Two in the Field Page 25

  “I’d love to,” I said, which was not untrue, “but I think I’d better honor my commitment.”

  “But,” she touched my arm and let her hand linger, “once you are finished working …”

  “Not that commitment,” I said. “To a woman.”

  To my astonishment, tears welled in the gray eyes and she withdrew her hand.

  “Sorry,” I said, and headed upstairs to the poker room, where one of the players had a sizable stack of chips. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  “Big pot?” I asked Grogan.

  “Nearly three thousand.” He nodded toward the man with the chips. “Drew just one card, pulled a straight.”

  Damn. I’d missed it. I kept an eye on that player the rest of the night. He dropped a little, came back to where he was, his playing style as bland as his looks: medium height, brown hair, regular features. Nothing distinctive. Yet I could have sworn I’d seen him somewhere else before.

  FAMED AERONAUT DEAD

  I opened the morning paper over breakfast at Congress Hall and was saddened to see that Donaldson hadn’t made it. More than a month had passed since his disappearance. Storms carried his balloon across Lake Michigan and up the Montreal River, where it crashed in a remote area, breaking Donaldson’s arms and legs so badly that he couldn’t reach help. Gangrene had set in and finished him. I remembered our “landing” and felt a chill, thinking how lucky we had been.

  “It’s the brown-haired guy in the number three seat,” I told Baker.

  “Not bad,” he said approvingly. “How’s he work it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He laughed. “I’ll give you another try. If it happens tonight, and you can tell me how, I’ll double the payoff.”

  I hovered around the poker room. The brown-haired man made no eye contact with me, and if my presence bothered him, he showed no sign. Around eleven-thirty the big hand came. Four of the six players (the seventh at the table was the Club House dealer, who took a small cut of each pot for his service) got into a flurry of escalating bets. One folded. Then another. Of the remaining two, one was Brown Hair, who raised until his chips were nearly gone and the pot stood at over four thousand. When called, he showed a full house: aces over sevens. His opponent slammed his cards face up on the table: three queens, two tens. Brown Hair watched calmly while the dealer gave him his chips.

  Suddenly I remembered where I’d seen him. He was the one who’d walked away at the paddock, the one talking to McDermott.

  Well, well.

  As before, Brown Hair stayed even the rest of the night. The game broke up close to three, just as Baker’s shift was ending. I went over to his faro layout as he was removing his white dealer’s bib.

  “Figure it out?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure Brown Hair did anything crooked.”

  Baker gave me a sly look. “He bet his cards, didn’t he?”

  “So it had to be the dealer.”

  He smiled.

  “I think Red Jim’s involved,” I said.

  Baker’s quick, probing glance convinced me I was on the right track. “So here’s my theory,” I told him. “McDermott gets the dealer to rig one hand a night. Brown Hair wins big. The three of them split the take.”

  Baker looked around. “You didn’t get this from me, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “That dealer’s in bad trouble and he’s scared. No matter how much his split comes to, it’s not worth risking what Old Smoke will do to him.”

  “Then why does he do it?”

  “Red Jim must have gotten something bad on him,” Baker said. “Anyway, there’s no way he can get off the hot seat now. McDermott will bleed him dry.”

  “I still don’t see how they do it,” I said. “Is it in the shuffle?”

  “Rigged deck,” he said softly. “Once the dealer knows where everybody’s sitting, he fixes a deck during his break and puts it in with the others in the equipment room to be delivered to his table. He uses it when he judges the time is prime.”

  “Does he keep the fixed deck in a holdout?”

  “Sam, you surprise me.” Baker’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you know about that?”

  I described the spring-loaded contraption used by McDermott and LeCaron in Promontory; it shot a card into a cheater’s hand when he spread his knees.

  “This one’s different, but same principle.” He leaned closer. “You’d like to get a good lick in at McDermott, right?”

  “Do bears shit in the woods?”

