Drawing Dead (10 page)

Meanwhile, Brendan was over at the dead ficus tree chatting it up with his new best friends. I wasn’t really getting it. I told myself not to worry. Brendan was sort of childlike, in a lot of ways, but he was also a street guy. After he’d fled the Midwest, he’d knocked about enough to learn his way around. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to get screwed over by some two-bit Russkie operators. I didn’t think.

I worried anyway.

He came over, looking happier than I’d seen him in a while.

Listen, he said, they really do have some work for us, man.

I rolled my eyes.

Butch grunted.

What kind of work? I said.

Some kind of security thing. Make sure something gets delivered.

You’ve got to be kidding me, I said.

We’re riding shotgun on the stagecoach? Butch said.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Brendan said. Sounds stupid. But I don’t think it’s that. And anyway, we don’t have to take it until we get the whole story. And it’s in Vegas. The job. And we’re going there anyway.

Sounds too good to be true, I said, with a double dose of irony.

It’s going to be good, said Brendan. You’ll see. This is just the start.

I was afraid of that, I said.

Butch grunted.

Those vodka shots getting to you? I asked him.

A bit, he said.

I looked at his eyes. The correct answer was: a lot.

W
E WERE BACK AT THE TABLE
, and things had gone back to normal, or as normal as things can get at a basement poker table in Brighton Beach full of Russians and other aliens. Cards were dealt. Hands were won and lost. Nobody’s stack got much bigger or smaller.

The intercom buzzed. On the tiny vintage black-and-white security monitor there was a massive blurry figure visible, hunched over Sasquatch-like to fit into the tiny space.

Shit, I said to Butch.

Butch grunted.

The Yeti somehow squoze its bulk down the stairs, hammered on the door. The Smock Lady opened it, and in lumbered Bruno, complete with the hearty Bruno smile and an irritating backslapping routine.

Hey, he said to me, didn’t know you played this game.

First time, I said.

Be careful, he chuckled.

I nodded at my chip stack, which had grown to over fifty thousand. Bruno nodded back, did a wide-eyed admiration thing.

It was about as convincing as his smile.

What he was really thinking, of course, was how quickly he could suck that stack over to his end of the table.

Unfortunately, the answer was: not long.

Bruno hung around sucking on dumplings for a while, waiting for a seat to open up. When Won Ton John got up to leave, Bruno took his spot. And immediately performed his usual suckout routine. Bruno was the master of the suckout. He would make huge semi-bluffs—bets that technically could not be correct. But the effect they had when you called and he hit his draw more than made up for any mathematical deficiencies. The bets were mathematically incorrect when viewed in a vacuum, but so many people went on tilt with Bruno that the strategy was a huge winner for him. Guys would spew his way ten times the chips they’d lost on the original hand, trying to bully their way back to where they’d started.

Despite my best intentions, I was no exception. On the very first hand after Bruno sat down, I limped in with Queen, Ten. The flop came Ace, King, Jack. I had flopped Broadway, a Ten to Ace straight, the best possible hand at the time. Bruno called my three-times-the-pot raise
with, as it turned out, a lousy Queen, Six of hearts: nothing but the third nut flush draw. He called my big turn bet too. Of course, he hit the flush on the river, and I lost a third of my stack. He’d had no business, mathematically, calling either of my bets. But that was Bruno. The Lifetime Luckbox.

After that I lost a succession of small hands to him. It seemed like there was nobody else at the table. Every second hand was Bruno and me heads up. He never lost his fat smile. I let it get to me. It was flat embarrassing. My irritation slowly inflated into rage. I hunched lower and lower in my chair. I cursed.

The final humiliation came when I raised preflop with Ace, Ten suited. The flop came Jack, Jack, Ten, rainbow. I bet, Bruno called. Now, a very good rule of thumb on a paired flop like that one is that if you don’t have trips—no Jack in your hand—and someone calls your bet, you’re through with the hand. Very few players will call you with anything that doesn’t beat you, and you’re likely to have to invest a lot more money to see the river. It’s just not worth it to continue with the hand for the few times your opponent is setting up a bluff or calling with a smaller pair than yours, or whatever. Long term, you’re going to lose big in that situation.

I knew that.

I did it anyway.

