Double Blind (19 page)

“It’s Crabtree’s home game version of limit poker,” Mitch said, leaning in toward Ethan. “You bet three dollars on the flop. You raise in three dollar increments. After the turn, it’s six dollars and six dollar increments. Blind raises would be one dollar for the small and two dollars for the big.”

“Okay,” Ethan said, but Sam still looked panicked.

“I’m going to screw it up,” Sam said. “I always do.”

“We’ll help you, Sunshine,” Mitch said, accepting a large stack of chips from Randy. Ethan noticed that he didn’t divide them evenly, favoring his husband with a significantly larger portion of the chips.

Randy tossed some bills at Crabtree, then glanced at Ethan. “Slick, you spend all that money you won off me already?”

Ethan blinked, then patted his pockets, but to no avail. “Sorry—I didn’t realize. My wallet is back in your bedroom.” He started to rise.

Randy waved him back into his seat, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He peeled another hundred dollar bill off his stack and tossed it at Crabtree. “I’ll cover you.”

He handed Ethan a stack, and another to Crabtree, and finally a set to himself. Then he put the tray away, sat up in his chair and flexed his fingers. “Are we ready to play, gentlemen?” he asked, and Crabtree began dealing even before anyone agreed that they were.

Ethan accepted his cards, prepared his blind bet, and settled in for what he assumed would be a rather instructive ride. He wasn’t disappointed.

He’d drawn queen-10 offsuit, and after Mitch and Sam both folded, Crabtree called, and Randy raised. Ethan met the raise, deciding he’d at least stay through to see the flop. Crabtree met as well, then laid the flop: J
w
K
r
8
q
.

Randy tapped his finger on the rail for a few seconds before tossing three chips into the pot. “Call.”

Ethan glanced at Crabtree, who was watching him intently in return. It unnerved Ethan, and he suspected he was playing into a trap, but he kept his eyes on the gangster’s, glancing down only enough to count the chips he was grabbing. He took six.

“Raise,” he said, and tossed the chips in.

Crabtree watched him awhile longer, then picked up nine chips. “Re-raise.”

Randy stared blankly into the pot, tapped his fingers again, then nodded. “Call,” he said, and tossed in his chips.

Ethan picked up nine. “Call.”

Crabtree laid the turn: another jack, this time of spades.

Randy called.

Ethan called.

Crabtree raised.

This time Randy looked at the gangster, studying his blank face for almost a full minute. Then he shook his head and tossed his hand into the muck. “Fold.”

Crabtree waited.

Ethan called, thinking he was probably a fool, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let go. He almost had a straight, and he had two ways to make it.

Crabtree laid the river: it was an ace of hearts.

Ethan had to fight not to smile. He kept his eyes on the pot as he tossed in his chips. “Raise.”

Crabtree tossed in a short stack. “Re-raise.”

Ethan frowned and studied the board. What could Crabtree have? Not a flush. Two pair, which Ethan would beat, or possibly four of a kind. That was it, unless he had the same spread as Ethan. Or if he had 9-10. But would he have bet that aggressively if that were the case? And even then, Ethan’s straight was higher. Could Crabtree be holding two jacks? Or a jack and something else, to make a full house? Possibly.

Ethan studied Crabtree, whose face still revealed absolutely nothing. He might as well have been made of stone.

No, Ethan decided. Crabtree was bluffing. He had to be.

Maybe.

What type of man is this one?
Ethan looked at Crabtree.
Cannibal.

He picked up his chips. “Re-raise.”

Randy leaned back in his chair and hid his mouth with his hand as he stared down at the rail, but his eyes danced. Mitch sat drinking his beer, and Sam watched, wide-eyed and attentive.

Crabtree smiled and raised Ethan again.

They went through three more rounds, each raising the other, and both were rapidly running out of chips. Neither was backing down. And then Randy sat up, leaned forward, and looked pointedly at Crabtree.

“Be nice to my guest,” he said.

Crabtree sighed, then nodded. “Call,” he said. And laid down his cards.

They were a jack of hearts—and a
joker.

Ethan stared at the cards, his mouth open. “What—?” He turned to Randy, mouth opening and closing for several tries as he searched for the power of speech. “What the fuck?”

Randy reached for his wallet as Crabtree scooped up the chips. “Jokers are wild when you play with Crabtree.”

“That would have been nice to have been told!” Ethan stared at the board.
A fucking joker.

“Would it have changed how you played?” Crabtree asked, sounding almost bored. But Ethan knew better.

“Yes,” he snapped. He didn’t care how many men this man had killed. That hadn’t been fair.

