Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,59

both silver tonight despite his usual fondness for gold. He also had eyes that were a lot lower to the tabletop than anybody else’s. I was pretty sure he saw every card he dealt, and at least a few that other people dealt.

And all the others must know about it, or they wouldn’t be attacking me so aggressively. He’d even let Wotan, the guy who’d torn him apart, in on it. Their nasty little back-and-forth when Davis brought him in had been a show for my benefit.

I guessed I should be flattered. It meant the Pharaoh thought I was his toughest opposition. And it showed what a cool, conniving bastard he really was.

The flop missed me, or at least it looked like it. Unless I called up the Thunderbird, I couldn’t really know. I bet anyway, and Leticia raised.

As usual, I folded. The difference was that this time I threw in my cards with a scowl and a snap of my wrist.

A couple minutes later, the same thing happened again, except that it was Wotan putting me to the test. “Damn!” I said.

He smirked. “You know, human, you don’t do as well when you aren’t catching every card in the deck.”

“I’m not catching any of them!” I said.

Later, I missed filling a spade flush on Fourth Street, and folded when Leticia made a pot-sized raise. “Shit!” I snarled.

“Poor darling,” she said. “I guess it just isn’t your night.”

“It never is,” I said. “Not when it really counts. I do all right for a while, but by the end of a game or a tournament, I get one bad beat after another!”

I waved one of the Tuxedo Team over and asked for a Scotch. It was the first time I’d had anything alcoholic at the table. I drank it fast and got another.

Then the clock struck three, and it was break time.

As I expected, Timon was impatient to see me. With one grimy hand planted on Gaspar’s shoulder and the other clutching my arm, he hauled me out into the lobby. I was worried he meant to go all the way up to his little hideout on the mezzanine, but we didn’t. Either he thought we had enough privacy, or he just couldn’t hold back any longer.

“You’re on tilt!” he said.

“Bullshit!” I said. Or half shouted, really.

“You are,” he said. “You’re frustrated. It’s making you play too many hands, and push too hard.”

“Will you relax?”

“Settle back,” he said. “Conserve your chips and wait for premium hands.”

“How the hell can you give me advice?” I said, raising my voice another notch. “You can’t even see what’s going on.”

“Sylvester describes every hand.” Sylvester was a servant whose inhumanly tall but stooped body and long straight shaggy hair reminded me of a weeping willow. I guessed he’d been handling the play-by-play because Gaspar had trouble seeing the top of the table.

“That doesn’t mean you understand what he tells you,” I fired back. “You and I already talked poker, remember? And it got to be obvious early on that you don’t know as much as I do.”

He took a breath. He didn’t want to lose control. I’ll give him that. “I’ve been gambling for hundreds of years.”

“And losing, until now you’re down to your last piece of real estate.”

“You’re playing as my proxy, and you’ll do as I say!”

“Go to hell!” I snarled. I jerked my arm out of his grip, then shoved him. He almost fell and pulled Gaspar down with him, but not quite. They both looked amazed at what I’d done.

So amazed that for a moment, nobody spoke. Then Timon said, in a soft voice that was scarier than shouting, “That was over the line.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” I answered. “Fire me? Kill me? No? I didn’t think so!” I turned and strode back into the ballroom.

And everybody watched me as I did. Maybe they didn’t know everything that had just happened, but they’d overheard enough. And in their world, a stooge just didn’t dis his own lord, not even one on the injured list like Timon. Not unless he had a death wish. So, even if they hadn’t been convinced I was tilting before, I hoped they were buying it now.

When we players got back to the table, I got a third Scotch, but since I didn’t want to get drunk for real, I nursed it. And tried to figure out when to make my move.

It was tricky, because a lot of times, the flop just