until the
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tournament ended, and possibly not even then. In the meantime, he returned his attention
to the closed-circuit feed. Vic Mirplo, he noticed, had caught a hand.
And subsequently a tiger by the tail.
∆∆∆
The eyes of a Mirplo, thought Vic, when they cast themselves upon you, what can
it mean? Only your doom, my friend, only your doom. Vic's eyes held Elgin Duckwater
in what Vic imagined was a death-trance stare. Duck had just driven Vic off his hand
with a threatening raise, and now Vic was smoking with fury, for that put his stack back
to where he'd started the day, about half a million. With these high blinds and antes, that
didn't buy much action.
Did we say Vic was smoking? He may have been literally smoking, for his body
began to undergo a weird transformation. It seemed as if Vic were channeling his rage,
but the rage froze within him, turning him rigid, incredibly tense. Then he started to
shake, and his teeth chattered. Rage! thought Vic. Rage, rage, rage!
"Are you okay?" asked the dealer.
Vic clamped down hard on his teeth and forced his stiff head to render a minimal
nod. The crowd stirred. They'd seen tilt – who hadn't seen tilt? Vic was in more of a
meltdown.
Under the table his knees began to twitch, though no one saw this except Meg,
sitting to Vic's left. She wondered if he'd taken drugs. Or maybe he's been dosed.
Bleachers had been brought in that day to accommodate spectators, and someone
in the front row said, "Do you think we should call a doctor?"
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Vic turned his head with great effort toward the source of the remark. "It's
nothing," he croaked gamely. "It happens." But then he turned back and his eyes burned
rivets into Duckwater's flesh. The drumbeat of rage pounded in Vic's head, quickening
now. Adrenaline-endorphin land mines exploded in his body, making Vic feel, though
spastic, somehow quite all right.
Vic's cards came. He forced his quaking hands to lift them up. He willed his
fluttering eyeballs to look at them. It's junk, Vic; dogdish. Throw it away.
Nah, Vic. Raise!
Rage!
Vic bet $185,000, an amount seemingly selected by his hands at random as they
fumbled his chips to the middle. Meg folded. Duckwater was next to act, and he called
time. He eyed Vic with interest for Vic (and not in a mad way, more matter-of-fact) had
started to foam, just a bit, at the mouth. Sweat poured freely down Vic's face, and he
hyperventilated through his nose. Duckwater thought, Let's just see where this goes, as
he called.
Lovelock went next. He read Vic's paroxysm for an aneurysm and figured that
any second Vic's bet would be dead money in the most literal sense of the phrase. But his
weak holding forced him to fold. Likewise Lucky Boy Summit, who surrendered his
blind rather than risk his short stack with a bad hand. Mirplo and Duckwater took the
flop heads up.
Now Vic started to moan, a guttural bestial sound, of which Vic seemed utterly
unaware. He sat half-forward in his seat, trapping his hands against the table to keep
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them still. His head began to gimbal on his neck and you could hear, eerily, air pockets
in his upper vertebrae popping with each violent gyration.
But his eyes never left Duckwater, and his inner message never changed, except
to pulse faster in his blood: Rage, rage, rage! The flop came A-7-8. Vic pushed his
chips in the middle, knocking over the stacks with the backs of his now non-functioning
hands.
Duckwater held an ace with a good kicker. He figured he had the best hand, but
by now Vic was speaking in tongues, uttering strange syllables in a language no one
recognized. He could have 8-7, thought Duckwater. In his current condition, he could
have anything at all. Duckwater folded his good ace, an undetected thread of fear
coloring his judgement.
The dealer pushed Vic the pot. Vic tried to surrender his cards, but his hands
were now balled into tightly locked fists. He clubbed the cards away, unable to prevent
them from flipping over. Duckwater silently cursed himself when he realized that Vic
had bluffed him out with 7-2 offsuit.
Vic raked his chips with his forearms. He now had slightly more than Duckwater.
But he was quickly falling apart. By the time the next hand came, vicious stomach
cramps had gripped Vic, bending him double. Meg asked if he was all right, did he want
to take a break? Vic shook his head violently. He somehow managed to claw a look at
his cards, then croaked, "All-in," gesturing his chips feebly toward the center as he fell
back in his chair and gave himself over to slow, rolling convulsions. The skin on his
arms turned to pale gooseflesh, while at the same time his ears and throat flushed red, the
color of extreme sunburn.
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Meg folded to Duckwater, who asked the dealer, "Was that a bet? Is that action
binding?"
Vic unleashed a feral howl, which resolved itself into a barely comprehensible,
"Gy gaid, 'Gaw gin!'" I said, "all-in!" Then he plonked his face into his chips and
literally pushed them forward with his chin. That's when most people became convinced
that Vic needed help, but the tournament officials were as stunned as anyone else, and
there seemed to be no choice but to let the hand play out.
