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A rattler, a frog, a rabbit, a horse, a cougar and a grizzly sit around a table playing poker, Texas Hold 'em style. The rattler is the dealer in this back room and highly illegal poker game with the frog his associate in the Scaletti Syndicate. The rabbit is Robert Goldstein, a prominent jeweler in debt to the Scaletti's and trying to win back some of that money and who is the current chip leader.

The horse is Gerald Buckner, an attaché from the mayor's office. The cougar is Casey Krumpki, one of Philadelphia's top cops. The grizzly is Michael Duncan O'Connor, a private investigator and is only here because Bob, Casey and Jerry insisted it.

Jacob "Bone Shaker" Scaletti doesn't like Mike on principal as the gumshoe has gotten more than a few folks out of the fix they were in with the Scaletti mob by turning up questionable practices that release them from the leverage the mob has on honest folks in Philly. Ricardo Mountebank, sometimes called the "Jumping Fiend" for how quick he is to draw and fire his .45 is a card sharp hoping to whittle down Goldstein's stack and get him further in debt to his associates. Unfortunately for the Scaletti mob the bear is a bigger threat than they suspect as he is also secretly the masked vigilante known as the "Big Dealer" and he already knows this game is rigged but is biding his time till he can expose them as the cards are dealt for the flop.

The first three cards are the five of clubs, the six of spades and the four of hearts which make the beginnings of a straight. Bob holds the ace of diamonds and the three of hearts while Jerry has the ace and ten of hearts. Mike has the ace and deuce of clubs while Casey has a pair of fives in both red suits.

Bone Shaker has the king and queen of hearts while the fiend has a pair of jacks in red suits. Next comes the three of diamonds which causes Bob and Mike to smirk but the reptiles remain emotionless. Finally the seven of clubs comes up which shocks the reptiles as Bob raises.

Jake is ready to accuse the rabbit of cheating as he folds. Mike merely calls but Ricardo raises with a smirk to say he has something. Casey and Jerry fold but both Mike and Bob call.

Ricardo reaches for his .45 when Mike reveals his hand but the bear also pulls out his Mauser first and shoots Mountebank dead with a bullet between the eyes.

"What are you waiting for, Krumpki?" Scaletti growls expectantly. "O'Connor just murdered Mountebank!"

"Murder?" Casey questions. "Ricky was going for his piece. Mike had the best hand honestly but Mountebank was going to shoot him for cheating."

"That's how I see it," Buckner states. "Old Wild West shoot out for an offense of the time."

"I concur," Goldstein agrees. "I'm a witness for his defense if it goes to trial." Then he turns to Bone Shaker. "I'm cashing out Scaletti."

"I don't have that much on hand!" Scaletti protests.

"Would this cover my debts?" Goldstein asks with a smirk.

"You know it will, Goldstein!" Scaletti growls. "But it won't free you from your obligations."

"I'm cashing out as well," O'Connor says,. "I'll take an I.O.U. if you don't have enough."

"I have just enough for all three of you," Scaletti states with a growl. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

Later that evening in Mike O'Connor's apartment he entertains a lady skunk in the portion of his home that he uses as an office.

"Good evening, JoAnna," Mike beams to Joanna Chanelle, a working girl he sometimes patronizes. "I was thinking of calling you actually. But to what do I owe the honor?"

"I heard you and Goldstein cleaned out a Scaletti,: Joanna says with a smirk. "I guess it could be related to why I came here to see you."

"Oh?" Mike asks. "Sit down and I'll make up some coffee. What seems to be the problem?"

"They found Jenny Brown in the river this morning," Joanna states while barely keeping her composure. "She's the sixth one this month alone. She was a good bunny, Mike..."

"I know," Mike says and rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "She was another one I regularly paid for a night. I take it the cops are taking their sweet time?"

"The Scalettis are stonewalling," Joanna says nervously before taking a deep draft of coffee. "Thanks, you can get things the cops can't. I can't pay much in cash..."

"If you want to pay entirely in tail," Mike says, "I'll take that in payment. I got this place paid for until well after the New Year. But just to keep the Scalettis off guard I suggest you take a room here with me as a live in girl Friday."

"Among other things," Joanna says with a smirk, "Living with you includes sex I hope."

"Of course," Mike says and gives her a lusty smirk.

