With its grey walls and sparse lighting, Dennis Cane’s restaurant seems like one of those dingy-on-purpose places. As a restaurant, it might serve a hip(ster) contrast to the bright flashy city. But as a poker venue, its dreariness only foretells loss.
“You sure you don’t want me to come in?” Jesse asks.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to. I just think Dennis might be thrown by someone he’s never met showing up.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”
Though reluctant, Jesse knows he has to head back to TI and wait with everyone else.
“Hey.” I was approaching the door, but I turn back when I hear Jesse’s voice. “Even if I’m not in there with you, I’m in there with you.”
“I know.”
With the invisible support of Jesse at my side, I meet Max in the lobby of Dennis’s drab restaurant. Part of me wants to have it out with him right now and show him my cards. How I know he used me. How he manipulated me. How he betrayed me. But I can’t. I have to focus on what I’m here for. To get the money.
To get Sophie back.
“We’re on track,” Max says. Then he eyes me skeptically. “You okay, kid?” He says it like he cares. Well, shit, maybe he does care. He wants me to win the game so we can get Sophie back so everything can go back to normal. A normal where we all make him money that he spends on young prostitutes.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just nervous.”
“It’s okay to be a little nervous. You’re ready for this.”
Next, Max takes my hand and leads me through the restaurant towards the back where the restrooms are. Men’s on the left, women’s on the right. In the middle is a door you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it. It appears no different from the wood paneling that runs along the hallway. Max pushes open the hidden door and leads us down a dark hallway.
At the end sits a small office home to Dennis’s accountant. Officially this accountant oversees the restaurant’s finances, but unofficially he oversees the money side of Dennis’s poker endeavors.
The accountant has our money spread out on the table. His angry sneer and continuous sighs suggest the state of our entrance fee annoys him. Most of the players showed up with a briefcase of cash. All in hundreds. Specifically a hundred stacks, with a hundred bills in each stack – a million dollars, neat and tidy.
Not only did our money initially come eight thousand dollars short, ours came in no such order. Though in 10G stacks, all the stacks vary in size because of the variety of bills jammed together: twenties, fifties, and hundreds. One large stack even contains a bunch of ten-dollar bills. And an even larger stack includes fives and ones.
“And here’s the final eight thousand,” Max says, handing the accountant the money from the last batch Jesse and I just brought.
We look like amateurs, but at the end of the day, it’s still seven figures, and Dennis’s accountant won’t keep us from playing for the extra twenty minutes it takes him to ensure the money’s all there. Max, sensing the accountant’s frustration, even offers him a thousand-dollar tip.
“For your trouble,” says Max, slipping him a wad of cash.
“Money is money. Your million adds up, without gratuity,” says the accountant, pushing the cash back to Max.
Next, the accountant walks us to the stairwell at the end of the dark hallway. He nods to a Jamaican bodyguard armed with a semi-automatic handgun. One only semi-concealed. A dead giveaway he’s Jamaican from the way he says, “good luck, man.” He assumes that Max will play in the poker tournament, not the 17-year-old chick with him.
The last time I walked down these stairs, I carried dreams of winning enough money to get Sophie out of Las Vegas and into some safe, suburban life. This time, I carry dreams of getting Sophie back. Dreams of keeping her alive.
The small room at the bottom of the stairs contains rocking chairs and leather couches. A green room for the game room. Except not green. It’s grey. Max can’t go any farther. He won’t be allowed in the poker room.
The point of no return: players only.
Before I enter the poker room, I slip into the bathroom. Although it doesn’t look dirty, it smells terrible – like fresh vomit. Putting a million dollars on the line is probably enough for someone to vomit. I sure as hell feel nauseous.
Once I close the door, I pull my lucky long sleeve t-shirt out of my purse and slip it overtop my dress. The one Sophie gave me. The shirt completely covered in replica size playing cards. My opponents will probably laugh at me when they see it, not just because of its gaudiness, but also because I’m wearing it over a Louis Vuitton dress. But I don’t care – I need to be wearing Sophie’s shirt.
While washing my hands, I watch my face in the mirror. All I see are the facial features I share with Sophie. In my nose, I see her nose. In my jaw, I see her jaw. And in my eyes, hers…
I close my eyes, try to eradicate all thoughts by focusing on my breathing. When I first made the transition from working cons with Max to working men solo, my nerves became an issue, and Max taught me to meditate as a way to cool those nerves.
When I walk out of the bathroom, Max rests a hand on my shoulder. “This is it,” he says. “Win.”
