Days of Future Past - Part 1: Past Tense Read online

By the time dinner came around, I was doing fairly well. I was up almost seven hundred dollars from what I'd come in here with. I was feeling pretty good about myself, and I was all but running the table as I was the 'big stack'. It was working out to be pretty easy, I thought. A few hours more, I'd have made a grand and then I could call it a day. As it was only early December and Sarah had said we wouldn't be leaving until early March, I could easily make the twenty thousand by then, actually, I'd be able to make three times that, easy!

  "So, who's the cute guy?" A rather attractive blond woman said, sitting down across from me. I noticed she had a low-cut top on that showed a lot of skin, and she smiled winningly at me.

  "Hi, I'm Paul," I said, smiling back at her.

  "Oh, I'm Jill!" She said and laughed. "Do you come here often?"

  I shook my head, "First time," I said.

  "Mine too!" she said and laughed again.

  One of the guys next to her rolled his eyes, I guess he wasn't all that crazy about having some blond ditz sitting down at the table, but I didn't care, her money was just as good as everyone else's.

  The next hour was a little frustrating, more than once I found myself distracted by her. Between her giggling and her coming on to me, I was making dumb mistakes and two times I missed Coyote's urges and lost a fair deal of money. Which amazingly, she got lucky and won.

  I tried to play more carefully after that, but I could feel myself getting upset, with her, with the others at the table, and even with Coyote. Things were not working as well as I thought they should be, and when I suddenly got a strong urge to bet, I went big on a hand where I had nothing but crap.

  Jill raised me, and before I realized it, I had all of my money, except for a five-dollar chip, in the pot.

  When the dealer turned over the river card, I looked at my hand; I had absolutely nothing, just a ten high. As the last raiser, she checked first, so I checked as well, five dollars wasn't worth betting.

  She turned her cards over and she had a pair in the hole, while matching one on the table for three of a kind.

  I swore and mucked my cards, and getting up, I left the table rather angrily too.

  "Hey, you forgot your cab fare, Paul!" She said pointing to the chip on the table.

  I almost told her where she could stick it, but a sharp stab from Coyote put an end to that thought immediately, and instead made me wonder just why the hell he'd helped me to lose back there?

  "Sorry," I said and I tossed it to the dealer and then left the room.

  I almost stomped my way straight out of the casino, then I went down the street to the first alleyway, and ducking down it, I went behind the shops and made sure that no one else was around. It was dark out, but the area was lit well enough that I was sure I was alone.

  "What the hell was that, Coyote?" I said and swore. "I thought you were supposed to be helping me! Instead you almost cleaned me out!"

  I looked around and I didn't see anything, nor any sign of him.

  "Dammit!" I said, my voice rising, "You get your furry ass out here, and you tell me just what the hell you're doing to me, or I'll go out and find those damn pigs myself and the hell with you and everyone else!"

  I felt a pretty strong lance of pain then; apparently I'd gotten his attention.

  "I said; get your furry ass down here! Now! I don't care if you're a god; you have some explaining to do!"

  "Just who do you think you are?" I heard growled at me. I turned around and sure enough, there was Coyote, and I could tell I wasn't the only one that was mad.

  "Apparently I'm just a toy to you, that's who I am! What the hell do you want me to do? I went in there, and I gambled, and I tried to do as you told me, and you sold me out!"

  "You sold yourself out, young man!" he said haughtily.

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You show up like a big shot, drop a big bankroll, and then try to run the table? You laugh when you win, and you're rude and impolite! If you're going to work with me, then you are most certainly going to learn some manners, young man, and you are not going to lord it over the others when you win, you're cheating them after all!

  "As for that ditzy young woman you were drooling over, she's a card shark. The manager asked her to come over and put you in your place. And she did, rather handily I might add."

  That got my attention!

  "She, she cheated me?" I asked, surprised.

  "She didn't have to cheat you! You were so full of yourself and not paying any attention to what you were doing and just leaving it all to me so that it was easy for her to take all of your money away.

