Deep Waters - Prologue

‘Show ‘em or blow ‘em.’

I looked at the cards in my hand: Spades – King, Queen, Ten, Eight; Hearts – Seven. Was this even something? I mean, was this a hand? I looked over the top of my cards to my opponents: Rodney - installed in several new hard-drives on a handy new wheeled trolley - had folded and was busy surfing porn; my main enemy was playing it cool, her lacquered nails tapping with the slightest signal of impatience on the pasteboards in her claw. I grunted. Throwing my cards onto the paisley-decorated tabletop, I decided to call it quits.

‘Just as well,’ Mrs Pettifer raked the chips over to her side of the table. ‘Incidentally, I had nothing.’

‘Godsdammit!’ I fumed, ‘are you using that crystal ball of yours? Are you contacting the Akashic Record just to beat me at poker?’

Mrs Pettifer slid all of the cards together like a magician about to go into a routine.

‘Not in the way you mean’ she answered.

I looked sideways at the crystal globe on the small occasional table nearby, noting how at a certain angle it perfectly reflected the cards that I had been holding.

‘Really?’ I complained. ‘Is this what we’ve come to? Cheating?’

‘I don’t think of it as cheating exactly,’ she carefully tapped the deck back into a neat pile, ‘I think of it as maximising available resources.’

‘Hmmph!’ I snorted, ‘potato, potah-to’

‘Hey!’ Rodney piped up, ‘Anyone want to know what Trump just tweeted?’

‘NO!’ Mrs Pettifer and I were emphatic in our rejection.

‘One last hand,’ Mrs Pettifer shuffled and riffled like a pro, which, in fact, she was. I winced.

‘Dolores,’ I said, ‘I’m cleaned out. I can write you an IOU but that’s it.’

She darted a precise look at my wrist then drilled into my eyes. I felt my blood chill - which is pretty impressive, all things considered.

‘Not that,’ I whispered. She cocked an eyebrow and narrowed her gaze.

‘This watch is the only thing I have left of my father’s,’ I said, ‘I would never...’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh please,’ she said, ‘I’m not after your two-bit Seiko: I’m looking at what’s beneath it.’

I rolled my wrist and pulled back my cuff. Beneath the steel strap of my dad’s old watch lay a line of shiny puckered flesh, a scar that spoke of desperate times. I slitted my gaze and stared back at Mrs Pettifer.

‘What about it?’ I growled.

‘Just this,’ she said, ‘I draw a card; you draw a card. If your card is higher, we call it quits – poker night is over. But if I draw the high card, you tell me all about December 16th 1977.’

I put both hands flat on the table and drew a deep breath through both nostrils.

‘Dolores,’ I said, ‘you’re paddling in deep waters...’

‘I know,’ she said, reclining back in her chair and casually rearranging her scarves, ‘but then poker is supposed to be about risk.’ She threw me a quirky smile.

‘I made promises,’ I said, ‘Vows, more like. Sworn on the most holy texts of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. I promised never to talk to anyone about what happened that night...’

‘So, let’s make it best, two outta three, it’s so important to you.’ She cut the deck neatly into thirds, and gestured magnanimously at the available options with her be-ringed paw.

I threw myself back in my chair and glared darkly at her.

‘Oh!’ Rodney’s screen bloomed into life.

‘Shut it, Rodney!’ we both snarled and he blinked out. I gimleted my eyes into Mrs Pettifer’s; she quirked an eyebrow at me.

‘Hmmph!’ I snorted. Reaching forward, I cut the first pile of cards, revealing a King of Spades. I showed all my teeth. ‘Beat that.’

She cut the remainder of that partial deck: a Two of Diamonds.

‘We can quit while I’m ahead,’ I smirked, ‘If you want.’

In response, she made a crinkly moue with her mouth, then lined up the next card stack. Cutting it she exposed the Ace of Hearts. ‘Beat that,’ she breathed.

I leaned back in my chair and palmed a cigarette from my coat pocket. I popped a match against my thumb claw, letting the orange light add emphasis to my daggered glare. Her draw was the third top card in the deck; the chances of my beating it were twofold – slim and none.

‘Um, Benson?’ Rodney chirped.

‘What’d I say, Rodney?’ I roared.

‘Yep. Shutting it.’ His screen went black.

I reached out with one hand and lifted the crystal ball off its perch. In one smooth movement I tucked it rather awkwardly between my legs, and pulled my coat over it.

‘Puh-lease,’ said Mrs Pettifer, ‘It’s been in worse places.’

I reached forward quickly and cut the deck: a Three of Hearts.

‘Aces,’ she smiled, ‘as you’ll recall, are high.’

I glowered at her, drumming my fingers on the tabletop and letting smoke jet from my nose in two steady streams.

I leaned forward and picked up the final third of the deck. Letting the cards fall from the bottom of the stack to the tablecloth, I stopped midway and put down the cards in my hand beside the pile I’d made. I stabbed the top card with my index claw and held it up for Mrs Pettifer to see.

‘Unorthodox,’ she observed drily, unpinning it from my finger, ‘and the Seven of Clubs.’ She put it down on the paisley field and smoothed out the puncture-mark I’d made in it. ‘You’re very hard on the pasteboards, you know.’

‘Draw,’ I growled.

Rolling her eyes at me, she fanned the remaining cards with a dismissive hand and casually flipped over one from the middle of the display. I leaned forward. It was the Eight of Clubs. I ground my teeth together and fired a dangerous gaze at her. She sat there primly, plucking a loose thread from her sleeve. She corrected the drape of her shawl, then leaned towards me, steepling her fingers together in front of her, her gaze filled with as much steel as my own.

‘Now,’ she said evenly, ‘spill.’

I held her stare for a heartbeat, then sighed throwing myself back in my chair. I glommed the crystal ball from between my thighs and clapped it back onto its stand, where it rocked a few times before becoming still.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘but you better uncork that bottle of Jack under the table, because this will be a long night...’

*****

2B (like the pencil) Continued...