Pete Mayo bet steadily, young Harris began to call, Drake raised back. The boy wasn’t so sure now; his face was drawn uncertainly, the eyes flicking in rapid panicky arcs from one to the other. When he met Mayo’s last raise the space before him held a lone white chip.
Drake said: “I’m calling, Mayo.”
Pete Mayo arched his penciled black brows, looked incredulous, and laid his cards down. He was holding an ace high straight.
Jimmy Harris laughed suddenly — a sharp sound that had the relief, the breaking from tension, of a sob. He cried: “But it’s no good, Mayo. I’ve—” He stopped speaking, looked at the five spades he spread wide before him, then up to Drake’s gray eyes without raising his head, without, Drake thought, breathing.
Drake nodded, looking disgusted. He pursed his lips and threw his hand irritably into the discards, pushed his seat back from the board. Behind him Nicky’s mouth dropped. He began: “What in the hell did you—” with his voice getting louder on each word. Drake’s glance moved coldly at him and he stopped, his eyes astounded.
Joe Madigan’s plump face was pouting. “Not my luck to win that.” he said sourly. “They took us this time, Neil.”
He set his cigar on the rim of the board, bent to one side, and hoisted up a small leather portmanteau from the floor. A mass of papers on the top, removed, displayed a greenish edge of bills, massed in without order in overlapping heaps.
Neil Grant, his smile bright, facetious, said: “Mr. Money Man Madigan. Carries the cash with him. Some day, friend, that habit will get you taken.”
“Safer than a bank,” said Madigan. He leaned forward, his eyes hard, probing. “With this, Neil.” Drake looked at a shoulder-holster inside the bookmaker’s coat, saw a revolver butt black against worn leather. Madigan tapped it, grinned thinly. “They see papa first.”
Pete Mayo piled his counters without speaking, looking down at them thoughtfully; when he got his money from Madigan he straightened his slim dapper body and said: “I’ll be seeing you,” to no one in particular.
Jimmy Harris stacked his chips and pushed them across to Madigan. He made extravagant motions with his hands, laughed buoyantly as he spoke.
“What a break I got! I figured Mayo for a straight on his one draw — I wasn’t afraid of him. But Drake over here—” He grinned, looking up, mopped back his dark hair with one hand. “What did you have, anyway?”
Drake said, shrugging: “It doesn’t matter.”
Madigan finished paying off and clicked the leather bag shut. He grinned again, heartily, the hail fellow well met. “They better run right tomorrow, or little Joey will be down to getaway money.”
He took a folded hundred dollar bill from his vest pocket, patted it, kissed it, put it back. “Four years that’s been in the old sock. If the boys keep hitting me like they did these last few meetings, I’ll be using it. What you got in the Derby, Drake?”
“Oh, yes,” Neil Grant said. His eyes were sleepy, half closed, with the brown glitter narrowed in them. “You really owe us a tip after taking all our money.” Smiling brightly, gaily, he smoothed down his hair with one careful hand. “You have a reputation, you know — the bookmaker’s bane. Chicago Drake, the man of mystery. Strong, silent, and extremely fortunate. Do pass me the good word; I’ll take Joe’s money, as a friend.”
“Sorry,” Drake said. His tone was bland, withdrawn. “I don’t know a thing.”
Joe Madigan grinned, played with the handle of the brown leather bag. “I hope you’re coming clean, Chicago. You took me for plenty last meeting. The boys are beginning to mark you down as no bargain. Me, I’d hate to take your money on a brewery nag.”
Neil Grant said. “Oh, come on, Drake. A good word to a friend—”
Drake said, “Sorry,” again, without displaying sorrow in his faintly smiling face. He bowed to the girl, waved a hand at the others, went out to the corridor behind Nicky’s gnome-like form.
Two Pullmans up they entered another compartment, and before the door was closed behind them Nicky exploded. He barked: “What in the hell was the matter? Almost four grand on the board, a guy with a straight, a guy with a flush, and you—” Nicky choked, sputtered, looked at once bewildered and savage — “you with nothing at all in your mitt but a lousy full house. Why—”
Drake said: “He’s Pop Harris’ boy.” He whistled over the bag, not looking at the little man. “I guess he was playin’ with Pop’s money, three grand of it.”
Nicky nodded his head. “Pop Harris’ boy,” he said slowly. “So that’s the why. Your old pal Pop — and the kid’s his. I heard about the boy; he’s been tearin’ things open since Pop died and he got the old man’s little bit o’ jack. That’s—”
Drake growled: “Cut it out, I’m not giving anybody anything — not even Pop’s kid. He had me beat, that’s all. If I’d had the full I’d have pulled in the pot.”
“Sure, sure.” Nicky mimicked him with a distorted swagger, a bitter heartiness of tone. “Two aces don’t count with three fours. I know. But if Mayo had the kid beat, I got a hunch Pete would have lost the pot anyway. Lost to a full.”
Drake said: “Don’t bet on hunches. You’d always lose.”
Chicago Drake left his hotel room a little after eight that evening. He bought cigarettes at the stand downstairs, lit one at the gas flame before the counter, and crowded his way, with one shoulder hunched, through the press of people filling the lobby.
Out on the street he whistled a passing cab to the curb, got in, and gave the driver directions. Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned off the main road to a graveled lane lit by a string of colored bulbs, rumbled past a clump of trees to an open space hazily green with concealed lights. Drake got out and paid the driver.
High, sweet smelling stacks of hay flanked him as he went forward. On a building before him the word Haystack flicked on and off against a ramshackle wooden building that resembled too obviously a barn, with premeditated spots of rustic and quaint antiquity dotted across the worn board fronting. A smooth-faced man in evening clothes received him at the door and escorted him inside.
The air was warm, sweetish with the mixed odors of gin and liquors. It was dim over the tables, shadow hovered, with the only light a palish halo at the end of the long room, wherein a platinum blonde in a dark velvet dress moaned mournfully through the closing stanza of a torch song.
Drake threaded his way behind the waiter through a vague whiteness of tables, catching stray snatches of talk, a woman’s low laugh. It was too dark for him to distinguish faces; but all around him colored evening gowns and starched shirt fronts blurred together in movements under the pink light that retreated confusedly into the shadows from the silver glitter of the singer’s hair. Drake sat down and gave his order, lit a cigarette while he waited.
“My man’s go-ooo-one.” The orchestra surged suddenly up from under the blue cadences of the girl’s voice, overpowered it, and crashed brassy notes in crescendo against walls and ceiling. The lights went on, very brightly.
Drake looked about him. Four tables away from him his eye caught the bright glitter of Neil Grant’s hair, head turned from Drake as he applauded the singer. Jimmy Harris sat on his left, between him and the girl; he was smoking, a faint, absent frown on his brows. On the opposite side of the table Pete Mayo’s cameo cold face was remotely absorbed above the sleek small body; his glance crossed Drake with the barest perceptible widening of recognition. He made no other sign.
The waiter brought Drake’s order and he began to eat. When he had finished the band was playing again, a swift syncopation of notes that twinkled rapidly under the saxophones’ thin lament. Pete Mayo got up and went outside; Neil Grant and the girl left the table to dance. Drake wondered where Joe Madigan was as he arose and snaked a way through the dancers to where young Harris was sitting alone.