Crabtree leaned back, looking interested now. “I could just have easily had the other jack, or another king, or another eight.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Ethan shot back. “There are two jokers in that deck, which meant instead of having to have one card, you only had to have one of three. You didn’t have to have a jack
and
a king or a jack
and
an 8. You had the card that would finish almost anything for you. The turn didn’t matter, and neither did the river. You could use the joker to finish anything. It changed everything. So, yes. It mattered that I didn’t know the card was in the fucking deck.”

Crabtree smiled, then turned to Randy, looking very pleased. “Well, well, my boy. He
is
an ace, and better still, he’s not stuck on the bottom of the deck.”

Randy peeled off another hundred and tossed it at Crabtree before reaching for the canister of chips. “Yes. So will you please be nicer to him?”

Crabtree chuckled and reached for his drink as Randy handed Ethan another stack. Sam was leaning forward onto the table, looking fascinated.

“Okay,” Sam said, his eyes running around the table. “I know Crabtree is a cannibal, and so is Mitch. And apparently Ethan is an ace.” He smiled shyly at Ethan, then turned, curious, to Randy. “But what are you?”

Randy rolled his eyes, reached for one of the cards in front of Crabtree, and tossed it at Sam.

“Randy,” Crabtree said, sounding proud, “is wild. He’s the joker: he’s every card at once, but unlike the ace, he doesn’t feel the structure of the deck. In fact, he defies it, which is why he isn’t allowed in formal games—or if he is, he must be very clever how he hides.”

“Cool.” Sam grinned.

But Ethan only studied his lover, and it wasn’t until Randy had picked up the cards and started shuffling to deal that Ethan was able to fully form the thought that he’d been brewing in the back of his mind.

Jokers might be wild, but Ethan bet they were even lonelier than the aces.

Slick
looked so fucking good in his suit it was almost criminal, and watching him move around in it was driving Randy crazy.

He also looked good when he was pissed off, and Crabtree had seen to it that Ethan remained in a constant state of frustration the entire evening. It was cruel, really—the gangster gunned for Slick, making sure he always lost or only won small pots, and only then just enough to keep him in the game. Sam, as always, despite the significant lead Mitch had given him, ran out of chips first, and Mitch, who had only been marginally interested in the game anyway, quickly spent himself out. They watched for a few hands, and then Mitch excused himself and Sam so they could retire to their bedroom. But Crabtree held up a hand as they rose, reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a card.

“Dr. Laura Halstrom,” he said, passing the card to Mitch. “You won’t find better in the city, and you’ll only find a few superior elsewhere, for that matter. I suggest you both go for the first visit, because you’ll feel easier about leaving, Mitch, if you know who you’re leaving Sam with.”

Mitch took the card, looking at it in surprise. His voice was gruff when he spoke. “Thank you.”

Crabtree nodded. “Be sure to look me up before you leave for Los Angeles. It turns out I have some business for you myself in Kentucky.”

Mitch winced. But he said nothing, only nodded. He glared at Randy, though, before putting a hand on Sam’s back and leading him down the hall toward the bedrooms.

And that was when the game really got interesting.

Randy tried to protect Slick, but it was hard enough to keep his own head above water with Crabtree, and at best he could sometimes deflect some of the attacks. He knew what Crabtree was doing, and he knew why, but he didn’t like it. He’d only known Ethan a day, but he’d played poker with him for a good chunk of that time, and he knew when Slick was starting to wear down. He was pretty much a frayed nerve by this point. Randy wanted to end the game, and soon, because he really wanted to have some intense sex with the man, and that was going to be a lot less fun when Ethan was smarting from Crabtree wiping the floor with him.

Ethan tried to adapt his strategy, and he did well, all things considered. For someone who had been playing just one day, he was a fucking savant. But with Crabtree, even that wasn’t enough. You couldn’t miss a beat when you played him, and he always made sure he stayed several steps ahead of you. Most pros wouldn’t play with him because he was so erratic, and he was in full form tonight. Randy had to find a way to end this, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

The only real weakness Crabtree had at cards was that he was no good at what Randy was best at, which was manipulating the game from the belly. Crabtree couldn’t do that, couldn’t even see it properly, because he could never understand why anyone would throw a game, and that was the easiest way to manipulate one from beneath. It didn’t bother Randy at all. If he wanted money, he could find a game full of live ones and clean up. In this town you couldn’t walk into a poker room without tripping over four games like that. But manipulating a game was fun, and for him the fun was usually payment enough. Winning or losing money was a highly negotiable detail.

What Randy wanted right now was to have Slick to himself. He wanted to make sure he was okay. He wanted to fuck him. He wanted to ask him what he thought of Crabtree. He wanted to find out what that tic in his jaw was about—what was he so pissed about when he did that? Was he right, and it was jealousy? Or was it something else? Was he just hoping too hard it was jealousy? Whatever it was, he wouldn’t know until the game was over.