Dead Man's Hand by Pati Nagle Page A

and handed back the glass. Stewart put it and the knife in one of two gigantic metal sinks that were molded into the metal counter.
    â€œOK, let’s get you settled in. There’s a little bit of paperwork.”
    He led Arnold down the hall to an office and gave him a form to fill out, which Arnold cheerfully started covering with lies. No permanent address was about the only true thing he put on there. Some of the items he didn’t understand. He left a lot of it blank and handed it back.
    Stewart glanced over it. “We do need your social.”
    â€œMy what?”
    â€œYour social security number.”
    â€œI don’t have one.”
    Stewart frowned. “You never got a card?”
    Arnold shook his head, then glanced down as if ashamed. He wondered what this card was for. If it was good, maybe he should get one.
    â€œAll right. Come on, let’s get you some clothes and a bed.”
    Within half an hour, Arnold was dressed and in the big room. Within an hour, he had pinpointed the power brokers in the room: the drug dealers, the hustlers, and one pimp who offered him half an hour with a scruffy little boy. Arnold hid his disgust and tried to look regretful as he declined.
    There were no women in the room, he realized. Either they had another room to themselves somewhere or this place only accepted men.
    The clothes he’d been given were a workman’s clothes, worn but clean, with a pair of shoes that fit his feet closely and were amazingly supple. He had gladly abandoned the white junk except for the sheet, which he kept to make a better bundle for his things. Rather than expose his valuables to the greedy eyes in the big room, he’d just tied the sheet up around the whole bundle.
    Stewart returned carrying a thin mattress and a couple of threadbare blankets. He handed the blankets to Arnold and flopped the mattress onto the floor at the end of a row. On the mattress next to it a grizzly old man twitched in fretful sleep. Arnold spread the two thin blankets over his mattress, then set his bundle on top.
    â€œBreakfast is at six,” Stewart said. “You have to clear out by eight, then you can come back at five for supper. Good luck.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Arnold watched him go out, then sat down on his bed and listened, waiting for the room to settle. The murmur of voices gradually increased. Arnold glanced up at a clock mounted high on the wall, saw it was ten to ten. They’d probably turn the lights out then, unless they just stayed on all night.
    Last call for pimps and hustlers. Arnold stood up, tucked his bundle under one arm, and strolled toward a half-dozen guys who’d been playing go fish with a battered deck of cards. The game had changed to blackjack, and small piles of coins were changing hands. Arnold watched from a respectful distance. One of the hustlers was dealing, keeping the bank, which said something right there. Arnold had no interest in this particular game—that deck was as good as marked, and the dealer was probably cheating—but the players might answer some questions he had.
    After a couple of minutes the dealer glanced up at him. “Fifty cents to get in the game.”
    Arnold smiled. “I don’t have it. I’m a poker man, anyway. Know where I could find a game?”
    One of the players gave a huff of laughter. “Atlantic City.”
    A tingle went through Arnold. Could be a coincidence, but it seemed strange Atlantic City kept coming up, first in his thoughts, now in conversation.
    He squatted down as if to watch the card game better, and also to make himself less intimidating. “Where in Atlantic City?”
    â€œAnywhere. All the casinos have poker.”
    Casinos. Sounded like Ben Siegel’s kind of setup. Seigel’d always been shooting off his mouth about how Monte Carlo was so great and they should bring casinos to the states. It would have required some political fixing, on account of