Poker News

Poker Cop

I run from The Small Man, ending up on the rooftop. My only escape is a ten-foot jump across the alleyway. The Small Man, shotgun in hand, walks out onto the roof. My decision is easy. I run for the edge and jump.

Poker players can’t fly. I tumble through the air and land WOOOOOOOOPH! backside down in the alleyway’s dumpster. I lay dazed in the stinking squishy ooze. The Small Man looks over the edge, sees me lying there, and goes away.

Jenny finds me. I refuse to get out of the dumpster without my “Lucky Deck.” I find the two halves in the trash. I give her one half, “Keep it. It’ll bring you luck.” She puts the cards in her pocket and asks if I’d learned anything from The Dealer about the House of Cards before he was murdered.

“He asked me if ‘The Girls’ had put me up to asking him about the House of Cards. I have no idea who ‘The Girls’ The Dealer was taking about are.”

Jenny smiles, “I do. It’s the Strip Club where I work! Honey, she’s the owner, always has a poker game going upstairs.”

We hail a taxi. Twenty minutes later we’re in front of an old three-story building with a flashing neon “Girls Will Be Girls ” sign out front. I take out a $100 bill, tear it in half, hand one half to the cabby and tell him, “Wait here.” We exit the cab and walk.

Jenny takes me up a flight of stairs, through the Strip Club and up another flight of stairs, to the poker room. The room’s Gorilla, speaking “baby-waby” talk to a cat he cradles in his arms, stands in the cardroom’s door. “Hello, Elmo!” says Jenny, “How’s Little Elmo?” She reaches out her arms. Big Elmo reluctantly hands over Little Elmo.

The owner is a woman named Honey. She sits at an empty poker table.

“Honey, this is Jack. He’s a poker player.”

Honey may well have been a beautiful woman once. That was before someone carved a ragged X into her face. She looks me up and down, asks, “Stud?”

“No,” I reply, “Hold ‘em.”

She smiles, says, “I was talking to Jenny,” throws her head back and laughs.

She stops laughing when I, on a bluff, say, “I’ve been invited to play at The House Of Cards. I know you’ve played there. Should I accept?”

Honey’s fingers involuntarily go to her scar.

“Are you a good poker player?” she asks.

I tell her, “Very good.”

She says, “I thought I was ‘very good’ too. I was wrong. I was a Flop. That’s how I got this.” She touches the scar. “No matter how good a poker player you are, you’re not good enough to play at The House of Cards.”

Still on a bluff I say, “When I win, I’ll tell ‘The House’ Honey didn’t think. . . .”

“What?!”

“I’ll tell “The House.’ . . .”

Honey jumps up, screams, “You’re lying! No one has a name at The House Of Cards! Who are you?”

Jenny and I take two steps towards the door.

Honey yells to Big Elmo, “Stop them!”

The Gorilla goes for his gun. Jenny, still holding his cat, says to Big Elmo, “Sorry,” and throws Little Elmo out a window.

“Noooooooo!” yells Big Elmo, rushing to the window.

Jenny yells, “Run!”

I run.

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