Not that she bought the lies. Far from it. Indeed, the last time Manny had used the excuse of having worked late, his wife had let him know in no uncertain terms that she knew he was a liar.
“I called the office and there was no answer,” she told him.
"‘That’s because they shut the switchboard off at five-thirty,” he’d improvised.
“Oh, what do you take me for, Manny? Stop trying to feed me that hogwash, and tell me where you really were until three-thirty in the morning.”
“All right!” Guilt had made Manny lose his temper. “I was with this luscious blonde, see. A face like an angel and built like Jayne Mansfield. Rich, too. A snazzy duplex on Park Avenue. And passionate. I tell you, I thought she’d drive me out of my skull. She’s nuts about me, you see. Cooked me a steak, drowned me in champagne, then got rid of the servants, turned the lights down low, put some real raunchy music on the stereo, cuddled up next to me on the couch, and before I knew it she was tearing my clothes off. She was wearing this flimsy sort of black negligee—-the kind you can almost but not quite see through-—and after she had me undressed, she stood up and did this sexy dance for me. She got me so excited I practically dived into bed with her. I ripped off the negligee and then-—-”
“Don’t lie to me, you louse!” his wife had shouted. “I know you were out playing poker with the boys!”
Now, sitting in at the poker game in Nick Dawes’ room at the Marlowe Hotel, Manny knew he’d probably have to face an even worse scene when he got home. But he put it out of his mind. There was no sense spoiling the game for himself by paying in advance trepidation. He’d pay enough when he got there. So, for now, Manny concentrated on his cards.
He was holding three aces and wondering. He had Elmer figured for two pair because of his one-card draw. The fact that Elmer had stayed in and bucked back after Nick's raise didn't worry Manny. Elmer stayed in a lot of hands because he couldn’t stand being left out; it made him feel rejected or something. Manny recognized the fact that Elmer consistently overplayed his cards.
Nick was another story. Manny had to figure him for three of a kind, in which case his three big ones would hold. But Manny also suspected that Nick sometimes cheated. He’d suspected this for some time, but it didn’t keep him from playing poker with Nick. A good poker game was hard to find. And, like the gambler who was asked why he played in a particular crap game when he knew the dice were crooked, Manny would have replied, “Yeah, but it’s the only game in town.” So Manny took his chances with Nick, and he’d have to take his chances now and figure him for a triple that couldn’t stand up to his three aces.
Irv was another story. Manny couldn’t figure him. Few people ever could figure Irv. He’d taken a standard three-card draw and seen all the raises without adding to them. Manny would just have to take his chances with Irv. He saw Nick’s latest raise and watched to see what the old man would do.
Irv Jones calmly saw the raise. He was enjoying himself, quietly, inside his mind. Human weakness and human duplicity had long ago ceased to disturb Irv. After so many years of living, he now found both a source of great amusement. This amusement was one of the prime satisfactions he found in playing poker.
The years had taught Irv judgment and a sure sense of quiet caution. He was almost always a minor winner in any poker game in which he played. He never won a great deal, but it was a very rare session from which he emerged a loser. His poker playing was classical, and his mind calculated the percentages of chance with a speed and accuracy which belied that even the slightest senility might be overtaking him. Also his shrewd blue eyes missed nothing that went on around him.
They hadn’t missed the crooked deal pulled off by Nick. It hadn’t shocked or surprised him. And he’d accurately clicked off the fact that the con was aimed at Elmer, rather than at either himself or Manny. But Irv didn’t feel sorry for Elmer. He understood that an occasional fleecing was the price Elmer paid for the companionship of the poker game. As Irv saw it, what Elmer got out of it was more important to Elmer than the money he was sucked into losing.
However, while Irv’s philosophy insured his minding his own business in the face of the patsy’s being sucked in, it didn’t go so far as to keep him from protecting his own interests. Now his mind was speedily calculating those interests. He knew that the hands dealt himself and Manny were honest. Irv had held two fours on the draw and he’d pulled two more. He was sure to have Manny beat out. And he knew that if he beat Nick, he had to have Elmer topped. The question was, just how much of a winning hand had Nick dealt himself? Irv’s mind juggled the numbers of the seven cards he’d seen and extrapolated the probabilities of how the remainder might be distributed. He weighed his surmises about the other two hands and concluded that Nick must be holding a flush. But was it a straight flush, or maybe even a royal flush? The chances were against. Irv saw the raise.
That brought it back to Elmer. He was sweating and concentrating on the cards and enjoying his feeling of togetherness. He was glad nobody had dropped out. It wasn’t so much that it made for a bigger pot; it was that it left the feeling of closeness unimpaired. But dared he chance another raise? Hell, why not! This was the best hand Elmer had held all night.
Now the other three were concentrating. Nick was trying to figure Irv. He’d expected him to drop out, and he hadn’t. Manny was also disturbed by Irv’s having stayed in and was re-evaluating his own position. Irv was figuring E1mer’s latest raise into his calculations.
The four of them were so intent that they didn’t hear the slight commotion, the raised voice and the running footsteps in the hall outside. The voice was that of the hotel detective. The footsteps were Llona’s and his. He’d spotted her emerging into the hall a few moments before, around the time Nick had dealt the hand.
“Hey, you!” the house dick had yelled.
Llona had jogged off down the hall just as fast as she could. . .
He’d followed, his belly joggling, his voice wheezy as he continued to yell after her. “Stop! Come back here! You can’t run around the halls of this hotel naked! We don’t allow—”
Llona desperately repeated a maneuver which had worked before. She raced ’round a bend in the hallway and turned the knob of the first door she reached. It opened and she slipped into the room. Taking a chance, she turned on the light. The room was empty. Llona locked the door behind her.
A moment later she heard the house detective try the knob. There was a long pause, and then she heard the tinkle of a key-ring. Llona didn’t know it because the carpet muffled the sound, but the detective accidentally broke open the ring in his fumblings and keys scattered helter-skelter over the hallway rug. He was on his knees, scrambling to recover them, as she followed a familiar path to the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She crossed over to the other door, opened it, and slipped into the adjoining room. Llona froze in the shadows.
There were a lot of shadows. The only light in the room was a shaded bulb hanging over a small bridge table. Four men were crouched tensely over the table and studying the cards clutched in their hands. There was a large pile of money in the center of the table. None of the men had noticed Llona’s entrance. None of them noticed her naked figure crouching in front of the door to the bathroom now.
Llona was too upset to move. But she was also too afraid that the hotel detective might come through the door behind her to continue to just stand there. Confused and trembling, she took a hesitant step forward into the room.
Elmer looked up and his eyes met L1ona’s. But his brain refused to register what his eyes had seen. Elmer looked down at his cards again. He was savoring how great it was going to be when he raked in this pot, how the others would grudgingly congratulate him, how even their envy would make him feel like one of them.