  "You're not here to have a good time, Paul. You're in the casinos to work. Further, I will not have one my mine acting like a rude and insensitive asshole to people who do not deserve to be treated that way!"

  I swore and tried not to act like a two year old. What he said hurt, and it hurt the most because I realized it was true. I had been getting pretty full of myself in there, I was starting to think that I knew what I was doing, and that I was good at the game, when I really wasn't. I was acting rather full of myself when that woman, Jill, had come over and cleaned me out.

  I grumbled a little, "I'm sorry," I muttered but then stopped and looked up at him, I hated being wrong, but I hated people who acted like I just had been even more, so I said it again, louder and clearer, trying to own up to my mistake and not act like a freaking brat.

  "I'm sorry. Next time, pull my leash a little sooner, so I don't act like such a complete ass."

  "Better," Coyote said, sitting down and curling his tail around. "Now, go home and think about what you did, and what you should have done. Prove to me that you've learned your lesson, and I'll help you. Otherwise you are going to find out just how bad I can make things for you."

  I nodded and stuck my hands in my pockets. I felt the wad of money I still had in there and remembered I had only put a thousand on the table; I still had six hundred left.

  "No more gambling for you tonight," Coyote warned.

  I nodded, "Yes, Coyote," and I walked off, back the way I came.

  The more I thought about it, the more I got mad at myself, which also made me embarrassed. It sucks to be wrong. It sucks even more to be forced to admit it. But my father had always told me to own my mistakes and admit it when I made one. He said it was part of being an adult.

  But that didn't make it sting any less.

  Stopping in front of the Silver Witch, I went back inside and back to the table I'd lost at. I was surprised to see Jill and the others still sitting there, and laughing a bit. Whether or not it was at me, it didn't matter.

  They all looked up, a bit surprised to see me.

  "My behavior was rude and uncalled for," I said looking around the table. "I apologize for acting like a complete ass."

  I pulled out a hundred and set it on the table, "That's for the dealers, for putting up with me tonight."

  And with that I turned and walked out of the room and went straight back to Heather's apartment. It was only eight, she'd still be up and maybe we could do something together.

  "So, how'd your first night go?" Heather asked from over on the couch as I came in the door.

  I could see she was watching a show of some kind on the television as I walked over and dropped down onto the couch next to her.

  "Not as well as I would have liked," I told her, "but at least I learned a few things."

  "Oh? About what?"

  "About myself," I said and have a half-hearted chuckle.

  "Oh, that doesn't sound good," she said and turning to face me on the seat, she gave me a warm hug.

  "It can't be that bad if it lets me spend the evening with you," I told her and gave her a kiss.

  Heather smiled and for the first time since we'd slept together last week I realized that I was a lucky man to have her. Sure she wasn't perfect, but as it had just been rather clearly pointed out, neither was I.

  Heather smiled back at me, "Sounds like someone
wants to go to bed early tonight," she teased.

  "I have a better idea," I smiled.

  "Oh?"

  "Let's go for a walk."

  Heather looked a little surprised at that, "A walk?"

  "Well, we won't get much talking done in bed, and bars are just way to noisy," I smiled and gave her a kiss. "I'd just like to spend the evening talking with you."

  Heather smiled brightly at that.

  "Let me get my jacket," she said, bouncing up off the couch.

  I smiled and put my own back on, and we took the elevator down to the street.

  There is definitely something to be said for walking around outside in the evening, with your arm around a beautiful woman, just talking about things in general and nothing in particular. Tomorrow I would worry about Coyote, money, and expeditions.

  For tonight, I was just going to worry about Heather and see if I could make somebody else happy for a while.

  The next day I went down to the Silver Witch again, about an hour after lunch, and this time I went directly to the lower of the limited tables, and pulling out two one-hundred dollar bills, I got my chips and started to play. I thought about the hands I had won last night, as well as the ones I had lost, and started off very conservatively, paying attention to the other players and being polite when I won, and gracious when I lost.

