Bluff Read online

  “I admire your pieces in the Magician’s Forum,” he said when I was done. “I think you’re a good writer, and your way of explaining magic to a layperson is top-notch. I told you that when we met.”

  “You did.”

  “But this piece you’re describing, you’d really have to bring out the people element. The personalities. The cardsharp’s, and yours, too. That’s just as important as the moves. Do you think you’d be able to do that?”

  I told him I thought so, and then he told me what “on spec” meant. How I’d have to write the article first, before he could commit to publishing it. “It’s just that you haven’t written for a national magazine before,” he said.

  I looked around my apartment. Every bill was overdue. It was a wonder that the phone in my hand was still working.

  “Natalie?” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I really like the idea. We’ll do our best to make this work.” Then he told me what he would pay for the article once it was done, and that lifted my spirits.

  “Do you already have a cardsharp in mind?” he asked.

  I told him I did. “And he’s world-class,” I said, hoping that Brock McKnight, attorney-at-law, wasn’t snowing me.

  The editor for a major New York magazine had answered after two rings, but it took three messages on the cardsharp’s cell phone for him to call me back.

  Meanwhile, I kept waiting to hear from Brock to find out how Lou Husk was recovering, and if he’d decided yet whether to press charges or simply go after my nonexistent assets in a civil suit. On Wednesday morning, with still no word, I left a message for Brock to call me. Then I got in my car and did what my cardsharp had asked, meeting him at ten a.m. at the City Diner in Montclair.

  The place was mostly empty, but I spotted him right away in the rear section, sitting alone. He had on mirrored sunglasses and the green hoodie he said he’d be wearing. The drawstrings were missing. His hair was greasy and graying but his skin was unlined. Without seeing his eyes, I couldn’t tell his age. Forty? Fifty? He wore a gold wedding band on his left hand.

  I introduced myself, and when I went to shake his hand he said, “Grab a seat,” without setting down his fork. “Order some pancakes.” He whistled to the server—two thick fingers in the mouth, a coach’s whistle. It was alarmingly rude, and I gave the server a solidarity eye roll. “Natalie here would like a stack of pancakes,” he said.

  I don’t like people ordering for me, and I nearly corrected him on principle: eggs, bucket of rocks, anything. But I held my tongue.

  The server went away and dropped a check on a table by the window, where a woman about my age was sitting across from an older version of herself. When the mother reached out for the check, the daughter placed her hand on top of her mother’s, stopping her.

  I asked, “Do you really go by Ace?”

  “Isn’t because of the cards. My older brother always said I was stupid. He came up with it to rag me. He’s dead now. This is the best diner you’ll ever eat at.”

  Ace went back to working on his pancakes. This late in the morning, the restaurant was sparsely populated, primarily tables-for-one, everybody checking cell phones, except for a couple of old men with newspapers. There was no music, only the sound of dishes clanking in the kitchen and the card cheat across from me chewing like a satisfied cow. I hadn’t known what to expect, but what struck me about Ace was his gracelessness—though I was willing to believe that his gracelessness could have been its own carefully cultivated grace.

  “Tell me,” he said, finishing a pancake and setting his fork and knife down, “exactly what my well-intentioned lawyer has gotten me into this time.”

  Keeping my voice low, I said, “I want to write an article about a professional cardsharp.”

  He nodded. “You said that on the phone. But an article for what?”

  “For Men’s Quarterly.”

  He shook his head. “No. I mean, what for?”

  I explained how I wanted to know what a magician might learn from a poker cheat. Moves, patter, misdirection—

  “You couldn’t photograph me,” he said. “And you’d have to change my name.”

  I told him I already assumed as much.

  “Good,” he said. “How much are you getting paid to write this? Because I want half.”

  Are you nuts? I wanted to say. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “And yet that’s the price of admission,” he said.

  The server came over and set a plate of pancakes in front of me. I used the time it took to unwrap my silverware from the paper napkin to make a fast decision. “I can give you twenty-five percent of what I make on the article.”

  But he, too, had been using my napkin-unfolding time for his own calculation. “Let’s call it a thousand dollars, and that’s the end of the negotiation.”

  I felt like delivering a clever exit line followed by a clever exit. But I wanted the interview more. The money, of course, mattered but there was more to it, I was beginning to realize. I was so damn tired of myself. One day I would die, and my gravestone would read, She did some magic tricks. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more, do more, jump-start something.

  “You’re good, right?” I said. “The real deal? Brock McKnight vouched for you.”

  He watched me a moment. “I took my classmates’ money in grade school,” he said. “By the time I was fifteen I was into a dozen regular games in A.C., in Trenton. I always looked older. My hands were always adept. That part came easy, you know? But to make it great, to make it undetectable from every angle …” He kept his gaze on me. “A grade-school kid gets caught cheating other kids, maybe he gets a black eye. But to cheat grown men, to take their money … do you see what I’m saying?”

  I did. And yet I didn’t know the way I wanted to know, didn’t know it in my blood. That was precisely what drew me to writing this article. When your performance went beyond dollars and into the realm of life and limb, how do you prepare? How do you protect yourself? How do you conquer the fear? How flawless, exactly, must your technique be?

