The Adventures of Slim & Howdy (7 page)

They were playing with a three-raise maximum, so there was still one left. Dempsey bared his yellow teeth and said, “I’ll see that seven hundred and raise you another five.” As you do when you have them by the short and curlies.

Howdy swallowed hard. He looked at his cards. The hand was too good and he was in too deep to turn back now. He looked over his shoulder at the guitar case leaning against the wall. He said, “I got a Gibson.”

“Yeah?” Dempsey Kimble leaned on the table and said, “What’s that worth?”

14

SLIM FINISHED HIS SONG ABOUT THE LUCK-PUSHING FOOL
and the long-suffering woman, said he was going to take a short break and be right back.

A waitress put some quarters in the jukebox, and the joint kept jumping.

Slim propped his guitar in the stand, stepped off the stage, and headed for the bar. About halfway there he got intercepted by that girl who wanted him to grind her stump. They flirted for a minute before she slipped her number into his shirt pocket. “You better call me soon,” she said, patting him on the chest. “Grass is getting pretty tall at my place.”

Slim smiled at her. “Let me get my blades sharpened first,” he said with a nod toward the bar. “You stick around till the end of the night, we’ll talk about your landscape situation.”

She turned and went back to her table where she huddled with her girlfriends, who giggled and drank and kept their eyes on the tall, good-looking stranger with the beautiful voice.

Slim tapped his finger on the bar, ordering a beer. Skeets was three stools down, in the same place he’d been all night, pistol within easy reach. He was talking on the old rotary telephone but paying enough attention to give Slim a wink and a thumbs-up, either for his set or for getting the girl’s number, maybe both, Slim wasn’t sure.

As he waited for his beer, Slim took a few peanuts from the bowl, shelled them, and tossed the hulls onto the sawdust-covered floor. He knew he ought to start working on his next set list, but he was distracted, thinking about how he ought to commit to taking care of that girl’s patch of grass before somebody showed up with a riding mower. Before he could make his mind up one way or the other, he saw Howdy approaching with his guitar case.

“How’s the game goin?” Slim asked. “You rich?”

“Not yet.” Howdy shook his head, then nodded toward the stage. “Nice set, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh.” As if something had just occurred to him, Howdy snapped his fingers and said, “Hey, listen, I need the truck keys.”

“Sure.” Slim reached into his pocket. “Where you off to?”

“Nowhere,” Howdy said, avoiding eye contact and otherwise acting funny.

Slim stopped just before he tossed the keys. “Nowhere?”

“Yeah,” Howdy said. “You ain’t gonna believe what happened.” He shook his head some more and forced a laugh that was a lot more nervous than infectious, which explained why Slim didn’t catch it. “Check this out,” Howdy said. “I opened with a pair of queens in the hole.”

“Good start.”

“Oh yeah, real good
start.
” Howdy proceeded to give the complete bet-by-bet, card-by-card with some colorful asides about the peg-legged dog, Gutterball’s parachute pants, and Dempsey Kimble’s gum problems.

Slim listened with increasing curiosity—not because he wanted to know how it turned out but because, as he put it, “I still don’t see why you need the keys.”

Howdy, still assiduously avoiding eye contact, shuffled his feet a bit, shook his head, pushed his hat back, and said, “Aw, hell, I might as well just tell you. I lost the truck.”

Slim’s expression didn’t change. He just stared, unblinking, at Howdy.

“Man, I had a queens over kings, boat,” Howdy insisted. “Tell me you wouldn’t have stayed.”

“You bet the truck?”

“Yeah.”

“Which half?”

“I know,” Howdy said, ducking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m good for it. I swear.”

“Good for it? How’re you gonna be good for it? You gonna gimme a piggyback ride to our next stop?” Slim was aware that although they had agreed to put both their names on the title to the truck back at Red’s Used Cars, they’d never actually gotten around to it. His mistake, looking back.

“Look,” Howdy said. “If it’s any consolation, I bet my saddle first. That was a damn seven-hundred-dollar raise. And by the way, remind me not to get into another no-limit game. Anyway, I figured seven hundred would put an end to it, but the sumbitch saw that, then turned around and raised me again.” He shook his head. “It was like he knew what I had. Hell, I came this close to betting my guitar,” he said, hefting the case. “But, well, I just couldn’t.”

“So you bet a truck you only own half of?”

In the vain hope that Dempsey Kimble’s dishonesty would distract from his own stupidity, Howdy said, “I’m pretty sure he cheated.”

“Uh-huh.” Slim looked around the room, then back at Howdy. “Well, I’m pretty sure you gotta sell that guitar now.”

“What?”

