The kid finished his coffee. "Well," he said, "you want to know what the counterman's got on his mind?" He leaned over and whispered to me.
I yelled, "That's a lousy thing to say!"
Everybody was looking at us. He said softly, "You see what it's like? I don't want to hear all this stuff! You think the counterman's got a bad mind, you ought to listen in on Henry's." He looked along the stools. "See that fat little woman down at the end? She's going to order another cheese Danish."
He hadn't even finished talking when the woman was calling the counterman, and she got another cheese Danish. I thought it over. What he said about Henry holding out on me made it real serious. I had to have more proof.
But I didn't like Skippy's idea of proof. He offered to call off what everybody in the beanery was going to do next, barring three or four he said were silent, like me. That wasn't good enough. "Come along with me," I told him, and we took off for Jake's spot.
That's a twenty-four-hour place and the doorman knows me. I knew Jake and I knew his roulette wheel was gaffed. I walked right up to the wheel, and whispered to the kid, "Can you read the dealer?" He smiled and nodded. "All right. Call black or red."
The wheel spun, but that didn't stop the betting. Jake's hungry. In his place you can still bet for a few seconds after the wheel starts turning.
"Black," Skippy said.
I threw down fifty bucks. Black it was.
That rattled me.