chapter 9
Even before the door was closed, Charlie was hard at work in his sketchbook, feverishly laboring at something he bluntly refused to let me see.
“Don’t you have…I don’t know, sailor stuff to do?” I pulled out the laptop and began playing solitaire. While it wasn’t exciting, my artist skills hadn’t magically revealed themselves and I wasn’t going to get my hopes up about it.
He laughed and took out the switchblade. Seeing it reminded me he’d also put the Wi-Fi card in one of those pockets as well. While I doubted I could get an Internet connection this far out at sea, it made a sickness rise inside to think of home and all that I’d left behind.
Seeing me blanch, he asked, “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Just tired, I guess. Anyway,” I hoped he wouldn’t see how pathetically I tried to change the subject, “you didn’t answer my question.”
“What, the sailor stuff?”
“Yes, I imagine there’s plenty of that to do around here.”
He ran his fingers through his hair to move it from his vision. Loose strands would float in front of his eye every so often and he would brush them away without thinking about it. But he never took his eyes from the paper.
“Yeah, there’s a lot to do. But since you’ve made it real clear you ain’t gonna be still for real long and cause all kind of mischief, I figure I should just keep an eye on you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Excuse me, but I’ve been very well-behaved.”
“You weren’t supposed to, but you managed to make your way down to the engine room.”
I almost fell off the bed. Though it made me nervous to mention it, I knew I couldn’t leave without knowing the answer. “Hey, Charlie, what does Polo make down there, anyway?”
Charlie smiled down at his paper. “Nothin’ but trouble,” he mumbled. He looked up at me again for a moment. I think maybe he was deciding something. I could only hope it was a decision in my favor. “He makes all the explosives we use to bust into latched storage spaces, trucks, whatever. Most of the time we only gotta put one knocker on the main door.”
I interrupted. “Right. That’s why the ‘knock, knock’?”
He smiled. “Funny…that guy can barely read, but he makes those things go boom without any smoke or noise.”
“You mean the bombs.”
He stopped stretching and his smile disappeared completely. “They ain’t bombs.”
“You use them for blowing things up.”
“Nah, not really.”
“Polo said—” I clicked to start a new game.
“You really gonna go listenin’ to Polo?” He sighed. I saw him gnash his teeth, but I didn’t say anything else. Instead of continuing the sketch, he twirled the pencil in his fingers.
“Well, what are they for, then?” It came out all slurred and I wasn’t sure if he heard me.
“What?”
“You heard me.” I figured he probably hadn’t, but I wanted to sound aggressive. There could be no compromising stand concerning the lives of others. “What are they for?”
Now that he understood, he smiled and casually began sketching again. “Distractin’ people sometimes, playing pranks…”
“Do you—”
“No.” His voice was stern, giving me a warning I knew not to cross. “I would if it came down to it, but none of us ain’t done nothing like that yet. Polo basically makes smoke bombs down there. It’s real good if we can’t break into a truck or a warehouse and we need to buy some time. Other kinds we set off in the storage houses after we’re done with ‘em, burns away evidence we were there.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath the entire time. While Charlie and the guys had great potential to hurt others, their ability to do so was within their realm of necessity. And for some reason that brought me little comfort. What if the others had agreed with Wallace about the need to hurt me? Would I have been mere ash in that house?
“We’re just thieves, Addie.” He looked up at me then ,and although the corner of his lips turned up, I could sense a lie there. I could see something that wasn’t right. “Nobody hurts nobody unless we gotta.”
“And yet you’ve killed people before?”
I sensed he was getting annoyed. Maybe I was treading on territory he didn’t want to talk about. I needed to be very clear, though. If I was going to know as much about him as I wanted to, then I was going to have to be.
“I told you I wasn’t a nice guy. I meant that, Addie. I killed people before that I didn’t have to.”
We both let that sink in. As horrifying as it was, I didn’t have any difficulty believing him. I could see in my mind’s eye the rage of a moment taking him over and snuffing out a life before the sensibility of the situation allowed him to do anything rational.. In other scenarios, I could justify self-defense and I could tell myself that taking life during times of war was also permissible…but what Charlie and the others did was hardly a matter of survival. For them it was about profit, about how much money they could make while still avoiding punishment from the law.