"Call," said Duckwater. The others all folded, and Duckwater turned over his
hand. Pocket queens.
Vic forced his fists open and clutched at his cards. As turned them over he fell
sideways out of his chair and landed on the floor, arms and legs describing small circles
in the air and a thin trickle of blood running from his nose. His cards, meanwhile, had
fluttered to the felt. They landed face up.
They landed ace-ace.
The ragged board helped neither hand, and Duckwater was done. Vic didn't see
him angrily fire his cards at the dealer, for Vic had passed out. But he came to just as the
paramedics arrived. Sitting up, he waved them away. "It's nothing," he said. "It
happens."
Limp as a kitten, Vic climbed into his seat and breathed deeply. His pulse slowed
and he started to recover. Function returned to his hands. Thank you Killer Poker,
thought Vic as he stacked his chips and tried very hard not to smile.
Duckwater left the tournament hall with all the seething dignity he could muster,
for of course he now realized that he had been massively mooked. After collecting the
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money for his fifth-place finish (and a small bonus as second-best finishing dealer) he left
the casino.
Within an hour he was dead.
You don't need to know how Andy Bates tracked him and trapped him and
capped him. Trust that it couldn't have hurt any worse than busting out to a Mirplo.
Bates arrived back at the tournament hall at the start of a ten-minute break. He
caught Meg's eye and gestured to her with a signal which she understood to mean that he
wanted her now to take her fall to Lovelock and bust herself out of the field. In a pig's
eye, thought Meg. But she just nodded at Bates, humble and solemn, and let him believe
he still ran her play.
∆∆∆
Swertlow knew he was in trouble. Forget the desk he was tied to, spread-eagle,
face down in a tiny abandoned utility room. Forget the fact that he could scream himself
hoarse and no one would hear. Forget the further fact that Bates, his own partner, had put
him here. He could live with all that. But Swertlow'd been 48 hours without coffee, and
his head had been throbbing painfully for the last 39. Now the pain was becoming quite
unbearable, a cold-turkey nightmare as harsh as any a heroin junkie might face. Maybe
I'll quit, thought Swertlow. This could be my good chance to quit.
Maybe coffee made him think of strong coffee and strong coffee made him think
of acid, which made him think of dissolving things and then Swertlow remembered the
name of the universal solvent, the one thing into which most everything melts, and that is
of course H20, water, of which Swertlow didn't happen to have any handy. Except as
saliva. He wondered what would happen if he started to spit at his ropes; he could just
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about hit the one holding his left hand. Of course they wouldn't dissolve. But they might
get soaked. And expand. And relax. Might as well try, thought Swertlow. Got nothing
better to do.
Got no coffee.
He hocked up a large loogie, took aim at his wrist and let fly.
It took several hours for the ropes to loosen their grip, but it's amazing what you
can do if you put a little spit into it.
∆∆∆
Meg knew what she wanted to do, had a picture of how the play would evolve.
But she required certain conditions, one of which was a chip lead over Lovelock. Even a
modest one would do, but in the three hours since the last break he'd given her no
opening, and led her now by almost a million. Every now and then she saw Bates moving
restlessly among the spectators, anxious and edgy, silently urging her to make her
kamikaze move. But Megan resolved to be patient. She had more than one move in
mind.
She began by grinding down Carroll Summit, not "Lucky Boy" for long as he
threw his short stack against her on three consecutive hands. The first time, the board
played and he got it all back. The second time he managed to capture her blind. The
third time – disaster! – he caught a real hand, A-K suited, but fell when her two eights
caught a third.
Lucky Boy, who dealt graveyard at the Rose Casino, rose and accepted the cheers
of fellow dealers who had gathered to root him on, and now lustily saluted their
champion. He bowed and shook hands and started to leave, but then remembered his
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pyramid and went back to grab it. Never did find out where this came from, he thought,
or what it was for. But I guess it brought me luck.
Not so much, when you think about it, for Carroll "Lucky Boy" Summit went
upstairs to pack and died in his room. Bates didn't do it; he'd farmed out the job. His
attention was fixed on the final table now. Bates couldn't understand what Megan was
waiting for. How hard can it be to throw off all your chips? Bates hadn't played much
poker, but enough to visualize a couple of ways of letting yourself get broke if you really,
really wanted to. You could raise with a small pair and fold in the face of a re-raise. Do
that a couple of times and then you'll be weak. Then just make a bad call and you're
done. How hard can it be?
The thought crossed his mind that Megan might still be trying to win it, but that
couldn't be. I still have Rafferty. She knows I'll kill him if she wins.
Just then, Bates felt a tap on his shoulder. A man in a blue suit said, "Mr. Bates?"
"Yes?"
"Officer Reno, sir, hotel security. They told me to give you this." Reno handed
Bates a color digital photo printed from a captured video image. Bates recognized the
face. When he noticed the date-stamp on the photo – today – his heart sank.
