"You're free," Melinda said. "You can pay me back sometime when you're solvent again. Your little redhead told me about your financial situation. It happens. Businesses have their up-and-down years."
Griffen's cheeks burned. "Did the party go all right?"
"Oh, yes," Melinda had said, with a broad smile. "It was a wonderful party. You can see the photographs. Too bad you weren't there. All the gossip was about you. By the way, thank you for the honor of your trust. I'm sorry your family and mine got off on the wrong foot. Several wrong feet. But, thank you. I won't forget it."
Griffen hated being indebted to Melinda, but he had had no alternative. His voice was more gruff than he intended, but it had been a long night. "You bailed me out, so we're even. I will pay you back as soon as I can."
"Come on," she had said, gesturing toward the door but careful not to touch him. "I've got a car waiting."
There was nowhere else to go but home. Griffen sat on the couch in his satin-striped trousers and formal shirt, his silk tie untied. He had no reason to go out again. He had missed his own party. He had the headache to end all headaches. No one was speaking to him. He decided he was going to stay in his apartment forever.
His cell phone rang.
"Griffen? It's Kitty."
"Hey, Kitty, I didn't see you last night. I'm sorry I couldn't bail you out."
"It's okay. My mama came down and got me out. Can I talk to you? I'm right outside your building."
Griffen buzzed her in. Kitty came in. She looked so different in street clothes. When she didn't have to wear the tuxedo shirt and black pants, she favored bright colors. Her scarlet blouse was almost blinding to Griffen's hypersensitive eyes.
"Can I talk to you, Griffen? I don't know whether I'm crazy."
"Sure," he said. "Please, sit down. Do you want a drink?"
"No, thanks." She hesitated for a moment. "Griffen, you know that Jordan Ma who made such a problem at that game back in December?"
"I sure do," he said. "I wouldn't have let you deal for him, but he hasn't asked to play again. I haven't seen him since."
"Well, it's not him, but it feels almost like it has been. He had this tell, he liked to run his first finger around in a little circle on his cards. He'd hold them down like this and move his finger?" Kitty demonstrated, putting her hand on the arm of the couch. Griffen watched her. "He did it when he had a good hand. But there've been three different people since then who do the same thing, especially right before they kicked up a fuss. It sure hasn't been the same guy. I mean, I won't ever forget what he looks like! But that guy from Oklahoma last night who caused all the trouble--he did it, too. And there was a woman, too, who got stinking drunk and talked all kinds of shit until everyone else left. She did it. Maybe they belong to the same club or something?"
Or maybe, Griffen thought, they were the same man--or dragon--shifting shape to be four different people. He had to trap one of them.
"Kitty, I don't think you're crazy. I think there is some kind of club or society that is trying to shut us down. When you see that again, no matter what, call me. I want to talk to . . . one of them. Can you do that?"
She set her small jaw resolutely and squeezed Griffen's hand.
"I sure will, Griffen. No one is gonna screw up our operation like that. It means a lot to us, how you take care of us. I never had such a good job in my life. I will be damned if I will let some out-of-town assholes break us down."
Griffen smiled. "I don't appreciate my employees enough," he said. "Keep your eyes open, and tell the other dealers to watch out, too."
"I promise," Kitty said. "Thanks, Griffen."
Griffen let her out. They would help him catch Jordan Ma and his squad of Eastern dragons--if he ever had another game to run.
He called Jerome again. At last the phone rang. "They kept me sequestered, Grifter. Took the battery out of my phone. Kept losing the paperwork. Had to stand before the judge . . . Grifter, it was another dragon. I don't know how many there are."
"It seems there are fewer than we may think." He told Jerome what Kitty had described to him. Jerome clicked his tongue.
"So we're dealing with shape-shifters. Experienced ones."
"Yeah. And this was the worst yet. Just when things were picking up, thanks to the town being full for Mardi Gras. We were both too busy to be there. If one of us had been able to drop in, we'd have known we had a dragon on our hands."
"Yeah, and you know why that is?"
