Dead Man's Hand (6 page)

Bella grimaced at my
words, though to be honest I felt no desire to hide my attempts to poke the
bear.  She wasn’t stupid so she backed up ever so slightly.

He was here for me. 
So when his eyes turned my way they were still a pair of green lifeless orbs,
betraying nothing.  “Marcus you’re not deaf are you, because I was fairly
certain that I did ask.”

I had been hoping for
some kind of reaction.  A wavering in his face, a twitch of an eye, a
tremor in his voice.  I mean I would take an oddly flickering strand of
hair, anything.  I had known that it was too much to hope for but hope is
still hope.  It didn’t take much to realize that he was a master at
controlling his emotions.  It also looked like he was a master of
compartmentalizing those emotions so he would only feel what he wanted to feel
at any given time.  So he was better than I was, and that was not the
worst of it.  The worst thing was that Patrick knew he was better.

There are certain times
when you just know something about someone, you have absolutely no reason to
know it but you do anyway.  Patrick was quite simply going to be one of
the better players, if not the best who was going to enter the room. 
Every year I try to watch the World Series of Poker, in order to keep up on the
top players in the business, but I have never seen Patrick’s face before. 
And his confidence told me that this wasn’t his first time playing at this
level. He had the air of someone who was capable of winning this tournament. 
Going up against him wasn’t going to be easy, and I found myself hoping that he
would get knocked out of the tournament before I had that pleasure.

If I did meet him once we
started I certainly wasn’t going to waive a white flag just because I knew he
was better than me, not a chance.  Now I just needed to make sure he knew
that, so I attempted to match his tone as I retorted.  “But you didn’t
wait for a reply did you?  No you just sat down.  You may as well
have not even asked, Pat.”  I wasn’t all that sure I managed to keep my
face quite as impassive as I had hoped for.  But then again I was pretty
sure I didn’t do as poorly as I had feared.

With a slight smile
Patrick responded, “True that would have been polite, but it wouldn’t have been
nearly as much fun.”

The smile on his face was
infuriating, if this were a football field there would have been a flag thrown
for taunting.  I tried to respond with as little emotion as
possible.  “Fun?”

“Well it certainly was
fun for me.”

Breaking into the
conversation with a laugh Bella managed to ease the mounting tension between us
with a few soft spoken words.  “He has you there Marcus.”  With a
shrug she also admitted that she was quite entertained by the scene.

“I’m glad I could help
entertain you Bella.”  I said as I attempted to waive down a passing
waitress. 

As the one continuing to
walk right past our table another one appeared right beside me straight out of
thin air and asked, “What can I do for you sir?”

Looking up I instantly
recognized the waitress.  She was the one who had fetched my current and
now mostly empty martini.  I offered her a glowing smile before
responding.  “My dear, I would love for you to get me another martini from
Simon.”  Looking over to Bella I asked, “Would you care for anything?”

“Did you just ask for a
specific bartender?”  I simply nodded and noticed genuine curiosity in her
eyes.  “Well if you’re going to make request like that I’ll just have to
sample the work.” Looking over at the waitress she added, “Could I have one of
those as well?”

“Yes ma’am.”

I glanced over to Patrick
and asked the polite question.  “I know you have something to drink
already but could the lovely waitress get you another beer or something else
for when you finish that one?”

As if it were on cue he
deflected the question by taking a healthy sip from the bottle.  When he
was able, he looked up at the waitress and spoke to her instead of answering
me.  “I’m still working through my first drink.  And I wouldn’t think
of ordering anything else while I still have more than half of my drink left.

“Very good, sir.” She
said to Patrick before returning her attention to me. “Is there anything else
you require, sir?”

I shook my head as I
replied, “No I think that should be all we need for now.”  I leveled my
gaze to Patrick and said in an all too casual manor, “Though I’m sure you act
this way so you can get your read on people.”

As he went perfectly
still I knew my hunch had been right.  Before he could formulate a reply I
continued.  “That bombastic attitude you’re throwing around is what tipped
me off.  Yeah you’ll learn about people and their play,” I granted. 
“Well it’s certainly one way to learn about people.  With all of your
outrageous behavior I’m pretty sure you provoke quite the accurate reactions.” 
On a whim I made sure to pay particular attention to his eyes as I finished my
thought, I wasn’t expecting a miracle but they have been known to happen upon
occasion.  “But there is no guarantee that the accurate reaction isn’t
just in character.”

Apparently Patrick didn’t
want to verbally agree with me because all I got out of him was a very slight
shrug. 
How does he manage to control himself like this
?  At
this point I wasn’t going to back down, I was going to get him to react at some
point today.  “It’s a clever tactic, when it works and you get an honest
reaction.”

“I’ll be the first to
admit that there are some who manage to wrap themselves in an alternate persona
so well that the technique is of little use.”  Well that was nicely
worded.  He never admitted or even denied that he was doing just
that.  To hear him speak you would think from his tone that he was merely
chatting about the weather.

Though his
acknowledgement did show me a glimpse of something that I could latch onto and
assault.  It wasn’t a big target to be sure but it was still a target to
attack, weaknesses are weaknesses no matter how hard to manipulate.  So
with a nod of agreement I offered my own honest opinion of his obviously
favored technique.  “Every trick has its own weakness, that’s for
sure.  But that is the very reason I refuse to use that kind of strategy.”

Patrick attempted to roll
the slight twitch of his eye into another movement altogether.  And he
managed to do it wonderfully.  In fact I would have missed the twitch
altogether if I hadn’t been carefully watching for it.  But I had seen it
and that was all that mattered.  This master was human after all.  He
had a weakness, slight as it was, but it was there.  Thank goodness for
pride.  Unfortunately from what I could tell he had a reason to be proud,
but he took it just a hair too far.  He was so proud of how well he could
read people that he couldn’t suffer any to question his skills.

