The Devil, or should I say, a devil, needed a double-thirteen to win. I desperately needed him to miss. He tilted is head just so, pointing his left horn at his target; then let it fly. Right on the money. I went queasy. How could I have been foolish enough to accept the wager? It’s The Devil for Chrissakes. Sorry, a devil – a petty technicality at that moment. I was pretty sure there was no welching a bet with a devil, singular or plural.

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About twenty minutes earlier, I had been siting at the end of the bar, minding my own business, nursing an IPA. Half watching a Warriors-Raptors game on the television, half watching Chloe, the bartender go about her lovely, lovely business. For a good minute or so I was only vaguely aware that someone had sat down at the stool next to mine. When I…