The turn came a rag. I bet. Bruno called.

You got a Jack? I asked, feigning amusement.

I don’t know, said Bruno, but I sure would like to see another card.

He was playing me for a fool. He was playing me for such a fool that I convinced myself he was telling the truth: pulling the old double reverse bluff thing.

Yes, I am a moron.

Yes, I called his massive bet on the river.

Yes, he had a Jack.

Yes, I was broke.

Yes, I borrowed twenty thousand from Evgeny to keep playing, get my money back from Bruno.

Yes, I lost that too.

Yes, Evgeny is not a guy you want to owe twenty thousand dollars.

Yes, I could blame the vodka.

But I was the guy that drank it.

In the last pathetic hand of my life-threatening night, Bruno made a big raise preflop. I called in position with Ace, Two of diamonds. Normally I hate Ace, Two. It’s a sucker’s hand. But it was suited, I had position, and if I hit it, I might be able to double through Bruno. Thoughts of revenge, I admit, may have played a role.

Everyone else folded. The flop came Three, Four, Eight, with two diamonds. So I had the nut flush draw, an inside straight draw to a Five, and possibly an overcard with the Ace. Bruno bet out, a continuation bet, of course, like he almost always would do, like I would do, like any decent player would do after having bet preflop. It gave me no new information. I flat called.

The flop was a beautiful Five, making my straight. Bruno bet out. Once again, he could be doing that with anything. Ideally, he had started out with a big pair, Kings or Queens, and was drawing dead. I went all in. He called. Initially I was surprised. I mean, if he had a flush draw, it didn’t include the Ace. The board was scary enough that if he only had an overpair, he had to know he was beat. And he’d made a big bet preflop, so it was very likely that he had high cards, and not anything that this board could be hitting big.

It was a pretty big pot by then, though. Maybe he had hit a set on the flop, and was hoping for the board to pair, giving him a full house. That seemed to be the most reasonable conclusion. Or maybe the lower flush draw. It was the kind of risk I’d seen him take before. And seen him hit more than seemed possible.

Well, I was all in. All I could do was wait for the river card.

It was a Jack of spades. Okay. Given the play, unlikely to have hurt me. I turned over my straight.

Bruno smiled.

This was not a good sign.

He turned over … Six, Seven off suit. For a bigger straight.

He’d made a big preflop raise out of position with a dog of a hand, bet out on the flop with a gutshot. For the rest of my money.

Evgeny’s money, actually.

I felt sick.

How do you like that? Bruno laughed.

Normally, I try to maintain my cool with the Bruno type. Blowing up only gives them more ammunition. The last thing you want to do is encourage a guy like him in his efforts to put you on tilt.

But this was too fucking much.

I mean, it’s bad enough to bad beat someone. It’s just totally over the top to gloat about it.

How do I like that? I said, leaning towards him, my voice rising with every word. How do I like
that?

Whoa, said Bruno, his smug smile on full wattage. Slow down, cowboy. I just meant, I bet you weren’t expecting to see Six, Seven off, right?

How do I like that? I said. How’d you like to see your balls in a jar, asshole?

Bruno’s smile disappeared. He wasn’t used to getting talked back at. He got up, knocking over his chair. He lunged at me. Luck was, Evgeny was in between us. He got up to block Bruno. Red-eyed with rage, not recognizing good fortune when it heaved its bulk in front of me, I looped a right hand over Evgeny, connected with a pathetic tap to Bruno’s nose. Bruno reached around the fat man, got me a good one over the left eye.

He’d busted open a two-inch cut on my eyebrow. My head was going to hurt like hell later. But if I was going to take a shot, it was a good spot to take it on. I have Cro-Magnon protrusions over my eyes. I could see him wince.

He’d broken his hand.

Which, at the time, seemed like the more important thing.

The guys pulled us apart. Told us to cool down.

Which I did, quickly enough. Just enough to realize that the whole thing was even more embarrassing than losing my whole stack to Bruno in less than two hours. I’d lost my cool. My edge. My look. I’d probably never get invited back to the game. My chance to get my money back from the clown. My best shot at paying back Evgeny before my kneecaps got in the way of some Russkie hireling’s baseball bat.

Shit. I’d been doing fine before Bruno got there.

