Double Blind (10 page)

“How would you have a game where everyone didn’t stay in until the end?” Ethan asked.

Randy pointed to the table in front of them, where two players were raising and re-raising on the flop. “If the betting gets too high, if you think you’re in danger of being beat, you fold, and if everyone folds to you, you win, even if all the cards aren’t dealt. In this case, you don’t need to show your cards, although some people do. If you’re the last man standing, you get the pot, which is how you can win with absolute shit for a hand. If you bluff everyone into thinking you have the best hand, you win.”

Randy saw it clicking in Ethan’s head. “And that’s why you’re good at poker. You’re good at bluffing, and you’re good at reading other people.”

“That, and I’ve been playing the game since I was six.” He rocked back on his heels. “So, Slick—you ready to give this a go?”

Ethan didn’t look too confident. “Couldn’t I watch awhile?”

“Yeah, sure—grab a chair from the rail and sit off to the side of me, but be careful not to crowd the other players. I’ll show you my hole cards, and you can watch how I play. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Ethan agreed, and Randy touched his back again briefly before leading him on to table Five.

The
little old ladies were named Betty and Martha, and they were every bit as colorful as Mandy had hinted they would be.

The dealer was a new guy and a real limp dick, but that hardly mattered with the Milwaukee regiment at the table. They were round and plump and gray, wearing matching neon pink shirts with their names cross-stitched across the front in a bed of flowers and playing cards. They were also competing for who could have gaudier and more dangly earrings. As Randy approached, they were actively charming the pants off Steve and the balding man to his right. Even the uptight-looking fat man on Steve’s other side, who absolutely had to be a used car salesman, looked like if the ladies gave him just one more giggle or flirt, he’d be eating out of their hands as well. When the ladies saw Randy and Ethan, they smiled cheerfully, and Betty waved.

She introduced the pair of them and then patted the chair beside her. “Have a seat.”

“Just me for now,” Randy said, setting down the tray of chips he’d picked up before heading to the poker room. He nodded to the dealer and again to Steve. “How’s it going?”

Steve nodded back. “Good. How’s the action at Herod’s tonight?”

“Didn’t work the room, but I heard there’s some good games at the high tables. You might want to check it out if you get off in time.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. He glanced at Mandy, then nodded before tossing a chip at the dealer and a smile at Betty and Martha. “Ladies, it’s been a pleasure, but duty calls me to another table.”

“Oh no,” Martha said, reaching around to catch his hand. “You take care, young man, and I hope to see you again tomorrow.”

“I hope so too,” Steve said, kissing her hand and then Betty’s, making both ladies giggle again. But as Steve slipped past the dealer, the used car salesman began to sputter.

“He’s a prop?” The man’s face turned red, and he glared at the dealer. “I’ve been playing with a
prop
?”

“Oh, stop your fussing,” Betty scolded him. “You didn’t lose because of Steve. You lost because you’re lousy.”

But the salesman was standing now and huffing from indignation. “I’m going to speak to the floorman about this,” he declared, and he stalked off, leaving his chips in place.

Martha rolled her eyes and offered a knowing look to the bald man, and Randy leaned back when Ethan tugged on his sleeve.

Randy whispered the answer before Ethan could ask the question. “A prop is a player hired by the casino to get games going or fill in tables if the action is low. They play with their own money, and the casino has no stake in them at all—in fact, if the action gets too good, they pull the prop.”

“And you’re that guy at Herod’s?”

Randy nodded, then leaned in closer and lowered his voice even more. “I’m one of them. And keep that quiet, if you don’t mind. You saw how our buddy here reacted to Steve. Once he starts playing against me, he’s going to get pissed off enough without extra ammunition.”

Ethan said nothing at first, and Randy had started to pull back to his seat when he heard Ethan say, in a quiet, dangerous voice, “How much are you going to pay me to keep that information to myself?”

The comment so surprised Randy that he turned his head and stared at Ethan for a second in true shock, which only made Slick’s eyes dance even more.
Oh, you beautiful, wicked man,
Randy thought, bit back a smile, and reached for a fifty dollar chip. He brought it slowly to his lips, kissed it quietly, then held it out for him.

Ethan looked down at it, deadpan, and took it with a curt nod. “That’ll do,” he said, “for a start.”

Randy laughed, but desire curled in his belly as he turned back around, and he thought, not for the first time,
I am having that man in my bed by the end of the night.

Slick’s a funny one
, he thought after he’d gotten Betty to tell him about her grandchildren. He nodded as she went on, letting his mind drift off as they waited for the irate salesman to come back. Ethan had been a lot better since Randy had gotten him onto poker. Randy would keep him at it all night if it continued to keep away the black hole he’d seen Slick slip in and out of between Herod’s and the Nugget. It was killing Randy, not knowing what the hell this other bastard had done to corkscrew Ethan like this, but he knew Ethan wasn’t ready to talk about it, and he sure as hell wasn’t giving any more away than he already had. Now that Randy had been with Ethan for a few hours, he was starting to feel lucky to have read what little he’d managed. His consolation was that the more he needled Ethan, the more he opened up. He’d gone from bristling and complaining to giving back as good as he got.

