More Twisted

laid down two pair to win a $1,100 pot.
    Lasky looked at him and snapped, “And fuck you too .”
    Keller said, “Think that means yes.” Everyone at the table—except Lasky—laughed.
    The play continued with a series of big pots, Lasky and Tony being the big winners. Finally Wendall was tapped out.
    “Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here. Gentlemen . . . been a pleasure playing with you.” As always, he pulled a baseball cap on and ducked out the back door, looking hugely relieved he’d escaped without being arrested.
    Keller’s cell phone rang and he took the call. “Yeah? . . . Okay. You know where, right? . . . See you then.” When he disconnected he lit a cigar and sat back, scanned the boy’s chips. He said to Tony. “You played good tonight. But time for you to cash in.”
    “What? I’m just getting warmed up. It’s only ten.”
    He nodded at his cell phone. “The big guns’ll be here in twenty minutes. You’re through for the night.”
    “Whatta you mean? I want to keep playing.”
    “This’s the big time. Guys I know from Chicago.”
    “I’m playing fine. You said so yourself.”
    “You don’t understand, Tony,” Larry Stanton said, nodding at the chips. “The whites go up to ten bucks each. The yellows’ll be two-fifty. You can’t play with stakes like that.”
    “I’ve got . . .” He looked over his chips. “ . . . almost forty thousand.”
    “And you could lose that in three, four hands.”
    “I’m not going to lose it.”
    “Oh, brother,” Lasky said, rolling his eyes. “The voice of youth.”
    Keller said, “In my high-stakes game, everybody comes in with a hundred large.”
    “I can get it.”
    “This time of night?”
    “I inherited some money a few years ago. I keep a lot of it in cash for playing. I’ve got it at home—just a couple miles from here.”
    “No,” Stanton said. “It’s not for you. It’s a whole different game with that much money involved.”
    “Goddamn it, everybody’s treating me like a child. You’ve seen me play. I’m good, right?”
    Keller fell silent. He looked at the boy’s defiant gaze and finally said, “You’re back here in a half hour with a hundred G’s, okay.”
    After the boy left, Keller announced a break until the Chicago contingent arrived. Lasky went to get a sandwich and Stanton and Keller wandered into the bar proper for a couple of beers.
    Stanton sipped his Newcastle and said, “Kid’s quite a player.”
    “Has potential,” Keller said.
    “So how bad you going to hook him? For his whole stake, the whole hundred thousand plus?”
    “What’s that?”
    “ ‘Rule number one is we play fair’?” Stanton whispered sarcastically. “What the hell was that all about? You’re setting him up. You’ve been spending most of the game—and half your money—catching his draws.”
    Keller smiled and blew a stream of cigar smoke toward the ceiling of the bar. The old guy was right. Keller’d been going all the way with losing hands just to see how Tony drew cards. And the reconnaissance had been very illuminating. The boy had his strengths but the one thing he lacked was knowledge of the odds of poker. He was drawing blind. Keller was no rocket scientist but he’d worked hard over the years to learn the mathematics of the game; Tony, on the other hand, might’ve been a computer guru, but he didn’t have a clue what his chances were of drawing a flush or a full house or even a second pair. Combined with the boy’s atrocious skills at bluffing, which Keller’d spotted immediately, his ignorance of the odds made him a sitting duck.
    “You’ve also been sandbagging,” Stanton said in disgust.
    Score another one for Grandpa. He’d spotted that Keller had been passing on the bet and folding good hands on purpose—to build up Tony’s confidence and to make him believe that Keller was a lousy bluffer.
    “You’re setting him up for a big hit.”
    Keller shrugged. “I tried to talk him into walking away.”
    “Bullshit,” Stanton countered. “You take a kid like that and tell ’em to leave, what’s their first reaction? To stay . . . . Come on, Keller, he hasn’t got that kind of money to lose.”
    “He inherited a shitload of cash.”
    “So you invited him into the game as soon as you found that out?”
    “No, as a matter of fact, he came to me.  . . . You’re just pissed ’cause he treats you like a has-been.”
    “You’re taking advantage of him.”
    Keller shot