Last Call (Last Call 1)

"Right. And even if you're out of the hand, you're still watching 'cause you've still got an investment in the hand you sold your four cards into. You're called a parent of the hand, and if it wins, you get ten percent of the pot. That's another reason a lot of guys just want to sell their hands and get out: they can clear a fair profit at the mating and then still have a one-in-six chance of getting a tenth of a pretty sizable pot."

Scott Crane drained his beer and pitched the bottle out the open window into the gathering night. "So have you played it yet?"

"Sure I've played it," said Newt, apparently angry. "Would I bring guys to it if I hadn't played it? And I've played Poker with Leroy a lot."

Scott was suddenly sure that Newt had lost a lot, too, to Leroy, and owed him at least money. For just a moment he considered making Newt pull over to the shoulder and getting out of the car and hitchhiking back to the Mint.

Lightning made silent jagged patterns over the mountains, like the momentarily incandescing roots of some vast tree that carried the stars as buds.

"And then there's the Assumption option," said Newt as he leaned over the big wheel and tugged it back and forth, sounding as tired as Scott felt. "If you're the absentee parent of the winning hand, you're free to put up an amount of your own money equal to the amount in the pot, and then have the deck shuffled, and cut the cards for the whole thing."

Scott frowned, trying to make his sluggish mind work. "But you'd already be getting a tenth of the pot. Why risk … fifty-five percent to win forty five, on a fifty-fifty chance?"

Scott couldn't tell if Newt sighed or if the whisper was just the tires on the Boulder Highway pavement. "I don't know, man, but Leroy is a sucker for that bet."

There were a lot of cars parked in the Boulder Basin marina lot, and the white houseboat at the dock was big and wide, and lit brightly enough to dim the emerging stars. The moon was dark—a day short of the newest sliver.

Gravel crunched underfoot as they walked from the car toward the lake and the boat, and the wind from up the distant twistings of the Colorado River fluttered Scott's sweat-spiky hair.

A figure who could only be their host stood on the lighted deck. He was a big, tanned man in a white silk suit; by his lined face Scott guessed him to be around forty, but his hair was brown and full with not a thread of gray, and at least in this light it didn't look like a toupee. A big gold sun disk hung on a chain around his neck.

"Here's a young man wanting to play, Mr. Leroy," said Newt as he led Scott up the ramp to the teakwood deck. "Scarecrow Smith, this is Ricky Leroy."

When Leroy smiled at Scott, it was absently, with the politeness of a distracted host, but Scott opened his mouth to ask the man How've-you-been?, for he was unthinkingly sure that he had once known him well. Leroy caught Scott's look of recognition and raised one eyebrow curiously. Scott realized that he couldn't remember where he knew Leroy from, and at the same moment he became aware of the open port beyond the tall white figure. Never talk about anything important in front of the cards, he thought. "Uh, beautiful boat you've got," he said lamely.

"Thank you, Mr.—I'm sorry?"

"Smith."

"Mr. Smith. I hope you get a few beautiful boats yourself!" Newt led Scott across a couple of yards of deck and through the broad double doors. Their steps were suddenly muffled in thick red carpet. "You know him already?"

"I don't know," Scott mumbled, looking around, ignoring for the moment the crowd of people standing by the bar in the corner or sitting around the long green felt table.

He guessed that a wall or two had been knocked out to make the central lounge so big; the room was at least twenty feet by forty feet, and the dark rosewood paneling gleamed in the yellow light of the many electric lamps hanging on the walls.

Newt was whispering to himself and bouncing a finger this way and that. "Just made it," he said quietly. "We're now thirteen. Grab a seat."

The engines started, and the boat shook.

"I want another beer first."

The boat surged forward as he was walking toward the bar, and he almost sat down on the carpet. The person who caught his arm and steadied him was Ricky Leroy. "Can't have you down yet!" said the big man jovially. "Smith, you said your name was? No relation to Ozzie, I suppose?"

"Actually," Scott said, taking another step forward and leaning on the bar, "yes. He's my dad. A Miller, please," he added to the obese bartender.

"He couldn't make it tonight?"

"Thanks," Scott said, accepting a tall glass from the fat man. "Hmm? Oh, no—he doesn't like to gamble on water."

Leroy chuckled indulgently. "I guess he's old enough to have picked up a lot of superstitions."

When Leroy fanned the deck out face up across the green felt, Scott stopped breathing.