  “You’re telling me your moves are undetectable,” I said.

  “I’m telling you,” he said, “there are maybe a dozen people in the world who can do what I do.”

  If he was right, look where it had gotten him—the City Diner on a Wednesday morning, talking to me. I studied his hands again. Stubby fingers, yellowed fingernails … ah, but those fingernails were beautifully filed. It was almost December and his fingers showed no signs of cracking or dryness. The man moisturized. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all I had.

  “All right,” I said. I never claimed to be a shrewd negotiator. “A thousand.”

  “Up front,” he said.

  “Impossible,” I said. “I don’t have it.”

  “Not my problem, love.”

  “I can give you maybe three hundred. The rest—I really don’t have it.”

  “Then I’ll take the three hundred, but know that I’m not pleased. And I want the rest soon.”

  So this was how it would be with my cardsharp. “You’ll make this worth my while, right?” I told him. “You’ll give me what I need for this interview?”

  “Interview?” He shook his head. “No, I’m gonna take you to play some poker. How are you at Texas Hold’em?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, “but no expert.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Then you’ll lose fast and get to watch the rest of the game without any distractions.”

  I ate some pancake to stall. “What’s the buy-in?” I asked.

  “The one on Sunday night is four hundred.”

  “Can I just watch?”

  “Afraid not. These are intimate games at people’s homes. Actually, the game on Sunday’s at a bakery. But there won’t be spectators.” I was running through a list of pawnable items—old books I rarely used? My TV?—when he smiled. “Lighten up, will you?” He had smoker’s teeth but his fingers weren’t remotely fidgety. Me
aning, he’d quit. Meaning, he probably had iron willpower and maybe fortitude. “You’ll play, you’ll lose, but you’ll have your article and be privy to things most people never get to see. Okay? Isn’t that what you want?” I didn’t answer right away because the accountant in my head was still lecturing me. “The game on Sunday is in A.C., by the way.”

  Atlantic City was more than a two-hour drive, and my car was pushing two hundred thousand miles and had never once earned the moniker Old Reliable.

  “Who do the other players think you are?” I asked.

  “They think I’m me. I’m Ace, the grinder from North Jersey. Guys like them love playing grinders, because if they lose, they can console themselves with the fact that they were up against a pro anyway, and if they win or break even they feel like they just won the World Series of Poker. Of course, against me they don’t win.”

  A.C. was a trek, but it wasn’t as if I had another gig lined up for Sunday night.

  “I still want to talk to you, though,” I said. “I want to ask you questions, not just watch you play.”

  “Then aren’t you lucky there’s an ATM across the street where you can get me my money.”

  We ate our pancakes, Ace and I, like an elderly couple so used to each other’s company that talk wasn’t necessary. When the bill came, he pushed it toward me.

  7

  Once Ace’s wallet was bulging with three hundred of my dollars, we walked down the street to a small pedestrian square. People were beginning to emerge from the surrounding buildings, squinting in the sun, to eat their sandwiches. Pigeons, cousins to my doves, bobbed along the sidewalk.

  My cheat and I sat together on a metal bench. The morning’s chill was evaporating. I removed a notepad and pen from my purse and asked Ace about his training, his experience, his life that had led him to become a professional card cheater.

  His answers:

  Why would you possibly want to know that?

  Why does that matter?

  Not your business. (Said while massaging his temples.)

  You’re not really asking me that, are you?

  I was learning that I was one hell of an interviewer. That, or my subject was one hell of an interview. Either way, I was expertly performing the trick called “vanishing Men’s Quarterly article.”

  I put the notepad and pen away, hoping that might cause Ace’s lips to loosen. Bruce Steadman had told me to focus on the people as well as the moves, but I couldn’t help wondering if the moves were maybe the doorway that led to someplace deeper. And when it came to Ace’s moves, I had all kinds of questions. I wanted to forget about myself for a while, about the man I’d hurt, the money I owed, and to lose myself in table angles and the logistics of cutting the cards and false shuffles and deals.

  I asked him if he used the mechanic’s grip. When he raised an eyebrow, I said, “You don’t use the straddle grip, do you? That would be too obvious, right?”

  False dealing from the bottom of the deck wasn’t all that hard in principle, but to do it well you had to eliminate friction, your fingers against the cards. So the grip mattered. With a straddle grip your index finger and pinky were out of the way, but it hardly looked natural. Even a layperson might find it fishy. If you’re a magician doing it, who cares? The audience knows a trick is about to happen. But at the poker table, fishy can’t fly, can it? Surely, fishy could get you—

  Ace’s grin was higher on one side than the other. “You’re such a fucking magician,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Mechanic’s grip, straddle grip …” He shook his head. “You have no idea what I do.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re missing the whole point.”

  “Considering the three hundred dollars I just paid you, perhaps you’d care to educate me?”

  He stared at me a moment. “How many children do you think I have?”

  “What?”

  “You know. Kids. How many do I have? Get it right and I’ll give you back fifty dollars.”

  “And if I’m wrong?”

