Tuff

17- INE HUSTLE

The opening article had generated some interest in inner-city politics. Part two would detail Winston’s whistle-stops on the campaign trail and part three the election’s aftermath. The problem was, Winston’s campaign activities ceased, so Spencer decided some behind-the-scenes orchestration was needed. “It’s for the good of the politically disenfranchised,” he told himself. “I’m not going to be one of those journalists who write about starving children, then don’t give them any food.”

Whenever an interested political organization called asking how they could contact Winston, instead of protecting his source, Spencer volunteered to arrange a meeting, insisting he go along as an “independent observer.” Usually the meetings took place in a Times Square restaurant after Winston stopped working the three-card-monte games.

Winston peeked out from behind the Broadway ticket booth and waved Spencer over. “Ven acá.”

“Hey, Winston.”

“We still going drinking tonight?” Tuffy asked, looking past Spencer at the pedestrian traffic.

“Yeah, yeah, I promised to expose you to some real beer. Wean you off that malt liquor you drink.”

“Who is it tonight?”

“Bruce Walsh from the New Progressive Party.”

“Whatever. Give me about forty-five minutes, Armello hot as a motherfucker.”

Armello was standing behind a large upended cardboard box with a page from the newspaper’s financial section draped over it. Spencer sauntered over. Armello’s hands maneuvered three cards across the day’s stock quotes. His siren madrigals lured the Argonauts of the world to their financial ruin.

Round, round it goes,

Black like crow,

Red like a rooster.

Pick the chicken

And I’ll watch you grow,

’Cause that means you beat me

Like my mama used to.

A Swedish sailor stormed away from the table two hundred dollars lighter, his shipmates laughing and pounding his back. In turn each of Armello’s confederates acknowledged Spencer’s presence with a subtle signal. Charles, dressed like a banker, straightened his suit jacket and twisted a cuff link. He placed a wad of “winnings” in a Gucci wallet, then nudged Spencer. “Easy money to be made here, chap. I don’t need the money, of course, I do it for the blasted thrill. For Christ sakes, lad, get in on the action.” Finished with his shuffle, Armello moved his hands away from the table. Three red-backed cards from a well-worn Bicycle deck lay on the table. Winking at Spencer, Nadine slid two fifty-dollar bills onto the table. “Don’t nobody jump in. This one’s mine. I got this money, yo.” A man sporting a Stalin mustache stepped into the spot where the Swedish sailor had stood earlier. Nadine turned over the king of hearts. “All right!” Armello paid her without complaint and began to reshuffle the cards. As the cards leapfrogged over one another he “accidentally” flipped the king of hearts, the money card, face up on the table. In picking it up, he bent its upper left corner. The crimp was clearly visible as he slowed the shuffle to a halt. “Point to it, girl,” he said to Nadine. “Point to it so I can win my money back.” Nadine turned over an unmarked card, unleashing a stream of curses. “That was ’posed to be the fucking card.”

Ike, Mike, Spike

It’s the king you like.

Fariq, bedecked in a flowing white linen robe and a white knit kufi, yelled, “My money!” and threw down eighty dollars and turned over the three of clubs. Armello plucked the dollars from his hand, then flipped over the king to show the crowd the losers had lost their money fair and square. “That’s okay. I’ll get the next one. I’m thinking Jew-like now,” Fariq said, looking out the corner of his eye at Spencer. “By observing the Jew, I’ve learned how to magnetize my mind to money. Point my spirit in the direction of the tender legal.” He faked a sneeze on Spencer’s shoulder. “Ah-Jew! Sorry about that, sir. Anyone have a tissue?”

Armello’s hands were moving faster now, his movements a blur; the cards seemed to hop about under their own power, the hands just passing over them. Every few passes Armello held up the king to show the gathered crowd the golden fleece. Through all the shuffling Spencer tried to keep his eyes glued to the king.

Red king, black deuce and trey,

Choose the two you lose,

Trey you pay.

Bring the king

Make your mama sing.

Use my money to buy some chicken wings.

“Who seen it?” Armello shouted, the crested cards facedown on the table looking like tract-house roofs viewed from the sky. “You seen it?” he asked Spencer, poking a finger solidly in his chest. Spencer shook his head no and backed a pace and a half away from the table. Dog-eared like a cropped Doberman pinscher, the middle card lay on the table screaming to be picked. “Who seen it? You? You? You? Point to it for free.” No one stepped up. Armello was about to redeal when Stalin’s hand shot across the table toward the bent card. Armello beat him to the card, but just barely. Holding the card down, he pressed the man to show him some money. Stalin took out a twenty. “I don’t play for twenty,” Armello said. “Show me a hundred, I’ll give you two hundred.” The man hesitated. Charles opened up his wallet and removed a stack of twenties. “I’ll take this chap’s bet.”

Stalin dug into his pocket, pulled out three crumpled hundred-dollar bills. “Oh shit,” the knot of onlookers gasped. Hands shaking, Fariq placed a small rock on the card, then quickly went through his pockets and soon fanned out six hundred dollars in bills of various denominations. Nadine unfolded Stalin’s money, slowly scooting it closer to Fariq’s edge of the table. Hands no longer shaking, Fariq slowly raised the rock off the card. Stalin turned it over: two of spades. He started screaming that he’d been cheated, that the cards had been somehow switched. “I demand a refund!”

“Refund?”

Nadine cooled the mark out, then turned to Fariq. “Give him a free shot. Slow it down. Let my man go for free.”

Fariq refused, stuffing the wrinkled bills into a money clip already filled with cash. “Hell naw, if he would’ve won would he have given me my money back?” he said, knowing that even if by some improbability the man had chosen the king, the only way he’d have received his winnings was at gunpoint, and the only way he’d spend them would be to shoot Winston. Nadine ran a finger down Fariq’s cheek. “Come on, baby.” Smush reshuffled the cards, held the king to the man’s nose, flicked his wrists and dropped the cards on the table, the bent king no longer available. “Pick, motherfucker!” Stalin’s hand paused over every card, finally settling for the one on the far right: three of clubs. “Now get the fuck out of here! I hate a sore motherfucking loser.” Nadine quickly lost a hundred dollars and the crowd, growing suspicious, thinned.

La-di-da-di, I got enough money to pay everybody.

Ding, ding, ding, I pay like a slot machine,

Show me the red, I’ll show you green.

I bluff you, I beat you

But I would never cheat you.

Spotting two beat cops coming up the boulevard, Winston cupped one hand over his mouth and in a muffled voice that went unheard except by those who were meant to hear it, said, “Ease up.” The game and its players disappeared from the street as if they’d fallen through a trapdoor.