Big Hugh was sitting there drinking whiskey and trying to come up with a plan when this tall bird in a beat-up old cowboy hat walked in and stood at the bar. Cheney never forgot a face and this was not a face that was likely to slip your mind. He had seen the fellow somewhere before, he just couldn’t think where. It was not until he saw Jake crack his knuckles that Big Hugh’s memory clicked. The fall of 1931 it was, Jake McCloskey in the ring with a colored fellow they called King Kane. McCloskey had thrown a haymaker from his shoe tops and dropped Kane for the count in the tenth round, earning a quick two hundred dollars for Hugh Cheney. The boxer didn’t look like he had a dime left to his name, but Cheney figured he might as well buy him a drink for old times’ sake. He wandered over, perched on the next barstool. “You’re Jake McCloskey, right? Used to fight light-heavy outa Denver?”

“I’m your man.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I saw you knock out Lionel Kane. Best damned fight I ever saw. Folks call me Big Hugh. Let me buy you a drink.”

By suppertime most of the hangers-on in the Branding Iron had drifted home to their wives and the evening crowd hadn’t started coming in yet. Cheney suggested that Jake join him in the booth by the window, where they could sit comfortable and watch the world passing by. After two or three more rounds, Jake said it was his turn to buy. When he reached for his billfold, Hugh caught a glimpse of the roll he was carrying. It had to be close to a thousand dollars, easy. Damned fool with that kind of money riding on his hip pocket deserved to lose every dime. McCloskey no doubt figured that no one would try to rob a prizefighter, but there was more than one way to separate a man from his money.

Cheney knew that he was not the smartest grifter around. As a rule, he borrowed tricks worked out by smarter operators. His gift was that he was such a big, convivial cuss that people trusted him by instinct. Grifters weren’t supposed to be burly and amiable. People expected them to be thin little men with patent-leather shoes, shifty eyes, and pencil mustaches, but Hugh Cheney seemed like a good old boy, dangerous as a puppy and none too bright. Men a lot smarter than Jake McCloskey had been taken in because they failed to see Cheney for what he was until it was too late.

Just as Hugh was racking his brain for the best grift to run on McCloskey, Maisie came through the door and sashayed over to their booth. “Hey, fellas! How do?”