Not much action happens this chapter guys, but I promise next chapter it picks up considerably. Hope you enjoy it anyway and thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed!

Chapter 4:

The men all looked bemusedly at him, and he just looked back, his expression blank.

And then Mike laughed.

"You got some sense of humor on ya kid, don't ya?"

He didn't respond, continuing to stare.

Mike shrugged.

"Alright, fine. Joker it is." He smirked. "Here's how ya play."

/

Mike had explained the rules to him, speeding through it purposefully in the hopes of confusing him, praying that once he saw it was, for him, a useless endeavor, he would just give up and walk away.

"So, you understand?" He asked.

The boy gave a silent nod.

"Let's play." He said.

Mike looked at him skeptically.

Either this kid was really confident or really stupid, he thought.

Most people didn't understand the intricacies of poker and all the skill that went in to it. They assumed it mainly was a game of luck. And while luck was involved, it largely was based on your ability to determine odds, and to read the actions of others.

This boy was going to lose his money, but Mike had tried to turn him away. What happened now really wasn't his problem.

/

What happened was unexpected, from all parties involved. Everyone, of course, except the boy, who simply grinned as he counted the money he'd won. All of their money. Nearly $500.00 worth.

They simply sat staring at him, stunned in to silence.

When he'd finished counting the bills and stuffing them in his pockets, he looked up, pushing himself from the table and off the chair.

"Thanks for teaching me to play fella's." He said. "It's been fun."

He turned to leave when Mike called out.

"Hey, kid!"

He looked back to the man.

"You some kinda con artist or somethin'? You've played this before."

He shook his head.

"No." He answered. "Never played before tonight."

Silence hung in the air between them for a moment, and then he turned again to leave.

"Hey, wait a second!" It was Tommy this time who called for him to stop.

So again he did.

Tommy regarded him carefully.

"You tellin' the truth? You ain't never played cards before tonight?"

The boy shook his head.

Tommy nodded, as though some thought had suddenly occurred.

"Then you got a gift son." He said, pointing at him. "How'd you like to work for us?"

Mike looked at Tommy in surprise, as did the other three men.

The boy looked back skeptically.

"Just hear me out a second." Tommy put his hands up, acknowledging the odd stares, then looking back to the kid.

"Kid…"

"Joker. Call me Joker." The boy cut him off.

Tommy smirked.

"Alright. Joker. Listen. You got some kind of gift. I don't know how you did it, but you made us all look like amateurs, and I'm thinkin' you'd do the same to every other cat playin' cards 'round here. You could make a lot of money workin' for us. Playin' poker. If you play every night like you did tonight, there's no limit to how much we could make."

The boy looked unconvinced.

"Why work for you then when I can work for myself?" He questioned.

Tommy smiled.

"Well see, that's the thing." He began. "We got all the right connections. You think every card shark 'round here's gonna be as accommodatin' to a kid like you as we were?"

The boy said nothing in response.

Tommy shook his head.

"Right. They won't even let you play. But with us backin' you up, they won't have no choice. We'll tell em', either you play, or we ain't puttin' in."

The boy turned more fully to address the man then, seeming to study him. And for nearly half a minute, he said nothing, silently observing. Until, finally, he gave a single nod.

"Alright." He said.

And then he smiled.

/

He liked his new name. The Joker. He noticed immediately that when he was introduced as such, everyone around seemed instantly to take him more seriously, despite his age. He found this ironic, given the words meaning. But he understood that identifying yourself through something more akin to a title then an actual name played on people psychologically. Subconsciously they would perceive you as someone of great import, whether you were or not.

Of course, this fact was only compounded by the reputation he'd begun quickly to build among card plays all throughout the Boston area.

To say he was good would have been a grand understatement.

Tommy and Mike would bring him in to underground games, drawing both looks of confusion and amusement alike.

"What's with the kid boys?" They would jeer.

"We call him the Joker." Tommy would say.

All eyes would fall on him then.

Usually they would ask why, and then make what they thought was a clever play on words, asking if this was "some kind of joke?". Obviously though, the boy thought, it wasn't clever at all, since nearly everyone they first encountered made the same comment, almost always, word for word, verbatim.

Tommy would shake his head, saying, "Either the Joker plays, or we don't put in."

The others would usually think about it for some seconds, mulling it over, glaring at the boy, before finally shrugging, agreeing to it.

"He plays with the joker's in the deck." Tommy would then tell them.

Sometimes this drew words of protest.

But Tommy would insist, explaining that having joker's in the deck gave no one any clear cut advantage over anyone else. The odds remained the same. It still was based mostly on skill.

Finally they would agree, seeing the logic behind it.

Joker knew, because of his age, they still assumed he would be easily beaten, despite their slight puzzlement at him and his means of identification.

