Walking into Hart's Casino poker room in New Orleans, was a surreal experience for Randall. To the unknowing, the room looked like a cross-section of America. Conventioneers, tourists, businessmen, sometimes local politicians, and generally good folk sat elbow to elbow in usually cordial games. To Randall who knew by reputation or face the seedier players in town it was like he walked in with a special pair of goggles. He'd instantly spot the partners running signs at one table, a team of three or four at another table, and the grifters, sharps, lowlifes, "reformed" criminals, and degenerates spread throughout the room. Everybody else was blissfully unaware.
On one table, there was a thug who Randall knew was responsible for killing at least two people sitting next to a doctor from Peoria. On another table a bad card sharp who dealt seconds in a bar game sat next to a large women tourist. Some of the cheats even wore Mardi Gras beads like they were from out of town. And sprinkled through that lot were the local pros that somehow managed to make a living even with the minefield of deep-pockets chasing flush dreams on every hand, and crooked players attempting squeeze plays or whipsaws at every turn.
As Randall surveyed the 28 table room, looking for Taun and getting a lay of the land, the smell of stale smoke overwhelmed him, and a raspy voice whispered into his ear, "Who you looking for Randall... the next you?"
He turned and and immediately felt the hand of Cuba Perilloux slide into his own. "Where you been stranger?" Cuba's eyes sparkled. Randall took in the cartoon of a man. A cigarette defying physics hung on his lower lip, a dirty painter's cap sat slightly askew on a nest of stringy brown hair, and out from his t-shirts and shorts sprouted four un-toned tubes of flesh that were his arms and legs. His grip indicated a surprising sinewy strength and Randall returned it.
A necessary evil he thought and turned on the charm, "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba, how's life?"
"I can't complain," he took a satisfied drag from his cigarette and blew into the faces of a group of tourists walking by. "Course it'd be better if this was still a smoking room. You know I missed a jackpot 6 months ago coming to the rail to smoke."
"Smoking will kill you."
"Nah, Randall, not me, as you always said something else or somebody else will first," Cuba never lost his gallows humor, and laughed at his own wit, "Right?"
Randall, nodded and watched Stacy enter the poker room and put her name on the list and sit at the bar,"So How's ya mamma?"
"She ain't too bad, look the kid ain't here yet, he will be. Give it a couple of hours. There's a soft game on table 8. Maybe we can trap those tourists in seats 8 and 9. Like old times."
Randall squinted and studied the table. Running squeezes and passing signals with Cuba was not anything he was looking to get involved with at this time. Within seconds he was laughing to himself. The "tourists" in 8 and 9 were running their own traps working with seat 3. In fact, they were whipsawing the player in seat 1 as he watched. He grasped their system within seconds.
They weren't using the most common system of placing chips on different spots on their cards to signal to their teammates the strength of their hands but they were using a variation. He could probably break the code fairly easily but he already knew it had to do with the position they placed their cards after looking at them and the number of chips they played with in their hands or riffled on the table after doing so.
In one way Cuba was right, they would be a soft table because Randall would know their cards
every time, but he had other things on his mind. "Let's get a beer, Cuba," Randall pointed to the bar.
"This game's so soft though," Cuba raised his eyebrows.
"Let's get a beer."
Randall led them to side of the semi-circle bar Stacy wasn't on and ordered quickly, Cuba getting a Bud Lite and Randall an Abita Amber.
Cuba, had tipped off Randall about Tuan, he was kind of Randall's scouting service for Hart's casino. If Taun played as well as Cuba promised, Cuba would get a nice little finder's fee. Randall had worked with Cuba for many years, and kind of outgrew the scamp, but still fed him small tasks like this one as he was a likable rogue.
Cuba, tried to make his mark by dealing seconds and wasn't half bad, unlike Lazy though he lacked the grifter's innate sense of timing. His problem was juicing his customers too much. In fact, Randall found Cuba when the kid tried to cold-deck a room full of deep pockets in a game they played on the West Bank. Randall, of course, was setting his own trap with a more subtle game plan, when Cuba and a buddy slipped a cold deck into the game.
Randall spotted it immediately. The first mistake was Cuba snapped his fingers at a girl and in a raspy voice said, "It's Bloody Mary time." It felt out of place, and Randall had long ago cultivated a feel for when things were out of step from what they should be. The girl brought out his bloody Mary drinks on a platter and placed the platter half over the table. Randall eyed Cuba as she did it and spotted the transition that was fairly smoothly done. Under the tray was a sleeve, that held a deck of cards and with Cuba's turn to deal he quickly slid the deck out that he was using for the new one. Everybody's eyes of course were on the waitress above the table and not Cuba's hands below it. The near spill of the Bloody Mary was an obvious and needed touch that even the players not eye-cornering her cleavage had to focus on. Except of course Randall.
Randall's scam was slightly more sophisticated but he determined to see how Cuba's cold deck would play out.
