Dead Man's Hand (11 page)

“I guess
not,” I replied sullenly.  Well I had really screwed the pooch.  How
did I miss an exterior door?  Granted I wasn’t given the opportunity to
really examine the walls all too closely, but still I didn’t like missing this
much.  I pulled my attention away from the small crowd watching us to the
light fixtures above.  Now this was what put the room over the top. 
There were half a dozen handcrafted chandeliers that appeared to be forged from
gold.  From the end of each spoke to its center there was a line of
diamonds strung up to connect the two points.  There was other, more
usable light along the edges of the ceiling but those chandeliers certainly put
the room into its own class.

Similar to
the lounge, the walls were very ornate.  But here there was only one bar
to satiate the players and, according to what I had been told, this one wasn’t
going to be open.  With a slight tug on my arm Bella pulled my attention
from further observation of the room and looked me square in the eyes. 
“Remember Marcus, different tables.”  And with that she turned on her
heels and went off to her right in search of an open table.

Watching her
walk off I wanted to go back to studying the room but I needed to find a table
so that I could ensure we wouldn’t start at the same one, so I went in the
opposite direction.  Scanning the tables I passed two full tables that had
already started, but I was curious to see where Bella ended up so I briefly
turned around.  And sure enough I saw that Bella had snagged herself a
seat at a table but unfortunately Patrick got the last seat at her table. 
I shuddered when I caught sight of him, and I felt sorry that Bella would have
to deal with him right away.  At the same time, I was glad that I didn’t
have to.

Knowing that
Bella and I would have our wish I began my search anew and came across a table
that, so far, only held four rather good looking women and the dealer. 
While two of the woman appeared to be serious players, the other two looked
like easy marks so I made myself at home with a grin on my face.  “Hello
ladies.  How are you all doing today?”

I took the
fourth chair from the dealer’s right and saw some very different reactions from
the five other people at the table.  The woman to my left flashed me a
warm smile in return but she decided to remain mute for the moment.  While
the two women to my right waved and introduced themselves as Simone and
Tiffany, both were fairly attractive blonds.  Having just met them it was
probably unfair but I couldn’t help but think that they would be poster
children for the dumb blonde stereotype.  All the while the boyish woman
across from me just stared at me with disinterested eyes.  Clearly she was
the Debbie Downer of the table.

Well if the
other two wouldn’t talk any more, I would just have to study them silently
instead.  But that was only after I gave the dealer a quick once
over.  He was middle-aged and, from the looks of things, happened to be
losing his personal war against baldness.  Though that did nothing to
lessen the fact that he was very muscular.  He had the look of a fighter
in his eyes, and I figured he was definitely one of Dempsey’s goons.  I
was surprised that Dempsey would risk placing one of his thugs as a dealer when
I noticed what he was doing with his hands.  The man was displaying just
how familiar he was with a deck of cards, not to mention the dexterity of his
fingers.  With this dealer’s show of expertise I finally began to realize
the extent of the diversity in Dempsey’s employees.  It was mindboggling.

I was
eventually able to pull Allison, the woman to my left, into the quiet
conversation I had managed to start up with Simone and Tiffany, but the boyish
one still refused to even offer her name, so we ignored her. When Malone and
Gregory joined the table they were happy to offer their names and more than
willing to join in on the conversation as well.  After about a minute or
two the boyish woman finally introduced herself as Kelly, yet she was still not
entirely willing to converse.

All the talk
came to an abrupt end when Tyson sat down. Up to this point I had the seven of
us talking in a more or less natural tone, which was good for me.  I have
always loved to gather tells and other useful tidbits during easy conversation
because people tended to let out their natural selves.   Tyson’s
arrival however stopped the conversation cold.  No one wanted to be the
first one to break the silence.  But after a moment I steeled myself and
asked him what his name was.  I had to repeat the question a couple of
times but I eventually got him to tell us his name.  Just like that the
fragile sense of camaraderie I had managed to bring to life was gone.  The
table sat in complete silence until William and Jonathan joined us, but with
Tyson staring at everyone, all I was able to do was coax out their names.

