[center][b]Concrete Jungle Part I: Three Card Stud[/b][/center] [b]Opal City, PA 12:20 AM[/b] Detective Chimp's hands were still shaking an hour after the run-in with Di Pasqua. He sat in the passenger seat of Effie's car while his assistant stared blankly out the window. The two of them were in the little office space he rented out below his apartment when the mobsters showed up. Effie had her purse and was heading out the door when they pushed her back and showed both of them their guns. They tried to protest, but the guns were effective at silencing any such disagreements, as guns always are. The two mobsters shoved them into the back of Effie's car and drove them to Di Pasqua's strip club. Now they were back outside his apartment. DC had a manila folder in his lap. Inside the folder were all the details the mob could give DC and Effie about their target. Johnny "Two Hands" Carbonerri, a mob accountant out in the wind with close to fifty grand of the Boy's cash. Di Pasqua's ultimatum was clear: 48 hours to find the Johnny Two Hands or he and Effie were headed for the bottom of the river. "I'm sorry, Effie," DC said to break the silence. "I'm sorry to get you mixed up in all this crap." "It's not your fault," she said softly. "You can't help them busting in on us like that. They're a bunch of monsters, DC." "They're not monsters," he said, thinking back to a long time ago. "I've seen monsters and what monsters do. These men are animals. They'd get along famously with all my old friends back in the jungle." DC opened the folder and browsed te information Di Pasqua had on him. It was thorough, part of it cribbed from an Opal City PD intelligence file the PD's mob squad compiled. That confirmed the fact that the Boys at least had their hooks into the PD. It also made DC wonder why they kidnapped him and forced him and Effie to work at gunpoint instead of getting an honest to god cop to do the legwork. "What's the first move?" Effie asked with raised eyebrows. "Carbonerri's file says he ran a hijacking crew out of the Eastside. If that's his base, and he's a player. Jake is going to know all about him." "Jake," Effie said, rolling her eyes. "The Three Card Stud himself." [center]*****[/center] The tall, skinny black man stood in front of a small crowd of people in the alleyway. He had in front of him a makeshift table made from a cardboard box and his long, thin fingers shuffled three cards overturned cards with lightning speed. For his part, the man looked straight ahead at the crowd while his hands did the work, moving so fast it seemed that they were blurring. "One, two, three, keep your eyes on the cards and not me." He stopped just as quickly as he started and looked at the half dozen people in front of him, grinning wildly. "It's two bucks to play, winner triples their money. Find the ace and you can put me in my place. Even shove it in my face!" Titters went out from the crowd. A few threw down their money, a total of eight dollars. "Teamwork, y'all," the man said with a wink. "You gotta pick the winner as a team." The bettors argued and debated on which card was the one hiding the ace. After a few minutes of back and forth disagreement, one man put a hand down on the middle card of the three. "This one," the man said, flipping it over and revealing a three of clubs. "No such luck," the dealer said with another grin. He flipped over the card on the far right, revealing a red ace. He laughed and scooped up their money amidst the grumbles. He stopped and looked deadly serious. "Look... I like y'all, I do. What about double or nothing?" The men threw down their money and he went back to work, shuffling and spinning the cards. Across the street from the scene, DC and Effie watched. DC looked amused while his assistant just looked bemused. "It's not fair," she said. "Do you know how many people Jake Lonnegan has conned out of food and rent money?" "People are dumb when it comes to money, Effie," DC said as he lit up a cigarette. "This is coming from someone who isn't even a person, but you're all the same when it comes to the prospect of easy money. If they're weak willed enough to believe money is that easy to get, then they deserved to be swindled. There!" He gestured with his cigarette while Jake continued to shuffle the cards. "Did you see it? You almost have to have a slow motion camera to see it. He made a slight twitch that last shuffle, palming the ace and hiding it in his hands. That ace they're looking for is never one of the three. He always wins." Five minutes later, Jake was up a significant amount of money and folding up his table, making up a quick excuse to get out of there before the people became wise to his antics. He was scuttling down the block when DC stepped out of the shadows, blowing smoke from his mouth. "What do you say, Jake?" "DC?! Long time no see," he said with a smile. He looked towards Effie and winked, smiling when she frowned at him. "What are you and the lovely Miss Effie doing in the Three Card Stud's neighborhood?" "Looking for a guy you might know," said DC. "He's reputed to be a thief." "Now, why would an upstanding citizen like myself know a shady character such as that?" "He's a mobster, Jake. Goes by the name Johnny Two Hands." Jake laughed and shook his head. "Gotta love them mob nicknames. Brother goes by Johnny Two Hands because, when he joined the Mafia, there was another Johnny, 'cept he only had one hand, so your boy becomes Johnny Two Hands." "Nom de guerre aside, Jake, what else is there to know about him?" "Just what I hear on the street," the conman said with a shrug. "Keeping my ear to the ground, you know how it is, apparently your boy has a lot of people talking. He's been using them two hands to feel up on a nice little number who works for the Russians." "Hooker?" asked DC. "I'm sure the Russians use her in their HR department," Effie said sardonically. "Staffing for a criminal enterprise is a full-time job, I'm sure." Jake laughed again and pointed at Effie. "I like you. You picked a winner, DC. But yeah, I just know this girl he has the hots for works for the Dragos. A real Romeo and Juliet story, you know? Star-crossed lovers and shit." "Yeah," DC said, blowing smoke. "A hairy dago and an anorexic Ruskie hooker. Warms the cockles of ones heart."