“I happened to notice it,” Melissa said.
“It belongs to me,” Mullaney said.
“No, it belongs to me,” she answered. “Finders, keepers.”
“Finders, keepers, right,” the other girl said. She was a fat little kid with freckles on her nose and braces on her teeth. She seemed to be Melissa’s translator and chief advocate, and she sat slightly to Melissa’s right, with her hands on her hips, and stared at Mullaney with unmasked hostility.
“The jacket has sentimental value,” Mullaney said, trying to look pathetic.
“What’s sentimental value?” the third little girl asked.
“Well, it means a lot to me,” he said.
“It means a lot to me, too,” Melissa said.
“It means a lot to her, too,” her translator chirped.
“Thank you, Frieda,” Melissa said.
“Well,” Mullaney said, smiling, and still trying to look pathetic, “what can it possibly mean to you, an old jacket with a tom lining and...”
“I can do lots of things with it,” Melissa said. She had still not taken her eyes from his face. He had thought only snakes never blinked, volume SN-SZ, but apparently Melissa was of a similar species, cold-blooded, with hoods over the eyes, never blinking, never sleeping, never relinquishing her coiled grip on the shopping bag.
“Name me one thing you can do with it,” Mullaney said.
“I could throw it in the garbage,” Melissa said, and giggled.
“She could throw it in the garbage,” Frieda said, and also giggled.
“Throw it where?” the third girl, who was apparently deaf, asked.
“In the garbage, Hilda,” Melissa said, still giggling.
“Oh, in the garbage,” Hilda said, and burst out laughing.
The three of them continued laughing and giggling for quite some time, while Mullaney stood foolishly in the doorway, trying to look pathetic, and beginning to sweat profusely. There was no window in the small basement room, and he could feel perspiration on his brow and under his arms, trickling over his collarbones, sliding onto his chest.
“Well,” he said, “if you’re going to throw it in the garbage, you might just as well give it back to me, seeing as it has sentimental value.”
“Then I won’t throw it in the garbage,” Melissa said.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll cut off all the buttons.”
“Why would you do that?” Mullaney asked.
“To sew on Jenny’s dress.”
“Who’s Jenny?”
“My dolly.”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to sew those big ugly buttons on a dolly’s dress, would you? Little dollies should have small bright shining buttons on their dresses.”
“I could paint them bright and shining,” Melissa said. “Anyway, it’s my jacket and I can do what I want with it. Finders, keepers.”
“Losers, weepers,” Frieda said.
Hilda giggled.
“Look,” Mullaney said, “I’ll pay you for the jacket, how’s that? I’m really very attached to it, you see, and I...”
“How much?” Melissa said.
“Fifteen cents,” Mullaney said, which was all the money he had in the world.
“Ha!”
“Well... how much do you want?”
“Half a million.”
“It’s... it’s not worth anywhere near that,” Mullaney said, thinking the child was omniscient. “Its just an old jacket with a torn lining, it couldn’t possibly be...” He wet his lips. “Look, Melissa... is that your name? Melissa?”
“That’s my name.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do...”
“Mister,” Frieda said, “we’re trying to play some jacks here, do you mind?”
“I certainly don’t want to interrupt your game, but I don’t think you understand how much that jacket means to me,” he said, thinking I must be out of my mind trying to reason with a bunch of fourth-graders, why don’t I simply grab the damn jacket and run? Sure, with Melissa’s grubby little fist wrapped around it, miserable unblinking little reptile, I’ll have to grab the jacket and the shopping bag and her in the bargain; I can just hear the unholy clamor that little gambit would raise.
“Mister,” Frieda said, “why don’t you go home?”
“Because I want my jacket,” Mullaney said, somewhat petulantly.
“It’s your turn, Hilda,” Melissa said.
Hilda picked up the jacks, held them in her hand for an instant, and then dropped them onto the table top. There were ten jacks, each made of metal, each shaped like an enlarged asterisk. They fell onto the table top separately, or in pairs, or in small groups, tumbling and rolling and finally coming to rest. Hilda eyed them critically.
“Go on,” Melissa said.
“I was examining them,” Hilda replied.
“Don’t be such an examiner,” Frieda said.
“Examine when you come to foursies or fivesies. Don’t examine so much on onesies.”
“How do you play that game?” Mullaney asked suddenly.
“Oh mister, please go away,” Melissa said.
“Seriously, seriously,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “How do you play it?”
“You throw the ball up,” Melissa said, “and it bounces, and if you’re going for onesies, you have to pick up one jack each time before you catch the ball. When you’re for twosies, you have to pick up two jacks each time.”
“And so on,” Frieda said.
“How do you win?” Mullaney asked.
“When you reach tensies,” Melissa said.
“Tensies?”
“When you bounce the ball and pick up all ten jacks before you catch it.”
“Are you a good player?”
“I’m the best player in the building.”
“She’s the best player in Brooklyn,” Frieda said.
“Maybe in the world,” Hilda said.
“Mmm,” Mullaney said. He unbuttoned his jacket, took it off, threw it on the table top, and said, “You see that jacket? Easily worth fifty dollars on the open market, almost brand-new, worn maybe three or four times.”
“I see it,” Melissa said.
“Okay. My jacket against the one in the bag, which is torn and worthless, and which you’re going to throw in the garbage anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll play you for the jacket in the bag.”
“Play me what?”
“Jacks.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Melissa said.
“She’ll murder you,” Frieda said.
“She’ll mobilize you,” Hilda said.
“My jacket against the one in the bag, what do you say?”
Melissa weighed the offer. Her free hand clenched and unclenched on the table top, her lips twitched, but her eyes remained open and unblinking. The room was silent. Her friends watched her expectantly. At last, she nodded almost imperceptibly and said, “Let’s play jacks, mister.”
He had never played jacks in his life, but he was prepared to play now for a prize worth half a million dollars — “I’ll cut off all the buttons,” Melissa had said, smart little fat-assed snake-eyed gambler. He sat in one of the tiny chairs, his knees up close near his chin, and peered between them across the table. “Who goes first?” he asked.
“I defer to my opponent,” Melissa said, making him feel he had stumbled into the clutches of a jacks hustler.
“How do you... how do you do this?” he asked.
“He’s got to be kidding,” Frieda said.
“She’ll mobilize him,” Hilda said.
“Pick up the jacks,” Melissa said. “In one hand.”
“Yes?” he said, picking them up.