Taco Noir (6 page)

“S’okay,” I mumbled as thoughts of a warm bed filled my head. “You have a good life.”

“I will!” she said, her face once again the beaming, angelic vision that Jimmy had imagined. She waved good-bye and I turned to head homeward. As I did so, Ellie called after me.

“What caused the blackmailer’s sudden change of heart?” she asked, doubt once again crossing her saintly visage. “Did he come to some harm?”

“Not at all,” I told the angel. “He’s gone to live on a farm upstate where he has plenty of room to run and play.”

“Oh good,” she said, turning to walk towards the Sisters of Mercy. “It’s nice when things turn out well.”

“It sure is,” I said as I started back to the office where I could lie down with some blankets and a hot water bottle.  I only got a few steps before I heard a voice call after me. I turned and it was the angel. She ran to me, and I stood there stupid as she did. When she reached me she planted one on my cheek that would have made a statue blush, and I felt her press something into my hands. She smiled and left me in the cold, dark night.

Looking down, I found the small thermos the angel carried thrust in to my hand. Inside I found what might have been just the thing to chase away my cold, if not turn me into a good man.

And I wasn’t splitting it with Jimmy.

ANGELIC CHICKEN SOUP

1 medium chicken

1 large onion

3 sprigs of dill, tied into a bouquet

4 stalks of celery, chopped

3 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons chopped ginger

1 turnip, cubed into 1/2-inch pieces

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons salt

2 potatoes, cubed into 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup matzo meal

2 large eggs room temperature, beaten

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons seltzer water

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh dill

• Take the bird with a little bit of reverence and a little bit of trepidation and give her a quick wash. Toss her into the pot and keep her company with the onion, dill, celery, and salt. Turn up the heat on the fowl and sweat her to a boil. Keep up the heat and skim the foam off the top as you go. Once your bird is good and boiling, lower the heat to medium and toss in the ginger, turnip, carrots, and lemon juice. Cover and cook on low until the bird has served her two hour sentence.
  

• Season the bird to taste. The chicken should be nice and tender and ready to fall apart. Let the bird cool and carve the meat off of the carcass. Toss half of the meat back into the pot and put the rest on ice for another day. Crank up the heat on the pot and toss in the potatoes. Once you get the fowl simmering again, you’re ready for the matzo balls.
  

• Toss the matzo meal, eggs, oil, seltzer, salt and pepper into a bowl and work them over. Put them on ice and let them chill for about a half hour.  Once the mix is nice and cold, take it out and, with wet hands, work over the matzo with a pugilistic fervor and form the mess into 1 inch rocks. Drop the matzo balls into the soup and cover. Continue to simmer the soup for a half hour longer. Trust me, good things will happen.
  

• Spoon the soup into bowls and serve. Garnish with a dollop of sour cream or green onions. Or don’t. Either way it’s wellness in a bowl.
  

            Serves 8, unless they’re greedy.

THE CASE OF THE HARD-BOILED MONTE CRISTO

Sometimes you can Count more than just cards

In this city, gambling is the organ grinder that makes the monkey dance. On the one hand, it is the topic of lectures, debates, and sermons.  It gives politicians a target to shoot their intellectual water pistols at. It gives the copy editors something splashy to put on the front page above the fold. It also gives the good people of Hicksville something to raise their torches and pitchforks against.

              If you dig a little deeper into the city’s seamier side, you’ll also find that gambling helps fund some of the soup kitchens in the lower East side, pays for the trash pick-ups at City Hall, and helps line the bottom of the collection plate at St. Dominic’s Cathedral every Sunday.

              Don’t get me wrong. I’m no preacher from the church of the natural seven. At the same time gambling was bringing fortune and notoriety to a city growing in leaps and bounds, it was also responsible for little Joey going homeless because dear old dad put the deed to the house on a “sure thing.” It cost many a sweet young thing their diamond rings because their sugar daddies couldn’t cover the action that they asked for. And it also sent any number of schmucks to the bottom of the river because their mouths were bigger than their wallets. In fact, it seemed like some days there just wasn’t enough river to cover them all.

              It was a sad story, but none of that mattered to me. I was holding kings over aces.

            “It’s your bet,” said Sweet Jesse Vasquez, the man hosting this evening’s festivities. Sweet Jesse was a short, bald, round man who spent his life mopping up the rivers of sweat that made their way down his forehead. In order to keep that kind of hydration flowing, Jesse kept a personal pitcher of water and a glass nearby. The man could sweat in a snowstorm, earning him the unfortunate and completely behind-his-back nickname of “Sweat Jesse Vasquez.” As my papa always said, when life deals you lemons, make lemon cocktails. In the case of Jesse’s poker face, the man looked nervous all the time, even when he was collecting his winnings, so I had to fall back on another piece of advice my papa gave me.

              Always raise when you have a full boat.

              “I’ll raise you fifty, Jesse,” I said, tossing a handful of chips into the pot. True to his nature, Jesse neither blinked nor smiled. He simply tossed in a larger handful of chips than I did.

              “I’ll re-raise an even hundred,” Jesse said, never taking his eyes off the pot. I found myself in that no-man’s land that Texas Hold ‘em players hate but know all too well. That special wilderness where you have just laid down too much cash to back off.

              “I call,” I said, feeling a dry scratchiness in the back of my throat. It was almost enough to cause me to reach for Jesse’s pitcher of water, but that simply wasn’t done. Still unsmiling and perspiring, Jesse laid down his hand.

