Bluff Read online

  A new dog already? “Does she eat people, too?”

  “What? No, Jasmine’s sweet. She’s great about letting me change her bandages.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s just some pus-filled—”

  “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  Her face brightened again. “So how’s magic these days? December must be a busy month.”

  I had a few shows lined up. I didn’t care about any of them.

  “I’m mostly thinking about the new year,” I told her, and Harley went off to the bus stop and I went inside, where the birds seemed disconcerted, jumping off their perch to the cage floor and then jumping up again, over and over. I took them out and set them on top of the cage, changed their newspaper, and vacuumed up the birdseed that was always spilling onto the carpet. In the kitchen I downed a tall glass of water. Then I got to work, scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen. I dusted all the surfaces and ran a wet paper towel along the floorboards. I replaced some of the blown-out bulbs. I walked from room to room, frowning at the shabby carpet, the dusty curtains, the yard-sale furniture, the upside-down milk crates on which the TV still sat after all these years. Everything came up pathetically short. Money was always tight, but that was no excuse for refusing year after year to create a home rather than a way station.

  Not sure what to do with myself, I went into the kitchen, shoved aside old mail and bills, and did some food prep. I sliced an onion and a green pepper to add to the canned sauce. I remembered that I ought to wash my hands so they wouldn’t stink from the onions. Other people! They made you change your game.

  At a little before five I returned the birds to their cage. No sooner had I shut the cage when there was a knock on my door. Ellen stood on my stoop in a beige wool trench coat, her breath visible in the cold.

  “We barely know each other,” she said, “but I need you to understand this is the most important thing I’ll ever do. And your yes came on the heels of some pretty strong nos. I have to know you’re really up for this.”

  As I often did, I thought about my father hobbled and demeaned, standing beside me at the Showboat’s roulette table. Except that now, for the first time, I saw the hint of nobility and resoluteness in what I had always assumed was simply the impulsive, self-destructive act of a broken man.

  “I’m all in,” I told her.

  “And you aren’t gonna get cold feet in a week? Because that’ll be too late for me to find somebody else.”

  Red or black.

  I held her gaze. “I told you, I’m all in.”

  I wasn’t used to cooking and talking. Wasn’t used to making enough food for two. Wasn’t used to the larger pots. I overcooked the garlic bread. I undercooked the spaghetti. At least I knew the pinot noir would be fine. I really knew my mid-priced wines.

  I served the meal, and as we ate at my small bistro table Ellen told me about Victor Flowers: former musician turned record-business guy turned financial manager and real estate developer. I didn’t tell her I already knew this. I let her talk. “He believes in the American dream,” she said, “because he’s the product of it. Self-made and all that. What else … he collects musical instruments. And art. He’ll bore you to tears explaining the historical significance of every little thing in his house. He lives alone. Never married, no kids, no romantic relationships that I can tell. Evidently a guy who values making money over dating. He’s private but sociable. Charming. Even at our poker games.”

  I had decided not to mention Victor Flowers’s role in my family’s past. That was my business, and it wasn’t relevant. And it wasn’t as if he would recognize me. I’d met him only that one time, and I had been a child.

  “How long has he been a gambler?” I asked.

  “Forever, I think, but he’s very private about it. Which makes sense. His reputation was built on being smart with money—valuing a dollar and all that. Same with his foundation. It looks bad to donors if the head of the charity is known as a big gambler. And now that he’s running for office he’s doubling down on his image. He doesn’t want any drama.”

  The way Victor avoided the casinos, she told me, was to host his own game. High-stakes Texas Hold’em. They met monthly, though once a year they played tournament-style for even higher stakes: $250,000 buy-in.

  “One winner,” Ellen explained. “No second or third place. Whoever wins gets the entire million and a half.”

  “Rich people are insane,” I concluded.

  She smiled. “These guys are very sane and predictable. That’s why we can go in and take their money. It’s why on January first you’re gonna make two hundred thousand dollars.”

