Shallow Graves

He’d say, “Wait!” a lot and have Pellam repeat himself, to make sure he understood what was said. The other of the foursome was Nick. Twenty-one and as blasé as anything Cleary had ever produced. He’d roll his eyes, saying, “Shee-it!”and offered a sneer of a smile that Pellam came to decide wasn’t as mean as it appeared. It was just part of the topography of his face. Pellam pegged him as a searcher. A successful high school linebacker going to fat as he cast about for a career.
    Fred told the others that Pellam was descended from a famous gunfighter. “Wild Bill Hickok.”
    Pellam closed his eyes for a moment. “Now where the hell’d you hear that?”
    Fred shrugged. Pete’s eyes widened another few millimeters and he said, “Holy Moly.” Nick said, “Bet five.”
    Janine, of course. It had to be Janine. “See you,” Pellam said. “Raise five.”
    Pete said, “Hey, I saw that film. Who was in it? Jimmy Stewart? I don’t remember. He was one of the best shots in the West, Wild Bill. He was your classic gunfighter. He shot . . . who was it? I don’t remember. Maybe Billy the Kid. Just . . . it was incredible. See your ten. He got shot in the back . . . Oh, hey, sorry, Pellam.” He looked down, blushing at his faux pas.
    “Christ, Pete, I never knew the man.”
    “Well, you know.”
    Fred said, “Dealer sees your ten. Shot in the back. Hey, Pellam, that why you’re sitting facing the door?”
    He laughed and said, “No.” He didn’t tell him that the reason he’d picked this chair was so that he could look across the street into the window of Dutchess Realty Company, where Meg Torrens sat, her white blouse ill-defined but evident in the dimness of the office. He’d decided a real estate broker could give him a good rundown on the cast of charactersin Cleary—and who among them might not want a movie made here.
    “Shot in the back? Man, fucking cheap shot,” said Nick, and tossed in more chips. “Call you.”
    They played for nearly an hour, Pellam steadily losing fifty bucks, most of it to Fred.
    Pete was still staring at him in an irritatingly eager way when Fred said, “Ha, Pellam, you’re a poker player. You ever get a deadman’s hand?” Then turned to Nick. “You know what that is?”
    “What’s that? Like so awesome it blows everybody away, a royal flush?”
    “That’s what Wild Bill had when he got shot. Full house of aces and eights. You ever get that, Pellam?” Fred stacked up his ample inventory of battered chips.
    “Not that I can recall.”
    Nick got up to hit the john and Pellam asked Fred and Pete, “Got a question. Say somebody had a wrecked car. Where’d they sell it for scrap around here?”
    “She run at all?” Fred asked.
    “Nope, just for steel.”
    The local men looked at each other. Pete said, “Couple places. I’d go to Stan Grodsky’s yard, out on Nine.”
    Fred said, “He’s a Polack and he’ll rob you.”
    Pete blushed again. “He asked who’d buy wrecks. Stan buys wrecks.”
    Fred said to Pellam, “He’ll rob you.”
    Pete said, “I got a good deal there one time.”
    “Says you.”
    “Yeah? I got me a hundred bags of Sakrete, at three dollars per.”
    Fred said, “They were forty pounders, not sixties, and how much was solid on the bottom?”
    “Not much at all.”
    Fred scoffed.
    As Pellam wrote down the name, Fred grimaced. “There are a couple others. Bill Shecker’s Army & Navy, over on 106, about three miles north of here.”
    Pete was thinking furiously. “Oh, there’s also R&W. They’re out on Nine too. That’s Nine also, I mean. Not Ninety-two.”
    Fred nodded. “Yeah, forgot about them.”
    Nick returned. The table was stacked with bottles, a forest of glossy brown. The bartender cleared some away and the game resumed. Pellam watched the cards flying out from under Nick’s thick hands.
    They played for another twenty minutes. Then Pellam saw motion across the street. Hard to say, vague in the dusk, but it might have been a pretty blonde in a white blouse wearing too much pancake makeup and fleshy panty hose, locking up a small-town real estate office at dusk. He looked at the three jacks in his hand and folded. He stood up.
    Everyone at the table looked at him.
    “I’m beat.”
    Fred said, “Tough work losing money.”
    Nick frowned. It was too early to leave. Pellam was breaking gambler protocol. “Suit yourself.”
    “Maybe sit in tomorrow.”
    Pete said, “Come by sometime. Anytime.