Hearts in Atlantis(30)

Mr McQuown looked at him a moment longer; Bobby's calm confidence seemed to trouble him. Then he reached up, adjusted the slant of his bowler, stretched out his arms, and wiggled his fingers like Bugs Bunny before he played the piano at Carnegie Hall in one of the Merrie Melodies. 'Get on your mark, boasty boy. I'm giving you the whole business this time, from the soup to the nuts.'

The cards blurred into a kind of pink film. From behind him Bobby heard Sully-John mutter 'Holy crow!' Carol's friend Tina said 'That's toofasf in an amusing tone of prim disapproval. Bobby again watched the cards move, but only because he felt it was expected of him. Mr McQuown didn't bother with any patter this time, which was sort of a relief.

The cards settled. McQuown looked at Bobby with his eyebrows raised. There was a little smile on his mouth, but he was breathing fast and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip.

Bobby pointed immediately to the card on the right. 'That's her.'

'How do you know that?' Mr McQuown asked, his smile fading. 'How the hell do you know that?'

'I just do,' Bobby said.

Instead of flipping the card, McQuown turned his head slightly and looked down the midway. The smile had been replaced by a petulant expression - downturned lips and a crease between his eyes. Even the plastic sunflower in his hat seemed displeased, its to-and-fro bob now sulky instead of jaunty. 'No one beats that shuffle,' he said. 'No one has ever beaten that shuffle.'

Rionda reached over Bobby's shoulder and flipped the card he had pointed at. It was the queen of hearts. This time all the kids clapped. The sound made the crease between Mr McQuown's eyes deepen.

'The way I figure, you owe old Boasty Bobby here ninety cents,' Rionda said. 'Are you gonna pay?'

'Suppose I don't?' Mr McQuown asked, turning his frown on Rionda. 'What are you going to do, tubbo? Call a cop?'

'Maybe we ought to just go,' Anita Gerber said, sounding nervous.

'Call a cop? Not me,' Rionda said, ignoring Anita. She never took her eyes off McQuown. 'A lousy ninety cents out of your pocket and you look like Baby Huey with a load in his pants. Jesus wept!'

Except, Bobby knew, it wasn't the money. Mr McQuown had lost a lot more than this on occasion. Sometimes when he lost it was a 'hustle'; sometimes it was an 'out.' What he was steamed about now was the shuffle. McQuown hadn't liked a kid beating his shuffle.

'What I'll do,' Rionda continued, 'is tell anybody on the midway who wants to know that you're a cheapskate. Ninety-Cent McQuown, I'll call you. Think that'll help your business?'

'Id like to give you the business,' Mr McQuown growled, but he reached into his pocket, brought out another dip of change - a bigger one this time - and quickly counted out Bobby's winnings. 'There,' he said. 'Ninety cents. Go buy yourself a martini.'

'I really just guessed, you know,' Bobby said as he swept the coins into his hand and then shoved them into his pocket, where they hung like a weight. The argument that morning with his mother now seemed exquisitely stupid. He was going home with more money than he had come with, and it meant nothing. Nothing. I'm a good guesser.'

Mr McQuown relaxed. He wouldn't have hurt them in any case - he might be a low man but he wasn't the kind who hurt people; he'd never subject those clever long-fingered hands to the indignity of forming a fist - but Bobby didn't want to leave him unhappy. He wanted what Mr McQuown himself would have called 'an out.'

'Yeah,' McQuown said. 'A good guesser is what you are. Like to try a third guess, Bobby? Riches await.'

'We really have to be going,' Mrs Gerber said hastily.

'And if I tried again I'd lose,' Bobby said. 'Thank you, Mr McQuown. It was a good game.'

'Yeah, yeah. Get lost, kid.' Mr McQuown was like all the other midway barkers now, looking farther down the line. Looking for fresh blood.

Going home, Carol and her girlfriends kept looking at him with awe; Sully-John with a kind of puzzled respect. It made Bobby feel uncomfortable. At one point Rionda turned around and regarded him closely. 'You didn't just guess,' she said.

Bobby looked at her cautiously, withholding comment.

'You had a winkle.'

'What's a winkle?'

'My dad wasn't much of a betting man, but every now and then he'd get a hunch about a number. He called it a winkle. Then he'd bet. Once he won fifty dollars. Bought us groceries for a whole month. That's what happened to you, isn't it?'

'I guess so,' Bobby said. 'Maybe I had a winkle.'

When he got home, his mom was sitting on the porch glider with her legs folded under her. She had changed into her Saturday pants and was looking moodily out at the street. She waved briefly to Carol's mom as she drove away; watched as Anita turned into her own driveway and Bobby trudged up the walk. He knew what his mom was thinking: Mrs Gerber's husband was in the Navy, but at least she had a husband. Also, Anita Gerber had an Estate Wagon. Liz had shank's mare, the bus if she had to go a little farther, or a taxi if she needed to go into Bridgeport.

But Bobby didn't think she was angry at him anymore, and that was good.

'Did you have a nice time at Savin, Bobby?'

'Super time,' he said, and thought: What is it, Mom? You don't care what kind of time I had at the beach. What's really on your mind? But he couldn't tell.