Chapter 3: Puttin' on the Ritz

"And the Rumple has landed," Emma quips, but Henry's staring at the scenery: the traffic, moving at a steady crawl; the pedestrians, moving at a steady trot; the vendors, shouting and touting their wares; and above it all, way way above it all, the buildings, silently promising permanence against the flow of constant change. She grabs Henry's hand and glances around for Gold.

She finds him halfway down the block, in a crowd gathered in front of a small folding table; he's been roped in by the fast-talking operator behind the table. The operator is fast-handed as well: he's shuffling three bottle caps back and forth across the surface of the table, too fast for the eye to follow. "Find the pea, find the pea," he's chanting, "win your money and mine."

"Houston, we have a problem," Emma remarks. She allows Henry to drag her into the crowd.

Gold is reaching into his pocket. "Crap!" Emma exclaims, for she knows what's going on, and she foresees that Gold is about to be conned. Despite Gold's Armani suit, the operator looked up and saw a country bumpkin coming. Not that Emma cares if Gold drops a bundle. Not that Emma cares if Gold's made a fool of. It's just that, once he discovers he's been conned, he's going to be awfully hard to live with—and not just for his traveling companions, Emma thinks, glancing at the cane and recalling how effectively the old man wields it. How's she going to explain to New York's Finest how a 300-year-old man managed to cane a 20-something street con artist?

She yanks on Gold's sleeve and calls his name, but it's too late. The money's on the table, the bottle cap is being lifted. . . and the con man blinks.

On the spot vacated by the bottle cap—the cap that Gold indicated with his cane—lies a pea.

Half the audience cheers and slaps Gold's shoulder in congratulations. The other half—the shills—stare in stunned silence. The shell man pulls himself together and congratulates Gold. "The luck of the virtuous, my man! Care to try again, double or nothing?"

Gold smirks. "Let it ride."

His teeth gritted, the shell man slides the bottle caps around. "Find the pea, find the pea, win your money and mine," he croons. He stops the slide. "Which cap is the pea under?"

Gold taps the man's left hand with his cane. "Too bad, my man, too—" the shell man is saying even before he lifts the bottle cap; but as soon as the cap is lifted, he changes his tune. "It's your lucky day, pal. You win again." For again, there's the pea, as Gold had predicted.

"Let it ride," Gold demands.

The shell man is scowling and certain members of the crowd are getting antsy, while others are talking excitedly. "One more time," the shell man agrees, and he shifts the bottle caps around on the table's surface. "Are you on a streak? Let's find out. Find the pea, find the pea, win your money and mine."

The shell man's hands flash across the tabletop and the bottle caps skitter. When his hands stop, he utters, "Where's the pea this time, pal?"

Gold taps his left hand. The shell man smiles and lifts the chosen bottle cap—and his smile vanishes because there's the pea. "This is your lucky day, all right, pops," the shell man swallows hard. "How about letting someone else play before you break me?"

Oh, Gold will break you all right, Emma is thinking, if you manage to cheat him.

"Let it ride," Gold demands.

"Sorry, mister, you're just too lucky for me," the shell man tries to push the bundle of bills at Gold, but Gold shakes his head.

"I'm not finished, pal," Gold says.

"Let the old man play," someone in the crowd insists.

"Yeah, let him play!" Emma calls out.

Gold glances over his shoulder at Emma; his expression betrays grave insult. "'Old'? I'm only 51. Emma, he called me 'old.'"

A fine sheen of sweat breaks out on the shell man's forehead. Emma spies a cop standing on the corner across the street, and she's sure the shills and the shell man are fully aware of that fact too.

"One more round for the lucky man." The shell man licks his lips and resumes the game. He stops the slide and Gold taps his left hand again. "Sorry, pops—" But once again, the pea is exactly where Gold predicted. The shell man runs his hand through his hair and stares at the bottle caps.

"Come on, give the man his money," Emma prompts, and the honest members of the crowd take up the call. Confused glances shoot back and forth between the shills and the shell man. The latter re-collects his wits and pushes the stack of bills toward Gold. "It's all yours, pops. Congratulations."

