Beach Bait

BEACH BAIT

My husband, Dave, stood beside me on the shores of Chaupati Beach. We were half way through our vacation in Northern India, and our hearts were still as much enthralled with this exotic land as they ever were..

The wind was blowing across the sea and I could feel Dave’s sleeve as it ruffled against my bare arm. Physically, he was within my reach, yet, I could sense he was already entranced by the gambler at his feet who had caught his attention, and that he was already being sucked in by his banter, and was, in all actuality, mentally miles away from me.

There was a group of men standing around a wooden board lying in the sand, which was being used as a table, and I watched as three cards were being shuffled and rotated and I immediately recognized what game was being played. I knew it was a scam and I knew the stakes would be high and I knew, above all else, that I wanted to keep my husband out of it.

“Don’t do it”, I warned him, pulling on his arm, but I could see the wheels already turning in his head.

“I won’t . . ,” he said, but I could see he was only half listening to my pleas.

“I knew a man who . . .” I began, but my words fell on deaf ears. I tried again, but he still wasn’t listening. I wanted to stop him, put some sense into his head. I tried to tell him about a man that used to run a scam like this and how a guy is fooled into believing he can win, but how the wool is pulled over his eyes in such a way he can’t see until it’s too late. These guys are professionals and they know they can’t lose. They’re thieves who take thousands of dollars a day this way from poor innocent men like my husband.

By then, however, Dave had moved away from me. He allowed himself to be drawn into the crowd until he was truly out of my reach, not only mentally, this time, but physically as well, walking purposefully into the gambler’s clutches.

It was hard to stand aside, knowing that my husband was a lamb about to be slaughtered. Yet I stood and watched him go into the center of the crowd. I watched him warm up to the sales pitch. I watched as I knew he was taking the bait even though I could not hear the words, for the men around me were shouting with excitement.

From a few yards away, I could see my husband taking off his backpack and getting down on his haunches to play the game. I watched for as long as I could, then I looked away, flustered, wanting to go in there and pull him out, not sure what to do.

I knew without a doubt he could never ever beat these professional gamblers, for there was no beating them. He was going to come away a loser and there was nothing I could do about it.

I looked at his knees, the only part of him I could see from that distance, sitting there, hunched down, like a lamb wilfully laying its head on the chopping board; an animal behind the bars of the men whose legs encircled him and kept him captive.

A stranger walked up to me and asked me if that was my husband in the middle of the crowd and if he understood what he was getting into. He told me those guys were up to no good and I assured this stranger that, yes, that man in the ring was my husband and yes, indeed, I knew the trouble he was in and that I had tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen. The stranger shook his head in sympathy.

Suddenly, what seemed like hours later, my husband finally rose to his feet and stumbled out of the crowd. He appeared dazed, as though he had just awakened from a bad dream, wondering what just happened, not being able to believe it. He came out into the open as though he had been spit out of a huge cage of arms and legs and had no idea where he was.

“But you said . . .” I heard him say to his “executioner”, the gambler who was the man that had been the one who had made some kind of bargain to my husband who just now suddenly realised he had been taken for a ride.

By this time I had left the stranger and walked over to my husband. The shadow of a bird flew overhead, and the ocean glistened in the hot sun as I made my way to his side. I couldn’t get over how beaten he had looked and my heart went out to him at that moment in a way that it never had before.

“But he told me all I had to do was show him my money and I would win.” He said to me. “I had it in the bag.” His hands were shaking and I watched, helplessly, as the reality of what my husband had just done overwhelmed him and reduced him to tears.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized to me. “I just lost $1,000.00,” he confessed. No wonder he was crying, I thought! “I let you down,” he said. “How could I have been so stupid? I squandered our family money! Just like that! It‘s gone! How could I have let that happen? I’m usually so in tuned to these things.”

“I know,” I told him. And I did know how much Dave hated being hoodwinked especially when it came to money. He’s always on his guard when it comes to being gullible. No wonder he felt so bad when he realized he had taken himself to this financial slaughter house by his own will.