It had taken Lathrop Wells some time to organize the incident, but a gang of
college boys on an all-night bender had eventually descended on Raff in the sports book,
mocking his Johnny Cash getup, even going so far as to snatch his shades and play keepaway. A security crew quickly closed in, rousting the frat rats and (to their true purpose)
training tie-pin video cameras on Rafferty's face. They bounced the signal to Wells, who
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congratulated himself on his correct guess. Live long enough, he thought, you begin to
figure folks out.
Bates stared in horror at the printout. "Rafferty? It's Jim Rafferty!"
"I wouldn't know, sir," said Reno.
"How did he get here?"
"I wouldn't know, sir."
In times of great stress you think of funny things. Just then Bates had an old
memory, one from his childhood, of arguing over which smelled worse, skunk or dead
animal. "You're crazy!" Bates remembered yelling at a playmate, "Skunk is ten times
worse than dead."
Bates looked around. He noticed that Reno hadn't left his side. He noticed also
that plainclothes security men were moving to block all exits. He started away, but Reno
grabbed his elbow, giving him the strong impression that he was intended to stay put.
I'm skunked, thought Bates.
And skunked was ten times worse than dead.
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25. All-In
One way to seize control of a no-limit tournament is to just go all-in like a
madman. Start waving your stack around – push it into the middle five or
six hands in a row – and watch your opponents run for cover. It panics
them to see you steal their blinds if you're anywhere near chip leader, for
you play Killer Poker and they know you'll be hell to catch once you have
a big lead.
You watch, you'll get premature playback from someone trying to shut you
out... but they won't have a great hand because you will have forced them
to move too soon. That's when you crush them. And then you're right
where they don't want you to be: chip leader and charging. And if you
can't finish them off from there then I haven't taught you anything at all
and you don't deserve this book.
– from KILLER POKER,
Chapter 25: Nuke No-Limit
And then there were three: Vic Mirplo with $1,110,000; Megan Moore with
$1,900,000; Ely Lovelock with $2 million even. When Megan captured Lovelock's
$60,000 blind, she moved ahead of him for the first time at the final table.
Meg had been selling a tell, working to convince Ely that she over-defended her
blinds. She showed that she'd call to protect them, but – and here she displayed her leak
– wouldn't raise back unless she held top tickets. So on her next big blind he came at her
with a $200,000 bet. She raised him back half a million. Now that she was chip leader,
he knew, she might lower her standards on that re-raise, but still Ely surrendered his
hand. If her standards just dropped, he thought, maybe they'll drop further still.
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Sure enough, once she had the chip lead Megan opened up her attack, leading into
Ely on several hands in succession and swatting Vic back the couple of times he tried to
make modest moves. You could see that Mirplo was getting ticked about it too.
Don't have a heart attack, Vic, thought Meg.
You already used that trick.
For a while Meg dominated. She popped the pot with big bets, controlling the
tempo and pace of the game. Then, abruptly, she shifted – some would say stripped – her
gears and backed off to a passive, almost somnolent, game. At first Vic and Ely didn't
know how to react. Vic was deep in third place and hardly looked likely to charge. Ely
was the candidate, then, to fill the void Meg created when she stepped on the brakes.
Soon she yielded the chip lead back to him.
The crowd couldn't figure out why Meg had slowed down. To them she was
suddenly calling too much, raising too little, taking draws (never a good idea shorthanded) and just generally farting around. She'd gone weak, promiscuously meek. What
was she, trying to give her money away?
Megan stood up and stretched. She noticed Andy Bates in the crowd. He caught
her glance and surprised her with a wry, sad smile. He knows! Meg suddenly realized.
He knows Jim got away. She wondered how he found out and, more to the point,
wondered if Lovelock knew too. Not that Lovelock necessarily trusted her to tank in the
first place. Though I sure look like someone trying to lose right now.
Then Meg made a modest comeback. She shot at a couple of flops and won
uncontested. When she snapped off a Lovelock bluff she once again became chip leader.
Megan Moore: $2.5 million.
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The blinds had climbed to $40,000 and $80,000 –
Ely Lovelock: $2.1 million.
– a record high for the World Series of Dealers.
Vic Mirplo: $400,000.
Vic was in peril and he knew it. With these blinds and a $3000 ante, he didn't
suppose he'd be lucky enough to survive until one of the big stacks blew the other out.
He was, as habitual, wrong.
Lovelock launched an attack from the button. He bet $150,000, plenty enough to
drive Vic off the small blind. But Meg played back big, making it half a million to go.
She likes that raise with big tickets, recalled Ely, but lowers her standards when
she gets the chip lead.
Lovelock looked down at his cards. He held pocket tens, which he rated a
favorite over what he put Meg on, something as sketchy as an intermediate ace. He
called, ready to advance his stack on any congenial flop. Lovelock trusted his tell. He
considered it likely that Meg was out of line.
