Gone South (8 page)

“Uh … you sure you don’t want some sugar in that?” Nick asked.

“No sugar. Just straight lemon juice.”

Nick returned to the front room. Ambrose puffed out a last question mark and put his cards facedown. “Nope. My wife’s gone have my ass as it is.”

Royce stayed in and raised another five spot. Junior chewed his lower lip. “Damn it, I’ve
gotta
stay in!” he decided. “Hell, I’ll raise five to you!”

“And fifteen more,” came the reply.

“Sheeeeyit!” Ambrose grinned. “We gots us a showdown here!”

“I’m out.” Royce’s cards went on the table.

Junior leaned back in his chair, his cards close to his chest and fresh sweat sparkling on his face. He glowered long and hard at the man beside him, whom he’d come to detest in the last two hours. “You’re fuckin’ bluffin’,” he said. “I caught you last time you tried to bluff me, didn’t I?”

“Fifteen dollars to you, Junior,” Ambrose said. “What’cha gone do?”

“Don’t rush, me, man!” Junior had two red chips in front of him. He’d come into the game with over a hundred dollars. “You’re tryin’ to fox me, ain’t you, Mr. Lucky?”

The man’s head turned. The pale blue eyes fixed upon Junior, and the whispery voice said, “The name is Flint.”

“I don’t give a shit! You’re tryin’ to rob me, I figure I can call you whatever I please!”

“Hey, Junior!” Royce cautioned. “Watch that tongue, now!”

“Well, who the hell knows this guy, anyhow? He comes in here, gets in our game, and takes us all for a ride! How do we know he ain’t a pro?”

“I paid for my seat,” Flint said. “You didn’t holler when you took my money.”

“Maybe I’m hollerin’
now!”
Junior sneered. “Does anybody know him?” he asked the others. Nick came in with the drinks on a tray. “Hey, Nick! You ever see this here dude before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“So how come he just wandered in off the street lookin’ to play poker? How come he’s sittin’ there with all our damn money?”

Flint snapped the cards shut in his left hand, drank some of the fresh lemon juice, and rubbed the cold glass across his forehead. “Meet the raise,” he said, “or go home and cry to your mommy.”

Junior exhaled sworls of smoke. Crimson had risen in his cheeks. “Maybe you and me oughta go dance in the alley, what do you think about that?”

“Come on, Junior!” Ambrose said. “Play or fold!”

“Nick, loan me five dollars.”

“No way!” Nick retreated toward the door. “This ain’t no bank in here, man!”

“Somebody loan me five dollars,” Junior said to the others. This demand was met with a silence that might have made stones weep. “Five dollars! What’s wrong with you guys?”

“We don’t loan money in this room,” Ambrose reminded him. “Never have and never will. You know the house rules.”

“I’d loan it to you if you were in a tight!”

“No you wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t ask. The rule is: you play with your own money.”

“Well, it’s sure nice to know who your friends are!” Junior wrenched the cheap wristwatch off his arm and slid it in front of Flint. “Here, damn it! That’s gotta be worth fifteen or twenty bucks!”

Flint picked up the watch and examined it. Then he returned it to the table and leaned back, his cards fanned out again and resting against his chest. “Merchandise isn’t money, but since you’re so eager to walk out of here a loser I’ll grant you the favor.”

“Favor.”
Junior almost spat the word. “Yeah, right! Come on, let’s see what you’ve got!”

“Lay yours down first,” Flint said.

“Glad to!”
Slap
went the cards on the table. “Three queens! I always was lucky with the women!” Junior grinned, one hand already reaching out to rake in the chips and his watch.

But before his hand got there, it was blocked by three aces.

“I was always smart at poker,” Flint said. “And smart beats lucky any day.”

Junior’s grin evaporated. He stared at the trio of aces, his mouth crimping around the cigarette.

Flint scooped up the chips and put the wristwatch into his inside coat pocket. While Nick didn’t loan money, he did sell poker chips. It was time, Flint knew, to cash in and be on his way. “That does it for me.” He pocketed the rest of his winnings and stood up. “Thank you for the game, gentlemen.”

“Cheater.”

“Junior!” Ambrose snapped. “Hush up!”

“Cheater!”
Junior scraped his chair back and rose to his feet. His sweating face was gorged with blood. “You cheated me, by God!”

“Did I?” Flint’s eyes were heavy-lidded. “How?”

