Chapter 5
Next morning, I’m on my way to San Francisco, looking down at the vast sweep of desert and then the slow appearance of forests and mountains where Nevada and California share a state line on maps of the West. What I like about following up on clues is the uncertainty of the situation – maybe one thing leads to another, maybe you’re chasing your tail. Kind of like a game of Texas Hold 'Em poker with opponents you don’t know. What I like about plane rides of a relatively short distance is you get on, you think a few deep thoughts and then you’re already there and getting off.
I have to be careful with the deep thoughts as it distracts from the poker game and from the investigative detective stuff. The best place for them is on a plane from one destination to another, as you gaze at the sky. Another good place is out in the desert when you’re camping and it’s night and you’re looking at the Big Dipper and the North Star. Otherwise, that kind of thinking can keep you off your game. It has a place but not when you’re at the business of earning an income.
An Uber driver takes me to this downtown hotel where I could walk a few blocks to the bookstore. She’s got a song called “Mind Games” on the radio but not the John Lennon version – this is a Sven Vath original, an example of trance music that I’ve heard in some of the Las Vegas clubs. We arrive at my hotel: it’s not outrageously expensive because I figured Ms. Tamblyn would want me to feel comfortable while I am tracking down her missing child, so I wasn’t staying at a dumpy fleabag motel near the airport.
After I check in and drop my stuff off in the room, I walk the few blocks over to the City Lights bookstore on Columbus Avenue at Broadway. It had been a few years: last time I was in here I’d seen Lawrence Ferlinghetti sitting at the cash register reading a book and I presume thinking about writing some poetry. That’s what you do in San Francisco if you’re running a bookstore and business is slow, typically. Anyway, it’s what I do.
Today is a little busier, people are pulling books off the bestseller shelves and reading the first few pages and then either putting them back on the shelf or taking them over to the cashier. I decide it might be easier to ask an employee a question or 2 if I am buying something so I pick up a copy of The Paris Review and find a cashier.
“How may I help you?” she says, warmer than I expected and almost as if she really means it.
“I would like to buy this.”
“Cash or card?”
“Let’s make it card” and I reach for my wallet and the debit card from my bank, pull it out and hand it to her.
“By the way, I’m looking for an old friend who I think used to work here. Claudia Tamblyn. Is she around?”
“No, Claudia doesn’t work here. Who are you?”
“Well, I know her a little from Las Vegas and I’d heard she was working here and I’m visiting so I thought I’d just come by and say hey.”
“No, Claudia works over at Vesuvio down the street. She’s mixing drinks, I think. You should check down there. Here’s your receipt, you want a bag?”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks so much.”
Well, gee. I walk out of the store and look down the street and there’s this place with a “Vesuvio” sign at the entrance. Maybe all of this will be easier than I’d pictured. Eleanor Tamblyn’s daughter is mixing drinks? Okay.
As I’m about to walk out of the bookstore I hear a familiar voice calling to me.
“Yo, Bobby Dempsey, is that you over there! Hey, Bobby.”
I look back around me and down at the other end of the place is a guy sitting at a table stacked with books and he’s waving me over. Oh, It’s Maurice, a pro poker guy I know from Vegas and it looks like he’s here promoting a book – I see his name and photo on a small poster hanging from the table.
“Maurice, how are you?” I say, walking over to the table. “What do you have here? Are you signing books or what?”
“Well, yeah, I am. Self published! I know a guy who knows Ferlinghetti so they let me come in here this Saturday and sign the book. Here it is: take a copy, it’s on me.”
The book is something called 'Poker and Existence: Sitting at the Texas Hold 'Em of Life' by Maurice King. Oh god, I think, not another one of these books comparing this to that for 200 pages, I can’t stand it.
“How nice,” is what I say and accept the book. I am eager to make it over to Vesuvio and see if I can find and talk to Claudia Tamblyn but I’m willing to take a moment to talk to another poker pro.
“Good to see you, Bobby,” he’s smiling and we’re shaking hands. “What are you up here – I thought you lived and stayed in Las Vegas.”
“Taking care of some business I have in the city. Going back tomorrow, it’s no big deal.”
“Aha,” Maurice says. “Hey I’m about to take a break. Why don’t we get some lunch?”
Although I’m working on a case I hadn’t expected and although he’s not one of my favorite people to hang with, I like Maurice and most nights at the poker table when I am playing against him, I win. That’s because I’ve studied how he plays and now he’s giving me the opportunity to fine tune that study, so I can’t bring myself to turn it down. I figured I knew where Claudia worked and I could find her, so why not take an hour with the great writer of a poker book who contributes regularly to my income?