When the flop came three little pigs, Ely went all in. Meg called the bet and
turned over her cards. Pocket jacks. Not a monster, but plenty enough. She'd gotten him
to drop his standards by making him think that she had dropped her own. That's why you
set the trap, thought Meg. So it's there to spring if the cards fall your way.
A jack on the turn sealed Lovelock's fate. He would finish no higher than third
place at this year's World Series of Dealers. Still that was worth more than $800,000, in
the light of which you could hardly say that Ely took his finish well.
Not when he pulled out a gun.
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He didn't point it at anyone, just held it across his chest, as if to model how the
well-dressed third-place finisher will be accessorized this year. "You know what you've
done, don't you? Morgan?"
"It's Megan," said Vic.
Lovelock sneered at Vic, "You think you're not next, short stack? I hope you like
dying." Then Ely pocketed his pyramid and backed away from the table. A dozen
security guards moved to surround him. He raised his voice and declared, "I'm leaving
here now. Anyone who tries to stop me will get hurt." Many people wondered why
anyone would have wanted to stop him if he hadn't drawn a gun in the first place, but in
any case the guards swarmed over him, disarmed him and removed him from the casino
floor in less time than it took for Vic to say, "What did he mean 'I hope you like dying'?"
or for Andy Bates to slip away from the security guard watching him and melt into the
tumultuous crowd.
Plenty of tumult in that crowd. They'd seen sore losers before, but this was a new
breed. More than one observer hoped it wasn't a trend.
The tournament director was pretty much totally at sea, for almost nothing in his
rule book covered situations where guns were involved. But Cherry Creek stepped up
and whispered in his ear. He nodded and said, "Good idea," and then announced that
play would resume after a ten minute break.
∆∆∆
It turned out to be a lively ten minutes.
Vic got up to go pee. He was a little surprised to see Meg fall in beside him and
whisper, "We have to talk." She angled him through a swinging door into an auxiliary
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kitchen. Bracing Vic up against a big refrigerator door, she pushed her face in close to
his.
"Vic, do I have your attention?"
"What?"
"Good. Here's what I need you to do."
She told him her plan. He didn't take much convincing, not considering what
Lovelock said about liking to die, which he didn't. But Cherry said to win it. Vic thought
about his fragile short stack and assessed his chances of actually winning through though.
With four hundred grand? Past Megan Moore? I don't think so. So he accepted Meg's
hedge.
"Just one question," said Vic. "What do you hope will happen?"
"I don't know," answered Meg, "but we're going all-in to find out. Go pee," she
said. "Make it look real."
Vic left the kitchen. After a moment Meg moved to follow, but just then Andy
Bates burst through the door, wide-eyed and glistening. He grabbed a cleaver from a
knife rack and waved it at her. "You couldn't play it straight, could you?" said Bates.
"You had to take my guy down."
"I don't owe you, Bates. You had some leverage and you lost it."
"Oh man, if you knew even half of what I've lost."
"I'm starting to get the idea."
For some reason this gave him pause. Bates sniffed. "What do you mean?" he
asked.
"I'm playing for a seat in the Circle, aren't I?"
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Bates sniffed again.
"And you're playing to improve your position within it. If I'm yours and I win we
both cash in, right? But I'm not yours anymore because Raff got away. Now I'm a free
agent. You think that cleaver's going to make me want to declare for you?"
"Doesn't matter." Bates seemed suddenly depressed, the sort of depression you
find in horse players who bet the five horse when they just know they should've bet the
four horse, a feeling that frequently comes to them just after the four horse wins. "I
bought into Lovelock."
"Well, that's your problem."
Bates advanced with the cleaver held high. "It's your problem now," he said.
Meg retreated through the kitchen to a big 10-burner stove. A Mexican chef and
his assistant looked on, too stunned to move. "Atrás, atrás," she ordered, and they fell
back. Bates charged. Meg grabbed a pot of hot soup from the stove and flung it at his
face, and the combination of pot and hot soup brought him down. She turned to run, but
Bates shot out a hand and grabbed her ankle, yanking her to the floor. He bounced to his
feet and stood over her, cleaver in hand, ready to finish her off.
Then he exploded like a well-struck piñata. He collapsed, spurting blood and not
candy. Meg looked up past Bates to see the now-familiar features of the LVPD's finest.
"Swertlow?"
"Who were you expec – " Swertlow stopped himself. "You know what? I don't
give a good goddamn who you were expecting." He nodded toward Bates. "It's this guy
I want." He shook his head as he put his gun away. "Guess I can't question him now."
He helped her to her feet. "What about you? You got a line on all this?"
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"I might when the tournament's done."
"Then you better go finish." Meg couldn't believe he was serious, but he gave a
small nod. "Go on. I'll take your statement later."
Meg left quickly and returned to the tournament hall, where Vic was already back
in his seat. "Well," said the tournament director, "let's get these cards in the air. Blinds
are $50,000 and $100,000."
