He had a coarse hawkish face—a New Yorker’s face—and shaggy white hair that supported a pair of reading glasses. In his shirt pocket was a fountain pen and a phone, which, as I slid into the two seat, he removed to make a call. “In case I’m running late,” he said, jostling four white chips in his left hand, “it’s Young Frank.”
“Gotta get off that phone,” the dealer told him. She dealt everyone a second card and said, in the careless defeated voice of someone repeating herself for the thousandth time, “Gotta get off that phone.”
“Some serious sh*t, man,” he said, giving me a glance.
“Sticklers for rules,” I said, smirking. You could say that Frank and I knew each other: we had achieved the pleasant impersonal intimacy of two cardroom regulars. It helped that we both liked books, movies, plays—artsy stuff. A few times, scanning the room, I’d seen him squinting at some printed-out screenplay, glasses on, practicing lines with exaggerated concentration. He was an actor, or a failed actor. He was pushing sixty.
“I want to tell you something. Can I give you a heads up?” He pointed at the six seat, an olive-skinned octogenarian wearing a rumpled blue cardigan. “This man? He’s playing a good game.”
I was familiar, but not acquainted, with Six. He struck me as a pleasant man who laughed easily and slowplayed his big pairs. But now he was frowning and his shoulders slumped, as though he were carrying invisible luggage.
A voice shot out from the one seat. It was Any-Two Lou. “Why are you picking on that man?” Wearing enormous trousers and a blue button-down, Lou resembled Miracle Max from The Princess Bride.
“I told everybody else, so I’ll tell you,” Six said, looking at me and then at Frank. “This guy is the best table cleaner at Emeril’s. Really.”
“Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. I really do,” Frank said. “Listen, I want to tell you—you’re playing a good game. A good game. I’ve always respected you.”
“Frank, my buddy just showed me your restaurant recommendations,” I said, trying to change the subject. On my way into the room I’d bumped into a friend who was scanning a handwritten list of the best New Orleans spots. Looking at Frank now, dressed in a white shirt and an evergreen tie, it was easy to imagine him striding from table to table inside Emeril’s or some other swanky spot.
“The best thing that you could possibly do,” he replied sagely, “is come to my restaurant and ask for me. Ask for Young Frank. Order what I tell you to order. If you know anything about restaurants, then you know it’s not the restaurant—it’s the items that they serve. You ever been to Denny’s?” He nodded at Six. “His picture is on the wall of Denny’s, nationwide. He’s their number one patron.”
Lou’s jowls began to quiver. I had seen him take countless bad beats (and deliver plenty of his own) with remarkable equanimity. But I’d never seen him this pissed.
“C’mon, man, I’m having fun with him,” Frank said innocently. “He has fun with me.”
“It’s affecting him,” Lou said softly. “It’s affecting him.” Glaring straight into the grape-colored baize, Six didn’t say a word.
“Well, I’ll leave him alone. But he’s not in a good mood today.”
It was almost four, and the cardroom was busier than usual. A WSOP tournament series was in town, and over the PA system droned announcements for 5/5 PLO, 2/5 hold ‘em, $150 sit’n’gos. A man wearing glasses and a ballcap took the three seat, between Frank and me. I shimmied to the right and asked how he was doing.
“Good. I talked to my doctor on the phone, trying to get my Viagra refilled,” he said, speaking to me as if we were buddies, although we’d never met. “He said, ‘You know how old you are, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’ll be 74.’”
“Gotta keep going while you can,” I said.
Mr. Viagra nodded. “By next week I’ll be all set.”
“It’s 4:02,” Frank muttered, staring at his phone. “One more hand and I walk out the door. Then you’ll never have to see me again.”
“You’re late,” Six said. “Gotta carry your butt to work.”
“Have I mentioned that I like how you play?” Frank asked. He leaned to his left and said, delicately, “I’ve always respected you. Always.”
“How come you don’t play his way?” Lou asked Six.
“I can’t.” He paused and added sharply: “I don’t clean tables.”
