Гейтс Дэвид Эджерли

Set 'em Up, Joe

David Edgerley Gates

Set 'em Up, Joe

Edward Kinsella III

* * *

If you can’t identify the sucker in a card game inside the first hour, the sucker’s probably you.

* * *

Arnold Rothstein, famously, was killed for welshing on a gambling debt. He was even more famous for his part in fixing the 1919 World Series, which is neither here nor there, but it’s fair to say that Rothstein, more than any other, was the man responsible for the business model the Syndicate followed. The three men who took over his rackets were Benny Siegel, Charlie Luciano, and Frank Costello, and twenty years after Rothstein’s murder, only Costello was still in power. Benny was dead, a victim of his own success, Las Vegas the twinkle in his eye, and when a.30 caliber round exited his head, an eyeball was later found on the carpet. Lucky Luciano had been deported — betrayed by Dewey, the Italians were wont to think — and although his influence was felt, first from Cuba, then from Sicily, Luciano was no longer a player. Costello, who got his start as a rum runner, financed by Rothstein, was now the most formidable mob boss in New York. Even after the Five Families gang war and the Kefauver hearings, Costello was capo di tutti capi.

Before the Italians, the Irish had run the city, but strong as we were still on the West Side, we labored in their shadow. Old Tim Hannah, the boss as was, had made accommodation, and Young Tim, who’d taken his father’s place, understood necessity.

Not that it didn’t chafe.

What has all this to do with the matter at hand? Well, it began with a card game, and a man who reneged on his debts. The rest is Fate.

* * *

I thought it no more than coincidence, but it was an unhappy mischance that the game was in a suite at the Park Central, Seventh and West 56th, the very hotel where Rothstein had been shot in 1928. I’d been summoned by a man named Dunnigan. He’d arranged what was known as a four-wall. Dunnigan provided the room and the amenities, the players ponied up for a buy-in of a thousand each. Professional dealers, in rotation, new decks with every dealer or on demand. The house took a small percentage of every pot. There was an open bar, girls on call. You could probably find the same thing in any town in America from Galesburg, Illinois, to El Paso. The difference here was the stakes.

Poker is a game for five or six. Five of the men at the table were from out of town. The sixth man was Jimmy O’Donnell, known as Thin Jim. And he was winning.

No, it’s not a setup, Dunnigan explained to me, off to the side. They asked to play Jimmy.

Because of his reputation, I suggested.

“They think they can beat him,” Dunnigan said.

“And they’re not,” I said.

It was four in the morning, and the game had been going eight hours. It could go eight more, or eighteen, or eighty, as long as the money held out.

“One from St. Louis, one from Chicago, one from Baton Rouge,” he said. “Some kind of lumber king from Bangor, Maine.”

“Which of them is your problem?” I asked.

He tugged his ear, without pointing. “Guy sitting in first position, left of the dealer. Elyria, Ohio.”

“Where the hell is Elyria, Ohio?”

“Who knows? I went through Cleveland on the train, once.”

“Why’s he a problem?”

“He’s losing,” Dunnigan said.

“He could lose in Ohio,” I said.

“He’s not a good loser,” Dunnigan said.

“Is he being cheated?”

“I don’t trust him to pay his losses.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Dunnigan looked at me. “I needed you here to stop trouble, not to keep me honest before God,” he said.

“Give me five thousand dollars,” I said.

There was a long pause before his jaw dropped. “What?”

“Are you running an honest game?” I asked. “I’m buying in. But not with my own money.”

“Why don’t you use Tim Hannah’s money, you barstid?”

“This isn’t Tim Hannah’s game,” I said.

“I asked you for protection,” he said.

“And now you’re paying for it,” I said.

“I’m not paying for your entertainment,” Dunnigan said.

“No, you’re paying for an education,” I told him.

Table stakes. Ten-dollar ante, fifty to open. There was a button that went around the table to indicate Dealer’s Choice. They stuck pretty much to five card draw and seven stud, playing it high-low when Elyria’s turn came around. He seemed to think it gave him better odds, although he was fifteen thousand in the hole. Thin Jim O’Donnell was taking half the pots.

It’s a not uncommon phenomenon. Some big noise from Winnetka regularly beats his poker buddies back home, and when he goes on a business trip, he decides to try his skills against a professional. Problem being, O’Donnell was exactly that. He didn’t play cards for recreation, he made his living at it, like another man might sell dry goods.

