High Stakes

© 2002 Robin Lindy
All rights reserved.

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I hear their low voices again and realize I'd fallen asleep sitting beside the door. My body jerks fully awake, heart racing, muscles tense. I ache. A week is not time enough to heal. In the dark, I tighten my grip on the knife Gabe slipped me after he finished with me last weekend. Taking a deep breath, I slowly get on my knees, careful not to make a sound. The smell of tobacco smoke drifts to me as I peek through the keyhole to see the chandelier shining faceted light onto Gabe, Dwight, Earl and Maynard, sitting around the dining room table. My stomach clenches as I distill my senses into pure concentration to watch ... to wait....

"Come on, Dwight, are you in or out?" Earl asks, flicking his cigarette, knocking the ash into a glass ashtray. He looks like a giant stick insect in a suit, his sharp elbows boring into the table, his legs splayed, knees almost piercing his trousers. "Gabe and I folded, so either shit or get off the pot."

Gabe fills his glass from a whiskey bottle. His thick dark lips, like leeches, latch onto the edge of his glass as he sucks the liquor down to the ice cubes and says, "Yeah, shit or—"

"Shut up, Gabe, you useless sack of—" Dwight glances at Gabe then back to his cards. He laughs. "Sack of nothing. That's what you are; not even fit to hold shit." They all laugh except for Gabe, who glowers and picks at his fingernails.

Dwight's cigarette balances between his fingers and a thin line of smoke drifts up in a swaying dance as he adjusts the cards in his hand.

Maynard points his cigar at Dwight. "Five hundred to stay in."

Gabe stops picking his fingernails. "Yeah, five hundred—"

"Shut your trap, moron. Wins last weekend and thinks he's Einstein," Maynard says. They laugh again. Gabe glares at each of them and resumes picking his nails.

Maynard finds the hole beneath his thick blond mustache and plugs it with the cigar, twisting it, screwing it into his mouth. Then he fingers his pearl buttons, moves his hand down the front of his dress shirt and rests it on the crotch of his trousers for a discreet scratch.

Dwight counts out eight bills. "I'll see your five and raise you three."

Maynard's eyes narrow.

Dwight stares at Maynard.

Maynard stares back and, without breaking eye contact, puts three more bills onto the pile of money. "I'll call." He shows his hand. "Three of a kind."

Dwight doesn't smile as he spreads his cards on the table. "Full house."

"Shit!" Maynard throws his cards down.

Dwight pulls the pile of money to his side of the table and begins counting.

"Quit stalling. Fish out the grand prize." Maynard jabs his cigar at the money pile.

Dwight laughs, shoves his hand into the bills and extracts a skeleton key.

Earl stretches and asks, "How much longer before we need to find another drifter?"

"Don't know," Maynard says. "Depends on what Dwight does tonight."

They approach the door. Gabe hangs back, a smirk on his face.

My breathing turns short and ragged as I tighten my grip on the knife again. I quickly stand. Facing the door, I ready the knife for an upward thrust. Footsteps approach. My muscles tense. The key rattles in the keyhole as I hear Dwight say, "Maynard, hold the legs. Earl, the arms. Gabe, you're useless; you just watch."

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