"Hi. Come on in. Don't be nervous. Go ahead and sit down in that big old chair behind your desk and make yourself comfortable. Don't worry about that pistol in the drawer on the left. It ain't there no more. Hell, if you notice, the letter opener in that cubbie up front is gone too."
He sat there behind his desk just starting to sweat. He had not had the chance to take his overcoat off and for sure that played a part. The fact that a pistol was pointed at him did nothing to mitigate the heat. He sat and looked at the drawer to his left. He saw that it was still a little bit open and had no doubt that his gun was long gone from there anyway.
"I ain't here to kill ya but kill ya is what I will do if I have ta. You understand that part of this don't ya, sir? I mean, you been in a spot where violence was never the desired outcome, but you had had to make up you're mind beforehand, that if it came to that, you would do it without hesitation?" The stranger waited a bit as if he actually wanted a reply, and in fairness, maybe he did, but when one was not forthcoming he proceeded with, " I am here to collect $26,000 or else to hurt ya in such a way that no other degenerate gambler would ever again wind up in dept to my employers for such a sum."
They eyed each other for a beat and the man with the gun smiled just slightly. Might not have been a smile at all but just a crinkle of the wrinkles around the mouth. The man with the gun pointed at him pursed his lips against a smile, but his eyes, even in the fear of the moment, gave away a sense of amusement. "Yeah, I know. Nothing that happens to you will ever stop another degenerate bastard. We all assume that we'll hit the flush on the next card."
With that, the stranger moved gracefully to the bar and set out two glasses and began to look over the liquor. "If we really knew how to manage the odds, we wouldn't wind up in the debt of men who have no style, or grace, or ...necks."
The stranger settled on the Scotch. Specifically he poured two fingers in each glass of the MacAllen 25. "Ya know, somebody who has this kind of taste in Scotch, and the means to buy it, shouldn't ever have to go to a loan shark to cover gambling debts." He sat one glass on the desk and sat down across from his unwilling companion and stared at the slightly smokey, vanilla spirit. "But I guess if Momma don't know about hubby's debts and she holds the purse strings, it can get interesting, am I right?"
The man with the gun smelled the Scotch and then sat it back down without taking a sip. The man with his life replaying before him spoke in a whisper very much like someone watching a movie in a crowded theatre, "You know your Scotch and your gambling."
"And you are one cool son of a bitch. Most folks faced with a pistol in the hands of a man prepared to use it, they get cotton mouthed. They can talk mind ya, beg even, but not without coughing or some such first. You, sir, are a bit different, aren't ya?"
The man smiled first and then laughed that quiet kind of laugh that only comes out at things that aren't really funny. "Never bet big on something when you aren't willing to go all in."
"That sir, is toast-able. To going all in." And with that the two men at opposite ends of the gun sipped their Scotch. The drink had no burn. It was smoke and caramel and vanilla and old leather and warm goodness that trailed down the throat and found the back of the conscious mind and just slightly numbed the lips. It is the perfect drink, especially if it might be the last sip you ever take.
"What if I don't have the money? I know you can hurt me. I have thought that I had prepared myself for the hurt, but apparently I am even more of a coward than I thought. I am terrified. But in a cool way." And he smiled at that.
The man with the gun smiled back and shook his head. "I hate causing the pain, if that matters to ya. I have dreams about the things I have done to men and women like you. I hear things just as I start to go to sleep that keep me awake nights. Surely we can find some source of money to spare us both that nightmare? You seem like the smart type, present situation excluded."
The cool man sipped his Scotch again and just before he swallowed, inhaled a short, quick breath and let the vapors from the liquor waft its way throughout his consciousness and seep slowly out as he exhaled through his nose. "I am not afraid of dying. Never thought I would be able to say that honestly. I mean, you have to have a good poker face to do what I do for as long as I have done it. But looking like you don't mind and actually not giving a shit are two wholeheartedly different things. Do you understand that?" Before the man with the gun can answer, the cool man continues, "Of course you do. You've had all your chips in the center of the table with just a Jack high. The only thing keeping those other assholes at the table from calling with a pair of sixes is that ice cold, dead eyed look."
The man with the gun smiles again and sips his Scotch. He settles back in his chair and makes a show of making himself comfortable. Like any story teller, he can tell when a story is about to start. He crosses his legs and rests the pistol on his knee in a way that says, "Go ahead with your story. But...it better be a good story."