I don’t want a pep talk right now. Not from Max. Not given what I know about him now. He leans in to give me a hug.
Max has given me hundreds of fatherly hugs. But this one feels different. This one feels creepy. The mechanics of the hug are no different. I suppose it only now seems creepy because of what I know about him. One of his hands clutches my shoulder blade while the other pulls me into the embrace at the small of my back. My breasts unavoidably pressed up against his sternum.
His breath hits my scalp, and it sends a shiver down my neck.
I’m not sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do, but I know that as soon as I get Sophie back, my future won’t involve Max. It can’t. Not with what I know.
When I turned 15, I had slowly started losing interest in life as a grifter. Around that time, Max said that it was because I no longer looked like a child that he wanted to switch up our grifts and start conning johns. He knew that he was losing me, but he also knew where I came from: where my sympathies lie and where they don’t. He used my resentment towards my mother and father to keep me motivated. To keep me interested in being his protégé. To keep me working for him.
I already had this hatred towards men who buy sex and this sympathy towards women forced for one reason or another into prostitution. Damn, it all makes sense now. Slick Max tapped into these emotions and then fed them. I remember us watching this documentary on human trafficking and child prostitution. Wasn’t it Max who had turned the television to that channel? He was fueling the fire, knowing my deep-rooted daddy issues would motivate me to work hard.
Daddy issues? Who am I kidding? I have mommy and daddy issues.
While Max sputters off another motivational speech, my mind scans back through decisions he’s made and the various talks we had. Max suddenly seems smarter to me. And much more conniving. He took all my abandonment issues and steered that energy towards hating johns.
Max. Max. Max. My mind lingers on Max. It’s easier to stand here and obsess over his manipulative betrayal than face my challenge. But I have to focus on poker. I have to walk into the room.
I walk into the room.
There are already nine players standing around the fiberglass table. That damn table. I make 10. Dennis Cane will make 11. That means there will be $11 million on the table.
Initially, 12 players were going to play, but I overheard the accountant mention one dropped out. Cold feet. With a million on the line, it doesn’t surprise me one dropped out. More surprising the others stayed in.
The players all chat quietly in groups of two or three. All eyes fix on me as I approach the table.
One of the nine other rounders plays in my Thursday morning Treasure Island private celebrity game. Bradley, heir to a fish taco chain. “Look who it is,” says Bradley, seeming more surprised to see me than I am to see him. “Didn’t know you… well, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah, good to see a friendly face,” I reply.
“Absolutely!”
Bradley appears more excited than nervous. It must not have been him who puked in the bathroom a few minutes ago.
Damn, in fact he doesn’t look nervous at all. Is he hiding it? How much money does he have if he’s not sweating putting a mil on the line? Regardless of his wealth, I’m sure his father would be beyond disappointed to see his son spending a million dollars on a game.
But no one has more to gain or lose than I do. I study the players’ faces. What paths lead their lives to this point, about to drop seven figures in some seedy game of poker? My eyes stop on a middle-aged bald man. He looks white in the face. Queasy. I first suspect his jaw is chattering out of nervousness, but then I catch a glimpse of chewing gum. A queasy guy chewing gum? He’s probably trying to mask his vomit breath.
Twelve total seats at the table leaves three seats left open, two of which Dennis and I will fill. The dealer will fill the final seat. I choose my place. For a moment it looks like Bradley will come over and chat with me, but then Dennis Cane enters the room.
Everyone nods and waves. All appear to know him. Makes sense. After all, how could they get in the game if they didn’t know him? But no one says anything. Everyone seems too nervous to make small talk.
Dennis breaks the silence, “How’s everyone doing?”
He does not specifically direct the question at any one person, so everyone responds with mere nods, grunts, and waves.
I find myself looking for the tiny earpiece that I know is tucked into one of his ears. But I can’t see it.
The door creaks open again, and all eyes turn to see Dennis’s dealer. Her hair looks less grey than last year. Either she reversed the aging process or she colored it. As she sits down at the head of the table, I can’t help wonder whether or not she knows the game is fixed. Does she know about the cameras and the second lady in the backroom? And if she does know, does she lose any sleep over it? She catches me staring at her, and our eyes meet. Her soul feels cold and her eyes look tired – but I doubt it’s ripping off naïve gamblers that makes her lose sleep. She has the jaded look of a Vegas veteran. Someone who’s seen a lot of bad shit, some of which probably led her to a lowdown job like ripping off naïve gamblers.
Dennis sits down. A sign the game will commence. I hope I know what I’m doing.
