She set a small plastic token on the table before them. “Compliments of a friend. He’s staked you ten thousand dollars up in the Green Room.”

Neil took the chip like he didn’t know what it was.

“Please enjoy yourself.” And with that, she left them to it.

Tom gazed at the chip, his burger forgotten. He wiped his hands off on his shirt, then snatched it himself. He studied it, then handed it to Neil, who held it between two fingers like it might explode.

“Man, you have been on a winning streak,” Tom marveled. Neil only got staked for a game when someone thought he could win for them—and get a cut in the process.

Neil shook his head, eyes on the chip. “Winning some, losing some. Trust me, the people who’d stake me ten K are still ancient history.”

A dark possibility flashed through Tom’s brain. People didn’t hand out this sort of money. Something nasty had to lie behind it. He leaned closer to Neil. “Hey, you’re not going to this Green Room place, are you?” Tom assumed it was a nicer gaming parlor on one of the upper floors of the casino. “What if it’s some sort of trap? You still owe some guys money. Alex Cassano, Dad.”

Neil’s gaze flashed up to his. “You remember that?”

Tom shrugged. Ever since the census device, yeah, he remembered a lot of things he’d blocked out from his childhood. He definitely remembered Cassano’s guys busting in their hotel room and beating Neil up.

“You know, I pay my legit debts, Tommy. Al Cassano set an interest rate, and I was paying it back with the agreed-upon interest rate—”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“Then he jacked it up! And jacked it up again! I’d have paid my debt five times over if it had been up to that guy, and I still would’ve been in debt. If I wanted that nonsense, I’d have used a credit card, not gone to a loan shark.”

Tom grew exasperated. “Credit card companies don’t send people to beat you up. Mobsters do.”

“Yeah, because mobsters don’t have politicians writing laws for them. Mobsters don’t have prisons and a police force and the entire government in their back pockets. Look what happened to old Al Cassano. I heard he got three months in the can for tax evasion, then he got hired out to work in India somewhere. No one’s heard a word since. The state disappeared him. They can do that to any of us. Thank you, National Defense Authorization Act!” Neil saluted the air sarcastically. “I’d deal with a mobster over a corporate kleptocrat any day.”

Tom’s head throbbed. Some things hadn’t changed. “Okay, fine. What are you gonna do?”