Griffen knew it before he said it. "No, Jer!"
Jerome was inexorable, and Griffen knew he deserved it. "Yes, Grifter. Your pal Peter. He knew you were gonna be completely occupied this evening, and I bet you told him I would be hanging out with my marching buddies then, too."
Griffen's heart sank, but he couldn't deny it. "Sounds like you were right all along."
"There is no satisfaction in 'I told you so,' man. You're the big dragon, and this is your operation. He probably didn't cause any other trouble until now."
"Well, they have succeeded in taking us down. Harrison said I couldn't run any more games, or he will bust me. I can't take a chance on going to jail. The parade's just a few days away."
"Uh-uh," Jerome said. "What you need, my friend, is plausible deniability. You don't know a damned thing. In fact, you are not going to hear from me about anything. It will be just like the old days. You know I told you to keep closer to the business? Well, now I want you to back off and not be involved. You have too much to do as Mardi Gras king. Mind that business. We'll get this done. No cop is going to shut us down. You go and have a good time."
Griffen smiled for the first time in hours.
Forty-five
Now Griffen really began to feel like Nathan Detroit. In case the NOPD had managed to put a tap on his phone, he fielded all calls asking to join a game with an apology. He kept Peter Sing at arm's length.
"I'm sorry. There isn't anything going for the foreseeable future, Peter. All of my people are tied up with . . . Mardi Gras obligations. I hope we can resume normal operations soon."
"That is a pity," Peter said. "I have really enjoyed our games." The voice on the other end of the line sounded genuinely disappointed. Griffen felt a pang. He really liked the other man, but now that he was convinced of his perfidy, he had to protect himself. "I will come and see you march."
Harrison kept the heat on him. Vice rousted his known runners in the hotels, but they couldn't be around all the time. Griffen went about his business, hoping Jerome could keep ahead of them. He hoped once Mardi Gras was over, they could build up the operation again, but who knew how long it would be before they could stop the Eastern dragons, if they could stop them?
Around one in the morning Thursday night at the Irish bar, Griffen's phone rang. He pulled away from his discussion with Bone over the quality of movie remakes.
"Griffen, it's Kitty. One of them is here, one of the guys from the club. This isn't the one who draws circles, but one of the gang who blinks. I think this guy is gay. He's acting just like the other gay guy who brought down a game. He makes comments. He scares me."
Griffen's heart started pounding.
"Just keep it going exactly as you would with any other group, Kitty," Griffen said. Another exemplary employee. He was going to have to institute some kind of reward system. If he ever got things back to normal, that was. He excused himself and called Jerome on the way over. If Harrison busted him now, it was all over, so this was his best and only chance to take one of them down.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, dragging another chair up to the table.
"Grifter!" cheered Jacomo Bernucci, a businessman from Baltimore.
"Jock, good to see you," Griffen said, shaking his hand. Good. One player he absolutely didn't have to worry about being the mole. The others, though not as familiar as Jock Bernucci, had been in town at least once before during Griffen's tenure as "head dragon." Lacey was the wife of a politician in Grand Cayman. Her family owned part of the power company, the telephone company, and almost all of the main Internet service provider in the islands. Oliver Stanton was blue blood from the East Coast, but in Hollywood he was a well-known character actor with a profile like Burt Lancaster's. Only the fourth was a stranger. He seemed ordinary: tall, blond hair turning white, hairline creeping upward, strong chin and straight brows; from all appearances a niceish guy in his fifties. Kitty shook her head at Griffen's interrogatory glance. So he had not started making a fuss yet but had made some comments. The other players didn't seem as relaxed as they usually were. The newcomer was the cause of the tension.
Once Griffen arrived, he subsided, but they both recognized another dragon. Griffen pretended not to notice. The other dragon relaxed a little. There were a lot of people with a little dragon blood around. Perhaps Griffen did not understand the significance.
He put all the money he had in his wallet in front of Kitty, $320, most of it borrowed from Val in the bar. Kitty counted out the chips.