  By six o'clock I'd made about a hundred dollars, without Coyote's help surprisingly, however the people I was playing with were not the level of the ones I'd been playing last night."

  "Ah, Mr., Young! I wasn't sure we'd be seeing you again today."

  I looked up, and it was the floor manger I'd talked with yesterday.

  "Well, I already made a fool out of myself here last night, Gregg," I said reading his name off of the tag on his lapel, "so how much worse could it be?"

  Gregg laughed, and turned to one of the waitresses working the table, "Jennifer, bring Mr. Young something for dinner, on the house."

  "You don't have to do that for me, Gregg," I protested.

  "Of course I do, you not only apologized, but you tipped us very well. We appreciate that here at the Silver Witch."

  "Thanks," I said and smiled.

  About an hour later I looked up when I heard my name and saw Jill standing there.

  "Why hello, cute stuff," she said and smiled.

  "Hi, Jill," I said and nodded hello.

  "No hard feelings?" She asked with a smile.

  "Why should there be? You didn't do anything wrong, I was the one acting like an ass."

  She smiled, she really was pretty damn attractive, but after the time I'd spent last night with Heather, she wasn't attractive enough to distract me anymore.

  "That was pretty impressive, coming back and apologizing last night. Everyone went from laughing at what happened to admiring you for taking it like a man."

  "Thanks," I said and smiled at her, "Now, if you don't mind?" I asked and motioned to the table where they were all waiting on me to bet.

  "Good luck!" she smiled and walked away.

  "Get in trouble with your girlfriend?" One of the other players asked as I called the bet.

  "No, but I did embarrass myself last night," I sighed.

  "Well, she doesn't seem to upset over it."

  "That's because I apologized to everyone," I said.

  "Well it looks like it worked, so you must have done the right thing."

  "Yeah, but apologizing is never easy."

  "Course not, but doing the responsible things is why we get to drink beer and play cards all night, we're adults."

  I thought about that a minute, tossing my cards in when the flop came and I didn't pick up anything. He had a point, after all.

  - 12 -

  Two month's later and I had not only regained Coyote's help, but I was still playing poker at the Silver Witch, and doing much better at it. I smiled and waved to the casino employees and the floor manager as I made my way to the poker room in the back.

  "Hey Paul, pull up a chair and sit in!"

  I waved to Jill, I had by now learned that she was one of the regulars at the tables here at the Silver Witch, she frequented it for the same reason I did, it had the most tourists coming in and looking for a place to play poker of any of the casinos in town. So the turnover here was always pretty good.

  "Thanks, Jill." I said and took the number nine seat next to the dealer. A lot of folks didn't like that spot, but as I was a righty I liked having the extra space on my left side as the dealer sat a little bit apart from the players at the table. Jill was a shark, probably the biggest one in Havsue. I never went up against her, unless she tried to step on me and I knew for certain that she was bluffing. She returned the favor now and didn't try to hustle me if I stayed in a hand and she had a weak hand herself.

  The nice thing about playing with her at the table was she scared off all the other sharks; Jill was hands down the best poker player in town, though most of the tourists and casual players didn't know that. She was a pretty woman who acted a little scattered half the time, and liked to flash a little skin. That made everyone, or at least the fish - what we called the casual players, think she won by luck when she cleaned them out. Which she did with amazing regularity, but oddly enough most of the fish hadn't figured out yet that she really was smarter than they were.

  After nearly two months of playing almost every day I'd learned a lot about the game, even though I'd thought I knew a lot about it when I had started from all the games in the ready rooms and squad rooms I'd played. Thanks to Coyote's help I now knew if I was the best hand or not, and in Texas hold'em, usually you're not. It's a game about patience, and a game about attitude and especially about bluffing.

  However, the money to be made playing cards here wasn't as great as I made in that one day of shooting craps. I could have gone to the biggest casino in town, the Gold Star, and possibly win a grand in a night, but I'd found that playing cards was a lot more tricky as hands could change on the last card, and I had learned the hard way that apparently Coyote couldn't always predict the outcome for some reason.

