SIXTEEN

The tension in the room was broken, and everyone but Zimmerman and Northcutt rose from the table for a break. I poured a cup of coffee from the pot at the bar and made myself a sandwich at the buffet table. One of my other rules is that I never drink when I gamble. Not even so much as a bottle of beer or a single glass of wine. Nor do I smoke, though I will occasionally chew on a cigar.

I’d just taken the first bite of my sandwich when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Wilburn Rasco smiling at me. “That was good playing,” he said with a broad smile.

“Thank you. And that was a very generous move you made. If he’d overbet me I would have been sunk. I didn’t have the money to meet him.”

“I knew you didn’t.”

“But why did you do it?” I asked. “Not that I’m ungrateful, but I am curious.”

“For one reason, Clifton can be a real horse’s ass sometimes, and I wanted to set him back on his haunches. Besides that, Manlow Rhodes asked me to look after you up here.”

“He did?” I asked, surprised.

Rasco nodded, a broad smile on his face. “Yeah, he said you couldn’t stay out of trouble, gettin’ thrown in jail and whatnot.”

“He told you about that, did he?” I asked, and felt my face stretch into a grin in spite of myself.

“Hell, everybody knows by now. But don’t worry. To most of the decent folks in this town, getting crossways with Will Scoggins is a badge of honor.”

“You and Mr. Rhodes are friends, I take it.”

“For fifty years. There’s not a better man in this county, even if he is awful stiff-necked about what he considers sin.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“Why, just damn near everything that’s any fun,” he answered with a laugh. He shook my hand and drifted over to the bar, leaving me pondering the hand I had just won. Some time back I saw a movie in which two supposedly top-notch poker players went head-to-head. At the climax of the game one spotted the other’s tell. It was the man’s habit to eat cookies as he played. At last the hero noticed that his opponent ate his cookie in a certain fashion whenever he was bluffing. I had to laugh. To me it didn’t even make good theater because no truly competent gambler has a tell that obvious, and if you spot one that’s so blatant in a player of high reputation, then the behavior is intentional and you are being set up. Real tells are subtle and usually involve tiny mannerisms and expressions that are not even under the conscious control of the player. I wondered if the whole thing tonight with Robillard had been calculated to give me a false tell. I hoped so. Considering what I knew of his past, I’d expected better from him than I’d seen that evening.

A few minutes later the game resumed. I stayed with it until about four the next morning, then grabbed a few hours’ sleep in one of the bedrooms. The play slowed down during the day Saturday though I was able to slowly increase my stake to something over ten thousand dollars. At six that evening I excused myself and met Della for dinner in the hotel restaurant.

“Having fun?” she asked.

I smiled across the table at her. “To tell you the truth, I’m having the time of my life.”

“Winning?”

“I’ve doubled what I brought in here. How about you? How’s your weekend going?”

“I’ve been reading.”

“You mean you actually took the day off?” I asked. I was surprised that she hadn’t been to work. Since the boom began she had kept the office open on Saturdays because of the demand.

“Yes. I think it’s okay to relax a little now. We’ve made it.”

“Made what?” I asked.

“Our fortune. We are now financially secure. We wouldn’t even have to wait for the pipeline if we didn’t want to. We could sell out now for enough to live good for the rest of our lives.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

She shook her head and looked across at me quizzically. “Do you have any idea what we’re going to be worth when the leases we hold now all get drilled and into production?”

“I have no idea,” I said honestly.

“Then I think I’ll keep it to myself. If you knew, you might decide to take your half and leave me for some wild woman.”

“Della, what would you say if I told you that you’re the only wild woman I’m ever going to need?”

*   *   *

I played the rest of the evening Saturday but was unable to engage Robillard again. Howard Northcutt and I went head-on in a couple of good hands, and I won about $1,500 from Zip Zimmerman in the wee hours of the morning.

It had become the custom of late for some of the players to bring call girls into the suite, and the bedrooms were often in use. It was obvious that the security on the game was getting more lax as time went by and new players were admitted to the table. From the time the oilmen began to arrive in town there were always a few sexy women lounging around the suite, though I could rarely tell who they were with. Late that Saturday night Clifton Robillard brought up a lush-bodied brunette. As soon as we’d all had time to admire her and envy him, he took her into one of the bedrooms. I was to learn in the coming months that he consumed women at an impressive rate for a man his age.

About five that morning I excused myself from the game and left. It had been a profitable weekend, both financially and in terms of my ultimate objective. For a while I’d felt a sense of residual guilt that I was letting myself get sidetracked with the oil business. I had other people counting on me who had financed my trip to town and who had an interest in my eventual success.

I was also pleased to see the women coming to the suite; their presence fit into my plans quite nicely. The only thing left to do in the weeks ahead was to play my usual game and bide my time until the moment was right.