And yet, how could I be allowed to judge? Charlie did have a point. My family was fortunate enough to not have to worry too much about financial matters. We lived in a good community, we were happy, and right up until Mom became sick, our biggest problem was running out of space on the bookshelf. I had switched out the last two summers of summer camp for waitressing at my Dad’s golf course—but it was the sort of employment that was designed to “build character.” I had always been provided for and never wanted for anything. With a different sort of life, who’s to say that I wouldn’t have been capable of far worse than anyone else?
I closed the laptop and picked up one of his sketchbooks. I began flipping through it page by page, taking my time with some of the drawings I found particularly beautiful. Toward the middle of the book was an incredible grandfather clock, sketched in afternoon light over an intricate Persian rug.
“Do you hate me now?” His tone was soft, on the verge of being broken.
I flipped the book closed and sat on the floor beside him. It marveled me how dangerous he could be one minute and how very much like a child the next.
“How could I hate you?” I rested my head against him “This has been, and statistically speaking, probably will be, the greatest adventure of my life.”
The moment I said it, I realized it was true. It wasn’t just something I was saying to bring him comfort, something to make someone else feel better. For once, I was having an experience of my own, and while it had been terrifying at first, it had also been a wonderful thrill. Charlie tensed against me. I was afraid I’d said something wrong, but I cut him off before he could ponder it further. “Remind me to thank whichever one of the guys it was who wanted coffee.”
He chuckled warmly. “You’re supposed to be seventeen, right?”
I laughed. “Yes, why?”
“Ya don’t seem like it.” He smiled.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
He paused; his smile lapsed into a frown. “Addie, you’re just a kid.”
“I might be young, but at least I can control my temper. You should be old enough to know better.”
“How old do you think I am?”
I looked up at him and pretended to examine his face. Truthfully, I had already spent numerous moments considering this question.
“I’m not sure. Enlighten me.”
It was obvious he was indecisive about whether or not he wanted to answer. I was about to remind him that when I got home I had every intention of doing the most extensive research on him available.
“Twenty-nine,” he said finally.
“Hmm.” It was good to know that I hadn’t been too far off.
He laughed a little, although it sounded a little uncertain. “You probably gotta set an age maximum for your beaus. I bet you start turning them away around twenty-five just to narrow ‘em down.”
I hit him on the arm, although it wasn’t with much effort. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not the sort of girl that has guys.” I felt the blush creeping up in my cheeks and cursed myself. “I’ve never had any guys.”
“That I ain’t believing.” Vigorously, he worked to shade in something on the sketch. “Not possible…” His pressure on the paper became intense enough to break the point. “Your old man and brother probably killed more men than me tryin’ to keep ‘em away.”
I pretended to look at something on the wall, but really I was concentrating on getting my blush under control. From the corner of my eye I could see him smiling, which was doing nothing to help my cause, and that only gave me more difficulty concentrating.
It was something of an oddity to think that Charlie found me attractive. I considered that maybe he was putting me on, but I had caught the way he looked at me and didn’t think he could fake a reaction like that. While I was nothing much to look at, Robbie’s friends had shown some interest in me over the years, much to Dad’s distress. But unlike girls my own age, I hadn’t had much interest in socializing with people. The only solace I had ever really known I got from books and studying. Not knowing how I felt about something was like being in a foreign country—exciting and scary at the same time.
All at once the sound of the pencil snapping interrupted my thoughts and brought me back to Charlie. He threw them across the room. In one straight motion they hit the wall.
“I’m not, I—” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It was like watching a man drown. I reached my hand out and tried to touch his forearm, but he flinched away. I was beyond hurt.
“I’m a bad person, Addie. You shouldn’t be so good to me.”
I felt my heart stiffen. To some extent he was right and I knew that.
I did know that, right?
“Well, I don’t care, I’m going.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Bye.” It was hard to keep serious through my laughter.
“Get. Back. Here.” The words were almost grit through his clenched teeth.
I just laughed and ducked under his arms, which were blocking the door. I think we were both shocked I managed to evade his grasp, but he was behind me, quickly trailing me with long strides.
