“i Need to quit early,” Unlucky Louie said as a penny game started. “I have to go to a funeral at 4.”
“I never want to be guest of honor at one of those,” Cy the Cynic observed, “but if I must, I’d want it to start in the afternoon. I’m not a mourning person.”
“What kind of memorial service do you want?” I asked Rose, a spinster.
“Women pallbearers,” she said. “Men aren’t taking me out while I’m alive; I don’t want them to take me out when I’m dead.”
After today’s deal, Cy was ready to be taken out . . . on a gurney. Wendy, my club’s feminist, was South and reached a bold game, and Cy led the king of diamonds.
Wendy took the ace and led the ace and a low trump to Cy’s king.
The Cynic then cashed his queen of diamonds, and Wendy followed with the jack!
Cy huddled. Clearly, to lead a third diamond would concede a ruff-sluff, so he had to choose between a club and a heart. He tried a club.
East took the ace and returned the 10 of hearts, but Wendy won with the ace, cashed the queen of clubs, got to dummy with the king of hearts, threw her jack on the king of clubs and claimed.
“Impossible,” Cy said. “You must have had another heart — or only 12 cards.”
“No,” Wendy said sweetly, “I’ve got a low diamond here somewhere.”
Cy looked ready to croak, maybe because he realized that Wendy always could have made the contract by returning a diamond at Trick Two, Later she could take her jack of diamonds and ace of trumps, then end-play Cy with his king of trumps.