  I had a habit of always converting money into how much my father lost at the roulette wheel all those years ago. The busted car I drove had cost me two thousand dollars: just under two percent of my father’s loss. Last year, I made twenty-six thousand dollars doing magic: about a quarter of my father’s loss at the roulette wheel.

  My take for one night of poker would be almost twice what my father had lost.

  “I’m sure you have everything planned out,” I said to Ellen.

  “I do.”

  “But what if we get caught?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t happen.”

  “It can always happen.”

  “Not the way I’m planning it.”

  We were still seated at my bistro table, plates in front of us, in my lousy apartment. This talk of stealing a fortune felt very abstract, and I needed it to feel real.

  “Show me the false deal,” I said.

  “I told you I would.”

  “Please. Show me now.” I stood up to put my plate and silverware into the sink. I returned with a pack of cards and handed it to her.

  “Natalie, the deal … it’s a good move, but that’s all it is. Don’t lose the forest for the trees. What we have to do—it’s a lot more than a single move.”

  Undoubtedly true. But all of this would only become real to me when she revealed her secret. I replied: “Show. The. Move.”

  She sighed, pushed her plate aside, and slid the cards out of the pack. “Have a seat,” she said as she began to shuffle the cards. Her fingernails were still ragged, her hands were dry, but in her card handling she was nothing like the hesitant amateur I’d seen in Atlantic City. She made a few cuts, and then: she did it. She made everything real.

  “Second from the bottom,” she said. “I learned it as the Greek deal. Done right it’s invisible, and you can flash the bottom card so the other players think they’re gaining an advantage.”

  I remembered, during the game in Atlantic City, how she’d occasionally given us all an “accidental” peek at the bottom card before dealing from the top of the deck. Or so it had looked. In actuality, she was sliding the bottom card out of the way and false dealing from the card just above it.

  “Learn the Greek deal,” she said, “and you’ll never need to bottom deal again.”

  “Do it,” I said, and watched as Ellen—how did she handle the cards so well with such small hands?—fanned the deck to locate the four aces, which she set at the bottom of the deck. She placed another card underneath. Then she dealt out four hands of four cards each. She turned over her own pile to reveal the four aces.

  I was glad not to have misremembered the level of her talent. Or maybe I had, because her deal tonight was better than it had been in Atlantic City. This time I was watching for it—no distractions, no misdirection—and yet I caught not a whiff of the false deal.

  “In magicians’ terminology,” I said, “that is called fucking amazing. Teach it to me.”

  She was gathering up the cards. “We have a lot to do tonight.”

  “I know we do. But I gave up magic last night. So how about throwing me a bone?”

  She squared up the stack of cards in front of her. “Get a second deck,” she said.

  By the time I had attained a halting, awkward grasp of the Greek deal the bottle of wine was long g
one. The table was cleared and we had dug into a package of cookies I’d bought for the occasion. Julius and Ethel had both started cooing. Their concerts were unpredictable.

  “You use the doves in your act, I assume,” Ellen said.

  “Actually, they’re just pets.”

  “Yeah, birds freak me out. They’re like rats with wings.”

  “Some people have rats for pets, too,” I said.

  “Yuck.” She made a face. “No offense. By the way, Victor and his friends think my name is Emily Ross, wealthy descendant of Horace Smith.”

  “Who?”

  “Of the Smith and Wesson company.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “You said it. Victor ate up my own little piece of Americana, just like I knew he would. My great-great-great-granddad Horace started out inventing a new method for killing whales: an exploding bullet.”

  “How very disgusting.”

  “Victor was extremely interested in my entrepreneurial ancestry, which I happened to mention at a reception for Notes for Kids last winter. We had a lovely conversation. He was intrigued by my pro-gun-control stance even though it hurt my personal fortune.” She smiled. “I left him knowing two things about me: I had money to donate, and I was a serious poker player who, like him, hated the public nature of casinos. Next day, I got the call.”

