I wasn’t too concerned about how upset I might be. I’d had a feeling that the regulars weren’t quite playing fair the last time. I believed there was a little cheating and sleight of hand going on. Even the shuffle and deal seemed a bit off, but then, James had put eight bucks in the collection tonight and Cashdollar had promised him a return. I’m sure I heard the reverend say something about “if you give, God will make you rich.” I was probably blowing a perfectly good chance to make a lot of money.
I opened the truck and reached back to get our cash. I’d transferred the cash box to the small closet behind the passenger seat. Pulling it out, I opened it. Nothing.
“James. You took the money?”
“No, man. Not me.”
“James?”
“Skip?”
I looked again. Then I looked back in the closet. I leaned in and ran my hands along the wooden floor, picking up a sharp splinter. I jerked the sliver of wood out of my index finger.
“Skip, what’s the problem?” He stood behind me in the wet grass.
“There’s no money in the box, buddy.”
“Don’t buddy, me, Skip. I don’t have it. I didn’t take it.”
“No?”
He gave me a stern look.
“Damn.”
“Dude, how much did we lose?”
I’d put in $500 for change, plus the $500 we made. “A grand.”
“Jesus. That hurts. Had to have happened when we showered.”
I sat down on the passenger seat and rubbed my eyes. We didn’t know these people, we didn’t know anything about these people. I remembered when I was really young and my dad took me to a carnival. Probably the only carnival he ever took me to. Some guy with greasy hair, a bright red scar on his cheek, and two or three teeth in his mouth ran the Tilt-A-Whirl. I did not even want to get on. Not because of the ride, but because the guy was so scary. Dad laughed and said, “He’s a carney, son. A carney. He’s a guy who works for a carnival. They’re all scary. And you can’t ever trust ’em, but don’t worry. I’m right here to protect you.”
Dad didn’t stick around a whole lot longer to protect anyone in our family and I have never trusted carneys since. I was guessing the same guys who worked carnivals worked traveling salvation shows as well.
“We can’t afford to lose that money, James.”
“No we can’t, pard.”
“So we’re out of the card game.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got to win that grand back. I’ve got a hundred right here. I was just hoping for a bigger stake.”
I watched him pull a one hundred dollar bill from his shoe.
“Ben Franklin, here I come.”
“James, are you crazy? Think about it.”
“About what?”
“Chances are very good that someone in this group of food vendors stole the money.”
“Skip, we’ll never find it. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Not my point.”
“The point is?”
“That same person may be playing poker tonight. And things are not necessarily as they seem. The game may be fixed. You may lose more than a grand tonight.”
“Ain’t gonna happen, amigo.”
He lost fifty bucks in the first five minutes. Another fifty in the next ten.
“Hey, pard. Lend me twenty. I know you’ve got it.”
“Beer money, James.”
My roommate gave me a pleading look. I gave him a twenty. My last twenty. Our last twenty. I wasn’t sure what we were going to use for tomorrow. Maybe James could hit Brook up for another five hundred dollar stake. And I had no idea where we were going to get more beer money.
“So you’re in?” Mug shoved some chips to the center of the table. He had a big head and a jowly face. His cheeks kind of bulged and when he talked it was as if he had a wad of cotton there. I wondered what the three felonies entailed. I remembered what Stan had said. You don’t want to fuck with Mug.
James matched the chips.
“You boys do any business tonight?” Mug smirked.
“Matter of fact, we sold a little.” I defended our meager night. Meager, hell. With the theft, it was a total loss.
Stan squinted at me. “I told you, you can’t be a weekend vendor and make any money. It’s a full-time commitment. You take Henry over there.” He pointed to lemonade-and-hotdog Henry. “Henry, how long did you go before you were full time with the rev?”
Henry studied his cards, moving them around, never looking up. “ ’Bout a month.”
“See, Henry worked in a tool and die shop, did this part time, but he realized he needed a full-time commitment.” Stan reached out and touched Dusty’s arm. “Tell ’em I’m right, Dusty.”
“Right as rain.” Dusty looked up, apparently realizing he might anger the rain god again. We all looked up. The god remained quiet. The former schoolteacher let out a sigh.
James took the pot. With two pair. And just like that he was up $150. Then he took another one and he was flirting with $400.
The rain had washed the grease smell from the air, and had hosed down some of the more offensive odors of two of the poker players themselves, so I could smell pine trees on the cooling night air. A hundred feet or so away, I could hear the soft lapping of the Intracoastal Waterway, and there were murmuring voices coming from the community of tents, trailers, and campers where the faithful and the vendors lived for the weekend.
I looked around while James played, and I tried to figure out if one of these full-time vendors had taken our money. Stan and Crayer, with their cryptic threats, Mug, who may have done jail time for theft, Dusty the school teacher who didn’t look like he could hurt a fly, Henry the tool shop guy, and the silent man sitting to my right. Any one of them could have done it. All they had to do was pop open the truck, bang the door behind the passenger seat, and it usually popped right open, even when it was locked. There’s a false wall there and a narrow closet. I’d just put the cash box there. If someone had seen me do it, stealing it would be a snap. It could have been any one of these guys, but I had suspicions about Crayer. He was right next door, and he’d probably seen me open that little closet several times. I watched him, thinking maybe I’d see something. A glance, a guilty look. Obviously, I’m not a detective. I had no idea what to look for.
The night grew quiet and I could hear crickets. Crickets and the sound of someone walking down to Stan’s pizza wagon. The footsteps made a faint sucking sound, as the soles of the shoes walked through the wet dirt and gravel left after the day’s downpour.
Somebody called from the dark. “Yo.”
Stan stood up and walked out onto the dark path. The game came to a halt and I could see James’s eyes darting around. He was on a roll. Don’t fuck with Mug? Heck, don’t fuck with James.
I struggled to see who the man was in the dim light. Taller than Stan, someone with a jacket on.
In a minute, Stan walked back to the table. “Men, the collection tonight was pretty good.”
James and I looked at each other, wondering how Stan knew.
“Share was a little up from last time.” He held a canvas bag in his right hand. “You see boys,” he looked hard and long at James and me, “for the full-timers among us, Cash shares the wealth. Like he says, if you give, the Lord will give back.”
The assembled, as one, murmured, “Amen.”
I knew who the visitor was. Thomas LeRoy.
James looked at the bag, then up at Stan. “How much?”
“Tonight? About $800 per man.”
“No shit?”