If he kept that up until they ended up in the sheets, Randy would have no complaints whatsoever. In the meantime, he’d be just as entertained to watch Slick handle his first game of poker.

Randy played tight once they got started, getting a feel for the other players and letting Ethan get a good grounding in the game. A few times he wanted to lean back and explain why he’d played a hand the way he had, but the salesman—Louis, from Ohio—was still sore from the gentle but firm whipping Mandy had given him about the Nugget’s use of prop players, and he didn’t want to rile the man up just yet. Because he was a live one if ever there was one, and Randy had gotten attached to the idea of lightening the man’s significant stack of chips.

So Randy played through six hands, winning two, folding four. On the seventh one he ventured out a little and ended up in a showdown with Betty, who surprised him by cottoning onto his bluff, and he folded before she could see that he’d gone to the river with nothing more than a 2 and a 3.

“I wondered what the hell you were doing,” Ethan murmured, when Randy leaned back to fish in his jacket for some money for drinks.

“Hush your mouth, Slick,” Randy murmured back, then lifted his head. His lips grazed Ethan’s hair, and he drew back, startled. And rattled. “Sorry. Didn’t realize you were trying to sit on my lap. What do you want to drink?”

Ethan didn’t appear affected by the accidental kiss, which only irritated Randy more. “Nothing alcoholic,” he said.

“Pepsi?” Randy suggested.

“Diet,” Ethan corrected. “Please.”

“What he said,” Randy told the waitress, handing her a five. “And a bottle of water.” If Slick was going to stay sober, Randy didn’t want to be the one drunk and missing cues. He turned to Betty and Martha. “Ladies, can I get you something?”

They giggled, ordered a daiquiri each, and Randy added another five and a ten dollar chip to the waitress’s tray. They played another two hands while they waited for the drinks, Randy folding on both.

And then, as the drinks arrived, Randy decided it was time he did too. Slick had seen enough safe playing. Now it was time for him to see some poker.

“Poker is an art,” Uncle Gary had told Randy, sitting him on his knee and whispering to him as he explained the strengths and weaknesses of his hand against the board. “It’s about probability and statistics, too, but mostly it’s about art. It’s combining your head and your heart and mixing them together with a little bit of magic. It’s a game of people as much as it is a game of cards.” At the age of six, Randy hadn’t understood a word of it; he’d just nodded and pretended he did so he could sneak sips of Pabst Blue Ribbon and feel the warm safety of Uncle Gary’s presence.

But as he glanced around now at the table in the Golden Nugget, reading the faces of his fellow players, knowing the full range of how and when he was going to bet before he even so much as lifted a single corner of his own cards, he thought of Uncle Gary and smiled a little, sadly, as he acknowledged once again how right his uncle had been.

Randy liked to win at poker, yes, and when his finances dipped a little low, he was more than happy to play around the table and pad his wallet again. But what he really liked was the game: the chance to use his skill and his smarts to make sure that even when he didn’t have much of a hand, he always had the best of it. It didn’t always work out, which was part of the fun. But more often than not he could control a game, almost any game, and that, to his mind, was the whole point of playing.

Watch this, Slick,
he willed Ethan silently, and went to work.

Betty played aggressively, calling almost always and often past when she should have folded. She was one of those who called “to keep you honest, young man,” which had been her words exactly, right before Randy had laid down pocket rockets and cleaned her out of the seventy-five dollars she’d stubbornly put into the pot. She hadn’t forgotten that lesson, which was smart of her, and she’d started to back off as soon as he got aggressive in his raising past the flop. Martha, for all her gruff talk, folded on everything but pairs, aces, or face cards, and Kevin, the bald man, was even more conservative. Betty, Martha, and Kevin were completely oblivious to everything but their own hands, and they either folded after the draw or went doggedly to the end because in their mind they were due to win.

And then there was Louis.

Louis was a real fish. He was clearly the big winner in his home pots, where from the depth of his strategy he apparently played zombies and coma patients, but this didn’t matter, because in Louis’s head, he was a winner. And Randy had played to that, because he didn’t like Louis. He had disliked the man even before he’d caught him curling his lip when Randy had reached back and let his hand linger on Ethan’s knee as he spoke to him. Louis was a jerk, and Randy would bet his stack that Mr. Salesman had plans to get himself a hooker with his poker winnings. He’d try a woman he didn’t have to pay for first, but he’d end up with a hooker, because nobody but the downtrodden carpet back in Ohio unfortunate enough to be Mrs. Louis was going to bed with this asshole without a paycheck.

If Randy had his way, Louis would be going back to Ohio tomorrow as pure as the driven snow and significantly poorer.

Randy’s hole cards were a 9-10 offsuit, not that this mattered. He was the big blind, so he tossed in his chips and watched Betty call, Martha fold, and Kevin, his hands shaking a little, raise. Which meant that Randy had been right: Kevin had his own rockets now.