Authors: Mark Joseph

The Wild Card (29 page)

BOOK: The Wild Card

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Five canvas bags full of money were stacked near the door. The boys from NoÃ« Valley sat around the card table, desolate and silent. Cards and chips lay scattered over the felt, devoid of meaning.

Bobby leaned over the felt and towered above them, eyes blazing Bobby leaned over the felt and towered above them, eyes blazing like an Old Testament prophet. “You're responsible for what happened to Sally, but not for what happened to me. I ran away from Shanghai Bend, not you. If I'd stayed, things might've turned out differently, but we'll never know. Now, there's no reason for your lives to be destroyed except you got in over your heads in a card game.

“So be it. You made me the judge, but the jury was the fifty-two cards in the deck. The cards gave you back your lives, and now you're condemned to live them.

“Dean, you're going to live the rest of your life on the Feather River with your guilt. You'll suffer more at the scene of your crime than on death row in San Quentin.

“Alex, you'll have to go back to New York and face whatever mess you left there. And you're forbidden to play poker anywhere except this room.

“Charlie, you poor son of a bitch, I don't think you'll have any heirs, so rewrite your will and leave Hooper Fish to these guys. And do yourself a favor: don't play cards for serious money.

“And Nelson, Kimosabe, I want you to be the Lone Ranger. I want you to transfer to the missing persons division of your department and spend the rest of your time as a cop tracking down teenage runaways.”

He gestured toward Nelson's briefcase full of documents and continued, “If I were you, I'd burn those papers. And if you want to
play next year, you have my number. I'm always up for a game if there's enough money in it.”

A knock on the door punctuated the end of his speech.

“Be right with you,” he hollered, and added, “No hard feelings, hey, fellas? It was only poker. See ya 'round.”

He didn't wait for any sign of agreement. He sauntered over to the table, spread the blue deck, picked out one card, and left the Enrico Caruso Suite with a wink and a wave.

He stopped at the front desk and collected the last of the canvas bags. Outside, as the bellhop piled the bags into a taxi, the rising sun caught snowcaps in the Sierra two hundred miles away. Bursts of silver and gold flashed across the red sky.

With a friendly wink Bobby tipped the bellhop an old silver certificate C-note.

“Thanks!”

“Where to, pal?” asked the driver, a young black man with a beret and gold earring.

“I'm gonna make your day,” Bobby said, climbing in. He leaned over the back of the front seat and fanned four hundred-dollar bills and the ace of spades.

“How'd you like to take me to Reno?”

Looking out the window, Dean watched the cab pull away from the hotel, took a deep breath, blinked, exhaled, bent over the stereo and put on the rock and roll classic “Jim Dandy” by LaVerne Baker.

“Okay?” he asked, popping his fingers to the snappy beat.

“Okay,” Alex answered. “It cost damned near four million dollars, but okay. It was worth it. What a rush. Thanks, Charlie. You hung in there like a champ.”

“You're welcome.”

“Nelson?”

“He'll never talk. It's okay.”

“Boy, he really had me sweating,” Charlie said. “I was sure he was going to blow us away, even after we told him.”

“Maybe we should make sure none of us talks,” Nelson said, snatching up the revolver. He aimed the long, menacing barrel across
the table at Charlie, whose eyes popped wide in a moment of sudden terror. Nelson shifted his aim to Alex and then to Dean, still crouched over the record player.

“Nelson? What the hell are you doing?”

Dean backed against the wall. Nelson pulled the trigger three times and there were three loud clicks and nothing else. Blanks. No gunpowder.

“Oh, Christ.”

Laughter, tears, shaking heads.

“You're still crazy.”

Dean had the presence of mind to pour four shots of rum and pass out the glasses.

“To the royal flush.”

“The royal flush.”

“To Rocket Fuel.”

“Rocket Fuel.”

“And next year's wild card.”

“The wild card.”

“Long live the game.”

“The game!”

ALSO BY MARK JOSEPH

FICTION

To Kill the Potemkin
Typhoon
Mexico 21
Deadline Y2K

NON FICTION

Forbidden Fantasies
(with photographers Mike Phillips
and Barry Shapiro)

Please be advised that this is a work of fiction in which the author has exercised the fictioneer's license to rearrange facts for his convenience. Wolfman Jack first broadcast on XERB from Tijuana, Mexico, in 1965, not 1963 as represented in this novel.

THE WILD CARD. Copyright Â© 2001 by Mark Joseph. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

“Stay.”
Words and music by Maurice Williams
Â© 1960 (Renewed) CHERIO CORP.
All Rights Reserved
Used by permission

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Tim Hall

eISBN 9781429976008

First eBook Edition : June 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Joseph, Mark.

The wild card: a novel / Mark Joseph.â1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-26120-9

1. Poker playersâFiction. 2. Male friendshipâFiction. 3. DeathâFiction. I. Title.

PS3560.O776 W55 2001