Dead Man's Hand Read online

  ~ Arnold ~

  “Texas Hold’em is a variation of seven-card stud,” announced Penstemon, standing beside the dealer’s chair where sat a young lady who would have been lovely except that she was purple. Arnold kept finding his gaze drawn to her. Distracting, and not in a good way. He gave his head a small shake and returned his attention to Penstemon.

  “Each player gets two cards face down in the hole, followed by a round of betting. The remaining five cards are shared, and are dealt face up three, one, and one, with a round of betting after each deal.”

  Mutterings arose around the table and echoed in the large ballroom that had already been set up for the tournament. For the moment they were alone, watched by empty stands of bleachers.

  Multitudinous lights and strange machines surrounded the tournament table. The five players and the dealer were seated around it, an oval covered in blue felt with the Black Queen’s logo in the middle. Around the edge of the table was a strip that glowed with white light, and padded railings in which Penstemon had said tiny cameras were placed to peek at the player’s cards as they looked at them. Some of the big machines were cameras, too, according to Penstemon.

  “That makes chance a bigger factor in the game,” Arnold said. “Puts a lot of weight on those two hole cards.”

  “Yes,” Penstemon said, “and there’s also the possibility of several different hands making with the same five board cards.”

  “Tell you what,” said Weare in a chipper voice, peering through a pair of spectacles at the list of poker hand precedence that Penstemon had provided him, “why don’t we just play piquet instead?”

  No one laughed. Runyon, who had consumed at least half a dozen drinks at lunch, leaned red-faced across the table and bellowed at Weare.

  “Texas Hold’em is the best goddamn card game ever invented!”

  Weare gave him a pitying look. “Yes, yes, dear boy, we all know how you feel about it.”

  “Let’s go ahead and deal a few hands,” said Penstemon. “You’ll get a better feel for it by playing than by talking.”

  “What’s the ante?” asked Hickok.

  “No ante at first. There are always two blind bets, and they rotate with the dealer button.” Penstemon picked up a white disc marked “DEALER” and set it before Runyon. “Dealer’s left is the small blind, starting at fifty. Player to small blind’s left is the big blind, starting at a hundred. So fifty from you, Mr. Hickok, and a hundred from Mr. Weare.”

  Hickok pushed a chip across the line on the felt, and Weare tossed two into the center of the table. “Behind before I begin,” Weare said, laughing.

  “It all evens out,” said Penstemon. “Go ahead, Amber.”

  The dealer reached for the cards that were spread face-up in an arc before her, and expertly lifted one end of the row to flip them face down. She then messed them about with her hands and gathered them up, proceeding to shuffle, cut the deck onto a blank card, and deal.

  Arnold watched the other players before looking at his own hole cards. Weare on his right picked up his cards and took no care about hiding them; Arnold glimpsed a heart, probably an eight or nine. Beyond Weare at one short end of the table sat Hickok, who also picked up his cards and held them.

  “You don’t do it like that,” said Runyon crossly from the seat opposite to Hickok’s. “You look at ‘em like this, then put ‘em down again.”

  He demonstrated, pulling his two cards toward him onto the white light panel and lifting just the corners, showing them to the small black rectangle that was the camera. He then let the cards drop to the table. To Arnold’s surprise, he was unable to read whether Runyon liked the cards or not. The man might be a fool, but apparently he could play poker.

  Sebastian, the riverboat gambler, was seated on Arnold’s left. He hadn’t said much, and seemed to wear a slight, perpetual frown of confusion. He now lifted the corner of his cards as Runyon had done, set them down again, and blinked once.

  Arnold looked at his hand. Seven and jack of clubs. Hard to tell if it was a good hand. He was unused to evaluating only two cards. In normal seven-card stud you got three before the first round of betting.

  “All right, so now you bet on those cards,” said Penstemon, “starting with the player to the left of the big blind. You either match the blind, raise, or fold.”

