Irish pt. XLI
By Pete Moss
Quite a few people show up. They know Harvey and he knows them. It's a convivial atmosphere.
Dee Redstone and her retinue are the last to arrive.
Dee and Ramona sit down across from each other at the battered card table with its scarred green felt.
Dee draws an A and sits back smugly, arms crossed.
Ramona draws a blank & looks at Dee coyly.
Ramona scrabbles on her 1st turn with 'battery'. Dee dumps her tiles: Three O's, two T's and 2 U's.
And that's the way it's gonna go for this match. It's Ramona's day. Two plays later she Scrabbles with 'equates' on a triple word space.
Ramona keeps racking up scores of 30, 40 points, using her standard small play strategy. But then at the nineth draw Ramona busts out with her second Scrabble with the word 'wagoneer'.
After some debate 'wagoneer' is allowed.
Dee has to dump her tiles for the second time.
In the end Ramona clears 450 points. Dee barely scores 300.
For being the away team, Ramona certainly seems to have the room in her favor.
Dee scuttles out with her handlers & people crowd around Ramona, congratulating and praising.
Then I realize, amid the hubbub, there is some guy standing next to Ramona. Not just next to her, he's got his arm around her.
YoYo has seen the same thing. We are Ramona's personal security. We pay attention to Ramona cause keeping her safe pays our bills.
"You wanna handle this?" I say.
"You make the initial approach," says YoYo.
I put myself in front of the guy with his arm around Ramona. "Hi, I'm Jimmie Toughluck," I say.
"I'm Pete Moss," says the guy.
****
YoYo and I make our way to the back room where Larry, Desiree & Harvey Wu are counting money.
"What a great day!" says Larry. He pushes a couple of small piles of bills across the table. YoYo takes her pile & counts it.
"Is this all?!" says YoYo.
"Whaddaya mean?" says Larry. "You complaining about a grand cash for a couple days work?"
"You got at least 20K in front of you, not even counting what's in the computer. All you giving me an Jimmie is a grand each? Please Nigger! Wasn't for us getting Ramona up here you wouldna made squat!"
"I got eyes, YoYo. Ramona came up here to play alright, but it wasn't Scrabble. A grand ain't good enough for you? There's the door."
I grab my money and shove it in my pocket. "C'mon YoYo. Let's go visit your sister," I say, taking hold of YoYo.
"It ain't right!," says YoYo, voice rising. "I'm tired of crumbs while these fatcats walk off with a fortune!!"
Harvey and Larry look at each other.
Harvey peals off a few more bills & pushes them towards YoYo and myself. "Here's for old times," says Harvey.
Larry doesn't like that, but he keeps his mouth shut.
For a moment YoYo can't decide what she wants to do.
"C'mon, YoYo. We told Regina we'd stop by," I say.
"You lucky I got family to see!" says YoYo, as a parting shot.
On the bus ride over to the Bayview, YoYo is fuming, but once we get to Reginas' house YoYos' nieces and nephews are jumping all over her, YoYo chills.
Then YoYo pulls out her moola and a huge take out order is placed from the Korean BBQ joint on 3rd.
Apart from the festivities I get in a call to Spela.
"How's San Diego treating you?" says Spela.
"Pretty good. I think I'm not coming back. Maybe sell the property in Oakland."
"You should call Dragen about that," says Spela.