The crowd pressed forward as my opponent peered at his last card.
"Skeeve," he said almost regretfully. "You had an interesting strategy there, but my hand's good... real good."
He flipped two of his down cards over.
"Full Dragon ... four Ogres and a pair of tens."
"Nice hand," I acknowledged.
"Yeah. Right. Now let's see what you've got."
With as much poise as I could muster, I turned over my hole cards.
Chapter Nineteen:
"Can't you take a joke?"
-T. EULENSPIEGEL
MASSHA looked up from her book and bon-bons as we trooped through the door.
"That was quick," she said. "How did it go?"
"Hi, Massha. Where's Markie?"
"Upstairs in her room. After the second time she tried to sneak out, I sent her to bed and took up sentry duty here by the door. What happened at the game?"
"Well, I still say you were wrong," Aahz growled. "Of all the dumb stunts you've pulled ..."
"C'mon, partner. What's done is done. Okay? You're just mad because I didn't check with you first."
"That's the least of..."
"WILL SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED?"
"What? Oh. Sorry, Massha. I won. Aahz here is upset because..."
I was suddenly swept up in a gargantuan hug and kiss as my apprentice expressed her delight at the news.
"I'll say he won. In one hand he won," Tananda grinned. "Never seen anything like it."
"Three unicorns and the six of clubs in the hole," Aahz raged. "Three wild cards, which, when used with the once-a-night suit shift rule on the seven of diamonds, yields..."
"A straight-bloody-flush!" Chumley sang. "Which took the Kid's Full Dragon and the largest pot that's ever been seen at the Bazaar."
"I knew you could do it, Daddy!" Markie shrieked, emerging from her hiding spot on the stairs.
So much for sending her to bed early.
"I wish you could have seen the Kid's face, Massha," the troll continued merrily. "I'll bet he wishes now that he carries antacids instead of breath mints."
"You should have seen the crowd. They're going to be talking about this one for years!"
Massha finally let me down and held up a hand.
"Hold it! Wait a minute! I get the feeling I've missed a lap here somewhere. Hot Stuff here won. Right? As in walked away with all the marbles?"
The brother and sister team nodded vigorously. I just tried to get my breath back.
"So how come Green and Scaly is breathing smoke? I should think he'd be leading the cheering."
"BECAUSE HE GAVE THE MONEY AWAY! THAT'S WHY!!!"
"Yes. That would explain it." Massha nodded thoughtfully.
"C'mon, Aahz! I didn't give it away."
As I've discovered before, it's a lot easier to find your breath when you're under attack.
"Whoa! Wait!" my apprentice said, stepping between us. "Before you two get started again, talk to Massha. Remember, I'm the one who wasn't there."
"Well, the Kid and I got to talking after the game. He's really a nice guy, and I found out that he had pretty much been betting everything he had ..."
"That's what he claimed," Aahz snorted. "I think he was making a play for our sympathies."
"... and I got to thinking. I had worked hard to be sure that both the Kid's and my reputations would be intact, no matter how the game came out. What I really wanted to do was to retire from the dragon poker circuit and let him take on all the hotshot challengers ..."
"That much I'll agree with."
"Aahz! Just let him tell it. Okay?"
"... But he couldn't keep playing if he was broke, which would leave me as the logical target for the up-and-comings, so I let him keep the quarter of a million he had lost..."
"See! SEE!!! What did I tell you?"
"... as a LOAN so he could use it as a stake in future games...."
"That's when I knew he had... a loan??"
I grinned at my partner.
"Uh-huh. As in ‘put your money to work for you instead of stacking it,' a concept I believe you found very interesting when it was first broached. Of course, you had already gone off half-cocked and stomped away before we got to that part."
Any sarcasm I had managed to load into my voice was lost on Aahz, which is not surprising when you realize we were talking about money.
"A loan, eh?" he said thoughtfully. "What were the terms?"
"Tell him. Bunny."
"BUNNY??"
"Hey! You weren't there, remember? I decided to see what our accountant could do. Bunny?"
"Well, I've never dealt with stake money before, no pun intended, so I had to kind of feel my way along. I think I got us a pretty good arrangement, though."
"Which was..."
"Until the Kid pays us back ... and it's got to be paid back in full, no partial payments, we get half his winnings."
"Hmmm," my partner murmured. "Not bad."
"If you can think of anything else I should have asked for, I'm open to ..."
"If he could think of anything else," I said, winking at her, "you can believe he would have roared it out by now. You did great. Bunny."
"Gee. Thanks, Skeeve."
"Now then, if someone would be so kind as to break out the wine, I feel like celebrating."
"Of course, Boss, you realize that now a lot of people know that you've got a lot of cash on hand," Guido pointed out, edging close to me. "As soon as Nunzio gets back, I think we'd better take a look at beefin' up security on the place, know what I mean?"
"Where is Nunzio, anyway?" Massha said, peering around.
"He'll be along in a bit," I smiled. "I had a little errand for him after the game."
"Well, here's to you, Skeeve!" Chumley called, lifting his goblet aloft. "After all our worrying about whether your reputation could survive a match with the Kid, I dare say you came out of it well ahead of where you were before."
"That's right," his sister giggled. "I wonder what the Ax thinks about what happened."
That was the cue I had been waiting for. I took a deep breath and a deeper drink of wine, then assumed my most casual manner.
"Why bother speculating, Tananda? Why not ask direct?"
"What's that, Skeeve?"
"I said, why not ask the Ax directly? After all, she's in the room right now."
The gaiety of the mood vanished in an eyeblink as everybody stared at me.
"Partner," Aahz murmured, "I thought we settled this when we talked to Don Bruce."
I cut him off with the wave of a hand.
"As a matter of fact, I'm a little curious about what the Ax is thinking myself. Why don't you tell us ... Markie?"
My young ward squirmed under the room's combined gaze.
"But, Daddy ... I don't... you ... oh, heck! You figured it out, huh?"
"Uh-huh." I nodded, not feeling at all triumphant.
She heaved a great sigh. "Oh, well. I was about to throw in the towel anyway. I had just hoped I could beat a retreat before my cover was blown. If you don't mind, I'd like to join you in some of that wine now."
"Help yourself."
"MARKIE?!?"
Aahz had finally recovered enough to make noise. Of course, it comes reflexively to him. The others were still working on it.
"Don't let the little-girl looks fool you, Aahz," she winked. "Folks are small and soft on my dimension. In the right clothes, it's easy to pass yourself off as being younger than you really are... lots younger."
"But...but..."