  Arnold glanced at Weare, then at Hickok. His inclination was to fold out of a game he didn’t understand and suspected he wouldn’t like, but he called the bet instead. He had to play this game, so he’d better get a grasp on it now, while there was no real cost.

  He glanced at Penstemon as the others put in their chips. What he really wanted was to figure out how to muscle in on Penstemon’s operation. Proceeds from this ghoulish tournament aside, the Black Queen must make a tidy profit. It would be a good starting point.

  Sebastian and Runyon had called the bet. This was practice, people wouldn’t be playing as cautiously as they would in a real game. The dealer looked at Hickok.

  “Fifty to call,” she said.

  Hickok raised an eyebrow, then pushed another chip across the line. The dealer turned her blue eyes on Weare.

  “You have the option to raise,” she said.

  “Do I? Well, thank you, my dear, but I think I’ll decline.”

  She thumped the table and swept the chips into a pile, then shoved the top card from the deck beneath it, dealt three cards face down before her, and flipped them over. Eight of hearts, ten of clubs, ace of spades.

  “This is the flop,” said Penstemon. “Now you bet again, starting with dealer’s left. Minimum bet is a hundred.”

  The ten gave Arnold three clubs, so he needed two more for a flush. Could even be a straight flush, seven through the jack, though it was unlikely that the next two cards would be eight and nine clubs. Any nine would give him a straight, though, as would any queen and king. Not a bad hand.

  Hickok looked at his cards, then put two chips on the felt. Weare did likewise, and Arnold called the bet. Sebastian frowned at the board for a moment, then called as well.

  “I’m all in,” said Runyon, and pushed his entire stack of chips across the line.

  The others protested. “He can’t do that, can he?” demanded Weare.

  “Yes, he can,” Penstemon said. “There’s no limit on the bets.”

  “So we have to risk everything we have in order to call him?” asked Sebastian.

  “At this point, yes. It’s a little unusual for someone to go all in on the first hand,” he added, glancing at Runyon.

  Runyon’s face gave away nothing. Arnold revised his opinion of the fellow from complete idiot to self-indulgent fool. Apparently he could keep himself together at the poker table, at least for a short while.

  “I’ll call,” said Hickok, pushing his own stack across.

  Weare had his cards in one hand and the list of poker hands in the other, and looked back and forth between them and the board. “I believe I’ll pass,” he said.

  “So you fold your cards,” said Penstemon. “Push them across the line.”

  Weare put down the list and then ceremoniously placed his cards across the line. The dealer swept them aside.

  Arnold looked at Runyon again. Probably he had paired the ace. If Arnold made either the straight or the flush, he’d beat the aces.

  “I’ll call.”

  He moved his own chips across the line. Sebastian pushed his cards over the line, shaking his head.

  “Three players,” said the dealer, adding Sebastian’s discards to Weare’s. “Turn ‘em up.”

  Arnold glanced at Penstemon, who nodded. “You’ve all bet all you can, so we show the hands at this point.”

  Hickok turned over his cards, a ten and a six, giving him a pair of tens. The dealer drew them toward the cards on the board, arranging them together pointing toward Hickok. Arnold showed his two clubs, and Runyon turned over the ace and king of hearts.

  Arnold watched Runyon’s face intently. Now that the cards wer
e up, he smirked like a gloating kid. His pair of aces was winning for the moment.

  The dealer arranged their hands by the board as well, then pushed another card under the first round of bets and turned up the ace of clubs. Hickok made an unhappy sound. Three aces would beat two pair, so Hickok could only win if a third ten came up to give him a full house.

  “That’s the turn card,” said Penstemon. “Now comes the river.”

  “We used to call it fourth street and fifth street,” Arnold said.

  Penstemon nodded. “Those are still used, too.”

  The dealer burned another card and turned up the final card. Nine of clubs.

  Arnold kept his face still, though a rush of victory buzzed through his veins. The dealer put down the deck and pushed the three clubs on the board toward Arnold’s hand.

  “Flush,” she said.

  “Fuck!” yelled Runyon.

