The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Kray's Men

On Thursday the nineteenth, the day before the game, a man in a gray suit sat down at Bea's blackjack table with a briefcase.

I was crossing the floor with a tray of coffee for the dealers, and I stopped when I saw her face.

Bea was not dealing.

She stood at the end of the table with a deck in her hand.

She looked at him.

"Good morning, Ms. Lund," the man said.

He was smooth and sandy and somewhere near fifty, and he wore a tie pin shaped like a small silver card.

I had seen him at Kray's shoulder in the hospital and in the Roost.

Kray's lieutenant, one of the men who never had a name on the tour sheets.

"Sit down," Bea said. "You're blocking the game."

"There is no game. It's ten in the morning."

"There's me."

He smiled, and opened the briefcase, and turned it toward her.

Inside lay stacks of hundred-dollar bills in white paper straps.

"Two hundred thousand dollars," he said. "And Mr. Kray would like you to have a pension."

The dealers nearest the table stopped shuffling.

A pair of early regulars on stools at the bar turned around.

"What's the money for?" Bea said.

"You've been this casino's pit boss for decades. You're fifty-eight years old.

"The Wren is going to change hands tomorrow night, one way or the other.

"Mr. Kray would simply like you to be well looked after."

"And what do I do for it?"

"Tomorrow, you don't see anything," he said. "Whatever happens at table one.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Poker King Returns from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.