The last game (6 page)

“I´ll bet three more.” Judith said.

“I´m in.” Alvaro said equally her bet.

They both put their chips in the center at
the same time bumping each other´s hands. Judith pulled hers back
quickly.

“At this pace we could be here a week. Don´t
be cowards and liven this up a bit.” Dante said, bloating his broad
chest, and tossing a wad of chips in front of him. It was the
biggest bet of the night thus far.

Alvaro couldn´t believe his luck. Dante was
bluffing and he knew it. He had the same tone in his voice and the
pupils in his eyes were dilated just like the last time he´d won
with nothing in his hand. His whole body language suggested a bluff
to Alvaro. This was the moment to build his winnings without having
to resort to cheating. Even though he needed to confirm his
suspicions. Dante could be faking a bluff. But if he was he was a
better actor than Alvaro gave him credit for.

“I´m out.” Judith said.

Dante snorted with disdain.

“You´ve bet a lot here.” Alvaro observed,
patiently. “And you´re calling us cowards. Let´s see how brave you
are. I’ll raise your bet.”

He doubled Dante´s bet. And Judith
gasped.

“Now we see your true face, Doc.” Dante
smiled. His expression of happiness seemed slightly forced, which
Alvaro had expected. “I don´t want to let you down. I´ll raise your
bet.”

Dante separated his chips, leaving only a few
near his hands and pushed the rest into the center of the table.
Alvaro gulped. And if he was wrong about his opponent´s cards?
Dante´s hands were like two rocks when he made that bet. Whoever
lost this hand would have their backs to the wall. They´d
effectively lose all chance of winning tonight. But on the other
hand this opportunity couldn´t be passed up. If Alvaro didn´t
follow his instinct what was the point of playing poker? He´d been
building his judgment up ever since he first started playing.

He looked out of the corner of his eye at the
little girl in a desperate attempt to catch any detail that could
help him decide. She didn´t look back at him. She was still playing
with her blocks.

Alvaro reprimanded himself for his
weakness. He was losing his edge. Why had he looked at the girl,
the bet should already be on the table! He only had to go through
with this and he would all but wipe one of the players off the
table. Nevertheless, he held back, afraid that Dante had more than
the two aces that he had in his hand. He´d repeated the message
over and over to himself before he´d left home:
treat this game like any
other.
But that was
easier said than done. He wasn´t going to throw the hand in. He
opted for a compromise.

“I´ll see you.” He finally said.

The decision was made. He wasn´t going to
raise and he wasn´t dropping out. He separated his chips and added
more to the pot. He was about to find out if his judgment had been
right.

“
What fun!” The girl applauded while she
patted Zeta. The dog smiled and gave her a lick that nearly knocked
her off the chair.

Alvaro didn’t back down on this occasion. The
decisive moment had arrived and he only wanted to see the outcome
of this hand. He pulled his two aces to one side.

“Well, let´s see what you´ve got there.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER
FIVE

Alvaro held his breath without being aware of
it. Judith gave him a vague, inscrutable look. He thought he could
see a flash of approval in those fragile eyes, something that could
tell him she was on his side, and wanted him to win and Dante to go
under.

“Lucky bastard!” Dante said, tossing his
cards in.

Alvaro relaxed straight away, taking a deep
breath and reaching out to collect the winnings, ignoring Dante´s
insults. He´d just reaffirmed his judgment, and wasn´t going to go
through another crisis of self doubt again tonight. And that had a
lot more value to him than the pile of chips he´d just won. He felt
good, better than he´d felt in a long while. He´d always been a
good gambler, and a good judge of character. Nobody could trick
him.

“Luck is always welcome.” Alvaro said. “And
this time I´ve won without you even showing me your cards. You´re a
bad loser.”

“What more do you want?” Dante grumbled. “If
I didn´t show you my cards it´s because they weren´t good enough.
I´m not going to let you make fun of me.”

Alvaro would have loved to do that. The
millionaire who´d threatened a pregnant woman only a few minutes
before, was all but finished in this game now. His arrogance didn´t
count for much here anymore even with all his money.