Baton Rouge took a bathroom break, and then decided he was going back to his room. He arranged with Dunnigan for a girl to meet him there.

Which left an open seat, and I was invited into the game.

Thin Jim O’Donnell knew who exactly I was, but he didn’t let on, out of policy, or to protect his winnings.

We played half a dozen hands. I folded three, called twice, against better cards, and stayed in to win one. None of the pots went over a thousand, so my net loss was about five hundred of Dunnigan’s money. I was trying to get a feel for the table, and the other men in the game.

There’s a gambling maxim, attributed to Arnold Rothstein, that if you can’t identify the sucker in a card game inside the first hour, then the sucker’s probably you. In this case, it was Elyria. Baton Rouge had been more or less even when he left the table, and Bangor was keeping his head above water, but aside from Thin Jim, Chicago and St. Louis were the big winners.

Elyria’s problem was that he chased with weak hands, in hopes they’d get better. It’s not an unworkable strategy, but you have to read your opponents, and their cards, and know their own betting strategies. His was transparent. He’d bet out high and then check, or bet out higher after the next turn of the cards. Every once in a while, it worked, when he’d fill a stronger hand, but you can’t win over the long run winning only one hand in a dozen, and he was a plunger. I took him for two hands running myself. He must have been used to buying the pot, back at the Elks or the K of C.

The other pattern didn’t jump right out at me, not until we’d played a good three hours. O’Donnell, well versed in confidence tricks and skin games, would have caught on early, but he didn’t call attention to it because it actually increased his percentage. I was a little slower on the uptake. St. Louis and Chicago were in cahoots.

It worked like this. In the first round of betting, both men would bet out strong, if they held cards. Then the one with the better hand after the draw or showing on the board would check-raise, and the other one would fold, so they weren’t going heads-up, or simply fattening the pot. It was subtle, and it only happened every four or five hands, when they both had cards worth betting. And it didn’t mean the one who stayed would necessarily win, either, but it cut their losses, taken jointly, and increased their odds of winning. Together, they made up a third of the table. Out of ten hands, if O’Donnell took four or five, St. Louis and Chicago took three or four.

I wondered which of them had brought Elyria into the game.

* * *

At seven thirty the next morning, we took a break. Dunnigan had called down to room service for breakfast, and it was welcome.

The place was stale with cigar smoke and whiskey sweats, and feral energy, like a cage at the zoo. I went to the lavatory and splashed water on my face, washed my hands to get rid of the greasy card feel, and shook some talcum on them. I slipped my jacket off, and shucked out of my shoulder holster, and put them both on a hanger, but I tucked the.38 Super in the small of my back, in front of my shirttail, under my vest. I took out my cufflinks and rolled my sleeves up to the elbow. It was time to piss or get off the porcelain.

Baton Rouge was back, looking refreshed after getting his knob polished, ready to go at it again, but Bangor chose to drop out of the game. He’d played respectably and gotten good play for his money, probably losing no more than fifteen hundred over twelve hours. He shook hands with Dunnigan, and they settled up the tariff.

“I’ll call you again when I’m in town, Francis,” he said.

“At your convenience,” Dunnigan said, smiling.

“Were you all strangers to one another before the game?” I asked.

The guy from Bangor gave me an odd look.

“Mickey’s a friend who sits in from time to time,” Dunnigan reassured him, pleasantly.

The guy from Bangor nodded. “I never met any of them,” he said to me. “O’Donnell, well.” He smiled ruefully. “I knew his name from table talk. Games up on the Hudson, north of 125th Street.”

He meant the carpet joints. I was familiar with them.

“I mean you no disrespect, Francis,” the guy from Bangor said, “but the next time you put me in a game, whether O’Donnell is part of it or not, leave those two out of it.”

He didn’t even incline his head, but Dunnigan and I both knew he meant the two guys from St. Louis and Chicago. I hadn’t been the only one to notice.

“My apologies,” Dunnigan said.

The guy shrugged philosophically. “You know what they say, Francis. If you play for more than you can afford to lose, you’ll learn the game.”

They shook hands again, and the guy from Bangor shook hands with me, too, and then he left.

It was time to get down to business.

We were all fortified with eggs Benedict and corned-beef hash, smoked salmon and pork sausages, some freshly opened oysters, of which I had six, the chafing dishes left behind for our delectation. I decided on my first drink of the day, a dram of Irish in a cup of hot coffee.

The new dealer cracked a fresh deck, fanned it on the felt, slipped out the jokers, and began his shuffle.

