Kresge was unfocused and O'Connor wondered if he was stoned. He wore his hat backward and the sleeves of his wrinkled shirt rolled up, revealing a tat that started with a Gothic letter F. The rest of the word disappeared underneath the sleeve but nobody doubted what the remaining letters were.
Sandra Glickman was the only woman in the game. She was a stand-up comic originally from New York but who lived out here now. She worked the Laugh Factory and Caroline's and appeared occasionally on Comedy Central on TV. O'Connor had seen her once or twice on TV. Her routines were crude and funny ("Hey, you guys out there'll be interested to know I'm bisexual; buy me something and I'll have sex with you."). O'Connor had learned that she'd gone to Harvard on a full scholarship and had a master's degree in advanced math. She'd started doing the comedy thing as a lark before she settled down to teach math or science. That had been six years ago and comedy had won over academia.
Charles Bingham was a familiar face from TV and movies, though few people knew his name. Extremely tanned, fit, in his early sixties, he wore a blue blazer and tan slacks, dress shirt and tie. His dyed blond hair was parted perfectly down the side and it was a fifty-fifty chance that the coif was a piece, O'Connor estimated. Bingham was a solid character player and that character was almost always the same: the older ex-husband of the leading lady, the coworker or brother of the leading man, a petty officer in a war movie--and usually one of the first to get killed in battle.
He'd been born Charles Brzezinski, the rumor was. But so what? O'Connor's own first name was still legally Maurice.
The big surprise in the crowd was Dillon McKennah. The handsome thirtysomething was a big-screen actor. He'd be the one real star at the table. He'd been nominated for an Oscar for his role in a Spielberg film and everybody was surprised he'd lost. He'd been called the New James Dean. But his career had faltered. He'd made some bad choices recently: lackluster teen comedies and a truly terrible horror film--in which gore and a crashing soundtrack substituted, poorly, for suspense. Even on his most depressed days, O'Connor could look at himself in the mirror and say that he'd never taken on a script he didn't respect. McKennah mentioned that he was working on a new project, though he gave no details. But every actor in Hollywood was engaged in a "new project," just like every writer had a script "in development."
They drank coffee, ate from the luxurious spread of breakfast delicacies and chatted, generally playing type: Stone T was hip. Sandra cracked jokes. Bingham smiled vacantly, stiff and polite. Kresge was loud. McKennah was Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. And O'Connor was the strong silent sort.
As the conversation continued, O'Connor was surprised to find how lucky he was to be here. Apparently, when word went out about Go For Broke, close to five thousand people had contacted Aaron Felter's office, either directly or through their agents.
Everybody wanted the bump.
Now, the door of the conference room swung open and Aaron Felter entered.
"Okay, all, how you doing?...Hey, Sandy, caught your act on Sunset this weekend."
The woman comic gave him a thumbs-up. "Were you that fucking heckler?"
"Like I'd spar against you? Am I nuts?"
"Yo, Aaron, can we drink?" asked Brad Kresge. "On the set, I mean. I play better that way."
"You can do whatever you want," Felter told him. "But you break any cameras--or any heads--you pay for 'em."
"Fucking funny."
When coffee cups were refilled and the bagel table raided again, Felter sat on the edge of the table in the front of the room. "Now, folks. Today's the day. I want to run through the plan. First, let's talk about the game itself." He asked a young man into the room. The slim guy was the professional dealer Felter had flown in from Atlantic City. He sat down at the table and--after awing them with his incredible dexterity--went through protocol and rules of the game they'd be playing, Texas Hold 'Em.
This was one of the simplest of all poker games (selected, O'Connor guessed, not because of the contestants, but because of the audience, so they could follow the play). There was no ante; the players to the dealer's left would place blind bets before the deal--a small blind from the player to the immediate left and then a large blind, twice that amount, from the player on his left to create a pot. Each player then was dealt two hole cards, which nobody else could see, and then placed bets or folded, based on those cards. The amount of the blinds would be set ahead of time.