“I don’t know how! I just know you won a few too many hands today! Oh, yeah, maybe you lost some, but you never lost enough to put you too far behind, did you? Nosir! You lost just to keep us playin’, so you could set me up for this shit!”

“Sit down, Junior,” Vincent told him. “Some people gotta win, some gotta lose. That’s why they call it gamblin’.”

“Hell, can’t you see it? He’s a pro is what he is! He came in here off the street, got in our game, and made fools outta every damn one of us!”

“I see,” Ambrose said wearily, “that it’s almost six o’clock. Honey’ll skin my butt if I don’t get home.”

“Gone skin your butt anyhow for losin’ that paycheck,” Royce said with a high giggle.

“Humility keeps me an honest man, my friends.” Ambrose stood up and stretched. “Junior, that look on your face could scare eight lives out of a cat. Forget it now, hear? You can’t win every day, or it wouldn’t be no fun when you did.”

Junior watched Flint, who was buttoning his jacket. Beneath Flint’s arms were dark half-moons of sweat. “I say that bastard
cheated!
There’s somethin’ not right about him!”

Flint suddenly turned, took two strides forward, and his face and Junior’s were only inches apart. “I’ll ask you once more. Tell me how I cheated, sonny boy.”

“You know you did! Maybe you’re just slicker’n owl shit, but I know you cheated somehow!”

“Prove it,” Flint said, and only Junior saw the faint smile that rippled across his thin-lipped mouth.

“You dirty sonofa—” Junior hauled back his arm to deliver a punch, but Ambrose and Royce both grabbed him and pulled him away. “Lemme go!” Junior hollered as he thrashed with impotent rage. “I’ll tear him apart, I swear to God!”

“Mister,” Ambrose said, “it might be best if you don’t come ’round here again.”

“I wasn’t plannin’ on it.” Flint finished off his lemon juice, his face impassive. Then he turned his back on the other men and walked out to the bar to cash in his chips. His stride was as slow and deliberate as smoke drifting. While Nick was counting the money, Junior was escorted to the street by Ambrose, Vincent, and Royce. “You’ll get yours, Mr. Lucky!” was Junior’s parting shot before the door closed.

“He flies off the handle sometimes, but he’s okay.” Nick laid the crisp green winnings in Flint’s pale palm. “Better not walk around with that kinda cash in this neighborhood.”

“Thank you.” He gave Nick a twenty. “For the advice.” He started walking toward the door, his hand finding the car keys in his pocket, and over the zydeco music on the jukebox he heard the telephone ring.

“Okay, hold on a minute. Hey, your name Murtaugh?” Nick called.

Flint stopped at the door, dying sunlight flaring through the fly-specked windows. “Yes.”

“It’s for you.”

“Murtaugh,” Flint said into the phone.

“You seen the TV in the last half hour?” It was a husky, ear-hurting voice: Smoates, calling from the shop.

“No. I’ve been busy.”

“Well, wrap up your bidness and get on over here. Ten minutes.”
Click,
and Smoates was gone.

Even as six o’clock moved past and the blue shadows lengthened, the heat was suffocating. Flint could smell the lemon juice in his perspiration as he strode along the sidewalk. When Smoates said ten minutes, he meant eight. It had to be another job, of course. Flint had just brought a skin back for Smoates this morning and collected his commission — forty percent — on four thousand dollars. Smoates, who was the kind of man who had an ear on every corner and in every back room, had told him about the Thursday afternoon poker game at Leopold’s, and with some time to kill before going back to his motel Flint had eased himself into what had turned out to be child’s play. If he had any passion, it was for the snap of cards being shuffled, the clack of spinning roulette wheels, the soft thump of dice tumbling across sweet green felt; it was for the smells of smoky rooms where stacks of chips rose and fell, where cold sweat collected under the collar and an ace made the heartbeat quicken. Today’s winnings had been small change, but a game was a game and Flint’s thirst for risk had been temporarily quenched.

He reached his ride: a black 1978 Cadillac Eldorado that had seen three or four used car lots. The car had a broken right front headlight, the rear bumper was secured with burlap twine, the passenger door was crumpled in, and the southern sun had cracked and jigsawed the old black paint. The interior smelled of mildew and the chassis moaned over potholes like a funeral bell. Flint’s appetite for gambling didn’t always leave him a winner; the horses, greyhounds, and the casinos of Vegas took his money with a frequency that would have terrified an ordinary man. Flint Murtaugh, however, could by no stretch of the imagination be called ordinary.

He slipped his key into the door’s lock. As it clicked open, he heard another noise — a metallic
snap
— very close behind him, and he realized quite suddenly that he would have to pay for his inattention.

