Dead Man's Hand (14 page)

As Tyson sat there
thinking over the bet she flashed us both a smile that seemed to offer greater
rewards if we just submitted to her perfection.  But Tyson wasn’t
finished, he eventually decided not to submit and re-raised her another fifty
thousand, as he slid his two hundred and fifty thousand into the pot. 
This left me owing an even two hundred thousand, not to mention being stuck in
a very awkward position. 
Could Tyson have something of value?
 
My gut still said no, but those lifeless eyes gave me pause.  I closed my
eyes as I took a deep breath and ran through everything once again and when I
opened my eyes I knew I had Tyson beat for this round.  But I was
uncertain about Allison.  She was betting like she had the best possible
hand, but that didn’t seem possible.

Despite her betting big,
I was fairly sure she didn’t have the full house so I called, presented the pot
with what I owed, and waited for her to do the same.  For a second it
seemed like she was going to raise again, but after a moment she thought better
of it and just supplied the pot with the fifty grand she owed.  With the
betting closed for the moment, the dealer burnt the top card and revealed the
jack of diamonds.

As I ran my right hand
through my hair I began going through what possible hands could be made
now.  The fact that the card was a diamond denied the possibility of a
flush of any kind.  Since the card was a jack, it was impossible for there
to be any kind of a straight.  No one could have a four of a kind, not
with what was in play.  Could Tyson have a full house?  It was
possible for him to have it, the aces could be his pair. 
Was this the
hand where my instincts fail me?
  No, they were right.  They had
to be right.  And if my gut was right, that meant there was only one real
possibility for Tyson, he had trips of some kind.  Looking down at the
small stack in front of Tyson I quickly counted.  With the confidence in
my instincts, I was very hopeful that I wasn’t wrong as I once again raised the
pot.  “Well I think I’ll go in for another two hundred thousand.”

Allison, while not
visibly staggered, wasn’t as completely sure of herself as a few moments
before.  She carefully counted her chips before looking back up and
settling her gaze upon me.  “Well if either of you fine gentlemen want to
see my pair, you’ll have to match what I have left and that comes out to be two
hundred and twelve thousand.”

I looked over at Tyson
and waited for his move, and was shocked when he hesitated.  The
stone-faced and decisive Tyson hesitated.  I could see that there was a
part of him that wanted to call, thinking that Allison was bluffing, but there
was a larger side that wanted to protect his slightly dwindling stack. 
Eventually, he tossed his cards to the dealer.  With Tyson out I quickly
counted up the twelve thousand more that I needed and said, “Allison I’m not
going to back down now.  I call you.”  I silently hoped that I had
been absolutely correct in my read.

With that wicked smile
across her lips Allison turned over her cards as she described them to
everyone, “Trip aces courting a single lady.”

I had been right, trips
with a high kicker.  Too bad for her that she had missed picking up an
accompanying pair.  “That’s too bad Allison,” I began as I flipped my ace
over to the world.  I then took hold of my king and quickly turned it over
as I spoke, “Because my trip aces were accompanied by a king.”  When I
removed my hand everyone could see my unsuited cards.”

Her smile fell for a
moment, but her eyes darkened just a hair with frustration and anger.  “Of
course you would have the king.”  She shook her head briefly before
standing up to greet her chaperones.  “Oh well, the best man won. 
Well played Marcus, well played.”

Looking her straight in
the eyes I tried to appease her, “I am sorry you have to leave on that kind of
hand.”

Placing her hands back on
the table she leaned over as far as she could all the while staring at me the
way a starving eagle would look upon a field mouse.  She took a calming
breath before speaking, “No Marcus, you’re not sorry.  You won, and that
means you’re still in the tournament.  You may be sorry that you won by
the narrowest of margins but in the end losing is losing.  It doesn’t
matter how close you are.”  Her look softened if only just slightly before
she added, “But I do appreciate the attempt.  Unfortunately, I should have
followed Tyson’s lead, oh well.”

“Not that I did it soon
enough.”  Tyson offered as he looked down upon his stacks of chips, now
simply just a shadow of their once former glory.  Not that he was in any
danger of being eliminated.  He still had more than what he had started
the game with.

Leveling a stare at him
that could have melted stone Allison retorted, “Sorry if I don’t weep for your
loss Tyson, seeing as how you’re still well established in the tournament I
don’t think I’ll lose any sleep.”  As the two goons began to reach for her
she whirled her arms just enough to keep them from grabbing her.  “I know
you two are there and you can simply wait for another minute.  I have no
intention to distract anyone.  I will make my goodbyes and then I will accompany
you to my new seat.” 

She leaned over and gave
Jonathan a quick hug, while she simply waved in Kelly’s general
direction.  She then rounded the table towards me and leaned over my
shoulder to whisper, “You better not lose my money.”  She gave a slight
chuckle before adding, “I’m looking forward to getting it back.”

Even though her face was
out of my sight, I could hear the ever so subtle threat mixed with a promise of
pleasure if I cooperated.  So I just smiled and said, “I’ll do my best.”

“That’ll do,
Marcus.”  And with that she turned and escorted her two goons to the
audience above.

As I collected my chips
Bella came and sat down next to me and asked, “And just who was that,
Marcus?  I thought I was the only woman in your life today.”

Forcing a smile onto my
face, I looked over to her—she had chosen the vacant seat on my right—and told
her the truth.  “Her name is Allison, and unfortunately for her, she was
just eliminated.  And between you and me, she didn’t take it all that
well.  Has anyone ever told her that this is just a game?”

“Marcus I did see the
hand.  Besides how well would you have reacted if your situations had been
reversed?”

