‘Cards?’ Guido repeated, as if he’d never heard the word. ‘Guido Caramba does not put a hundred and twenty thousand dollars een the pot and then draw a card. Only a fool would do such a thing.’ He rapped the table violently. ‘No cards! ’
‘Shit,’ Daniel muttered. He’d been hoping Guido would draw; if so, he’d play pat. Guido’s big production over drawing cards made Daniel think Guido wanted him pat, which meant he likely had a rough eight or seven. Bad Bobby had taught him it wasn’t a sound practice to break a pat hand if you couldn’t win any more money if you improved it, and since he was all in, there was no more to win. But any eight would beat him. It was a gut judgment. He threw the nine face up on the the table and said to Guido, ‘I’m going to get off this smooth nine.’ He dealt himself one card.
Guido feigned astonishment. ‘You are craaazzy. Now you must ween the pot twice.’ He spread his hand on the table: 10–9–8–7–4.
Daniel slowly turned over the card he’d drawn. It was the jack of hearts. ‘You win,’ he told Guido, ‘take the money.’ He rose numbly from his seat.
‘You are good player, dwarf,’ Guido smiled hugely as he stacked the chips. ‘You will grow.’
Still numb, Daniel watched the game continue from one of the front-row seats reserved for the eliminated players. An hour later, Bad Bobby, who’d started making hands, had pulled even with Guido, each close to four hundred thousand dollars. Next to him, Johnny Russo said, ‘Looks like it might go awhile now.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ Daniel agreed.
It ended on the next hand. Guido opened for forty thousand. Bad Bobby, dealing, raised a hundred sixty thousand.
‘That ees mucho dinero,’ Guido murmured. ‘Before I call, there ees one card left I must look at een my hand.’ Squinting, Guido peeked. ‘Oh my God you weel not believe, but eet ees the yoker. I don’ even believe thees myself. I must call your raise and then raise all my cheeps I have left. Let us do eet now and go home.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Bad Bobby said cheerfully, stacking off the rest of his chips. He picked up the deck and burned the top card. ‘You drawing any cards, Guido?’
‘Of course I draw cards,’ Guido said with umbrage, as if he would never think of putting four hundred thousand dollars in a pot with a pat hand. ‘Thees nine ess not good.’ He flicked it into the pot. ‘Geeve me uno.’
Bobby slid him a card and picked up his own hand. Since they were all in and he was last to act, he turned it over to look at it: 9–6–5–3–2. ‘I’ll draw with you,’ he said, and threw away the nine.
Daniel, suddenly wired to the action, couldn’t believe they’d both broken pat hands.
Bobby dealt his card face down, set down the deck, then flipped his new card over – the ace of hearts. ‘I caught inside on the bottom,’ he told Guido. ‘I have a six–five.’
Guido spread his own hand on the table. ‘I too have a seex, but I like my seex very very much because eet ees seex–four–trey–yoker–ace.’
‘Take it down, then, Guido – you win it all. Congratulations.’
Guido grinned benevolently as the crowd burst into applause. ‘Thank you, Bad Bobby. You are an hombre of spirit and grace, and I admire very much your gamble. You got down weeth me on that last hand. We catch alike, but I draw a leetle smoother. We will play again, amigo.’
Getting to Malibu the next day was easy. They flew in Clay Hormel’s Lear jet to the airport, where a limo was waiting to whisk them to Xanadu, the producer’s ‘little beach house,’ which had a Jacuzzi and round, revolving bed in each of the thirty guest suites, and a kitchen staffed and provisioned to serve the crew of an aircraft carrier. Johnny Russo and Rainbow Schubert accompanied them on the flight. Guido had regretfully declined, citing a prior engagement with his bevy of lovelies for a religious holiday, the observance of which seemed to involve rolling naked on large-denomination bills. Daniel, in a funk, hadn’t been interested in the lurid details.
Noticing Daniel’s mood on the flight, Bad Bobby told him, ‘Just ’cause they beat on you don’t mean you have to get bent. Yesterday is history. Today’s brand new.’
Daniel muttered, ‘I don’t know why I broke that pat nine against Guido.’
Bad Bobby said softly, ‘I ain’t gonna sit here and listen to you snivel.’ He moved to the rear of the plane and sat down with Johnny Russo.
Getting to the party was easy. Getting away proved difficult. First there was his ‘personal hostess,’ Linda O’Rahl, whom Clay had introduced as ‘maybe the next Meryl Streep.’ Linda showed him to his room and informed him that there was a full bar right behind the movie screen if you lifted it (she demonstrated), that weed, coke, and ’ludes were available upon request, and that ‘Sexually, I’m into whatever you’re into.’
Daniel felt a powerful, implacable despair gathering in the center of his brain. It was difficult to keep his tone civil. ‘Thanks, Linda, but what I’m really into at the moment is a long walk along the beach, all alone except for a bottle of whiskey. I need to sulk and sort and think and scheme. You go play with someone who can do you some good. If Clay says anything, tell him I’m gay.’
Linda said helpfully, ‘I have a gay girlfriend. We could put you in a pussy sandwich?’
‘In another mood, I’m sure it would be delightful. Right now I need walking, water, and whiskey.’
‘You want water with your whiskey?’
‘No. I meant the ocean.’
‘Sounds romantic.’
‘It’s not,’ he assured her.
Even though Daniel left by his private exit and went around the back, he still couldn’t get away. He had to cross a long, terraced patio thronged with people. Just below them, on the beach itself, a nude coed volleyball game was in progress. That stopped him. In the intense, late-October light, every naked body seemed young, tanned, perfect, and doomed to perish.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Bad Bobby suddenly groaned beside him, ‘stark-naked volleyball. Seems California just gets stranger and weirder every time I pass through.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ Daniel said. ‘If it’s all right with you, of course.’
Bad Bobby looked out toward the horizon. ‘I made me a deal with the ocean when I was a scrawny little twelve-year-old cracker-ass kid – no folks, no kin, nowhere. I’d scraped my way down to the Gulf because I’d heard about the ocean, but I’d never seen it; and I wanted to see it real bad. And I stood there gawking at it, water as far as I could see, and I said real fast, “Ocean, let’s work out a deal. If you don’t fuck with me, I won’t fuck with you.”’
‘Sounds fair,’ Daniel said. He took a step to leave.
‘Goddamn, Daniel!’ Bobby boomed, stopping him. ‘Don’t matter how big a snit you’re in, it’s piss-poor manners to be holding a bottle of whiskey in your hand and not offer a thirsty man a drink.’
Momentarily disconcerted, Daniel remembered he had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hand. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, offering the bottle.
Bad Bobby unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle: ‘May you get ’em when you need ’em, and sometimes when you don’t.’ He took a long swig.
Daniel nodded to acknowledge the toast. He realized he was tired of looking at Bad Bobby, tired of his voice, his strong and constant presence.
Bad Bobby handed the bottle back. ‘There’s a hell of a card game shaping up inside. If you need to find me, start looking there.’ He turned and walked away.
Daniel fumed as he walked down the beach. ‘He’s always the one who walks away. Always gets the last word. Always has the hammer and the high ground.’
Heading up the beach, he was forced to admit that Bad Bobby was simply sharper – more experienced, more aware, more determined – and Daniel arrived at the understanding that if he played cards heads-up with him, Bad Bobby would hand him his ass. The understanding didn’t cheer him up.