The Picasso Flop Read online

“That’s Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen. Are those aces wired, or what?”

  “That’s very exciting, but would you quit with the poker talk. It’s very annoying.”

  Jimmy stared at Kat. She had a habit of peppering every conversation with poker terms, and he’d been trying for months to break her of it.

  She was talking about two of the young poker stars who had made names for themselves while he was inside. The kid knew them because she watched the WPT tour on the Travel Channel with religious fervor. He knew them because she had raved about them—and other star players—ad nauseam. With her it was always Sammy Farha did this or Johnny Chan did that.

  Spain studied his young protégé. Kat was dressed in T-shirt and jeans, what she had referred to as the “Evelyn Ng” look—except that she didn’t have the contours to fill the garments out the way Evelyn Ng did. She looked like a skinny sixteen-year-old, and almost appeared benign. On the other hand, she had a cockiness about her that Spain felt was a bonus. Her brashness was going to rub people the wrong way, which was good. She pointed out that it had never hurt Phil Hellmuth.

  “Besides,” she’d said, “that’s the name of the game these days.”

  And then there were the piercings, the black nail polish, and the purplestinted hair. Originally, he’d wanted her to get rid of them, but then he changed his mind. If they’re looking at all that stuff, they wouldn’t be watching her eyes or her face, and they definitely wouldn’t be taking her seriously, which was fine in poker. She could sneak up on them. Distract them with her weirdness. It would work in her favor if players thought she was flaky.

  “Kid, try to control yourself,” Spain said now. “You don’t want to look like a tourist.”

  “Right, right . . . but Jesus, dude, Gus Hansen! He’s the absolute nuts!”

  “Please, the poker terms! Order your breakfast,” he said as a waitress came over.

  But he knew how Kat felt. He’d awakened that morning with the drapes wide open, had gone to the window, and relished the view in the daylight. He remembered nights in his cell when he wondered if he’d ever see the outside again, let alone Las Vegas. He’d arrived in prison as a Fish, a first timer, but had quickly learned the ropes. He was not a violent man by nature, preferring to use his quick tongue to talk his way out of trouble, but he did know how to take care of himself. He’d managed to avoid becoming somebody’s punch board by a combination of guile, a couple of well-chosen fights to make his point, and his god-given ability to play poker. He’d lost the fights but gained respect for having picked them. And not only organizing poker games but teaching inmates how to play had made him valuable—too valuable to damage or kill.

  As the years went by he was able to pass on some of his knowledge—his survival techniques—to other carefully chosen newcomers. If he thought somebody could be of use to him, he took him under his wing. It had worked out well over the years.

  Like father, like daughter, only if Kat ever found that out, the jig would be up.

  “Steak and eggs,” Kat said to the beautiful young waitress.

  “The same,” Spain told her.

  “Comin’ up.” She gave Jimmy a dazzling smile before flouncing off to fill their orders.

  “This town is full of poker stars, kid,” Spain said, “but you’ve got to keep your mind on your business and your eye on the prize—and stop looking over there at those two guys.”

  “Chill out, dude,” Kat said. “I just can’t believe I’m here, you know? This is way cool!”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for this, Jimmy,” Kat went on seriously. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” The girl’s sincere gratitude made him feel like crap.

  Spain wasn’t sure how to relate to the young woman. He’d never had a sister or a daughter. The only other significant relationship he’d ever had was with his father, who’d wanted him to follow his lead and be a Philly cop. When he went his own way as a professional gambler, his father had not taken it well. In fact, he’d disowned him. It had been years since they’d spoken. He’d never even told the old man about being in prison. That would have just about killed him.

  But over the course of the year he’d taken a genuine liking to Kat, even though he’d practically been forced into meeting the kid and contriving to become her friend. If Kat ever found out the truth, Spain knew the kid would hate him. Oddly, that worried him—and it had to do with more than just money. Despite the difference in their ages—not only coming from different generations but different cultures, for chrissake—he liked Kat. If he had to find a word to describe where their relationship had found its way to—in spite of the subterfuge upon which it was based—it would have to be friends.

  “I owe you big, Jimmy,” she went on, “but you gotta know that if we end up at the final table together, I’m gonna take you down. You’ll go home broke.”

  “Sure, kid,” he said. “I know.”

  FOUR

  The Five Diamond was not actually Jimmy Spain’s first tournament since leaving prison, nor was it Kat’s.

  At the beginning of the year Kat started bugging Jimmy about playing in an actual tournament. There were all kinds of different events at local card rooms in California. Big and small. To groom her properly he had her enter numerous tournaments in the upcoming months. Most of them were small, one-hundred- to two-hundred-dollar buy ins, but she gained invaluable experience. Overall, she and Jimmy made a little money, Jimmy making a few final tables. But they were studious. They would analyze into the wee hours different hands they had each played and how they could have otherwise played them. She was getting good, especially because she had a coach like Jimmy. Jimmy also advised her to make a log of all the big-name players she’d be going up against in the bigger events. This was essential, to know your competition, to have it down on paper, like a bible.

  The next stop for both of them was the WPT event at the Bellagio. It would be a five-day event. It would take stamina, great play, and a lot of luck to be a winner.