***
A three of hearts and an eight of diamonds. My pocket cards in the first hand. I fold when the bet comes to me on the first round of betting. Seconds later, the first three common cards yield a three and an eight, which means I would’ve flopped a two pair. Had I not already folded. But I can’t rattle. The move was folding.
As I wait for the hand to play out, I recall my first few weeks playing poker. Folding a hand like this would mess up my whole game. In the next hand, regardless of the cards I was dealt, I would stay in. Then I’d lose money on that hand, and drop out of the next even if the dealer dealt me a low pocket pair. I was an amateur then, letting emotions dictate my moves. I’ve come a long way.
Even if I have improved since the last time I played here, it might seem like a moronic idea to play in an eleven-million-dollar, winner-takes-all, fixed poker tournament. I must seem a bona fide fool.
Dennis Cane has an advantage over us because he knows what everyone holds. But because I know that he knows what everyone holds, other than Dennis, I maintain the next biggest advantage in the room. I’m not playing against Dennis. I’m playing against the other nine players.
I mostly only play hands when Dennis folds. And based on when he folds, I can usually tell if specifically my hand dissuades him from playing. If so, then I know I’ve got the table’s best cards. Based on when Dennis drops out of a hand, I can get a sense of who’s bluffing and who’s really holding cards.
I don’t even try to beat Dennis at this point. My goal is to beat every other player. I won’t take on Dennis until we are the last two players left.
***
There are always a couple risky players in any game and this one proves no exception. Within the first twenty minutes, on three different occasions, players go all in before we’ve even spied the flop. One of these results in a fold, but on the other two instances, a player sees the bold better. So barely twenty minutes have gone by before 11 players drop to 9. On one of these hands, I had pocket queens, and the two ladies sang for me to call the bet. Pleading that this is a great chance to double my chip count at the start. But I just can’t take risks like that. I have to play slow. And I have to play tactically.
I become the focus of oh’s and ah’s when I draw aces and eights in an early hand.
The two pair wins me a small pot.
Dennis mutters, “You’re either set or screwed. That’s the dead man’s hand.”
The moniker “dead man’s hand” stems all the way back to “Wild Bill” Hickok. A gambler shot him to death mid-hand while playing poker in Deadwood. The cards Wild Bill was holding? A two pair: aces and eights.
Bradley chimes in, “I always say if you draw aces and eights and win, it’s a good omen. But if you draw aces and eights and lose the hand, it’s a bad omen.”
When I shrug Bradley off, Dennis laughs. “What, you don’t believe in luck, girlie?”
Girlie. He called me that last time I played in his game.
“I do believe in luck. I believe it was pure luck that gave me the hand. I just don’t believe it means anything.”
“When you get a few years older, I bet you’ll start seeing things a little different,” says Dennis.
The guy who rigs the whole game preaching to a grifter about luck and omens. Just the other day, I was struggling to come up with an example while explaining irony to Sophie.
When a middle-aged man with a cane wins the next hand, Bradley claps his hands together a few times condescendingly. “It’s about time, Gusto.”
Gusto!? I didn’t even recognize him. How would I? I’ve never seen or met him before. But Gus “Gusto” Hathers is a living poker legend in Vegas. Supposedly, he was a smalltime weatherman in Chicago. But a drunk driver ran a red light and hit his car, leaving him disfigured and handicapped, and ending his career as a weatherman. Gusto took the settlement money and moved to Vegas. He quadrupled his cash in a year and has been a pro card player ever since.
Now that I look closer, I notice a few scars scattered across his face and neck.
“Some of us are playing with our own money,” responds Gusto.
“Low blow,” says Bradley with a smile, not actually taking offense.
As the dealer delivers the next hand, I watch Gusto. Living, breathing proof of a pipedream come true.
Every day, people arrive in Vegas with a carful of possessions hoping to make it as a professional rounder. You hear about the one guy who makes it, like Gusto, but not the 34-year-old librarian who packs up his Subaru Outback and heads back to Colorado after losing his entire $26,000 bankroll in eight days.
For every Gusto, there are thousands of failures.
Forcing my eyes away from Gusto, I scrutinize the other players as they look at their fresh pocket cards.
An hour goes by. Two more players gone, one of them the gum chewing puker. And then there were seven. Dennis’s pile of chips has grown to about three million dollars. I’ve only got about a million and a half.
But maybe my stack is about to grow. It’s me, Dennis, and Bradley left in this hand. I’ve got three nines. I have no idea what Dennis has, but Bradley bets big. Big enough to set off my bluff-radar.