* * *

Playing until daylight is one thing. Playing in daylight is another. Dunnigan had drawn the curtains, and the hotel suite became suspended in time. It was a secret Benny Siegel had understood. If you go to Vegas nowadays, the casinos admit no natural light, they have no clocks, there’s nothing to remind you that life is passing you by. All that counts is the click of the chips and the cards you’re dealt. There’s a philosophy. Every deal is a new chance to repair the damage done.

Five draw. I had three clubs, not in sequence, two cards off-suit. Under the button, I moved in for fifty. Baton Rouge called, St. Louis raised a hundred, Elyria called and raised another hundred, Chicago called and raised. The pot was at an even five hundred. I called and bumped it five hundred. They all called, and Elyria raised three hundred. I thought it was a dumb bet, signaling indifferent cards.

I called and raised a thousand.

Baton Rouge called. St. Louis folded. Elyria called. Again, not the right move. In his position, I would have raised it, all in. Chicago, of course, did exactly that. I called and raised him. We were now up to six thousand, and Baton Rouge folded. He had to bet to see new cards.

It was a lot of money for one pot. Make or break. Elyria did the uncharacteristic thing and folded.

I was heads-up with Chicago, just the two of us. I asked for two cards. He asked for two. I drew two spades, which gave me zero. I moved in with what was left of Dunnigan’s money, three thousand, and reached back into my jacket, as if going for more capital, and he mucked his cards. I raked in the pot. He reached for my down cards. I slapped my hand down on his. “You pay to see the cards,” I said.

“It’s a showdown,” he said.

“Only if you meet the bet,” I said. I pushed all the cards together facedown and shoveled them toward the dealer.

* * *

I need you here to stop trouble, not to keep me honest before God.

* * *

Of course it was the correct etiquette. You bluff a guy out of his money, he doesn’t get to see your method of play, but I’d done it as offensively as I knew how. I wanted him as an enemy, I wanted him to feel it personally. There are maybe a lot of ways to play cards, but the best way to win is to humiliate the guy you’re playing. Not only is it satisfying, but the madder he gets, the more mistakes he makes. And in the end, you clean his clock.

Somebody once told me something about chess, as opposed to cards. Cards often depend on luck, but with chess, it’s all about defining weakness. When you beat somebody at chess, you crush them, they have no excuse. With cards, there’s always the chance they’ll pull it out because they beat the odds.

It wasn’t true for Elyria, who kept losing, and it wasn’t true for Chicago and St. Louis because I made sure they kept on losing. Poker is a cumulative game, and in the end, the house odds work against you. Thin Jim O’Donnell was a better poker player than the amateurs from out of town, and he was a better poker player than I was, but the two of us were better than they were. I’d managed to reduce Elyria’s loss to twelve thousand.

“You’re not doing him any favors,” O’Donnell said.

“A fool and his money are soon parted,” I agreed.

It was five o’clock that afternoon. O’Donnell was ahead an easy thirty grand. “What does it matter?” he asked.

“Dunnigan has a name for not running a crooked game.”

“I don’t understand your stake in this, Mickey,” he said.

“I might come away with a little something,” I said.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

I hadn’t understood him right away. “Ach,” I said. “I’m not expecting a piece of your action, Jimmy. You make whatever you can, as long as it’s honest work. I’m not here for that. I came for Francis.”

“Why would you be doing a favor for Frank Dunnigan?”

I shrugged. “One hand washes the other,” I said. The truth is, I wasn’t quite sure. It meant nothing to me, who won or lost the game. It wasn’t about fairness. There’s little fairness in this world, after all. No. The simple fact is that I wanted to rub their noses in the dirt, the two cheats.

“Let’s play some cards,” O’Donnell said.

We went back to the table and settled into our seats again. The pace was telling on all of us, and lack of sleep. The button was in front of Elyria, and he called his favorite, seven stud, high-low.

Two cards down, one up. Elyria’s face card was an ace, and so was mine. He bet out fifty. The table called around to me, and I raised a hundred. The table called around to Elyria, with the pot now at six hundred, and he raised me full. The others called, and I raised a thousand. Elyria called and went in for another fifteen hundred. The pot stood at four thousand, with only the first three cards dealt. Thin Jim O’Donnell folded. I called. Baton Rouge called. So did St. Louis and Chicago.

“Pot’s right,” the dealer said, and dealt the next card up.

