The Queen equably tossed (counting, Malone thought, the ante) five
hundred into the pot.
The cowboy muttered to himself for a second, and finally shoved in his
money.
"I think I'll raise it another five hundred," the Queen said calmly.
Malone wanted to die of shock.
Unfortunately, he remained alive and watching. He saw the last man,
after some debate internal, shove a total of one thousand dollars into
the pot.
"Cards?" said the dealer. The first man said: "One."
It was too much to hope for, Malone thought. If that first man were
trying to fill a straight or a flush, maybe he wouldn't make it. And
maybe something final would happen to all the other players. But that
was the only way he could see for Her Majesty to win.
The card was dealt. The second man stood pat and Malone's green tinge
became obvious to the veriest dunce. The cowboy, on Her Majesty's
right, asked for a card, received it and sat back without a trace of
expression.
The Queen said: "I'll try one for size." She'd picked up poker lingo,
and the basic rules of the game, Malone realized, from the other
players--or possibly from someone at the hospital itself, years ago.
He wished she'd picked up something less dangerous instead, like a
love of big-game hunting, or stunt-flying.
But no. It had to be poker.
The Queen threw away her seven of spades, showing more sense than
Malone had given her credit for at any time during the game. She let
the other card fall and didn't look at it.
She smiled up at Malone and Boyd. "Live dangerously," she said gaily.
Malone gave her a hollow laugh.
The last man drew one card, too, and the betting began.
The Queen's remaining thousand was gone before an eye could notice it.
She turned to Boyd.
"Sir Thomas," she said. "Another five thousand, please. At once."
Boyd said nothing at all, but marched off. Malone noticed, however,
that his step was neither as springy nor as confident as it had been
before. For himself, Malone was sure that he could not walk at all.
Maybe, he thought hopefully, the floor would open up and swallow them
all. He tried to imagine explaining the loss of $20,000 to Burris and
some congressmen, and after that he watched the floor narrowly, hoping
for the smallest hint of a crack in the palazzo marble.
"May I raise the whole five thousand?" the Queen said.
"It's okay with me," the dealer said. "How about the rest of you?"
The four grunts he got expressed a suppressed eagerness. The Queen
took the new chips Boyd had brought her and shoved them into the
center of the table with a fine, careless gesture of her hand. She
smiled gaily at everybody. "Seeing me?" she said.
Everybody was.
"Well, you see, it was this way," Malone muttered to himself,
rehearsing. He half-thought that one of the others would raise again,
but no one did. After all, each of them must be convinced that he held
a great hand, and though raising had gone on throughout the hand, each
must now be afraid of going the least little bit too far and scaring
the others out.
"Mr. Congressman," Malone muttered. "There's this game called poker.
You play it with cards and money. Chiefly money."
That wasn't any good.
"You've been called," the dealer said to the first man, who'd opened
the hand a year or so before.
"Why, sure," the player said, and laid down a pair of aces, a pair of
threes--and a four. One of the threes, and the four, were clubs. That
reduced the already improbable chances of the Queen's coming up with a
flush.
"Sorry," said the second man, and laid down a straight with a single
gesture.
The straight was nine-high and there were no clubs in it. Malone felt
devoutly thankful for that.
The second man reached for the money but, under the popeyed gaze of
the dealer, the fifth man laid down another straight--this one ten
high. The nine was a club Malone felt the odds go down, right in his
own stomach.
And now the cowboy put down his cards. The King of diamonds. The King
of hearts. The Jack of diamonds. The Jack of spades. And--the Jack of
hearts.