"Don't mistake me. I am scared to death of the things you could do to me - to hurt me. My imagination is of all these creative things you could do. The fact that you seem so intelligent is a concern to me. I know the stupid can be cruel, but the idea of someone like you turning ... The fact that you bring reason and patience to the issue - that's just the scariest damn thing I can think of."
The man with the pistol sat there - said nothing - gave no indication that the words meant anything to him. The cool man brought himself back to the problem at hand. "Twenty-six thousand dollars, huh?
The man with the gun raised one eye brow to acknowledge the number. The first sign of impatience. Circling around to the beginning of the conversation would not be a good thing. The cool man gulps the last of his Scotch and sits his drink down with just a hint of amber coloring the glass. "You know how I learned to play cards? My momma taught me. Good ole Texas housewife who knew her way around a deck of cards. And the frailty of human will. She could size a person up in minutes and fillet them if she needed to. Woman never paid full retail for anything in her life. Every charity she supported got all kinds of donations from businessmen who were never known to be a soft touch for anybody else. She just knew things about people and she played on that."
"Fortunately for my daddy, she loved him. Oh, she still maneuvered him around the board like everybody else, but she was supremely careful that he should never be aware of it. That took more work but she must have felt he was worth it. He died a happy man who thought he had made all his own decisions his whole life. Not many of us get that kind of peace on this side of the grave."
"I came along and she knew she loved me when I was a baby. When I got to the point that I had ideas of my own, she started having her doubts. When she realized I could see the strings she was pulling, she had to pause and reassess the whole situation. I was thirteen years old when I started calling bluffs nobody had ever called on her before. Three months after my 13th birthday she took me to a card game at Sleepy Jay's bar. She never questioned the fact that I already knew the difference between a straight and flush but just sat me down in front of middle aged men with 300 dollars and a hard look and a simple command, "Make money. Don't lose money."
"I sat down there and made 2700 dollars from old men who had never lost that much so fast from somebody so young. They called me when I wanted them to and they folded out when I had nothing. And the only two people who weren't surprised were me and Momma"
The man with the pistol smiled at him. It was a smile that said, "I ain't gonna ask the question. Just come on with the answer/"
"Yeah, I know. I said Momma taught me how to play cards and it is the truth. Just not all that accurate. I learned to play cards by hanging around the courthouse long after I was supposed to be in bed. She ran games out of the courthouse where my daddy was the county magistrate. I watched lawyers and district attorneys and folks serving 30 days play for dollars, dope, and favors. And my momma took a cut of all of it. I remember them all being so polite. Poker players are almost always the most polite."
The man with the gun laughed loudly while shaking his head. "You are a cold and cool son of a Bitch. Your momma is Ms. Wetta out of Katy, TX? Who set up shop in Houston 50 years ago? Who ran a little bit of Vegas for all the refinery workers down there in the gulf?"
"Yessir. That's my momma. Wonderful woman. Ahead of her time, really. She realized that all the money was green whether it came from black folks, brown folks, or the lily white folks who came to Daddy's re-election parties. I learned the game when I was 6 years old from the older black gentlemen who sat behind bars and played for cigarettes and rock candy. The rock candy was my lure, as you might imagine."
The man with the pistol sips the last of his Scotch. He smiles at the cool man but says nothing. The cool man sees the silence and raises an eyebrow. The man with the pistol blinks and inhales deeply. "Rumor was that a young black girl got herself shot at one of Ms. Wetta's games."
The cool man takes two fingers and pushes his glass towards the man with the pistol and smiles while waiting on his re-fill. "That was your Momma that died the night Junior Robinson had a full house beaten by quad sixes. They say he was just too fat for anybody to have found that itty bitty Derringer on him."
The man with the pistol sits very still. He knows now that $26,000.00 is nothing to this man. And he knows that it was no accident that brought him here this night. All alone with a man who was expecting him all along. His hand felt sweaty around the hilt of the pistol. But the best cards aren't always the winning hand.
"There is something else you should know about your daddy the Judge..."
"My daddy liked pretty young black girls and you and I are probably brothers." Called and raised.
"Nice to meet ya big brother. Now, why shouldn't I just shoot ya right betwixt the damn eyes and be on my merry way?"
End Chapter One
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