The Backroom Game: Part I.

It was described to me as easy money.  A simple smash and grab job.  Over on 5th street, there is a fairly well known diner, Smith’s and well, on Tuesday nights, the slowest night of the week supposedly, a group of guys meet to play cards in a small room in the back.  It started as low stakes games, but word was that they had come into some more funds as of late and so the pots had been growing more sizable.  So the job was simple, clean the place out and then get lost before anyone could try something stupid.

Even as green as I was, I could tell that there was something fishy about this job; a certain stench that raised multiple red flags.  It read like the type of job that could easily put you in hot water if the wrong person happened to be at that game on the night that we hit it.  It was risky.  But once I heard the payout that was guaranteed, no matter the haul, the pungent odors of suspicion and doubt cleared.  The temptation was too great to pass on an opportunity to make enough money to potentially leave this line of work before ending up leaving it unwillingly in a body bag.

The day of the job arrived and with it a quiet anxiety that grew as the day dragged on waiting for the agreed upon time.  It had been emphasized multiple times to be on time and to not be even a second early.  A specificity that tickled at my intuition, but only for as long as it took to again remember the payout.

As soon as the specified time arrived, the three of us were out of the car, rushing into the dinner shouting demands with shotguns raised high.  Corralling the customers and employees went by without incident in a hurried blur.  After, it was time to collect what we had come for, so myself and another left the third to stay watch while we handled the backroom.  But as we approached the backroom door and swung it open demanding to see hands, an unexpected sight stopped us dead in our tracks.  At the center of five individuals sat around a card table was a woman with bright blue eyes that not a single soul in this city wouldn't instantly recognize.  

TO BE CONTINUED…