Johnny edged up the deck and fitted it into the deal box, which was open on one side with a thumb-hole for dealing. He spun the three of spades from the deck for his own card.

Soft intense curses rose in the smoky light as the cards spun face upward from the box. Each time a card fell the bets were picked up by the winners and the loser played the next clean card dealt from the deck.

Johnny played the three throughout the deal without it falling. He placed twelve bets and made a hundred and thirty dollars on the deal.

c.h.i.n.k Charlie staggered into the room, waving a handful of money.

"Make way for a skinner from way back," he said in a whisky-thickened voice.

Johnny was sitting with his back to the door and didn't look around. He shuffled the deck, edged it and put it down.

"Cut 'em, K.C.," he said.

The other players had looked once at c.h.i.n.k. Now they looked once at Johnny. Then they stopped looking.

"I don't suppose I'm barred from this mother-raping game," c.h.i.n.k said.

"I ain't never barred a gambler with money," Johnny said in his toneless voice without looking about. "Pony, get up and give the gambler your seat."

Pony Boy got up and c.h.i.n.k flopped into his seat.

"I feel lucky tonight," c.h.i.n.k said, slapping the money on the table in front of him. "All I want to win is ten grand. How 'bout it, Johnny boy? You got ten grand to lose?"

Once again the players looked at c.h.i.n.k, then back to Johnny, then at nothing.

Johnny's face didn't ificker, his voice didn't change. "I don't play to lose, buddy boy, you'd better find out that. But you can gamble here in my club as long as you got money, and walk out of here with everything you've won. Now who wants to draw?" he asked.

No one moved to draw a card from the deck.

"You don't scare me," c.h.i.n.k said, and drew one from the bottom.

Johnny charged him a hundred dollars. When c.h.i.n.k covered it he had only nineteen dollars left.

Johnny turned off the queen.

Doe played it.

c.h.i.n.k bet him ten dollars.

The queen of hearts doubled off.

"Some black snake is sucking my rider's tongue," somebOdy said.

c.h.i.n.k picked up the twenty dollars.

Johnny put the deck in the deal box and turned himself the three of spades again.

"Lightning never strikes twice in the same place," Bad Eye Lewis said.

"Man, don't start talking about lightning striking," Crying Shine said. "You're sitting right in the middle of a thunder storm."

Johnny turned off the deuce of clubs for Doe, who had first choice for a clean card.

Doc looked at it with distaste. "I'd rather be bit in the a.s.s by a boa constrictor than play a mother-raping black deuce," he said.

"You want to pa.s.s it?" Johnny asked.

"h.e.l.l," Doe said, "I ain't gambling my rathers. Throw back, yellow kid," he said to c.h.i.n.k.

"That'll cost you twenty bucks," c.h.i.n.k said.

"That don't hurt the money, son," Doe said, covering it. Johnny carried fifteen dollars to Doc, and began turning off the cards. Players reached for them, and bets were made. No one spoke. The silence grew.

Johnny sput the cards in the tight white silence.

A card fell. Hands reached for bets.

Doc fell again and looked through the dead for a clean card, but there wasn't any.

Johnny spun the cards and the cards fell. c.h.i.n.k's card held up. Johnny and c.h.i.n.k raked in the bets.

"I'll bet you some more, gambler," Johnny said to c.h.i.n.k.

"Throw down," c.h.i.n.k said.

Johnny carried him another hundred dollars. c.h.i.n.k covered it and had money left.

Johnny spun another card, then another. The veins roped in his forehead and the tentacles of his scar began to move. Blood left c.h.i.n.k's face until it looked like yellow wax.

"Some more," Johnny said.

"Throw down," c.h.i.n.k said. He was beginning to lose his voice.

They pressed their bet another twenty dollars.

Johnny eyed the money c.h.i.n.k had left. He pulled a card halfway out of the box and knocked it back.

"Some more, gambler," he said.

"Throw down," c.h.i.n.k whispered.

Johnny carried fifty dollars to c.h.i.n.k.

c.h.i.n.k covered twenty-nine and pa.s.sed the rest back. Johnny spun the card. The seven of diamonds flashed in the spill of light and fell on its face.

