“You’re on,” he said.
Rufus put the soda down, then struck the match against the flint. It flamed, and he held it exactly as Valentine had, only moved his hand from side to side like a pendulum, effectively reducing the flame’s head to the size of a pin. Valentine timed him with the minute hand of his watch. Sixty seconds later the match was still quietly burning.
“That’s a keeper,” Valentine said.
Rufus smiled his best aw-shucks smile, then got two glasses from the minibar, and split the soda between them. He was still smiling when they clinked glasses.
22
“How long have you been legally blind?” the news-paper reporter asked.
Skip DeMarco leaned back on the leather couch in his penthouse suite in Celebrity’s hotel. He detected a faint Scottish brogue in the reporter’s voice, and put his age at about thirty, with a college education in the states that had softened his vowels. DeMarco had been blind for as long as he could remember, his condition a hereditary one, not that he was going to tell this son-of-a-bitch that.
There was a glass coffee table with sharp edges in front of the couch, and he leaned forward and found the tall glass of ice water that had been placed there for him. He raised it to his lips and enjoyed its coldness against his dry throat. In the next room, he could faintly hear his uncle George, whom everyone called the Tuna, on the phone, cursing up a storm at hotel management. Back home, if someone had robbed his uncle in broad daylight, they’d end up dead in a garbage can by sundown. But Las Vegas wasn’t home, and his uncle was having a hard time getting anyone to help him. He put his drink down, then raised his hands and held his hands approximately three feet apart.
“This long,” he told the reporter. “Which paper did you say you were from?”
He heard the reporter’s intake of breath. He had put him on the defensive. Good.
“I’m a stringer for the International Herald Tribune,” the reporter said.
“I thought they went out of business.”
He heard the reporter shift in his chair. It was made of wood, and it’s feet moved slightly every time the reporter did.
“It’s still published in Europe and the Far East,” the reporter said.
DeMarco stared straight ahead. He knew where the reporter was sitting, but had decided not to gaze in his direction, further putting him on the defensive.
“Do you consider your blindness a handicap or an asset when you play poker?” the reporter asked him.
“An asset,” DeMarco said.
“Do you feel your opponents play you differently, knowing you’re blind?”
“Differently how?”
“Less competitively.”
DeMarco felt himself stiffen. The reporter was treating him like a three-legged dog that had learned how to run, and he wanted to crack him in the head with something very hard. Only, he told himself not to. He’d already created enemies by calling Rufus Steele an old man, and ripping this asshole wouldn’t win him any friends.
“No. When you sit down at a poker table, it’s like a bunch of piranhas in a swimming pool. Everyone tries to eat everyone else.”
He listened to the reporter scratch away on his notepad. The reporter had also brought a tape recorder, which sat on the coffee table in front of him.
“Can you tell me how your blindness is an asset?” the reporter asked.
“It helps me win,” DeMarco said.
“Would you explain?”
“And give away my secrets?”
“Well... yes.”
DeMarco sensed that the reporter was smiling, and he shifted his head so he was facing the reporter, and flashed a rare smile of his own. “It’s like this. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t play sports or do a lot of the things that my friends were doing. One day, my uncle George took me to Atlantic City and we went to a casino. There was a poker room, and my uncle sat me down, bought me some chips, and taught me how to play. He told me what the other players’ cards were, and then how to play my hand. Even though I lost, I had a great time.
“When I got home, I went to the local bookstore, and bought every book on poker they had. Reading is difficult for me — I have to hold the book up to my nose — but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I read all of them. One of the books mentioned a store in Las Vegas called the Gambler’s Book Club, and I called there, and talked to the manager. He recommended a book that changed my life.”
DeMarco could hear the reporter scribbling away, and picked up his drink of water and finished it. Then he resumed speaking. “It was called Read the Dealer and was written by a gambler named Steve Forte. The book explained how players could get an advantage against casinos at blackjack. The information was so powerful that the casinos had to completely revamp the way blackjack was played.
“The part of the book that fascinated me was about language. It showed how a player could elicit responses from dealers with simple questions, and how those responses told you if the dealer liked you, or didn’t like you. The book also explained how language could be used to make dealers tip their hands.
“After I finished the book, I realized that the information could be used in poker. By listening to my opponents’ voices when they bet or checked, I would know if their cards were weak or strong. And since I’m very good at listening, I knew that I could compete with anyone in the world.”
“This must have been a wonderful revelation to you,” the reporter said.
DeMarco nodded. He’d been interviewed several times in the past two days and hadn’t enjoyed it, the reporters treating him either like a freak, or an object of sympathy. This was the first time a reporter had treated him seriously.
“It was like being handed the keys to the kingdom,” he said.
The reporter finished scribbling and shut off his recorder. Not once during the interview had Rufus Steele’s allegation of cheating come up, and DeMarco knew that he’d dodged a serious bullet. He heard the reporter rise from his chair.
“Thanks for the interview, and good luck,” the reporter said.
The reporter left, and DeMarco rose from the couch and shuffled across the room to the big picture window that radiated heat late in the day. He placed his fingers against the glass, and imagined the snow-tipped mountains that rimmed the western desert of Nevada. When the tournament was over, he planned to get someone to drive him into those mountains, and let him walk around and smell the mountain air. He heard a door click, and his uncle’s heavy footsteps as he crossed the suite and came up behind him.
“Hey, Skipper,” his uncle said. “How was the interview? Another asshole?”
“This one was okay.”
“You broke through to the guy?”
“Yeah, I broke through to him,” DeMarco said.
“That’s good. Really good.”
For a while neither man said anything, which suited DeMarco just fine. Although he loved his uncle more than anyone in the world, he did not always enjoy their conversations. They were like conversations on TV cop shows, with the guy in charge asking a lot of pointed questions, and everyone else forced to give answers. Uncle George was like that: he was always the one asking questions, and never giving answers. It was a one-way street, and usually left his nephew feeling put out.
“Listen, about what happened in the lobby,” his uncle said. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Uncle George.”
“I called the local hospital. They’re sending replacements. We’re covered.”