He found he did not want to go back.
Instead, he turned his back on the Gardens and walked into the city, sometimes taking an elevator upward, sometimes a stairway down. Lacking purpose, he found himself in a gray neighborhood and on an impulse, he stepped into the nearest bar. It was a dive called the Rat's Nose. He would walk up to the tappie and ask for work. Even if it was just washing dishes and sweeping the floor, it would be a start.
A little girl crawled out from under a table and beamed up at him. "Hello," she said. "My name is Esme. Who are you?"
Nat looked up from his newspaper and smiled. "There you are! I was beginning to think you were never going to show up."
12
A Small Room in Koboldtown
Okay, okay, who's it gonna be next?" Nat threw a card down on the folding table. "You give me five, I give you ten. You give me ten, I give you twenty, you're a winner!" He threw down a second card. "Pick the queen, the black queen, la reine de la nuit, you're a winner!" He threw down a third card, and flipped them all over. A pair of red deuces, and the queen of spades. "Woddaya got, woddayagot? Forty gets you eighty, fifty a hundred. It's so easy a child could play! Woddaya got?" He switched the cards around once, twice, thrice. "There's always a winner."
A crowd had gathered under the marquee of the derelict Roxy Movie Theater where he'd set up the pitch. They were hobs and haints mostly, with a scattering of red dwarves. Will stood in their midst, pretending to watch the cards but surreptitiously looking for a trout. Haints made good trouts because they expected to be broke at the end of the week anyway and would watch their money disappear with stoic grace. Dwarves liked to gamble but tended to be sore losers. Usually they weren't worth the trouble. Hobs, on the other hand, were tightfisted but they were plungers. Will had his eye on one hob in particular who stood on the fringe of the crowd, scowling skeptically but clearly fascinated.
A haint passed a ghostly gray hand over the card table. Two crumpled dollar bills appeared in its wake. "That one," he said, pointing.
"Not this one, you say?" Nat flipped over the two of diamonds. "Nor this?" The two of hearts. "You chose the queen, you're a winner! Two gets you four. Pony on up, pony on up. Ten gets twenty, twenty gets forty. Woddaya got, woddaya got?"
Flip, flip, flip went the cards. The haint left the four dollars on the table without adding to them, and chose again. Nat turned over the card. "It's not the diamond deuce, no sirree! Two cards a winner, five'll get you ten. Double up, double up, the more you bet the more you win." Nat switched the two cards around and then back to their original positions.
The haint shook his head obstinately and jabbed a smoky finger at his card again. They weren't going to get anything more out of him, Will saw. Nat had obviously reached the same conclusion, for he switched the cards around again, sliding the queen up his sleeve and replacing it with a second two of hearts.
"Final call, double up? No? And it's... the deuce!"
Nat pocketed the money. "Who's next, who's next? Bet big, win big, woddaya say?" The hob was starting to turn away now and nobody else was stepping forward, so Will pushed his way up close to the front. "Three cards down, one two three. Three cards over, three two one. Woddaya got? Twenty forty fifty a hundred." The queen was in the middle. Nat swapped the deuces, then switched the queen with one of the twos.
Will threw a twenty down on the table. "That one," he said, pointing to the center card.
The crowd gave out a soft moan as he chose what all of them could see was a losing card.
Nat grinned. "You're sure, now? You don't wanna bet on this one? Double your winnings, easy as pie." He pointed at the facedown queen. "No? All right then. I flip the cards — one, two, and... the queen is mine!"
"Oh, man!" a nearby haint said. "The queen, she right there. Anybody seen that."
"Hey," Will said testily. "Bet your own money, buddy, if you're so smart." The hob was watching intently, his body no longer half-turned to leave. He was beginning to think there was money to be won.
He'd taken the hook. Now to set it.
"Twenty gets you forty, forty gets you eighty," Nat crooned. "Pick the queen, you win, black always wins. Twenty forty, fifty a hundred. Easy to win, easy as sin!" He threw down the three cards and flipped them face up.
"Let me see that queen!" Will snatched up the card, examined both sides, and reluctantly set it down again. As he did so, Nat turned his head to the side and sneezed.
Swiftly, Will bent up one corner of the queen. When Nat swept up the cards again, apparently without noticing, Will winked cockily at the haint who'd criticized his last bet. By no coincidence at all, the trout was in a position to notice.
"Luck be a lady, you're a winner! Twenty gets you forty. Woddayagot? Woddayagot?" Cards face up. Cards face down. Nat shuffled them about. "Twenty gets you forty, you're a winner. Fifty gets you a hundred. Woddayagot?"
Will plonked down his entire roll. He could see the hob edging closer, naked avarice on his face. "Two hundred says the queen's in the center." He pointed at the card with the turned up corner.
"Sorry, kid, fifty's the limit."
The crowd growled. Nat looked alarmed and threw up his hands. "All right, all right! Just for today, no limit." He flipped over the cards. "You're a winner!"
Will accepted his winnings and, smirking, strolled jauntily to the edge of the crowd. Nat started up his spiel again, and the hob shouldered his way to the front, shouting, 'I got three hundred says I can spot the queen!"
The hook was set. Nat proceeded to reel the trout in. "You want in? Woddayagot? One hundred gets you two hundred, three hundred six. Pick the queen, you're a winner. Black card, black card, black card. The queen of cards, the queen of night, la reine d'Afrique, you're a winner. One... two... three... you choose."
The trout confidently jabbed a finger at the card with the turned-up corner.
Nat flipped it over.
Now came that delicious moment when the trout saw it alclass="underline" He saw the face of the card whose corner Nat had bent while manipulating it, which was of course not the queen whose corner he had smoothed flat again. He saw his money disappearing into Nat's vest. He saw that he'd been cheated, outwitted, and made into a tool. Mostly — and this was the best part of all — he saw that he couldn't unmask Nat as a sharper without admitting to his own dishonesty.
The hob's mouth opened in an outraged O.
With practiced skill, Will slid unnoticed behind the trout, his hand closing about a cosh he kept in one trouser pocket, just in case. But in the event, the hob indignantly spun on his heel and stormed away.
"Woddayagot, woddayagot?" Will went back to scanning the crowd—and saw that a prosperous-looking haint in a three-piece suit was staring at him, smiling softly. He was too expensively dressed to be bunko, he didn't have the vibe for the left-handed brotherhood, and he for sure wasn't a trout. So what was he?
In that instant Will's worried musings were pierced by a shrill, two-fingered whistle. Esme stood atop a trash receptacle at the corner, waving wildly. She pointed at a huaca in the uniform of the City Garda who had just lumbered past her.
All in a breath Nat swept up cards and money, abandoning the folding table, and the crowd, few of whom had reason to love the gendarmerie, scattered. Will made straight for the patrolman, gesturing angrily!" Arrest that scoundrel!" he demanded. "He's a cheat. He took my money!" The bronze-faced huaca tried to brush past him, but Will stepped directly in his way. "I demand satisfaction!"
"Get the fuck out of my face," the huaca snarled, and pushed Will aside. Too late, Nat had already slipped down the passageway between the Roxy and the paint store next door and disappeared.