Dragons Wild

Twenty-five

Griffen spotted Jerome’s Jeep Cherokee parked on the street as he walked down Rampart. Without breaking stride, he strode up to the vehicle as his friend rolled the window down.

“Is he still in there?”

“Still there,” Jerome said. “Sitting at the back table. Tall, skinny dude with a fedora on.”

Griffen glanced at the two silent men in the backseat. They gazed back at him without expression.

“What’s with the extra talent?” he said. “I thought we agreed I would handle this personal and quiet.”

“Never said I agreed,” Jerome said. “For the record, I still think this is a bad idea. I brought along a little backup in case you’re wrong. The man usually carries, and he’s probably got some friends in there.”

“Suit yourself.” Griffen shrugged. “Just let me try it my way first.”

He turned and stared at the bar and grill. Anywhere else, it would be described as seedy and run-down. Here at the edge of the Quarter, it was about average. Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, he headed for the door.

The brightness of the afternoon sun outside barely penetrated the dimly lit interior. There were about a half dozen people, all men, scattered around the room and sitting at the bar. A small television set high on the wall behind the bar was tuned to ESPN, but no one seemed to be paying it any attention.

While nobody stopped talking or looked around, Griffen was sure that everyone in the bar was aware of his entrance. If nothing else, he was the only white person in the place.

The man he was looking for was easy to spot. Sitting alone at a back table reading a newspaper. As Jerome had said, he was a good six and a half feet tall, skeletally thin, and sported a black fedora. There was a squat butt of a cigar smoldering in an ashtray on the table, along with a half-empty cup of coffee.

The man looked up dead-eyed as Griffen approached.

“Little Joe?” Griffen said, coming to a stop, carefully keeping his hands in view.

The man took a big drag on his cigar before answering.

“I know yah, white boy?”

“My name is Griffen McCandles,” Griffen said. “I run a couple card games around town. Something has come to my attention, and I thought it would be a good idea if we talked about it. May I sit down?”

Little Joe shrugged and gestured to the chair across from him. Griffen took the indicated seat, painfully aware that it put his back to the door and the rest of the room. Keeping his concerns from his face, he took a deep breath and began.

“About a week ago, your little brother, Willie, sat in on one of my games. He had a bad night, and dropped about four hundred dollars.”

“I heard ’bout that.” Little Joe nodded.

“It happens,” Griffen said. “Some nights a man wins, some nights he loses. The problem is, I’ve been told that you’ve been talking around, telling people that Willie got taken in a crooked game. I thought I’d take the time to meet you face-to-face and ask if it’s true?”

Little Joe took another drag on the cigar.

“Which? If I been talkin ’round, or if the game was crooked?”

“I guess if you’ve been talking around,” Griffen said. “I already know the game wasn’t crooked. More important, if it’s true, I’d like to know what makes you think the game was crooked. As far as I can tell, you’ve never sat in on one of my games.”

“All I knows is what Willie told me,” Little Joe said.

“Uh-huh.” Griffen grimaced. “Tell me, Little Joe, I’ve heard you’re a pretty sharp card player yourself. Have you ever noticed that if someone wins, they’re a great card player. But if they lose, then the game’s crooked or someone was cheating.”

Little Joe flashed a quick grin.

“Yeah, you right. Had to fight my way out of the room a couple times when the losers thought my luck was a lil’ too solid.”

“Well, the fact of the matter,” Griffen said, “is that Willie isn’t that good a card player. He had no business being in that game…way out of league, betting wild against a table of better players. I’m pretty sure you already knew that. You’re a better card player than Willie is.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I try to keep track of who the better players in town are,” Griffen said. “Besides, it’s obvious just from sitting and talking with you. You give away less in normal conversation than Willie does when he’s playing cards.”

“So why’d you let him play?” Little Joe said.

“I suspected he was a weak player, but I wasn’t sure until I actually saw him play,” Griffen said. “One of our regulars brought him in and vouched for him, so there wasn’t much I could do.”