With already over a hundred grand in the pot, Bradley bets sixty thousand dollars. Dennis calls the bet and puts in sixty. Time to make a move: I raise it to eighty thousand. Now it’s back to Bradley. He can either fold, put in another twenty thousand to see my raise, or raise it again himself. He raises it another twenty thousand – now it’s up to $100,000 for this round.
Dennis discards his hand into the middle as he sits back in his chair. “I’m out.”
His fold tells me everything. Dennis just called Bradley’s sixty grand, but after he saw I was willing to play the hand and even re-raise Bradley, Dennis folded when it got back to him. Dennis was willing to play with Bradley but not willing to play with me. Which tells me that I have better cards than Bradley. Same as Sophie’s algebra: If a>b and b>c, then a>c.
Now Bradley and I remain the last two left in the hand. I can fold, see Bradley’s twenty thousand dollar raise, or I can re-raise him.
I put Bradley all in. He’s only got nine hundred thousand left. He thinks about it for a while, then pushes his chips towards the middle. I show him my triple nines, and he curses. He doesn’t even show me his cards. Just hops up. “Goddammit, Piper. You little…”
“Sorry, Bradley. A girl’s got to eat.” Bradley picks up his vest, appearing ready to leave. “You’ll stick around and cheer for me, won’t you?”
He hesitates, eyeing the remaining players. Visibly on the fence as to whether he’ll stick around to watch the remainder of the tournament.
“Sure. Guess I can’t be that sore a loser.”
I exhale a gulp of air, and with it a lump of tension from my chest. It’s essential to my plan that he sticks around. And I don’t mean for moral support.
“You need to hire a mover?” A few players chuckle at Dennis’s joke. I realize the rest of the table is waiting for me to collect my winnings. The most chips I’ve ever raked towards me. Over two million dollars in chips. A million of it was chips I put in, but that’s still a million-dollar-margin for one hand. Now we’re down to six players, and I’ve got nearly as many chips in my pile as Dennis.
When I glance over at Bradley, I can’t help but feel a pang of remorse. I never would have put him all in if I didn’t have an edge. If I didn’t know Dennis could see our cards, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to re-raise Bradley the way I did. But Dennis is the one cheating. I’m just using his cheating to my advantage.
And so I continue playing the same way. Taking on the other players whenever I get a sense from Dennis that I hold winning cards. Otherwise, I play it safe, fold often, and at all cost, avoid a betting duel with Dennis Cane.
***
My training as a con artist might as well have been my training as a poker player. “Con” is short for “confidence game” or “confidence trick.” The term comes from the idea that you gain someone’s confidence in order to take advantage of them.
Same as poker. You win some hands with good cards, then you gain your opponent’s confidence that you bet or act a certain way when you’re holding good cards. Once you have their confidence, you can take them.
Poker players have what are called tells. Subconscious behaviors. Visible subconscious behaviors. For instance, many people put a hand near their face when they’re bluffing. It could be a knuckle under their chin or a fingertip on their eyebrow. I remember the first tell I ever noticed was in a casino game when I was 15. It was late at night in the Wynn. This Indian man had been buying hands all night. Then I caught his tell. He tended to massage his palm with that same hand’s thumb whenever he was bluffing. The next time he tried to bluff, I took him for half his chips.
Recognizing opponents’ tells can help a decent player become good. A good player becomes great when she uses that process of identification against her opponents.
A nine of diamonds on the river gives me the straight flush I was chasing, landing me my best hand of the night. The old Asian man sitting on the other side of the table is the only other one left in this hand. There’s about four hundred thousand in the pot. I have the cards. I don’t need to bluff. But, I want this guy to suspect I’m bluffing so that he stays in the hand. To milk him for as much as possible.
The bet is to me.
“Thirty thousand,” I say as I push the chips towards the middle.
Then I put a hand under my chin and scratch the side of my face. He bites. He thinks I’m bluffing.
“I don’t think you hit it. All in,” he says.
It’s $250,000 more than what I just bet. I see his re-raise immediately, flipping over my straight flush.
He slams his fist on the table when he sees my cards top his.
What I just did would compare to a short con had I improvised on the spot and put a hand on my face to suggest I was bluffing. But the move better compares to a long con. Earlier in the night, I had nothing on a small pot. I put in $50,000, and then scratched my face in a subtle motion that only observant players would notice. Another player raised me to half a million, and I immediately folded, a sure confession of my bluff. I gave them confidence that when I scratched my face I was bluffing. Long con.