Then came the flop: three community cards dealt faceup in the middle of the table. Betting commenced again and two more community cards were dealt faceup, making five. Traditional rules of poker applied to the betting process: checking--choosing not to bet--as well as seeing, raising or calling someone at the showdown.
When that occurred, players used their two hole cards plus any three of the five face-up board cards to make the best hand they could.
"Now, one thing we're not doing," Felter announced. "No hidden cameras."
Most televised poker shows featured small cameras that allowed the audience and commentators to see each player's hole cards. The systems were tightly controlled and the games usually recorded ahead of time so there was no risk of using that information to cheat in real time, but that wasn't Felter's concern. A born showman, he wanted the tension of live drama: "What's the excitement if the audience knows what everybody's hand is? I want people at home to be on the edge of their seats. Hell, I want them to fall off their seats.
"Now remember, you're live. Don't pick your nose or grab your crotch."
"Can I grab somebody else's crotch?" Glickman asked.
McKennah and, despite the blonde on his arm, Kresge raised their hands.
Everyone laughed.
"And," Felter continued, "you'll be miked, so if you whisper, 'Fuck me,' we'll bleep it but your mother's going to know you said something naughty. Now, I want laughs and sighs and banter. We'll have three cameras on close-ups and medium angles and one camera on top showing the board. No sunglasses." This was directed to Brad Kresge, who was always wearing them. "I want expression. Cry, look exasperated, laugh, get pissed off. This is a poker game but first and foremost it's TV! I want the audience engaged...Any questions?"
There were none and the contestants dispersed.
On his way to join Diane for a swim before the show, Mike O'Connor was trying to recall what was familiar about Felter's speech.
Then he remembered: It was out of some gladiator film, when the man who was in charge gave his before-the-games pep talk, reminding the warriors that though most of them were about to die, they should go out and put on the best show they could.
*
SAMMY RALSTON AND JAKE were in a bar up the street from Elysium Fields Spa.
Jesus, it was hot.
"Why Nevada?" Ralston asked. "Why the desert? They oughta put casinos where the weather's nicer." Ralston was sweating like crazy. Jake wasn't. Big guy like that and he wasn't sweating. What was that about?
The biker said, "If the weather's nice people stay outside and don't gamble. If the weather's shitty, they stay inside and do. That's not rocket science."
Oh. Made sense.
Ralston fed a quarter into the minislot at the end of the bar and Jake looked at him like, you want to throw your money away, go ahead. He lost. He fed another quarter in and lost again.
The two men had spent the last few days checking out the Elysium Fields. It was one of those places that dated from the fifties and was pretty nice, but also sort of shabby. It reminded Ralston of his grandmother's apartment's decor in Paramus, New Jersey. A lot of yellows, a lot of mirrors that looked like they had bad skin conditions, a lot of fading white statuettes.
Jake, with his tats and biker physique, stood out big-time, so he'd done most of the behind-the-scenes information gathering, from press releases and a few discreet calls to his union contact on the studio back lot. He'd learned that the TV show would be shot in the grand ballroom. At the beginning of the show, armed guards would give each player a suitcase containi
ng his buy-in, which would sit on a table behind his chair. He'd take what he needed from it to play.
"Gotta be a big suitcase, I'd guess."
"No. Two fifty takes up shit. If it's in twenties or bigger."
"Oh." Ralston supposed Jake would know this. The most he himself had ever boosted in cash was about $2,000. But that was in quarters and he pulled his back out, schlepping it from the arcade to his car.
After the initial episode tonight was over, the money went back in the suitcases of the players who hadn't gone bust. The guards would take it to the hotel's safe for the night.
As for the surveillance of the Elysium Fields, Ralston had done most of that. He had his window-washing truck and his gear here, so he was virtually invisible. All contractors were. He'd learned that the ballroom was in a separate building. The guards would have to wheel the money down a service walk about sixty feet or so to get to the safe. Ralston had found that the walk was lined with tall plants, a perfect place to hide to jump out and surprise the guards. They'd overpower, cuff and duct tape them, grab the suitcases and flee to the opposite lot.