Vic had the big blind with less than $400,000. Meg folded the small blind,
pushing him up toward four and a half. On the next hand, he went all-in and she
surrendered her blind, which moved him past half a million. They traded blinds for a
while, but Vic got more than his share and soon once again had a stack he could move.
Interestingly, the crowd moved with him. They'd been perplexed by Meg's play
all day, and though she seemed to have out-maneuvered Lovelock, here she was
squirreling around with Mirplo when she ought to have finished him off. Someone
started chanting Mir-plo, Mir-plo, and it kind of caught on.
Vic couldn't believe it: He had fans. When had a Mirplo ever had fans? It felt
good. He wished he could milk the moment. But he looked down at his stack and
realized that he had exactly $1.25 million. He glanced questioningly at Meg as if to say,
do we have to do this? And Meg's invisible nod replied, yup. So Vic took his big blind
for a raise of $500,000. He bet the flop and Meg folded. On the next hand, she called his
$750,000 raise, but folded on the flop when he went, again, all-in.
Parts of the crowd had turned ugly. "That was a horrible play," someone said.
"It's Killer Poker," replied a loyalist. "She'll bounce back."
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But instead Meg suddenly called time and asked for a chip count. The dealer
counted down both stacks and the count put them dead even at $2.5 million. Meg stood
up. "We're done with it," she said. "We both win."
Vic stood up. "Yeah we do." He picked up his pyramid and crossed to Meg's
side. "Now what?" he whispered.
"Not sure," answered Meg.
"Do we pose for pictures?"
"Don't think so."
Cherry Creek walked over and slapped Vic once, quite solidly, across the face.
"What I gave you." She shook her head. "The chance I gave you, and you just pissed it
away."
"What's wrong with a tie?" asked Vic plaintively. "Can't people tie? Spirit of the
game."
"It won't work. You'll see." She turned to Meg. "Nice try, but you'll see." She
left the ballroom.
In the next moment, a security officer approached them. This was a hawk-faced
woman, the sort of person who says let's go for a living. "Let's go," she said.
"Are we busted?" asked Vic. "All we did was set up a play to get even."
"Vic," said Meg, "that's not the issue right now."
"Yeah, but who says you can't tie?"
"Vic," she said tersely, "let it play out."
They let themselves be led to the VIP elevators, where – there's no nice way to
put it – a smelly drunk waited to get on. He must have been a high roller because he had
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a card key giving him access to these elevators, but man was he whiff. He sang, She'll be
Coming 'Round the Mountain When She Comes loudly and badly off-key. It made you
want to look away. Or anyway down.
That's how Meg noticed his shoes, brand new Pit Vipers bearing the logo of the
Casino Maxx celebrity softball team. And his sweat pants, relics of the original Hilton.
And his shirt, a giveaway from the Castaway. And who knows where he'd surfed up that
card key, but of course it was Jim. She felt him tuck something into her waistband. She
bloused her shirt out over it.
Just then Vic wrinkled his nose and said, "This guy stinks."
"Vic – " Meg started.
Vic cut her off. "Don't tell me to shut up. Man, you know, Meg, you say that all
the time. Maybe you used to could, but if we both just won the World Series of Dealers
then I'd say we're both about as good, wouldn't you?"
She allowed herself a smile. "I guess you're right."
"Okay." Vic turned to the drunk. "Buddy, grab a shower sometime? You know?
That thing in your bathroom that's not the sink or toi – wait, I know you. You're that
Rafferty guy." The hawk-faced woman looked over. Meg ground her heel into Vic's
instep. Vic thought – for him – fast. "I mean you look like him. That guy on TV?" He
turned to Meg. "You know who I mean, don't you? That wrestler."
"Wrestler?"
"Okay, not him. But somebody. Definitely on TV."
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Raff stumbled out and shambled
down the hall. Meg let her hand graze along her waistband.
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How thoughtful of Jim.
He'd slipped her a gun.
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26. Last Hand
"Confusion is the soul of understanding."
– Epigram
Meg and Vic stood in the foyer of the Oasis Hotel's most massively opulent VIP
suite. Beyond ostentatious, it reeked of entrenched wealth, from the polished marble
doorstops – doorstops! – to the ancient bottled scotch malts on the sideboard. Vic made a
beeline for the booze, but the security guard moved smoothly to cut him off. She blocked
his path and silently shook her head.
"Come on," said Vic eyeing the malts, "I mean. Don't I even get a victory drink?"
"You'll get your drink, Mr. Mirplo." A man stood in an interior doorway. He
wore a plain blue suit, but Meg noticed the Milky Way lapel pin which identified him as
a member of the Galaxy Casino's management team. For a moment she wondered if Raff
had that pin in his collection, and whether she could find a way to get it for him. Last
hand, Meg, she chided herself. Keep your head in the game.
The man, who introduced himself as Halleck, led them into the living room. The
security woman followed and took a position near the door. Halleck directed them to a
calves' leather couch facing floor-to-ceiling picture windows.
