| |
––––––––
Up until the moment he was shot, Will Lehrner had been winning big. He had worked hard for two years, playing poker at ever-increasing stakes to get into a game like this. It had been juicy, the cards coming his way for an hour or more, and the other players around the table continued to bet into him. So he couldn’t believe the bad turn of luck when the gun came out. After all, they were supposed to provide security at a game like this, and prevent guys from bringing in guns. It was meant to be rock-solid safe. A sure hand.
Will was only twenty-three, but was already showing the stoop and pallor of a long-time cardroom shark. He played in so many casinos and cardrooms, he could barely remember what city he was in on any given day. He had no other hobbies anymore, and played poker online when he wasn’t playing live. On the Internet for hours at a stretch, playing four different hands at a time, he gained experience quickly, and applied it to the cash games. But he had no girlfriend, no family, and no future but more poker. A recent interviewer had asked Will what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and Will had stared blankly at the woman.
The guy who shot Will wasn’t a bad player, but Will’s skill and run of luck had proven superior, and he’d taken the last of the man’s money just a few minutes before, with a sweet hand of three kings to beat the man’s two pair of aces and jacks. The man had got up from the table, gone to the bathroom, came back out, took out a gun and shot Will, all without saying a word.
Will had heard the crack of the report, felt something tear into his chest, then there was no sound, and blackness for a time.
Then Will heard faint music. Not the sound of a Heavenly choir, but rather an old-time tune on a rinky-dink piano. He thought he might have recognized the song, but he couldn’t come up with a name. Then he saw a redness glowing in the darkness, and moved toward it. Will got closer, and saw a sign. Saloon. The entrance had real bat-wing doors. Will pushed them open and walked inside.
There was a large open space, dimly-lit and smoky. A set of stairs led up to a second floor. Will saw a wagon-wheel chandelier overhead. People were talking in groups, and a skinny man was playing another song on the off-key piano. Will thought he might have stumbled onto the set of a Western cowboy movie, one where they’d done a good job with the realism. He looked down, and saw that his shirt was soaked with blood.
There was a bar the length of the room, with mirrors behind it, and several paintings of Rubenesque nude women. Will went to the bar and stood next to a saloon girl in a fancy red satin dress. Her hair was bright red, and her glittering black eyes were rimmed with red makeup.
She looked at him. “See something you want?”
“I’ve been hurt.”
“We’ve all been hurt.” She reached for his shirt, dipped a finger in his blood, and put it in her mouth.
“Not bad,” she said. “Play your cards right, and you could be all mine later.”
“Not yet, Desiree,” a voice called out. “He has to play first.”
The woman hissed as she bared her teeth to the speaker, and moved away. Will saw the bartender, who had spoken. He had short hair slicked back and parted in the middle, and a handlebar mustache. He was dressed in a white shirt buttoned up to the throat, a full-length bar apron, and those armbands that bartenders always wore in the movies. His face showed no expression.
Will plucked at his bloody shirt. “I need help.”
“I can’t do anything for you, stranger. Try over there.”
Will looked where the bartender was indicating, and saw four men around a table, playing cards. Will moved over and stood by the table, looking at the players. One wore a fringed buckskin coat and a wide-brimmed hat, and he wore a holster with a six-shooter. The man in the black old-style suit held a handkerchief. One man in a low, flat hat was dressed like a riverboat gambler, and the fourth looked like he’d just come in off the frontier, dressed in deerskin and carrying a huge knife in his belt. Will couldn’t focus his thoughts, but he thought a couple of the men were familiar somehow.
There were poker chips on the table, and each man had a bottle and a glass before him.
Will spread his hands. “I need help.”
The man with the wide hat looked Will up and down. “You sure enough do.”
“Can you help me?”
“We can’t even help ourselves.” At this, the other men laughed, a harsh sound with no mirth in it. “Why don’t you join the game?” The man pushed out a chair with his foot so Will could sit. He wore hand-tooled cowboy boots.
“I don’t have anything to wager.”
The men eyed each other and chuckled. The man with the hat pushed a stack of chips across to Will. “Here you go. We know you’re good for it. A real player.”
Will smiled. “Thank you. Do I know you sir?”
“Call me Bill. That there man is Doc, and there’s Missouri Jack and Jeremiah.”
Will looked at the dark-suited man. “Doc? Are you a doctor? I could use one right now.”
The dark-suited man coughed into his handkerchief before speaking. “I am a dentist, suh.” His accent was a Southern drawl.
“My apologies.”
The man called Bill spoke. “We do appreciate a gentleman at the game. I believe you know poker?”
“I do,” said Will. He looked at his chips. They were of four different colors, each with writing on them. Will picked one up, and read the word “Day.” The chip was warm. He touched another, and it was warm as well. Will studied the writing on the other colors: Week, Month, Year. He looked up, and all the players were looking at him.
“Would you care to ante suh?”
The other players had each tossed in two of the Day chips, so Will put in a like amount. The riverboat man dealt the cards, and Will tried to focus on the play.