With the
table now full, the dealer prompted Tyson and Kelly for the blinds.  The
two immediately surrendered their blinds and the dealer began the tournament at
our table.  When I received my second card I lifted both corners up and
glanced down to inspect my first hand.  I was rewarded with a pair of
aces.  With that pair smiling up at me, I couldn’t help but feel like
things were going to go my way.  Maybe I would be able to win this thing
without manipulating the cards after all, and that would certainly make Matt
happy.

While Jonathan
contemplated his next move after Kelly’s bet, I knew he thought she was
bluffing.  It was too bad he hadn’t spent the last couple of hours
studying the players like I had.  If he had paid closer attention then he
would have known that yes, she was bluffing, but I was fairly sure that his
hand would lose either way.  I was confident because I knew
their tells
.  And I knew them, because I had done the
work to figure them out.  Sometimes I continued to play a hand that I had
no business continuing, but the payments I gave to them were well spent because
I gathered what I needed.  That or I planted what I could use.

Now Kelly had more than a
dozen different tells, some were false but a good handful were precious tools
to use against her. Unfortunately for Kelly that little eye twitch of hers, as
slight as it was, was a dead giveaway that she was trying to bluff her way out
of the bad hand she had been fishing on.  Fortunately for her that twitch
was variable, and this time it had been slighter than the last time I saw it,
so while she may have something to hold on to she was still trying to bluff her
way out of the hole she had jumped in with Tyson

Now Tyson was the player
at this table, and as such, he was the only one I had been unable to get a read
on.  To be fair there had been two players that I had quickly decided to
ignore rather than waste precious time studying.  Simone and Tiffany
clearly didn’t come here to play poker; at least as far as I could tell. 
The pair had lacked any kind of knowledge of the game; I mean, they didn’t even
know the order of the hands.  Their decision to enter had troubled me at
first since, just like me they had ponied up the entrance fee, but unlike me,
they obviously didn’t come to play the game.

It wasn’t until after
they were eliminated that I discovered their real reason for coming, as foolish
as I thought it was. During the first hour everyone else at the table was able
to bleed them at a good pace, so their wealth was being redistributed evenly
enough.  Until Tyson managed to eliminate them both at the same
time.  So he absorbed the reminder of their chips into his own pile. 
And since they each roughly had about half of their starting amount, Tyson had
lucked into a staggering lead over the rest of us.  A lead which was only
exacerbated by the fact that he was clearly a very talented professional. 
But once they were eliminated the two women cheerfully got up and were escorted
by one of Dempsey’s goons into the stadium seats surrounding the room.
 The next time I caught sight of them it looked like they were placing
bets.  They were placing bets, presumably on who would finish where, and
no one at the table mentioned it.  So I had to assume that it was standard
procedure.

Of course I spent a poor
hand thinking about why Dempsey would be doing something like this.  I
managed to figure it out before the next hand started.  This was Dempsey’s
control over his elite guests.  From the moment I walked into this room, I
felt like I was a gladiator and it turned out that I really was in a way. 
This whole tournament was nothing but a spectator sport for those elite few
that he brought in.  While a few of them would get to play with the real
professionals if only for a short while; someone might even get lucky enough to
take one out.  But that wasn’t important, no, once their time at the
tables was over they were guided from the playing
arena
up to the stadium
where they could mingle with their own.  Once there, they would be able to
share their experiences with the ones who hadn’t made the cut. But they would
also be able to place bets on those still in the game.

When Dempsey’s control
became clear, so too did his real purpose.  This wasn’t about making
money; it was about social networking.  Dempsey was slowly merging his
business interests with society’s elite.  Sure, he made a healthy profit
from the entrance fees, not to mention the apparent extracurricular betting and
furniture.  But even if Dempsey were running this tournament at a loss he
would find a way to continue doing it, if only so he could continue to
influence the next generation of business leaders.

