Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane bought a couple of stacks of yellow five-dollar chips and waited for his first hand. The dealer, an expressionless woman in the house uniform, shuffled and whirled out the cards. Crane was the first person dealt to, and he belatedly noticed that the dealer button lay in front of the bearded man to his right. I'm under the gun, he thought.

Crane gathered in his cards and curled up the corners—and repressed a smile. In a textbook example of first-timer's luck, he had been dealt a pat Full Boat, Tens over Queens. He passed, and then raised when the bet came around to him after someone else had opened; and when the draw came, he tossed out the two Queens, face up. "I know I can fill this Flush!" he remarked cheerfully.

The irrational move got some raised eyebrows and muttering from the others at the table—but one of the two cards he was now dealt was the last Ten, giving him Four of a Kind. Five people besides him stayed, and two of them were still in for the showdown after three raises. There was complete silence at the table when he showed his hand and swept the stack of yellow and tan chips into his corner.

On the next hand he had a Two, Five, Seven, Nine, and Ten, unsuited. Someone opened, someone else raised, and Crane raised again, and then raised again when the bet came around one more time. At the draw he threw all five of his cards away and asked for five more.

This time a couple of players muttered angrily, as though Crane were making fun of the game.

His new cards were a Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Queen, again unsuited. When the bet came around to him, he shook his head and threw the cards down face up. "Almost caught the Straight that time," he said, frowning thoughtfully.

After this he played tight, staying only with a pair of Aces or better before the draw and only with a very high Two Pair or better after it, and the lunatic image he had established with the first two hands impelled at least one of the other players to call him every time he stayed.

He had won about $350 when, after an hour and a half of play, he glanced at the ashtray and saw the smoke from his current Camel beginning to swirl in toward the center of the table. He looked at his tepid glass of Coke: The level was off, dipping toward the table.

It was before the draw, and he was holding three Hearts, Jack high, and the Joker. He would have liked to stay and try for the Flush, but he put the cards down on the table and pushed them away from him.

He gathered up his chips, tossed four yellow ones to the dealer, and stood up. "Thanks, everybody," he said, and walked away between the tables and up the stairs to where Mavranos sat drinking a Coors at a table by the rail.

"Check out the smoke," Mavranos said after Crane pulled up another chair and sat down.

Crane could see it at the nearest table, where a five-and ten-dollar Hold 'Em game was in progress: A little cloud was gathering over the center of the table.

Mavranos lit up a Camel and puffed, and the smoke drifted away over the sunken floor of the playing area. "And my beer's crooked," he said.

"Where's Ozzie?"

"He's in that Seven-Card Stud to the right there."

Crane stood up and walked over to the section of brass rail nearest Ozzie's game.

The old man was looking at the cigarette in the tray by his chair, and the dealer had to remind him that it was his bet.

The players were about to be dealt the seventh card, and there were only two staying with Ozzie, for the old man had three Queens showing and the other two hands showed only low pairs.

Ozzie turned his three Queens over and pushed the cards toward the center of the table.

A cocktail waitress walked past Crane, and he was about to wave at her … but then he thought of Ozzie's three abandoned Queens. Gotta make sacrifices, he thought. He sighed and turned back to watch the table.

One of the remaining two players had won with a Full Boat, and as the man scooped in the chips, Crane idly wondered what sort of luck the man had sold.

Ozzie stayed in all the hands now, folding only after what Seven-Stud players called Sixth Street, the sixth card dealt. Even at the rail Crane could see that the old man's play was drawing the attention of the other players; at one point Ozzie folded showing a high Two Pair when nothing else at all showed on the board.

Crane drank three Cokes while he watched, and smoked half a pack of Camels. The smoke kept swirling out over the tables, and Ozzie kept folding before the showdown.

And so Crane was surprised when in one hand, finally, Ozzie hesitated at Sixth Street.

The old man was showing a Two of Spades, a Three of Clubs, a Five of Diamonds, and a Nine of Hearts.

One of his opponents showed four Hearts, and another showed Two Pair, black Kings and Tens. The Two Pair bet ten dollars, and the four Hearts raised it ten—strongly representing a Flush, thought Crane.

"Twenty to the Nine," said the dealer to Ozzie.