  I had also learned to lose, and occasionally to lose big.

  "Hey, weren't you the naked guy?" One of the players at the table asked as the dealer started to deal the next hand.

  "Yup, that was me," I said, surprised that it still came up after all this time. "Not only did I have my best day ever at shooting craps, but I got naked and got to beat up a couple of people," I said with a smile as I peeked at my cards. A five and a deuce, I mucked as the guy next to me was the big blind and I was first up to bet.

  The guy laughed, and a couple of the others at the table joined him.

  "So, how did you do it?" He asked. I found it interesting that everybody thought I had cheated, and always wanted to press the point.

  "I was kidnapped by a mischievous Indian god, who likes to put me in embarrassing situations, when he's not torturing me outright. It's a lot of fun, you should try it," I said and winked.

  That got a few more laughs.

  "No, really, how'd you do it?" he asked as he bet on his cards.

  "Luck, just luck. I've been playing craps for years; sometimes I get the rhythm right. If they hadn't thrown me out when they did I would probably have lost at least half of it back." I said defaulting to my usual explanation. "Just my luck they were poor losers, they knew I wasn't cheating."

  He tossed in more money as the bet came back to him on the next card. He was focusing on me and not the game; I don't think he even realized that only Jill was in now.

  "I'm surprised that you stripped like that," he said, seeing the bet as Jill raised him.

  "Never let them take you into the back," I told him. "That's where they beat you."

  Another card came out, and he bet again, still not looking at his cards. Jill raised him, and he pushed in big. Jill just smiled and winked at me and saw his bet.

  "They wouldn't have done that, would they?" he asked surprised.

  I watched as the
river card came out, and he suddenly looked at his cards and flinched. I think everyone at the table saw that.

  "Pass," he said.

  "One hundred," Jill said.

  "All in," he said pushing in the rest of his chips.

  Jill called and dropped her cards on the table, two pair, queens over threes, and she picked up the threes on the river.

  The guy swore, flung his cards onto the table, and getting up he stormed out.

  "Thanks, dude," he grumbled at me as he left.

  I shrugged, poker in a casino is not a social affair, it is serious business. I never engaged in idle conversation when I had money on the table.

  "I bet he would have had me, if I hadn't picked up that three!" Jill giggled, and I smiled as several of the others bought it. I'd have been surprised if he'd have beaten her queens.

  The next hand went better for me, and I won a hundred. The next ten hands I mucked, then I won fifty. A couple of hands later I lost forty, mostly on purpose, and that was how the night went on. When midnight came I called it quits and went back to Heather's apartment. She'd be asleep by now, she had to get up for work of course, and I had made about five hundred dollars. I had about twelve thousand in the bank now, and had a bankroll on me of a couple grand more.

  Another month and I figured I'd have enough to pay Sarah at least the twenty grand she wanted, if not the full twenty-eight.

  When I got back to the apartment, Heather was asleep as I had suspected and I put the five hundred down on the night table besides her. I always gave Heather five hundred at the end of the week to cover my living there. As she was pretty happy to take it, I suspected that Sarah was right; she wasn't doing all that well as a cop. I had discovered over the last month that I really liked Heather a lot and was very attracted to her, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. So I decided that as long as I was staying with her that I didn't want her to worry about money, and it really was only fair that I paid some kind of rent to cover the costs of my being there.

  Also, I think I wanted to impress her a little.

  Tomorrow was Monday and I didn't gamble on Mondays, there usually wasn't any point to it. Tuesdays were often pretty slow as well. So I'd head over to Sarah's and spend the day with her, then I'd come home and take Heather out to dinner and we'd make a night of it. Yeah, it was probably wrong that I was still sleeping with both of them, but the more I heard about the California coast from Sarah, the more I figured I was probably going to die anyways, so I might as well live a little.