  While she spoke, I was dealing second-from-the-bottom cards over and over. “How’d you know he played poker?”

  “Not everyone’s as good at keeping secrets as we are.”

  Fair enough. “So you played in Victor Flowers’s home game for a year. When did you first start thinking about a big take?”

  “I figured just getting invited to their regular game was a major score. But the moment they started talking about their annual tournament, I knew. It’s perfect, Natalie. There’s no second buy-in. That makes planning easier. But there are other things, too, like Victor not hiring a dealer. He likes it to be a game among friends. I guess he thinks a hired dealer would take away from the friendly feel. It’s always the same guys. They even have a name for their group: the Midnight Riders.”

  “Why?”

  “Victor loves Paul Revere. He’s got a big painting of him over the staircase. But also they’re all businessmen who wake up early—so the game always finishes by midnight.”

  “And you can wake up to teach the next morning.”

  “It’s a perk,” she said. “But I knew I needed a partner. And I figured with almost a year, how hard could it be? I know a number of other card mechanics, but apparently not the right ones. Most of them have a few moves, and they seek out sloppy games with weak players. They pick over played cards and grab from the muck and control a couple of cards here and there, anything to get an edge. Even the good ones are pretty much just grinders at heart. I started to realize that guys like that—and I do mean guys like that—weren’t up to this job.”

  I stopped dealing the cards. “Wait a minute. Do you want to work with me because I’m good or because I’m a woman?”

  “Give yourself a little credit, will you? But it doesn’t hurt that you’re a woman. A woman at the card table can get away with more.” She smiled. “Anyway, I trust a male cheat as far as I can throw him.”

  “You think women are more honest?”

  “In life? No idea. But at a card table with all guys? Definitely. I’d rather work with a woman any day.”

  “Like Thelma and Louise,” I said.

  “That’s a terrible example, Natalie.”

  “I just mean they worked well together.”

  “Yes, they drove off a cliff together very successfully. Let’s not do that.”

  I started dealing the cards again. I knew that once Ellen left I’d be doing Greek deals in front of the bathroom mirror late into the night. “So you were having trouble finding a partner …”

  “I was starting to get desperate,” she said, “which is how I ended up in Atlantic City.” Her eyes widened a moment, and she broke into a smile. “Meeting you,” she said, “was a hell of a coincidence, but not as much as maybe you think. We were both in A.C. that night for the same reason: for Ace.” For a moment I had the inane thought: She’s writing a magazine article? Then I understood. “His name came up a couple of times, so I drove down to see him in action.” She shrugged. “What can I tell you? It was a bad tip.”

  “His bottom deal was a little rough.”

  She cracked a smile. “When I saw how awful he was, I figured I might as well make some money so the night wouldn’t be a total waste.”

  “No regrets about cheating your friend?”

  “Hey,” she said, “I’m going through a bad divorce, right? Ethan’s probably glad I had a big night. And don’t forget, he came out ahead, too.”

  “And then I ran after you on the street like a crazy person,” I said.

  “You were sort of keyed up.” She smiled and took another cookie. “I don’t blame you. I’m pretty terrific.”

  8

  I’d forgotten I was out of coffee, so we decided to stretch our legs and walk down the street to the mini-mart for a cup. It wasn’t late, but there was no longer any hint of dusk, and the street was empty except for a stray cat with no tail. Seeing us, it darted across the road and into an alley.

  By the time we got back to the apartment Ellen had almost stopped complaining about the mini-mart coffee. I apologized for not living next to a higher-quality mart, and we sat at the table again. But before we got down to the nitty-gritty, Ellen wanted me to understand just how unusual our situation was. “Your typical card mechanic spots a couple of good cards in the muck—an ace, a king—and controls them to the bottom of the deck. It’s helpful but not a guaranteed win. Do you understand? It’s cards. You could have a strong hand and still lose. But with a million dollars in play, plus our own combined half million in chips, we have to factor out all the luck. We need a winning hand that will make the other guys go all in.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Feel like taking a guess?”