"Dead men falls on their face," Bad Eye Lewis said.

Blood rushed to c.h.i.n.k's face, and his jowls began to swell.

"That's you, ain't it?" Johnny said.

"How the h.e.l.l you know it's me, lest you reading these cards," c.h.i.n.k said thickly.

"It's got to be you," Johnny said. "It's the only clean card left."

The blood left c.h.i.n.k's face again, and it turned ashy. Johnny reached over and turned up the card that lay in front of c.h.i.n.k. The seven of spades looked up.

Johnny raked in the stack of money.

"You shot me, didn't you," c.h.i.n.k accused. "You shot me. You saw the seven-spot on the turn when you pulled it halfway out the box."

"You ain't got but one more time to say that, gambler," Johnny said. "Then you goin' to have to prove it."

c.h.i.n.k didn't speak.

"If you bet fast you can't last," Doe said.

c.h.i.n.k got up without speaking and left the club.

Johnny began losing. He lost all his winnings and seven hundred dollars from the bank. Finally he stood up and said to Kid Nickels, "You take over, Kid."

He went back into his office, took a .38 Army Colt revolver from the safe and stuck it inside of his belt to the left of the buckle, put his green suit jacket over his rose crepe shirt. Before leaving the club he said to Nubby, "If I don't come back, tell Kid to take the money home with him."

Pony Boy came back to the kitchen to see if Johnny needed him, but Johnny was gone.

"That c.h.i.n.k Charlie," he said. "Death ain't two feet off him."

16.

Alamena answered the door bell.

c.h.i.n.k said, "I want to talk to her."

She said, "You're stark raving crazy."

The black c.o.c.ker spaniel b.i.t.c.h stood guard behind Alamena's legs and barked furiously.

"What are you barking at, Spookie?" Dulcy called in a thick voice from the kitchen.

Spookie kept on barking.

"Don't try to stop me, Alamena, I warn you," c.h.i.n.k said, trying to push past her. "I've got to talk to her."

Alamena planted herself firmly in the entrance and wouldn't let him by.

"Johnny's here, you fool!" she said.

"Naw, he ain't," c.h.i.n.k said. "I just left him at the club."

Alamena's eyes widened. "You went to Johnny's club?" she asked incredulously.

"Why not," he said unconcernedly. "I ain't scared of Johnny."

"Who the h.e.l.l is that you're talkin' to, Meeny?" Dulcy called thickly.

"n.o.body," Alamena said.

"It's me, c.h.i.n.k," he called.

"Oh, it's you," Dulcy called. "Well, come on in then, honey, or else go 'way. You're making Spookie nervous."

"h.e.l.l with Spookie," c.h.i.n.k said, pushing past Alamena and entering the kitchen.

Alamena closed the entrance door and followed him. "If Johnny comes back and finds you here, he'll kill you sure as h.e.l.l," she warned.

"h.e.l.l with Johnny," c.h.i.n.k fumed. "I got enough on Johnny to send him to the electric chair."

"If you live that long," Alamena said.

Dulcy giggled. "Meeny's scared of Johnny," she said thickly.

Both AJamena and c.h.i.n.k stared at her.

She was sitting on one of the rubber-cushioned kitchen chairs with her bare feet propped on the table top. She was clad only in her slip, with nothing underneath.

"Cops," she said, coyly, catching c.h.i.n.k's look. "You're peeping."

"If you weren't drunk I'd give you something to giggle about," Alamena said grimly.

Dulcy took her feet down and tried to sit straight.

"You're just mad 'cause I got Johnny," she said slyly.

Alamena's face went blank and she looked away.

"Why don't you get out and let me talk to her," c.h.i.n.k said. "It's important."

Alamena sighed. "I'll go up front and watch out the window for Johnny's car."

c.h.i.n.k pulled up a chair and stood in front of Dulcy with his foot on the seat. He waited until he heard Alamena enter the front room, then suddenly went and closed the kitchen door, came back and took his stance.