Vaux didn’t appear the least bit fazed. Scout’s heart beat faster. He loved the adrenaline rush.
Vaux said, “That’s all you’ve got, boy?”
“It’s all I need,” he challenged, though even Scout knew that a pair would rarely get you far at this table. Still, he taunted, “Isn’t it?”
With a shake of his head, the older gentleman told him, “I suppose you being a bigtime hockey player and all, you find it acceptable to just throw away your hard-earned money. Taken a few too many blows to the head with a high stick?”
Scout chuckled, despite Vaux’s words unwittingly hitting a little too close to home. Though it wasn’t high-sticking that had recently ended his career. No, that came courtesy of the six-point elk his rental had plowed into outside of Edmonton, Canada.
But Scout’s private hell was precisely that. Private.
He said, “I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to beat me.”
“You always were an arrogant cuss.” Vaux flashed his gold teeth. “That’s why I like you so damn much. But I’ve got a bullet in my hand.” He flicked the ace of spades onto the table. “I’ve got a matching king to go with it.” This card he carefully laid out next to the first. “And he’s got a pretty little wife I like to call Queenie.” Another meticulous reveal—and a spade.
Scout’s stomach plummeted. Christ, his smoothie was a club and his jack with a ‘stache was a heart. And he didn’t know what the other players had been holding. Vaux’s hand was shaping up to be mightier than the royal bull that had crumpled Scout’s rented SUV even before it’d tumbled a half-dozen times down a snowy embankment. With Scout inside.
Vaux continued. “Bet you’re kicking yourself in the ass right now for pressing your luck, because I’ve got a card you needed. Not that it would have done you any better.” He tossed the jack of spades on the table.
There was a collective gasp and everyone gathered about leaned in closer, tried to look around one another, get a better view of the action. Which could turn out to be an historical moment.
“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” Scout said with a snicker, trying to appear cool. Meanwhile, his pulse raced.
The problem with that flair was that Vaux was a man who knew how to back it up.
“Hope you’ve already bought your plane ticket back to wherever you came from, kid. Don’t think you’re gonna be able to afford much more than bus fare home after this.”
Scout bit his lower lip. Stared up at the ceiling fans with their warm, golden globes. Then swore under his breath.
The surplus store owner, Mike Thompson, who’d been the first to fold, slapped Scout on the back and said, “This is what comes from adventures on the high seas. Might hit a winter squall, or land safely. Total crapshoot. You’re obviously caught in the squall.”
Scout shot him a droll look. “There’s still land in sight, my friend.” Though even if, miracles of miracles, Vaux hadn’t drawn a royal flush, all it’d take was for him to throw down another jack—his high cards would be the kicker over Scout’s lows. But Scout wasn’t one to give up the ghost so quickly. And simply said, “Have some faith.”
Mike let out a hearty laugh. “Misguided though your optimism might be in this case, it’s damn good to see the Winchester spunk lives on in the grandsons.”
There was no need for Mike or anyone else to mention Grandpa Win’s actual son, Jeff. This crowd was more about jesting and goading than tearing one down. If you didn’t have something nice to say and all that… An adage that applied to the man who’d provided the sperm for Scout, his older brother Jefferson Tate, III—who went strictly by “JT”—and his younger bro Hamilton. That was pretty much all Scout himself had to say on the particular subject of his deadbeat dad.
To Vaux, he said, “Well, get on with it already. If you plan to clean me out, I’ll need to hit an ATM before they roll up the sidewalks and the whole damn community shuts down for the night.”
“I’d be more than happy to provide a personal loan,” Vaux offered. “I’ll even forego the compounded interest because you’re such a bigshot.”
“I don’t need a loan,” Scout informed him. “Or your charity, thank you very much.” His gaze narrowed. “You really think I’ve blown through all of my endorsement money?”
Scout wasn’t l
ike his father, after all. No, Scout had some sense in his head and plenty of cents in his bank accounts.
“Well, the way you play poker, son,” Vaux contended, “makes me a little worried about your financial stability.”
Gut instinct kicked in. That and the fact that Scout knew Vaux well. He grinned again. The really cocky one. “You’re stalling, old man. You don’t have a pot to piss in with that hand, do you?”
Vaux smirked. “Granted, I did intend to scare you off from the get-go. Then I figured I could beat you with the ace, king-high. Since all these other turkeys ran for the hills like I had a Flintlock Musket in my hand.”
Artie Hopper, the fifth at the table and also the owner of Artie’s Groceries, glowered. “Folding when you’ve only got one ace isn’t unwise, Forsythe. Even when it is king-high.”
Vaux said, “Doesn’t mean I’m not holding another beaut to beat two jacks. But, for the record, you all ought to know by now that if I actually was holding a royal flush, I would’ve had Waylon alert the press.”
That would pretty much consist of Blake “Ace” Cranston hightailing it to the bar with his steno pad and sharpened-to-a-deadly-point No. 2 pencil poised and ready, his 1970’s Nikon single lens reflex camera strapped around his neck. Ace still used a darkroom to develop his own film and every black and white picture that went into the Plymouth Rock Cranston’s Corner weekly newsletter, no Hewlett-Packard printer or scanner involved. Hell, he waxed the back of his articles and photos and laid them out on a light table. Ran the template through a printing press.