  Baker laughed and said he’d never heard that one, then leaned closer. “Okay, there’s a way we can both get what we want. I can make it look like my dealing partner has nothing to do with it while turning Red Jim’s trick against him—and costing them a pretty penny.”

  “I love it,” I said. “What do I have to do?”

  “Find somebody to play against Brown Hair,” he said. “Somebody not known here. Somebody you can rely on not to wilt under pressure when the betting’s heavy—and who’ll keep his mouth shut no matter what happens.”

  I considered it. “I might be able to get a man here in a few days. You think the dealer’ll go along with our double-cross?”

  “He’s not gonna know,” Baker said. “Leave that part to me. But Red Jim saw us together. He’ll suspect us right off, even if he can’t figure how we did it.”

  “Nobody’ll ever find out from me.”

  Baker nodded. “I believe that’s so, or I wouldn’t have talked to you. You know that stealing from the house puts more than just our jobs at risk.”

  “Good point,” I said. “So what’s in it for you?”

  “I have my own reasons,” he said grimly, “for wanting to get that red-haired sonofabitch.”

  To:

  MRS BILLY SWIFTWATER BODELL

  154 SPRING STRING STREET

  ROCHESTER NY

  Message:

  TELL SLACK RICH JOB

  COME AT ONCE

  From:

  FRISCO SAM

  CONGRESS HOUSE

  SARATOGA SPRING NY

  I checked at Western Union later the same day and found Slack’s answer: ON MY WAY

  “Mister Fowler … Sam,” said the French-accented voice as a soft arm linked with mine. My shift had ended and Grogan was closing up. I was on my way out. I looked down into the distressed face of Ophelia DuPree. Her perfume filled my nostrils and I felt the soft pressure of her breast against my arm. Men shot me envious looks as she steered me past them toward the door. “Please don’t do this to me.”

  “Do what to you?”

  “Don’t place me in trouble with …” Her voice lowered to a husky whisper: “with M.”

  “Look, I work for Morrissey, so I don’t see how—”

  “The other one.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “He’ll hurt me.”

  The other M? She had to mean McDermott.

  “Please trust me,” she whispered, close to my ear.

  Trust was out of the question. Beguiled by her persistence, though, I let curiosity overcome caution and walked with her across the lawn beside the Club House, then back along an elm-shadowed lane where her cottage sat among the trees. Gas globes cast yellow pools outside the door. In the darkness I slipped the Schofield from its holster and carried it in my right hand.

  In the doorway she suddenly put her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to my cheek.

  “Look, I told you, I’m already—”

  “Surely he’s watching,” she whispered. “I know your heart is taken—it’s why I trust you. Pretend you want me.”

  It wasn’t a tough chore to put my hands on her corseted waist, pull her against me for a tantalizing moment, then let her lead me into the cottage.

  “Okay, I’m here,” I said, “but that’s all.”

  “I won’t bedevil you.” She stepped away, looking amused, her French accents suddenly less evident. “But I had to talk to you alone.”

  “Why?”
/>
  “It’s expected.” She poured brandy into snifters. “Red Jim set me up here.”

  “To do what?”

  “I think you already know the answer.” Smiling, she handed me a snifter. “I can be very useful with men.”

  Ah, I thought. Add pimp to McDermott’s sterling résumé.

  “Sometimes my purpose is to gain information,” she said matter of factly. “Other times to set up a blackmail.”

  “Does Morrissey know about this?”

  “I think so,” she said. “Usually Red Jim is careful to keep me away from the Club House. This is my first time here in a cottage, so he must have gotten permission.”

  “Why so much interest in me?”

  She motioned me to cushions spread out behind a small table. “I’m supposed to find out who is backing you.”

  “Backing me?”

  “Red Jim believes that somebody powerful must be behind you. You were able to kill a certain Captain O’Donovan and vanish despite all efforts to find you. Now, you’ve somehow worked your way into the Club House. Jim’s sure that you’re protected, and wants to know who’s behind you before he makes a move.”