An idea occurred to Alvaro as he got a new
slant on the thread of his thoughts. It was worth the effort to
give it a try.

“You´ve barely got any chips left, big boy.”
Alvaro said. “I wouldn´t want to be in your place.”

“I´m still not finished.” Dante said. “And
don´t be so smug or we´ll find out if the girl´s mutt can stop me
before I get to you.”

“There´s no need to be so aggressive.” Alvaro
went on. “I´m going to offer you a deal to get some of your stake
back. I hear you´re a big businessman. Do you want to hear my
proposal?”

“What´s this, a joke?”

“Not at all.”

“I´ll listen then, although I can´t see what
you want from me. Everybody here knows that the only important
thing is the chips. Maybe we can leave the fleabag over there out
of that. But the rest of us know that. So tell me, what do you
want?”

“
Money, obviously. Something you have
plenty of.”

“
Are you pulling my leg? Money? That´s
absurd. That´s the last thing you´d want in these circumstances. I
don´t believe you.”

“
It´s not for me. But my brother and sister
are going through financial difficulties at the moment. But I´m not
going to go into that. If you want to get this pile back.” Alvaro
said separating half of his winnings. “All you have to do is
transfer three million euros into their account. It´s up to
you.”

“Listen to you. So you´ve got guts when all
is said and done. The price is a bit exaggerated though.”

“I don´t think it is.” Alvaro replied. “It´s
a large sum, but nothing compared with what you´ve robbed during
your career. If you want to continue the game with the little
you´ve got, that´s your business.”

“
I´m beginning to like you.” Dante said.
“You´re good with cards. You guessed my bluff perfectly, but you´re
no businessman, Doc. I could say no, and you´d come down a million
in a jiffy. And all that in the name of helping your brother from
starving to death. But seeing we don´t have a lot of time and money
is the least important thing around here, I accept.”

“Don´t do it!” Judith said, careful not to
bump her stomach on the table as she stretched her hand across the
table to Alvaro. “You´ll give him the chance of getting back into
the game and he´s almost out of it now.”

Alvaro didn´t want to disappoint Judith.
“I´ve got to do it. It´s a chance to help my family and get
something positive out of all this.”

“Very moving. Can we finish the deal?” Dante
said extending his hand across the table.

“Very well.” Alvaro said. “Ring your
accountant right now and tell him to deposit the money. Then I´ll
give you the chips. I´m sure our little friend won´t mind the
interruption.”

“Not so fast.” Hector interrupted. “You´re
going to send another three million to another account that I´ll
give you.”

“
Now he´s come to life.
“ Dante said. “You were just sitting there
fascinated with the little girl and now you´re on fire.”

“Tell him.” Hector asked Alvaro. “Tell him to
pay me as well.”

Alvaro was taken by surprise. Hector had
just bounced out of his inactive world with an impassioned and
dramatic speech. He was visibly nervous, thinking about this sum of
money. It was very strange. The last thing Alvaro would have
thought that Hector was interested in was money.”

“Why should I help you? You haven´t opened
your mouth here all night. Haven´t answered one question I´ve asked
you.”

“Don´t feel sorry for yourself.” Hector said.
“You´ve got the chance of doing something good with this criminal´s
money. Just do it.”

“My offer doesn´t extend to this street bum.”
Dante said. “Don´t think that it does.”

“Maybe you´re right, Hector.” Alvaro said.
“But I want something in exchange. These chips are mine and you´ve
got to pay for them.”

“Pay how?”

“With information.” Alvaro explained.

It was the first opportunity that had come up
to find out something about Hector and Alvaro wasn´t going to pass
that up. “You´ve got to tell me who this money is for and why you
are here. Understood?”

“You don´t need to know anything about me to
beat me in this game, if that´s your idea?”

The answer surprised Alvaro. He wasn´t
expecting it. “I´ll decide that. They´re my chips and you´ve got to
win them. All you have to do is show me a little respect. Either
that, or keep on doing what you´ve been doing all night and look at
the girl again.”