“Betcha I’ve got more money than you do,” Frank said evenly.
Lou shook his head. “I’ve known the man for about thirty years.”
“Google me, brother,” Frank said, challenging the table. “Google me. Google my ass.”
“While you’re Googling, check me,” Lou said. “I gave this casino two-and-a-half million.”
“My father is worth four billion dollars. I know the Gettys. They’re friends of mine.”
Six cackled sarcastically. “He knows ‘em.”
“I’m a working class guy who’s inherited a great deal of money. Google ‘Alexander Francis Horn.’ Besides money, you’re gonna be shocked by what you see.”
Mr. Viagra whipped out his phone. “Says here Alexander Francis Horn died in 2007. Says he was...a cult leader?”
“He had 30,000 constituents,” Frank said. “They gave him half their money, and I’m getting everything that my stepmother has. It’s in the will. I’m getting four-and-a-half billion dollars. Billion. Fifty or a hundred million don’t mean sh*t.”
“What’s the stepmother’s name?” Lou asked. “I might know her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know all the wealthy people on Canal Street.”
“She lives in the condominiums at The Plaza, in New York. Her apartment is worth 36 million dollars. And that’s nothing—icing on the cake. Icing on the cake. Icing on the cake.” Frank turned to me. “You’re a teacher, right? Look up Maurice Nicoll’s commentaries. He’s a philosopher who made billions of dollars. It’s the kind of stuff that appeals to intellectuals.”
“Like Tony Robbins,” Mr. Viagra said.
“No. It appeals to people brighter than the people who go to Tony Robbins. The problem is it’s corruptible. Because, in the end, you’re picking a human being to be your leader, and you do what they tell you to do.”
“Do your parents actually believe in what they’re doing?” I asked.
“Yeah. They do believe in what they’re doing.” He grimaced, and for the first time it seemed like he’d lost his cool. “What they’re doing is the biggest bullsh*t I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“So,” I said, unable to resist asking the obvious question. “How do you feel inheriting money that’s coming from those people?”
“A lot of people ask that sh*t. I don’t mind.” He flung his arms up. “Where’s it gonna go? Back to the people that gave it? No. To the government? No. There’s nowhere for it to go. I’ll take it. I’m a decent guy.” He grimaced again and checked the time. “Oh, my God.” He flicked eight whites into the pot. “I’ve got one more hand in me, then I’m out of here.”
“Why? Why you raising?” Lou asked.
“Because it’s my last hand.”
The flop was Queen, Six, Three, with two hearts. “I’d like to see a heart,” Mr. Viagra said, calling Frank’s bet.
“This is 4/8 limit,” Frank said. “Nobody has a heart.”
Mr. Viagra called on the turn, the Three of spades, and again on the Deuce of clubs river. He lost to Frank’s King-Queen of diamonds. “One more hand for Young Frank,” he said, posting his small blind.
“One last hand, this time,” Six said.
“It is.”
Six limped under-the-gun, as did a few others. Looking down at two red Aces on the button, I raised.
“Twelve,” Mike said, sliding out a stack of whites.
“Who made it twelve?” Six asked.
“Your best friend,” Mr. Viagra said. After some deliberation, Six called the three bets cold. The other limpers called too, of course, and the action was back to me. “You know what I’m doing on your last hand,” I said to Frank. “Sixteen!”
Six of us saw a Queen-high flop, and action checked to me. I bet, Frank called, and Six raised; after I reraised, Frank chucked his cards and began frantically racking up.
“Sixteen,” Six said, capping the betting. I called, hoping to hit a third Ace. I didn’t. I lost to Six’s set of Queens, but there was good news. A waitress appeared with my consolation prize—coffee with cream.
By now Young Frank was hustling to the cashier’s cage, carrying two racks of white with one arm like a bundle of firewood; his other arm awkwardly squeezed a phone to his ear.
“Sounds like he reads a lot of weird sh*t,” Mr. Viagra said, watching him leave.
“His mother’s a billionaire!” Six said, smiling and stacking chips. “Now he’s off to work.”