It was impressive how far
out the man was willing to plan. He was running a game of his own and everyone
involved was a valid piece to move.  He was teaching these future leaders
to trust him; to lean on him; to come to him for everything.  And with
that it was no wonder Dempsey’s sphere of influence was rumored to be as large
as it was; he was spreading it across the United States a company at a
time.  Those companies wouldn’t strictly belong to him, but they would
still be his, or more importantly under his influence.  And the fact that
the tournament only had a limited number of seats only increased its
popularity.  I could feel the weight of Dempsey’s cold intellect just as
much as Tyson’s chip count and they were both staggering.

I was eventually able to
shake that realization but it had cost me a small chunk of my chips.  I
refocused myself on the game and, for the next hour or so, Tyson was busy
trying to eliminate Malone.  I had managed to eliminate Gregory. 
While all of us were hemorrhaging chips to Tyson, Gregory was simply doing so
at a higher rate.  Now he still had about a quarter of chips when he fell
to me, but I was certain that the fact he had been losing so much and so fast
surly weighed in on his decisions.

I had been able to find a
single chink in Gregory’s decent demeanor, and it was more of a gut feeling
than a chink.  But it was enough to tell me that he had gotten two pair
with the flop.  As it stood his hand was better than mine but I had a good
draw, though I certainly needed more help.  It came with the last card, I
had gotten my straight.  And I was even able to coax Gregory to pony all
he had left.  While I was sorting my new found wealth he was escorted to
the stadium seats.  I now had some protection from Tyson’s bullying,
though he still had quite the lead.

As sweet as the memory of
my recent victory was, I needed to focus on what was happening around me. 
Bringing my attention back to the present I looked over at Jonathan and saw him
tapping his cards, nervous habits weren’t a good thing to have in poker. 
Granted, without context that alone would mean absolutely nothing.  Sure
you could probably guess that he was nervous but that would probably be about
it.  But I had been studying these people so I was able to place it in
context.  I knew he was going to fold and I probably knew it before he
did.

Within a few moments
Jonathan proved my guess correct when he tossed his cards back to the
dealer.  And then there were two.  Kelly’s bet was to Tyson, and the
man wasted no time re-raising Kelly enough to bankrupt her if she choose to
pursue the hand.  I knew Kelly’s hand was nothing better than two pair,
maybe trips if she was lucky, but there were a lot of possible combinations
that would beat either of those hands.  So far she had shown herself to be
a competent player, if not a really good one, so she had to see that as well.
 She was going to fold, her brain just had to get the message to her
hands.  But she sat there staring at Tyson’s new raise seriously
contemplating whether she would match it.  Had she somehow found
a tell
amidst Tyson’s chiseled façade?  Or was she
simply frustrated with how Tyson was bullying them?

But after a few more
moments the analytical portion of her mind must have kicked in because she surrendered
the hand to Tyson.  The silent juggernaut smiled as he flipped over his
pocket kings revealing his winning hand, trip kings.  From here I could
feel the frustration radiating off of her, was it possible that she could have
won the hand if she had stayed in?  It would certainly fit her, but more
than likely she was just frustrated that Tyson had won another hand
again.  Begrudgingly I had to admit that Tyson was a very good strategist,
though his steel etched face certainly helped mask what he was planning.

My legs were growing
stiff so I needed to stand up and stretch. I stood and it felt great to reach
for the vaulted ceiling above our heads.  Before I was finished I heard
Allison voice sweetly ask, “Giving up so soon Marcus?”

I knew she was just
trying to get under my skin. Still stretching, I spoke gently as I answered her
taunt. “Perish the thought Alison.  No I’m simply stretching my stiff
body, I was getting a little sore.”  As I finished with that particular
stretch I went on to another one and continued, “I don’t know about you, but
after sitting down for three hours I could use a quick stretch.”

William, who was still
sitting next to me, picked up the chips required for the big blind and held
them for a moment.  “Well you two can do whatever you want; meanwhile a
game is going on.”  With that he tossed his bet into pot, letting the
chips punctuate his words.