              “Two pair,” Jesse said. “A pair of red jacks and a pair of black jacks.”

            I threw down my hand in disgust and got up from the table. Losing a hand is always bad enough, but nothing makes it worse than gambling wit. My stack was light about three hundred dollars, and most of that was in Sweet Jesse’s pocket. I decided that I could use a break, and turned my attention to Sweet Jesse’s sandwich tray while the other players took their turn as Jesse’s punching bag.

              When Sweet Jesse floats a game, the great consolation is that although your wallet is sure to be lighter, the spread he lays out for his games guarantees to satisfy.

              Today the sweaty little toad stocked the bar with a nice selection of fancy Hefeweizens and Pilsners, and served them up with a hearty German Potato Salad and thick, warm Monte Cristo sandwiches. I used the edge of the table to pry open one of the ice cold bottles of beer, earning me a glare from a couple of the stiffs at the table. I shrugged and loaded my plate with enough potato salad to reach critical mass, tossing on a sandwich for good measure.

              I watched the other players, Nick the Axe, Psycho Billy, and Barnstorming Pete Wilson push their chips around the table. They were just trading clay with each other as Sweet Jesse ate through them, piece by piece. While I ate, Jesse walked away with every pot but two, sweating and drinking his ice water through it all. Or so I thought.

              On the next hand, the dealer flopped a seven, ten, and a jack. Billy checked his cards while the other seat holders mucked their hands. All but Sweet Jesse. Jesse raised twenty-five bucks, and without blinking Billy raised fifty.

              The check-raise is an excellent poker strategy, and one of the few times when I feel it is acceptable for a player to check. As soon as Billy threw in his fifty, Sweet Jesse knew that Billy either had the nuts or wanted Jesse to believe that he did. Either way, Jesse threw in his money and they were playing poker.

              The turn was a four, which probably did no one any good. Billy threw in a hundred more, daring Jesse to call. Jesse continued to sweat, took a drink of his ice water, and called. The dealer threw down a deuce.

              Billy bounced, going all in, practically throwing in about two hundred more in chips. Even though this was a paltry sum compared to Sweet Jesse’s stack, the big guy sat, sipping his water, and shuffling his chips. After a moment, he called Billy again, and Billy threw down an eight and a nine, giving him a straight. Sweet Jesse threw out a few curse words with his cards, drained his ice water, and motioned for one of his cronies to re-fill him.

              Jesse didn’t spend much time playing on tilt after losing. The next three hands all went to the fat man in succession, and he even threw down his hole cards when he took Billy’s money, an arrogant move that I always detest in players.

              Jesse was back to his winning form after his setback, sweating his way through the cheaply upholstered chair and winning a blue streak. I helped myself to a little more potato salad and another of the Monte Cristo sandwiches while I watched Sweet Jesse pluck himself some pigeons. I don’t usually drink much during poker games, but the salt of the salad had given me a powerful thirst, so I cracked open another beer. The light Pilsner felt like heaven on my scratchy throat, and I could understand why Jesse kept draining that water pitcher next to him as he played. Except now I noticed that he didn’t. Not since that last losing hand.

              “Are you gonna stand there all day and raid my sandwich tray or are you going to play?” Sweet Jesse demanded. I filled my plate up with two more of the delicious, warm Monte Cristos and sat back down at the table.

              I most certainly was going to play.

              Between Sweet Jesse and me, Nick and Pete fell out of the game quickly, with most of their money split pretty evenly between us. Psycho Billy held out the longest, his stack being the biggest since he had taken a bite out of Jesse with his straight. Billy was a confident player, and confidence was always dangerous for someone.

              “Full house,” smiled Billy as he laid down his cards after going all in. “Sixes over tens.” I smiled back at the dope and laid down my hand. His full house was enough to go all in in most circumstances, but not in all.

              “Aces over sixes,” I said, having a bigger boat than his. I swept the chips towards me as Billy rose from the table, put on his hat and coat, and tipped his chapeau to Sweet Jesse and me on his way out. I told Jesse that Billy took his losses well for a guy with the moniker of “Psycho.”

              “He’s a big Hitchcock fan,” snapped the fat man as he mopped Lake Erie off his forehead. “Are you in or not?”

              “Sure,” I said, reaching over to the sandwich tray to swipe the last Monte Cristo. I raised an eyebrow to my host before taking a bite.

              “Go ahead,” he grumbled, looking at his watch and dabbing his forehead again. “Christ, it’s a quarter to five already!”

              “Time flies,” I tried to say, which came out of my full mouth as mumbles. Sweet Jesse nodded absently and flipped his chips. Our pots were evenly matched at about ten grand each.

              “In that case, tough guy, I say we raise the blinds up to $500 and a grand,” growled Jesse, confidence and sweat pouring from him. It didn’t escape my notice that he said this when I was the big blind.

              “Sounds good,” I replied. “But if I win, you also throw in your Monte Cristo recipe.”

              “Sure, sure,” he mumbled, eyeing my chips as if they were… well, a tray of sandwiches. “Just button your lip and play.”

              Jesse and I went heads up for about an hour, with him shoving some of his chips my way and me shoving some of mine to him. It was an exercise in futility, and never once did the big, sweaty mug take a drink. Things continued that way until about six thirty in the morning. Dawn had broken and my mouth had a nasty, stale taste in it. Jesse was his usual moist self, but a smile had broken out on the fat man’s face.

              “Tell you what,” said the big guy, mopping his forehead. “It’s past my bed time, so what do you say to getting down to business and making the blinds two and four grand?”