He and Jake discussed it and they decided to act tonight, after the first round of games; tomorrow, after the finale, there'd be more people around and they couldn't be sure if the money would be returned to the safe.
The plan sounded okay to both men, but Jake said, "I think we need some kind of, you know, distraction. These security people around here. They're pros. They're going to be looking everywhere."
Ralston suggested setting off some explosion on the grounds. Blow up a car or pull the fire alarm.
But Jake didn't like that. "Fuck, as soon as anybody hears that they'll know something's going down, the money'll have guards all over it." Then the biker blinked and nodded. "Hey, you noticed people getting married around here a lot?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"And everybody getting their pictures taken?"
Ralston caught on. "All those flashes, yeah. You mean, blind 'em somehow with a camera?"
Jake nodded. "But we walk up with a camera, the guards'd freak."
"How about we get one of those flashes you see at weddings. The remote ones."
"Yeah. On tripods."
"We get one of those, set it up about halfway along the walk. When they're nearby we flash it. They'll be totally fucking blinded. We come up behind. They won't fucking know what hit them. I like it. Think we can find something like that around here?"
"Probably."
The men paid for their beers and stepped out into the heat.
"Oh, one thing?"
"Yeah?" Jake grunted.
"What about...you know."
"No, I don't fucking know until you tell me."
"A piece. I don't have a piece."
Jake laughed. "I'm curious. You ever used one?"
"Fuck, yes." In fact, no, he'd never fired a gun, not on a job. But he was pissed that Jake seemed to be laughing at him about it.
When they were in the window-washing truck, Jake grabbed his canvas backpack from behind the seat. He opened it up for Ralston to see. There were three pistols inside.
"Take your pick."
Ralston chose the revolver. It had fewer moving parts and levers and things on the side. With this one he wouldn't have to ask Jake how it worked.
*
THE BANQUET HALL WHERE Go For Broke was being shot was huge and it was completely packed.
The place was also decked out like every TV set that Mike O'Connor had ever been on: A very small portion--what the camera saw--was sleek and fashionably decorated. The rest was a mess: scaffolding, bleachers, cameras, wires, lights. It looked like a factory.
The contestants had finished with hair and makeup (except Kresge: "You get me the way I am, leave me the fuck alone") and the sound man had wired them--mikes to their chests and plugs to their ears. They were presently in the greenroom, making small talk. O'Connor noted the costumes. Sandra Glickman was low-cut and glittery; Kresge was still in his hat-backward, show-the-tats mode. Stone T was subdued South Central and had gotten Felter's okay to wear Ali G goggles, not nearly as dark as sunglasses; you could get a good look at his eyes (for the "drama" when he won a big pot or ended up busted, presumably). Charles Bingham was in another blazer and razor-creased gray slacks. He wore a tie but an ascot wouldn't've been out of place. Dillon McKennah wore the de rigueur costume of youthful West Hollywood, an untucked striped blue-and-white shirt over a black T-shirt and tan chinos. His hair was spiked up in a fringe above his handsome face.
O'Connor had been dressed by Diane in "older man sexy." Black sports coat, white T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," she'd whispered and kissed him for luck. "Go break a thumb."
The production assistant--not the big gay fellow from L.A., but a young nervous brunette--stood in the greenroom's doorway, clutching a clipboard, a massive radio on her hip. She listened to the voice of the director from the control room and kept glancing at her watch.
Television was timed to the tenth of a second.
Suddenly she stiffened. "All right, everybody, please. We're on in three." She then rounded them up like cattle and headed them to the assembly point.
There, O'Connor looked at the monitor, showing what the viewers around the country would be seeing: splashy graphics and some brash music. Then the camera settled on a handsome young man--dressed similarly to Dillon McKennah--sitting at a desk, like a sports commentator. Beside him were an African-American in a suit and a skinny white guy in a cowboy outfit.