Still wrapping himself in
the emotions of a stone, Patrick looked me right in the eye and asked, “So if
you’re not a fan of what I do, what do you do to gain your edge?”

“I’m a simplistic
man.  I’ve always just enjoyed basic study and observation.”  I
replied smoothly.

But I must have struck a
nerve because he replied all too quickly.  “But in a situation like this,
that kind of strategy becomes increasingly difficult with the lack of time.”

“The lack of time does
play against me, I’ll agree.  As I said every option has its flaws, but I can
pick things up that most people would miss a thousand times over.”  Then
my tongue kept on wagging despite the fact I had intended it to remain
silent.  “Besides I’ve noticed that it works very well even with those
who, as you have said, are wrapped in a false persona.”

As Patrick listened to my
words he took a couple long drinks from his bottle and I could tell he was
thinking about what I had said.  I knew that I had probably lost my edge
with him.  He might not know what I had seen but he knew that I had seen
something I thought I could exploit.  But just as he was forming his next
words Bella jumped into the conversation and anything that had been gathered up
in his mind was washed away under the tidal wave of her anger, maybe we
shouldn’t have gone down our little rabbit hole.

“Excuse me
gentlemen.”  Bella glared at each of us in turn making sure she had our
complete attention before she went on.  “The two of you seem to have
forgotten that you’re not the only ones sitting at this table.  Can’t you
two simply agree to disagree? So what if you two have different ways to read
people.  You also are different body types.  It happens.  You
each have a favorite technique because it works for you.  That’s one of
the reasons we play the game, you know.  To see who has the better
game.  But right now, it is not about our game, this is supposed to be a
short little pampering session.  So would the two of you stop and play
nice?”

Patrick, as stone faced
as ever, somehow managed to laugh, not a great belly laugh or anything but it
was still a laugh. With a smile stretching across my face I lifted my glass and
offered a toast, “To each of us, may we have smooth sailings to the final table
and may we discover who can play the game the best.”

“Here, here Marcus, well said.” 
Patrick chimed in with what seemed to be genuine cheer, though I could see the
lie in his eyes.  “Each of us can only perform with the gifts with which
we were born.  And unfortunately not all gifts are equal.”

I knew he was still
trying to provoke me.  No not provoke me, he was just trying to get an
honest reaction out of me.  Calm or provoked he would learn something
about me.  So I decided to use this for my advantage.  “Patrick you
truly are gifted with a great array of tools.  And you are truly gifted in
the ones you choose to employ.”

“Some of my skills are
indeed hard to learn.”  Patrick said with trace amounts of caution
coloring his words.

It was as if he knew I
was up to something but he had no idea what it was.  Again I was thankful
for the prideful.  And he was squarely in my trap, now I just needed it to
actually work.  “No it’s actually not hard to learn.  In fact it is
very easy to learn, most children master it fairly early on in life.  The
difficulty comes in the mastery of its implementation.  And that’s the
half of the skill that I lack.”

Again, if I hadn’t been
looking I would have missed it, but I didn’t.  It was the slightest of
motions, I may have gone a little too far with the children comment but I
needed to be sure I got the reaction.  And now I was sure, normally he had
an endless supply of patience, but when it came to something he had pride in,
he held a very short fuse.  It didn’t matter that he was so disciplined
that he was able to club the temper back down almost instantly, he had a
vulnerability.  And more importantly it was one I could exploit over and
over again.

It did have a nice
defense though.  There were very few opportunities to really expose that
weakness.  Granted I had proved that he could be provoked, but he had the
discipline to clamp down the weaknesses and bury them.  He just hadn’t
been quick enough. But now that he suspected I knew something, it was only
going to be harder to expose it later on.  It was unfortunate that I had
to sacrifice that kind of advantage so soon.  Though now he was sure to be
thinking about what I had collected.  And that should hopefully lead more
accessible avenues later on.

 “You’re right of
course, Marcus.  I have heard that half of the skill is the hardest to
master and without its mastery the skill is of course quite useless.  Now,
if you’ll kindly excuse me, I see someone that I must speak with.”  And
without another word Patrick stood up and left the table, beer in hand. 
With the calm I had come to expect from him, he casually walked to a small
group of people about twenty feet away and instantly embedded himself into
their conversation.

“Did you have to provoke
him Marcus?”

“Bella, do you think I
intentionally tried to provoke him?”

“Absolutely.”  With
an insincere scowl on her face she said, “I enjoy spending time with him. 
Besides I need to get a better read on him.”

“I would think he would
need to get a better read on you.”  I replied.

Flashing a coy smile she
answered, “Of course he doesn’t understand how I tick and it just drives him
crazy.”  The smile widened as she added, “But I never intentionally tried
to aggravate him like you just did.  He won’t forget that.”

Looking into her wondrous
grey eyes I agreed, “And neither will I.  Don’t forget he was slinging
insults my way as well.”

Bella stared back at me
with a mischievous smile and nodded.  “Marcus you continue to impress
me.  I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“Let me guess.  It’s
my charming smile?”

Laughing she shook her
head as she corrected me.  “It’s your confidence, the way you carry
yourself.  I know you didn’t see it but Patrick has a much more charming
smile than you.  But you carry yourself with a great deal more surety and,
unfortunately for you, Patrick saw that as well.”

“Here are your
drinks.”  The waitress interrupted.

Looking over my shoulder
I smiled as she handed me my glass.  I immediately handed it over to Bella
before accepting the second glass as well.