The Cardturner Read online

  The reason I'm telling you this is because I'm about to attempt to explain the basics of bridge. My guess is that there's going to have to be more bridge in this book as well.

  I'm not going to try to teach you how to play bridge. There's no way I could do that. I'll just try to explain enough of the basics that if you want, you might be able to understand some of the bridge stuff that happens.

  I realize that reading about a bridge game isn't exactly thrilling. No one's going to make a movie out of it. Bridge is like chess. A great chess player moves his pawn up one square, and for the .0001 percent of the population who understand what just happened, it was the football equivalent of intercepting a pass and running it back for a touchdown. But for the rest of us, it was still just a pawn going from a black square to a white one. Or, getting back to bridge, it was Trapp playing the six of diamonds instead of the two of clubs.

  Well, there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sorry my seventy-six-year-old blind, diabetic uncle didn't play linebacker for the Chicago Bears.

  So here's the deal. Whenever you see the picture of the whale, it means I'm about to go into some detail about bridge. If that makes you zone out, then just skip ahead to the summary box and I'll give you the short version.

  There are two parts to a bridge hand, the bidding and the play. For now, I'm just going to explain how the play works.

  It's all about taking tricks. Somebody sets a card on the table. Then, going clockwise around the table, the next three people all must play a card of that same suit, in turn. After all four people have played, the person who played the highest card wins the trick.

  That person is then on-lead for the next trick. That means he or she chooses any card to play, and once again everyone else has to follow suit.

  As I mentioned earlier, one of the four players is the dummy. The dummy hand is set out on the table for everyone to see. When it's the dummy's turn to play, the dummy's partner tells the dummy which card to play. So when Trapp's hand is dummy, Gloria tells me which card to play.

  Everyone begins with thirteen cards, which means there are a total of thirteen tricks for each bridge hand. Since Trapp and Gloria are partners, it doesn't matter whether Trapp wins a trick or Gloria wins it. It counts the same.

  "What happens if you can't follow suit?" Leslie asked me when I explained this to her.

  You have two choices. You can discard, which means you just choose some card in your hand that's no good anyway and basically just throw it away. Or you can win the trick by playing a trump card. Trump cards are like wild cards in poker.

  Let's say diamonds are trump. Somebody leads a club, but Trapp doesn't have any clubs left in his hand.

  He can win the trick by playing a diamond. Any diamond will do. The 6 will beat the K. That's called trumping or ruffing. Everyone else still has to play a club if they have one.

  "Why are diamonds trump?" Leslie asked me.

  I just used that as an example. A different suit is trump for each hand. It had to do with the bidding, which I still didn't quite understand.

  A person plays a card and the next three people all have to play a card of that same suit. The person who plays the highest card wins the trick. If you can't follow suit, you can either discard or play a trump. There are a total of thirteen tricks in each hand of bridge.

  13

  In the Garbage

  I got to thinking. Toni Castaneda had been Trapp's cardturner before me, before she asked, "Are you sure?" But how could she have taken him to the bridge studio during the week? School had only just ended.

  "She's homeschooled," my mother explained. "Uncle Lester taught her bridge as one of her courses. They wouldn't let a girl like her into a real school. She'd freak out!"

  "Why? What's wrong with her?"

  "She's nuts. The whole family is nuts. Her mother, her grandmother. Did you know they could be extremely wealthy, but Sophie threw their money in the garbage? And I don't just mean a few million dollars. I'm talking real money."

  I always thought a few million dollars was real money. "What do you mean she threw it in the garbage?" I asked.

  "Just what I said," said my mother. "In the garbage!"

  She then explained that Sophie Castaneda's father had been Henry King, one of the wealthiest men in America. "Sophie didn't appreciate her parents and all they did for her. She ran away from home when she was fifteen, and when she turned eighteen she legally divorced them."

  "You can do that?" I asked.

  "Don't be smart," said my mother.

  Sophie eventually married Martin Castaneda, and they had a daughter, Toni. Sophie had refused to let her father ever see his granddaughter, or even talk to her on the telephone.

  Sophie's father's lawyers sent her a letter, trying to arrange a meeting between grandfather and granddaughter. They offered Sophie five hundred thousand dollars for a onetime visit, and one million dollars per year after that for regular monthly visits. In addition, her dad promised to include both daughter and granddaughter in his will.

  It was the letter that Sophie had thrown in the garbage. She sent a short note back to the lawyers. My daughter is not for sale. When Henry King died, years later, he didn't leave them a penny.

  14

  National Championship

  Cliff wanted to know how much money Trapp got for winning.

  Nothing. He earned masterpoints.

  Gloria explained it to me after the game on Saturday while Trapp was in the men's room.

  She said there are bridge clubs in almost every city in the United States, and that they're all part of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). The results of each and every game are sent to the ACBL. That organization keeps track of who won, and awards masterpoints.

  That first day I was his cardturner, when Gloria and Trapp won, there had been fourteen tables, so they won 1.4 masterpoints. Notice the decimal point. That's one and four-tenths. You need five hundred masterpoints to become a Life Master.