"Good evening, I'm Lyle Westerbrook, your host for Go For Broke. Two exciting days of no-holds-barred poker. And joining me here are Andy Brock, three times winner of the World Championship of Poker in Atlantic City. Welcome, Andy."
"Good to see you, Lyle."
"And Pete Bronsky, a professional gambler from Dallas and the man who wrote Making a Living at Cards. Hi, Pete."
"Back at you, Lyle."
"This is reality TV at its most real. You are watching live, on location, six individuals who aren't playing for prestige, they aren't playing for a charity of their choice. They're playing with their own hard cash. Somebody's going to lose big--a quarter of a million dollars. And somebody's going to win--maybe as much as six times that. One and a half million dollars is going to be at play tonight. You gentlemen must know the excitement of what our contestants are feeling."
"Oh, you bet I do, Lyle..."
O'Connor tuned out of the banter, realizing that this was, in fact, the big time. Millions of people would be watching them and, more important, dozens of network and studio execs would be watching the ratings.
The bump...
"And now, let's meet our contestants."
They went out in alphabetical order, as the announcer made a few comments about them and their careers. O'Connor caught Diane's eye--she was in the front row--when the applause erupted at the mention of Homicide Detail and the character of Detective Mike Olson. Though when, like the rest of the players, he said a few words to Lyle and mentioned the phrase "Save it for the judge," one of his signature lines from the series, not many people laughed, which told him that the APPLAUSE sign had prompted people to cheer when the name of his show was mentioned.
Welcome to the world of TV.
When they were all seated around the table security guards brought in the cash, which had been wire transferred to a local bank yesterday. The audience murmured when the guards, rather dramatically, opened the cases and set them behind each player on a low table. (Was there an illuminated sign that urged, "SOUND AWED"?) The guards stood back, hands near their guns, scanning the audience from behind sunglasses.
O'Connor tried not to laugh.
The dealer explained the rules again--for the audience--then with cameras hovering, sweat already dripping, the room went utterly silent. The dealer nodded to O'Connor, to his immediate left. In Texas Hold 'Em, this was the button position, which signified the initial player, since unlike in informal games the play
ers would not be dealing; a pro would be handling that job. O'Connor pushed the small blind out onto the table, the agreed-upon $1000.
For the big blind, Kresge, to O'Connor's left, splashed the table, tossing his $2000 out carelessly--very bad form. Chugging a beer, he grinned as the dealer straightened it.
The hole cards were dealt, the top card burned--discarded--and the flop cards spun elegantly into the center of the table.
The game proceeded with nobody winning or losing big, no dramatic hands. Kresge bet hard and took some losses but then pulled back. Sandy Glickman, with the quick mind of a natural comedian (and mathematician), seemed to be calculating the odds before each bet. She increased her winnings slowly. Stone T was a middle-of-the-road player, suffering some losses and catching some wins, as did McKennah. Neither seemed like natural players. O'Connor played conservatively and continually reminded himself of the basic poker strategy he'd picked up over the years--and that Diane had helped drill into him in the last few weeks:
It's all right to fold up front. You don't have to play every hand.
Bluff rarely, if at all. Bluffing should be used appropriately and only against certain players in limited circumstances. Many professional players go for months at a time without bluffing.
Fold if you think you're going to lose no matter how much you've already put into the pot.
Always watch the cards. Texas Hold 'Em is played with a single fifty-two-card deck and only seven cards are known to any one player: his two and the five community cards. Unlike counting cards at blackjack or baccarat, knowing those seven won't give you great insights into what the others have. But knowing the board, you can roughly calculate the odds of whether someone else has a hand that beats yours.
Most important in poker, of course, is to watch the people playing against you. Some gamblers believe in tells--gestures or expressions that suggest what people have as their hole cards. O'Connor didn't believe that there were obvious tells, like scratching your eye when you had a high pair in the hole. But he did know that people respond consistently to stimuli--he'd learned this not from his limited experience as a card player but as an empathic actor. For instance he'd noticed that Stone T's face grew still when he had a good, though not necessarily a winning, hand. File those facts away and be aware of them.