Up in Smoke (6 page)

“I just put it there for a minute, Rick,” Susan said as she pulled her hand away from my shoulder. She went back into the kitchen.

“I was out there looking for my drill bits, and I spotted a few items that are probably from two black Fridays ago that you still haven’t ever pulled out and used.”

“They’ll make easy gifts this year,” she defended herself.

“Why didn’t they become gifts last year?” I asked. “Or the year you got them?”

She said nothing.

“Yeah,” I said to her empty reply.

She seemed to be done with the bantering and took off down the hallway.

Beth wasn’t going to be in until eight thirty. Suddenly, I had time for that poker game. I pulled the card that had the address on it out from my coat pocket.

The valley.

Off Sprague.

It was far. At least thirty minutes.

But it’s fifty thousand bucks. That could get me pretty close to even. Suddenly I heard a door shut and Susan’s footsteps returning back down the hallway.

I slid the card back into my pocket.

She turned the corner and came back into the kitchen.

“Hey. I’m going to go play some poker tonight,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant as she came over to me at the table.

“Okay. What time is that?” she asked.

“Five.”

“With the guys from the station?” she asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Oh, that’s great!” she replied, beaming. “You guys haven’t gotten together to play in a while. I’ll bet this charity will appreciate it! You should give the money to the homeless shelter down on Division this time. With the holidays around the corner, I bet they’d probably be happy for the extra support!”

I hated lying to her like this. It broke my heart. It was uncomfortable and wrong in so many ways. But I had to keep the lie going or I’d have to explain everything. I couldn’t do that. I’d explain it to her someday, but it’d be later, not now.

“I don’t know, dear,” I said. I stood up and excused myself, heading to the bathroom down the hallway to escape the conversation. She didn’t deserve these lies, but I felt trapped.

Once in the bathroom, I shut the door and locked it. My anxiety rose and my chest started to hurt. Placing a hand on each side of the sink, I leaned into the mirror and my reflection. Looking at myself, I didn’t like who I saw.

I saw a man who had hidden the truth from his wife for three years. I saw a man who was putting himself first instead of others. I saw a man who was a liar.

I was sick of the lie and the man I had become.

I told myself as I looked into the mirror at the man I did not like,
tonight is it.

The last time.

The last chance.

Then, it’s over.

I just needed to win the fifty thousand that night, and then I’d come clean to Susan. That was only thirty grand short of the eighty I started at three years ago. I knew she’d be upset about it, but these lies weren’t going to rule my life anymore.

I
t was exactly five o’clock when I arrived, with the sun still high in the sky, but lingering clouds gave off a dark and shady appearance. There was a chain link fence with a gate surrounding the lot, with the warehouse smack dab in the middle. I saw Robert leaning up against the fence near the entrance. It almost felt like he was waiting for me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist. He opened the gate for me as I pulled in.

It had rained the hour prior, and I noticed small puddles in spots across the wet pavement in the parking lot. I pulled up beside a midnight blue Porsche and parked. I felt a little uncomfortable with the vibes that the situation was giving off. I didn’t know these people. I hardly knew Robert. Frozen in place as I sat in my car, I didn’t move. I just sat there, debating if I was doing the right thing.

Knocking on my car door, Robert smiled through the rain streaked window at me. I rolled it down.

“You coming or what?” he asked. He looked at me and then over his shoulder toward the warehouse.

Shaking my head lightly, I said, “I don’t know, man. This seems . . . not right.”

“It’s poker. Maybe you would feel comfortable if you just give me a cut of your money right now? That’s the only difference between this and the casino. Or is it something else? You worried about your old woman?”

I thought of Susan. She wouldn’t be happy about what I was doing. But then again, she wouldn’t be happy about the missing seventy thousand out of the bank. I had to do this. End it once and for all.

I shook the thought from my head, took a deep breath and got out of my car.

“Let’s do this,” Robert said. He patted my shoulder and let out a chuckle as we walked to the entrance of the huge warehouse. The exterior was smooth aluminum, giving off a newer look—all except for the door, which was old and rusted.

Once at the door, the kid turned to face me and lifted a fist to knock. A couple of firm pounds of his fist and he let his hand fall back to his side. He tipped his chin at me and said, “You ready for some real poker?”

I gave him a nod, but I didn’t say anything.

Opening the door, a bearded giant of a man answered. While his face was covered in a dark and thick patch of wool, his head was bare. His eyebrows were long and looked to have plans of their own as they went in a few random directions. His appearance unsettled me, and I felt my anxiety percolate.

In a deep and smooth voice, the large man said, “Who dis?” He looked over at me. His eyes were as dark as his beard.