“Easy, Mr. Lucky.”

Flint felt the switchblade’s tip press at his right kidney. He let the breath hiss from between his teeth. “You’re makin’ a real big mistake.”

“Do tell. Let’s walk. Turn in that alley up there.”

Flint obeyed. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk, and Junior kept close. “Keep walkin’,” Junior said as Flint turned into the alley. Ahead, in the shadows between buildings, was a chain-link fence and beyond it a parking garage. “Stop,” Junior said. “Turn around and look at me.”

Flint did, his back to the fence. Junior stood between him and the street, the knife low at his side. It was a mean-looking switchblade, and Junior held it as if he had used it before. “I believe your luck’s run out.” Junior’s eyes were still ashine with anger. “Gimme my money.”

Flint smiled coldly. He unbuttoned his sharkskin jacket, and in so doing he tapped a finger twice on his belt buckle, which bore his initials in scrolled letters. He lifted his hands. “It’s inside my coat. Come get it, sonny boy.”

“I’ll cut you, damn it! I’ll give you some shit like you never had before, man!”

“Will you? Sonny boy, I’m gonna give you three pieces of wisdom. One.” He raised a finger of his left hand. “Never play poker with a stranger. Two.” Two fingers of his right hand went up. “Never raise against a man who asks for a single card. And three …”

Something moved at Flint’s chest, underneath the white linen shirt.

Flint’s necktie was pushed aside. Through the opening of an undone button emerged a dwarf-sized hand and a slim, hairless white arm. The hand gripped a small double-barreled derringer aimed at Junior’s midsection.

“When you’ve got the drop on a man,” Flint continued, “never, never let him face you.”

Junior’s mouth hung open.
“Jesus,”
he whispered. “You’ve … got … three …”

“Clint. Steady.”
Flint’s voice was sharp; the derringer had wobbled-a few inches to the right. “Drop the knife, sonny boy.” But Junior was too stunned to respond. “Clint. Down. Down. Down.” The arm obeyed, and now the derringer was pointed in the vicinity of Junior’s knees. “You’ll be a cripple in three seconds,” Flint promised.

The knife clattered to the gritty pavement.

Flint frowned, sliding his two hands into his pants pockets. The third hand held the derringer steady. “I should’ve figured on this,” Flint said, mostly to himself. “Clint. Holster.”

The wiry arm retreated into his shirt. Flint felt the gun slide into the small holster under his right shoulder. The arm twitched once, a muscle spasm, and then lay pressed against Flint’s chest with the fingers wedged beneath his belt buckle. “Good Clint,” Flint said, and he walked quickly toward Junior, who still stood shocked and gaping. Flint withdrew his right hand, which now wore the set of brass knuckles that had been in his pocket. The blow that followed was fast and decisive, hitting Junior on the chin and snapping his head back. Junior gave a garbled cry and staggered into some garbage cans, and then Flint swung again — a graceful, almost balletic motion — and the brass knuckles crunched into the cheekbone on the left side of Junior’s face.

Gasping, Junior fell to his knees. He stayed there, his head swaying from side to side and the anger washed from his eyes by the tears of pain.

“You know,” Flint observed, “what you said about givin’ me some shit is really funny. It really, truly is.” Flint touched the knuckles of Junior’s right hand with the toe of his polished black wingtip. The cheap wristwatch fell to the pavement beside Junior’s fingers. “See, nobody on this earth can give me any more shit than I’ve already had to endure. Do you understand?”

“Ahhhhplleesh,” Junior managed.

“I’ve been where you are,” Flint said. “It made me meaner. But it made me smarter, too. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you smarter. Do you believe that?”

“Immmmaeuff,” Junior said.

“Take your watch,” Flint told him. “Go on. Pick it up.”

Slowly, Junior’s hand closed around the watch.

“There you go.” The cold smile had never left Flint’s face. “Now I’m gonna help your education along.”

He summoned up his rage.

It was an easy thing to find. It had grinning faces in it, and harsh, jeering laughter. It had the memory of a bad night at the blackjack table, and of a loan shark’s silky threats. It had Smoates’s voice in it, commanding
Ten minutes.
It had a lifetime of torment and bitterness in it, and when it emerged from Flint it was explosive. The hand of Clint felt that rage and clenched into a knotty fist. Flint inhaled, lifted his foot, exhaled in a
whoosh,
and stomped Junior’s fingers beneath his shoe.