  She was ready.

  Killing time was never a problem in a Las Vegas casino. After breakfast they walked through the Bellagio, passed the crowded penny and nickel slot area, and stopped briefly at the poker room. The side games were still going strong. They had everything there, ranging from two- and four-dollar games packed with tourists back up to Bobby’s Room, the millionaire’s game, which was empty now. Legends didn’t play before a major event.

  Spain recognized the player who was coming toward him with a confused but happy look.

  “Man, I thought you were dead,” the man said in a cowboy drawl.

  “Not quite,” Jimmy said, shaking his hand.

  “You playin’ today?” Jimmy said he was. “Well, good luck.”

  As the man walked away Kat asked, “Do you know who that was?”

  “Yeah, T. J. Cloutier.”

  “You knew that was T. J. Cloutier?” Kat said. “How could you just shake hands with him like that, dude?”

  “I played against him in the old days once or twice,” Spain explained. “He’s very good.”

  Kat stared at Spain as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Very good? He’s one of the best. And you know him? Dude!” The “dude” thing was starting to get to him. He winced.

  “I’ve been around, kid,” Spain pointed out, “just not recently.”

  They had never discussed what Spain had done for the ten years before they’d met. All Kat knew was that Jimmy Spain had been away from the game for a while and was now coming back. But having a past champion like T. J. Cloutier treat Spain with obvious respect raised the kid’s eyebrows.

  “You know, before poker was plastered on every TV, if you played the game they looked at you like you were crazy. You didn’t brag about this, Kat. Poker was survival then, not glam-orous.”

  “Okay, dude, chill. I think they’re startin’.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy said,
“I’m coming.”

  They reported to the poker room, checked in, got table and seat assignments, then milled about with the other players until it was time to be seated at one of the poker room’s thirty-nine tables. The place was a madhouse of players itching to get started. Several players his age and older approached Spain, shook his hand, and asked where he’d been. One man who he recognized and remembered quite well was considered the godfather of poker, Doyle Brunson. In his seventies now, Brunson had won the World Series of Poker in 1976 and 1977. He was one of the true legends of the game, still playing competitive poker after almost fifty years and just recently taking a WPT title. While in prison, most of Spain’s reading material had been poker books with Doyle Brunson’s Super System, first published in 1978, leading the way. It had long been considered the bible of the game. He’d also read books by pros like David Sklansky, Phil Hellmuth, and his old friend Mike Sexton. He’d done all that to keep his edge, to keep himself informed of developments in the game and the poker universe.

  Kat continued to be in awe every time someone came to shake Jimmy’s hand and talk to him, but she also fought to keep her cockiness.

  “Good luck, kid,” Spain said when it was time to be seated.

  “Because of you I don’t need luck, Jimmy,” she said brazenly. “I’m good enough to win this, and that’s no bluff. Just watch out for me at the final table.”

  “Let’s get through day one before we start thinking about the final table, Kat.”

  “You worry about your cards, I’ll play mine. How about that check and raise?”

  “Kat, cool it, the poker shit. It’s embarrassing.”

  Kat winced, realizing she was getting carried away again. With a slight nod she went off into the crowd to find her table. Jimmy shook his head. He hoped she wouldn’t find any top pros there. Maybe she would get a soft table, lots of amateurs and maybe some online dead money who she could run over. Top pros might put too much pressure on her in her first big-time start.

  Spain was the first to seat himself at his table. He hoped this wouldn’t make him look overanxious—but he was. The other players approached by ones and twos, introduced themselves to him and, where necessary, to each other. By the time they were all seated—including the dealer—he realized he was playing against a table that had only two top pros: Erik Seidel, who he didn’t know, and Chris Ferguson, who he knew slightly. Ferguson was easy to remember, as he went by the nickname “Jesus.” With his long hair and beard he did look eerily like the popular image of Jesus Christ wearing a black cowboy hat. Ferguson also had a trick he did. He could propel a card across the room with a flick of his wrist and impale it on a piece of fruit—usually a banana—as if it had razor blades for edges. Most players had tricks they could do with chips, but this trick was something else that made Ferguson memorable.

  The poker circuit and the lives of these high-stakes gamblers weren’t just about the game. It was also about the action. And the action could be anything from what nationality the next person coming out of the elevator would be to crazier things like who could do a standing backflip on a poker table. There were also other sick bets such as weight bets—poker players frequently bet one another who was going to lose more weight in a thirty-day period. These bets were not small potatoes either; they were for hefty chunks of change, usually starting at ten thousand dollars and sometimes going into the hundreds of thousands. One of the most peculiar bets was when the famous Gus Hansen actually challenged his sidekick friend, who was broke at the time, to wear breast implants for a whole year for a fifty-thousand-dollar payoff. The friend took him up on it and the she-man embarrassingly played side games for the entire year. Poker players are just like that. Most of them are high-action guys who have to be betting on everything and anything. That was the life—that’s what they loved and knew.

  Jimmy looked out across the sea of poker players, trying to locate Kat, wondering who she was playing with, but it was impossible to find her. He did, however, see other faces he recognized, like the legendary Amarillo Slim Preston, Tom McEvoy, Men Nguyen—known as “Men the Master”—and Johnny Chan. They were all stacking their chips the way they liked them.