  She sat across the table from me. Wary of being drugged, I waited for her to sip her brandy before I touched mine. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I was touched when you said you were committed to another. That deters very few here.” She looked at me over the rim of her glass. “And besides, since you resisted my usual approaches, I thought honesty might work best.”

  “Always a good last resort.”

  “I hope we can help each other,” she said earnestly. “It was no joke about Red Jim harming me if I fail.”

  “Why don’t you run off?” I asked, trying not to stare too obviously as she kicked off her shoes, stretched, and leaned back in a series of voluptuous movements. “You’d make out fine just about anywhere.”

  She smiled. “I’ve never known of anyone escaping him—except you,” she said. “And soon he’ll have Henri back.”

  “Henri?” A prickling sensation rippled my back and neck. “You don’t mean LeCaron.” I sat bold upright as she nodded. “But I saw him gutshot, crawling off to die.”

  “He didn’t die.”

  “Where is he now?” I said tensely, all my reservations about trusting her dwarfed by this new looming menace.

  “I know only that Senator Morrissey arranged his release from prison.” She explained that six years ago a Mormon family had found LeCaron in the Utah desert and nursed him back to health. Whereupon LeCaron murdered the husband and raped his wives. Captured, he was sentenced to die, but Red Jim pulled strings to block his execution. Until now he hadn’t been able to get him released.

  Now I understood McDermott’s smug talk of a surprise. Jesus Christ. The idea of LeCaron coming after me chilled my blood. Once he showed up here, my hours would be numbered. I couldn’t see how Ophelia’s tipoff represented any sort of trap. It might even turn out to save my life.

  “Let’s try to help each other,” I told her. “What do you need?”

  “Something to tell Red Jim so that I won’t fail with you.”

  I thought it over. “Okay, first, report that I have a war wound.” Stealing shamelessly from a future bestselling novel, I pointed downward. “Tell him I’m sensitive about it.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is it true?”

  “As far as you and he are concerned.”

  She smiled slowly. “He’ll like hearing you’re not fully a man.”

  “No doubt,” I said. “So even though you can’t use all your tried and tested techniques, tell him you’re making progress anyway, softening me up.”

  “Softening?” She inched closer.

  I ignored the remark. “Tell him you strongly suspect he’s right: I’m not alone here but part of a network.”

  “What’s a network?”

  “It’s, well, a conspiracy in this case, a group of plotters. Maybe the Pinkertons?” I looked at her hopefully. “Or another country? England? Anyway, you don’t know who yet, but if something happens to me, you’re pretty sure it’ll bring bad consequences. Not to mention the kind of publicity Morrissey doesn’t want.”

  She thought it through, nodding, liking it.

  I stood up, feeling exhausted. Things were happening too fast. I needed time to figure out what to do. Something forgotten nagged at my mind, then I remembered.

  “Do you know who Hamilton Baker is?”

  She shrugged prettily. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Did he and McDermott ever have trouble?”

  “Perhaps,” she answered. “Jim becomes quiet when his name comes up.”

  “See what you can find out, okay?”

  She brightened, seeming to relish her new role of double agent. “I’ll see you tomorrow night?” She took my hand in hers and stroked my fingers. “Here?”

  “A short man,” the desk clerk said after I came back from lunch. “In appearance, not … decorous.”

  Slack for sure. He must have hopped an express to get here so fast. I glanced at his note and headed for the saloon he’d named. When I arrived he jumped up to meet me, moving much easier than the last time I’d seen him.

  “Got my ribs doctored,” he explained. “Breathing doesn’t pain me now.”

  I gave him directions to the hotel where I’d first stayed. It was crucial that we not be seen together. An hour later I joined him there and described his part. Slack loved it that all he had to do was play poker.

  “Hell, Sam, usually I’m the one who pays for that recreation.”

