26. Jimmy Price Cleans Up.
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Room 155
Freckle-faced, wild-eyed Jimmy Price looked at his hand. He held three tens. This meant the sweat-sheened giant to his left named Mouse should have bupkus—which was soon confirmed by his glum-faced fold.
“Bullshit,” Mouse huffed.
“Gonna raise,” Jimmy Price said, took fifty from his stack of chips, and threw it in the pot.
“Call,” said Puggy, the bald, heavy-browed Lithuanian seated across the round table.
Jimmy Price knew Puggy had two pairs, Kings over Queens, enough justification for him to see this hand through to its conclusion.
“Fold,” said Walter, the bespectacled thin man to his right.
This was unexpected, and therefore, worrisome.
If Jimmy had stacked the deck properly, and he always did, that meant Walter just folded three nines. The sort of hand someone didn’t just muck. Not unless they felt something was off.
A hot flash shot up through Jimmy’s chest but stayed tucked below his t-shirt’s neck line. He’d been in enough situations like these that he’d developed a mental trick to alleviate the pressure of getting caught in a scam. All he had to do was believe in his heart that he wasn’t full of shit, that he wasn’t a lousy cheat. Justify your actions enough and your conscience allows for anything.
“One,” Puggy said, and hurled a spinning card. It landed face down on the table.
Jimmy delivered the next card—which he knew was an ace. Puggy’s face remained stoic upon seeing it. That was his tell. Jimmy traded in a five for the seven he had waiting, locking him into the full house that’d be good enough to take the hand.
“Hundred,” Jimmy said, raising the pot.
Puggy called, raised another hundred.
Jimmy winced, the way he did whenever he was trying to give the impression he was deep in thought. It was usually a planned feign, but this time he had real things to worry about.
Did Walter’s fold suggest that he suspected a loaded deck? Was he using this hand to test out a theory? If Jimmy got caught messing with the deal, with this crew, he would be lucky to get out of the room with his slippery fingers still attached.
“Too rich for my blood,” Jimmy Price said, and folded his winning hand.
Puggy flashed his hand—two pair with an Ace straggler—then stacked his chips.
“Good fold by me then,” Jimmy Price said.
The deal shifted to Mouse. Jimmy rocked back in the chair and pulled out a cigarette.
This many packs into the night, a persistent smoky haze hovered in the room, blotting out the smell of fresh paint and upholstery it’d had when they first walked in hours ago.
Tonight was the new north wing’s grand opening, the end of a long process that capped off Jonathan Palmer’s vision for the land his father had left him. And those who made sure these final steps went as smoothly as possible—with the city’s red tape, with the workers complaining about having to clock in overtime—got first dibs. The big guys got the upstairs suites; down here was reserved for their goons.
Jimmy Price, Mouse, Puggy, and Walter all knew each other, but only loosely, having lingered together in the shadows for any number of basement meets and alleyway payoffs over the years. Which is to say, they weren’t what you’d call friends.
Jimmy was Hog Williams’s man, Mouse belonged to Mr. Thompson, and Walter was Frank Constantine’s longtime right hand. Puggy had recently been brought into the employ of Sammy Gratzie after his previous boss had been laid to rest. This transition is what brought on Puggy’s new, unfortunate line of questioning.
“Whaddya mean, what cut do I get?” Mouse said, shuffling the deck. “That’s none of no one’s business.”
“You tell me, I tell you, and we all get to know who’s getting fucked,” Puggy said, stacking the chips he’d just won.
“I’ll show you mine, you show me yours kinda thinking,” Mouse chuckled.
He finished shuffling, offered a cut, retrieved the tapped deck, and dealt.
“What you’re speaking of is communism,” Walter said softly, his thin fingers striking a match against the tableside. “Which would be problematic.”
Puggy closed his mouth and Jimmy Price looked at his cards. Four suited, nothing higher than a six. The definition of a junk hand.
“You guys figure it out on your own,” Jimmy Price said as he stood. “I gotta take a leak.”
He left the table for the bathroom and flicked on the light. It cast orange on the pristine surface.
He shut the door behind him. Jimmy heard a higher-pitched plea from Puggy saying he didn’t mean nothing by all that talk. “Dumb son of a bitch,” Jimmy thought, and lifted the toilet seat with his black Florsheim. He pissed with a force that splashed over the rim and onto the tile. He flushed the toilet.
Then from the other room he heard a deafening barrage of gunshots and screams.
He flinched and ducked down instinctively, then clumsily pulled out his revolver. He jumped into the bathtub, yanked the shower curtain over—as if that’d offer any protection—and aimed at the door.
Jimmy tried to recall the number of gunshots. Maybe four, but they were rapid, too close together for just one gun. And then screams, then nothing.
If it was a group of assassins they’d still be out there, waiting.
The bathroom light went out, plunging the room into pitch blackness.
The sliver of light from under the door made the curtain glow faintly. Jimmy felt his own quivering breath bounce back against it. It rippled the vinyl and made a crinkling sound, so he closed his mouth and held his breath. Heat and heaviness invaded the room.
He felt breath on his neck. Then a whisper.
“Cheat,” hissed in his ear.
He spun around. His revolver smacked against the wall tile and dislodged from his hand. It fell with a rattling din into the tub, then slid to a stop on the porcelain. Jimmy Price heard only his heartbeat.
