Emperors of Time (14 page)

About twenty
minutes later, Billy said, “We’re getting close…  It should be three
blocks or so that way. ”

They had come
into the area on Market Street and were in a part of the city with several tall
buildings, about twenty stories high.  Not far off in various directions,
Tim could see some cool architectural features, including domes he was pretty
sure must belong to an Orthodox Church.  They struck onto Geary Street,
where Billy had been pointing.

A few minutes
later, Billy confidently announced, “We’re about to cross into The Tenderloin.”

“Let the
festivities commence,” said Julie, half-heartedly.

“I still say
that with a name like The Tenderloin, those festivities had better have
something to do with eating some really good steak,” Rose joked.  The
other three laughed nervously.  And they had reason to be nervous, Tim
supposed.  They were about to cross into a portion of San Francisco known
for its illegal activities.  Not only were they doing this without adult
supervision, but their parents would not be born for another sixty years or
so.  They kept putting one foot in front of the other, because that’s what
they had to do.

They had decided
to walk around the area nonchalantly, but on their guard, until they found an
opportunity that looked promising.  Perhaps fittingly for a plan that had
so much to do with gambling, they were therefore leaving a lot of the specifics
up to chance. 

As it turns out,
it didn’t take long before something lured their attention.

There were four
boys in their early teens, dressed in black pants, white button-down shirts,
suspenders, and caps playing poker a couple yards down an alley off Geary
Street.

As they passed
the alleyway, Rose shot each of the others a significant look, but Julie kept
walking, like she didn’t notice, and the boys followed her lead.

As soon as they
were out of earshot, Rose protested, “Come on, I promise I can win us some
money!”

“I’m not saying
no,” said Julie calmly.  “In fact I don’t think I even
can
say
no.  I mean, technically it’s Tim’s money, right?  But I don’t think
we should go in without a plan.  And a vote.  I think a tie should go
to having us just keep walking, since that’s definitely the safest
option.  But I’ll vote yes.  If we decide we’re in a situation where
it’s safer to jump back to the possibly bombed out remains of our hometown,
then we’ve got our Domini, but we’re going to need some money to get anything
done here at all.”

“It’s not about
safety…  I mean, the kids are thirteen or something, we can take them,”
said Rose, confidently.

Billy rolled his
eyes.  “I vote no.  I could probably take two or three of them. 
I’m just not too confident that the rest of you can take the other one or
two.  No offense or anything, Tim.”  The funny thing to Tim was that
he really seemed to mean the part about not wanting to offend him.  But
Billy seemed to believe that the time for definitive decisions to be made had
come, and this was not a time for mincing words. 

Tim shook his
head.  “I don’t think I’ve ever said I could beat anyone up.  But
Julie’s right.  We need the cash to get the rest of the plan to work.
 Here’s the fifty-three cents, Rose.  Try not to lose all of it on
the first hand.”

Moments later,
the four of them approached the four boys in the alley, Rose with money in hand
and looking confident, the other three following behind seeming a little more
nervous.

“What’s the
ante?” asked Rose boldly of the boys.

The four boys
looked at each other.  They really didn’t look more than thirteen or so,
but they seemed to think of themselves as pretty tough. 

“You asking for
the boys?” asked one of them.

“Nope, just for
myself,” Rose said.  “I’d like to play.”

The four poker
players looked at each other for a moment, then one of them spoke up. 
“We’ll let the boys play if they want and they’ve got money, but you ain’t
playing.”

“Why not? 
You only let boys play?” Rose scoffed.

“What’re you,
some sort of suffragette?” asked another of the boys.

This question
seemed to catch Rose off guard.  Tim jumped in, saying, “Oh come on, women
can vote in just about every state West of Texas already, so just lighten up.”

“Just because
it’s allowed doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said the boy who had been the
first to talk. 

“You think you’re
pretty wise for a…  what are you, eleven years old?” asked Billy. 
The two poker players who had spoken so far were now standing, but Billy
towered well over them, over six feet tall compared to their five feet or
so.  

“I’m thirteen,”
said the boy indignantly.  Tim was pretty sure he heard a crack in the
kid’s voice.

