Hearts In Atlantis

“All right, Bobby,” Mrs. Gerber said, and sighed. “If you have to.”

“Put those nickels down here, Bob, where we can all look at em,” said McQuown. “They look like good ’uns to me, yes indeed. Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

“Then here we go. Two boys and a girl go into hiding together. The boys are worthless. Find the girl and double your money.”

The pale dextrous fingers turned the three cards over. McQuown spieled and the cards blurred. Bobby watched them move about the table but made no real effort to track the queen. That wasn’t necessary.

“Now they go, now they slow, now they rest, here’s the test.” The three red-backed cards were in a line again. “Tell me, Bobby, where’s she hide?”

“There,” Bobby said, and pointed to the far left.

Sully groaned. “It’s the middle card, you jerk. This time I never took my eye off it.”

McQuown took no notice of Sully. He was looking at Bobby. Bobby looked back at him. After a moment McQuown reached out and turned over the card Bobby had pointed at. It was the queen of hearts.

“What the heck?” Sully cried.

Carol clapped excitedly and jumped up and down. Rionda Hew-son squealed and smacked him on the back. “You took im to school that time, Bobby! Attaboy!”

McQuown gave Bobby a peculiar, thoughtful smile, then reached into his pocket and brought out a fistful of change. “Not bad, son. First time I’ve been beat all day. That I didn’t let myself get beat, that is.” He picked out a quarter and a nickel and put them down beside Bobby’s fifteen cents. “Like to let it ride?” He saw Bobby didn’t understand. “Like to go again?”

“May I?” Bobby asked Anita Gerber.

“Wouldn’t you rather quit while you’re ahead?” she asked, but her eyes were sparkling and she seemed to have forgotten all about beat-ing the traffic home.

“I am going to quit while I’m ahead,” he told her.

McQuown laughed. “A boasty boy! Won’t be able to grow a single chin-whisker for another five years, but he’s a boasty boy already. Well then, Boasty Bobby, what do you think? Are we on for the game?”

“Sure,” Bobby said. If Carol or Sully-John had accused him of boasting, he would have protested strongly—all his heroes, from John Wayne to Lucky Starr of the Space Patrol, were modest fellows, the kind to say “Shucks” after saving a world or a wagon train. But he felt no need to defend himself to Mr. McQuown, who was a low man in blue shorts and maybe a card-cheater as well. Boasting had been the furthest thing from Bobby’s mind. He didn’t think this was much like his dad’s inside straights, either. Inside straights were all hope and guesswork—“fool’s poker,” according to Charlie Yearman, the Harwich Elementary janitor, who had been happy to tell Bobby everything about the game that S-J and Denny Rivers hadn’t known—but there was no guesswork about this.

Mr. McQuown looked at him a moment longer; Bobby’s calm confidence seemed to trouble him. Then he reached up, adjusted the slant of his bowler, stretched out his arms, and wiggled his fingers like Bugs Bunny before he played the piano at Carnegie Hall in one of the Merrie Melodies. “Get on your mark, boasty boy. I’m giving you the whole business this time, from the soup to the nuts.”

The cards blurred into a kind of pink film. From behind him Bobby heard Sully-John mutter “Holy crow!” Carol’s friend Tina said “That’s too fast” in an amusing tone of prim disapproval. Bobby again watched the cards move, but only because he felt it was expected of him. Mr. McQuown didn’t bother with any patter this time, which was sort of a relief.

The cards settled. McQuown looked at Bobby with his eyebrows raised. There was a little smile on his mouth, but he was breathing fast and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip.

Bobby pointed immediately to the card on the right. “That’s her.”

“How do you know that?” Mr. McQuown asked, his smile fading. “How the hell do you know that?”

“I just do,” Bobby said.

Instead of flipping the card, McQuown turned his head slightly and looked down the midway. The smile had been replaced by a petulant expression—downturned lips and a crease between his eyes. Even the plastic sunflower in his hat seemed displeased, its to-and-fro bob now sulky instead of jaunty. “No one beats that shuffle,” he said. “No one has ever beaten that shuffle.”

Rionda reached over Bobby’s shoulder and flipped the card he had pointed at. It was the queen of hearts. This time all the kids clapped. The sound made the crease between Mr. McQuown’s eyes deepen.

“The way I figure, you owe old Boasty Bobby here ninety cents,” Rionda said. “Are you gonna pay?”

“Suppose I don’t?” Mr. McQuown asked, turning his frown on Rionda. “What are you going to do, tubbo? Call a cop?”

“Maybe we ought to just go,” Anita Gerber said, sounding nervous.

“Call a cop? Not me,” Rionda said, ignoring Anita. She never took her eyes off McQuown. “A lousy ninety cents out of your pocket and you look like Baby Huey with a load in his pants. Jesus wept!”

Except, Bobby knew, it wasn’t the money. Mr. McQuown had lost a lot more than this on occasion. Sometimes when he lost it was a “hustle”; sometimes it was an “out.” What he was steamed about now was the shuffle. McQuown hadn’t liked a kid beating his shuffle.

“What I’ll do,” Rionda continued, “is tell anybody on the midway who wants to know that you’re a cheapskate. Ninety-Cent McQuown, I’ll call you. Think that’ll help your business?”

“I’d like to give you the business,” Mr. McQuown growled, but he reached into his pocket, brought out another dip of change—a big-ger one this time—and quickly counted out Bobby’s winnings.