Black Oil, Red Blood

Chapter 9



When Anna Delmont got home with the pizza, the poker game was well underway. She now faced a dilemma. What should she serve it on? On the one hand, it was just an informal poker game. On the other hand, the police chief, the mayor, and a couple of bigwigs from PetroPlex (who she knew only by reputation) were all sitting in there. If she walked in with paper plates, would they think she was uncouth? Her silver-rimmed china was certainly overkill, but maybe her Pottery Barn dishware would be okay. She settled on the Pottery Barn dishes, stacked some up in a neat pile on a serving tray, placed the pizzas beside them, and carried the whole thing in.

“’Bout time,” Joe Bob said.

Foul, acrid cigar smoke filled her living room. The biggest cigar was perched between Joe Bob’s own teeth. Anna could hardly believe her eyes. While Joe Bob often smoked in the house, he usually confined the activity to his study. The two of them had had this standing compromise forever. He had never, ever contaminated her living room before, and how here he was, smoking it up, and using her heirloom cut crystal bowl as an ash tray. And he wasn’t the only one smoking either. Dick Richardson, Chief Scott, and the PetroPlex executives were smoking too.

“For crying out loud!” Anna said in exasperation. “I am never going to get this smell out of the drapes!”

Delmont shrugged. “You’re the one who’s been pestering me to host the game here. We play poker, we smoke cigars, and we drink whiskey. Three of life’s simple pleasures. That’s the way it is.”

“Except for me,” Judge Hooper said. “I don’t smoke.”

“Until tonight,” Dick said.

Anna noticed that Dick had been fiddling with something in his pocket. Something he clearly didn’t want anyone else to see. But she was too distressed about the cigar smoke to dwell on it too much.

“Come on, Judge,” Dick said. “Everybody needs a vice. Lemme show you how it’s done.”

Dick crammed a cigar into Judge Hooper’s mouth, flicked a flame into life, and lit the end.

“Okay, now suck,” Dick said.

Judge Hooper did, and promptly began hacking up a storm.

“Don’t tell him to suck,” Joe Bob said. “He ain’t some fairy like your fancypants paralegal. It’s more like a manly puff.”

Judge Hooper rested the cigar in the bowl and took a swig of whiskey to calm his cough. “Anna dear,” he said. “Have you met Gerald Fitz and Frederick Lewis?” He gestured to the two bigwigs from PetroPlex.

“Not officially,” Anna said. “I heard of you before though, of course.”

The two men politely stood and shook Anna’s hand. Lewis was a puny-looking guy with dark hair, which he wore in a deeply-parted comb-over that did little to disguise an advanced state of baldness. Fitz was a middle-aged guy with a sour face. He looked like a real curmudgeon.

“Pleased to meet you,” Lewis said stiffly, in a manner that suggested he clearly wasn’t.

“Likewise,” Fitz said. His voice sounded like he’d eaten sandpaper for lunch, breakfast, and dinner every day of his entire life.

“And I don’t believe I got the chance to say hello when I walked in, either.” Mayor Fillion, a tall, lean man with a kind smile and wavy gray hair, stood and shook her hand. “You’re looking mighty pretty this evening, Anna. Are you doing something different with your hair?”

Even though Anna knew he was almost literally blowing smoke up her skirt, she flushed with pleasure nevertheless. “I been to one of those Aveda salons in Houston recently,” she said. “Joe Bob sent me on an overnight beauty spa trip just last week.”

“I’ll bet he does that all the time,” Dick said, giving Joe Bob a knowing look. “That must be how you stay looking so good.”

Anna barely registered the kick Joe Bob delivered to Dick under the table. “He does,” she said. “He is so good to me.”

Joe Bob buried his face in his whiskey glass and took a deep swig. He banged the empty glass back down on the table and glared at Anna. “You’re holding up the game,“ he said.

Anna walked over to the bar to grab the whiskey decanter so she could refill Joe Bob’s glass.