One of the poker
players, who was still on the ground said, “Come on, Benny, just let her
play.  We ain’t talking politics, we’re playing poker, and you three ain’t
much of a challenge anyhow.”

Rose smiled at
the kid who had spoken last. 

“I’m Rose.
What’s your name, then?” Rose asked him.

“Tom,” he said,
and hopped up off the ground to shake her hand.  “Those two are idiots and
they don’t know how to bluff.”  He said this in a tone of
mock-confidentiality, but Tim heard it, so Benny and his other bluff-challenged
friend certainly did, too.

“I’m Dave,” said
the other kid, jumping up and offering his hand to Rose as well.  “Ante’s
two cents.  You can play if you’ve got money.” 

“Great,” said
Rose.  Within moments, the four boys were sitting back in a wider circle
with room for the newcomers to sit as well.  At least, Billy and Tim were
sitting, not thinking much about whether or not they’d get their pants dirty in
the unpaved alley.  Julie was trying to keep off the dirt by maintaining a
particularly uncomfortable looking crouching position, while Rose had hiked up
her skirt to her knees and was kneeling down on the dirt in front of the deck
of cards. 

This game of
poker had no chips, but the four boys who were playing each had a motley
assortment of change piled in front of them.  Lots of already old-looking
Indian-head pennies, a bunch of buffalo nickels, some Mercury dimes and the
occasional quarter as well.  Maybe these boys weren’t high rollers, but
then again, they were only thirteen and the year was 1916.  If Rose was
anywhere near as good as she claimed, there was a chance she could win a little
money for them and they wouldn’t have to sleep on the streets of San Francisco
the whole weekend. 

Rose put her
change on the dirt in front of her and placed two pennies in the center
circle.  The four boys followed suit. 

“So, I caught
everybody’s name but yours,” Rose said, pointing to the boy who had asked if
she was a suffragette. 

“I’m Frank,”
said the boy.  “But I ain’t shakin’ your hand or nothin’.” 

“That’s all
right, dear,” said Rose in a sarcastically sweet voice.  “I don’t want to
take your hand, just your money.”

“We’re playing
five card draw,” Dave told her.  “I’m dealing this round, which puts you
in as first better.  You’ll have to bet two cents or fold at the beginning
of each betting round, just to get the betting started.  You think you can
handle that?”

“Yeah, I’m
good,” nodded Rose. 

“And you three
better not look at anyone’s cards, not even old Rosie’s there.  She’s
playing, not all of you, and we don’t take kindly to cheaters,” said
Benny.  Then, apparently in an effort to prove his point, he untucked his
shirt to show the handle of a knife tucked into the waistline of his
pants. 

At seeing this,
Julie was back out of her crouching position, ready to storm off. 

“Relax,” Rose
said.  “Benny here’s just making sure we follow the rules, right?  He
isn’t going to use it if we play right, which we’re going to.  And as soon
as I tell him that I go by Rose, not Rosie, everything will be just peachy
here, right?”

“Whatever you
say,
Rosie
,” replied Benny nonchalantly. 

Rose bristled,
but Dave put a hand on her shoulder.  “He’s just riling you up to distract
you from the game.”  Dave looked up at Julie.  “Don’t worry about
Benny, I’d never let him knife anyone, Miss.”

Julie looked a
bit placated by the fact that the kid had called her “Miss.”  She did look
a bit older in the clothes that she was wearing than she normally did, and the
kid addressing her was only thirteen, but it still struck Tim as a bit funny.

“And hey,” said
Dave.  “I’ve got a leftover newspaper I didn’t get to sell today.  I
was going to return it to
The Chronicle
once we finished our game here,
but if it means you’ll stay and I’ll get to play against someone other than
these three, I’ll let you sit on it.  It’s only a penny, after all.” 

Dave pulled a
paper out of a bag behind him and opened it up to spread it a little bit over
the ground.  Julie looked around at Billy and Tim and, seeing that they
seemed to want to stay, too, sat down slowly on the newspaper. 

Finally, Dave
dealt the five players five cards apiece.  “You bet first, remember?’ Dave
prodded.

