Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane realized that the man was talking to him, and was probably saying it for the second time. Crane raised two fingers and tossed out the Four and Nine of Hearts. The cards he got in exchange were the Nine and Two of Spades, no help.

The two players to his left just rapped the table; they were standing pat, at least pretending to have unimprovable hands.

And, Crane thought sadly, they had both been playing tight all along, not staying with low Two Pairs or trying for gut-shot Straights or three Flushes and apparently never bluffing. They probably did have pat hands. Certainly at least one of them did.

So much for three Jacks.

He checked instead of betting, and when one of them did bet, and the other one raised, and the "cold" raise came around to him, he slid two of his Jacks under his chips and threw the other three cards away. When he would be asked to show his openers, he would show the pair, which was the minimum a player could have in order to open; and opening with just a pair of Jacks under the gun was a foolish move. Seeming to have done it would confirm him in the eyes of the other players as a money-careless drunk.

He had been playing Poker all over town for about sixteen hours, starting in the Flamingo's cardroom right after the first phone call from the ghost of Susan. She had called several times since, ringing pay phones he had happened to be standing near; her voice was hoarse, and she didn't talk for any longer than it took for her to tell him that she forgave him and loved him. He knew she'd be waiting for him in the bed of whatever motel room he would eventually wind up in, but like a nervous bridegroom on his wedding night, he wanted just a couple more drinks before … retiring.

Twice among a thousand snatches of desultory conversation, once at the Sands and once from a cabdriver who had asked him what line of work he was in, he had heard of a series of Poker games that was to be played on a Lake Mead houseboat next week, starting Wednesday night and continuing through Good Friday.

He tried not to think about that now.

He reached for his drink, then hesitated and glanced to his right—but of course there was not a woman standing there. All day he had been catching these glimpses out of the corner of his false eye. Somehow it didn't worry him that he was able to see through the painted plastic hemisphere; somehow he had always known that his father could give back what his father had taken away.

Fifty feet away Richard Leroy and Vaughan Trumbill stood watching the Poker game over the tops of two video Poker slot machines; the Horseshoe was crowded, even this late on a Wednesday night, and to maintain their places, the two men kept feeding quarters into the machines and inattentively pushing the buttons.

"Beany's going to need more buy-in money," said Trumbill, staring impassively at the game.

"Hmm?" said Richard, following the fat man's gaze. "Oh, right."

His face went blank, and at the Poker table a white-haired little man with an asthma inhaler on the table beside him pulled a billfold from his jacket pocket and separated out twenty hundred-dollar bills; he tossed them across the green felt to the dealer, who slid several stacks of green-colored chips across to him.

A moment later animation returned to Leroy's face. "There," he said. "Hey, did you see our fish open with Jacks under the gun? He must be ready to just fall out of the tree, he's so ripe."

"He showed two Jacks, Betsy," Trumbill said. "Sorry, I mean Richard. He might have folded Two Pair or even Trips. I'm not convinced he's as cut free as you think."

In the Betsy Reculver body the old man might have gone into a snit, but now in the Richard one he just laughed. "The way he's been soaking himself in alcohol today? He's as cut free as a blood clot traveling up an artery."

Trumbill just shrugged, but he was uneasy, and he didn't like the old man's metaphor. Several men driving cars with Nevada plates had been to the motel Crane had been staying at, asking questions about a Scott "Scarecrow" Smith, and Trumbill was afraid some jack might be on Crane's trail, out to eliminate one of Georges Leon's about-to-be-assumed bodies, his precious fish, and somehow the assassination this morning was bothering him—maybe because explosions generally tore the bodies to bits and flung the bits away to dry on rooftops and tree branches; and Trumbill's stomach was uncomfortably weighted down with LaShane. This afternoon, naked except for the splendor of his thousand tattoos, he had dragged the dead dog out into the backyard and eaten a good half of it raw. Richard had hosed him off afterward.

A young man in a sweat shirt sidled up to Trumbill now and whispered. "One of the cars that was at the motel just parked in the lot by the liquor store around the corner on First. Three guys, flipping coins, angling this way."

Trumbill nodded. "Keep your people on them," he said quietly, and the young man nodded and hurried away.