  "Is Trapp a Life Master?" I asked.

  "Oh, yes," she said.

  "Are you?"

  She said she was. I asked her how many masterpoints she had.

  "A little over five thousand."

  "Wow!"

  "There are higher rankings than Life Master. At one thousand points you become a Silver Life Master. At 2,500 you're a Gold Life Master, and you need 5,000 to be a Diamond Life Master."

  "So you're a Diamond Life Master," I said.

  She shrugged as if it were no big deal, but I could tell by her smile that she was proud of her accomplishment.

  "How many masterpoints does Trapp have?"

  "Eleven thousand."

  I wasn't surprised.

  "How about Wallace?" I asked. I wondered if there was some sort of competition between Gloria and Wallace.

  "I don't know," she said. "I think about eighteen hundred. He's a very strong player. Much better than I am. He just doesn't play as often."

  "What's the highest rank you can get?" I asked.

  "Grand Life Master," said Gloria. "You need ten thousand masterpoints for that."

  "So Trapp's a Grand Life Master."

  She shook her head. "No. To be a Grand Life Master, you also need to win a national championship."

  So far, I had just taken Trapp to club games. It turns out there are also bridge tournaments, where you can earn a greater number of masterpoints if you win, but the competition is much tougher.

  There are three types of tournaments: sectionals, regionals, and nationals. In order for Trapp to win a national championship, he would have to win a major event at a national tournament.

  "Has he ever played in a national?" I asked.

  "Only one time, but listen to me, Alton," she said, suddenly sounding very serious. "You must never ask your uncle about that."

  "Why, what happened?"

  She stared at me a moment, then just shook her head. "That was over forty years ago," she said. "It's best to let sleeping dogs lie."

&
nbsp; "Well, do you think he'll ever try again?" I asked.

  "I think that's the reason he's started playing again, despite his illness, or maybe because of his illness. He wants to give it one last shot." She looked me straight in the eye and said, "That's why you're here."

  In the back of my mind I heard my mother's sweet and loving voice: Don't screw it up, Alton.

  15

  The Perfect Partner

  Trapp came out of the men's room. "How'd we do?" he asked.

  "Fifty-nine percent," I said. "Second place."

  "I should have switched to the ten of clubs at trick two," he said.

  He was speaking to himself. He knew I didn't know what he was talking about. He was still muttering about club switches and heart tricks as I led him out to the car.

  Gloria probably shouldn't have told me not to ask him about the last time he played in a national tournament. As I drove him home, it was all I could think about. What wouldn't Gloria tell me? After all, what's the worst that can happen at a bridge tournament?

  "So, who's your partner going to be for the national tournament?" I asked. "Gloria or Wallace?"

  (Gloria didn't say I couldn't ask him about that tournament, just not the one forty years ago.)

  "What!" he snapped. "Who said anything about playing in the nationals?"

  "Gloria just mentioned—"

  "Gloria's a dreamer. How am I supposed to compete against the best players in the world when I can't even see the cards?"

  "You see the cards better than anyone," I said.

  "Hah!" he scoffed, but I noticed a hint of a smile. "You may find this hard to believe, Alton," he said, "but bridge is tiring. I get worn out after just one session. That probably sounds strange to you. From your point of view, all I do is sit on my keester for three hours."

  "No, I know," I said. "It's like I told my friend Cliff. Bridge is more like a sport than a game. A mental sport."

  "At tournaments you play two sessions per day," he said. "I don't know if I'm up to it. I don't know if they'll even let me play."

  "They have to let you play."

  "Tournaments have strict rules," he said. "The club is willing to accommodate me and my cardturner. You may not be allowed to sit with me at a tournament."

  "That's not fair," I said.

  "There's a sectional tournament in two weeks," Trapp said. "Gloria's checking with the ACBL to see if I'll be allowed to compete."

  "So then she'll be your partner?"

  "If I play."

  We drove in silence for a while. He could sue them, I thought, if they wouldn't let him play in the tournament.

  "Gloria has more masterpoints than Wallace," I said, "but she says that's because she's played a lot more. She says he's a better player than she is."

  "They're both excellent players," he said. "I'm honored to play with them."

  "But you're better," I said.

  "They can see the cards," he said, as if that made a difference.

  "You had a seventy-two percent game with Wallace," I said. "I think he should be your partner for the nationals."

  He sighed.

  I thought that would be the end of it, but then he said, "Wallace can play the cards better, but Gloria is a better partner."

  I didn't understand.

  "Like you said, bridge is a sport," he explained. "But it's a team sport. You and your partner have to work together. Wallace is like a basketball player who's always shooting the ball. He can make some amazing shots, but he wouldn't have to take those shots if he passed the ball more often."

  It was too bad, I thought, that Gloria couldn't play the cards as well as Wallace, or that Wallace couldn't be as good a partner as Gloria.

  "I guess it's hard to find the perfect partner," I said.

  "Wallace and Gloria are still looking," he replied.

  I doubted that.

  We drove in silence for a while, but then he said, "It's easier to find a wife."

