“How much did you win just now?” Caleb asked as he pulled Steve away from the table.
Steve kept turning to get a look at his chair without seeming to notice that Caleb wasn’t about to let him get back to it. By the time he was led to the end of the bar, he let his eyes settle back onto the man who’d led him there.
“How much?” Caleb repeated.
“Um, a few hundred.”
“That’s not enough to pay me back, but it’s a start. Hand it over.”
Judging by the look on Steve’s face, someone might have thought he’d just been asked to sign his wife into slavery. “But I can’t! The next bet is the last one!”
“And when I close up tonight, your first batch of loans are due. Remember our deal?”
Steve cringed and glanced reflexively over to Jennifer. It had been hard work for Caleb to convince him to open his line of credit, but once Steve had more money at his disposal, he’d accepted the next couple of loans without hesitation. Of course, Doc had a knack for feeding him just enough wins to make Steve certain he’d be able to pay back what he owed and still be left with a healthy profit. After a few long nights, Steve had found himself in deeper than he liked to admit.
“Not so loud,” Steve whispered. “I don’t want Jen to get worried.”
“And I don’t want to make this ugly,” Caleb said with a bit of a snarl. “But you owe me over five thousand dollars, and after tonight, I’ll have to start tacking on interest.”
Finally, Steve nodded and said, “All right. If I can pay off at least that first loan tonight . . .”
“That would be great,” Caleb said before Steve finished. “Since you’re such a good fellow, I’ll be willing to let the interest slide a bit longer if you could scrape together enough to pay off that first loan. I believe it was two thousand.”
“Two thousand?”
“Actually, that’s the first two loans, but if I’m going to hold off on the interest, that’s what it’s going to have to be.”
Nodding before it got any worse, Steve drifted toward the table. “All right, all right. I just need to get back there before Doc deals that last round.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Caleb said. As he watched Steve run to the table, a grin worked its way across his face.
“Here comes the cat-hop,” Doc said, announcing the last round of the game where three cards were dealt instead of two. Apart from the normal betting, there was a special bet in which players could guess the order in which the cards would appear. That one, as Doc was quick to remind everyone at the table, paid double.
“You hear that, sweetie?” Steve said as he sat back down in his chair and his eyes darted to the abacus where the spent cards had been marked off. “Double.”
Doc drummed his fingers on the dealer’s box as he said, “This is the big one, my friends. Make it good, and don’t spend all your winnings in one place.”
Nodding to himself, Steve let out the breath he’d been holding before turning to look at his wife. “I’ve got it figured out,” he said. “I know what the order’s got to be.”
Jen looked at him and leaned in so she could whisper to her husband. “How can you know for certain?”
“I’ve got a hunch. Look at the cards that have to drop,” he said while pointing toward the abacus. “There’s a queen, two fives, and a seven left in the deck. Of all the games I’ve played the last two days, I can’t recall the last time a face card has come up dead last.”
“So?”
“So, that means it’s bound to show up! It’s due to come. That’s just the odds talking. See what I mean about science?”
She winced and began nervously wringing her hands. “Maybe, but there’s still two other cards to bet on.”
“Let’s get those bets out there,” Doc announced.
“There’s two fives left,” Steve said quickly. “That means the odds should be pretty good that one of them will be first. But, the odds that they’ll be in a row can’t be nearly as good. It’s like in poker! The odds of getting a pair are less than pulling two other cards, right?”
“Yes,” Jen said as she began nodding. “So that only leaves one to choose.”
“You got it. What do you say, sweetie? Should I go with my gut?”
When she saw the expectant look on Doc’s face, Jen started to fidget. Glancing between her husband and the money in front of him, she covered her eyes with both hands and said, “Do what you want. I just can’t watch.”
“All right, then,” Steve announced confidently. “I’m ready to make a bet. Thanks for waiting again, Doc.”
“Not at all,” Doc said. “Just make it a good one. The natives are getting restless.”
Without another moment of hesitation, Steve pushed a few of his chips forward to make his normal spread of bets. The bulk of his chips, along with some money he took from his pockets, went to mark his bet on the cat-hop. The order he’d chosen was five, seven, queen.
Seeing that Steve had all of his money in play, Doc quickly peeled the first card. “Here we go,” he said. “I believe this is called the moment of truth.”
Even though the final round was designed to be the most dramatic, this one was especially so since both Steve and Jen were holding their breaths and clasping each other’s hands.
The first card to fall was the five of spades.
Steve hopped to his feet as his wife began clapping happily. “I told you,” Steve said. “Just like I said!”
Doc showed the second card, which turned out to be the seven of clubs.
Jen’s hands were in front of her mouth and her eyes opened wide. “Oh my Lord,” she said in an excited, muffled voice.
“It’s due, honey,” Steve said with absolute certainty. “I’m telling you, that queen is due to fall. It’s like I’ve already seen it happen.”
“You have an uncanny eye, sir,” Doc said in his easy, southern drawl. As he spoke, his fingers tapped the top of the dealer’s box in a manner to which everyone at the table had grown accustomed. This time, his finger also traced along the side of the top card in a motion that wasn’t more than a quick brush.
“Good luck to you all,” Doc said. With that, he showed the final card.
It was the five of diamonds.
Staring down at every bit of his money lying on the wrong patch of felt, Steve crumpled as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Aw, hell.”
The other players at the table went through their normal mix of whoops, hollers, complaints, and curses as they either collected their money or left it behind. The chairs were emptied as those men quickly found some other way to tempt their fate since Doc was already in the process of packing up his table.
Steve stood in his spot, wearing the faded remains of his ever-present smile. His eyes were glued to the table where the bulk of his money had been. Although he did have a small stack of chips thanks to his bet for the five to win, most of his cash and chips had already been swept up and placed in Doc’s lockbox.
“For what it’s worth,” Doc said, “I thought you had a hell of a system.”
Nodding, Steve replied, “Thanks.” His voice was strained and cracked, even though he only had to push out that one syllable.
Standing behind him, Jen was only just starting to peek through her fingers. “We lost?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Yeah, sweetie. We lost.”
“But you bet on the five to win, right? Didn’t we win that?”
“We did, but . . .” Steve didn’t have the heart to finish that sentence. Now that Jen was looking at the table for herself, there was no need for him to say another word.
“Oh my God,” Jen whispered. “Was that everything?”
Unable to say the words, Steve just nodded.
Jen was looking around in a daze. She was also starting to wobble a bit on her feet. “Oh my God. Oh my . . .”