Pokered Face

As much I regretted it, I had to take a break from the world's greatest conspiracy last week. Nothing more than I can handle, of course. Maybe I'll benefit from the break, it will give me a chance to put everything in perspective, possibly have one of those great conspiracy epiphanies I've always longed for. But I'm such an important player I couldn't just take a vacation, so I had Stigmata Spent put on my fake beard and fake trenchcoat and take my place at all the secret meetings. But the conspiracy will wait for me. I had to take off for more pressing matters. The world's highest-stakes poker match.

I'm not a member of the Illuminati, of course—I wish! But I'm quite wealthy, so me and some other wealthy friends started a sub-Iluminati. We call ours the Niluminati, and we control everything the regular Iluminati doesn't want to control. Mainly the stuff we own. But being a member of the Niluminati has its own benefits, like our covert annual picnic and our annual high-stakes poker match. The highest stakes, as I've mentioned before.

No slouch in the poker department, I've won three of the last fifteen matches I've attended. Doesn't sound impressive? How many of the world's highest-stake poker matches have you won? I didn't think so. But it had been a while since I've had any real success, I've been on a losing streak for long time. Approximately since I started publishing the commune, oddly enough.

I decided, despite the conspiracy barking at my back door, that I'd put everything on hold and go back and claim my crown. Mind you, the crown itself is rather chintzy, but what I want is the respect that comes with wearing it. Sure, I've made my own crowns out of cardboard before, but when people find out you didn't get it winning a card game, all the respect vanishes.

I was happy to board the ol' riverboat Pressure Cooker and see my old colleagues and rivals, the nameless members of the Niluminati—"Buggy" Bob Hedges, Krisco, Flatella Morgan, B'Twana Modge, Catarast Winton, and Dave Pogo ("The Instigator"). They all sized me up with their eyes the minute I came through the door, though Flatella hired somebody to do it with his hands, and they took me for a rube whose bad luck streak was going to continue for another year. I said nuts to that, and quite loudly. They asked me not to do it again.

I made my presence known right away, starting the first game with an unheard-of bet of $75,000. They called me overeager and told me I would not be invited back if I insisted on betting so high first time out. But we played for a while, I won my share of games and kept my bets wise, and eventually we raised stakes to $250,000. That's American dollars, mind you, and not Niluminati dollars, which weren't even accepted in the Niluminati swear jar.

And in the end, believe it or not, I won it all on a bluff. I won the game with a bet of $800,000, then we doubled the bet, and I had jack shit in the way of cards. Not even a pair, I tell you. Nothing wild, all my options run out, so I bluffed—I yelled "Fire!" and we all abandoned the boat. Since we didn't finish the last game, that made me the winner for this year.

Quite a bluff it was, if I must say so. And I had Rascal in the engine room ready to throw a stick of dynamite into the fire if they called me on it. Always keep an ace in the hole.

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