Luke Ingelson sat behind the big desk in the office at the casino on Big Island.
It was not his desk;
it belonged to his employer, Karl Thorrson, but he had stayed in the city for
the day, so Luke was occupying it for the moment, and he was enjoying the
feeling of being in charge, even though the night was slow.
It was raining hard and the ferry
driver wouldn’t leave the docks in Excelsior to bring new gamblers over to the
park on account of it. Those who were already at the casino could not leave, which
was good for business Luke thought, but not as good as new faces
with full pockets and fresh hopes.
Thorrson’s main man,
Ivan “The Wolf,” had just left the island. He took a small craft intending to
shake things loose and force the ferry driver’s hand; business was business
and a casino needed gamblers, and it wasn’t up to the boat driver to say how
many could come across or when.
The Wolf had a
reputation, he probably wouldn’t have to say a word to the man, with just one
look from the silver haired menace the gears would turn and the traffic would
begin to flow again.
The poor sap of a
boat driver was nice enough, Luke thought, but he would probably get
replaced in short order, and then…disappear…the Wolf didn’t tolerate a man who
wouldn’t obey an order, and Karl Thorrson allowed him to manage personnel with
little to no input from him.
Luke stared out the
big-bay-windows into the dark-night and thought about the future; the war for
St. Anthony was just about over, his boss had won, and he was still alive…along
with his brother James.
They had risked a
great deal for Karl Thorrson over the past few months; they had done their
share of the dirty work, and now he was hoping they would be rewarded, they had
dropped a lot of bodies and survived
Luke was hoping for
more than cash, though cash was always welcome, he wanted positions of
authority for him and his brother, he wanted to run one of the operations that
Thorrson now controlled.
Maybe I‘m sitting on
top of it right now, he thought, the Casino and the Amusement Park, and there was talk of
a hotel at the port of Excelsior; there was more than enough to go around.
Luke considered
taking one of the boss’s cigars from the box on his desk, he began to reach for
it but then decided against it. The one-eyed giant he worked for was keenly
observant, and he didn’t want to answer any questions about a missing stogie,
no matter how much he wanted to light one of those fine cigars at that very
moment.
He poured himself a
whiskey instead, put his feet up on the desk and sipped slowly from the
tumbler.
Luke and his brother
James had gotten where they were by tenacity and loyalty, and by showing that
they could keep their heads about them in a fight, he wasn’t going to risk what
he had proven over a little temptation. He had made a place for himself on easy
street…not that there wasn’t more work to do, he thought, but the war
was over, and when they gathered all the pieces there would be plenty to
distribute.
Just then the short
band radio gave an alarm.
Through the static
of the storm he heard the Ferry driver announce his departure from the docks.
On a clear day the trip would only take about ten minutes; it would take longer
with the storm.
Luke was glad when he heard his voice, not merely because it meant that the wheels of commerce would continue to turn, but he was also glad that The Wolf had not killed him on the spot.
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