"Straight flush, Queen high." He started to reach for the chips.
Steel's mild, purring voice interrupted him. "What suit?"
For the first time that night Rafferty's composure left him. "C-Clubs," he stammered.
"Spades," Steel said sweetly, and put down the eight to Queen, inclusive and consecutive.
It just didn't figure, Rafferty thought glumly. He wasn't as annoyed over the wild improbability of two straight flushes the same hand as he was because he had failed to guess Steel's facial reaction properly. He'd been dead wrong.
He got wronger. Steel sat calmly without saying a word except when necessary, and gobbled in the chips. It seemed to Rafferty that Steel was reading his every move.
He was holding two pair, and played it big. Steel stayed right with him, and when the payoff came:
"Three fours."
Three fours won. But Steel wouldn't have ridden that far on the trio unless he knew pretty well that Rafferty didn't have much to show. He seemed to know. And as the game progressed, he grew less and less readable himself. It was a strange reversal for Rafferty, who was accustomed to detect his opponent's idiosyncrasies within three deals and to play them mercilessly from then on.
"Two kings," Rafferty said.