Chapter One

 

Seeing a leprechaun appear in a small casino in the mountains of Oregon can make even a professional poker player like me lose my train of thought.

I flipped my A-10 off-suit into the muck and turned to my right as the leprechaun waved at me.

He had on the standard, leprechaun-green top hat that didn’t cover his pointed ears but sort of rode on them like they were training wheels for the big hat. He had a green jacket, brown pants, and a long-stemmed pipe in his mouth that didn’t seem to be lit. It stuck out of his scraggly red beard like a weed out of a ragged lawn.

He wasn’t any taller than the back of a poker chair, and was as skinny as a flagpole. Somehow he climbed onto a chair, on top of an empty poker table, and then sat down, his big brown shoes with gold buckles dangling over the edge of the table like he was a kid sitting in a huge chair.

I glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed the new visitor.

No one had, even though there were three tables of eight going at the moment. Spirit Winds Casino in the Oregon mountains didn’t have many people in the poker room at midnight on a Wednesday.

I was here because I was just waiting for my girlfriend to get off work at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas, and I figured the plucking of tourists would be easier here tonight than in Vegas. And since, as Poker Boy, I could jump back and forth instantly with my Jump Anywhere Power, it didn’t matter where I played.

Besides, this was my old home casino; I knew everyone here, and it was comfortable. There was a lot to be said about comfort.

Now a stupid leprechaun had interrupted my nice evening.

I had only seen leprechauns in Vegas at the Okey-Doke Casino out on the old highway. It was one of those places hidden with magic, so that no one knew it was there unless you were taken there. I had helped solve a big problem there a while back, so maybe this guy was just coming to say hi and thank me again.

I doubted it. I had learned that no one could ever trust a leprechaun. And I had no plan on trusting this one, either.

I pushed away from the table and tossed the dealer a ten-dollar chip. “If I’m not back in thirty minutes, rack them and hold them for me, would you?”

The dealer nodded and rapped the chip on the felt in acknowledgement.

I adjusted my black leather coat and zipped it up, then made sure my black fedora-like hat was on solid before turning away from the table.

Already the little skinny guy had cost me money. My hunch was it was only going to go downhill from here.

“Where’d you leave the pot of gold?” I asked as I walked past him.

“Funny,” he said, his voice deep and raspy and not fitting his thin, small body at all. “Very damn funny.”

Leprechauns hated being teased about their pots of gold. They had lost all of it, every damn pot, a couple of centuries before in a bad bet with a few aliens who happened to be visiting Earth at the time. It was still a touchy subject.

I just kept walking, letting him jump down from the table and follow me. I had no intention of carrying on a conversation with an invisible man while on casino security cameras. That wouldn’t do my reputation any good at all.

Besides, I needed a break and some fresh air.

At a fast walk, I weaved my way through the slot machines, cutting through all the smoke and older people plugging the machines like the world was about to end and they wanted to get rid of every dollar before it did.

As we neared the front door of the casino, the little guy finally caught up with me, his pipe in one hand, his other hand holding his hat onto his head as he ran. He was panting and swearing lightly under his breath.

“Shouldn’t smoke so much,” I said as I pushed open the door and hesitated to let him go through ahead of me.

“You shouldn’t be such a jerk,” the little guy said in his deep voice. He sounded more like a country-western singer and he didn’t have any accent at all.

“You’re the one who is bothering me,” I said, heading out toward the parking lot to where I knew there was a small dead spot in the security cameras. The fall night air felt great after wading through the smoke around those slot machines. Clean and pure.

I glanced at my watch. Still over two hours before I had to pick up Patty at the MGM Grand.

Patty was also called Front Desk Girl, and she was a superhero in the hospitality part of the gambling universe. We fit together perfectly and made a great team. She had long brown hair and wonderful brown eyes I loved getting lost in. She was only a few inches shorter than I was, but when she wore heels we seemed to be the same size.

“I just came to ask for help from the great Poker Boy,” the leprechaun said.

“Sarcasm just won’t get me doing anything,” I said. “So what’s your name?”

He glared at me. I knew that knowing any magical creature’s name gave me power over them. And he knew I knew it. He had no intention of giving me that kind of power.

“So what do I call you?” I asked.

“Lenny,” he said. He clearly must have already figured that’s the name he would use with me.

“Lenny the Leprechaun,” I said, shaking my head as I reached the dead area in the security cameras and stopped, sitting down on the edge of a planter to be more at his level. “Got it.”

“I’m an elf,” he said, getting red in the face and spreading his thin legs into a fighting stance in front of me. Old elves who wore green and smoked pipes for some reason never liked to be called leprechauns. No one had explained that to me yet. Someday I would ask Stan, the God of Poker why that was.

“Sorry,” I said. “So what can I do for you?”

Lenny took the pipe out of his mouth and stuck it in his belt, then adjusted his tall hat and then his green vest. Then he went to pacing in front of me, two steps, turn, two steps. With his short legs he didn’t go far in either direction.

He clearly didn’t want to tell me why he had come to find me.

I clicked on my Trust Me super power,” added a little Calming Power and aimed it at him.

He suddenly stopped pacing and faced me.

“Nice magic,” he said, taking a deep breath and clearly relaxing. “Thanks, I feel better.”

I had never thought of my powers as magic before, but I suppose they were. And I had never tried them on a magical creature before now. Learn something every day, even from a Leprechaun.

“You’re welcome,” I said, switching off my power. “Now, what’s happening?”

“Mrs. Lenny, my wife, is missing.”