  Weare tilted his head and looked at Penstemon. “Your tournament won’t last long at this rate,” he said as the dealer pushed Runyon’s and Hickok’s chips to Arnold.

  “As I said, all-ins on the first hand are unusual. I’m glad it was demonstrated here. You should all remember to play cautiously. Let’s redistribute the chips, since we’re here for practice. Well played, Mr. Rothstein,” he added, glancing at Arnold.

  Arnold acknowledged the compliment with a nod, and watched in silence as the dealer returned their stacks to Hickok and Runyon. He knew he could easily have lost the hand, and it was unlikely he’d take such a risk during the actual tournament. Too much was at stake.

  He had no intention of losing, and every intention of keeping this body. The instincts of a lifetime were back full force, and he intended to gain control not only of Penstemon’s operation, but of all Atlantic City. There were a dozen or more big hotels here, all with casinos. Too sweet a setup to resist. He wanted to own it, and he would.

  The tournament was almost a minor distraction, in comparison. There was just one point about it—he needed to win it in order to keep his body.

  Unless he could get some kind of leverage on Penstemon and force him to perform whatever mumbo-jumbo it would take to make his body permanent. He’d have to find Mishka, get her alone, find out what she knew about Penstemon.

  He leaned back and gazed at their host while the dealer shuffled the cards again. Penstemon was the most powerful warlock in the country, the tailor had said. Exactly what kind of power did he mean? Mystic powers, or was he influential as well? Arnold had to assume both. The magic had to be pretty good to bring five guys back from the dead.

  Arnold wondered if magic was something one could acquire. He’d have to look into it.

  ~ Ned ~

  “Donny, it’s Ned. No, I’m not in jail, I’m in Atlantic City. No shit.”

  Ned shifted in the armchair and looked out the window of his suite at the tall hotel shadows slanting down onto the shore in the late afternoon light. After playing cards all afternoon, they were taking a break before dinner and the start of the tournament.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it later, but listen, I need a favor. Tom White’s idiot receptionist won’t put me through to him. Keeps hanging up on me. Will you call Tom, tell him I’m alive and I want to talk to him?”

  There was a short silence over the phone line, then he heard Donny sigh. “OK, Ned. What’s the number?”

  Ned gave it to him, then thanked him and chatted just long enough to be social before saying goodbye. He was anxious to get in touch with Tom White immediately. He’d give Donny a few minutes to make the call, then he’d try again himself. He wanted to make sure his money had all gone to Connie.

  It was a sense of doom that drove him. He’d felt it before, the day before he died. He’d called Tom then, too, and told him to change the will. Turned out it was already too late—he’d died before he could sign the papers.

  He leaned back in the armchair and looked out at the ocean while he waited. Nice view. That was one thing this town had over Vegas, an ocean to look at. It was mesmerizing to a desert rat like Ned, but though he could zone out staring at it, it still didn’t make him feel calm.

  He’d played all right today, but he’d never really been a tournament player. He liked to play for fun and had never worried about the money. There’d always been plenty of money.

  Now the stakes were different. If he couldn’t play well enough to beat these four other clowns, he’d lose this body, he’d lose being alive again. He was worried about it. Of course he wanted to win—you always wanted to win—but he’d never needed to win before. It felt bad.

  He glanced at the tin foil and the lighter, the little package of black tar on the table next to him. Corazon had disappeared after they arrived at the hotel, but the staff of creepy invisible guys seemed willing and able to provide whatever he wanted, including girls. There was one sleeping in the bed right now, a cute little redhead. No blondes. He hadn’t been interested in blonde.

  “Fucking Randy,” he muttered, then picked up the phone again and dialed Tom White’s number.

  If he won this fucker he’d get Randy. He didn’t know how, because the million dollar prize was chicken feed, but he’d do it. How she and Tabbet had managed to walk he had no idea; probably they’d paid off the judge.

  “Hello? I’d like to speak to Tom White, please. This is Ned Runyon.”