That was their first mistake.

He would clean them out, easily beating everyone at the table, making short nights of it, as Tommy and Mike looked on, smiling and pleased. The games would last an hour, maybe two at the most.

The men he beat would be flabbergasted, completely taken aback by what had happened.

Often times, after that, they would come back, specifically seeking the Joker out, wanting to play him again, see if they couldn't beat him. And only more money would be made.

He knew they were trying to spot him cheating. They were sure that's what it was, that was allowing this kid to so completely trounce them.

But that wasn't it.

What he was good at, what he was really good at, was reading people.

And that's why he was winning.

He would watch them from across the table, watch everything about them, from the way they sat, the way they held themselves. How, even when they thought they kept a blank expression, he would easily pick up on the most minute changes, ones they remained unaware of.

Some wore sunglasses, trying to hide their eyes. But he didn't need to see their eyes. The slightest shifts in the lines of their face told him everything he needed to know. Small creases appearing at the edges of their mouths, how they would frown or smile without even knowing it. The vague wrinkling of skin along their foreheads, which direction telling him exactly what kind of hand they were holding.

People were unaware of just how much they gave away, even those consciously trying to hide it.

And he was an absolute master of picking up on every single detail.

Whether they were lying or telling the truth was the simplest task for him. Child's play, he might have called it, if he weren't still a child himself.

He could tell so much more about them even. He could tell what they thought about themselves, what they thought about him and everyone else in the room. And he then could gauge, with ridiculous accuracy, what their actions would be, and reactions. How they would respond to any given situation.

The nature of humans was something he was more greatly aware of then others. He understood and was deeply conscious of it. Always had been. The only difference now being, he was applying that perception.

Its why, at 15, two years after he'd first started working for Tommy and Mike, when they'd gone in to play poker with a man called One-eyed Jack, within the first minute of sitting at the table, the Joker knew they were in trouble.

He could see instantly that One-eyed Jack was seething with rage. Anger directed at him before they'd even begun to play. And he knew the anger had come from his boys having lost his money to some snot-nosed brat.

The Joker motioned for Tommy to come over, and when he did, he whispered in his ear that they'd better leave now, that he could see violence was on One-eyed Jack's mind, and that the three of them wouldn't last long against him and his posse of eight.

But Tommy had just laughed and slapped him on the back, telling him to stop worrying and win them some money.

The boy tried again to warn him, but again went ignored, Tommy telling him he better play, or he'd get beat tonight.

That annoyed him a great deal.

Tommy and Mike were greedy. They seemed only to care about money. Something he himself didn't care for at all. He would let the two men keep all of whatever it was he won, taking in return what food and shelter they could provide. Money, in his eyes, was useless. And his feelings on it being so only had intensified in the two years he'd worked for them, when he realized he didn't need it even to survive. When he'd started, he thought, it might be good in obtaining things like cloths and food. But as time went on, that notion faded with the refinement of his thieving abilities, and the realization that, whatever he needed, he could easily steal.

Money could be used to persuade people, certainly, but he found no gratification from it at all, and he knew fear, and his ability to perceive deeply in to what made others tick, was a better means of manipulation even. And so much more fun.

The only reason then, for his having continued to work for Tommy and Mike, had been the thrill of the game. He loved poker, and how it offered him a means of applying his specific talents.

So when Tommy threatened to beat him that night for refusing to play, he'd grown angry, shoving back from the table and standing.

"I'm leaving." He said. "

Tommy looked shocked.

"You can't." He said. "Now sit down and play."

"Play yourself." The Joker shot back. "You're all going to get killed."

At this point, Mike had come over.

"What the hell's going on?" He questioned.

"Nothin'." Tommy said. And suddenly, he'd grabbed the Joker by the arm. "Sit down kid. Or I'll make you sit down."

The Joker tried pulling away then.

"Let go." He hissed.

But Tommy held on tight, trying to force him back to the seat.

"Idiot!" The Joker spit, struggling against him. "You don't see."

In an attempt to break lose, he'd put his hands up, against Tommy's face, and pushed.

And then Tommy had lost it, rearing his own hand back and slapping the boy hard across the jaw, knocking him to the floor.

He'd moved to grab the Joker, ready to strike him again, when he'd heard a click, and then Mike's shaking voice, calling his name.

"Shoulda' listened to the kid."

Tommy looked up, and saw One-eyed Jack standing, a pistol held in his hand, trained right on him, his group of eight men the same, weapons aimed at both him and Mike.

"But then, I guess that's why he's the one playin' cards and you ain't."

The last thing both men saw was One-eyed Jack's smiling face, and hearing the crack of gunfire as they were mowed violently down.