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Vic sprawled down and threw his feet up on the solid block of a hand-grown
crystal coffee table. He put his hands behind his head. "This is casual," he said looking
around. "What's this place run a night?"
Halleck seemed taken, ever so slightly, aback.
"You'll have to excuse Mr. Mirplo," said Lathrop Wells, entering from one of the
bedrooms. "He doesn't think well away from the table."
A moment went by before Vic protested, "Hey!"
Wells walked to the couch and stood over Meg. He was ancient, no question.
You don't get to be 98 and not look it. But his frame was still muscle and sinew, not fat,
and it still held him well over six feet tall. Though they'd only spoken on the phone, Meg
recognized Wells instantly, both by the timbre in his voice and by the presence he
conveyed. She wondered how to play this hand, then concluded, Fast, how else? "So
what's next?" she asked Wells. "Initiation? Learn the secret handshake?"
Wells raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said. "Would you care to tell us what you
think you know?"
"Check me if I'm wrong," said Meg, "but you and your Circle of Friends staged
this poker tournament, or anyway the pyramid part of it, to pick your next member. They
say you've got big money – "
"You can't imagine how big."
"I don't see how big money's worth killing for."
"But you didn't kill to get here," said Halleck. "Usually they do."
"So I won but I didn't win. Is that a problem?"
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"It wouldn't be a problem if you had, in fact, won," said Wells with a sigh. "But
our rules don't allow two winners. While your effort to save Vic's life was heroic and
bold, it only delayed the outcome."
"And we have to have an outcome." said Halleck. "So you two will play a freezeout tournament," he said. "One stack each. Winner take all."
"Look, we already settled this," said Vic. "We both won. We tied for win. Tie's
a tie. There's nothing wrong with a tie."
"Mr. Mirplo," said Wells, "let me put this in words of one syllable so you'll be
sure to understand: If you tie, you die."
"Man, this's bogus." Vic said to Meg, "Come on, sharkskin, we're out of here."
Vic stood up –
– but quickly sat back down when he realized that someone had slipped into the
room and was now pointing a Ruger semi-automatic at his chest. And that someone was
the lovely Cherry Creek. None other.
"What?" said Vic expressively. "I mean... what?"
"Exactly," said Cherry, and in that moment it occurred to Vic that she might not
be that sweet on him after all. And then he had an epiphany. Maybe the guy's right.
Maybe I don't think so well away from the table.
An oval oak card table, covered with green felt and trimmed in polished pink
granite, dominated a raised platform in a corner of the room. Meg and Vic were led to
seats at the table, and each received a stack of 20 gold chips. "Blinds are one and two,"
said Halleck. "They double every hand."
Vic protested. "Double? Man, that’s – "
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" – a short tournament," finished Meg. "Look, do we even get to know what this
is really all about?"
"As you said, 'big money.'"
"We won big money downstairs. There has to be more to it than that." Halleck
and Wells remained impassive. "Oh, humor me. You recruit through competitions,
right? In this case, a daily double of murder and tournament poker. The pyramids...?"
"Help us track the contenders."
"And the bronze knock-offs that – " She almost said that Rafferty had. " – that
have been floating around?"
"Someone copied our design. We can't be responsible for that."
"Andy Bates was in the Circle all along, wasn't he?" Wells nodded. "What about
Dan Swertlow?" Wells snorted a laugh. "Okay, not Swertlow. Babydoll Sedoso?"
"He was a recruit."
"And I was his target, designated as such by the pyramid you guys planted on me
like a 'kick me' sign."
"That's one way to put it," said Wells dryly.
"But Babydoll didn't whack me, and instead I ended up with his pyramid." Meg
had a sudden insight. "Which I get to keep if I win?" Wells nodded with his eyes. "And
that's my secret handshake."
Halleck suddenly became impatient. "Let's play cards," he said.
Meg turned to Halleck. "Could I have that lapel pin?"
"What?"
"For a friend. He collects them."
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By way of reply, Halleck took Cherry's Ruger and held it very close to Meg's
face. "Let's play cards."
"I take it you're rooting against me?"
"To the tune of two billion dollars."
"Wow."
"Yeah, wow. Now, for the last time – "
"I know, I know," said Meg, "let's play cards."
So many questions she still wanted to ask. Who designated the targets in this
thing? Had they really wanted it to look like crimes against dealers? How big was the
Circle? How far back did it go? Meg had a sneaking suspicion that these and many
other interesting questions would go unanswered as long as she lived.
Which she hoped would be more than the next ten minutes.
Cherry sat down in the dealer's box. She opened a sealed deck of cards, spread it
face up on the table, then scrambled, shuffled and dealt. Vic looked at Meg with soft
eyes. "Sorry for, you know, if I beat you Meg. I mean, you saved my life a bunch of
times, but still..."