“Hmm, sure I’ll
bet two cents,” said Rose, who put two fingers on two pennies and moved them
slowly into the center of the circle.  Because Dave raised the bidding
another two cents, Rose needed to bet another two cents.  Then, she
requested two cards.  Upon seeing them, she immediately put the cards down
on the ground in front of them and announced, “I fold.” 

Just like that,
she had lost six cents.  Tim knew even less about poker than he did about
basketball, but he didn’t like the direction this was taking so far.  He
certainly hoped Rose knew what she was doing.  Looking at Julie, Tim
noticed that she seemed to be thinking just about the same thing, but Billy
looked downright chill, which comforted Tim a bit.  After a few more
rounds of betting by the other players, Tom won the hand with a pair of
aces. 

Rose dealt next,
betting two cents to ante, and another two cents to stay in after the cards
were first dealt, since nobody decided to raise anything beyond the obligatory
extra two cents this time. 

After the other players
asked for their cards and Rose handed them out, she announced, “And dealer
takes two.”  She drew two cards from the top of the deck, put them in her
hand, and studied her cards.  A brief grin flashed across her face, but
she quickly hid it.  Tim hoped nobody else had noticed it, because the one
thing that he did know about poker was that there was such a thing as a ‘poker
face’ you were supposed to have when playing, and that it did not allow for big
grins when you got cards you liked.

Benny scoffed
and threw down his cards.  “She just smiled!” he explained.  “I’m not
going to bet if she’s that pleased with her cards!”

One at a time,
the other players set their cards down, deciding not to bet any further. 

Rose collected
the 20 cents in the middle of the pile, and all of a sudden, she was up by ten
cents. 

As she was
placing the cards in her hand on top of the pile, though, Benny grabbed her
cards and looked at them.

“Hey!” Rose
said.  “You don’t get to look!”

Benny ignored
her protest, but yelled indignantly, “You had a king high!  I thought you
said you knew how to play!”

Rose smirked,
“Yeah, I know the hand wasn’t worth anything.  They call it a bluff.”

At that point
Benny’s hand moved, almost instinctively, it seemed, to his waistband.  He
was about to take his shirt out of his pants and reveal the knife again when
Dave put his hand on Benny’s arm. 

“Relax, Benny,”
said Dave calmly. 

“Yeah,” said Tom
with a little laugh, “you’re just upset because you didn’t think of it
yourself. 

Benny swore, but
removed his hand from his waistband.  He anted up, and everyone else did,
too.  Although Rose anted up, she bowed out of the betting before trading
in cards, so she only lost two cents on the hand, still up eight cents from
their original starting money. 

The next hand,
Rose asked for two cards, and Tim thought he saw a trace of a smile flicker
across her face this time, too, when she received the new cards, but nobody
called her on it this time.  In fact, when she raised the current wager of
a nickel by a dime, placing fifteen cents into the growing pot in the middle of
the group, Benny muttered, “I bet she’s bluffing again.”  

There were two
dollars and change in the pot by the time the betting stopped, a little over
fifty cents each from Rose and Benny, who were the last two not to fold. 
Finally, Benny said, “Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

Rose had three
Tens, which beat Benny’s two pair. 

Rose pulled the
coins of the pot toward her and Tim noted with satisfaction that the pile was
about quadruple what it had been when she had first sat down.  They were
up about a dollar fifty, with a little over two dollars all told.

Rose gave a
quick look around the circle, and then picked up a handful of the coins sitting
in front of her.  She handed them to Billy and said, “Well, that was
bunches of fun, but we only just arrived here in town and have quite the busy
morning planned.  Besides, I wouldn’t want to take away
all
your
money or you might not want to be my friends, so… I’m going to take my winnings
and leave, I think.”

“You think
wrong, then.  I didn’t want to let you play in the first place, and now
you think you can just play a couple hands and walk off without giving me a
chance to win my money back?  That isn’t how things work around here” said
Benny, in the most menacing tone his thirteen year old voice could
muster.  Slightly more menacingly, however, he stood up and reached down
to his waistband again and pulled out the knife he’d shown them earlier.