Last Call (Last Call 1)

"Huh." Diana walked to the coping of the glassy-smooth pool and back. "Did you ever hear of Nick the Greek?" she asked. "A Poker player, my father knew him. He was in the first heavy Poker game at Binion's, in 1949, and it was just him and Johnny Moss playing head-up, no limit. The game lasted five months, and the Greek lost about two million. Years later he was playing Five and Ten Draw in Gardena for a living, and somebody asked him if that wasn't a big step down, and he said, 'It's action, ain't it?' "

For a few moments the pool area was completely silent. The blue pagoda roofs of the Imperial Palace towers next door shone in the descending morning sunlight.

Then Nardie laughed harshly. "That's—that's the incentive you're offering?" Her voice, though still quiet, was shrill and incredulous. "I can be Nick the Greek to your Johnny Moss? Christ, girl, you make a lousy recruiter. I wouldn't—"

"You want the same thing I want," Diana overrode her. "To be a sister and daughter and mother, in a real family, not some fucked-up arrangement that looks like it was put together for … for cruel laughs. That family is still here, in potential at least, and wants you. Be a part of us."

Diana waited for an answer, wondering what her own answer would be if the situation were reversed.

Nardie looked sideways up at the sky and exhaled. Then she pushed her cap back and rubbed her eyes. "For now," she said, her voice muffled. "Provisionally." She lowered her hands and stared at Diana. "But if I wind up killing you—"

"Then I'll have misjudged you."

"Your judgment's been real good so far?"

Diana smiled, and the sun touched the highest mirrored windows of the Flamingo high rises. "I'm happy to say I can't remember."

This morning Crane saw the old man as soon as he carried his bagged six-packs out of the liquor store. Doctor Leaky was the only one of the players by the Dumpster who was wearing a hat—a wide straw thing with a yellow paper rose on it.

"Beer man," Crane said when he limped up to the ragged circle of players.

His left leg was stiff and his side ached under the perpetually wet bandage, but he felt young and strong. Today it required no willpower to only fake sipping the open beer can he held.

"All right," said one of the young men eagerly. "Sit thee doon, dude." He tugged one of the cans free of the top six-pack when Crane put the bag down. "What's your name, anyway?" he asked after popping the can and taking a deep morning-restorative swig.

Crane sat down and looked over at Doctor Leaky. "Scotto," he said.

The very old man frowned at him in huge puzzlement, his mouth of course hanging open. "Scotto?" he said.

"Right. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little sick of Lowball, hmm? So I got a suggestion." Crane was talking fast and cheerful, like a proposition bet hustler. "I've got a new game we can play, and since it's my idea, I'll fund all of you for the first few hands, how's that? Here." He pulled five rubber-banded bundles of one-dollar bills out of his jacket pocket and gave one to each of the players except his father's body. "There's fifty bucks for each of you. I figure nobody'll mind if Doctor Leaky keeps on playing with trash."

As if choreographed, each of the ragged players tore the rubber band off his bundle and riffled incredulously through the bills.

"On this basis," said the young man who had spoken, "you can call any game at all, dude." He stuck out a grimy hand. "I'm Dopey."

Crane decided that the young man meant it was his nickname. He shook his hand. "Glad to meet you." Crane had kept one of the bundles for himself, and he now peeled off a dollar and tossed it onto the asphalt in the middle of the circle. "Everybody ante a buck."

Doctor Leaky was blinking and shaking his head. "No," he said, on a rising note almost as if it were a question. "I'm not going to play with you." His trembling right hand scratched aimlessly at the empty crotch of his lime green pants.

All the others had tossed in their antes.

"Pot's not right," said Crane softly, "Dad."

The last word visibly jarred Doctor Leaky. He gaped at the bills on the parking lot pavement, and then down at his pile of flattened pennies and holed chips. Then, slowly, he reached down and pushed one of the chips forward. "Pot's right," he muttered.

"Okay," said Crane. He was tense, but he put easy assurance into his voice. "This game is sort of Eight-Card Stud, but you gotta make your hand by buying someone else's."

And as he took the fixed-up deck of Bicycle cards out of his pocket and shuffled them, he began, carefully and clearly, to explain the rules of Assumption.

Tonight it starts.

Tall and muscular and still genuinely dark-haired at the age of seventy-five, and immaculate now in a suit, the Art Hanari body stood in the sun by the curb in front of La Maison Dieu's front doors, waiting impatiently for the ordered limousine.