All Hat by Brad Smith

said.
    â€œOh, wonderful,” Dean said. “We were afraid you wanted us for something trivial. We want to talk to the old man, Jackson.”
    Jackson was walking away, finished with them. “Well, he should be back about April. If it won’t wait ’til then, then I guess Sonny’s your man.”
    He got into the pickup and drove off.
    They drove Sonny’s car out to Hidden Valley Golf and Country Club, Dean behind the wheel of the BMW and Paulie following in the Lincoln. They parked by the pro shop and got out. The clubhouse was huge and ostentatious, fashioned after an antebellum style, which seemed to appeal to the country club set.
    â€œWhat’s Sonny do out here all the time?” Paulie asked, looking at the pillars that supported the porch roof. “He doesn’t play golf anymore.”
    â€œHe hangs out with a bunch of guys just like him,” Dean said. “They sit around smoking cigars and talking about sports and cars and all the women they’ve fucked. The kind of guys who’d rather talk about fucking than do it.”
    â€œIt’s a big place. How we gonna find Sonny?”
    â€œWon’t be hard.”
    Sonny was playing poker in the private dining room with a cluster of men, all smoking cigars and talking about sports and cars and all the women they’d fucked.
    They were playing wild cards when Dean and Paulie walked in, and Sonny was down a couple hundred and about to drop another hundred by way of bumping on a baby straight in a game where four of a kind was on the weak side. A big man with a shaved head and gold hoops in each ear won the hand with a straight flush. Dean knew the man to be a real estate developer named Rockwood. He called himself the Rock because he was an amateur bodybuilder who considered himself as hard as a rock. Dean had been in his presence several times and was of the opinion that he was also as smart as a rock.
    When he lost the hand Sonny grabbed the cards and threw them into the air in a gesture of easy come, easy go. The cards fluttered about the room, and then Sonny noticed the two.
    â€œYou bring the car?”
    â€œNo, we’re here to practice our putting,” Dean told him.
    â€œYou better not have fucked with the stereo, like last time,” Sonny said. Then: “Paulie, pick those cards up, will ya?”
    Paulie did as he was told, gathered the cards, put them back on the table. The players watched him in amusement. Dean stared at Sonny, and he returned the look, smiling around the Cohiba in his mouth.
    There was a large Rottweiler sitting to the side of the Rock. The dog had a bandanna around its neck, and it was drooling on the Persian carpet. Paulie sat down at the next table and watched the dog. After a moment, the dog began to watch Paulie.
    â€œYou guys want to play a couple hands?” Sonny asked.
    â€œWe’re leaving,” Dean said. He’d decided to wait to talk to Earl about the profit sharing.
    â€œI’ll play.” That was Paulie, grinning as he stood.
    Sonny gave the others a look, nodding behind his cigar.
    â€œYou don’t want to play, Paulie,” Dean said sharply.
    But Paulie was draping his jacket over a chair, taking his wallet from his pocket. “I like cards,” he said.
    Sonny and the boys were getting a big kick out of the whole scene, eyeballing one another, smiling into their drinks. Dean looked on angrily.
    Sonny was shuffling the deck. “Kings and little ones, Paulie,” he said. “You know the game?”
    â€œI think so.” Someone had given Paulie a glass of rye on the rocks.
    â€œPaulie, you don’t drink whiskey,” Dean said.
    â€œWould you relax?” Sonny said, and he dealt the cards.
    Paulie won the first hand on five aces, the second with five queens, and the third with a royal flush. He took in roughly nine hundred dollars and then, drinking off his rye, announced to the table that he was out of the game.