New Orleans Noir

the door, where two men in cheap suits and a young woman in a thin cotton dress had stopped to peer inside. They were whispering among themselves and the girl was staring as if she had never seen anything quite like him before. Once he caught her eye, her face broke into a smile that was shyly wicked.
    Eddie McTier shifted his way into Valentin’s line of vision and rapped his knuckles on the table. “That’s it,” he said. There was a small cylinder of gold coins in front of him that looked to be at least the equal of Valentin’s own.
    “That all of it?” Valentin asked.
    “Every fucking dime,” McTier replied with a snide curl of his lip.
    Twine stepped up to the table with a pint bottle of amber liquor in one hand and a short glass in the other. He placed them at McTier’s elbow and skipped away in a hurry.
    McTier frowned at the bartender “How come everybody’s so damn skittish today?” he said. “Y’all are actin’ crazy.”
    Valentin pushed the deck of cards across the table. “You deal,” he said.
    McTier’s face pinched with distrust. He watched Valentin for a second, then fanned a thumb through the deck. Satisfied it was clean, he broke it in half and began to shuffle. “What’s your story, friend?” he inquired.
    “No story,” Valentin said. “Just passing through and looking for a game. What about you?”
    “What, ain’t nobody told you?”
    “Told me what.”
    “I come from Georgia. Place called Happy Valley. I heard they like the blues in New Orleans. So I come over and I’m here to stay.”
    Valentin studied the sharp’s face, feigning a vague interest, and watched his hands at the same time. McTier was playing it straight so far, but he was talking faster and faster, an old trick that was a variation on the magician’s sleight of hand.
    “I got me a woman back home in Thomson. Ain’t but fifteen years old.” He seemed to stumble for a moment. “Got me a child name of Willie. He’s blind.” Now he fell curiously silent for a few seconds, as if he had lost his way. Recovering, he poured his glass full and drank it halfway down. “But truth is, I got more women than I know what to do with,” he crowed as his hands got busy again. “I found me this here young Ethiopian gal and brought her along. I left her over across the river.”
    “And what are you doing in Algiers?” Valentin asked.
    McTier smiled and said, “Takin’ your money, friend.”
    Valentin’s face lightened suddenly and he grinned as if the guitar player had just told a good joke. The whispers at the door stopped and even Mr. Roy halted his wheezing for a few seconds.
    “I say somethin’ funny?” McTier asked.
    “Deal,” Valentin said.
    “I’ll deal all right,” McTier said, and began snapping cards.
    Valentin caught the move on the first hand and let it go. It was the same with the second and third, and McTier, looking giddy, drank some more as he watched the Creole’s stack of coins shrink while his grew. A quarter-hour passed in this manner, and Mr. Roy, Twine, the two fellows at the bar, and the trio near the door were all looking at Valentin as if realizing that in fact he was a fool.
    For Valentin, it was as easy as hooking a Mississippi catfish. Thinking he had a chump in his sights, and doing some showing off for the locals, McTier tried a more brazen ploy. This time the Creole’s left hand came down with the force of a guillotine to grab the guitar player’s wrist in an iron grip.
    “What did I tell you?” Valentin’s voice, though soft, rang out in a room that had suddenly gone dead quiet.
    McTier tried to bluff his way out. “What the hell? Take your goddamn paw off me!”
    Valentin shrugged and let go, then used the free hand to tear away the cuff of McTier’s shirt, popping the link and revealing the card hidden there, an ace of spades. It would have come in handy on the next deal.
    McTier lowered his forehead and his eyebrows dipped into a valley. He muttered something under his breath and a rank smell came off him. On the periphery of his vision, Valentin saw the two men standing in the doorway pull the girl back out onto the banquette as the rounders and Twine dropped from sight like ducks in a shooting gallery. Mr. Roy was too fat to move with any haste, so he just pushed his chair back into the corner as far as he could go, and watched.
    McTier got to his feet, the torn cuff dangling. “This game’s over,” he said.
    “Damn right,” Valentin countered.
    The