I notice the Scandinavian lady tends to bet quickly when she’s bluffing and slowly when she has the cards, a pattern that helps me eliminate her an hour after I send the Asian man home. Max gives me a hard time for spending so much time playing online poker, but playing online gave me an excellent poker education. When playing in person, I relied on watching people’s faces and body language to help figure out the cards they were holding. But online, you can’t see the person. You can’t hear their voice or watch their hands move chips. You have to observe their betting and recognize patterns in how they play. Had I not spent nearly a thousand hours playing online poker, I wouldn’t have picked up on the subtle difference in the time it took the Scandinavian lady to bet.
The dealer deals hand after hand, each hour passing faster than the one before it. Many a dilemma could dominate my mind. But to observe everything inside the game, I must clear my mind of everything outside of the game. If I were caught up wondering what would happen between Jesse and me after I get Sophie back from the mob and then break ties with Max, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the Scandinavian lady’s timing patterns.
***
About halfway through the game, Gusto ends up in a one-on-one betting duel with Dennis. I suspect from Gusto’s face that he holds a great hand. But I also know Dennis wouldn’t have stayed in if he didn’t know that he had the superior cards.
It pains me to watch Gusto, this poker legend, deliberate the hand and eventually put everything on the line.
“Okay, Cane, I’ll see you.” Gusto pushes his chips towards the center, matching Dennis’s all-in bet.
“You first,” says Dennis.
Gusto flips over his cards. His pocket hearts grant him a flush.
Dennis flips over his cards. His four sixes trump the flush.
Gusto slams his fist down in frustration. I wonder what percent of Gusto’s bank account he just lost.
As Dennis pulls all the chips towards him, Gusto stands up and walks out of the room. Doesn’t appear he plans to stay and watch.
***
Down to three.
After four total hours of poker, it’s only me, Dennis, and a twenty-something black man clinging to life with only forty thousand in chips. I don’t care if you’re Doyle Brunson. If you drop down to forty thousand in chips, you ain’t coming back.
Twenty minutes later, he goes out, and that leaves Dennis and me. Of the $11 million on the table, Dennis has $6.6 and I have $4.4. I’d prefer we were even, but this is close.
Until this point in the game, I haven’t really played against Dennis Cane. I’ve been using him to survive. And to win hands. Now, no one else remains. I have to face him head on.
I know I said I’d beat Dennis with one hand, but I can’t do that. Well, I will beat him in one hand, but not until we’re evened up. It’s impossible for one player to beat another player in one hand of poker unless she has at least as many chips as her opponent. I can’t put Dennis all in until I can match his chip count. Right now, he’s got about $6.6 million, and I have $4.4.
Sweat forms on my brow, my armpits, and every other little nook that tends to perspire while under times of duress. I was confident in the process up to this point: Use Dennis’s cheating to beat everyone else. But now I’ll have to employ my next set of strategies, and some real nerves hit me. Eleven million dollars worth to be exact.
“And then there were two,” Dennis says.
He smiles at me, but I refuse to grant him a friendly end to this epic (and corrupt) game of cards. Besides, he’s probably smiling just to loosen me up. Loosen me up so my guard’s down.
“Soon to be one,” I say.
Bradley nods at me as if to say, “You can do it, girl.” Though Dennis doesn’t allow spectators to sit in the room, once a player gets eliminated, he or she is welcome to stay to see how the game shakes out. Six of the nine players who already lost have stuck around. They all look too bitter and defeated to enjoy watching. Curiosity over who wins the tournament is the only incentive keeping them around. Except Bradley, who seems to be rooting for me.
The dealer slides me my first card. Then deals Dennis his first card. As my second card slides towards me, I quickly slip it directly on top of my first card. It’s not something I’d been doing up to this point, but I try to play it off like there’s no rhyme or reason as to why I suddenly do it now. My nonchalance aside, I can’t help but notice a knowing twitch in Dennis’s gaze when he sees me do this.
I pick up the two cards and pull them up towards my face. Only then do I slide them off one another. I have a queen of spades and a four of diamonds. When I put them back down on the table, they again sit directly on top of one another. This way, the camera that’s built into the table will only be seeing my bottom card, which I (and Dennis) now know is a queen of spades.
If the table were clear glass, it would be easy to get a glimpse of my second card before I slid it directly on top of my first card. But because the table is a murky green fiberglass, it takes a moment to locate and zoom in on the card, and it’s still fairly difficult to see what the cards are. By the time the lady in the back room locates and zooms, to her, it will appear as if I only received one card.
The bet is to me. I put in a hundred thousand dollars.
