Straight
McCoy
“McCoy. Roger.”
“Real name?” smirked the blond giant behind the table. He seemed quite pleased with himself, and well he should be. Confidence, ‘McCoy’ had learned in twenty-one years, was the key to every door. No one questioned you when you believed the lies you told.
So he replied to the man’s question with an equally arrogant look of disdain.
The giant laughed. “What’s yer game?”
“McCoy plays poker.”
When the ferret-faced ‘gentleman’ appeared at the bottom of the stairs, Roger almost gave the lie to the statement. No poker player worth his salt gaped like an idiot when taken by surprise. He controlled his expression and nodded. “Mr. Beale.”
“Mr. McCoy.” Beale nodded back, an amused smirk on his face. “Welcome ta da best gambling hall in New York.”
The breadth of that smirk told him he was caught. The Olympian behind the table had become unimportant. “Thank you, Mr. Beale.”
Beale smiled insincerely. “Da tables are down dat hall. Poker’s in the first room, left a’ da aisle. Blackjack’s on da right. Craps in da back if ya wanna try somethin’ new.”
“I’ll stick with poker,” McCoy replied. Craps wasn’t new to him, but he was no expert at it. Poker was his game, even if this wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
“Dan I’d better get ya a worthy opponent.” His gaze roamed the hall. “Brindell!”
A scrawny teen, just coming up from the basement, jumped, sandy hair falling into his eyes. “Mr. Beale?” he answered nervously. “I jus’ came up fer some water – da dogs get thoisty afta a fight, an’ I–”
“Show Mr. McCoy ta Table Twelve,” the proprietor cut through his excuses.
The boys eyes widened a bit. “Mr. Little ain’t–”
“Show Mr. McCoy ta Table Twelve,” Beale repeated with exaggerated patience. “Den get back downstairs wheah ya’s supposed ta be. Somebody could be dopin’ da dogs while ya loaf around.”
“I was jus’–”
The bouncer rolled his eyes. “Brindell,
shaddup an’ move!”
Brindell led a path that weaved through the tables and past the bar to an empty table in the corner, then disappeared. Table twelve was empty without even a note from the dealer saying ‘back in five.’ McCoy leaned against a chair to wait, rather than sitting down. Standing, he had a better view of the room, clouded with smoke, though it was. A cigar-puffing red-head from a neighboring table glanced at him. “Tom don’t open till midnight,” he said.
McCoy nodded to him and continued his survey of the room.
“I said, Tom don’t open till midnight,” the red-head repeated.
“Thank you,” he replied this time.
“I said–”
“Granger, ya gonna argue or ya gonna play?” someone called, distracting the man.
“I’m playin’!” the red-head retorted. “Dat idiot don’t know when he’s hearin’ good advice,” he grumbled.
“Good advice or hot air?” the dealer asked. The table, with the exception of Granger, laughed.
“I was tellin’ him Tom don’t open his table till midnight. Standin’ dere like ‘e’s deaf as a post . . .”
The woman next to him rolled her eyes, then straightened in surprise. “Tom is comin’ down.”
He paid her as little attention as he did Granger, which seemed to irritate her. Nothing, he’d decided, is more intriguing or more irritating to a woman than a man who shows no interest in her. Of course, similar things could be said about men, he thought as a cocky, brown-haired man swaggered toward him.
“Tom Little.”
“Roger McCoy.” He tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves, just the tiniest bit nervous. Not about playing Little, though Tom clearly thought no one could beat him, but because this game mattered, much as he tried to pretend otherwise. He had fifteen hundred dollars in his pocket that needed to be back in his father’s strong box by mid-morning. His private allowance had been cut off when –
He interrupted himself. “Let’s play.”
All hope of winning enough to pay Beale off once and for all – or at least to build up a fund the extortionist didn’t know about – had died when he realized exactly who owned the Silver Nickel, but he knew he’d work something out. He had to. And when there was no other option, it became fact.
“Raise ya fifty.”
The deck was stacked, but he’d come expecting that. He’d played enough ‘friendly’ games with men his father wanted to flatter money out of, to know how to cheat without anyone ever being able to figure out quite how he’d done it. He made himself hesitate, then said determinedly, “Call.” He licked his lips. “An’ raise ya one hundred.”
Granger, after losing his money to someone who’d had less to drink, wandered over to observe. He snorted at the foolishness and laughed to himself, then ordered another whiskey.
Beale was also watching, that aggravatingly smug smirk on his face. He, of them all, was impossible to read. He was pleased with himself, certainly, but he could as easily be anticipating Little’s fall as McCoy’s.
“Show ‘em,” Tom said, at last and displayed his own hand, a full house.
“Royal flush,” McCoy said quietly.
Little sat back, stunned. The crowd that had gathered around the table was silent. Only one expression was unchanged. McCoy glanced at Beale. He was still smirking.
He glanced back at the money in the middle of the table, then laid out his changed plans, looking straight at Beale. “I want a job.”
Little choked. He hadn’t quite come to grips with losing yet, and now this?
“I want a job,” McCoy repeated, still looking at Beale. “I’ll play for the house. Fifty-fifty.”
“Ya’ll take thoity.” Beale showed no surprise, and no inclination to bargain. He was, after all, in a position to set terms.
“Thirty.” It was better than he’d expected, but he glanced at the pot. “Starting tomorrow.”
“Fifty tanight,” Beale replied. “Thoity tamorra.”
He needed to get that money back. “Done.” He turned. Little had had time to recover. “Another game?”
“Da house don’t play itself,” Beale interrupted.
The crowd was still interested. “Anyone else, then?”
Roger McCoy left the Silver Nickel at about five-thirty, silent and unsmiling. At six o’clock, Stephen Godwin Jr. jumped the back steps of the Godwin home on Park Avenue and let himself into the kitchen. No one saw him, of course. The cook and the two kitchen maids busily preparing breakfast did not witness Mr. Stephen enter, brush off his shoes and head upstairs with the smell of smoke and whiskey still clinging to him. A woman who valued her position knew that such things never happened in the Godwin home.
“Least he don’t bother the girls,” one of the maids said.
“He can find that elsewhere,” replied the other.
The cook shot both a look that froze them
into silence.
to be continued . . .