Chapter 11 #2
Fournier worked his way through a plate of sandwiches and several glasses of vin doux naturel before proposing resumption of the game with raised stakes.
They had left off with all three of Nate’s five-franc stakes remaining, Fournier and Oberlin with two each.
Nate, currently in the best position, declined raising the stakes from one to five francs per hand.
Fournier nodded knowingly. “Saving your money for that one?” he asked, nodding towards Isobel. Isobel stood with several of the other women near one of the passe-dix tables, a glass of wine in hand. She seemed to feel the men’s interest in her for she turned, lips curving in a shy smile.
“That, and the night is yet young,” he replied. “I’ve no wish to see it end prematurely should my luck turn.”
“Our friend Beaumont never plays more than three games,” Fournier informed Oberlin. “She’s lovely, your girl. Not that I am unhappy with my own mistress, you comprehend, but there is no cost for a man to appreciate the fortunes of another.”
With a noncommittal noise, Nate signaled the dealer to resume play.
On the fourth hand, Fournier went out when Nate made another trente-et-un.
Despite having lost money on the game, Fournier remained cheerful, rubbing his hands as he settled in to watch Nate and Oberlin finish out the game.
Nate still had two five-franc stakes remaining while Oberlin had none.
Oberlin took the first hand, knocking with twenty-nine, but Nate took the second, knocking early with twenty-eight and taking the game with a net of just over fifty francs.
After hearty congratulations, Fournier attempted to entice more players without success. “No takers? It is slow tonight. The weather, perhaps. Who can say? Another game, my friends, between us? Perhaps for this game we raise the stakes, M. Beaumont, as M. Oberlin has desired?”
Nate inclined his head in agreement.
“Fifteen francs in the dish, five francs per hand?” Fournier suggested. “Unless you have a different suggestion, M. Oberlin?”
Oberlin assented, too.
By virtue of draw, the order of play was the same as in the first game: Oberlin on the dealer’s left, Nate to Oberlin’s left, and Fournier to the dealer’s right.
After five hands, Oberlin’s and Fournier’s final five-franc pieces were in the pot and Nate had one remaining in his dish. It was possible, likely even, that either Oberlin or Fournier would be out after this hand, but he still needed to play moderately.
His opening cards weren’t spectacular, the queen of carreaux as his only court card and no matched suits, but after four turns he had assembled the queen–nine–eight of carreaux.
Oberlin’s discards had the appearance of tightening his hand in a particular suit. Fournier had picked up Nate’s most recent discard, the five of trèfles, suggesting he collected trèfles but did not have a strong hand.
A total of twenty-seven wasn’t ideal for knocking, but with three players there was a good possibility that he’d be safe if he did.
He was saved from deciding when Oberlin knocked with the roi-valet-sept of piques.
Fournier sheepishly laid down his hand: the dix-cinq-quatre of trèfles.
Nate and Oberlin, having tied at twenty-seven, both beat Fournier’s total of nineteen; Oberlin was safe.
Fournier rocked back in his chair. “Some nights the luck isn’t with one, eh?”
In general Nate agreed with that, which was why he never played more than three games in the course of an evening’s work, but trente-et-un also required at least a moderate amount of skill as a hand progressed.
Although when one had the amount of money Fournier did, it mattered little on the balance if one’s play owed more to luck than skill.
“You are up quite a bit after the first game.” Oberlin’s face was without expression—save his eyes, which were decidedly flinty. “What say you to raising the stakes to finish out this game? Perhaps one pièce d’or per hand?”
“House rules prevent wagers over ten francs,” the dealer interjected, a pièce d’or being equivalent to twenty francs.
“Ten francs then. Perhaps we will play elsewhere another time. For higher stakes.” Oberlin’s eyes rested unmistakably on Isobel before returning to Nate.
Fournier guffawed loudly, drawing attention to their table.
Oberlin had thus far won most of the pot money this game; Nate had the better position, however, having one stake remaining in his dish.
Oberlin would negate his winnings if he lost the game and thus the pot with the raised stakes.
His willingness to risk his gains did not smack of desperation; by his clothing and jewelry he was well-to-do enough to absorb a loss.
