Clinton kept quiet. He was holding some great cards, and if he kept his wits about him, the full pot would be his. A good gambler never counts the money in the pot, but Clinton was sure there was more than $10,000 in there — and he needed the money. He took a deep breath as he waited for the other players to decide to stay in or fold.
“I think you got that, Joe,” said the player who had raised.
Clinton smiled and nodded. “I’m going all in,” he said. He pushed all his chips into the center of the table and watched as Joe examined them.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said the dealer, staring at Clinton’s huge wad. “I guess I better count it.” He swept the chips onto the felt, counted them twice, then handed them back to Clinton.
“You sure you want to do that, sir?” the dealer asked.
“Sure I want to do what?” Clinton said indignantly.
“I mean, you’re betting everything,” the dealer continued. “We don’t see that every day around here. I’d be interested in knowing why.”
Clinton glanced at the other players at the table. They were all watching him, their eyes filled with curiosity and respect. “It’s simple,” he said. “I bet everything because I know I’m going to win.”
The dealer grinned at that and turned over his hole card. Clinton was shocked when he saw that he had an ace of diamonds. The dealer showed another ace on the flop and then two aces on the turn and river.
“Full boat, sir!” he said, turning over his hole card. It was an ace of spades, giving Clinton a royal flush.
“How in the hell did you know you were going to get a royal flush?” asked a man from one of the tables who was now watching him.
Clinton smiled and nodded at him. “That’s easy,” he said. “You don’t need to get a royal flush to win. All you need to do is get four aces and the rest of the cards are irrelevant.”
The crowd of spectators was getting larger as word spread that there was a huge winner at the poker table. The crowd started giving Clinton a wide berth.
Clinton collected his winnings and headed to the cashier. It was going to be a big evening.
Clinton got his car and drove home, smiling to himself as he thought about the money he had won. He knew that he had a lot more where that came from, so he wasn’t worried about having enough money to pay his rent and buy groceries. The fact that he had just won thousands of dollars made him feel invincible, like nothing could touch him.
He was still thinking about the game when he pulled into his parking spot in front of his apartment building. When he got out of his car and locked it, he noticed that someone had been in it and left their scent on the steering wheel. He took a quick whiff and knew it was a woman, most likely a woman who lived in the building. It was the first time anyone had touched his car since he had gotten it from the rental company, which was exactly nine months ago.
He looked at the parking space again and then looked around to make sure no one was watching him. Then he used his right hand to remove a small piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it into the air. He didn’t have to look to see where the paper landed, but he could hear it land on the ground next to him. He then quickly walked to the door of his apartment, went inside, and shut the door behind him. He could hear a small sound in his pocket and then felt something slip into his hand. He looked at what had dropped into his hand and smiled when he saw what it was. He put the piece of paper into a plastic bag and then walked to his bedroom, opened his closet door, and stuffed the paper inside his dresser drawer. He then pulled the drawer all the way out and sat on it to pull the rest of his clothes off so he could take a shower.
When he finished the shower he felt more confident than he had in months. He took off his towel and got dressed, putting on a pair of shorts and a shirt that had a picture of a sailboat on it. He slipped his feet into a pair of sandals and headed out of his room and down to the lobby. He saw a woman sitting at one of the tables, her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed. He didn’t know her name, but she was always at the same table, always wearing the same outfit: white slacks and a red blouse.
“Good morning, Debbie,” he said to her as he walked past her to the elevator.
She looked up at him with her eyes downcast and nodded as she replied, “Good morning, Bill.”
He smiled at her and then got in the elevator. He was a little surprised that she hadn’t given him his name when he had greeted her, but he had gotten used to this kind of thing in the past nine months. He wasn’t even sure why he was surprised anymore. He wasn’t sure what he would do if anyone asked him his name, but he didn’t see why that should matter.