Joanna finishes her coffee and goes into the bedroom to get undressed as Mike looks to see that she's not being followed. When he enters the room the skunk is completely naked and laying on his twin bed on its metal frame. Michael kisses the skunk on the lips before going lower.

Michael licks and suckles on Jo's tits which only makes her try to spread her legs wider. Joanna sucks his cock as Mike begins to lick at the lips of her labia. She's done this with Mike before but now she's getting him hard for her own protection and because she really likes having sex with the dark furred grizzly.

The prostitute has complete confidence and trust in the gumshoe to play nice or at least play rough in the manner she likes playing rough. They connect below slowly with Mike inserting his cock into her pussy with care. He thrusts in completely and then eases out slowly but not to total egress as he slams his tube in her box a little faster and a little rougher than he did initially but still taking care to give pleasure as he takes the same without causing pain.

JoAnna moans as Mike takes her, but even as she enjoys the pleasure of his invasion she starts to get a little woozy as the drugs Mike put in her coffee start to take effect. She thinks she's getting heady from the sex and while it is a good time Mike is giving her the feelings she is receiving only mask the effects of the drug laced sugar cubes Mike used to sweeten her coffee. The general idea is to tire them out with sex before the drug puts them to sleep so they think he put them to bed with his cock.

By the time he is finished with her, the skunk is out like a light just as planned and Michael O'Connor opens up a secret panel in his closet to reveal the suit and mask of the Big Dealer among other things. Of course by having sex with JoAnna he establishes an alibi for himself should he need to kill anyone tonight. He does a second check that she's out like a light before laying out the suit which is black with red pin stripes, a black belt a black shirt, a red tie, red socks and black and red saddle shoes.

The mask is a red lined club with diamond cuff links, hearts on his sleeves near the shoulders and a red lined spade on his black fedora with red pinstripes. Twin Mausers go in holsters sewn into the pinstripe vest that have a different chamber than the one Michael usually carries so as not to be traced back to him when used. The police and the Scaletti have no idea who they are really dealing with in the form of the Big Dealer and Michael O'Connor; private investigator would rather keep it that way.

Behind the grandfather clock near the cathedral radio is a pole which drops down to a secret garage where the Quick Hand, the supped up car of the Big Dealer awaits in silence. A rotating platform revolves until the front of the car is in front of a ramp leading to a tunnel that leads into the heart of the city. A false wall in a blind alley flops down as the Quick Hand roars through.

Meanwhile in a converted speak easy near Penn's Landing; Jake Scaletti is getting the stuffing beat out of him by a towering alligator, the more than appropriately named Brutus Scaletti. An almost angelic looking pit viper watches the beating with a look of severe boredom. Don Raphael Scaletti is disappointed in his cousin Jacob and is right now honestly considering letting Brutus beat him to death.

"Really, Jacob," Raphael sighs with a tone of bored annoyance, "The game is supposed to be rigged in favor of the house. How could you not manipulate things? Mike O'Connor is already spreading dangerous truths about our rackets. The only good thing is that it helps keep up the illusion of being honest."

"What you say ted at, Jake?" Brutus inquires between jabs to the jaw.

"Let up, Brutus," Raphael orders in the same tone as before. "Otherwise my dear cousin here won't be able to talk."

"Oh, right," Brutus says simply and stops beating Jake for minute.

"You're too kind, cousin," Jacob manages to hoarsely whisper after coughing up a not so small logy filled with more blood than mucus. "Damn dick got lucky and they quit while they were ahead. Ricky got trigger happy and it cost him."

"That goes without saying I'm afraid," Raphael says through a chuckle. "Still, I had warned him time and again about the jumping the gun, hadn't I?"

"Yes you did, boss!" Brutus agrees quickly and whole heartedly; his head bobbing up and dead like an insanely large bobble head doll.

Just then the Quick Hand crashes through the store front and the Big Dealer comes out with his mausers blazing. Jake and Brutus are taken out almost instantly as Jake's brains stain Brutus's clean white shirt. Raphael just sits in his seat with an amused look on his face and takes a puff of Cuban cigar.

"Impressive I must admit," Raphael says calmly. "But you do know Brutus will pull through."

"Enforcers like him always do," The Big Dealer admits. "But I doubt he'll be interrupting our little conversation, Raphael."

"And what pray tell do you think I have that you would care to partake?" Raphael asks coolly. "And you think you can wring from my scaly lips?"

