Real Magic (2 page)

The Boss filled up most of the doorway. More brute than brains, his thick, tattooed arms made Muscles look puny. He had a shaved head that only added to his monstrous appearance. But when he spoke, Duncan saw the smooth, intelligence come through. "Mind if I sit in for a hand?" he asked as he placed a chair next to Peyter.

One of the women handed him a beer while the other leaned against him so he could rest a hand on her rear. The Boss looked at the chip stacks and gestured to Pancake. "Looks like you've done well tonight."

"I've had some luck."

"You're Pancake, right?"

Pancake nodded, looking as nervous as the rest of them. "That's right."

"Congratulations, Pancake. Not many people can beat these guys at cards. It takes some serious brains and huge balls to do that. You got huge balls, Pancake?"

Duncan looked to the door, not sure how they could possibly get there and then out of the building before bullets pierced their backs. Sweat trickled down his side. Even if they could manage all that, the Boss knew Pancake by name. What else did he know?

"Five card draw okay with you?" Pancake asked.

The Boss flashed his teeth in an expression that mixed a surprised grin with a snarl. "If that's what you men are playing."

Pancake dealt out the cards but nobody made a move to pick them up. They all watched the Boss as he took a long pull on his beer. With a satisfied belch, he said, "You gotta love this country. A bunch of guys sitting around a poker table, a couple beautiful women on their arms, and a cold beer. Where we grew up, this was just a fantasy. Right, Peyter?"

"Yeah, Boss."

"But in America, you have so much at your fingertips that a night like this could be any night of the year. Nothing special to it at all. That's amazing. I mean what other country but America could a couple of guys like you two join a bunch of immigrants like us and all happily play a friendly game of cards? And you, Pancake, you're even winning. Any other place and there'd be bodies thrown out the windows by this time in the night." The Boss chuckled and his men laughed along with him. They laughed too hard. "Let's play," he said and picked up his cards.

Duncan picked up his hand and knew right away that Pancake had lost his mind. He had dealt Duncan a ten, a five, and three aces. Undoubtedly, Pancake held two pairs and the Boss would be given three jacks. The three of them would get in a bidding war that resulted in a heavy pot which only Duncan could win.

The initial round of betting started and when it came to Duncan, he hesitated. He wanted to throw his cards in but that wouldn't solve anything. Another hand would be dealt. And another. And Pancake would keep trying to cheat. With Peyter already suspicious and the Boss watching, too, Pancake would eventually get caught. And that would be the start of a long, painful night which might be their last.

But if Duncan bet, if he played along, Pancake would bet as well. Pancake would bet big to force the Boss to bet big. And if Pancake lost everything to the Boss, then there wouldn't be another hand to play. No cheating would be suspected. No pain would be inflicted. While losing all their money didn't sit well with Duncan, losing his life sat worse.

The Boss leaned forward. "Having trouble? Relax. We're all friends here. I mean, my boys wouldn't have invited you in to play unless they knew it was all good. It's not as if Dmitri took a look at that walking stick called Pancake and thought he'd be an easy target. Right, Dmitri?" Dmitri suddenly found something interesting to look at out the window. "So, there's no pressure. Just a friendly game. Bet, don't bet. It doesn't matter. It's all for fun."

Duncan bet. More than he should have, but he knew he could back off later. A sliver inside him considered taking the Boss for all the money just to show up the bully, but as Pancake raised the bet, Duncan's sensibilities returned. Getting one up on a guy in organized crime was a fast way to die. If he played this right, he'd save Pancake's butt once again. Then when they got back to the apartment, he'd kick it all over the place.

Muscles and Dmitri folded but Peyter called. The Boss raised again and so did Pancake, but it finally worked around with everyone calling. They drew one round of cards, and when Duncan's turn came, he asked for three cards.

Though Pancake had missed or ignored Duncan's other signals, he couldn't mistake this one. Duncan had broken up his three-of-a-kind and Pancake should know that he had canceled the cheat. But when Duncan turned up his new cards, he found the fourth ace to be among them.

The betting started with Peyter. He folded fast. The Boss tossed in a hundred dollars and Duncan had to call it. If he folded too early, Pancake would also fold since he knew he couldn't beat the Boss's three jacks. Duncan had to keep Pancake in for the whole bankroll. At least he had greed on his side. It had blinded Pancake into this situation, and if Duncan's plan worked, it would blind Pancake right out of it.

The Boss raised, Duncan called, Pancake raised. They locked into this pattern and the pot grew richer with every pass.

The Boss chuckled. "I like this guy," he said, pointing to Pancake. "He's crazy. Keeps raising and raising. I mean, look there, he's barely got anything left. That's America right there. All out. No holding back. Things look tough, what do you do? You double down. Am I right?" Dmitri and Muscles nodded. "I like you, Pancake. But I ain't going to go soft on you either. That would be an insult to you and to this incredible country." The Boss put in a final raise of one hundred dollars — large enough to commit the rest of Pancake's money.

Duncan had about twenty dollars left. Though he put on a show of looking disappointed, he happily folded. He slid his cards in amongst the other folded cards, hopefully mixing them enough to hide his three aces.

"What are you doing? You're folding?" Pancake asked. "After all this?"

"I don't have enough to bet," Duncan said.

"You should've asked me. I could've loaned you the money."

The Boss sneered at Pancake. "Hey, stop worrying about your lover and get on with this. There's a lot of money on this table."

For a second, Duncan feared Pancake would fold. The way the Boss eyed him, such an action would have screamed out that he had been cheating and something went wrong. After all the betting and raising, Pancake had no choice but to play on. Tight-faced and tight-lipped, he tossed the rest of his money in, his eyes locked on Duncan.