Baton Rouge paired with sixes, and St. Louis paired with kings. Chicago was showing four-five of clubs. Elyria caught a deuce to his ace, both diamonds. I was dealt a ten off-suit. No help, but my hole cards were ace-ten, so I was sitting on two pair.

St. Louis checked. If it was a signal, his partner paid it no attention and bet five hundred. Elyria called. I thought it funny he didn’t raise. Chicago was looking at low hand, I figured, but Elyria might be paired up with his ace, and it was uncharacteristic of him to be sandbagging. I called. Baton Rouge folded his sixes. St. Louis raised a thousand. It was an obvious signal, now, but Chicago ignored it again, called, and raised fifteen hundred. Elyria called, and raised it all the way, seventy-five hundred, the amount of the pot. There was now fifteen thousand dollars on the table. I pretended to think about it, and then simply called. St. Louis looked at the cards on the board, his thoughtfulness no pretense. If he had a set of kings, and Chicago had a lock on low, and they could keep me and Elyria betting up the stakes, they’d split a thirty-grand pot. He called. Chicago made the same calculation, but quicker than his partner, and called.

“Pot’s right,” the dealer said.

St. Louis drew a queen, off-suit, Chicago the five of hearts, pairing up low. Elyria pulled the five of diamonds, for a possible flush, and I drew the ten of spades.

St. Louis was still high, with kings. He checked. Chicago checked. Elyria checked as well.

I was surprised. It was the smartest poker move he’d made all night. He was looking at a flush draw, or a solid low. I had a full house, but tens over, not aces. I’d figured St. Louis for a set of kings already. If he paired a kicker, I was dead meat. I bet ten thousand dollars.

The hand was going to be all in now.

St. Louis called, a sign he had the three kings but not the full boat. Or he was trying to sucker me.

Chicago hesitated and then called, pushing in the rest of his chips. Maybe he had doubts, but he remembered he’d get half of whatever St. Louis won, under the table.

Elyria called and raised ten thousand. It was the second smartest bet he’d made in almost twenty-four hours. He was either going to lose his shirt — and his pants, and maybe his livelihood — or he was going to bust the game. I looked over at Thin Jim O’Donnell, who was smiling behind his hand.

I called the bet. I had a hundred dollars left in front of me, and I didn’t know whether Dunnigan would front me more.

St. Louis and Chicago stared at each other, their poker faces gone. You could see it in their eyes. In for a penny, in for a pound. They had to call or Elyria would have bought the pot. They both called, but they had to go light, the chips half in, half out. The pot was at sixty-five thousand dollars.

Fourth face card. St. Louis got the nine of hearts, and Chicago the three of clubs. Elyria caught another diamond, the five. I drew the fourth ace, which put me high, meaning I’d bet first.

I turned and glanced back at Dunnigan. He nodded, but he wasn’t happy. Full house, aces up? I bet twenty-five thousand.

St. Louis folded his kings. It was too rich to chase.

Chicago smiled confidently and called the bet.

Elyria thought about it, taking his time.

I asked for a whiskey from the bar, Tullamore Dew, no water and no ice.

“All in,” Elyria said. “And raise it fifty thousand.”

Everything stopped momentarily.

I looked at Dunnigan again. He nodded again, as unhappy as the last time. I called.

Now it was Chicago’s turn to look at Dunnigan. Was his marker good? the look asked. Dunnigan nodded. Chicago sat back in his chair and flipped up the edges of his hole cards, as if he hadn’t already made up his mind, and then he called. The pot was now close to two hundred thousand dollars.

Arnold Rothstein, in this same hotel, had walked away from the game that cost him his life owing three hundred thousand, on the turn of a card.

The last card was dealt facedown.

I was high, showing. I checked.

Chicago bet out fifty thousand dollars.

Elyria smiled ruefully. He hadn’t even looked at his card. He called.

So did I. It was called limping in.

The pot stood at three hundred and fifty thousand.

Now, here’s the thing in high-low. There’s a last round of betting, after you declare which way you’re going. An empty hand for low, one chip for high, two chips for both ways.

We each shuffled a handful of chips below the table. I had a chip in my hand for high. We brought our hands up and opened them. Chicago and Elyria each showed two chips. Both of them were going both ways. What it means is, out of seven cards, you can show high hand, and low, and win each way.

I had high hand, with the full house, aces over. The other two were showing flush, and the possible low.

It’s a courtesy that you don’t raise into a lock, and I didn’t. I checked. Elyria bet a hundred thousand dollars. The pot was shy just half a million when Chicago called.