“This is Blaze. He’s with me,” the kid said, patting the giant’s chest with the back of his hand. He strolled by him without an ounce of fear.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, following after the kid.

The giant remained quiet and furrowed his eyebrows as I walked past him. We heard the door slam shut behind us as we kept walking.

“Bobby!” A man with a cigar between his teeth shouted from a table that sat in the open and dark warehouse. The warehouse was relatively dim as the only light source hung down above the poker table. The man smiled as he rose up and pulled the cigar from his teeth. He had a ridiculously tiny mustache. His hair was black as the night’s sky, and it was combed over to one side. He wore a gray, pinstriped suit and a pair of white shoes. He stood with open arms toward Robert, just barely in the edge of the light.

There were four other guys at the table that looked over at us as we approached, but there were no introductions for them.

“Lincoln,” Robert said with a gracious nod as he took off his leather jacket and laid it across the back of one of the empty chairs that sat at the table. “This is Blaze, or Rick Alderman, the firefighter I was telling you about.”

“Ahh, I see. Welcome, my friend,” Lincoln said as he sat back down and picked up his cigar, eying me.

“Thanks for having me,” I replied, taking a seat next to Robert. I pulled out my wallet to get the money for the buy-in.

Lincoln laughed a little as he shook his hand at me. “No . . . don’t do that. We make it right at the end, yes, my friend?”

Looking around the table, I felt a jolt of uneasiness settle into me. Standing up, I said, “I forgot that my daughter is coming into town tonight. I gotta get home.”

“I understand,” Lincoln replied, nodding slowly. “I have kids myself.”

Lincoln took a puff of his cigar and blew the smoke out of his nostrils as he shook his head. “Have a good night, but it is a shame. The way Bobby talks about you, it seemed like you’re pretty good. I was looking forward to playing.”

I looked over at Lincoln. “Okay, I’ll play.” I sat back down in my seat.

“I understand your nervousness, Rick. I would be too, coming down to a warehouse to play some poker.”

“Yeah.” I laughed. “Little odd.”

He smiled. “Let’s play.” He looked over at the guy with the deck of cards and said, “Go ahead and deal them out, Frankie.”

Frankie shuffled the cards a couple of times and then began dealing. After the dealing was done, he grabbed stacks of chips and pushed them across the table to me.

“Thanks,” I replied.

Frankie said nothing; he just sat back down.

Picking up the corners of my cards, I saw that I had a two of hearts and a nine of clubs. I folded.

Glancing past one of the other guy’s shoulder, I saw giant cloth blankets faintly in the dark, draped over something in the distance.

Lincoln looked over to see what I was looking at, and then he looked back at me. “You curious what’s under those covers?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No.” I started to worry until Lincoln broke out in laughter.

“Bear,” Lincoln called over the man from the door I came in at. Bear came over to his side. “Pull the covers off for our friend. He’s lookin’ a bit nervous still.”

Bear glared at me and then walked over to the blankets. He pulled them off to reveal pallets and pallets of diapers.

Lincoln took a puff of his cigar as he grinned at me. “I buy and sell diapers, my friend.”

Relieved at the sight of the innocent diaper boxes, I smiled. My imagination made me think it was drugs or weapons or something crazy like you see in the movies. My nerves settled, and I felt my anxiousness fade away.

Lincoln, Robert, the others and I played poker for the next couple of hours. I felt all the more comfortable with every minute that ticked by. Lincoln told me about a trip down to Cancun he and his wife had just went on last week and about his daughter, Emalia’s, latest hobby of collecting rocks that she found around the yard. He seemed like a relatively normal guy. The fact that my chip stacks were growing quite nicely through the evening was also adding to my easygoing feeling. Each time I beat someone off the table and took all their chips away, my confidence swelled, and I could see winning the fifty grand within my sights.

By the eight o’clock hour, it was just down to Lincoln, the kid and myself. Frankie dealt the cards out to us as Lincoln lit up another cigar from his metallic cigar holder that he had sitting next to his bottle of whiskey.

I glanced at my cards. Ace of diamonds, king of diamonds. My face stayed stone cold and emotionless as I was bursting inside with excitement. I relaxed the cards back onto the table and waited for my turn.

I raised to four hundred.

The kid kept his usual one earbud in as he stayed stone-faced, debating somewhere in his mind what to do, I suspected. My eyes went to his chips. He had about two grand worth of chips left in his stacks. It wasn’t much compared to Lincoln’s or mine. The kid called.

It was now up to Lincoln, who seemed to be busy on his phone while he waited for his turn. He paused and looked at the table for a minute. There weren’t any cards down, just the ones in front of him that he had failed to even look at yet.