“So where does that leave us?” Little Joe said.

“It leaves us with a problem,” Griffen said. “I’d like to convince you that it was an honest game so you’ll quit saying that I run a crooked operation. Right now, though, it’s just my word against your brother’s.”

Little Joe took another drag on his cigar and leaned back.

“I’ve heard about you, Griffen,” he said. “Lots of folks say that you’re not someone to get on the wrong side of. That you’ve got some serious muscle covering you, and that you handle yourself pretty good all by your lonesome. What surprises me, and I been listenin’ real close, is that it don’t sound like you’re telling me to shut my mouth or it’ll get shut for me.”

“As I said, I’d like to convince you,” Griffen said with a smile. “Threatening you would only make it look like I was trying to pull a cover-up.”

“So, what do you have in mind?” Little Joe said, genuinely curious. “Somehow, I don’t think your plan is to just give Willie his money back.”

“As a matter of fact, for a while I considered doing exactly that,” Griffen said. “Four hundred just isn’t that much money, and if it could kill a bad rumor, it could be worth it.”

“But yah changed your mind?” Little Joe smirked.

“Correct.” Griffen smiled. “Giving the money back would be as much as admitting that we cheated him out of it. I’d be out the money and still have it being talked around that I run a crooked operation. There’s a different solution I’ve come up with.”

He patted the side of his jacket.

“I’ve got Willie’s four hundred right here,” he said. “What I propose is that you and I play for it. We both know you’re a better card player than Willie. I figure if I can prove to you that I’m a better card player than you are, it will convince you that Willie lost the money honestly.”

Little Joe eyed him narrowly.

“You’re carrying four hundred dollars in cash? Alone? In a place like this? What makes you think I won’t just take it away from you without bothering to play for it?”

“That wouldn’t prove much of anything, would it?” Griffen said. “Except maybe that you’re tougher than I am. If I read you right, you’d rather take it away from me with cards. Besides, I never said I was alone.”

Little Joe’s eyes darted around the room, then he raised an eyebrow.

“Waiting outside,” Griffen said. “Just in case I read you wrong.”

Little Joe nodded slowly.

“I don’t have no four hundred dollars on me,” he said. “If I did, I wouldn’t risk it all in a game against a player I don’t know.”

“How much do you have?”

“Lil’ over a hundred.”

“Fine.” Griffen nodded. “You put up a hundred and I’ll do the same. If you can take my hundred before I take your hundred, I’ll pass you the other three hundred as a bonus.”

Moving slowly, he pulled a new deck of cards out of his pocket and tossed it on the table.

“You seem real confident ’bout this,” Little Joe said, not reaching for the cards. “It occurs to me you’re asking me to risk a hundred of my own dollars using your deck.”

“I don’t think there’s enough light in here to see the marking if it was a rigged deck,” Griffen said drily. “If it will make you feel better, though, we can see if the bartender has a deck, or we can wait while you send someone out to buy a new deck from a place of your choice. It shouldn’t make that much difference, though. I’m going to insist that you do all the dealing. We’ll just take turns calling what the game is.”

Little Joe frowned.

“You still seem awfully sure.”

“I think I’m a better card player than you,” Griffen said with a shrug. “You don’t give away much, but it’s enough for me to beat you.”

“Then you probably know I’m still thinking it might be a better move for me to just take the money.” Little Joe smiled.

Several of the others around the bar turned around meaningfully. Though no one actually reached for anything, Griffen could clearly see bulges under coats and shirts. A trained gambler, he knew not to bet that the bulges were cell phones, not guns. Of course, there was what Little Joe had said about his reputation to handle himself.

Griffen sighed, then reached over and took Little Joe’s cigar from the ashtray. He blew on the glowing end until it was red hot, not flame, just stoking the embers. Then keeping eye contact with his opponent, he slowly ground it out in his own palm.

“I think you’d be wiser to play cards,” he said.

It took Griffen less than an hour to win Little Joe’s hundred.

The two men shook hands when they parted company.