He turned over a flush in clubs, his high card the six. If you switched in his five of hearts, he had a six-five low.

Elyria almost apologetically turned over a straight flush in diamonds to the five, his off-suit card a six, for a six-four low. He’d beaten Chicago both ways, and my full house.

At least it wasn’t my money.

Play for more than you can afford to lose, and you’ll learn the game, the guy from Bangor had said.

* * *

I ran into Thin Jim O’Donnell at Jack Sharkey’s a week after.

He shook my hand as if genuinely glad to see me. I believe he was.

“How’d you know to stay out of that last hand?” I asked.

“I didn’t have the cards,” he said.

I smiled. “You folded too early,” I said.

He shrugged. “The fix was in,” he said.

“You knew?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t have sat in the game, else.”

“But once the game started.”

“Once the game started, how not?”

“You had every opportunity to leave,” I said.

“I don’t go to a card game to lose,” he said.

“Who does?”

O’Donnell laughed. “You had aces up,” he said.

“You saw it coming. I didn’t.”

He nodded. “On the declaration,” he said.

“Because the guy’s betting was so erratic, and so reckless, it looked like a stone bluff, or impossible odds.”

“No, you made a good bet. I’d have played it the same way, but I wouldn’t have bet the club flush.” Chicago’s hand.

“He didn’t read me for the full house, three aces up on the table,” I said. I didn’t mention I’d had the tens.

“Well, his attention was fixed elsewhere. He’d led himself to believe he’d been handed a pigeon, ripe for the plucking.”

“Poetic justice. Plucked by the mark from Ohio.”

“Ohio?” O’Donnell shook his head, smiling. “Mickey, the marks were those two guys running the con, the high-rollers from Missouri and Chicago.”

“Dunnigan set them up?” I’d fallen behind there.

“Certain sure.”

“Why did he ask us into the game, then?”

“Window dressing. We were beards.”

“I don’t see it,” I said.

“Dunnigan brought you into the game so it wouldn’t look like a shakedown,” he said. “What did he tell you, that he was afraid the guy wouldn’t meet his markers?”

“Something to that effect, more or less,” I admitted. “And what did he tell you?”

“I was local color. Some visiting firemen wanted to play a pro. Why wouldn’t I jump at it?”

“Who was the ringer, then? The hayseed from Elyria.”

“I never saw him before. I’m thinking Reno, or Lake Tahoe. Side games, hotel rooms. Not the casinos.”

“Why not Vegas?”

“Too much of a known quantity. You might recognize him, or his style of play.”

“The guy didn’t have a style of play.”

“I’ll know him the next time,” O’Donnell said, smiling.

“So it didn’t matter that I lost Dunnigan’s money,” I said. “He was going to get it back, with interest.”

“I’m thinking a three-way split,” he said. “A third to the house, a third to the mechanic, a third to the loan sharks.”

“Which loan sharks?” I asked.

“Whichever of Costello’s people Dunnigan is into. He’s got markers out all over town.”

I still didn’t quite understand the sequence of events, but I suppose it didn’t matter. I’d only played a walk-on part.

Others got top billing.

* * *

Frank Dunnigan paid for his education. They fished him out of the East River later that same week. It didn’t make sense, not if he were paying down a debt, but maybe it wasn’t the Mafia who dropped him in the drink.

The man from Chicago had gotten on the Lakeshore Limited. There was a stop in Cleveland, and he was found dead in the compartment of his Pullman. Heart attack, or stroke, an unfortunate accident. He was known to have had health problems previously.

The guy from St. Louis died in a colored whorehouse in East St. Louis, just across the river in Illinois, from an overdose of cocaine, but it was covered up for his family’s sake, with the collusion of local authorities. He was a judge, and perhaps his associates were able to call in a final favor.

The mob has a long reach.

O’Donnell had walked away with over thirty thousand, a fair day’s wages. Nobody ever questioned it.

I’d walked away with the shirt on my back, but I’d expected nothing.

The winner had left town without consequence. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars isn’t chump change, if that in fact was his end, and I had no reason to doubt Thin Jim O’Donnell. On the other hand, I didn’t imagine we’d see the man from Elyria in a New York neighborhood anytime in the near future.

Not that he could have found Ohio on a map.

Content

Гейтс Дэвид Эджерли Set 'em Up, Joe

David Edgerley Gates Set 'em Up, Joe