  He waited for the hang-up, but instead there was a click and the purr of the phone ringing. After two rings White picked up.

  “OK, who are you?”

  “Tom, it’s Ned. Honest. Didn’t Donny tell you?”

  “Donny told me a bunch of crap. Ned Runyon is dead.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have time to explain it all right now, but I’m not dead. I’m alive, and I just want you to tell me what happened to my money. Did Connie get it?”

  “I’m not going to discuss that over the phone.”

  “Shit, Tom, I just want to make sure Connie’s going to be all right. My money should have gone into her trust fund. Please tell me fucking Randy didn’t get any of it. I heard they let her out of jail.”

  “Yeah, they let her out. Everyone knows that.”

  “So tell me she didn’t get anything. Please.”

  There was a pause. “She’s suing Connie for ten million.”

  “Shit! Fuck!”

  Ned jumped up from the chair and stomped around cussing for a minute. When he wound down, he cleared his throat and apologized.

  “You do sound like Ned,” said the lawyer, sounding amused.

  “I am.” Ned sighed, collapsing back into the chair. “I fucking am.”

  “The lawsuit is public knowledge,” Tom said.

  “How do we block it?”

  “We don’t. There’s nothing we can do but ride it out.”

  “What about me telling you to change the will? I told you to fucking change the will!”

  “And I’ll bring that up with the judge, but the fact is the will was not legally changed, and Randy inherits a portion of the estate.”

  “Shit. Bribe the fucking judge!”

  “I didn’t hear that. I don’t know who you are, but I’m not discussing this further with you.”

  “Tom, wait—”

  “Even if you were Ned Runyon, I wouldn’t discuss it. Ned Runyon is legally dead and I no longer work for him. So quit calling me, OK?”

  Ned heard the disconnect and let the phone slide from his hand. He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, wishing Randy was dead.

  He could try to put out a hit on her with the prize money, but he didn’t like the idea. Hits could backfire, and anyway he’d need the money. He’d have to invest the million if he won it, and live frugally off the interest. That sucked, basically, but he still had hopes of seeing Connie. Maybe she’d give him back a few million. With ten or twenty mil in the bank, he could get by.

  But Randy had to go. No way was she going to get her claws on any of Connie’s money, goddamn it!

  Ned frowned at
the ocean, then at the heroin beside him. He wanted a hit, but he didn’t want to get distracted before he’d settled what to do about Randy. He’d been fucked up on horse when she came to his place with Tabbet, that much he remembered. Maybe if he’d been straight he would have been able to deal with them.

  The phone started beeping loudly. He punched the disconnect, then fished the receiver off the floor. Holding it to his ear, he dialed “O.”

  “Black Queen,” said a throaty woman’s voice.

  “I want to talk to Mr. Penstemon.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, he’s unavailable.”

  “This is Ned Runyon,” he said. “I’m in the tournament tonight. I want to talk to Penstemon. Now.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  Music came over the line, weird music. She’d put him on hold. Ned got up and paced around.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Runyon?” said a voice behind him.

  Ned whirled, still holding the phone to his ear. Penstemon was standing a few feet from him. His heart racing from surprise, Ned hung up the phone and stared at his host.

  “That was quick.”

  “I don’t have time to waste,” Penstemon said, quirking an eyebrow. “You wanted to talk?”

  “I want you to help me. I’ve got to do something about Randy Griffy. You know who she is?”

  “Oh, yes.” Penstemon nodded and a grim smile flitted across his lips.

  “Fucking bitch is suing my daughter for ten million.”

  Penstemon didn’t comment. Ned started pacing again.

  “No way is she getting a penny of my money from Connie. I want her dead.” Ned stopped and turned to face Penstemon. “You can do it.”

  “Kill her for you? No.”

  “She fucking killed me!”

  “The court says she didn’t.”

  “The court’s full of shit!” Ned took an angry step toward Penstemon. “Listen, you brought me here. You want me to play in your tournament? I’ll do it, but only if you keep Randy Griffy from touching my money!”