The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Seat Open

On Tuesday night I opened the safe a second time and counted out forty thousand dollars.

It was the Wren's reserve, the cash that covered every jackpot and every bad night.

Bea watched me bundle it in a canvas bag.

"That's the roof money," she said.

"It's the roof or the Wren."

"Kid, he'll lose it to a rich man's hands."

"He won't lose."

"How do you know?"

"Because I have watched him play all week."

Bea blew a ring of smoke at the ceiling.

"That's a hell of a reason to bet a roof."

I carried the bag to the poker room myself.

Cade was sitting at table one with a cup of tea.

A boy in a team jacket was asking him questions, a boy who had driven over from Sacramento that afternoon.

I set the bag in front of him.

"Buy in," I said.

"Pamela."

"Forty thousand. It's the Wren's, and I'm the manager, and I say so."

He looked at the bag, then at me.

"If I lose it," he said.

"You won't."

"If I do."

"Then I'll deal you another hand and we'll lose it together."

The room had gone quiet again.

Everyone could hear.

He stood up, took the bag, and said, softly, "All right."

Then he took the high-stakes table.

It was the one in the back, the old walnut oval under the brass lamp, where Hal used to play on Christmas Eve.

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