As the shell man hastily packs up his equipment, Gold folds the bills and slips them into his jacket pocket. "Shame on you for conning naïve old men on the street," Gold chastises. "Get a real job, sonny." And with half the crowd saluting the naïve old man, thereby preventing the shills from muscling the winner, Gold ambles back toward the Ritz. By the time Emma catches up to him, he's turning over his car keys to a valet.

"Wow, Mr. Gold," Henry exclaims. "That was cool, what you did back there."

Emma draws Gold aside and asks in a hushed voice, "How did you do that?"

"Do what, Ms. Swan?"

She slaps his arm. "Come on. That kid was a street con. He's been ripping people off for years. Did you—" she makes her fingers dance to suggest a conjure.

Gold places his hand against his chest and huffs, "Are you accusing me of cheating?"

Henry ponders, "Is cheating a cheater still cheating?"

Gold touches the boy's shoulder reassuringly. "I didn't cheat, Henry, though, yes, he was attempting to cheat me."

"But it's a con. You can't beat those guys; they palm the pea as soon as you choose the shell, and then they pass the pea under a different shell," Emma reasons. "The player can't possibly win."

Gold smirks. "He can if he can see the future." He turns away. "Come along, Henry, let's make certain our appointed accommodations meet our standards."

"This will suffice." Gold dips his hand into his jacket and tips the bellman with some of the shell man's money. "Thank you."

The bellman thanks him and leaves, quietly closing the door behind him.

Emma stands in the center of the white-and-gold appointed suite. All she can do is gape; she's never seen the likes: this room manages to be elegant and yet comfortable at the same time. Henry dashes from room to room, shouting back his findings: "Dining room! A kitchen! A safe! Two bedrooms! Two—no, three bathrooms! Marble tub! Holy cow, there's tv's in the bathrooms!"

"I won't have any trouble getting you to take a bath tonight, will I?" Emma trails after him. "Don't be shoutin', okay?"

"Why not? We're twenty-one floors up! Nobody'll hear us."

Emma can't think of a good reason, so she settles for, "This isn't the kind of place people shout in."

Henry makes his way back into the living room. He starts to bounce on the couch, but then he spies something irresistible at the window. "Emma—a telescope!"

"After this, our little apartment back home is going to seem pitiful," Emma sighs.

Gold, standing perfectly still in the center of the room, raises an eyebrow. "To him or to you?"

"Both of us, I guess," she admits. "Hey, I got a question."

A single corner of Gold's mouth tips up. "Just one? You disappoint me, Ms. Swan."

She chooses to ignore the little dig. "If your magic is strong enough to transport the three of us and that big old boat you call a car all the way from Boston, why didn't you just transport us from Storybrooke? Why go to all the expense of trying to fly?"

He leans a little heavily on his cane; she can see he's tired. "You will learn for yourself when you begin exercising the powers you've been gifted. All magic—"

"Comes with a price," Henry finishes from his station at the telescope. "Hey, Emma, you should see what the guy in the apartment across the street is doing. He's got this big doll he's putting lipstick on—"

"Henry, don't be looking in people's windows. Look at. . . I don't know. . . clouds or something."

"The clouds aren't doing anything."

"Well, then, look at the street."

"Okay. Hey, Emma, what's this mean?" Henry raises his middle finger in the air. "Is that, like, the 'live long and prosper' thing from that tv show you like? There's a taxi driver down there doing that to another taxi driver."

"Henry!"

"What? What'd I do?"

"Just—why don't you see what's in the closets, okay?"

As Henry accepts the invitation to nose around some more, Emma turns her attention back to Gold. "So if you didn't want to pay the price on the magic to bring us from Storybrooke, why did you change your mind at the airport?"

Gold fiddles with his ring so that he doesn't have to meet her eyes. "In that situation, the magic was pre-paid, so to speak, so I might as well have used it."

"Oh?" she frowns, not understanding. "What did you pay for that magic?"

He blushes. "My dignity. It seems you were correct, Ms. Swan, when you said the two great powers of this world are the airlines and the TSA. They gave this old sorcerer a sound trouncing."

She smiles. "Oh, yeah." And then, mercifully, she bails him out by changing the subject. "I suppose you'll want to hit the bricks right away, now that we're here."

"Indeed. But as it is nearly noon, I suppose we should dine first. Adolescent boys and magic must be fed." He smoothes his jacket, straightens his tie and moves to the front door to hold it open for Emma and Henry.