“A hundred,” I say.
Dennis calls me. Based on the speed and confidence of his call, I suspect he’s holding pocket aces or pocket kings.
After he puts in his hundred thousand, the two of us make eye contact. I can see him suffering on the other side of the table. He looks deep into my eyes, but not to figure out my top card. He’s curious of a greater unknown. Curious if I know something. If I know about his camera hidden in this fiberglass table. Curious if I know that the whole game is rigged.
The pot’s already over two hundred thousand dollars when the flop lands. A king of hearts, ten of spades, and a five of diamonds. If I was right about Dennis, and he is holding pocket kings, then that means he’s got three of a kind. Meanwhile, I’m on a straight draw. With the queen in my hand, and the king/ten that are on the table, I need a jack and then either a nine or an ace to complete a straight. And Dennis knows I have that queen, so he knows I’m on a straight draw. What he doesn’t know is that the other card I’m holding is a four. For all he knows, it could be that jack, or an ace, or a nine.
My bet. I put in $1,000,000. I can see Dennis’s curiosity shift from whether or not I have knowledge of the cameras to what my second card is. It amuses me to watch him play when he doesn’t know what I hold. Instead of just waiting for his deception to play out, Dennis Cane now experiences what everyone else experiences at his table. Actual emotions. Fear. Excitement.
After a minute’s contemplation, Dennis sees my $1 million, bringing the pot to $2.4 million.
The dealer gives us the turn. It’s a six of clubs. Shit. I needed a jack, ace, or nine. A six does nothing for me. And Dennis knows this. He settles back into his seat as he awaits my play.
“Bet’s to you,” the dealer reminds me.
“I check.”
By checking, or betting nothing, I acknowledge that I’m on a straight draw. The move signals that the six didn’t help me, but that I hope the river card will.
“Check,” says Dennis.
He could have bet heavily into me and taken the pot, but he knows I won’t stick around for the next card if he does. I sense from him that he wants to end this as quickly as possible. My change in behavior (putting one card atop the other) has him flustered.
Terrified. I just invested a million dollars in this hand. If I don’t get a jack, an ace, or a nine, I’m going to have to try to escape the hand without losing anymore than a million. Anger brews in my gut. Maybe I played too aggressively.
My lower lip trembles just a bit as I watch the dealer’s deft motion. Her sleeve catches the table as she flips over the card. It’s like slow motion. I can see Bradley leaning forward, trying to glimpse around the dealer’s elbow.
“Nine of diamonds,” announces the dealer at the very second I myself see the river card.
Hell yeah! The break I needed. I don’t wait five seconds before I motion to all my chips. I’m all in. I don’t have a straight, but Dennis doesn’t know this. Sure, he’s skeptical I’m bluffing, but is he willing to risk another three and half million to find out?
No. He’s not.
He mucks it, angrily tossing down his cards. His folding means I get the $2.4 million pot. Now, I’m at $5.6 million, and Dennis is at $5.4 million. I have the slight edge, but we’re basically even.
And now I will beat Dennis Cane. In. One. Hand.
Just before the dealer distributes the next hand, Dennis throws his arms up in the air. “Wait,” he says.
I look at him. He eyes me back. I’m curious what he’ll say. He can’t accuse me of being suspicious that he’s cheating. What can he say?
“I need to use the restroom.”
I know he’s not going to the bathroom. I know that little shit’s going into the other room to talk to the lady behind the camera. He’s going to tell her what I’m doing. That I’m keeping the cards together in a pair. He’s going to tell her that she no longer has a long window to sneak a peek at my cards. She’s got to catch the second card before I put it overtop my first card. And if she doesn’t catch it, then she’s got to rewind the footage and play it in slow motion.
While Dennis is gone, Bradley takes the opportunity to talk to me. “Girl, whether you win or lose at this point, you’ll have a story to tell next Thursday.”
Bradley thinks this is a story: the card game. He doesn’t know about a Las Vegas crime syndicate kidnapping my sister or how my friends and I pulled together a million dollars in a 36-hour grift bender.
“I’m hoping it has a happy ending,” I reply.
When Dennis returns, he does an awful job of hiding his renewed confidence. “Alright, let’s finish this up,” he says like it’s a friendly game of shuffleboard. He must have a new plan. Dennis expects me to repeat my process.
But when the first card comes towards me, I clamp my forearm down on top of the card at the exact moment it comes towards me. My sleeve is covered in pictures of playing cards. That bitch in the back won’t be able to tell the real card from the cards on my sleeve. When the dealer passes me my second card, I repeat the same action with my other arm.