Mayor Fillion flipped over a card from the deck and added it to the four that were already face up on the table. Anna knew they were playing Texas Hold ’em, and she had a pretty good understanding of how it all worked, but she didn’t fully understand the intricacies of the game. The cards on the table were the ace of spades, the ace of diamonds, the jack of clubs, the ten of hearts, and the two of clubs.

Fitz grunted and pushed his sizable stack of chips towards the center of the table. The entire stack. “All in.”

Several of the other men swore.

“Fold,” Lewis and Chief Scott said simultaneously.

“Me too.” The mayor flopped his two cards on the table face down and swept them aside.

“I’m out,” Hooper said, attempting to take another drag on the cigar, only to wind up coughing violently.

Joe Bob stared at Fitz intently before also folding.

That left only Dick.

Anna could feel the tension in the room. She didn’t know how much money each chip represented, but judging from the expressions on each man’s face, it must have been a lot.

Dick leaned forward and stared Fitz down. “You’re bluffing.”

“If that’s what you think, call the bluff,” Fitz said. His face was a stone.

Dick hesitated.

“Come on,” Fitz said. “What’re you afraid of? If you win the hand, you can buy yourself another new car.”

Anna’s eyes widened. She had been right. There was a lot of money on the table. She knew how Dick loved new cars, and she secretly rooted for him to win the hand. After all, he had defended her slot machine centerpiece.

“If I don’t, I’m really gonna pressure you to make it up to me with a good settlement on the Gracie Miller case,” Dick said.

Fitz laughed. “Why would I do that? Your expert witness is dead, and that rookie lawyer you’ve got handling things is in over her head.”

“Hey, she got a continuance out of your buddy Delmont over there today.” Dick jerked his finger toward Joe Bob. “I think she’s doin’ okay.”

Fitz turned to Joe Bob and regarded him evenly. “Word on the grapevine is her argument was unusually compelling.”

Joe Bob cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Hey, I can’t get your back every time,” he told Fitz. “That wouldn’t be fair to Dick, ya know.”

Fitz shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. Dick has no problem taking care of himself. Isn’t that right, Dick?”

Dick eyed his own stack of chips, which was roughly the same size as Fitz’s. “Yeah, I do a pretty good job of looking out for the ol’ Number One, if I don’t say so myself.”

Mayor Fillion laughed and slapped him on the back. “Do you ever. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was you running this town instead of me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dick said. “Everybody knows it’s PetroPlex running the town, ain’t that right?” He eyed both Lewis and Fitz.

Lewis rolled his eyes and took a drink.

Fitz just ignored him. “So come on, already,” he said. “What’ll it be? In or out?”

Anna held her breath. Was Dick about to win enough money to buy a new car, or not? More importantly, how much did Joe Bob stand to lose or win playing for these kinds of stakes? She eyed his stack of chips in a way she hoped wasn’t too obvious. It was sizable. Enough to remodel the kitchen, for example, which was a project she’d been wanting to talk to him about. She was glad he hadn’t gone all in with Dick and Fitz.

Let’s make a deal,” Dick said.

“You and your deals,” Joe Bob grumbled.

“There are no deals in poker,” Fitz said. “Only the game.”

“Nah, there’s always a deal to be made,” Dick said. “In life, in work, in poker—don’t matter when.”

“Whatever deals we’ve made in the past do not apply right now,” Fitz said.

Anna stood watching the game, transfixed. She wondered what kind of deals Dick had made with Fitz in the past. He had such an imposing presence for such a little man. It wouldn’t surprise her to hear that he could not only hold his own against the PetroPlex machine, but also use it to his advantage. He just seemed like that kind of guy.

“Nah, come on,” Dick said. “I’m just talking about sweetening the pot a little. I call, and if I win, you owe me a favor one of these days. You win, and I’ll not only turn over my entire stack of chips, but I’ll double it. That’d be eighty grand in one hand for ya.”