And when the last chip
hit the table the dealer began dealing out the hand and within a few moments
the cards were ready for us all.  With the cards in place and everyone
waiting on me I sighed like a put upon child and returned to my seat.  I
lifted up the corners of my cards I saw both the seven and ace of spades. 
An ace and a seven were not much on their own but they were suited and that was
worth pursuing at least for a while.  I sat there for a minute and tapped
the table with my fingers, pretending to think about the odds.  As long as
no one tried to raise the big blind I was willing to pay to see the flop. 
“Well their good enough for me to see the flop.”  I said aloud as I tossed
in the required chips.

Now Allison was on the
clock.  While she thought about her cards I let my eyes wander around the
room, but they ultimately fell upon Tyson’s eyes. Those cold and steely blue
eyes kept pulling me back whenever I tried to look away.  Something about
them was just off.  And I couldn’t put my finger on it, which only further
unsettled me.  Every time I was drawn to study the tiny fields of blue and
white, my uneasiness grew by leaps and bounds.

When I look at something
that is alive I expect to see the normal signs of life staring right back at
me.  Even something as simple as looking at a pair of eyes I can tell when
someone is still driving the bus, so to speak.  But staring into Tyson’s
eyes, I couldn’t see the slightest sign of life.  If the eyes truly are
the windows to one’s soul then at that moment I would have shouted to the world
that Tyson was in fact soulless, that he was just a very advanced automaton,
but I knew better.  Robots didn’t exist.  So how was his gaze so
lifeless?

Then with a mental click
I realized that Tyson was silently and unobtrusively studying me.  He was
taking in absolutely everything about me, trying to build himself the perfect
cheat sheet while he was playing against me.  And the fact that I had
caught him doing it simply didn’t faze him; he just kept right on collecting
his precious data.  And right then not only did I feel incredibly exposed
but I also knew that Tyson was going to be at the final table.  And I
truly began to worry about making it there myself.

I had been so
focused on Tyson’s silent study of me that I almost missed Allison’s
words.  “Well I can’t justify paying for the flop.”  She was
disappointed, at least I thought she was, not that I was a good judge right
then, as she pushed her pair of cards back to the dealer.  With a scoff
she looked at everyone and said, “I don’t think anything would have come up
that would have let me beat Tiffany.”  Whether she meant for it to happen
or not, everyone save Tyson laughed, even the stoic dealer cracked a smile.

Unable to
keep from piling on the defenseless Tiffany, Jonathan calmly added his own
thoughts.  “That may be but I’m sure you would have been able to convince
her otherwise.”  I was certain that his quip was simply an attempt to
deflect from his own dissatisfaction with his cards, because he quickly
followed Allison’s lead as he tossed his hand to the dealer as well.

“True enough,
Jonathan, but then where would the challenge have been?”  Allison replied
but before anyone could respond she stood up and continued on.  “I think
I’ll follow your lead Marcus but I think my stretch will take me over to the
bar, I need a drink.  Enjoy the round everyone.”   With that she
abruptly turned around and made her way to the bar.

Without
unnecessary words, which for Tyson meant that he was still his stoic and mute
self, the man casually called the big blind.  Despite my earlier thought,
I felt like folding my hand, no matter that I had paid to see the flop. 
Tyson’s stare was just that unnerving.  It was obvious that he was just
trying to bully the rest of us with his ever increasing stack. Just like every
other time Kelly had had the small blind, she instantly paid the difference so
she could see the flop as well.  Finally William checked away his
opportunity to raise the buy in.

The stern
faced dealer quickly burned the top card and produced the flop.  Intently,
I studied the cards for a moment and mentally danced for joy.  Now all I
needed was to hook one of the players, it didn’t matter who.  In the
center of the table there were the deuce and jack of spades split by the seven
of hearts.  So far this night I had managed to catch three flush draws
just like this, I was going to run with my past luck and wipe that
expressionless look off of Tyson’s face, well that was my hope anyway.

Kelly was
willing to see how the round developed so she simply checked the opening bet to
William who instantly reached for a stack of chips.  But instead of
collecting a bet he sat there playing with the stacks. Eventually he decided
that five-thousand dollars would be sufficient.  Looking at his face he
did a decent job of hiding his emotions from view, but fortunately for me, I
hadn’t stopped my exam with his face.  I studied his entire body. 
His hands told me the entire story that his face was schooled enough not to.