“I wouldn’t have made a
veiled threat.”  I replied with a shrug, “Not that I wouldn’t mind returning
her entrance fee to her.”  I tried to force some indifference into my
voice but I was unable to keep the smile off of my face.

Seeing the smile creeping
onto my face, she started to laugh as she leaned in to ask, “So you’re going to
give in to her threat?”

Keeping my voice at a
whisper I replied, “Don’t you remember what I told you about women and their
money?”

Bella’s face took on a
hurt expression, she needed practice if she ever hoped for that look to fool
anyone other than family.  “Why are you treating her so nicely, I thought
we were going to be friends?”

Based on our limited time
together I had gotten the feeling that she would have a hard time play acting
like she was jealous.  But here she was giving me a hard time over some
other woman I had just knocked out. 
Was she trying to disrupt my
game?  She does have at least a good idea of how I feel about her, was she
going to try and use that to rock my game?
  Go figure, I survive the
tournament thus far only to go down in flames because I liked her.  “We
are friends Bella.  Have I taken any of your money yet?”

With an ear to ear smile
she concurred in a silky voice that let me know she was only teasing. 
“No, not yet.  But you haven’t exactly had the opportunity.”

I leaned in as close to
her as I could and with a mask of mock horror I needlessly defended my honor.
 “Bella, you should know you’re the only one for me.”  We shared a
moment of private laughter while we waited for the dealer to get us underway. 
“Well aside from meeting you prior to the final table it is good to finally get
some new blood over here.”

“Are you honestly telling
me that we’re the first new players to come to this table?”

With a nod I answered
her, “Yup.”  With that reminder of the other new players, I realized that
I hadn’t even tried to study them.  I was drawn into conversation with
Bella way to easily.  I searched the faces and noticed that Patrick wasn’t
among them.  While I hadn’t played against Patrick, I had the feeling that
he and Tyson were the two best players here. Between the two, it was a coin
toss.  Still searching the other players I asked Bella, “Where’s
Patrick?  I thought I saw him join your starting table.”

She sat there frozen, and
unmoving.  I gently pushed her shoulder and repeated the question. 
This time she heard me and after clearing her throat she responded, “Patrick
was at my starting table but fortunately enough the rest were chumps.  So
we kind of fell into an unspoken alliance, we wouldn’t go after each other
while we had such easy pickings.  After about an hour or so when we
dropped to four players, our table was scrapped and we were plugged into other
tables as seats became available.

“So once you two
separated, you didn’t meet back up?”  I kept looking into her eyes and saw
that she was still distracted by our table.  “That’s good.”  I folded
my arms across my chest and whispered in her ear. “What about our solitary
existence bothers you, Bella?”

“Everything.”  She
stated without a trace of emotions.

Only when I thought she
fell back into herself did I prompt her with a question.  “This is only
your second time here, do you really think that it is that unusual?”  I
tried to keep my tone conversational, attempting not to spook her further down
a rabbit hole she plainly didn’t want to go down.

Shrugging her shoulders
she looked over at me and I could tell a million thoughts were running through
her mind. “Even though this is only my second tournament, I’ve never heard of a
table going without new blood for…  How long have we been playing?”

I instinctively glanced
down at my watch. “Oh, we’ve been playing for a little more than five hours,
and we were here at least an hour or two before that.”

With a shake of her head
she replied, “I’m surprised that your table went five hours without getting
people to replenish your empty seats.”

I simply sat there for a
moment and began to chew the inside of my lip.  I raked my left hand
through my hair as I slowly let out my pent-up breath.  “Well it would
seem that we have a little mystery, for another time.”  I needed to change
topics, the last thing I needed to be thinking about was how Dempsey might be
trying to isolate either my table as a whole or someone at it.  The worst
thought was that he might be trying to isolate me.  I looked around the
room, again taking in its extravagance before blurting out another
question.  “Is the room just as grand as it was last year?”

“It’s a different room,”
she began indifferently, “but it’s definitely just as nice.”

“Different room? 
Did he reorganize the space or something?”

Turing back around Bella
gave me her full attention.  “I keep forgetting just how little you
know.  You remember how I told you that my uncle lets whoever take
whatever after the game?”  I nodded and she continued. “Even though my
uncle owns just about everyone everywhere, he’s just as careful.

“So after the authorities
have raided the, by then old warehouse, my uncle scratches them off of his
list.  He would rather find another place than reuse one.  He figures
that some overenthusiastic rookie or cop might try something by staking out the
old locations, waiting for him to press his luck.  No, as far as my uncle
believes every year deserves its own home, wherever or whatever,” Bella spread
her arms to encompass the warehouse they were in at the moment, “it is.”

“Your uncle is a very
meticulous man.”

“You have no idea.”

Looking at the dealer’s
idle hands I asked Bella, “Did we miss something?

“I think we were talking
all the way through the new seat draw.  And it looks like we’re set to be
the first blind bets.”  She lifted her required small blind and carefully
moved it forward just a little, a move that did require the dealer to collect
her blind.

I restrained myself from
pointing out that the dealer should have attempted to get our attention, I
simply extracted the required big blind from my stacks and tossed it into the
center of the table.  Once both blinds were given the dealer proceeded to
deal out the round.  Leaving me time to think about what Bella had just
told me.  She had confirmed that her uncle used a different building every
year, and the reasons “why” that she gave made perfect sense.

With my first card firmly
under my right hand I turned my attention up to the stadium seating and saw
Allison having what appeared to be a civilized conversation with another of the
former players.  The pair quickly called over one of the waiters, no not a
waiter they called over a bookie.  In addition to everything else Dempsey
was doing in this tournament he was even able to generate some side income
through extracurricular gambling.  I had to admit that this was quite the
elaborate scheme concocted by Dempsey, and it was one that had to have made him
a ridiculous amount of money.