COLLECTION

by John 
Vorhaus

Amos Kraft's ex-wife used to complain that Kraft loved poker more than life itself. Kraft certainly loved poker more than he loved his ex-wife, which is why she was down in Florida now, living with a dentist.

Kraft had worked long and hard in his life. He'd built a successful company and fed it piecemeal to cash-rich conglomerates. Now retired, he spent his days playing poker. 

Amos bounced around the limits. Sometimes he played low rent stud downtown, where the cocktail girls called him honey and the dealer called him dad. Other nights he'd gird himself for the highest limit he could stand, pushing in heart-stopping bets while his pulse raced and blood pounded in his brain. The stakes didn't really matter, though; like a hound, he was there for the hunt. 

Kraft had satin jackets from casinos all over town, bought with high hands and hours of accumulated play. Each jacket, Kraft figured, cost about four hundred bucks in tips and tokes, bad beats, and the relentless house rake. He didn't mind, for money was only important to people who had nothing important in their lives. Kraft had poker, which he considered to be the ultimate test of a man. 

In a modest home out in the near north desert, Kraft kept a cactus garden and an orderly life. He regularly flossed his teeth, and regularly wondered why he bothered. So they'd look good in the grave? Still he flossed, and did his sit-ups, and declined the cardroom buffets. It was a pride thing. 

Kraft spent the last morning of his life chopping down tourists in the Spike downtown. He started with $1-5 stud, placidly sipping hot lemon tea while cocky veterans of home games blindly slammed into his sandbags. By afternoon, he'd jumped up several limits, and moved over to the Causeway, where the stud games were tougher, and that much more rewarding.

The cards ran Kraft's way that day, and where cards go, chips follow. Kraft piled them high at his table position, like the walls of a fortress. He twisted them into perfect spirals, giving them an artistic sense of permanency which never (Kraft imagined) failed to intimidate his opponents. 

Just before four, Kraft took down a chunky little pot made fatter than it should have been by a wild man with a gold chain and a sad tendency to overplay his cards. 

"He never should have bet that hand," Kraft whispered to Wilmer, the player on his left. "I'd have settled for a smaller pot." 

"That's just incredibly generous of you," deadpanned Wilmer, a sour little man with crepe skin and a sharply beveled nose. 

"He went looking for trouble," shrugged Kraft. "I just helped him find it."

"Saint Joan," said Wilmer, "I didn't know you played cards."

Across the table, Betty Himes laughed, or more precisely snorted through her cigarette smoke. "Saint Joan was a girl," she said derisively. She exhaled into the airspace over Buck Shannon, who waved away the secondary smoke with one hand while he shuffled chips with the other.

"Intuitive grasp of the obvious there," said Wilmer. This sailed right over Betty's head, but Buck smiled, for Buck often caught what Betty missed. Buck was nearly a professional poker player; that is, he rarely hit you up for money.

The rest of the seats were filled by a revolving door of loose callers and losers, what Wilmer liked to call fresh meat.

Kraft hammered an off-duty army sergeant with a hidden flush, then came back and bluffed him broke on the next hand. The sergeant rose with an oath and went off to find a quiet place to kill himself, or failing, that, a cash advance machine. His seat was filled by a long, lean stranger, whom Kraft immediately dubbed "the spy," owing to the stranger's guarded, sneaky look and his trench coat and fedora.

A new dealer took over: Harlan, his big, sloppy stomach almost flopping into the chip tray. "Collection please," said Harlan as he scrambled and shuffled the cards. 

"Putting on some weight there Harlan," said Wilmer. 

Harlan just glared. "Occupational hazard," he said.

"Just the same," said Kraft, "you ought to take care of yourself. Look at me." He slapped his chest with two open hands. "Healthy as a horse, because I take care of myself."

"No one lives forever," said Harlan, and dealt.

Kraft burped. He had a gnawing heartburn that would not go away. He thought about going home. He knew he was pushing the point of no return: If he stayed another hour, he'd stay all night. The hell with it - to quote Warren Zevon, I'll sleep when I'm dead. 

His luck ebbed for a while, and Kraft sat back, folding loser after loser after loser. Eyes half closed, Kraft waited with almost zenlike patience for his chance to strike again. His heartburn was worse now, a painful bubble filling his diaphragm and pushing against his chest. He ordered more tea. 

The waitress was a single mother named Jenny. As she delivered Kraft's tea, he toked her four bits and tossed in yet another garbage start. "Play a damn hand," said Wilmer.

"Can't," answered Kraft. "These cards aren't even from the same deck."

"What do you mean?" asked Betty. "Who mixed them up?" She lit a cigarette, then was surprised to find one already burning in her ash tray. "Dealer, check the deck."

"Clueless," said Wilmer, shaking his head, "absolutely clueless."

But she played like a hunk of granite, and as the hours passed, only Betty and Kraft were making any money. And the spy. Kraft, who marked such things, noticed the spy regularly victimizing the game's fringe players.

And Kraft's hackles rose. That was his department. 

At last a playable hand: pocket aces with a jack on top. A Canadian to Kraft's right had low card, and brought in the action. Kraft decided to slow play his aces. If he could get the spy in his sights here, he might make something grand of this hand. He just called. Wilmer called. Buck folded and went back to shuffling his chips. Another player folded.

Betty and the spy both called. 

Harlan dealt fourth street around the table. No help. It was checked to Kraft, who pushed out a modest bet and made appropriate noises about playing to steal the pot. Everyone called. Kraft smiled inside. The chase was on. 

Kraft paired his jack on the next card and the spy paired queens. In that instant, Kraft's heartburn spiked in his chest, becoming suddenly, markedly worse. The stranger bet big on his queens. Kraft felt sweat collecting in his armpits. This was getting real interesting real fast.

