‘Yvonne,’ she said in a voice Bobby could barely hear. Beside him, Sully-John was watching with great interest. ‘Sometimes folks call me Evvie.’
‘Okay, Evvie, look right here, pretty baby. What do you see? Tell me their names — I know you can, a smart kid like you — and point when you tell. Don’t be afraid to touch, either. There’s nothing crooked here.’
‘This one on the end is the jack . . . this one on the other end is the king . . . and this is the queen. She’s in the middle.’
‘That’s it, dollface. In the cards as in life, there is so often a woman between two men.
That’s their power, and in another five or six years you’ll find it out for yourself.’ His voice had fallen into a low, almost hypnotic chanting. ‘Now watch closely and never take your eyes from the cards.’ He turned them over so their backs showed. ‘Now, dollface, where’s the
queen?’
Yvonne Loving pointed at the red back in the middle.
‘Is she right?’ the man in the bowler asked the little party gathered around his table.
‘So far,’ Rionda said, and laughed so hard her uncorseted belly jiggled under her sundress.
Smiling at her laughter, the low man in the bowler hat flicked one corner of the middle card, showing the red queen. ‘One hundred per cent keerect, sweetheart, so far so good. Now watch! Watch close! It’s a race between your eye and my hand! Which will win? That’s the question of the day!’
He began to scramble the three cards rapidly about on his plank table, chanting as he did so.
‘Up and down, all around, in and out, all about, to and fro, watch em go, now they’re back, they’re side by side, so tell me, dollface, where’s she hide?’
As Yvonne studied the three cards, which were indeed once more lined up side by side, Sully leaned close to Bobby’s ear and said, ‘You don’t even have to watch him mix them around. The queen’s got a bent corner. Do you see it?’
Bobby nodded, and thought Good girl when Yvonne pointed hesitantly to the card on the far left — the one with the bent corner. The man in the bowler turned it over and revealed the queen of hearts.
‘Good job!’ he said. ‘You’ve a sharp eye, dollface, a sharp eye indeed.’
‘Thank you,’ Yvonne said, blushing and looking almost as happy as Carol had looked when Bobby kissed her.
‘If you’d bet me a dime on that go, I’d be giving you back twenty cents right now,’ the man in the bowler hat said. ‘Why, you ask? Because it’s Saturday, and I call Saturday Twoferday!
Now would one of you ladies like to risk a dime in a race between your young eyes and my tired old hands? You can tell your husbands — lucky fellas they are to have you, too, may I say — that Mr Herb McQuown, the Monte Man at Savin Rock, paid for your day’s parking.
Or what about a quarter? Point out the queen of hearts and I give you back fifty cents.’
‘Half a rock, yeah!’ Sully-John said. ‘I got a quarter, Mister, and you’re on.’
‘Johnny, it’s gambling,’ Carol’s mother said doubtfully. ‘I don’t really think I should allow
— ‘
‘Go on, let the kid learn a lesson,’ Rionda said. ‘Besides, the guy may let him win. Suck the rest of us in.’ She made no effort to lower her voice, but the man in the bowler — Mr McQuown — only looked at her and smiled. Then he returned his attention to S-J.
‘Let’s see your money, kid — come on, pony up.’
Sully-John handed over his quarter. McQuown raised it into the afternoon sunlight for a moment, one eye closed.
‘Yeh, looks like a good ‘un to me,’ he said, and planked it down on the board to the left of the three-card lineup. He looked in both directions — for cops, maybe — then tipped the cynically smiling Rionda a wink before turning his attention back to Sully-John. ‘What’s your name, fella?’
‘John Sullivan.’
McQuown widened his eyes and tipped his bowler to the other side of his head, making the plastic sunflower nod and bend comically. ‘A name of note! You know what I refer to?’