Will noticed that the cards were stylized, nothing like the standard decks he was used to, but he could figure out the suits and values. Everything fell away, as it always did when he played. Nothing else mattered, just the riffle of the cards and the click of the chips, as hand after hand played out.
Will studied the others. It was bothering him how familiar some of them seemed. He sought the information in his memory, something that would help, would give him a clue as to who he was playing with, but it slipped away just past his reckoning.
“Your bet, suh.” The man called Doc was watching Will, who realized he had not been paying attention. He looked at his cards, and saw that he had three queens with an ace kicker, an excellent hand that should pay off well.
“Raise,” announced Will, and put in one of the month chips. It was a huge bet, big enough to either scare off a player, or make him think Will was trying to bluff. Will wanted them to bet into him. The riverboat man laid his cards face down in the middle. “Fold.” The man called Bill studied Will for a moment and then laid his cards down as well. “Fold.”
Doc was coughing into his handkerchief. He finished, and Will saw spots of blood on the material before it was put away. “I believe I shall have to raise you, suh.” Doc took three of the month chips from his stack and pushed them into the pot in the middle.
Will was about to raise again, as was his right, but he hesitated. He had got the kind of bet he wanted, but now he held back. He just wasn’t sure. His instincts were telling him to rein in his betting. He wasn’t going to fold, but he could find out what Doc’s hand was.
“Call.” Will tossed in another pair of the month chips, and laid his cards on the table face up. “Three queens.”
Doc spread his cards on the table in a fan before him. “Three kings. I win, suh.”
Will felt his cheeks grow hot. He watched Doc rake in the pot, pulling in the pile of chips and adding them to the stack in front of him. Will felt an emptiness within, and considered the chip values. He had just lost more than three months’ worth. Imagine losing a whole season of your life, he thought, on something so strange.
Will kept playing, and was completely lost in the flow of the game. He won a few small pots, and got his three months back. He won a few more. He felt a warmth, and noticed Desiree standing next to his chair.
“Why don’t you boys take a break, and I’ll have a little chat with our new friend here.”
“Not yet,” said Bill, his voice sharp. “He’s gotta play some more. He hasn’t even had a drink yet.” He pushed his bottle and a glass over to Will, and poured out a shot into the glass. “On the house.”
“Much obliged,” said Will, and drank. The liquid burned his throat and seared all the way down. It made him light-headed, and gave him a feeling of warmth. He won another pot, and then another. He was feeling good, feeling like he could do this forever.
The piano music had kept up. Will could finally put a name to a tune. Oh Susannah, that was it, at least that’s what he knew it as. He flushed with joy, intent on the game, ignoring his bloody shirt and his wound. Strangely enough, it hadn’t hurt much.
“Desiree is still waiting,” said Doc.
“We’ll play this hand out.” Bill’s voice was forceful.
“It’s not polite to keep a lady waiting.”
“She’s no lady.”
Will looked down at his hand, and saw a pair of aces and a pair of eights, backed by a nine of diamonds. Two pair, an excellent hand. He was sure to win, and then he would have a talk with Desiree, to see what charms she might offer. He raised the pot, and all the players folded but Doc, who reraised him back. Will was about to shove in all his chips in when he stopped.
Aces and eights. What was it about that combination that cried out a danger signal? Confused, he looked at his cards and then at the other players, who were watching him intently. Then he had it. His combination of pairs was called the Dead Man’s Hand, so named because Wild Bill Hickok had been holding that hand when he was shot and killed by Crooked-Nose Jack McCall in a saloon in Deadwood, in the Dakota territory. Will looked at the man sitting in the next chair, and it felt as if an electric shock ran though him. He knew Doc, too, knew he had the bloody handkerchief because of his tuberculosis. He also knew that Doc might very well be cheating, and the game itself could be rigged.
“What is your bet, suh?”
Will was thinking now, and realized the piano had stopped playing. All was silent, waiting for him to make his play. In a flash, he saw what was happening.
“I quit.”
There was a buzz around the room.
“Do you mean you fold?” This from Bill.
“No, I mean I quit. I’m out of this game.”
“Why do you want to leave? There’s cards, and good drink, and Desiree. What else is there?”
“I don’t belong here.”
“Are you sure about that? People only come here if they’re supposed to.”
Will held up a chip. “I know what these represent. And I’ve still got some left. So I can still leave. None of you will ever stop playing.”
“We like playing. So do you.”
“Not if that’s all I’ll ever do again. I need more.”
“Well, then, you better get doing it.”
Will stood up. “Thank you for the game, gentlemen, and the lesson.”
As he walked out of the saloon, Will heard the piano start up again. He walked in darkness, away from the noise and the light, and the game that never ended.
Will Lehrner woke up in a hospital room, with a doctor standing over him.
“That was a close call, son. We took a bullet out of your chest that almost did you in. Welcome back to the land of the living.”
Will decided then and there he was going to make that matter.