As the hands were revealed, the Boss and his men laughed up the win. Duncan smiled and stood. "Well, it's been fun. Wish I had more to show for it, though."

Peyter said, "You had a good run for a while, but nobody can beat the Boss. He's too good."

"Maybe next time," Duncan said, inching towards the door.

"Don't leave. We got beer, we got girls, maybe a little pot, a little coke. How about it? Besides, the Boss won. Let's have a party."

Pancake perked up and leered at the girls. Duncan grabbed his arm and yanked him towards the door. "Thanks for the offer, but we've got an early day of work tomorrow."

"See that, boys," the Boss said while stacking his chips. "That's what's wrong with this country. No sense of perspective. Worrying about work when they should be enjoying our hospitality."

"Yeah," Pancake said, "we should stay. We don't want to be rude."

Duncan froze. He didn't want to know what kind of
hospitality
the Boss had planned. "S-Sorry. We really do have to go. Maybe we can play again sometime."

"Maybe we'll get all our money back someday, too," Pancake said.

The Boss turned an eye on him, his face cold like the guns each man wore. "Nobody beats my boys. They're too damn good." Then his mouth opened into a wide grin. "You guys crack me up. Get the fuck out of here. You come back when you got more money to lose."

Duncan didn't take the chance that things might change again. He pulled on Pancake's arm and got out of there as fast as they could move without looking too anxious. The alley reeked of trash and urine, but anything was more pleasant than another hour of that stifling, stinking room. Once they hit the street and headed towards Pancake's apartment, Duncan steadied himself for what he expected would come.

Despite his lanky size, Pancake found enough strength to send Duncan to the ground with one punch. "What the fuck was that? You blew all our money!"

Rubbing his chin, Duncan had to admit, he was impressed. Perhaps Pancake had outgrown his puppy dog admiration. Still, that didn't excuse any of what had happened. "First off, it was my money. And second, you nearly got us killed."

"Oh, for crying out loud, is that what got you all pussying out on me? You were afraid of those guys? They're just small time scum and you know it. No different than any of the other jerks you cheat."

"This was different." Duncan got back on his feet. "Very different. Everything was wrong about this set up and you were so careless, we're lucky we didn't get made."

"I was smooth. They didn't see a thing."

"Oh, now you're an expert?"

"You're the one who taught me that cheats take skill and risk. I took the risk. Where were you with the skill?"

"Look, sometimes you've got to trust your instincts. When the Boss came in, you should've known it was time to lose and leave. I mean, come on, that guy's probably killed more people than I've ever known."

Pancake shook his head. "You're full of it, you know that? You act like you know it all but when your time came to prove it, you turned chickenshit."

"Can we just forget it? I'll get you some money and we can —"

"You got twenty bucks there, don't you?"

Duncan pulled out the twenty in his pocket. "You want my last twenty?"

Pancake swiped the bill and walked away. "Don't ever talk to me again, you lying sack of crap. And go find some other place to stay. You ain't welcome anymore."

Standing alone on the street of a crime-ridden neighborhood was never a smart thing to do, but Duncan had nowhere to go. A surge of pride filled him — he had saved his friend's life, even if his friend didn't know it. But he had no money and no place to stay.

That's not true. There's one door that's always open.

He hated to call upon his great-grandfather, the man had been so good to him over the years, but he couldn't think of another option. Pappy would let him crash on the sofa for the night, offer up some breakfast, and even give a small bankroll to get Duncan started again. After all, Pappy was the one who taught him how to cheat in the first place.

 

"No."

Duncan stared at Pappy, waiting for the old man to crack a smile, but after a long moment of silence, nothing changed. Pappy had been losing it a bit lately, but this showed no signs of dementia. He simply had refused to help.

"Listen," Pappy said and sat in a hardback chair. Despite his frail body losing weight every day and his skin loosening to the point of slipping off his face, he looked pretty good for a man over one hundred years old. He had a strong voice and a spark of life in his eye. But he carried an odor of impending death that seeped into the walls and carpet of his cramped apartment. "I've given you everything I've got. All the tools I know. And you're welcome to spend the night here, but I don't have the money to bankroll. I doubt your father would want me to do it anyway."

"Since when has
his
opinion mattered?"

Pappy gave a sly wink. "I'm not sure I approve, either. I taught you these skills so you could follow your dream of becoming a magician. Not so you could cheat at cards."

"You're not really going to pull that argument on me?"

"All I mean is that there's more to it all than simply taking people's money."

"I'm doing what I have to do. Some people can work a nine-to-five they hate to make ends meet. I'm not one of those people. I've got that artistic temperament. Heck, you're the one who taught me all this — that a magician is an artist and all artists suffer under the strict limits of a regular life. Now that I'm living the irregular life, everyone wants to tell me how wrong I am?"

Pressing out his hands in a placating manner, Pappy said, "Okay, calm down." He struggled to his feet and shuffled toward the kitchen. "You want something to eat? Something to drink?"

Pappy's apartment should have felt like a mansion. It wasn't overly large but it had high-ceilings and beautiful floors. He rarely let anything go. He hoarded to the point of covering all the walls with stacks of books, magazines, and trinkets. If he weren't so old, Duncan would consider getting him on a reality show, but at his age, what was the point? He had earned the right to live however he saw fit.

"Here," Pappy said. Duncan looked up expecting a glass of iced tea or water. Instead, Pappy tossed over a new deck of cards — he had hundreds of them. "Let me see your shuffles."

Duncan sighed. They had been through this routine countless times, but he knew better than to argue. He revealed the Ace of Spades on the top of the deck and shuffled. After a few overhands and a riffle of the deck, he revealed the top card — still the Ace of Spades. He turned the card back over and shuffled downward, keeping the cards on the table like a Vegas dealer. Then he turned the top card over — still the Ace of Spades.