"You control most to all the prostitution in the city," Big Dealer states. "More than a few girls have been fished out of the rivers face down."

"I dare say you probably know more than I do," Raphael growls. "Killing those girls is bad for business. I can't sell their services if they're dead."

"You're all heart aren't you, viper boy?" Big Dealer asks mockingly. "You probably got the police and coroner's reports or could get them with a single phone call."

"What do you want to know?" Raphael says and reaches for the inside pocket of his immaculate white suit with black shirt and white tie and then stops as a bullet whistles past his head. "I'm going for my bill fold, dealer!" He growls with some annoyance. "From your general demeanor, I can tell you're a private investigator." He tosses a wad of $20s at him. "Find whomever is doing this and kill them. They think they are as above me as the law is beneath me. I want them to pay. None of my men are competent enough to do it, although they are good enough to get themselves killed trying."

"For now I believe you're telling me the truth," Big Dealer says as he pockets the money and get back into his car. "Pray I don't change my mind."

"Oh, I'm praying for a few things, Big Dealer," Raphael mumbles as he licks his muzzle and watches Big Dealer leave. "And while I do want you to come after me, not in the way you might think." He laughs and then checks on Brutus. "Bad, but definitely not fatal."

"Ug!" Brutus grunts as he starts to come to. "Did ya get the number of dat freight train what hit me, boss?"

"We had a visit from the Big Dealer, Brutus," Raphael says with a smile. "I paid him to find out whose been wrecking our little toy store."

"Yer poppa ain't gonna like that," Brutus says as he slowly rises to his feet.

"No, no he won't" Raphael says with a sigh. "But it's quickly becoming a situation we can't handle in house. So I've decided to bring in a specialist. After all, with the Big Dealer looking around for the fiend that is destroying assets, he won't have time to be stopping some of our other ventures will he?"

"You hired him to take care of whatever is killing de goils as a distraction?" Brutus asks as Raphael's plan is just now dawning on him. "Boss! Dat's brilliant!"

A beautiful brown furred rabbit is lying naked on a metal table with her innards displayed around her body. A rat is making notes on a clip board when he hears a voice behind him.

"Working late, Doctor Verne?" The Big Dealer asks and Doctor Jonathan Vern nearly drops his clip board.

"The Big Dealer!" Doctor Verne squeals. "Thank heaven! If there is anyone I would want to speak with right now, it's you. Please tell me you have taken an interest in the plight of the working girls of the city."

"I am," Big Dealer answers evenly. "I see you have dissected Miss Brown. What have you learned so far?"

"Something very disturbing, Mister Dealer," Doctor Verne relates, "Her heart is missing, cut out in what I can only describe as a ritualistic manner."

"So she was the guest of honor of a cult ceremony before she died," Big Dealer says in a dead pan manner.

"Yes," Doctor Vern confirms. "I need to do a battery of toxicology tests on her organs but I do believe she did not suffer much, thank God."

"I need a moment a lone with the corpse if you wouldn't mind, Doctor, I knew her in life quite well." Big Dealer says solemnly.

"I understand," Doctor Verne says and walks off for his break.

"Spirits of the underworld hear my plea," Big Dealer whispers once Verne is out of earshot, "For a brief moment let her spirit return to me."

"Her spirit is lost, magi," A disembodied voice speaks to him. "The hungry darkness has devoured it."

"I should have known it would not have been that easy," Mike says and then sees the coroner's notes on the cadaver on the slab and several others as well, all killed within the last two months. "I can't take the files with me, not with JoAnna at the house." He pulls up a note pad and produces a pen. "But I can take notes on what I need and come back for the rest."

Doctor Verne comes back from lunch to find his folders in a different order than when he put them on the table. He smirks to himself and hopes this means that the Big Dealer got most of whatever it is that he needs. He goes over his notes on Jenny when the corpse of Jacob Scaletti comes in and is laid out in the morgue with instructions to keep the stiff on ice until a Scaletti undertaker can fetch him in the morning.

JoAnna wakes up the next morning next to Michael and decides to make breakfast. She gets out eggs and scrapple and goes to work as she hears the paper boy screaming downstairs about another Scaletti getting the "Dead Man's Hand" from the Big Dealer and just smirks as she thinks the bugger got what he deserved. After making poached eggs and meat she grabs the morning paper from the young rabbit making deliveries only to get gassed for her trouble and dragged away.