He went out onto the street and walked to a local coffee shop to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat. As he walked down the street toward the shop, he could see a man standing on the sidewalk across the street. The man was wearing an expensive looking suit, but it wasn’t his style. He had shoulder length dirty-blond hair and a gold stud in one earlobe. He looked like a biker or maybe an ex-con, which was typical for people in this neighborhood.
Clinton saw the man staring at him and smiled at him as he walked by, not bothering to acknowledge him in any way. The man kept staring as Clinton went inside the coffee shop, and Clinton pretended not to notice. A few minutes later, Clinton walked out with his coffee in a paper cup and some kind of doughnut that looked like it was made out of cardboard.
He walked back toward his apartment building, trying to think of what he should do next. He had just won several thousand dollars from a poker game, and now he had a feeling that someone was following him. He wasn’t worried about who might be following him — he figured it was probably some old woman who wanted to hit on him or a couple of bikers who thought he looked rich or something — but he needed to do something with the money before someone else started asking questions about it.
As he walked, he remembered that he hadn’t heard any sounds from his apartment since he had closed the door behind him when he came in last night. He thought about what he had done last night when he got home and what he was planning to do today. He realized that he had already made plans for both of them, so they were no longer relevant, but he still had to do something with the money.
He decided to go back to his apartment and get some food from his fridge, then go to his local bank branch and make an anonymous donation. That seemed like the best way to use the money.
As he walked up to his apartment building, he saw a black van parked in front of it. The driver’s door opened and out stepped a man in a dark suit carrying a briefcase. The man looked up at Clinton and smiled as he walked over to him. “Can I help you, sir?” the man asked.
“I don’t know,” Clinton said. “Are you lost?”
The man shook his head and replied, “No sir. I’m from a moving company.”
“Well, I don’t need any moving help, thank you,” Clinton said, pointing at the apartment building.
“No sir, I think you do,” the man said. “I noticed your apartment was for rent, but I didn’t think you had moved in yet.”
Clinton didn’t know what this guy’s angle was, but he wasn’t going to let him in his apartment without an explanation. “I haven’t moved in yet because I didn’t want anyone to know I was looking for a place until I found one.”
“Well, I can see that,” the man said. “I’m sure you’ve been through some tough times since you got out of prison.”
Clinton frowned and took a step toward the man. “Who are you?” he asked. “How did you know that?”
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Robert Kearney and I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Clinton felt his heart stop for a second, then it started racing. What does the FBI want with me? He thought to himself as he backed away from the man slightly, hoping not to spook him and provoke him into drawing his gun. “You work for the FBI,” Clinton said, trying to keep his voice calm.
The man held up his hand to show that he was unarmed and said, “Yes sir.”
Clinton was still frightened by what the man had said, but there wasn’t much he could do about it right now. He felt a sudden desire for a cigarette, and his mouth began to water at the smell of one of them from someone passing by him on the sidewalk. He knew that was his body’s reaction to being scared.
“I’m sorry about scaring you,” Kearney said, “but I’m here on behalf of our president.”
Clinton didn’t know what to say in response to this. His heart continued to race, but now he felt like he could breathe again. He knew that this had to be some kind of joke because no one in their right mind would say something like that unless they wanted something from him. The only thing he could think of that would explain why this man would say that was a scam of some kind and they were going to rob him.
“And what president is that?” he asked in a sarcastic tone, not believing for a second that the man would be able to identify the current president by name or face.
The man smiled again and said, “The current president.”
Author’s notes: This is the beginning of a short-ish story I’m working on about Clinton, a poker player who has a big night in the casino, but then quickly runs into a series of unrelated and increasingly horrible mishaps.
I’ve always wanted to write a story about a gambler. I’m not much of one myself, having never set foot in a real casino — only in the occasional online casino to play some roulette.
Most of my casino knowledge is limited to watching James Bond movies.
In the rest of the story, Clinton will venture back into the casino and discover more about how all the strange things happening to him are related in a mysterious web of intrigue.