The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What Dad Did

I did not take the envelope.

"You're not allowed out," I said. "You're supposed to be in bed."

"I know what I'm supposed to be."

"Inside. Now."

I wheeled him into the office myself, past the dark bar and the empty tables.

Cade stayed on the front steps.

I heard him say, "I'll be in the kitchen," and then the door closed behind us.

My father's hands shook so hard that the envelope rattled.

I sat down in his big oak chair, behind the desk, because I did not want to sit across from him.

"Tell me all of it," I said. "Start at the beginning."

He looked at the heron painting.

"Four years ago I borrowed from a man named Kray," he said.

"The bank had said no. The roof was falling in.

"The slots were ten years old, and I didn't tell you how bad the books were."

"I remember the roof."

"Kray lent me two hundred thousand at points a week."

His voice was barely a thread.

"Then he asked a favor.

"He wanted to run cash through our poker room.

"People bought in with his money and cashed out clean, and I kept a little of every pile."

"You were washing his money."

"I was drowning," my father said.

"That's not what I asked."

He closed his eyes.

"Yes. I was washing his money."

I waited.

"I kept the real books in the green book and in cash logs in the back office. I told myself it was insurance.

"Then I read a magazine story about a young champion who wouldn't play for a man named Kray."

"Cade."

"He said in the interview that poker should be clean, and he meant it."

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