  “With the two of us in on it? I’m guessing we swap in a cold deck.”

  “No,” she said. “We don’t want any evidence. Cheating is supposed to be low risk. Even your friend Ace knew that.”

  “Ace isn’t my friend,” I reminded her.

  “Whatever. His skills were atrocious but his strategy was sound. Poker players aren’t generally out to spot a cheat. They’re too caught up in playing each hand. So Ace gets the benefit of the doubt. And then imagine that the worst thing happens: someone calls him out for cheating. What do you suppose he does?”

  “He denies it.”

  “Right. Vehemently. He acts offended and insulted. And then he immediately stops cheating. It’s his word against his accuser’s, and his accuser is never sure, just suspicious. There’s no evidence, so that’s the end of it.” She sipped her coffee and made a face. “But if you sneak a cold deck into the game?”

  “Evidence,” I said.

  “Not to mention you’d have to know the exact deck your host will be using—what brand, what color, if the cards are bordered or not. Then you have to pull the switch off. But what if you can’t? Or what if you get caught? Imagine getting caught with a second deck.” She shook her head. “Even a roomful of pacifists will turn mean if they catch you swapping in a deck. And I never once played poker with a roomful of pacifists.”

  “What, then?”

  She turned toward my window, but the blinds were shut. I imagined she was seeing Victor Flowers’s game room.

  “Ideally,” she said, “we get the game down from six players to four. That shouldn’t be hard. Two of the guys aren’t all that good, and I can throw myself a couple of aces along the way. So we do that, then we—actually, you—will start controlling cards to the bottom of the deck. We’re going to create a hand, a perfect one, where the remaining guys will both go all in, but I’ll win the hand.” She looked around. “Do you have a sheet of paper and a pen?”

  I got t
hem for her, and she began to write.

  “That’s everyone’s initial deal,” she said. “Victor bets first. He’s gonna bet a lot with those two queens.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what he has to do, if he’s a decent player. And he is. I’ll call. And Danny—Danny Squire, by the way. Recognize the name?”

  I did, from all those TV commercials for Squire Lexus, Squire BMW, Squire Porsche, Squire every-car-I-could-never-afford.

  “The car guy?” I asked.

  “Yep. Total asshole. Anyway, either he’ll call or, more likely, he’ll raise with those jacks. You’ll fold. Then comes the flop.”

  She wrote some more.

  I assessed the hand. “Now Danny and Victor both have three of a kind.”

  “That’s right. Three jacks for Danny, three queens for Victor. Those are two very strong hands. Danny bets first, and with those jacks he’s almost guaranteed to go all in.”

  “With three jacks?”

  “The math is on his side,” Ellen said. “He’ll know he almost certainly has the best hand so far, and he’ll want to scare away anyone else from sticking around long enough to get lucky later in the hand. It’s smart poker, and Danny’s a loose player to begin with. I’ve seen him go all in with less. And when he does, Victor has to go all in—with three queens, he has the nuts.”

  “The who?”

  “The nuts,” she said. “The best possible hand at that point.”

  I looked at her drawing some more. “This doesn’t seem guaranteed,” I said.

  Ellen looked, too, but she saw something else, something deeper. “They’re gamblers, Natalie. They’re gonna gamble. Except, really? To them? This hand isn’t even gambling. One glance at their cards and it’ll be automatic. Like an algorithm—they have to go with the odds when the odds are this much in their favor. I’ve seen Danny go all in when he shouldn’t have, but he’s never not gone all in when he should. And only an idiot folds when he has the nuts, and Victor is no idiot. But if for some reason neither one of them goes all in? Then I’ll do it. And they’ll have to follow, because they’ll have the two best possible hands at that point, and they aren’t going to give away their money for no reason.”