Hector bit his lower lip that hard that it
went white. It was obvious that he understood Alvaro very well. He
waited a few seconds before he answered. “The money is for a woman
and her son.” He explained. “The boy´s eleven years old and has an
artificial leg. His mother´s a widow. They were in a traffic
accident four years ago. A drunk driver crashed into them after
driving through a red light.” Hector´s voice seemed to be getting
softer with each word of the story. He stopped a lot to take deep
breaths. The others listened carefully to what he was saying. “The
family had been to the cinema. The accident should never have
happened but it did. The impact of the collision was terrible.
Their car flipped twice. The mother lost consciousness and the
boy´s leg was trapped under a jumble of metal. He was screaming as
loud as he could. Two women passing by tried to pull him from the
wreckage but couldn´t. When the fire brigade arrived the father was
already dead. He drowned in his own blood and the boy saw
everything. In the end he was rescued with his mother. But the leg
couldn´t be saved and was amputated.”

“That´s a terrible story.” Judith said,
understandingly. “I´m sorry.”

“Are they relatives of yours?” Alvaro asked.
“Why are you so interested in them?”

“I was the driver of the car that hit
them.”

That answer explained a lot of things. Alvaro
thought about the effect that that would have had on Hector. He
couldn´t help feeling a little sorry for him. Knowing that you´d
ruined an entire family´s life wouldn´t be easy to live with. The
way he´d explained what had happened showed clearly that he´d
assumed all the responsibility.

“
It was an accident.” Judith said. “You
can´t keep on tormenting yourself over that. The boy´s father won´t
come back to life or the boy won´t grow a new leg just because
you´re tormenting yourself every day.”

Hector looked at her, spoke in a voice that
seemed deeper and ridden with pain.

“Don´t you think I´ve thought that? I´ve told
myself and my psychiatrists that very thing countless times. But I
was there, not you. The father dying and the boy losing his leg
weren´t the only horrendous injuries in that accident.”

“Pay him!” Alvaro told Dante, impassive.
“Another million into Hector´s account or there´s no deal.”

“What´s all of that got to do with you?”
Dante asked. “He could have made the whole thing up. You don´t have
to be Confucius to see how gullible you are.”

“Maybe that´s true but that´s your bad luck.
I´m not going to budge an inch. Pay him or you can play on with the
few chips you´ve got left.”

“
Very well, Doc.
I'll pay, so
I can win and wipe that smug look of all your
faces
.
What you´re
really doing is giving me another opportunity to come face to face
with you two again.”

Dante took the chips off Alvaro and finished
his part of the deal by calling the accountant.

“Let´s take a break.” Alvaro said.

He looked at the girl to see if she agreed or
wanted to keep playing. But she wasn´t there. Her chair was empty.
She´d apparently left while they had been arguing. He saw her in a
corner of the room beside her inseparable companion. She was
throwing a tennis ball that went surprisingly far given the size of
her tiny arm. The big black dog shot after the ball each time she
threw it, taking it in his razor sharp teeth and bringing it back
to her. Zeta moved silently for such a large animal, and never
crashed into any piece of furniture.

Alvaro handed a scrap of paper to Dante, with
the account number of the bank he wanted the money paid into,
written on it, and then walked away from the table. He wanted to be
alone for a while to reflect on what had happened and the new
direction the game was heading in.

The mystery of what drove Hector on, had only
been partly solved. Now he could understand where he was coming
from. A man coping with a problem like that had to be easy to beat.
Really, he couldn´t even be considered a rival. Even so, there had
to be more to Hector than that. The fact that he kept on refusing
to play was testimony enough to that. Was it part of a plan? Was he
waiting for the right moment? Had the surgeon been thrown off the
track?

Alvaro thought about Dante´s comment that
Hector had invented the sad story. He analyzed the expressions he´d
seen on Hector´s face and concluded that he had been genuine. Even
the best actor in the world couldn’t feign pain like that so close
to his audience. Alvaro felt at ease with his observations. No,
Hector wasn´t lying. What he had to find out was . . .