I was so taken aback by his demeanor that I could not possibly stand to see him labor his loss any longer. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I turned on my heels and took myself right back into that den of thieves. I went up to the main perpetrator and looked him in the eye.

“What is your name?” I demanded.

“Ashu,” he dutifully replied. I could read a sense of amusement on his face, as though he found my asking comical.

“Ashu,” I said, “My husband is a hard-working, respectable man, and you cheated him! You knew he couldn’t win. You knew what you were doing and you took advantage of an innocent, well-meaning man!”

I drew a shaky breath and continued. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Give me the money back that you wrongfully took from him!”

The man’s mouth opened, “I didn’t take . . .” he began, but I wouldn’t let him go on.
“Don’t give me your lip! Give me his money back NOW!” I insisted.

“Lady,” he started again.

“NOW!” I barked.

“I can’t give you . . ,” he started to say, but I stopped him again.

“Yes you can!” I shouted. “Give it to me! Now!” I was making a spectacle out of myself exactly as I had planned. It wasn’t long before I had the sympathy of all those who had been standing around listening.

I could hear a few men saying, “Give her the money, come on, you had your fun. She’s right. Enough is enough.”

But the gambler with my husband’s hard-earned cash was not flinching.

Suddenly I had an idea. I ran back to Dave, who was standing outside the ring of men who had just witnessed the way Ashu had taken him for a thousand grand.

“Do you have your cards with you?” I asked, referring to the deck he always carried in his pockets in case he stumbled upon a group of local boys whom he knew he could impress with some simple card tricks.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a deck.

“What are you up to?” He asked me.

“I’m not sure, but I have an idea.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t . . . maybe you should just leave well enough alone,” he said.

“Please, honey,” I said, “I have to try.”

I grabbed the cards and immediately went back into the center of the crowd where the board was still on the ground set up like a makeshift table.

I let everyone who was standing around inspect the pack, so they could see for themselves that it was just an ordinary deck of playing cards, then I gave them a good shuffle and handed them to a man who was standing on the sidelines and asked him to shuffle them again. Then I handed the deck to Ashu, the devil whose pockets were bulging with my husband’s money, and asked him to shuffle the deck one more time.
When he finished, I took them from him.

“Look,” I said to him, and fanned the cards out in my hands. “Pick a card.”

“Lady, are you sure you want to do this?” He asked. I knew he was trying to warn me, to let me know who I was up against, but I was doing my best not to let him intimidate me.

“Just pick a card.” I said.

He picked a card and I told him to show it to everyone in the circle. Once that was done, I had him replace the card in the deck, which I was holding by my pinky in a mechanic’s grip and hoping no one was the wiser. Then I put the deck down on the board in four piles. I went through a show of shuffling these final piles until I was certain the card Ashu had picked was third from the bottom.

“Now, listen,” I said. “I can feel which card is yours just by touching the face of the bottom card. Sometimes I don’t get it right, but sometimes I do. I’ll show you the card, and when I’m sure I know whether it’s your card or not, I’ll let you know, but I don’t want you to let on either way. Got it?”

With a slight smile on his face, Ashu nodded.

“Okay,” I said, and rubbed my fingers over the bottom card, which I held so it could be seen by the audience. “This one doesn’t feel like your card,” I claimed, and laid it face down on the board, knowing that it was not his card.

I could see the man’s eyes were on my every move. I knew I had to play my hand skilfully if I wanted to win that money back. I wasn’t sure I had the skill, but now was not the time to start second guessing. I was in, and I was in deep. I had to remain calm and clear-headed.

“Let’s see,” I went on, making a show of rubbing the bottom of the next card. “This one doesn’t feel like your card, either.” I said, and put the card on the board face down right next to the first one. Once again, I knew this also wasn’t his card.

