The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Friday

By nine o'clock on Friday night the Lucky Wren held more people than its fire permit allowed.

They stood three deep around the walnut oval in the back of the poker room.

They crowded the stairs, and the Roost's bar stools, where a screen played the game with the sound up.

The street outside was blocked with cars.

Somebody had counted forty thousand people watching on a stream, and the number kept climbing.

A young man with a phone on a stick walked backward in front of the table, whispering to the camera.

I stood at the rail with my braid pinned up and my dealer's vest buttoned to the throat.

My hands were cold.

Bea stood on my left with a clipboard she did not need.

My father sat on my right in his wheelchair, in a clean shirt.

He had come in an hour ago, without a word, and had taken that spot, and nobody had asked him to leave.

At the very back of the crowd, a woman in a gray raincoat leaned on the wall with a lanyard tucked inside her coat.

She had shown her badge to my father and to no one else.

The Gaming Control Board had kept its word.

Kray came in at nine sharp, in a navy suit, and the crowd parted in front of him.

The silver cufflinks flashed.

Bea brought the black chip case out of the vault and set it on a stand beside his chair.

We had put every tray back exactly as we found it on Wednesday.

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