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“Okay. If you insist! Watch out!”
Cruesoe shut his eyes. This, he thought, is the end. From here on they’ll lose and bet and lose again. Their fever’s up.
“Sorry, gents. Nice try. There!”
Cruesoe felt his hands become fists. He was twelve again, a fake mustache glued to his lip and his school chums at a party and the three-card monte laid out. “Watch the Red Queen vanish!” And the kids shout and laugh as his hands blurred to win their candy but hand it back to show his love.
“One, two, three! Where can she be?”
He felt his mouth whisper the old words, but the voice was the voice of this wizard stealing wallets, counting cash on a late-night train.
“Lost again? God, fellas, quit before your wife shoots you! Okay, Ace of spades, King of clubs, Red Queen. You won’t see her again!”
“No! There!”
Cruesoe turned, muttering. Don’t listen! Sit! Drink! Forget your twelfth birthday, your friends. Quick!
He took one step when:
“That’s three times lost, pals. I must fold my tent and …”
“No, no, don’t leave now! We got to win the damn stuff back. Deal!”
And as if struck, Cruesoe spun about and returned to the madness.
“The Queen was always there on the left,” he said.
Heads turned.
‘“It was there all the time,” Cruesoe said, louder.
“And who are you, sir?” The gambler raked in the cards, not glancing up.
“A boy magician.”
“Christ, a boy magician!” The gambler riffled the deck.
The men backed off.
Cruesoe exhaled. “I know how to do the three-card monte.”
“Congratulations.”
“I won’t cut in, I just wanted these good men—”
There was a muted rumble from the good men.
“—to know anyone can win at the three-card monte.”
Looking away, the gambler gave the cards a toss.
“Okay, wisenheimer, deal! Gents, your bets. Our friend here takes over. Watch his hands.”
Cruesoe trembled with cold. The cards lay waiting.
“Okay, son. Grab on!”
“I can’t do the trick well, I just know how it’s done.”
“Ha!” The gambler stared around. “Hear that, chums? Knows how it works, but can’t do. Right?”
Cruesoe swallowed. “Right. But—”
“But? Does a cripple show an athlete? A dragfoot pace the sprinter? Gents, you want to change horses out here—” He glanced at the window. Lights flashed by. “—halfway to Cincinnati?”
The gents glared and muttered.
“Deal! Show us how you can steal from the poor.”
Cruesoe’s hands jerked back from the cards as if burnt.
“You prefer not to cheat these idiots in my presence?” the gambler asked.
Clever beast! Hearing themselves so named, the idiots roared assent.
“Can’t you see what he’s doing?” Cruesoe said.
“Yeah, yeah, we see,” they babbled. “Even-steven. Lose some, win some. Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
Cruesoe glanced out at a darkness rushing into the past, towns vanishing in night.
“Do you, sir,” said the Straight-Arrow gambler, “in front of all these men, accuse me of raping their daughters, molesting their wives?”
“No,” Cruesoe said, above the uproar. “Just cheating,” he whispered, “at cards!”
Bombardments, concussions, eruptions of outrage as the gambler leaned forward.
“Show us, sir, where these cards are inked, marked, or stamped!”
“There are no marks, inks, or stamps,” Cruesoe said. “It’s all prestidigitation.”
Jesus! He might as well have cried Prostitution!
A dozen eyeballs rolled in their sockets.
Cruesoe fussed with the cards.
“Not marked,” he said. “But your hands aren’t connected to your wrists or elbows and finally all of it’s not connected to …”
“To what, sir?”
“Your heart,” Cruesoe said, dismally.
The gambler smirked. “This, sir, is not a romantic excursion to Niagara Falls.”
“Yah!” came the shout.
A great wall of faces confronted him.
“I,” Cruesoe said, “am very tired.”
He felt himself turn and stagger off, drunk with the sway of the train, left, right, left, right. The conductor saw him coming and punched a drift of confetti out of an already punched ticket.
“Sir,” Cruesoe said.
The conductor examined the night fleeing by the window.
“Sir,” Cruesoe said. “Look there.”
The conductor reluctantly fastened his gaze on the mob at the bar, shouting as the cardsharp raised their hopes but to dash them again.
“Sounds like a good time,” the conductor said.
“No, sir! Those men are being cheated, fleeced, buggywhipped—”
“Wait,” said the conductor. “Are they disturbing the peace? Looks more like a birthday party.”
Cruesoe shot his gaze down the corridor.
A herd of buffalo humped there, angry at the Fates, eager to be shorn.
“Well?” said the conductor.
“I want that man thrown off the train! Don’t you see what he’s up to? That trick’s in every dime-store magic book!”
The conductor leaned in to smell Cruesoe’s breath.
“Do you know that gambler, sir? Any of his pals your friends?”
“No, I—” Cruesoe gasped and stopped. “My God, I just realized.” He stared at the conductor’s bland face.
“You,” he said, but could not go on.
You are in cohoots, he thought. You share the moola at the end of the line!
“Hold on,” said the conductor.
He took out a little black book, licked his fingers, turned pages. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Lookit all the biblical/Egyptian names. Memphis, Tennessee. Cairo, Illinois? Yep! And here’s one just ahead. Babylon.”
“Where you throw that cheat off?”
“No. Someone else.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Cruesoe said.
“No?” said the conductor.
Cruesoe turned and lurched away. “Damn idiot stupid fool,” he muttered. “Keep your smart-ass mouth shut!”
“Ready, gentlemen,” the insidious cardsharp was shouting. “Annie over. Flea-hop! Oh, no! The bad-news boy is back!”
Jeez, hell, damn, was the general response.
“Who do you think you are?” Cruesoe blurted.
“Glad you asked.” The gambler settled back, leaving the cards to be stared at by the wolf pack. “Can you guess where I’m going tomorrow?”
“South America,” Cruesoe said, “to back a tin-pot dictator.”
“Not bad.” The sharpster nodded. “Go on.”
“Or you are on your way to a small European state where some nut keeps a witch doctor to suck the economy into a Swiss bank.”
“The boy’s a poet! I have a letter here, from Castro.” His gambler’s hand touched his heart. “And one from Bothelesa, another from Mandela in South Africa. Which do I choose? Well.” The gambler glanced at the rushing storm outside the window. “Choose any pocket, right, left, inside, out.” He touched his coat.
“Right,” Cruesoe said.
The man shoved his hand in his right coat pocket, pulled out a fresh pack of cards, gave it a toss.
“Open it. That’s it. Now riffle and spread. See anything?”
“Well …”
“Gimme.” He took it. “The next monte will be from the deck you choose.”
Cruesoe shook his head. “That’s not how the trick works. It’s how you lay down and pick up the cards. Any deck would do.”
“Pick!”
Cruesoe picked two tens and a red Queen.
“Okay!” The gambler humped the cards over each other. “Where’s the Queen?”
“Middle.”
He flipped it over. “Hey, you’re good.” He smiled.
“You’re better. That’s the trouble,” Cruesoe said.