I began a full on jog ahead of him and he chased after me willingly. It wasn’t unlike two days ago, only this time I was endeavoring to let him catch me.
“This ain’t a good idea!” He was only a few steps behind and I anticipated the moment he would reach out for me. That realization within itself gave me a sense of glee, and I wanted the seconds to close in already so he would just take me in his arms. The anticipation of feeling his skin on mine again made my stomach flop after its standard flip.
“Lighten up, Charlie, you’ll live longer!”
We had been “arguing” for a solid hour about whether or not it would be wise to go to the recreational room for the crew’s card game. Charlie had instantaneously decided it wasn’t, while I had decided the opposite. He also decided he hated himself for accidently mentioning it at all.
“I won’t even bother you guys. I’ll be a silent cheerleader, I swear.”
He sighed. “It ain’t you I’m worried about.”
I tugged on the sleeve of his shirt and jumped up and down. “It will be fun. Come on!”
He grinned down at me and shook his head. “No more spending time with Polo.”
He tangled his arms around my waist and lifted me into the air as though I were no more than a paper sack. I was glad the melancholy that had gotten hold of him earlier had only been temporary. He now seemed restored.
“Gotcha.” His voice was hoarse in my ear. “You can run all you want.” He laughed. “I like chasing ya.”
I laughed and protested but still let him carry me all the way to a smaller set of doors labeled Rec Room. From underneath the sliding doors, smoke billowed in small tufts. It almost sent me panicking until I recognized the smell the roasting tobacco generated. The door to the Rec Room stuck so badly that even Charlie had trouble opening it, but it effectively blocked the noise of poorly selected rock music blaring from a radio and the voices of excited men blathering about the day’s events.
When I walked in, I was hardly stunned to see the dirty look Reid gave Charlie and me, but I was in such a good mood I let it roll off my back. What did surprise me slightly was seeing Ben Walden there at the folding table with the rest of the guys. Seeing him there so ordinary, the head of a mild criminal enterprise, with a cigar in his mouth and playing cards in his hand, was quite comical. He was entirely out of place wearing a crisp button down and what looked like a very expensive watch. Meanwhile, the guys were still wearing their soiled work clothes and were mostly dirty and unshaven.
“We were beginning to wonder when you kids would show up,” Ben said. His gaze lingered on me, though for a moment I saw his eyes dart at Charlie questioningly.
Reid mumbled something to Yuri that I couldn’t hear, but I was almost certain it was inappropriate. I tried to pretend I didn’t feel extremely awkward by staring at my feet. At this point, my shoes were graying from the dirt and beginning to fray at the ends.
“Hey, hey, hey! You guys are just in time, we were about to start a new game!” Polo slapped the table, causing Reid and Yuri to groan simultaneously.
“Knock that crap off, Polo!” Yuri smacked him upside the head and picked up his fallen plastic chips from the floor. I noticed Polo had the least amount of chips and hoped they weren’t taking advantage of him too badly.
Charlie shook his head and grabbed two folding chairs from the side. From what I could see, the recreational room wasn’t much more than some tables and chairs with an old television and DVD/VHS player hooked up in the corner. Both were dusty and looked unused. On the wall there was a relatively new dartboard and a decent stereo system, blaring music.
I sat in the seat Charlie offered, and the men continued their conversation as though I wasn’t even there. I was immensely grateful for this exclusion, because if they could speak freely around me then maybe it would help me feel less awkward. After a moment I realized this was an unrealistic expectation and concentrated on avoiding Reid’s glare while trying not to spend too much time staring at Charlie.
Yuri took the card deck and split it into two halves, shuffling it expertly. I tried not to look impressed, but when the most extensive card playing experience you have involves War and Go Fish, it’s easy to be impressed.
I watched with quiet fascination as he threw the cards out like so many small Frisbees. My only protest came when I realized that for each rotation of the circle he had included a place for me. “Oh, um, I can’t—I’m not playing.” I instantly hated the way I sounded so small and finite. I wanted to take the words away and make them sound like they belonged to someone who was older and more sophisticated. But whoever gets what they really want?
“Why not, Addie?” Polo’s concern was so over ambitious that it would have been comical if it hadn’t been so sweet. You would have thought I’d just told him I was dying.