Betty folded. The Canadian folded. Kraft's eyes screwed down to tiny narrow slits as he studied the spy. Putting the stranger on a pair and a prayer, Kraft had half a mind to raise, but he didn't want to tip his strength just yet. He called instead. 

Wilmer announced that he'd look at one more card, and tossed in several chips he'd never see again.

On sixth street, the stranger caught an eight of diamonds to go with his mopsqueezers and dead four. Kraft caught a queen. He still showed lonely jacks on the board, with aces burning a hole in his pocket. It was time to make his move. Kraft wheeled out the maximum bet. Wilmer, with no apparent help on the board, called again. The stranger called without comment. 

Kraft felt a stitch in his side. He wished his heartburn would go away. 

Harlan dealt seventh cards down. Kraft peeled back his hole card and found a third jack to go with his bullets. Not a lock, but close. When the stranger checked his queens, Kraft jumped all over the weakness and bet the limit. 

"Missed again!" hissed Wilmer in disgust, and threw in his cards. 

Now only the spy was left, and he took his time before responding. Just when Kraft was convinced that his opponent would fold, the stranger called -- and raised!

Sandbagged, Kraft reappraised the spy's hand. That eight on the board looked fresh and virgin. He could be eights full, or worse, queens full with the case queen. Or... he could be bluffing.

"Come on, said Wilmer, irritated. "GPH." GPH was Wilmer's shorthand for "games per hour," which in turn was shorthand for hurry up and finish the hand so he could back in the action. Betty Himes hollowed her cheek, and sucked in another deep lungful of death. 

Kraft's chest hurt like a demon. Bland food for a week, he vowed. The stranger stared hard at Kraft. Was he trying to provoke a bet, or using double-reverse psychology to goad Kraft into folding? Kraft raised.

"Reraise," said the stranger, and his voice was like ice.

Kraft sagged, figuring the stranger now for queens full with the case queen. He was about to fold when his inner voice whispered to Kraft to call the bet. In all his years of poker, Kraft had rarely been led astray by his quiet inner voice.

Kraft reconsidered and reached for his chips.

And his heart... exploded. Pain bloomed in his chest like a mushroom cloud rushing out in waves to all his extremities, and wrapping his chest and stomach in crushing bands of steel. At first he thought he'd been gunshot, but when he looked down, Kraft saw no blood. Then he knew what it was. "So this," he thought with grim revelation, "is how a heart attack feels."

Kraft tried to speak, but all that came out was a dull croak, which could have been interpreted as anything from, "I call," to "Jenny, could I have some more tea, please?"

Breathing stopped. Kraft's brain, missing oxygen, seized up. "You alright, pal?" asked Harlan. The spay waited. Never having played against Kraft before, he couldn't be sure that Kraft's mask of pain wasn't some elaborate bluff.

And Kraft folded - at the waist. He pitched face-first into his neat and laborious pile of chips, scattering them like scared minnows. Betty dished several into her purse, then lit another cigarette. Harlan called for the floorman. 

"Come on," said Wilmer peevishly. "Kraft, you're holding up the game."

Kraft was having an odd time of it. The pain vanished abruptly, leaving not so much as a memory behind. In the next instant, Kraft felt himself separate from his body as neatly as cutting cards. He rose up, stunned, to find himself staring down at his now dark and silent self.

This was new. This was definitely new to Kraft, who settle into a firm hover about six feet over his body. He watched dispassionately as Betty rat-holed more of his chips and the floorman called for the paramedics.

"Stop screwing around," Wilmer told Kraft's motionless body. "You're costing me money."

Kraft knew all about out-of-body experiences from the ads he'd seen on TV for Time/Life Books' Mysteries of the Universe series. He half expected to see a long tunnel with a bright white light at the end. Instead he saw paramedics pounding on his chest, trying to beat the life back into it.

Wilmer scowled and asked for a table change.

The spy started to look at his hole cards. Kraft felt a thrill run through him. If he could see those cards, he'd know who held the winner.

The stranger obligingly lifted his hole cards high. Kraft saw an ace of diamonds... and a king of diamonds... and a deuce of clubs. "I'll be damned," thought Kraft, "he was bluffing all along!"

Kraft knew he had to return to his body and call right away, for this was the stuff of which legends were made. He'd be known all over town as the guy who died at the table, and came back to beat a crushing bluff. 

There was just one problem.

"Poor sucker never had a chance," said a paramedic as he covered Kraft's face with a smooth, white sheet. They strapped his body to a stretcher and wheeled it out of the room.

"Now what?" Harlan asked the floorman. He gestured toward Kraft's cards, stilly lying on the table. "What do we do with his hand?"

"Play it out!" screamed the apparition of Kraft in silent and impotent rage.

Betty sucked on a cigarette. Even in this moment, the thought of quitting never crossed her mind. Buck shuffled his chips. Wilmer whined for someone to deal another goddamned hand already. The floorman considered his decision.

Kraft hung on the outcome. He could accept being dead, but he couldn't stand getting shut out of a pot that was his to win. Death was death, sure, but this was pure, plain unfair.

At last the floorman made his ruling. It was obvious, really, once you got to thinking about it. The guy was dead, therefore...

The floorman flipped over Kraft's cards. "Dead hand," he pronounced, and slowly walked away.

Kraft laughed. Dead hand? 70 years of life, strife, hard work and poker, and that's what it came down to? Dead hand? Kraft laughed, then laughed again because no one could hear him laugh. Only the stranger looked up, though he may have been staring at the ceiling. 

Then Kraft saw the long tunnel an the beckoning bright white light, and then he saw no more. 

The spy gathered his chips and started stacking them in neat, intimidating spirals. "GPH," muttered Wilmer. Betty smoked her cigarette. Harland scrambled the deck. "Collection," he said, and started to shuffle and deal.