  “Not this time,” I told him. “We can start you tonight, but first we gotta get you squared away for the Club House.” I handed him a tailor’s address and a list of things to buy.

  Meanwhile he was giving me a once-over. “Looks like you’re making out real fine at Morrissey’s.”

  “It’s okay if you survive the first interview.” I described mine.

  “You whipped Old Smoke?”

  “Not whipped, just sat him down.”

  His eyes grew huge when I handed him five thousand dollars to stake him to his new wardrobe and a seat at that night’s game. Nine-tenths of it had come from Baker; that was the ratio of return he expected back.

  “Be there by eight,” I told him. “We’ll get you to the right table.”

  If it proved necessary, Slack would say he was Mr. George H. “Babe” Ruth, from Ohio. The occupation of “speculator” struck us as sufficiently vague. In any case, few questions were asked at the Club House so long as you had cash.

  The queries would come later. Oh, would they come.

  I explained that there would be one killer hand. It would be impossible not to recognize it. He was to bet the whole five thousand, plus anything he’d won up to then.

  Under no circumstances was he to lose.

  “You’re sure?” I asked Baker that evening.

  “If I wasn’t sure, we wouldn’t do it.”

  “And it’s McDermott’s money?”

  “His and his accomplice’s.” He smiled. “Plus the other sports’ who happen to bet in that particular hand.”

  “I don’t like that last part,” I said, “cheating innocent players.”

  Baker shrugged, unconcerned. “They come here proposing to take a risk—and they’re gonna get cheated by Red Jim anyway—but if it bothers you so much, I reckon you’ll find a way to make up those poor souls’ losses.”

  Unable to think of one, I decided I wasn’t bothered that much. “When are you going to re-fix the deck?”

  “Right after our dealer takes his first break.”

  “You’ll be able to spot the rigged one?”

  His look suggested I was an idiot even to ask.

  “Hell, why can’t we do this every night?” I was thinking I’d soon have the money I wanted.

  Baker shook his head. “Only once.”

  Slack showed up in a striped Prince Albert, handed his top hat, gold-headed cane, a
nd suede gloves to a servant, and strode up the stairs past Grogan as if he owned the place. Since I’d been spending a lot of time in the poker room, Baker told me to follow the same pattern this night. Being absent might seem suspicious.

  So I was there for the showdown hand.

  Like most of the high-stakes action, it was played in silence except for the bets, which came fast and hard.

  “I could scarce keep up with all the raises,” Slack said later. “Never seen anything like it.”

  From Baker I got the inside story: Brown Hair’s fixed hand held four queens. The hand of the chosen mark—not Slack, thank the fates—held four tens. Naturally, those hands were bet to the sky. But to the surprise of both the dealer and Brown Hair, Slack met their raises with larger ones. The pot swelled in excess of fifteen thousand. Brown Hair was barely suppressing a smirk. Called, the mark turned up his tens. Brown Hair turned up his queens.

  Slack turned up a nine-high straight flush.

  Brown Hair and the dealer looked like they’d swallowed owl shit. It would go down as one of the great moments in Club House history.

  Baker said that he’d considered using four aces. “But the dealer might have checked aces beforehand, even though the normal tendency is to pay attention only to the cards you stack. Anyhow, three players with four of a kind would have been too suspicious. And it’s possible—mathematically, anyway—for a hand you overlook to pull a straight flush.”

  “And no suspicion on us?”

  “Why would there be? Any man alive would’ve bet his fortune on that hand.” Baker laughed. “Just don’t let yourself be seen anywhere near that sawed-off Mr. Ruth.”

  “Jim won’t talk about the trouble between them,” Ophelia said. “But there was some. I’ve noticed he steers a wide path around Ham Baker.”

  “Maybe he owes him money.”

  “That’s what I’d guess, something of the sort.” She drank from her brandy snifter and then pointedly looked down at my crotch. “Do you want to know how he reacted to hearing about your … infirmity?”

  “Not really.”

  “He crowed like a rooster.”