title: Shut Up and Deal: A Novel
author:  Jesse May 
description: The vignettes in <i>Shut Up and Deal</i> are a bizarre mingling of <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Runyon%2c%20Damon/${0}">Damon Runyon</a> and <a href="/exec/obidos/exact-author=Mamet%2c%20David/%{0}">David Mamet</a>. Mickey, the book's narrator, is always playing cards with people who have monikers such as Uptown Raoul, Hot Mama Earl, Johnny World, and Vinnie the Greek, and he himself generally wears at these card games something like "yellow pants and a green double-breasted jacket from the seventies and a green and yellow flowered shirt with dark sunglasses" in order to sucker the unsuspecting mark into maybe thinking that he is not such a good poker player and that his money can be easily won, which it usually cannot. Yet the dialogue, relecting life on the professional poker circuit, is stark and brutal, as in Mickey's advice to a dilettante who is considering following in his footsteps: "All I can tell you is that it's lonely out there, real fuckin' lonely, and your play doesn't matter so much as how tough you are and whether or not you fall apart."
zlib_text: Dedication
  This book is for my family, as always. I would never have been able to do any of this without their
  love and support.
  
  Chapter One
  “You hear that, Jess?” Arlo said over the tactical radios his small team employed.
  The sound of breaking glass and the crash of furniture came from inside the farmhouse.
  “I hear it. I think the subtle approach just went out the window. Let’s go.” Jesse moved on the
  backdoor even as he gave the order. He knew his team was doing the same on other approaches. They
  would storm the house and neutralize whatever threat was inside, probably frightening the girl they’d
  been sent to check on, but that couldn’t be avoided now.
  Something was going on in there. Some kind of struggle. That much noise indicated nothing less
  than a full-throttle fight in progress.
  Jesse kicked the door in and found what he’d expected, though not exactly the scenario he’d
  anticipated. There was a struggle going on all right, but the two men attacking the young lovely in her
  nigh