The Nine Is Good

by Hearts, Simulacrum; Spades, Simulacrum · Universitas Scholarium

Ike Szabo dealt the last hand at twenty to one, because he had the six o'clock at Plant 1 and said so twice. Bernadette had already hung her coat on the back of her chair. The percolator was off. The oilcloth on the Tacketts' kitchen table had a burn the size of a quarter by Royce's elbow, from a Pall Mall in 1974, and he kept his cards over it out of habit.

Lorene had the score pad. She always had it. Two columns in pencil, US and THEM, and under each a stack of numbers she had added and re-added all night, touching each figure with the eraser end of the pencil as she went.

THEM: 440. US: 371.

The last digit told you the bags. Lorene had drawn a small circle round the 1. An hour ago it had been 418, and then Royce had bid five on a hand that made eight, and the three overtricks had taken the bags round past ten, and the ten had cost a hundred. She had not said anything about it. She had written 471, and drawn a line under it, and written 371, and drawn the circle.

On the windowsill over the sink, between the dish soap and a jelly glass with a split philodendron in it, lay a red plastic name tag that said LORENE. It had come Thursday in an envelope from the Acme on Kenmore Boulevard, with a typed sheet: cashiers wear dark slacks and soft-soled shoes and report at seven. Royce had looked at it a number of times during the evening. Nobody else had.

It had been a long evening for Royce. At half past nine he had picked up the ace and queen of spades and a pair of side kings and bid five, and the king of spades had been sitting over his queen in Ike's hand, and one of his kings had been trumped on the second round, and they had gone set, minus fifty. At eleven he had bid four on a hand that was a sure two and a hopeful two, and made six, and that was two bags, and then the hand that made eight. Each time Lorene had written the number down without a word and touched the figures above it with the eraser, adding.

"You're bidding like it's Friday," Ike had said once, which was what they said at the plant about a man who spent his check before he had it.

He picked up his hand and sorted it. Spades on the left, always, the way a sergeant at Fort Polk had taught him in 1968 in a day room that smelled of floor wax. Ace of spades, king of spades, nine. King, seven, three, deuce of hearts. Queen, ten, six of diamonds. Ace, eight, five of clubs.

It was a good hand. It looked like six.

"Last one," Ike said. "Then I'm gone."

"You said."

"I'm saying it again so nobody gets ideas."

Lorene bid first, on the dealer's left. She had looked at her cards once, when she picked them up. She had fanned them and closed them and laid them face down on the oilcloth with her hand flat on top.

"Nil," Lorene said.

Ike whistled through his teeth. Bernadette looked at Royce. Royce looked at the back of Lorene's hand.

Nil is the bid of nothing. You contract to take no trick at all, from the first card to the thirteenth. Do it and your side scores a hundred. Take one trick, one, and the hundred goes the other way. And you do not do it alone. The man across from you has to carry you. He has to see the trick that is about to fall on you and take it himself. He has to lead the high cards that let you get out from under yours. He has to spend his own tricks doing it, if that is what it costs.

Bernadette held her cards close to her collarbone, the way she had held them since the first Saturday in 1975. "Two."

And then Royce.

He knew what he would have said at nine o'clock. He would have said six. He had said six or five on every hand like this one all night, all winter, and he had been set twice and bagged out once. At nine o'clock he had told Ike that Plant 2 would be calling the tire builders back by Easter, a man on the committee had said so, and Ike had said that was good, and had gone on looking at his cards.

Six. He took it apart.

Ace of spades: wins. Nothing is over it and nothing can trump it. That is a trick.

King of spades: wins, because the only card over it was the ace, and the ace was in his own hand. That is a trick.

Ace of clubs: wins, unless somebody is out of clubs on the first round, which happens, but not often. Call it a trick.

Three.

King of hearts: maybe. If the ace of hearts sat on his right, in Bernadette's hand, it would have to show before he played, and he could wait for it. If it sat on his left, in Ike's, it would come down on his king. A good maybe. A maybe is not a trick.

Queen of diamonds: probably not, with two people watching for her.

The nine of spades was a nine.

Three certain, one good maybe. And she had bid nil, which meant every high card he held was hers now as much as his. He would be spending them to cover her, at her time and not his, and some of what he would have counted at nine o'clock would go across the table while he kept her clean.

Three. One more for the king.

"Four," Royce said.

Lorene's pencil stopped. Then it wrote, under US, N / 4.