  “Then you’ll owe me twenty more,” he said. “Hell, I don’t care, make it ten. That’s practically a free bet. Come on, how many kids?”

  “You?” With his sunglasses on, his age remained a mystery. Still, after a little thought I had my answer: “Four.”

  His smile revealed small, crooked teeth. Orthodontic work needed but never received. “Not too shabby,” he said. “Tell me how you knew.”

  “Remind me again what this has to do with cards?”

  “Come on, Einstein, you guessed four. You knew. So educate me.”

  Two teenage boys on skateboards raced past, having chosen the mild weather over school. They slalomed around the people eating lunch, rounded a corner, and were gone.

  “The obvious choice was zero,” I said, “so that was out. You wouldn’t have asked me to guess if you had one or two, or maybe even three, because there’s nothing unusual about that. Five or more and you’d be a strict Catholic or Mormon or whatever, and that seems unlikely. It was either four, or maybe three. Maybe five with the last kid being an accident.”

  “So …”

  I shrugged. “So I guessed. I narrowed it down to a few choices and I took my best guess and got lucky.”

  “Bravo.” He graced me with a quick, quiet clap. “That’s what we do. And don’t call me a card cheat or a cardsharp. The cards are the medium, not the method. The method is the con. Do you follow?”

  I liked that phrase. The medium, not the method. I wouldn’t dare pull my notebook out of my purse, but I would commit that to memory. “We narrow down our choices,” he was saying, “and make the most logical guess. It isn’t rocket science, though I’ll bet you rocket science isn’t rocket science, either.”

  “You mean if you’re a rocket scientist.”

  “And that’s just the poker-playing part. An expert con man at the poker table must be an expert poker player—or at least a damn good one. Because a lot of the night, you’re just playing poker. And as long as you’re playing poker, you might as well win some hands. Might as well come out ahead on the merits of the poker game. But then you create a couple of hands that swell the pot, and you make sure to win those, and that’s when you make the real money. A few big hands. You read people, you figure out who’s desperate to win, who’s dicking around with their phones, who’s the biggest natural-born loser in the room. You figure out who you can separate from their money, and then you do it. And you do your homework beforehand so there’s no surprises. I’ve got files on everyone I play against. I go in ready.”

  It all made sense. “But what about the grip?”

  “Natalie—”

  “I’m just really curious about that.”

  “Natalie, forget the grip. Will you forget the grip? Just shut up about the grip. The grip isn’t important.”

  “Okay, but I have a deck of cards in my bag, if you want—”

  He waved me away. “You’ll see everything on Sunday, in front of real players. I want you to see it the way they see it. When you see it how they see it, in action, it’ll all make sense. Then, afterward, you and I will talk. We’ll dissect everything. How’s your car, by the way?”

  “Terrible,” I said.

  “But will it get us to A.C.?”

  Ace would be getting a free ride to his poker game. Fine. I told myself that the drive would be useful for the interview. Unless he ended up being dangerous. That was always possible. I wished I could see his eyes behind those sunglasses. I had plenty of experience reading male faces for the bluff and had gotten pretty good at it over the years, but sometimes you get it wrong. And the parkway in South Jersey would be a lousy place to get it wrong. Yes, I would travel with him, I would drive, but I would leave my itinerary with my upstairs neighbor.

  “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” I said.

  Ace smacked the metal bench with his hand. “Natalie, you’re an angel! Pick me up right here. Fiv
e o’clock on Sunday.”

  “I was hoping we could meet again before then.”

  “Then it appears your hopes are dashed.” He stood. “And wear something sexy.” I must have given him the stink eye, because he rushed to say, “Not for me. But if the other players decide to stare a little at something other than the table, or bet a little higher to show off for the lady in the room, it’ll only help us.”

  “Help you, you mean.”

  “Me, us. We’re a team!” He gave me a thumbs-up. “Okay, Natalie, I’ll see you Sunday at five. Bring the money you still owe me.”

  As he started to walk away, the strangest question came to me. Maybe it was the sunglasses, but I still couldn’t get a bead on him and I wanted to. “Do you live with your kids and wife and everything?”

  He stopped walking. “You mean am I a family man?”

  “I guess. Yeah, a family man.”

  “Is that something you truly want to know?”

  “It really is.”

  He removed the sunglasses. His eyes, I was shocked to learn, were beautiful. Light blue, large and expressive. I would even go so far as to say they were caring eyes, intelligent eyes.

  He said, “You think if you knew that my oldest kid played first-chair violin, that my youngest went through chemo a couple of years back, that my wife is a cardiac care nurse at Robert Wood Johnson, it might give you a different impression of me? Show a different side?” Without the sunglasses, his voice had lost its edge. His tone now seemed born of something besides hostility, something more like pain, and for the first time since meeting him I imagined that the hours we were going to spend together might actually yield something meaningful.

  Of course, I couldn’t say any of this. “I was just curious, is all,” I said.

  Almost imperceptibly he shook his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  He held my gaze a moment longer. “Zero kids, Natalie. Keep the ten.” He replaced his sunglasses, turned away from me, and walked in the direction of the sun.