Vandover and the Brute

by Frank Norris

However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under Ellis' influence—succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the influence of Charlie Geary—he began to join these parties. They played Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.

Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.

For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their faces.

"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game to-night?"

The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth. He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.

The game was vingt et un, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative, continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in writing—he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat, and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas globe.

But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken, and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned. The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupé, a nighthawk, rattled over the cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on steadily.

Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted. Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short, brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.

"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the Dummy had written, and said:

"Fifteen."