[center][b]Jock Sturgeon Part II: Three-Card Stud[/b][/center] [b]Lost Haven 6:34 PM[/b] 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 you 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. I made my way into the small crowd and watched, getting close enough to catch the sleight of hand as he palmed the ace and replaced it with another card. The dealer made eye contact with me and allowed his head to bend in just the slightest nods. In our world that passed as a hail-fellow-well-met. Like myself, Jerry Lonnegan was a grifter who prayed upon the stupidity and greed of people. Whereas I tried to con them out of thousands of dollars at a time, Jerry was strictly short cons with his three-card stud and change raising hustles. He probably made about as much money as I did a year, but Jerry was out in the streets every day running his scams. That type of work ethic exhausted me. Jerry was way too talented for the quick scams he pulled. In the past he'd sign on with me to pull a few grifts, but whenever I had offered to bring him in as a partner full-time he always politely declined. Five minutes later Jerry was folding up his card table and making up excuses to leave while the ones he'd grifted were walking away with annoyance. Another downside to the short con is that the mark is always right there when you pull the scam. In my games, usually the mark is angry enough to kill but I'm very rarely within killing distance when they figure out they've been had. "What do you say, Jerry?" "Jock, my man," he said with a smile. The hood accent from the card game had vanished. "What's going on?" "Buy you a cup of coffee?" "I'll buy my own. I can afford it." We made our way to a diner down the street. I ordered a black coffee while Jerry ordered a caffè macchiato. It made the waitress pause and arch an eyebrow. Jerry winked at her and shrugged. "So, Jock, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" I sipped coffee that tasted like it had been brewed sometime during the Reagan administration and tried not to make a face. "What do you know about east side burglars?" "A little." Jerry sipped his macchiato with a pinkie out. To his credit, he didn't get foam on his upper lip. That was eighty percent of why I never drank the damn things. "You working a job?" "Something like that. A job was pulled over on east side recently. If a pro was contracted out, chances are good that it was someone who works the area. It would have been an office break-in. Know of any specialist who do offices?" "Maybe," Jerry said with a scowl. "And maybe I can let you know what I know, but only if you tell me why you want to know." "You ever work as link in one of the Ambulance Chaser's chain?" "Once or twice. Why?" "What if I told you he was dumb enough to write it all down, everyone he used as a go-between in his jobs... and what if I told you someone broke into his office and stole it all those papers." The color disappeared from Jerry's face. He stayed silent and sipped his macchiato. "I'd say that a lot of people are fucked." I nodded and finished off my cup of caffeinated swamp water. "Right. And the only thing that stops them from being truly fucked is if I get those papers back... or at least destroy them. So, where do I start?" ---- [b]Chinatown 11:09 PM[/b] The apartment door's lock gave it up like a drunk cheerleader on homecoming. In thirty seconds I had popped it open, which was surprising since I hadn't used my picks in almost six months. It spoke less of my abilities and more to the cheap nature of the lock. It was funny since Fat Ricky Fat had a reputation as a smart thief. I quickly opened the door and went inside. It was apparent that shit was sideways from the second I walked in. The living room was ransacked and furniture was overturned. The smell of something burning filled my nostrils. It was times like this that I regretted never carrying a gun. With a penlight as my only guide, I walked into the bedroom and found Fat Ricky Fat. His corpulent body was sprawled across the bed. The source of the burning smell became apparent as soon as I saw his shirtless torso. Burn marks covered his chest and stomach, compliments of a hotplate that was resting on the bed and still burning away red hot. I crept towards him to try to find some clue as to how he died. No other wounds on his body besides the burns, nothing on his face like a bullet hole or stab wound. The only thing I could think of was heart attack. Fat Ricky Fat topped the scales at a good four hundred pounds. Working him over with the hot plate probably caused his heart to kick over. That meant that whatever they had been torturing him for, he hadn't given in. The sound of the door opening caused my head to snap away from Ricky's body and towards the door. Someone was walking through the apartment. Their steady footsteps meant that whoever it was, the chaos in the apartment didn't deter them. Their footsteps were coming closer to the bedroom. Cursing, I rushed over to the window and opened it. I ducked out into the fire escape and closed the window just as a silhouette came into view in the room. I pressed tightly against the wall to hide from the unknown person while they walked through the bedroom. Even from outside, I could hear their footsteps in the apartment and hear them recede. I took my chance and started down the fire escape. The apartment had an elevator and Ricky's apartment was on the sixth floor. If I could hurry I could see whoever it was just as they were coming out the building. I arrived at the bottom just as a black sedan raced from the building and into the dark. "Son of a bitch," I said aloud and wiped sweat from my face. Breathing heavily, I jumped the five feet from the fire escape to the ground and tried to catch my breath. The downside to cons over robberies is that cons don't provide nearly enough cardio. The brick wall of the alley was firm enough for me to prop against it and take an inventory of the night's actions. I was tired as hell, my one lead to this job dead and tortured, and some mysterious person pulling strings. I was back at square one. And worse, I had to be up early tomorrow morning for the next part of the Dunmoore game.