Chapter 6: The Back Room

Pearl hugged me for a full minute before she let go and looked at my face.

"You're thin," she said. "He starved you."

"He didn't starve me."

"He fed you a sandwich and a dream. Same thing." She turned and looked Rafe up and down. "And you're the owner."

"Rafe Zielinski."

"I taught this girl to deal when she was nineteen and had to stand on a milk crate.

"If you hurt her, I know where your cards are cut."

"Noted," Rafe said, and I saw him fight a smile.

The back room he gave us had no windows and one round table.

Pearl set her case on the felt and snapped it open, and the smell of old cards rose up out of it.

"Castiglioni has a champion," she said. "I've been hearing about him for a week. A thin man who never blinks."

"You've been hearing about him?"

"The minute the word went around that Barrett Castiglioni had the Tarrant child at his house, I took a bus." She sat down heavily.

"I called you forty times."

"I turned my phone off."

"I know. Your husband told me you'd gone to the Halcyon." She said husband the way other people say rat.

Rafe stayed in the doorway.

"I need to see what she does with a real opponent," he said. "Not a dealer. A player."

"He'll be here in ten minutes," said Pearl. "I arranged it. Mr. Zielinski's floor manager owes me a favor from 1998."

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