THE EL DORADO HUSTLE (PART THREE)

PSY PUBLISHING

&

MATTHEW LOVECRAFT

PRESENT

A PARANORMAL CRIME CAPER

BY

K.D. KILGORE

THE EL DORADO HUSTLE

PART THREE

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THE EL DORADO HUSTLE

PART THREE

Close out the world around you. Open your mind’s eye and see the steam rise up from the pothole covers at the corner of MICHIGAN AVE.

Hooves beat the red brick street. CLICKETY-CLACK. Whip cracks come from carriages carrying the proletariat too work. The grumbling hum of motor cars fills the busy street corner as the wealthier owners of new automobiles rush around them, with a honk or a beep of warning.

The day is overcast, humid and hot – with dark rain clouds. You don’t have to have psychic powers to see that there is rain on the horizon.

Frank starts hollering from behind his 3 metal crates stacked tall and neat with thick newspaper sheets on top. The crowd gathers round. I stand – thin, pale, hiding behind round black lenses and ignoring the tingle of the sun on my skin.

After a thousand years I’ve built an immunity to the sun, but that damn ball of fire still hurts like a bitch at the cellular level.

It’s time to get the street hustle going. I’m on the corner to Frank’s left at the makeshift milk crate table. Frank has a big hulking frame but his hands are like precision tools and the heft of them hides a deftness that could be construed as supernatural if one did not know of his penchant for all games of chance – card games in particular.

Vivian approaches all sunshine and smiles. She’s cast a Golden Glamour over herself and is as stunning as a beautiful blonde as she is as a dark brooding black haired vixen.

She says she’d like to take a turn. I’m the look out, but I’m also the shill. Frankie tosses the cards around and tells her to set her money down. She puts $5 on the card on the left and I follow her bet. We both win a fiver putting us at $10 each.

Frankie shuffles the cards around again and we each put a $10 down in the middle. We lose to Frankie but Viv is drawing a crowd, just like we planned. She takes out a $10 and asks the young man right standing front and center to put her money down on the card to the far right of the table. He does and she wins this time putting her up $5. I put $10 on the center card and loose to make it look good so I don’t get spotted as being in on it.

Frankie ups the odds, double or nothing. Viv asks the young man to go in on it with her. She’ll lay down her $20 if he’ll match and she’ll give him $50 and keep $30. She says she just needs to win $10 more dollars which is why she started playing the first place. He can have the other $10 for helping her dig herself out of the mess she’s gotten into.

It happens fast. Frankie tosses the cards around. He turns and coughs, takes his eye off the table for just a moment. I reach down and switch the position of the middle card and the card closest to me, look up wink at Viv, and the young man, and lay my $20 on the middle card. Viv follows my lead putting her $20 down and the young man follow suit with little hesitation as Frank looks back at the table and smiles. I tap twice on top of the stack of money to let Frankie and Viv know that the guard is coming.

The thing about being a look out for a street game is that it’s not the uniformed cops or the undercover cops you have to worry about. It’s the other criminals in the neighborhood that are your biggest threat.

The cops don’t want to waste time filing forms for every street hustler that sets up a game on the corner.

Frankie tosses the cards around one last time and takes the young man for his $20.

I yell, “POLICE,” and turn and walk away towards the corner where the jewelry store guard is approaching. Frankie scoops up the cards in the same hand that’s holding his cash. He stashes them inside his coat pocket and rolls up the newspaper putting it under his arm, he turns and walks off up the block away from me. Viv, turns and walks in the opposite direction of me. We go three separate ways. I walk directly toward the next corner, turn right and cross the street. The guard is coming towards me. I walk directly towards him and put a smile on my face.

“Excuse me, sir,” I say with a southern accent.

“I’m sorry I’m in a hurry,” he says.

“This will only take a minute,” I say removing my sunglasses and letting my accent drop. I put my hand on his chest and look directly into his eyes. Being compelled by a vampire leaves most humans feeling sick, so it’s good to use that to ones’ advantage.

“You don’t look like you feel well,” I say.

“I don’t look like I feel well?”

“You should take the day off and get some rest,” I say.

“I should take the day off and get some rest,” he says, then turns around and walks away, back in the direction he’d come.

I turn to my right and enter the alley. I walk halfway down the alley, stop, dropp to one knee, pull out a chunk of blue kianite from my right coat pocket. I draw a circle – laying down the sigul of transformation – when I turn to my left Frankie is standing next to me.

“You know Frank, I’ve always wondered why a werewolf would choose to be called Frankie the Wolf.”

“Throws ‘em off my tail, if you know what I mean.”

“Good one, Frank. Are you ready?”

Frankie steps inside the circle; I stand up facing him and look down at the ground.

“Maybe I should have drawn the circle a little bigger.”

“Ha, Ha,” Frank says. “Just go ahead and do it already.”

“Here take this. It’s Blue Kyanite, it will help boost the spell. Clasp it in both hands like you’re praying, which you might want to go ahead and do now.”

I hand Frankie the chunk of blue kyanite. Frankie clasps it in his hand, interlacing the fingers.
“Here we go,” I say.

Thunder bursts come loud and fast. Bolts of lightning fill the sky. Marcus steps back from the circle, puts his hand on his bowler to hold it down as the wind rises up pushing leaves and garbage into a swirling blinding storm of detritus.

One bright thick bolt strikes the top of the blue pillar sending a surge of spiraling bolts to the ground. The blue circle disappeared in an instant. Aside from a sizzle in the air the only a vampire could feel, there was no sign of lighting struck. Marcus stepped back took a small bow.

Where Frankie had been standing the guard who Marcus had sent home sick, was standing, only he was a little taller and a bit wider, other than that Frank looked just like the jewelry store guard.

Frank stepped out of the circle and headed for the alley entrance, Marcus hung back waiting for Vivian to ditch the mark and make her way to the jewelry store.

TO BE CONTINUED...