Rourke

The tavern smelled like taverns do. Hard work and fried food. A ceiling fan ticked overhead, wobbling like it might fall. Six locals hunched around a scarred felt table that had seen more spilled beer than cards.

Rourke cut the deck with a lazy hand. Pro. No tells. The kind of guy you knew had been places, though you couldn’t say where. He wore a gray sport coat in a room of flannels and grease-stained tees. That alone made him interesting.

“Ten in,” he said, sliding the blind forward. Voice calm, Midwest flat.

The kid across from him—ball cap, acne scars, a buzz cut like he was still waiting on his Army call-back—squinted at his cards. He pushed a crumpled bill into the pot. “I’m good.”

Old man with nicotine fingers followed. The rest, too, one after another, like cattle down a chute. Nobody folding yet. That was fine. Rourke wanted them in.

He let the dealer role rotate, so it looked square. But the game had been stacked before the first hand. That was the art. Not the cheat, the art. You made them want to play with you, made them think it was their idea.

The waitress came by, tray shaking in her hand. Rourke gave her a look, soft, patient. She flushed a little. Locals saw it and decided they didn’t like him. Even better.

“Cards,” the kid said, snapping his fingers.

Rourke dealt. Smooth, no hurry. The flop came down clean: jack, eight, king. The kid’s breath caught. Rourke filed it away. Kid was easy money.

“What you got there, soldier boy?” Rourke asked. Just enough bite in the tone.

“Enough to take your coat,” the kid said, and threw in twenty.

The old man folded. Two more followed. Now it was Rourke and the kid. Exactly where he wanted it.

Rourke tapped the felt, pushed his chips in slow. “Let’s see it then.”

The kid laid down his cards—two kings. Grinned like he’d just kissed the homecoming queen.

Rourke looked at them, then looked at him. “Pretty hand.” He let it hang, then turned over his own: queen, ten. Straight across the board.

Silence. Then the table groaned.

The kid’s grin sagged into something mean. “Bullshit.”

“Luck of the draw,” Rourke said. Voice soft, almost sympathetic. He raked in the pile, neat and easy.

He let his eyes drift over the table, just a flicker of a smile, like he wasn’t even trying to hide it. He had them now. Every last one.

And the kid? The kid wasn’t gonna let it go. Rourke could see it in his shoulders, the set of his jaw. That was the part you couldn’t deal or stack. The heat rising off a man when he thought he’d been robbed.

Rourke sipped his beer, cool as stone. Waiting for the next hand, and for the kid to make his move.