"You think they're going to let either one of us live, Vic? Get a clue. This secret
society bullshit... you know what it looks like to me? A couple of old farts – " She
glanced at Cherry " – and a tart playing mind games with us." She stood up and stared at
Halleck. "You want us to play poker for you, you're damn well going to tell us why."
Halleck and Wells exchanged exasperated looks. "Call it a draw?" asked Wells.
Halleck said, "Sure." He leveled the Ruger at Meg.
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"Wait!" shouted Vic, "wait, wait, wait! We'll play, we'll play!" And then he did
something that, given how cowardly a Mirplo can be, seemed actually semi-heroic. He
interposed himself between Meg and the gun. "Won't we, Meg? Won't we play?" To
Halleck. "We'll play."
"We'll play," said Meg at last.
"See? There we go. We'll play. We're playing. We're playing poker." He
whispered to Meg, "And if you think it doesn't matter who wins, then you just go ahead
and let me win, and I am perfectly fine with that."
They cut for the button and Vic won it. On the first hand Meg completed the
small blind and Vic flat-called in the big blind. They checked the hand down and Vic
captured Meg's two chips when his K-Q stood up. She came back strong on the next
hand, going all-in after Vic had completed the small blind. Vic ditched his hand, yielding
four chips to Meg, and giving her a four-chip lead.
Now the blinds were four and eight chips. The cards came. Meg mucked her 2-5
offsuit, and Vic reacquired the four-chip lead. Blinds went to eight and 16. Meg put 16
of her 18 chips into the big blind. Vic raised all-in. Meg had to call or else try to build
back from just two chips. Against doubling blinds? I don't think so. She looked at her
cards. Q-9 suited. It'll have to do. Meg called.
Funny thing about Megan Moore when she played poker: She became aware of
things, things that other people, or even she herself in other circumstances, never noticed.
Changes in temperature or noise level or even humidity. Textures, tastes, smells... just
then Meg felt a tiny puff of air move across her cheek, as if someone had opened a door
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in another room. Someone who had a card key... She glanced at the others in turn, but
no one else seemed to notice.
So she stood up with an exaggerated sigh. "Let's see the flop," she said. She put
her hands on her hips, and a warm curve of metal settled into her palm. Feels like a
derringer. Knowing Raff it's a souvenir something.
Hope it came with souvenir bullets.
When the flop came 8-8-4, Vic shouted. "That's it, baby!" He threw over his
cards, revealing a paltry, but hugely timely, 8-4 offsuit. "That's Mirplo style!" He
jumped up from his seat and gave a somewhat startled Cherry Creek a big bear hug. "We
won, honey! We won! We won!" He planted a wet smooch on her astounded lips.
"What did we win?"
Cherry pushed Vic away with a cold, disgusted shove. He stumbled backward off
the raised platform. Meg moved to catch him, but not really. Instead, as Vic hit the floor
with a startled thud, Megan stepped over him and clamped a strong arm around Cherry's
neck. She raised the derringer – a vestige of the 1967 Dunes Celebrity Skeet Shoot as it
turned out – up to Cherry's temple. "Nobody move," she said.
Halleck almost laughed. "Oh, you took the wrong hostage," he said. But with his
attention focused on Meg and Cherry, he didn't see Swertlow slip into the room behind
him. Rafferty followed, holding a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 25th Anniversary
commemorative Colt .45.
At that point things happened fast, in the sort of blur of action you can really only
deconstruct and sift through after the fact. Swertlow acted first, disabling the surprised
security guard with a blow to the back of her head. The noise of the guard going down
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brought Halleck's hand around. He fired the Ruger, spraying rounds at Rafferty, who
dove behind the couch and fired back, but fired wide, hitting the picture window.
Spidery lines of cracked glass radiated out from two dime-size holes. Wells tried to run,
but Swertlow raced to intercept him and hip-checked him into a wall. The 98-year-old
man shattered half a dozen bones at once and went down.
Cherry struggled in Meg's grasp and shouted, "Vic, for the love of God, help me!
Get this crazy woman off me!"
"You know what?" said Vic, "I don't think so." He got to his feet and stood
before her. "In fact..." He punched her in the stomach. Air whooshed out of her like a
knifed tire. "Yeah," continued Vic, "that's right. That's the ticket. That's the shoe on the
totally other foot."
Halleck, meanwhile, charged at Rafferty, who fired point-blank, tearing a jagged
hole in the fleshy part of Halleck's shoulder. Halleck continued to close, though, and
they fought hand-to-hand. Halleck had years on Rafferty, but Raff had two good arms,
and the fight ended quickly when Raff drove a fist into Halleck's chin, knocking him
back against the picture window.
Had the window still been whole, what happened next would likely not have
happened. But Raff's bullets had compromised its structural integrity, so that when
Halleck fell against it, it shattered along inner fault lines and fell out. Halleck teetered on
the brink for a moment, then followed shards of broken glass and drops of his own blood
down to his death 23 floors below.