“Thief,” echoed in the shower.
He swept open the curtains and bolted from the tub, then out of the bathroom.
He slammed the door behind him, holding its handle to keep whatever was in there from breaking through. Then he smelled gunpowder in the air.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the ghastly tableau of a gangland massacre.
Contorted and awkwardly bent bodies, splotches of red and pink where faces once were. A clump of wet flesh surrounded by scattered poker chips and cash. The hotel’s new carpet, already soaked.
He lifted his hand to point his gun, then remembered it was back in the tub.
From afar, still holding the bathroom door shut against whatever was inside, he examined the bodies.
Walter was face-down next to the bed, an exit wound in the back of his skull. Puggy was still in his chair near the window, a hole right between his confused eyes. Mouse slumped against the far wall, a river of blood where his left eye once was.
Jimmy let go of the bathroom door and leapt towards the closet. He hurried inside, shut his eyes, and reached to his chest to find his pendant of Saint Christopher. He said a prayer.
He opened his eyes, and he was looking at a bag.
Brown, leather.
Then, he heard a wet, sickly gargle from the other room.
Jimmy dipped his head around the corner into the bedroom, and realized the sound was coming from where Mouse rested against the wall.
He carefully gave the scene a wide berth. There was Mouse, alright. His left eye was gone, but his right eye was open, glaring at Jimmy. He was still alive.
The fat man coughed blood down onto the white t-shirt that clung to his swollen beer gut. It raised and lowered, raised and lowered with frequent, panicked breaths.
“Mouse?” Jimmy Price asked.
Mouse’s right shoulder jerked and settled on the carpet. Then jerked and settled again, as if having a seizure, or trying to perform some action, but failing.
Jimmy saw that Mouse’s hand still clutched his gun. But his brain wasn’t in command anymore. The gun lifted a millimeter, then settled back in the ground.
Jimmy crawled to it and unfolded Mouse’s fingers off the handle. He took the gun for himself.
“Thief,” Mouse hissed. “Thief.”
A loud sound in the hallway.
Someone was knocking on the door a few rooms down. Someone else answered.
Jimmy stood and ran to the door, but as he did, his leg caught Walter’s splayed arm, and he fell face first into the carpet. Mouse’s gun dislodged from his hand and flew into the bathroom, spinning against the tile before colliding against the tub’s edge.
Jimmy pushed himself up. He heard another knock outside.
The door one room over. Then a short inquiry asking if anyone had heard a loud noise.
“Cheat,” a voice whispered behind him.
Jimmy spun around. The bodies lay where he’d left them. Mouse was still, his remaining eye closed for good.
A loud knock on the room’s front door, right behind Jimmy.
“What is it?” Jimmy called through the door.
“We heard a loud noise,” one voice called. “A few of them. What’s going on?”
Jimmy stood in place and thought through his story. He was in the bathroom, and there was some argument, and the three shot each other to death. Maybe they’d buy it, but what choice did he have but to tell the truth.
He opened his eyes and the bag in the closet caught his eye again. He crept in and peeled the bag open with his Florsheim.
Inside was a jackpot. Expensive watches and gold jewelry on a bed of thousands of dollars.
“Well,” Jimmy Price shouted through the door. “Who are you?”
“You gonna open up or what?” boomed from the hallway.
He grabbed the bag and searched for anywhere to hide it.
Under the bed, no good. Out the window, and he could be seen. He thought about entering the darkness of the bathroom for about one second, and then no more.
His eyes landed on the metal grate near the nightstand. Mouse’s body must have dislodged it; it hung by a single screw.
Jimmy dove to the hanging grate, spun it open, and stuffed the bag inside. He ran his fingers across the carpet to locate the other bolts.
“Coming, coming,” he shouted, as he screwed the bolts back in with his fingers until the grate was secured.
Another loud bang on the door.
“Do we have to break this fucking thing down?” a voice said.
“Coming, coming!” he yelled, stood up, and opened the front door.
Two goons on the other side. Max Grouse and Paulie Barone, both with wild glares. They looked past Jimmy to the sprawled, bloody display on the floor.
“You boys got here just in ti—“ he got out before Max shot Jimmy twice in the chest.
His body slunk to its floor. He huffed air through his nostrils, smelled smoke and burnt flesh. A pain in his back like an itch that he couldn’t reach, his front cold and wet.
He faced the darkened bathroom. The two hoods stepped over his body.
“Where’s the take?” Jimmy Price heard one say.
But that was no real concern to him anymore. Not much was. He felt a blissful lightheadedness as his eyes closed. His mind whispered to him that it was time to rest, that he had to sleep to regain his strength.
And then Jimmy Price heard a soft rustle coming from the bathroom.
He forced his eyes open and in the darkness made out the closed shower curtain. It billowed gently, almost as if it was breathing. Behind, a dark shadow with eyes that glowed fiery red. Long, wrinkled fingers reached along the curtain’s side, then slowly pulled it open.
Jimmy Price decided then that it best to close his eyes for good.
Artwork by Tiffany Silver Braun.
If you like Tales from the Palmer Hotel, tell a friend. If you really like it, the suggested donation for the series is a one-time payment of $6.66. Venmo (@Rick-Paulas) or Paypal (rickpaulas@gmail.com).