“Somebody’s got to get the truck back,” Slim said. “And I don’t think it’s going to be you. That leaves me. And if I’m going to get in the game to see if this guy’s cheating, I’m going to need money. And I damn sure ain’t gonna use my own, if you get my drift.” He gestured at the crowd. “So you better find somebody in here to give you five hundred bucks for that thing.”

It only took Howdy fifteen minutes to find a buyer but, desperation smelling the way it does, he only got three hundred for it.

He handed the cash to Slim and said, “Now what?”

Slim took the money and stuffed it in his pocket. He gestured at the guy who bought the guitar and said, “Now, go back and see if the guy’ll loan it to you so you can do the next set.” He turned and walked past Skeets, snatching the pistol off the bar, saying, “Need to borrow this for a minute.”

15

DUCK HUNTING WAS ON THE TABLE WHEN SLIM WALKED INTO
the room. The gun was in his waistband, hidden by his jacket.

Mack Osborne bet forty and said, “I smoke my quack with a Remington 1100.”

Dempsey Kimble looked at his hole cards and chewed on his lower lip. “I like a Mossberg 935,” he said before folding. “Points real good.”

Charlie Pepper shook his head and said, “I never understood why anybody’d want to wake up that early in the morning to stand in cold water.” He called Mack’s bet. “But I tell you what,” he said. “You bring me a cooler full of ducks and I’ll cook ’em up right for ya.”

Gutterball folded, drained his beer, and smashed the can against his forehead, causing the one-eyed pit bull to jump a little. Gutter-ball looked around, all agitated, and said, “Where’s that damn waitress?”

Since nobody seemed predisposed to ask who he was and why he was standing there, Slim said, “Skeets told me a seat just opened up in here.”

“That’s right,” Dempsey said, peering over his glasses at Slim as though he had just materialized. “Still warm, I think.”

Slim pulled the cash from his pocket and somebody pointed at Howdy’s old seat. He got his chips while Charlie Pepper carried on about his favorite way to prepare duck.

After a minute Mack Osborne was unable to contain himself any longer. He said, “Tea leaves? Oh, I ain’t believin’ it.”

“I swear,” Charlie Pepper said, hand up like taking an oath. “I tea-smoke them puppies. It’s a Chinese thing. You start by making a rub outta Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, and salt, okay? Then take some fresh ginger, green onions, spread that on the bird, covered real loose, and let it set overnight.”

As the recipe unfolded, Dempsey Kimble assumed the look of a man who was on the verge of having an old-school stroke. His face grew flush and he made a grunting noise to register his dismay at the emasculation of the American male.

Charlie continued, “Next day you mix about a third cup each of tea leaves and sugar. Of course, first you got to steam the duck for a couple of hours, then cool before you put it in the smoker for fifteen or twenty minutes over the mixture of tea leaves and sugar.”

“Hell,” Mack said. “That sounds pretty tasty.”

Dempsey Kimble’s expression revealed his scorn. “Used to be a man did the huntin’ and was done with it,” he said with pure contempt. “Woman’s job was to make something to eat out of the thing. Now?” He shook his head in silent despair. Men at the poker table, talking recipes. What was the world coming to? He said, “We gone play cards here or have a damn Tupperware party?”

Nobody paid Slim much attention. He just played quietly, hand after hand, keeping his eye on that sour-looking Dempsey Kimble, the guy Howdy suspected of cheating.

After folding a two, nine, unsuited, Gutterball leaned on the table and looked at Charlie Pepper like he was fixing to ask a question about national security. He said, “What’re you cooking on these days?”

Charlie Pepper held his hands out wide. “Son, I got that new Smokinator 3000 with that barrel square firebox and the forty-five-degree fixed-angle heat-deflector baffle.”

“Get out!”

“Hell yeah, it’s got three swing arms for jerky and sausage in the middle of the chamber, three air intakes, and a ten-gallon reservoir.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Thing’s so big you’d have to fall into a coma to end up with dry meat.”

Although Slim had definite opinions about proper grilling and smoking techniques, he stayed out of the conversation. He just kept a careful eye on everybody as they played. It didn’t take him long to see what was going on. After the deal had been around the table twice, he noticed that Dempsey Kimble never lost a hand that he played, though he didn’t stay every time. He always seemed to know when to fold or when somebody was bluffing. It didn’t matter who was dealing and there was nothing to suggest collusion among any of the other players. Dempsey Kimble simply seemed to have perfect knowledge of who had what every hand, and Slim figured there was only one way to do that.

Finally, Slim reached across the table toward Dempsey Kimble and said, “Hey.” He gestured with his fingers. “Let me borrow your glasses.”

Dempsey Kimble looked at him like he’d asked for a French kiss. “What?”

“Your glasses,” Slim said. “Hand ’em to me.”

“Get yer own.”