"Are you planning to clean the rest of us out, Griffen?" Oliver asked, with a practiced wry expression.
"It's a good exercise for me," Griffen said. "If I can't play for at least an hour on this much money, then I had better find another job."
They laughed. He was short-stacked compared with the others, but it didn't take him long to double up and double again. He kept a deliberate eye on the blond man. He thought Kitty was probably wrong about his being gay. When one took shape-changing into account, the effeminate movements were probably just that. The mystery guest was a woman.
He, or she, tended to tuck his cards underneath his right wrist, leaving the right hand free to play with the stacks of chips. He leaned on the left wrist. The dragon did blink a lot when he, or she, had a good hand. Griffen started reading the signs and began to chip away at those stacks.
"Are you picking on me, Griffen?" the dragon asked.
"Me?" Griffen said, blandly. "Just playing a little poker."
It would take a lot of guts to go ahead and spike the game, but Griffen assumed that the Eastern dragons knew how much risk he and the others were taking to have set it up. He had to be prepared to cause trouble and call the police. Griffen merely had to beat him to it. It needed to be a hand that the other dragon was prepared to lose.
It didn't take long. Griffen palmed a card from the deck and kept it hidden until the other dragon glared at Jock Bernucci, who had just won a hand with king-jack of spades.
"You are cheating," he said. Griffen felt his heart speed up. Here it came.
"What?"
The other turned over his cards. "I, too, have the jack of spades. So you had an extra one in there? Hoping that none of us would notice an extra card in the deck? What kind of game is this? I thought it was honest!"
"I am honest!" Jock exclaimed. "Griffen!"
"Don't worry, Jock," Griffen said. "He's the one who is cheating. Look at this." He reached across the table and wrenched the other dragon's wrist up, scattering chips, and slipped the other card out. "He's got one he was saving for a rainy day, too. Look at that, another jack of spades." He hoped the illusion would hold. It didn't have to be good for long.
Jock gawked at him. He sprang to his feet. "Stand up, jerkface. Stand up and let me take you to pieces." The other dragon jumped back, alarmed, tipping over his chair.
Griffen rose and put his hands between the two of them.
"What just happened, Griffen?" Kitty asked.
"He cheated," Griffen said. "He had some spare cards in his sleeve. Nice of him to accuse Jock when it was him."
"I . . . I never noticed," Kitty said. "I'm ashamed."
Griffen kept his eyes on the other dragon, who looked as if he wanted to dive for the door. Griffen had to be ready to prevent an escape. "Don't be. He's one of the best there is. I've heard of him from . . . back East."
"Atlantic City?" Lacey asked.
"Uh, yeah. Atlantic City. Atlantic City Steve they call him. Very tough player, but dishonest as hell."
"Atlantic City Steve? That's a really dumb nickname."
"You think Minnesota Fats is complimentary?"
"Well, no, but it was descriptive."
Griffen kept his eyes leveled on the tall blond man. The other dragon glared at him. "I'm sorry, folks, but I think it'd be better if we call it a night. I need to handle this. Steve and I have to have a little talk. Thanks for coming. Kitty, count them out, please."
The other players departed. Kitty lingered for a moment, but Griffen chased her off. "You did great," he assured her.
When the door closed behind her, he looked at the other dragon. "Take it easy. We're going to be here for a while. Why not drop the disguise. I'm curious to see the face of my enemy."
The tall blond male seemed to collapse in on himself. Griffen had watched shape-shifters of other species, but except for Val had never watched another dragon change. The body shrank at the shoulders and grew slightly at the chest. He was right: It was a woman, a short one with frizzy brown hair, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and a blunt nose. She stood rigid on the other side of the table.
"You can't keep me here," she said.
"I sure can. Now, call the others."
"What if I won't?"
Griffen knew his poker face was the best around. He just looked at her.
She faced him down but grew more and more uncomfortable as the silence prolonged. Griffen sat down in a chair, blocking escape through either the window or the door. He blew a smoke ring, slowly, insouciantly.
Finally, she took out her cell phone.