"Lunchtime, Henry!" Emma calls to her son, then follows Gold to the door. "I understand the boys part. Henry's a pizza vacuum; he can suck down a twelve-inch pie in two minutes flat. But what do you mean about feeding magic?"

"A good question, of the kind I hope you will someday ask more. Someday, when I have time to teach you and you have the courage to learn, I will explain the laws of supply and demand as they apply to magic. For the moment, suffice it to say, the key to maintaining one's magic is protein. Protein for the magic, and carbohydrates for the sorcerer's energy level." As Henry trots up, Gold leans forward conspiratorially. "One of the privileges of 'old age' is that we elderly can say things a child's parents would never want said, and I'm evoking my first privilege right now. Henry, if you want to grow up to be a powerful sorcerer, eat pizza. Lots and lots of pizza."

"I'm gonna love this trip!" Henry cheers as he dashes for the elevator.

Emma sighs in exasperation. "Aw, come on, Gold, I got enough trouble with David permitting sword fighting in the house. I thought at least I could count on you to be a follow-the-rules kind of guy."

Gold shrugs, closing the door behind them. "At least I didn't tell him about the physio-magical benefits of candy."

"There are benefits of candy?" Henry chirps. "All kinds of candy, or just, like, chocolate? 'Cause I could go either way; it would be all right with me."

"Ah, now, that depends," Gold winks. "Chocolate if you're casting spells within the relaxation family: spells to combat nervousness or insomnia, for example. But hard candies if you wish to affect the weather: lemon drops for sunshine, peppermints for snow, butterscotch for rain."

"What about ice cream?" Henry asks eagerly. "I see you go into Amy's Ice Cream Shoppe every Friday. Is that for magic energy?"

"That's for me. Sometimes a man hears the siren call of ice cream and he has no choice but to follow. Now, let's consider the benefits of cookies—"

"GOLD!"

"Wow," Emma gushes as they enter the leather-and-mahogany elegance of the Ritz's Auden Bistro. A waiter takes her jacket and withdraws a chair so that she can be seated. "Wow." And when the waiter presents her with a menu and she checks out the offerings, "Wow" again comes to her lips, quickly changing to a "Holy crap" when she gets a load of the prices. But she reminds herself she's not paying; Gold is, and Gold is as loaded as his name implies, so she need not cheat her appetite for the sake of his wallet. Without hesitation she orders the duck confit salad, Lobster Nicoise (the lobster's from Maine) and pear pate a choux—she has no idea what that is but the words are fun to pronounce.

Gold orders mussels and Scottish salmon and ice cream.

Henry flips the menu back and forth between his hands and scowls. Emma tries to help: "There's a hamburger."

"With mushrooms," Henry grimaces, "and aged cheddar—Emma, old cheese is moldy! And garlic—" he can't pronounce the next word so he spells it—"a-i-o-l-i. Whatever that is."

Emma shrugs.

"It's a kind of mayo," Gold explains. "I'll take care of this." He instructs the waiter to bring a plain hamburger.

Henry's too polite to say so—and Emma must give Regina credit for the manners Henry possesses—but he's disappointed, and even more disappointed when the meal comes and looks nothing like anything he's ever eaten before. In fact, some of it—the mussels and the duck confit—looks gross, in his unexpressed opinion. But as soon as the waiter has departed, Gold gives a sly little smile and fulfills his promise, and Henry chows down with all the enthusiasm a hungry pre-teen can muster.

The waiter returns a few moments later with the coffee carafe. "More coffee, ma'am? Sir?" He fills their cups. "Is everything to your satisfaction?"

"It's great," Emma replies.

"Very good," Gold judges.

"Delicious!" Henry pronounces around a mouthful of gooey mozzarella and greasy sausage.

The waiter's mouth drops open. "But. . . but I could have sworn. . . " He checks his notepad and mutters, "Yes. The Auden burger. How did. . . But we don't serve pizza here. . . ." He walks away scratching his head. "This is what I get for pulling a double shift."

"Eat up, Henry," Gold urges. "Pizza: the lunch of champions. Imagine what Merlin's powers could have been if Camelot had had pepperoni."