Put the red nine on the black ten.

It would appear that the guy leading the charge at B.O. and Gertie's wasn't Ace after all.  That would explain the colossal failure of the mission, though it does make me wonder who he was.  I suppose the logical answer would be that Jack sent the Kingpin out to the farm (or whatever you'd call the Plenty's home base) to get the money back so that he could give it to Ace, or keep it for himself.  (A guy's got to eat and keep himself stocked up on card related paraphernalia after all.)  So that's Ace.  I don't think he's too pleased to have such a close up (albeit a shadowed close up) appearance in the comic today, what with the evil eye he's giving us in the first panel, but I suppose when you're the leader of what might be a large operation, you want to keep a few secrets.  One could even be that he doesn't much care for gambling and would rather just play solitaire all day.  (What can I say?  He's a lonely, lonely man.)  But as much fun as it would be to try to figure out which are the red cards and which are the black cards in panel two, something's actually happening at the casino, so let's all shift gears and rejoin the big showdown between Tracy and Jack, already in progress.   

Welcome back folks.  Despite the fact that it looked like Jack had been knocked unconscious after Tracy flipped him onto the roulette table, the boy is back up and raring to go.  Unfortunately, that raring brought him right into the path of Tracy's fist, but with a jaw like that, I don't think much damage will be done.  Before Jack can retaliate, who should appear but his secretary, Ms. Jones.  (Jack has a secretary?  A secretary named Ms. Jones?  Yes.  Yes he does.  I refuse to give her a card name.  So there.)  Apparently, someone really wants to get in touch with him and even though she told the caller that Jack was busy and would be in a meeting for the whole day, the caller persisted, said it was urgent, and she had no choice but to interfere with the fight.  It's probably Ace, asking what's become of his money (or a telemarketer.  Those guys can be sneaky.).  We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see whether it's the big boss man asking where his money is, or an underpaid phone jockey wanting to know if Jack would be interested in changing his long distance carrier.  Oh, the suspense!