Anna gasped.

“That’s mighty brave of you,” Fitz said, “considering I’m sitting on pocket aces and there are another two in the river.”

Dick remained unperturbed. “You ain’t got pocket aces.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t call right now.”

“I can spot a bluff a mile away,” Dick said. “You got ‘bluff’ written all over you.”

“Go ahead. Call, then,” Fitz said. He stared at Dick, unblinking.

Anna felt breathless. She didn’t know how in the world Dick could possibly tell whether Fitz was bluffing or not. He didn’t look nervous at all, which was amazing, considering Anna herself was practically biting her fingernails, and it wasn’t even her money on the table!

A cell phone rang and shattered the tension in the air.

“Whose phone is that?” Fitz asked angrily.

Nobody fessed up immediately. After four or five rings, Judge Hooper said “Oh!” and looked embarrassed. He rearranged himself on his chair and fished a cell phone out of his pocket. He moved slowly, seeing as how he was old and slightly arthritic. “I forgot,” he said. “My clerk got me one of these newfangled things. I ain’t quite sure how to use it yet.”

Joe Bob took the phone from him and pointed to a little envelope icon on the screen. “See that? It means you got a voice mail. Press this button to listen to what it says.”

They all paused while Judge Hooper checked his voicemail. “Hmmm,” he said. “My clerk says Detective Nash wants a warrant to arrest Chloe Taylor.”

“What?” Dick thundered. “That’s ridiculous! What for?”

“He says she broke into somebody’s house. Somebody Schaeffer.”

“Chloe would never do that,” Dick said. “And even if she did, Schaeffer is our dead expert witness. She’s been working with him around the clock. She practically lives there—probably has a key.”

“I call B.S. on that,” Joe Bob said. He had a look of manic excitement on his face. “Key or not, it’s a crime scene, and if she’s there, it’s a break-in. Issue the warrant.”

“Gimme a break,” Dick said. “We all know Jensen Nash is an uptight, arrogant Yankee who would arrest an elderly widow for crossing the street the wrong way. You gotta take him off his high horse.” Dick turned to Judge Hooper. “You remember Chloe? You met her at a City Council fundraiser a couple of weeks ago. Pretty little thing with long red hair, huge boobs, and a cute behind. She’d never do anything you’d disapprove of.”

Judge Hooper nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t see her as the breaking and entering type. Just to be safe, maybe I better talk to Detective Nash. And Chloe, too, if I can get her.”

“Not before this hand is done,” Fitz said. He looked at Dick. “So what’ll it be?”

“Have we got our side deal?”

Fitz hesitated. “What kind of favor are you looking for?”

“Whatever I want,” Dick said. “Whenever I call it in.”

Fitz shrugged. “Okay fine. You’re on.”

Dick shoved his pile of chips into the center of the table right up next to Fitz’s pile.

This was it. Anna clenched her fists in anticipation.

Fitz turned over a king and queen of diamonds triumphantly.

“Straight,” he said. “I told you I wasn’t bluffing.”

Anna eyed Dick concernedly. He appeared worried. Was it an act?

“Crap,” he said. “I coulda sworn you were putting me on. All I got is two pair.” He turned over his cards to reveal that he had been sitting on pocket aces. “Two pair of aces, that is, otherwise known as four of a kind. Woooo ha! How you like them apples?”

Even Anna knew Dick’s four aces beat Fitz’s straight.

The men all pounded the table and leaned back, renewing the puffs on their cigars and laughing. Mayor Fillion slapped Dick on the back. “You owe him one now,” he said to Fitz.

Fitz just sat there with the usual sour expression on his face.

“Now about returning that phone call,” Dick said to Judge Hooper. “You gotta make this right.”

Judge Hooper nodded and fumbled with the phone. Dick showed him how to dial out.

Anna refilled everyone’s drinks and settled down on the sofa. Poker games sure were fun.