I was beginning to worry. Up until now I had no real battle plan, but I suddenly realized I had to do something, something to throw the game off, to put the man off his guard. He was too wily for me and I was aware that he probably knew what I was doing and that he was trying to catch me up.

I held the deck up again so the new bottom card could be seen by one and all. I knew, just as everyone else at that moment knew, that this was the card the man had chosen. I ran my fingers over it, swallowed hard, trying not to let my nerves show, and claimed, once again, that the card didn’t feel like his card.

Usually, this is when I do my sleight of hand and slip another card down in its place, but I had to take a chance, and hope against hope that this is exactly what the man was expecting me to do. I played the hand as though I was sliding the card above it onto the table, but I put his chosen card face down on the board next to the first two cards, instead.

It was too late to go back now. I looked into Ashu’s eyes and hoped he could not read anything in mine.

“Pick a number from one to ten,” I told him.

“Six,” he said.

“Okay. Six,” I repeated as I counted out six cards and placed them face down on the board in two rows beneath the three cards I had placed there earlier, until there were nine cards on the table all together. Again, I used the same sleight-of-hand movement I had used earlier to throw off my victim. I was hoping he would think I had placed his card in the number 5 spot, so I worked that card in a way that would lead my victim on, and although I hoped I had done it effectively enough, I also hoped the move was not too obvious or that I had accomplished it in such a way that made the move look suspicious.

“Now I believe your card is on this board somewhere,” I said. “Do you believe your card is on the board?” I asked Ashu.

“Yes.” He answered with great certainty. We looked deeply into each others eyes.
What would he do, I wondered? Would he take the bait, or did he guess what I was up to?

My heart was racing a mile a minute. My hands were shaking and my voice wanted to give out on me, but I took a deep breath, determined to see this thing through.

“Good,” I said. “Now which card do you think is yours?”

Ashu eyed me suspiciously. “I’m not sure,” he replied.

I felt my heart suddenly leap to my throat. At this point, it was imperative that I had succeeded in convincing Ashu exactly which card on the board was his. Since he was not sure, it threw the entire game off.

Suddenly my doubts were starting to get the best of me, and I was sure that he was absolutely onto me. Of course I couldn’t have expected this to go easily. I was up against a real pro; someone who’s seen it all and done it all before. Perhaps he’d even played this trick on someone else, himself. Maybe many times. I’d have to be very careful now if I had any hopes of getting my husband’s money back again.

I couldn’t allow Ashu to see my confidence wane. He had to believe I had everything under control. It was the only way I could win.

“Please place the thousand dollars you took from my husband on the card that you think is yours.” I said as calmly as I could. “If you’re right, you keep it. If not, I get it back.”

“Lady, I’ve got to hand it to you. You played this game well. Very well.” Ashu said.

I wasn’t sure where he was leading, but I thought I detected some genuine admiration in his compliment.

“Look,” he said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a bundle of rupees. He made a show of counting them out until he reached 41, which was the equivalent of the thousand dollars he had taken from my husband. Then he placed them in one hand and reached toward the cards on the board.

My heart jumped as his hand hovered over the third card, the card that was, indeed his card. If he put the money down on number three, I was a goner.

Our eyes locked. “Dare me,” his seemed to be saying.

Time suddenly stopped and I became aware of how my husband must have felt only moments before when his head was on the chopping block, just as it felt mine was at that precise moment.

The wind picked up and I was afraid the cards would blow off the board, revealing everything. I tasted salt on my lips and could hear the sound of the surf on the beach only a few yards away. Somewhere seagulls were squawking and I could hear the sound of children laughing.

Then suddenly Ashu moved his hand and dropped his money on the number five card. The card I had hoped he would fall for.

“You win, lady. Take your money,” he said without waiting for me to turn the card over.

I realized then that he had let me win. He had known what I was doing from the very beginning and he was letting me off the hook.

“I admire your bravado,” he said and reached to shake my hand.

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you very much, Ashu.”

THE END