Spoonbenders

“Picture it,” Frankie said. “The tension in the room. Because these three guys that are left with Teddy, they’re not all friends. I mean, they’re all connected in one way or another, but—you know what I mean by connected? Never mind. There’s bad blood. The guy who’s not on the team, the guy working solo, he fucking hates those other two guys. Teddy knows this. But Teddy’s still pretending to be the mark, and the only thing all three of those other guys agree on is sucking Teddy dry first. So he stays in, looking for an opening, but he’s getting poleaxed, like, every hand.”

“But he can read their cards,” Matty said.

“Of course he can. Read their hands like they’re holding up cue cards. But these fuckers, the two guys working the team? They’re dealing themselves unstoppable hands. Not the same guy every time, they don’t want to tip off their third guy, but they’re having their way with the table. Now, Teddy could just give it all back. He could lose the hands, and get out of there with his life. But this is Teddy Telemachus.”

“Never give back the money,” Matty said.

“Damn straight. So Teddy figures, the only way to get out of this alive and with his hard-earned cash, too, is be the last man standing. He’s gotta turn these guys against each other. Let the tag team fuck up so badly, and screw the third guy so obviously, that they go for each other’s throats. Soon as the shit hits the fan, Teddy can grab his cash and go.

“He can’t rig the hands while he’s dealing, that’s too obvious. So he waits, and he waits, and finally he gets his moment. One of the tag-teamers is dealing, and suddenly this guy’s got two aces in his hand. And his partner, across the table? He gets a pair of aces, too. They can’t fucking believe it. They start running up the pot. By the time you get to the flop, there’s ten grand in the pot. Ten thousand dollars, Matty. And when they turn over their cards, and the tag-teamers show their aces, guess what?”

The kid could not guess what.

Frankie smiled big. “Each of ’em has a fucking ace of spades.”

Matty laughing now, into it.

“Two aces of spades!” Frankie said. “The guy not on the team went batshit! And he can’t blame Teddy, because he wasn’t even dealing! Boom, the other guys go at it, and Teddy hits the streets, the bills practically falling out of his pockets.”

“So how did he do it?” Matty asked. “How did he rig the hand without dealing?”

“He’s Teddy Fucking Telemachus, that’s how.”

“Was it telepathy?” Matty asked.

“What?”

“Like, he made them see an ace of spades, but it was really, I don’t know, the ace of clubs?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Teleportation?”

“Jesus, Matty, no. He did it in the cut. They asked him to cut the cards, and that’s when he—why are you making that face?”

“He does have…powers, right?”

Oh Jesus. The kid looked like he’d just swallowed something with legs.

“Of course he does!” Frankie said. “But he’s a reader. That’s his thing. He can’t just teleport shit, or cloud men’s minds. Everybody’s got their own talent.”

“Like your psychokinesis,” Matty said.

“Right, right.”

“And Mom’s thing. And Uncle Buddy’s—”

“Don’t get me started on Buddy, whatever talent that shithead used to have—never mind. The point of this story…”

What was the point? Somewhere along the way Frankie had lost track of what he was trying to prove to the kid. Something about paychecks. But fuck, what had a steady check done for Frankie, except sap his soul? After Bellerophonics went down and he got in deep with the wolves, he’d had one more shot to make it all back. A brass ring moment. And fucking Buddy had ruined it. Now, with all the interest, he was so far in the hole that the steadiest paycheck in the world wasn’t going to save him.

“Uncle Frankie? You okay?”

“What, me? Of course.” He was sweating again, his stomach burning like a furnace, and the cash in his pocket throwing off its own heat. Two months of mortgage there. “Just thinking about the day, Matty. It’s going to be a busy one.” He glanced over at the kid. That look on his face again. “What is it, partner?”

Matty took a breath. “It’s still real, right? You can move stuff with your mind?”

“I’m insulted you even ask,” Frankie said.

Once, he’d been a pinball wizard. The White Elm Skating Rink on Roosevelt Road, that’s where he rolled and ruled. Camped out for hours in a coatroom turned arcade. There was space for only three games, two pinball machines and a brand-new Asteroids cabinet. Most of the kids wanted to play Asteroids, couldn’t get enough of it. Not Frankie. At sixteen he already considered himself an arcade purist. Video games weren’t real. They were TVs, every game the same no matter where you played it.

Pinball machines, though, were alive. Individuals. The same game could be totally different from arcade to arcade; the paddles hard or spongy, springs tilt-happy or sluggish. A single table could change its mood, cranky one day and sweet the next.