It looks like I’m just leaning forward on the table, with my weight on my forearms. The way people sometimes sit to alleviate pressure from their ass after they’ve been sitting a while. But I’m not alleviating pressure from my ass. I’m leaning forward so that my forearms are directly on top of the two cards.
My behavior baffles the other players who have stuck around to see who will win. Whispers fill the room.
Dennis Cane stares at me. Any doubts that I knew about the camera have all been erased.
He knows I know. He knows it wasn’t a coincidence that I suddenly started putting the two cards atop one another once it was down to the two of us. And he knows it’s not a coincidence I’m wearing a long sleeve t-shirt covered in playing cards drawn to scale.
I wish I could see the look on the lady’s face in the other room. To her, through the camera, it must like the dealer spilled the cards on the table. Given enough hands, she could probably start differentiating between the real cards and those on my sleeves, but that won’t matter. Dennis can’t get up in the middle of a hand (his rules not mine), and his telling her what I’m doing after this hand won’t make a difference. Why? Because this is the last hand.
An eerie silence fills the room. The eliminated players all wondering what the hell I’m doing. The dealer actually scratches her head. And Dennis Cane takes a deep breath.
“The bet’s to you,” the dealer says to Dennis.
Dennis, flustered, mutters, “Check.”
Now the bet’s to me.
“You’re a better player than me,” I say.
“What?”
“You’re a better player than me. Right now, we’re basically even on chips, but I think you can see my cards better than I can see yours. And if you’re a better player than me, then I have less than a fifty percent chance of beating you. I’d have just as good a chance beating you in a coin flip. Maybe I’d be better off to play you blind.”
Sweat forms on Dennis’s head. He fidgets like a guilty suspect in a police interrogation. I know I’m getting to him. But I also I know I have to play this just right.
“Piper…” Among the spectators, Bradley speaks up first.
The dealer looks over at Bradley. “You’re not allowed to speak to either player while the game is in session.”
The dealer looks to me. “It’s your bet,” she says.
“I’m all in, Dennis.”
Laughter from several of the people watching. They remain in total disbelief that I have entered the tournament, gotten this far, and am willing to go all in before seeing my cards.
Bradley can’t resist chiming in again. “Piper, come on, girl. What are you –”
“Sir, one more time, and you’ll be excused from the game,” says the dealer.
“I’m all in,” I repeat. “Bet’s to you, Dennis.”
Dennis takes another peek at his cards. He glances at our respective chips. I have a few thousand more than him, so he’ll have to go all in to see me.
I haven’t seen my own two cards, and it’s hard to get a read on Dennis’s two cards because his emotions are dominated by my behavior, not by the cards he’s holding. We haven’t seen the flop, turn, or river. So five cards still haven’t been played yet. All in all there will be nine cards on the table, and I’m putting everything on the line based on seeing none of them. What are my chances of winning? Fifty percent. So it might seem like I’m putting everything on a 50/50 bet. It might seem like I’m risking getting my sister Sophie back on the flip of a coin. Or the spin of a roulette wheel.
But I’m not.
While Dennis ponders his next move, Bradley and I make eye contact.
“Don’t look at me like that Bradley,” I say.
I’m allowed to talk. Bradley’s just not allowed to say anything back to me.
“I can beat him,” I continue. “I’m going to win this money, get up, and walk out of here without another word.”
Dennis looks up from his cards. Bradley has no idea, but I just played my real hand. My words were for Dennis. I just told him that if I win, he’s paying for my silence. But if I lose, he risks my making a scene. My telling everyone watching the game about the cameras.
I couldn’t possibly have made this play if six of the players hadn’t stuck around to watch. If I sat here alone, I’d worry Dennis would have me killed and buried out in the middle of the desert by his henchmen – it’d be the equivalent of Rob’s suggestion of trying to blackmail Dennis. But this differs from blackmailing him with a letter or a phone call. There are six other people here watching the game come to a finale. It gives the blackmail a public element.
He nervously chews on his lip, contemplating his move.
Dennis Cane deceives like a con artist. He only succeeds when he has the confidence of his marks. If word gets out that he rigs the games, then no one will play anymore. The poker community is huge. Global. But the network of people who play poker for millions is tiny. Only a couple hundred people in the world play poker for millions of dollars. Six of them sit right here. If they believed that Dennis rigs his games, word would spread like VD in a whorehouse, and no rounder would set foot in his restaurant again. And all those he’d ever conned would come for revenge.