  I turned off Ridgecrest onto Skyline, then made my way up the tangled web of streets toward his house.

  I thought our conversation had come to an end, but he surprised me. "I used to have the perfect partner," he said. "Used to have a wife, too."

  "Were they the same person?" I asked.

  "No, sisters."

  I waited for more, but there was no further explanation. I glanced over. His jaw was set tight and it seemed as though his face had turned to stone.

  16

  The Milkman and the Senator's Wife

  As I drove back to my house, I tried to put the pieces together in my mind. About forty years ago, Trapp had been married. His wife's sister was his "perfect" bridge partner. Then something happened at a bridge tournament. Trapp's partner went insane, he and his wife got divorced, and he never played in a national tournament again.

  His wife's crazy sister, his perfect partner, was the mother of Sophie Castaneda, who was the one who threw the letter in the garbage.

  Sophie was the mother of Toni, who had yelled "Shut up! Leave me alone!" at me when we were six, and who had also made the terrible mistake of asking Trapp, "Are you sure?"

  I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it didn't to me.

  When I got home I asked my mother how long she had known Sophie Castaneda.

  She flinched at the name. "I've known of her for a very long time. I've only met her a few times."

  "Did you ever meet Sophie's mother?"

  "No."

  "Then why do you think she was insane?"

  "I don't just think she was insane," said my mother. "She was sent to an asylum."

  "Is that why Sophie divorced her mother?"

  "Sophie didn't divorce her real mother," my mother corrected me. "Senator King remarried after Sophie's mother was put in the insane asylum."

  "Sophie's father was a senator?" This was news to me.

  "He would have made a damn good president, too," my mother added.

  "So what kind of crazy things did Sophie's mother do?"

  "Everything. The way she lived was crazy! She was the reason Henry King never became president. Mind you, I was just a little girl at the time, but I heard stories. One time, she gave the milkman a thousand dollars for his clothes."

  I had never heard of a milkman. I supposed it was like being a mailman, only with milk instead of mail.

  "He was still wearing them at the time," my mother continued. "She paid him to take off his clothes and give them to her. And then she made him wear her dress and all her underneath things."

  "And he wore them?"

  "For a thousand dollars, he did. That was a lot of money in those days."

  I thought it was a lot of money in these days. I walked down the hall into my room and tried to make sense of what my mother had told me. I wondered if she had her story straight.

  I hate to say this about my own mother, but she doesn't always know what she's talking about.

  I picked up a deck of cards and practiced shuffling. Gloria had taught me how to shuffle cards so that they'd flutter perfectly together.

  If it was something my mother had heard when she was just a little girl, then who knows who told it to her, or how much of it she understood? It seemed to me that maybe the senator's wife had been doing something else with the milkman, and the senator came home unexpectedly, and they both just grabbed whatever clothes were the closest. That made a little more sense, but either way, my uncle's "perfect partner" sounded a bit weird, to say the least.

  17

  Finesse

  Besides trying to find out what happened forty years ago, I was also trying to figure out bridge. I never admitted it to my uncle, but I paid attention to every card he played and listened closely to all the bridge gibberish, trying to make some sense out of it.

  I learned what it meant to finesse.

  Suppose Gloria is dummy, and has both the ace and queen of spades. (We won't worry about her other cards.)

  Trapp would like to win two spade tricks. The ace wil
l win one, of course, but he also would like to win a trick with the queen. But how can he do that? One of the defenders still has the king of spades.

  The answer lies in a play known as a finesse. It will only work if the West hand is the one with the king.

  Trapp will lead the 2. Let's say West plays the 5. Then Trapp will tell dummy to play the Q, which will win the trick. If instead West plays the K, Trapp will play the A from dummy, and then win the next trick with the Q. No matter which card West plays, he's screwed.

  "That's so cool!" Leslie said when I showed this to her.

  I thought it was cool too.

  It only worked because West had the K. If East had the king, then she'd be able to win a trick with it. A finesse gives you a 50 percent chance.

  Once I understood it, I noticed finesses popping up a lot.

  This time Trapp hopes that East has the K. If so, he can finesse it by leading the eight from dummy. If East plays the king, Trapp plays the ace. If East doesn't play the king, Trapp plays the queen.

  You can also finesse queens.

  Gloria leads the 4, and hopes that East has the Q. If East plays a small club, Gloria can win the trick with dummy's jack.

  By the way, when I showed this to Leslie, I used real cards, not a bridge diagram. If you find it difficult to follow the diagrams, try using a real deck. For the first hand, you can also try dealing East the king of spades instead of West, and you will see why the finesse won't work.

  A finesse is a cool play that allows you to win two tricks with the ace and queen of a suit, even though one of your opponents holds the king. It has a 50 percent chance of success, depending on which one of your opponents holds that king.

  18

  The Housing Crisis

  Nights were the hardest for me. I usually didn't think too much about Katie, or Cliff and Katie, during the day, and even if I did, I was strong enough to handle it. I was weaker at night and sometimes came close to calling her even though I knew I'd regret it.