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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 49: Brown 299
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 99
Staring at the Devil in the guise of a well-dressed card sharp, Derek had just told him he wasn’t going to play poker because the Devil always cheats.
“Mister Brown--may I call you Derek?” the cardplayer replied. “I’m offended. Slander is my job, not yours. Besides, I told you, I always keep the rules. I know you don’t trust me, but you can trust me for that.”
“Thanks all the same,” Derek said, “but I think I’ll keep my shirt.”
“As you like.”
As Derek turned away, the devil muttered just loudly enough for Derek to hear him. “Now last night, as I was playing poker, another man lost his shirt. And he still owes nineteen dollars.” Not wanting to, feeling very much like a fish being played, Derek turned back. He said nothing.
“Well, how rude of me. Let me finish the tale. This young man’s name is Jeremiah Johnson, first born son of Hannah Johnson, your widowed employer. He’s a hard working fellow, and mostly smart, but once in a while a powerful thirst overcomes him. And if he finds a poker game, why, he loses mightily. The drink just addles his brain. Tell me, Derek, do you think I could convince him to part with his soul for nineteen dollars and a new shirt? After he’s drunk, of course. He’s not yet of the righteous, although he inclines that way, and his mother, curse her name, prays for him daily.” The devil smiled at him, the same unkind smile as before.
“You stay away from him!” Derek snarled, leaning forward over the table. The devil smiled up at him.
“Now why would I do that? Unless, of course, you’d care to play for his nineteen dollars and a shirt.” The devil took out his cards, and rifled them smoothly with his blood red gloved hands, facing all the cards as he slid the pack up his arm, flicking the top one so they all inverted, and catching them back in a stack in his hand. “Game?” He smiled with full knowledge of control evident in face, posture, and smile.
“You--!”
“I told you, Mister Brown, terror and misery and madness.” He chuckled, and his breath blew into Derek’s face and smelled like sulfur. “I would not want you to think me a liar. I mean, that would just hurt my feelings.”
Derek’s mind spun as panic raced in. He could not let Missus Johnson’s son lose his soul. He had things he could bet--his laser blaster; his gold chain. He could use clairvoyance to see the cards. Somehow he had to beat the devil. But how? His hands began to reach for the cards, and then he heard behind him the mournful song of the ney. Spinning about, he saw his wife, beautiful Vashti, like she was so far away, although she was just across the room, and she was playing on the ney with tears in her eyes.
He took a step away, and he heard a growl behind him.
“Come back, Mister Brown.”
He took six more steps, and on his seventh stood next to Vashti as she played. He sang along with her, and as he did his spirit calmed, and his mind cleared. He saw the trap. Jeremiah might have lost nineteen dollars, and he might be an idiot when he got drunk and had cards in his hand. But the devil never said they had played together. No, he had played somewhere that night, and so had Jeremiah. This was assuming the devil was even telling the truth about any of this, which considering the moniker of Father of Lies was a tale Derek was going to take with five pounds of salt, not just one grain.
When the song finished, the devil made to say something, but Derek interrupted.
“You are not welcome here, sir.” He began to sing Amazing Grace and, furious, the devil rose, spun knocking the chair over, and stalked from the now almost deserted music hall.
“Thanks,” he said to Vashti. “Better put that away so we can catch the trolley.”
Pierre came over. “I collected our pay; you might want it for the ride home. Here’s seventy-five cents for you, and for you, and I already paid Maurice.”
“Thanks, Pierre. I think I’d have forgotten.”
“Can’t be careless like that, Derek. They might not have kept the money for you.”
They stepped out into the muggy night air. Even in November it was warm, even at night. Would it even feel like Christmas?
“Pahdon me,” someone said, a Chinese man older than himself but younger than Pierre. Derek gave him his attention.
“Yes?”
“I hea you play; you plitty good. I think, though, you need dlum, and I play dlum.”
“You do?”
Derek thought he shouldn’t be surprised. He was just thinking that they needed a drummer.
“We live out on the edge of town by the river. Are you free tomorrow afternoon? We’d love to hear what you can do. Bring your drums.”
The Chinaman nodded.
“Maurice, you know the city better than I do. Tell him how to get there.”
Maurice began to discuss where the man was coming from and what the best way to get there might be, when Derek suddenly realized something rather foolish.
“Oh, what’s your name?” he interrupted.
“Lei He,” he replied.
“I’m Derek, this is Vashti, that’s Maurice, and over there is Pierre. You won’t remember that, but we’ll tell you again tomorrow.”
At that moment a trolley pulled up, and Maurice said, “This be us,” and hopped on. Derek let Vashti get on in front of him, and got on last. He looked over to Pierre.
“I’m headed a different direction,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The trolley rang the bell and started moving.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #505: Versers Advance. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