Dennis looks down at his cards, then pushes his chips towards the middle. The dealer then flips over our five communal cards on the table. An eight of spades, six of hearts, jack of diamonds, two of clubs, and lastly an ace of hearts.
Dennis looks to me. “Go ahead.” He’s telling me to reveal my cards first.
I flip over my cards: a three of spades and a jack of hearts, which gives me two jacks, a mediocre hand at best. But Dennis curses aloud.
“Damn it!” he screams. “Screw your mind games, girlie!”
He doesn’t even flip over his cards. And because he doesn’t flip his cards over, I know he actually beat me.
“Fuck your fucking mind games!” I know he’s acting. He overplays it, but everyone in the room buys his anger. Believes that he lost. Believes that his hand – that they never saw – was worse than my pair of jacks.
“What’d you have?” Bradley asks Dennis.
But Dennis doesn’t offer to show the cards. The rules don’t require him to show his cards if he loses the hand. If I’d actually beaten him, he probably would have shown us his exact actual losing hand. But if he flipped over the cards, everyone would see that he actually won. And this is a hand he couldn’t win if he did win. Not unless he wants me telling everyone about the cameras in the table.
Dennis stands up from the table and extends his hand. I stand up and shake it. He looks at me with wide eyes. Eyes of fury.
The first time I played Dennis I lost to him with three jacks, and now I’ve beaten him with two jacks.
The Jamaican security guard enters the room. “Get her the goddam money,” Dennis seethes.
When Dennis says “her,” the Jamaican sees him pointing to me. He stares at me with a puzzled look. Now realizing he wished the wrong person luck.
He nods to Dennis, then leaves the room.
Bradley comes over and gives me a hug. Picking me up and twirling me around in a circle – a maneuver reserved for boyfriends or husbands unless you’ve just won eleven million dollars.
“Girl, you just won! You won! How about a goddam reaction?”
“I… I know.” It’s all I can say.
“You’re in shock,” he says with a smile.
Partly correct. I am in shock. But I’m also contemplating everything. I still have to get out of here with the money. Still have to get Sophie back.
The Jamaican brings Dennis a big green duffel bag, which he hands to me.
“Go ahead,” Dennis says. “Open it.”
I open it up. Sure enough, cash fills the bag. I don’t have the time to count it, but it looks about eleven times the amount I brought.
Then Dennis extends his hand a second time. “Congratulations, kid.” His look doesn’t say congratulations though. His look says, “You’re dead, you stupid kid.”
Whatever.
Then Dennis rests a hand on my shoulder.
“You’ve got a long life ahead of you,” he says. “Spend it wisely.”
A threat? Most definitely.
The other six players stare at me with wonder and jealousy. Only Bradley appears happy for me. Why should the others? Each of them lost a million dollars today, and I hold it all in a duffel bag.
Dennis looks at me. “Do you need help getting home safely?” He motions to his Jamaican bodyguard as he says it.
“No, that’s okay.” I wouldn’t trust them anyway. That’s the fastest way for me to end up buried between two cacti in the middle of the Mojave. Besides, we already planned a way to get the money safely back to TI. I pull out my phone and text Max.
***
“See, I knew you’d win! I knew it!”
Max already has the armored car waiting at the curb when I walk out of the restaurant. The armored car and the two guards that come with it cost $2,500. That seems like a pricey amount just to move the money four football fields down The Strip, but we’re not about to risk walking eleven million dollars back to our hotel. Not only because of the vagabonds and thieves lurking among the tourists outside, but also out of fear that Dennis Cane’s henchmen would follow me and attempt to reverse their boss’s misfortune.
When I climb in the truck, Max throws himself on me in a celebratory hug.
“You did it! You did it, Piper,” Max says.
“Yup,” is all I can muster. I want to cheer. I want to celebrate. But I know I can’t. Not until we actually have Sophie back. This fear that something will go wrong still hovers in the back of my mind.
Yet, while the armored car sits in traffic, my ego can’t help relish in the satisfaction of outwitting Dennis Cane.
I bet Dennis suspects he’s been played by a long con. Dennis doesn’t let just anyone play in his million-dollar entry game. He’s much more liberal about letting newcomers play in his daily game. Thus Dennis probably thinks the game I played nearly a year and a half ago was just to gain his confidence, so that he’d let me play in the big game, all so I could hustle him for eight figures.
That’s not how it went down, but I still wonder if that’s what Dennis believes.
I snap out of my thought process, realizing Max said something to me.
“What?”
“I’m proud of you, kid.”
Whatever. Fuck you, Max.