Vic raced to the window and looked down. "Man," said Vic, "man, man." Megan
hazarded a peek. Halleck had landed on a car. Given how the whole thing had begun,
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with loudmouth Pete Bonner landing on her own Mazda Miata, she found this faintly
ironic.
∆∆∆
They called an ambulance for Lathrop Wells, and it was apparent that the wiry old
bird would survive. Meg wondered if Swertlow expected Wells or Cherry Creek to talk.
"Don't need them to," said Swertlow. "I've got Bates."
"But Bates is – "
"Dead? Don't think so, sister. I took him down, not out."
Meg turned to Jim. She smiled. "The cavalry," she said.
"Well, I surfed up this card key," he said with a shrug. "It opens many doors."
Later, much later, after Vic and Meg had given their statements and belatedly
collected their prize money from the World Series of Dealers, they sat with Raff in the
Midnight at the Oasis bar. Meg had a lot of questions, and Vic had a lot of drinking to
do.
"How did you hook up with Swertlow?" Meg asked.
"He was snooping around on the VIP floor, same as me. Apparently Bates
pointed him there."
"And who pointed you there?"
"Well, you did, in a way. It was that web site you set up at CyberSal's. It drew
the attention of Conrad Ploche."
"The crackpot journalist? I thought he was killed in '39."
"He was. This was his grandson."
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Vic swilled a couple of quick martinis while Raff filled Meg in on the remarkable
story of the Circle of Friends. "They've been at this game a lot longer than 100 years," he
told her. "There's been some version of the organization pretty much throughout human
history. Apparently if you're willing to kill for material gain, it's never been hard to find
allies. Or enemies."
"Enemies?"
"The classic struggle of good versus evil," muttered Vic, to whom gin and light
vermouth had given a brief moment of insight.
Raff nodded. "As long as there's been a Circle, there's been a group fighting them
too. Conrad Ploche did it in his time, as his grandson does today. It turns out that he's in
– " Raff stopped himself. "Well, elsewhere. Fighting in another theater, let's say. But
he fed us what information he could over the internet. Needless to say, it made a big
difference."
"Did it? Raff? Did it really? I mean, I know I asked this before, but are we
finally out of the woods?"
"This time yeah, we are. Halleck's dead. Wells and Cherry Creek are going to
jail. Bates' testimony will send the rest of the Circle scurrying for rocks to hide under.
They don't even know who we are. In these competitions, everyone pretty much keeps
their runners to themselves."
"So they won't be coming after us?"
Raff shook his head.
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"Smart on their part," said Vic, to whom gin and light vermouth had imparted a
certain Dutch courage. Then he lapsed into silence, the alcohol gradually widening the
synapse gaps in his brain.
"Wells and Halleck had a bet..." mused Meg.
"Side action," said Rafferty. "Nothing to do with the main event. Wells wagered
that he could get you to the winner's circle and get you to declare for him there. Halleck
bet against him. That point," said Rafferty with a crooked grin, "got rendered kind of
moot."
Vic flirted ineptly with a waitress. The fact that he'd just won half a million
dollars in the World Series of Dealers did nothing to mitigate his manifest personality
flaws and she subtly blew him off. So subtly, unfortunately, that it seemed like a comeon to Vic. His flash of lucidity was already fading away as his fundamental Mirplo
nature reasserted itself. Plus ca change...
"Halleck worked for the Galaxy Casino," said Meg. "I tried to get you his lapel
pin."
"Thanks," said Raff, "but I've given up surfing."
"Really?" said Meg skeptically. "And what do you intend to take its place?"
"You're still my poker coach, aren't you?" He ran his index finger along the ridge
of her wrist. "I can't imagine that I'm done learning yet."
"No," she said, "I can't imagine that you are." She covered his hand with her own.
"But I have to warn you..."
"Yes?"
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"The relationship between poker coach and student can get kind of close.
Intimate, like. If it's going to work well, I mean."
"I understand," he said solemnly. "I was hoping it would." He leaned over the
table and kissed her. "Work well, I mean." They kissed for a good long time.
"Oh rent a room," slurred Vic.
At last they got up from the table. "Come on," said Jim. "Let's play poker."
"Thought you'd never ask," said Meg. She turned to Vic. "Join us, Slick?"
"Nah, I'll see you around," said Vic, still laboring under the delusion that he had
half a chance with the waitress. "I think this lady likes me."
Meg and Jim walked away. As they crossed the casino floor, Jim noticed a plastic
card abandoned in the card reader of a video poker machine. He pulled it out and
examined it. It said Oa$i$ $uper$lot$ Komp Klub. "This must be a new issue," he said.
"I don't have one of these."
"Thought you were done surfing," said Meg.
"Oh I am," said Raff. "Almost completely entirely." He slipped the card in his
pocket, and he and Meg walked away.
The End.