Looking back, the whole thing was pathetically obvious. Bruno showing up stone sober three hours into the game, when everyone else would be seriously diluted. Jesus. He’d poured a pint of dogshit on the sidewalk, and I’d happily stepped right in it.

Evgeny shoved me towards the door.

Hey, Bruno called after me. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be around. You’ll get your shot.

From any number of people that would have been a nice, conciliatory thing to say. From Bruno, it was just another motherfucking insult.

I looked back at Bruno, my boiling blood seeping into my eyeballs and turning the whole scene to crimson. Butch stood up to block my view of the dirtbag. Brendan stayed in his seat. I looked at him, tilted my head up and out. He shrugged.

Okay, I told him with a nod and a shake of the head. You stay. More power to you.

Butch maneuvered around the table to where I was. I could see he was thinking about what to do. He’d started out trying to protect me from myself. But I knew Butch. He was right on the edge.

I could see it at the corners of his mouth. I could see it in his shoulders.

And Bruno couldn’t help himself.

Hey brotha, he said to Butch, don’t you want to stick around? Make some back for your buddy?

Butch turned around.

He was almost as big as Bruno, and had a lot more street in him—fifteen years a New York City cop, taking care of bigger guys than Bruno. Sure, the sick Italian fuck had muscles on top of the muscles all over his chunky irritating self. But they were gym muscles. Bench-press-with-your-iPod muscles.

Butch glared at Bruno.

I’m not your fucking brother, he said.

Bruno stood up. To stand up to Butch.

All right, all right, enough, shouted Evgeny, heaving himself up again to get between them.

I grabbed Butch.

It’s not worth it, man, I said. We’ll pick a better spot.

Butch shrugged. It was half an ‘okay’ shrug, half an ‘I’m just doing this for you’ shrug.

W
E GOT OUTSIDE
. I was breathing heavy. So was Butch. The air was hot and wet. I sat on a fire hydrant. It was gray, had lost its red paint in some forgotten eon of history. Somebody, some night back then or some other time, had stolen the valves. It hadn’t seen water in decades. It was a ghost of a fire hydrant.

I lit a smoke. I felt like shit.

I hate confrontations. I mean, I don’t run away from a good fight. But somehow I always feel like crap afterwards. Embarrassed.

I hung my head. Looked at the sidewalk. It looked like any other sidewalk. Except dirtier. The litter had turned to sludge with the days and the nights and the rain, the shoes and the boots tamping it down and spreading it out towards the gray brick walls of the buildings. I could make out the corner of a pack of Marlboros. The rest was soup.

It looked about like I felt.

Forget about it, I said.

You forget about it.

Hey, it’s me that lost the money. I played like a donkey. I deserve what I got.

You know damn well that’s not what it’s about, said Butch.

What’s it about, then?

Respect.

Yeah, I know. But I’m the one got disrespected. Let me deal with it.

Butch gave me a Look. It was a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me-you-don’t-really-think-you-can-deal-with-this-on-your-own Look.

I shrugged. Took a deep drag on the smoke. It calmed me down. A bit.

The black door opened. Bruno stepped out.

Oh shit, I said to myself. This is really stupid, Bruno. You could have just stayed inside, let it blow over. Now somebody’s going to have to get hurt.

You guys still here? he grinned.

Unfortunately, the first guy that wanted to show he was still here was Butch. He took a run at Bruno. Normally, I’d expect Butch to make short work of the guy—I mean, he had all those street tricks and shit, I thought—but when Butch tripped over some invisible chunk of nothing on the sidewalk on his rush towards the Italian Barrel of Meat and slammed face-first into the sludge, I was reminded, in the vodka haze that was rapidly re-enveloping me, that Butch was drunk as hell. And Bruno wasn’t.

It was the poker game all over again.

Butch gathered himself up and gamely reengineered his rush. Bruno stepped sideways just as Butch reached him. Grabbed a shoulder, spun him around. Butch grunted. Bruno slammed a fist into Butch’s gut. Butch doubled over. His eyes bulged. He’d gotten it right in the solar plexus. Hard. Unexpectedly. Which meant his breathing was paralyzed.
Temporarily. But enough to make him useless. He might even pass out for a few minutes.

I knew the feeling.