Hopscotch

1 In Paris the gambling was hidden but easy enough to find. This one was in the fifteenth arrondissement near the Citroen factory. The thick door had an iron ring for a hand≤ a thug absurdly disguised as a doorman admitted Kendig and there was a woman at a desk, attractive enough but she had a cool hard air. Kendig went through the tedium of establishing the credentials of his innocencehe was not aflic, he was not Sicilian, he was not Union Corse, he was not this or that. "Just a tourist. I've been here beforewith Mme. Labrie. There isn't a message for me by any chance?" There wasn't. Kendig paid the membership admission and crossed to the elevator.There will be an interesting message for you tonight at the Club Rouge. It had been typed, no signature; delivered to hisconciergeby an urchin clutching a five-franc note. He went up in a lift cage piloted by a little fellow whose face was the texture of old rubber dried grey by a desert sun: the look of an Algerian veteran. The old fellow opened the gate on the thirdetage. "Bonne chance, M'sieur." Behind the smile was a leering cynicism. Kendig's fathomless eyes looked past the tables at a desolate emptiness of his own. The crowd was moderate, the decor discreet, the costumery tiresomely fashionable. Soft laughter here, hard silence there: winners and losers. The bright lighting leeched their faces of color. Kendig drifted among the felted tables. A croupier recognized him from somewhere and smiled; he was in the uniformthe tuxedo that only appeared to have pockets; to discourage temptation. Kendig said, "They've moved the poker?" "You must speak with themaitre." The croupier glanced toward a largish man in black who loomed over the neighboring wheel. Kendig had a word with themaitreand had to show his bankroll to the cashier behind a cage. He bought five thousand francs in rectangular chips and themaitreguided him officiously past the tables to an oak door with massive polished brass fittings. Beyond it Kendig found the game, six players around a table that accommodated eight chairs. A houseman stood in the shadows. There was one woman in the game; he knew who she was but they'd never met. He knew the American, Paul Jaynes; the others were strangers. Jaynes gave him a debonair greeting and the others glanced at him but Kendig hung back until they had finished the hand. They were playing seven studunusual for a room like this. And the house wasn't dealing. The woman won the hand and gathered the pot; themaitrebowed his way out and Kendig pulled out one of the empty chairs and sat down with his chips. His place was between Jaynes and the woman, with the woman on his left; he knew Jaynes's manner of play and it didn't trouble him to be downwind of the American. "Been a while," Jaynes said with his beefy smile and Kendig nodded acknowledgment. Jaynes had a deep suntan and a huckster's compulsion to touch anyone to whom he spoke. He was a film producer of independently financed sex-and-sandal epics. The others had the same look: businessmen, promoterstwo Frenchmen, a German, a Swede. The woman he knew by sight and reputation; he'd seen dossiers on hershe'd spent a few years as patroness of American exiles in Algeria before she'd tired of the game or been frightened out of it by the professionals. She had been married to a banker but there'd been a divorce and she'd reverted to her maiden name. "Pot limit of course," Jaynes told him, laying out the ground rules.Garfield, Brian is the author of 'Hopscotch', published 2004 under ISBN 9780765309204 and ISBN 0765309203.