Slim shot to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. He pulled the revolver and had it right in front of Dempsey Kimble’s red-veined nose when he said, “Now.”

Dempsey looked at Charlie and Mack to see if they were going to back him up, but they had him pretty well fixed with suspicious eyes. When Dempsey heard the hammer pulling back to a click, he refocused his attention on the pistol. He pulled off the glasses and tossed them into the middle of the table like he was betting on a losing hand.

Slim put the glasses on and turned to Mack, who was sitting there with his mouth wide open and his hole cards in his hand. “Before you bet on that ace, jack,” Slim said. “You might want to know that the Galloping Gourmet here is holding a pair of nines.”

Charlie and Mack put their cards down, proving Slim was right. “How the hell’d you know that?”

Slim took the glasses off and held one of the lenses over the corner of a card, revealing the mark. “Special ink, can’t see it without the glasses.” Slim picked up Dempsey’s whiskey bottle, took a sniff of it, then took a cartoon-sized guzzle that would’ve keeled most men over. “Speaking of tea,” he said.

Everybody turned to look at the guilty party. Not a forgiving face in the crowd. Dempsey started to scoot his chair back, like he might be able to make a graceful exit somehow, but Mack pulled a .38 and Gutterball produced a hollow-handled survival knife with a curved blade that had what looked like small bits of dried animal flesh clinging to the nasty serrated edges. The one-eyed pit bull raised his head to sniff the air. Possum?

Slim wagged the pistol at Dempsey Kimble and said, “I think now would be a good time to get square with everybody.”

16

EVERYBODY GOT THEIR MONEY BACK, AND THEN SOME.
Dempsey Kimble being the obvious exception. The players agreed there was no point in calling the cops about the cheat, seeing as how the game was illegal to begin with. Gutterball and Mack Osborne said they’d take care of it in a judicious manner. And that was that.

Later that night, as Slim was finishing his last set, Howdy pulled up a stool next to Skeets. He leaned his guitar case against the bar rail and called for a beer.

“See you got your guitar back,” Skeets said. “That’s good.”

“Yeah.” Howdy nodded but didn’t seem to pleased about something. “Guy wanted fifty bucks more than he paid for it, though.”

“Damn. That’s a little aggressive.”

“That’s what I told him,” Howdy said. “Finally talked him down to twenty-five.”

Skeets snickered at that. “Yeah, well, I guess you’ll have to write that off as a rental fee for having to borrow it to do your set.”

“I guess.”

When Slim finished his set, the first thing he did was disappear to the parking lot. Howdy noticed and said, “Wonder where’s he going?”

Slim returned a couple of minutes later, joining them at the bar. “Skeets,” he said, “you got a pen I can use?” Skeets pulled a ballpoint from his pocket and slid it over.

Howdy looked to see what Slim was writing. “You got a song idea or something?”

“Title to the truck,” Slim said. “Thought I might go on and add my name to it.”

While Slim did that, Howdy told Skeets about how Dempsey Kimble had spilled his drink on the cards so he could substitute the marked deck. “I guess he had that bottle full of tea so we’d pay attention to how much whiskey he seemed to be drinking, trying to make us think he was too drunk to be playing good cards, let alone cheatin’ at it.”

“Seemed to work pretty good too,” was Slim’s comment.

Skeets sucked on his teeth and said, “I almost hate to think what Mack and Gutterball are gonna do to the dumb bastard. They didn’t seem real happy when they drove outta here.”

“True,” Slim said. “And based on all the hollerin’ coming from the trunk of that car, I’d say Dempsey Kimble wasn’t too tickled about things either.”

“Hey, Skeets,” Howdy said. “What do you know about that Mack Osborne? Did he put that dog of his in fights, like for money? Is that what happened to him?”

“Fights?” A moment of confusion crossed his face. “Oh, you mean the leg and the eye.” Skeets shook his head. “No, the dog’s diabetic. They didn’t get it diagnosed till they had to amputate.”

“I’ll be damned.” Howdy shook his head. “Never knew a dog could have diabetes.”

“Oh yeah,” Skeets said, apparently finding the whole thing fascinating. “Gets insulin shots, the whole nine yards. Mack says it’s under control now. But it’s still damn funny to watch him try to scratch his ear, ain’t it?”

Howdy turned to ask Slim if he’d ever heard of a dog with diabetes, but he wasn’t sitting there anymore. “Where the hell did he go?” Howdy looked around the club just in time to see the tall stranger slipping out the front door with some girl. Howdy said, “Well now, who is that?”

“Just some girl needs her yard mowed,” Skeets said.

Howdy raised his beer in a toast. “Well, glad to see the old dog get a bone.”

“Beats insulin,” Skeets said with a nod toward the back room. “I guess you’ll be sleeping on the cot.”