I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know the basics.
“I just, uh–I don’t know how.”
Reid looked like he had fallen just out of the scope of irritation while Polo’s face suggested the notion was impossible. I could feel the light-heartedness of my good mood starting to slip away just a notch. I shrugged and looked for a way out.
“That’s fine.” Ben looked at Charlie with a bemused expression. “It’s even better, actually. Usually everyone comes in with their own falsified rules and regulations, now you’ll learn how to play properly.” He nodded to Yuri, who continued dealing to include me.
“First things first,” Charlie whispered in my ear. “You gotta know the hands. A flush beats a straight every time. A royal flush is a straight flush with an ace as the highest of the five cards, like…” To show me an example he stole up the remaining cards and laid out an ace of spades, a king, a queen, jack, and a ten. Reid swore, but Ben just gave him a warning glare and Yuri reshuffled the deck.
Charlie continued, “A straight flush is all the same numbers in the same suit. If two happen in the same hand, the highest card wins it. Four of a kind is the third best hand, which is just the same number from every suit. The highest four is four aces, then four kings right on down to four twos.”
“A full-house is three of a kind and two of a kind!” said Polo, eager to get his end in. “If there’s two during a game, then the biggest of the three wins it!”
Now it was Ben’s turn to break in. “A flush is just five cards of the same suit. In the event that two flushes occur during one hand, the highest card wins.”
“What if those cards are the same?”
He smiled. “It keeps going right on down to the very last card. If both hands are the very same, they split the pot.”
“With a straight, you only have five cards of any suit in order.” Ben continued “Similar with other hands, when there are two straights, the highest card wins. Aces can be used as a high card above a king or a low card below a two to make a straight.”
“Three of a kind is three of the same,” said Charlie.
Reid slammed a pack of cigarettes on the table. “They’re called sets!”
“No, they’re not. Just call them three of a kind like everybody else,” Yuri retorted.
Charlie smiled at me. “Two pairs is four cards of two ranks like two jacks, one spade and diamond, with two sixes, one heart one spade. One pair is the same thing.”
“And the highest pair wins?”
Ben pointed his cigar at me. “Precisely.”
I picked up my hand and kept my cards close. “What happens if no one even has a pair?”
“That’s called high card! Then the hand with the highest card is the winner!”
“Okay, thanks, Polo.” I stifled back my laughter as best as I could but found it difficult. From the corner of my eye I could see Charlie was making no effort to keep his eyes from me.
I was told it was a friendly game, although I got the sense that things could get competitive, particularly when Reid and Charlie started fighting over the odd number of green chips.
The ante up was the easiest part. Charlie took one of the white chips from my pile and tossed it in the center. I smiled gratefully. Then, since Reid was at Yuri’s left, he went first, putting a red chip in the center of the table. I endeavored to read his expression but saw little there beyond his own impatience. Polo threw in one red chip of his own. “I call! I feel like my luck is turning around now, you guys!”
“She’s lucky.” Under the table, Charlie’s foot kicked mine.
Reid scoffed, “Bad luck, maybe.”
I ignored him and threw in one black chip. “I raise.”
Ben smiled and Charlie tried to peek at my cards, but I held them close.
“Are you sure you wanna to do that?” he asked.
“Probably not,” I whispered back.
He shrugged. “Okay.” He threw in one black chip.
Ben became quiet, contemplative. “You all have so much to learn.” He tossed in one black chip and two green chips.
“Switch out, anyone?” Yuri asked.
Charlie leaned into me and I felt a shiver come on. “After the first bet, everybody takes a draw. You can switch out two cards or keep ‘em. But don’t let nobody see.”
I nodded and slid a single card across the table, trying to look like a professional. I imagine it was a fairly pathetic attempt.
Reid drew his cards and so did Charlie and Ben. The plastic chips started piling up on the table like colorful little centerpieces.
Polo began pounding his feet against the steel legs of the table. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Now it’s getting interesting!”
“Damn,” Yuri said. “I fold.”
“Whoo!”
Ben put out the remainder of his cigar. “Take it easy, Polo.”