“How much?” he asked, looking at the both of us.

“Four,” I said.

“Thousand?” he asked.

I looked at the pot. “Hundred.”

“Okay.” He grabbed for his chips.

“You haven’t looked at your cards, though. Don’t you care what you have?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It will be okay.” He tossed in his chips to match and continued to do whatever he was doing on his phone.

Shaking my head a little, I thought to myself,
this is easy money
. I had hardly been there for three hours, and I was already almost done wiping the table clean.

The pot was good and Frankie burned a card. Then, he turned the flop. Three cards.

Ace of hearts, king of hearts and a two of hearts.

If my internal emotions had a set of external speakers, I couldn’t ever play poker. I was jumping up and down inside with excitement. On the outside, I kept my cool and raised the pot by a thousand dollars in chips.

The kid rubbed his chin as he removed an earbud. “Blaze . . .” he said, shaking his head. “Why you gotta kill me like this?” he laughed.

I said nothing.

“Screw it.” He shoved in the rest of his chips, which raised me another six hundred on top of mine.

Lincoln looked over at the cards from the flop and set his cellphone down. He looked to be a little more concerned now that there were a couple of grand on the table. Glancing at his cards, he laughed and then looked over at me. “Rick. You married?”

I nodded.

“Your wife ever get on to you about forgetting to take out the trash?” he asked, setting his cards back down on the table.

“Of course,” I replied.

“My wife is texting me to inform me that I haven’t taken the trash out in three days, and she’s looked every day to see if I would take it out, but I haven’t.”

I laughed. “My wife can be cute like that too.”

“When’s your garbage day? Mine falls on Monday, and it just agitates me like no other. Monday is already a busy day.”

“Thursday is our garbage day,” I replied. Realizing he was taking a short break from the game to chat, I relaxed in my seat and turned my attention to him.

He nodded in acknowledgement. “You know what I wonder? Why not take it out yourself or at least let me know about it? Why trap me like that?” Lincoln said, shrugging as he looked over at the kid.

“I know how that can be. I’ve been married to Susan for over thirty years, and we still seem to get into it once in a while. You’d think after a while you just wouldn’t have anything to argue about anymore.”

Suddenly, Lincoln took his stack of chips and matched the kid’s raise and then raised it another grand.

Looking at the cards on the table, I wondered what he could have. It had to be a bluff; he didn’t even look at his cards before the flop. I raised his bet—this time, ten grand.

Robert was already all-in and said, “Woah . . . looks like things are heating up.”

I smiled over at him. “Don’t have all night, right?”

Lincoln called my bet without hesitation.

The turn card came—two of diamonds.

It was up to me. The two did nothing for me, but I had to play my two pair. I raised it another grand.

He doubled it.

I tripled it.

He called. “Feeling confident, Mr. Alderman?” he asked.

Shrugging, I laughed. “Been rockin’ it so far. Just hoping to ride the wave.”

Frankie flipped the river card over: it was an ace.

Secured the full house.
Three aces and two kings. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was already almost nine now. I bet the same amount, only a grand.

It was up to Lincoln. He raised it to fifteen thousand.

Got him.

Pushing all my chips in, I said, “All-in.”

Lincoln grinned. “Flip ‘em.”

“You calling?” I asked.

He nodded softly as he tossed out a pair of pocket twos. “Four of a kind,” he said. My mouth fell open.

Robert flipped over his cards, a queen and a king.

And I flipped over my ace and king.

“It was nice playing with you,
Blaze
,” Lincoln said as he stood up from his chair and reached across the table to shake my hand.

Shaking off the shock, I stood up and nodded. “That was a solid win, Mr. ?” I said, shaking his hand.

“Lincoln’s fine, my friend,” he replied, smiling as he took his cigar and put it out in his ashtray. “You can pay Bear on your way out. I assume you brought cash?”

Nodding, I said, “Yes. And okay. Thanks for letting me come.”

Leaving the table, the kid followed right behind me. He patted my shoulder. “You were so close, man!” He began walking backward with a jump in his step.

Coming up to the door to leave, I pulled out my wallet. “Here you go,” I said, handing Bear the two grand in the form of hundreds.

He counted it out in front of me and then stopped. “Where’s the rest?” Bear asked.

“What?” I said. “That’s all of it. Should be two thousand there.” I leaned over his hands that held the money.

“It was twenty thousand,” he replied coldly.

A knot the size of a baseball twisted inside my chest as my anxiety came rushing back like a wave crashing up on a beach. “What do you mean?” I said with a shaken voice.