Cuba turned to the player next to him and ask for the cut. As the idiot had done all night he just tapped. A small smile started at the corner of Cuba's lips. Must of have known the player to his left was a tapper, and planned on his seat placement Randall thought. Not bad.
They were playing seven card stud. When Randall got his hand he felt conflicted emotions. Wow, it's funny, he thought I was a target, kid has no clue. His top jack was matched by two more underneath. Though funny this kid had thought Randall a mark this was also troubling. This attempt looked like it was going to be a ham-fisted scam. Randall looked on with dismay as the players showing an A and K, his two targets, couldn't contain their happiness.
The cold deck, so called because, an older used deck is swapped out of play, for a deck that has been preset with cards in a certain arrangement got it's name because the cards from the new deck would literally be cold. The friction of playing a deck of cards heated them, you put a new deck into action and there was a notable absence of heat. As a result, getting coolered or cold decked also referred to having a huge hand lose to one of the few hands that could possibly be higher, because cheats would prearrange for these monsters to go to toe-to-toe in huge pots.
Randall's, anger grew as the first round of betting played out. The targets showing an A or K weren't born yesterday, and if Cuba's cold-deck, which apparently was going to consist of three or four huge hands losing at showdown to his straight flush, or low quads, played out the targets would get wise. Once the game was suspicious of foul play Randall would never be able to run his play later in the night.
He made a snap decision. When Cuba put the deck down, Randall elbowed the Bloody Mary right onto it. Cuba's eyes went wide with horror. "What the Fuck--man!" he screamed at Randall. Even better. Randall would have an excuse to take the kid outside and be alone with him.
The table leaped to help. Randall, made it worse as he "fumbled" the glass and dumped the full Bloody Mary all over the cold deck. No chance those cards would play.
He acted weak, "I'm... I'm... Sorry."
Cuba took the bait, "You fucking idiot!"
The players needed a distraction from their own big hands, they were about to get fleeced with, because they were going to be angry too. And Randall determined that distraction would be him taking Cuba outside. Plus, they knew Randall didn't take to being called a fucking anything.
Randall turned from the cards throwing his three jacks into the muck and jabbed his forearm into Cuba's throat. All 170 pounds of Cuba backtracked gasping. With his other arm Randall kept him up and pushed him out the door.
"Call me... Call ME a fucking idiot? You'll be lucky I don't kill you kid."
The other players forgot about the hand and followed them out the door.
Randall winked at his partner to let him know he hadn't completely flipped his lid.
Cuba took two hard slaps to the face, they landed like punches. His testosterone melting under Randall's ruthless slaps, he slumped against the wall. Randall kneed him in the stomach taking his wind. Cuba grasped at air and fell to the pavement.
Randall waved the onlookers away, he had done his damage.
Then he knelt and whispered into Cuba's ear, "You pull that cold deck stunt again, they'll be fishing you out of Lake Pontchartrain. Listen to me very closely you fucking leech. When we get back in there you tell that little waitress of yours to get lost with that tray. And you deal the rest of the night honest, and me and you will have a little conversation later. You do those things and I want need to lay another hand on you. You don't... and I'll drop you off the Causeway myself, tonight."
Randall, let Cuba roll on the ground and went back inside to do damage control. Before the two targets could start whining about their trip Ks and Aces they had to give up, Randall commanded the spotlight. "Now, let's get this shit cleaned up. We're playing Hold 'Em now. And I'm so god-damned pissed I don't want to hear another peep from anybody for two hands."
"We can't talk for two hands?" Randall's partner, thankfully, asked the obvious before someone else could.
"That's right, you say another word you'll be lying in the gutter with that guy," Randall menacingly eyeballed his secret buddy.
The other players didn't take to being talked to that way either. But they knew Randall well enough to give him a couple of hands to cool off. And Randall broke the silence quickly enough mid-way into the second hand with a long, tale that meandered over a couple hands, and soon the trip Aces and Kings were forgotten.
At the end of the night, Randall took Cuba on a drive and he took the kid under his wing for a bit. The first lesson he taught the kid that night was never underestimate your marks or anybody for that matter. "Don't make it obvious going for a big score all at once," he had said. Sure enough the kid was going to beat four sets of quads with a straight flush. Fucking idiot Randall told him. He made sure the kid got the picture that Randall probably saved his life by kicking his ass. Problem was Cuba never could stop being sloppy or figure out how to conceal his angles. Randall had to cut him loose at one point, but kept him around for harmless jobs like this one. Some people never change and Cuba was one of them, he was a guy that could never see the big picture even now.
Randall listened to him drone on about stealing big chips from his table mates. He'd risk getting banned from the casino, that he made his livelihood, in over stealing a couple of black-chips. Kid just didn't get it. He refrained from giving Cuba another lecture, that time had long since passed.
Then Cuba, very obviously jumped up from his seat, and pointed to a group of Vietnamese kids walking toward to the poker room, "That's Tuan."
"That's subtle," Randall thought rolling his eyes.
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