He was gauging Nate’s character, just as Nate gauged his. What was Oberlin’s true purpose here if not cards?
If Nate won the game and took the pot, he would come out well ahead.
If he lost playing for ten francs per remaining hand, he’d be at a deficit for the game but with a net gain for the night.
And he’d already decided this was his final game of the evening despite it only being the second.
He was convinced by now that Fournier was exactly as he appeared, but Oberlin was an unknown.
Oberlin’s conspicuous interest in Isobel made him uneasy; there was something calculated, perhaps even predatory, in the way Oberlin looked at her.
He mistrusted it, particularly combined with Oberlin’s evident antipathy towards him.
And he had no one in here who might back him up, with Baudelaire a room away.
He pushed coins forward, decision made. “Ten francs.”
“C’est merveilleux!” Fournier rubbed his hands together. “We are in for a show.”
A crowd had gathered around the table. Nate sensed Isobel somewhere close behind him. Oberlin’s cold eyes fixing briefly, avariciously, behind him confirmed it.
His cards on the first hand remained stubbornly low, too low to risk knocking, because he determined after three rounds that Oberlin was almost certainly collecting piques and thus had to consider his own discards accordingly.
Oberlin laid out trente-et-un on the table after his sixth draw.
Nate tossed the final five-franc stake from his dish and ten francs for the hand into the game pot. The dealer dealt them both three cards.
His opening cards were excellent: queen-two of piques and queen of trèfles. Managed well, he could quickly build a higher hand in either trèfles or piques while keeping the possibility for three queens, a score second in points only to trente-et-un.
Oberlin made his first move, keeping the card he drew off the stock and discarding the seven of trèfles. Middle pips weren’t junk cards, so Oberlin discarding that as his opening move might signal that Oberlin was not collecting trèfles.
The seven would improve Nate’s hand from twelve to seventeen while keeping both queens, a calculated risk but worth it at this stage. He picked it up, discarding the two of piques.
Although Oberlin moved the cards around in his hand after drawing off stock in an attempt to conceal it, he’d kept the stock card, discarding the eight of c?urs, middle pips again but of a different suit. Oberlin was building a suit, neither trèfles nor c?urs.
His own draw was the eight of piques. Not a major improvement over the seven of trèfles but worth keeping, particularly as discarding the trèfle he had just picked up off discard might misdirect Oberlin.
Sure enough, he observed a gleam of interest in Oberlin’s eye and just the slightest derisive lift at the corner of his mouth at the reappearance of the seven.
Oberlin drew off the stock and again kept it, this time discarding the five of carreaux. Likely at this point that he was collecting carreaux, discarding the lowest cards. He might try knocking with it in another hand or two given Nate’s discards signaled an abrupt change in suits.
This draw would therefore determine his strategy for the remainder of the hand. He drew off stock, first sliding the card among the rest. Tilting his hand to examine the new card, the hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
He discarded the eight of piques. He would lose if Oberlin made trente-et-un on his next draw. If Oberlin did not, the game was his.
Oberlin knocked rather than draw a card.
Nate declined the opportunity to exchange a card, and Oberlin laid out his cards, smirking: the king-knave-ten of carreaux, thirty points.
At worst, knocking with thirty and both of them out of stakes, Oberlin’s total should have tied with his own, thereby winning Oberlin the game as elder hand.
Quietly he turned up his cards one at a time. La dame de piques. La dame de trèfles. The final card he’d again drawn: la dame de c?urs, the queen of hearts. Three queens, totaling 30.5 points.
The assembled crowd erupted. More than one person slapped his shoulder, among them Fournier, who called for more wine.
As the dealer gathered in his winnings from the table, Nate briefly scanned the faces of the onlookers who’d drifted over to watch the conclusion of the second game.
No one caught his eye as out of place or interested in anything more than the dramatic conclusion to a tense game.
He caught Oberlin’s gaze. Oberlin returned the stare briefly, almost malevolently, before disgustedly pushing his chair back from the table without another word.
Fournier—sloppily working through another bottle of strong vin doux naturel—asked him if he was certain he did not wish to play his usual third game. No? Well then, he hoped very much M. Beaumont would return another night soon.