I was having a very hard time not giggling. The uneasiness I felt was fleeting as I watched them come to life. Ben, Polo, Yuri, Reid, and Charlie were full-grown children. I thoughtfully put my chips in the pot and kept my face blank. I looked back at my cards and re-questioned my strategy. I hoped being an amateur would excuse how badly I was about to embarrass myself.
After a moment of studying his own cards, Charlie considered his options. “I fold.”
Ben straightened in his chair and looked back and forth from the plastic chips to his hand. I tried to decide if that meant anything similar to how Reid started using two hands to hold his cards and put his elbows on the table. It was difficult to multitask here and not be distracted by the smug way Charlie leaned back in his seat and rested his hands on his abdomen. The way he watched me was aggressive now, and although I couldn’t say I didn’t like it, I couldn’t help but wonder what it meant.
Ben offered the same amount into the table’s center. He wouldn’t take his eyes off Reid’s cards—his only real perceived threat. The two locked eyes and sent some silent warning we could all sense.
“Ah geez! I guess I fold!” Polo whined and threw his cards down.
Charlie laughed and leaned against me. “What are you gonna do?”
I raised my eyebrow and shielded my cards. “Raise.” I threw in an additional red chip.
“Well, goddamn. What do you know?” Yuri and Polo started cackling simultaneously and Ben put in his bet.
After a slur of profanities and throwing his cards across the table, Reid decided to fold. “I hate you bastards.” He then took out his anger by kicking Polo’s chair and shoving him to the ground.
Charlie tossed him the pack of cigarettes from his back pocket then bent to help Polo up. “That’s the sportsmanship we all know and appreciate!”
I wanted to laugh and join in, but Ben was staring me down. Strangely, it was like he was trying to read my thoughts, boring a hole directly into my head. I once again got the feeling this game wasn’t very friendly—it was downright intimidating to the point where the room literally started closing in. Counting down from ten wasn’t helping. Reciting lines from sonnets wasn’t helping. I thought maybe it was just how guys behaved when in groups, but then again, maybe it was an indication of something more hostile, something more dangerous. Whatever it was continued to loom over me as Ben stared me down—warning me.
I clutched my cards, telling myself mentally over and over not to bite my lip, play with my hair, or do anything else that might reveal me as the inexperienced child I was. I knew I had an extremely weak hand, but from what I already knew about poker, bluffing was a major part of the entire game. I realized I would lose this hand and many, many more after this, but I figured I would learn from my mistakes—a trial and error kind of thing. Besides, it was fun in a suspenseful sort of way, almost like living out an action scene from a movie.
Everything went very quiet when Ben threw in another black chip. I saw Charlie tense, Reid smiled, and then nudged Yuri in the arm. Ben and I were deadlocked with our eyes on one another.
“I call.”
The smile that widened Ben’s face could have started a riot. No one looked surprised when he threw down a very handsome straight. I put my cards down one by one. I was amazed my hands were steady enough to keep the cards from bending at the corners. I might have even seemed confident. I did my best to commit the different hand values to memory but was only somewhat sure I did it correctly. For all I really knew, I was completely off and truly making a fool out of myself.
Luckily, I somehow managed to put down five hearts—a full flush. I understood instantly that I had won by Polo’s seal clap and the way Charlie pushed out his chair with his fist out shouting, “Yah!”
Yuri gave Ben a slap on the back. “I can’t believe she beat you, boss.”
Ben looked skeptical. “Are you quite positive you’ve never played before?”
I smiled through my blush. “Yep.”
Reid reached across to gather up the cards. “Charlie Boy just knows how to pick ‘em.”
I quickly lost track of how many games were played, the number of plastic chips I lost, and how many times someone or other would get frustrated and knock over poor Polo. But as the night wore on, the amount of fun I had steadily grew, and before I realized it, I was laughing with ease and even joining in on the conversation.
“You really think that The Stranger was Welles’ best movie?”
I feigned offense. “Excuse me,” I could hear my voice raising a few notes but the laughter revealed me, “but that is exactly what I’m saying! You really don’t think Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time, do you? Let alone his best work?”
Charlie took me by the shoulders and pulled me towards him playfully. “Careful, Yuri, I can’t hold her back much longer.”