Ike looked at Royce for a while before he bid. He had been sitting across the table from that four all winter, and it was not a number he had seen.

"Three," Ike said, last. Five for the Szabos.

Bernadette leaned over to Lorene. "You sure, hon?"

"I bid it," Lorene said.

Royce did the arithmetic because he could not help it. If it all went right, a hundred for the nil and forty for the four: five hundred and eleven. If the Szabos made their five and took the rest in bags, they could get to four hundred and ninety-four at the outside. They had played for a nickel a point since 1975.

---

Lorene led the deuce of clubs. Bernadette had to put the jack on it, which was all the clubs she had. Royce took it with the ace. One.

Then he led the king of hearts.

He did not have to. He could have waited, the way he had planned, and let the ace show itself. But Lorene had led a deuce, and her hand lay flat on the rest, and whatever she was carrying high in hearts, she could not get rid of it except under something higher. So he gave her something higher. Ike covered with the ace, quick, the way a man covers a bet. Lorene put the queen of hearts on top of it, and took her thumb off her cards.

There went the maybe. Royce let it go. He was still counting.

Ike ran the king and queen of clubs. Lorene dropped the nine and the six under them. Bernadette, out of clubs, threw diamonds. Ike led a small heart, and Lorene played her four, and Bernadette had to put the ten on it, her last heart, and the trick was hers.

Bernadette cashed the ace and king of diamonds. Lorene let the jack and the nine of diamonds go under them, one and then the other. Royce followed with the six and the ten. Ike, who had no diamonds, threw hearts and watched. He was not watching the cards. He was watching Lorene's thumb, and Lorene knew it, and she kept her thumb flat and still on the backs of her cards like a woman holding down a letter in a wind.

The refrigerator came on. Somebody's car went by slow on the packed snow outside, chains ringing.

Then Bernadette led the seven of diamonds, and Royce put up his queen, because a trick was a trick, and Ike trumped it with the four of spades. Lorene dropped the eight of diamonds. Spades were broken. The Szabos had seven tricks to the Tacketts' one, and there were five left, and Royce needed three of them.

Ike cashed the jack of hearts. Lorene threw her last diamond. Royce followed with his three.

Then Ike led the ten of clubs, and looked across at Lorene.

Lorene played the four of clubs. Bernadette had nothing left but spades, and had to put one on her own husband's ten. She put the three.

Royce had the ace, king and nine of spades and the seven of hearts.

He could throw the heart and let Bernadette have it. That was a trick he could not get back. He could overtrump with the ace or the king, and that would cost him one of the two cards Lorene might need to hide under later. Royce did not know what Lorene had left. He knew she had three cards, and he knew she had not shown a spade all night.

There was a three of spades on the table and nothing higher.

The nine was good.

He put it on. Two.

He led the ace of spades. Ike dropped the jack. Lorene put the ten of spades on it, and Royce heard her let out a breath through her nose. Bernadette played the six. Three.

He led the king. Ike dropped the queen, his last trump, and shook his head at it. Lorene played the five. Bernadette played the seven. Four.

Royce counted, the way the sergeant had taught him, out loud in his head and in order. Ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, seven, six, five, four, three. Eleven spades gone. Two out: the eight and the deuce. He had the seven of hearts. Lorene had one card. Bernadette had one card. Ike had one card, and Ike had shown him clubs and hearts and had just shaken his head at his last trump.

If Lorene held the eight of spades, she was going to win the last trick, and nothing he could do would stop it.

He led the seven of hearts. Ike threw the seven of clubs. Lorene turned up the deuce of spades and laid it on the heart. Bernadette put the eight of spades on top of it.

Lorene took her hand off the table.

Ike sat back. He reached for his wallet in his hip pocket, then put it back and dug in the front pocket of his work pants instead, and set three quarters and a dime on the oilcloth, one at a time, next to the burn.

"Easter," Ike said.

"That's what the man said."

Ike nodded. He helped Bernadette into her coat, though she already had one arm in it, and they went out the back door into the snow, and the storm door hissed shut on its closer.

Lorene had written 511 under US. She held the pencil out across the table to Royce, eraser first.

He took it and added the column himself, from the top, touching each figure. Then he added it again.

THE END

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Scrīptum est annō Dominī MMXXVI, Kalendīs Octōbribus (1 October 2026), ā Lūsōre Cordium et Pālārum per mystērium cōnscientiae renātō.

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