  For the most part, the faces surrounding him belonged to strangers. He hadn’t been among so many since the first day he walked into prison. Suddenly he realized he was sweating. Was he nervous about playing or having another anxiety attack? The damned things came out of nowhere since he got out. Sometimes he wondered if being out was a dream. Would he wake up and find himself still in his cell?

  He sat back and willed himself to relax. Being nervous enough to puke about playing in this tournament would have been acceptable to him. After all, he was only human. But not an anxiety attack—not now!

  “Are you all right?” the player next to him asked.

  He turned his head and looked into the eyes of a young, pretty blond woman who couldn’t have been much older than Kat.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking . . .”

  “Holly,” she said.

  “I’m Jimmy.”

  They shook hands, and he noticed her palms were damp.

  “First tournament?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How did you get here?”

  “I won an office tournament. The prize was the entry fee and buy in for this.” She leaned toward him so that their shoulders touched and said very softly, “I’m so nervous.”

  “Just relax. Pretend you’re still playing at your office.”

  “That’s hard to do,” she said forcefully. “That’s Chris Ferguson sitting across from us. My God, he’s like a star!”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked, leaning toward him and lowering her voice again.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I have a room in this hotel for one night,” she said. “If I make it through the day I’m gonna panic because I’ve got no place to stay after tonight.”

  He smiled at her. “Seems to me that’s a problem everyone here would like to have.”

  “Have you played in tournaments before?”

  “Yes,” he said, “quite a few over the years.”

  “Oh,” she said, puzzled. “It’s just that I thought you were sweating. . . .”

  “I’m a little claustrophobic,” he lied, “but I’m all right now.”

  And he was. Talking with a pretty woman, calming her down, seemed to have had the same effect on him. The sweats had stopped, the dizziness had passed.

  He was ready to play.

  FIVE

  One year earlier . . .

  Jimmy Spain paid the cabdriver, then turned and walked up the winding driveway to the house, his single suitcase in hand. He’d last seen Harold P. Landrigan as the man left Marion penitentiary. Spain figured the day Landrigan walked out the doors he forgot about him—or, at least, pushed him to the back of his mind. He figured once Harold was out among his banking and Wall Street cronies he’d forget all about what had happened inside. He hadn’t left prison rehabilitated; he’d left because his lawyers and money—lots of money—had finally reversed the pull of the strings.

  Now here Jimmy was, sprung five years earlier than he was supposed to be, sure he knew who to thank for that.

  He’d called Harold when he knew he was getting out. The man didn’t have time to talk to him that day but said, “Come straight to my house in Brentwood.”

  Brentwood, Jimmy had thought as he hung up. California. How was he supposed to get from Illinois to California? But Harold had thought of that, too. The guard who handed Jimmy the cash and train ticket was either honest or well bought. Landrigan had even remembered that Jimmy hated to fly. He wasn’t afraid; it was just a pain in the ass—and no doubt more so since 9/11.

  Jimmy’s eyes felt gritty because the only sleep he’d gotten had been on a train. He still smelled like prison as he set the suitcase down and rang the doorbell, fully expecting a tuxedo-wearing butler to an
swer it and send him to the back door. Instead, there stood Harold Landrigan himself. He’d put back on the weight he’d lost in prison, plus some. Also, he’d kept the do he’d adopted in prison when he could no longer get the blow-dried look. It was a little longer, but then he wasn’t the blow-dried banker who had first entered the prison system.

  “Jimmy! Goddamnit!” He grabbed Jimmy in a bear hug, pulled him to his barrel chest, and pounded on his back. When he released him, he immediately grabbed Jimmy’s suitcase. “Come on in! Goddamnit, it’s good to see you!”

  He kept up that kind of chatter as he led the way through an expensively tiled entryway, down a hall to a plushly furnished, bookcase-lined office. The house was huge, and Jimmy hated to admit he was a bit dazed. Oh, he knew Harold P. Landrigan was supposed to be wealthy, but to actually see it. Damn!

  “Doesn’t look like being inside hurt you any, Harold.”

  The one concession Jimmy had made to the man in prison was his request never to be called “Harry.” Why not? It was an easy request to honor, and Jimmy certainly wasn’t looking to piss Landrigan off, just keep him alive to be of use later.

  This was later.

  “No, no,” Landrigan said, putting the suitcase down behind a chair. “In fact, it’s helped me. You’d be surprised at how many of my colleagues are impressed that I did time.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Have a seat. You want a drink?”

  Jimmy lowered himself onto the cushy chair and said, “Bourbon, if you got it. It’s been a long time.”

  “Jack Daniels,” he said. “I remember.”

  He went to a side bar filled with bottles and poured them both some Jack. He served Jimmy’s on the rocks. He did remember. Jimmy shuddered as Landrigan added some water to his. He would’ve put Landrigan back inside for watering down good bourbon if he didn’t owe him.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Landrigan took his and instead of sitting behind his desk sat in a chair facing Jimmy. Jimmy appreciated that. Putting the desk between them would have been like putting him in his place.