Two in the Field (37 page)

“Yeah, well,” I said, “something tells me you aren’t exactly wild about him either.”

He didn’t answer.

Five-card draw was the only poker permitted in the high-stakes room. A simple game with two betting rounds. I drifted upstairs as often as I could and tried to be inconspicuous while looking on. Nothing extraordinary happened the first night. The second night, I got distracted. After helping Grogan roust a drunk, I was passing the billiards table on my way upstairs when I heard a throaty, familiar voice.

“Would you be so kind, good sir …” French accents, sexy undertone … “as to
carombole
with me?” No parasol now. She held a cue as if she knew what to do with it, and it wasn’t pointed at my crotch.

“I’m afraid ladies aren’t allowed at tables without escorts,” I began, “and so—”

“My companion is detained,” she said smoothly. “Will you keep me company so that I won’t be forced to fend off …” She waved a slender arm to suggest a menagerie of lurking menaces.

I suspected she was expert at fending off. “Well …” I said uncertainly. My god, she was something: auburn hair piled up in an elaborate coiffeur, those gray eyes with thick lashes, flawless skin, a corseted waist that looked no more than ten inches wide and swelled into an ample bosom accentuated with yards of fabric and lace. What the hell. Old Smoke wanted me to smile more around the ladies, and I was allowed an occasional game of billiards, so long as I stayed alert and didn’t take customers’ money—that was the exclusive role of Baker and the other dealers.

“Okay, but just one game,” I said, and chalked a cue.

I figured I’d show her how it worked, give her a few tips on her stroke, and be on my way. Instead, she bent over the table and the balls clicked smartly as she made combination after combination.

“I believe I have won.” She racked the balls for a new game. “Will you play again, Mr. Fowler?”

“You know my name?”

She smiled. “Mine is Ophelia Dupree.” Big on the French. Dew-PRAY.

She sounded so stagey saying it that I considered replying, Sure, and I’m Rhett Butler. But I didn’t. She extended her hand, apparently expecting me to bend over it like a courtier, and damned if I didn’t do it. And then I stuck around to play again. This time she let me have a turn before running up a winning score.

“Got to get back to work.”

“I’ve enjoyed your company.”

She smiled and then made a little cute little
moue
with her lips, which looked quite inviting. Twenty minutes later, when I returned after looking in on the poker action, she was gone.

The following night I found her at the same table, and inquired if her “companion” had abandoned her again. Smiling mischievously, she said, “Oh, but tonight I have permission.” I went off to check with Grogan, who informed me that she’d been approved “from the top.” Morrissey. This had to be the setup Baker had warned of.

We played again. Showing me how to line up a difficult shot, she leaned close. “Number four cottage,” she whispered. “Come for brandy.”

The situation came into sharper perspective. Morrissey had constructed a handful of cottages among his elms, discreetly shielded from the public and from each other. They were for favored patrons who, for whatever reasons, required privacy.
The cottages were a source of scandal among the town’s bluenosed set. Ophelia Dupree’s presence in one could mean only that somebody very powerful was keeping her there.

“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.”

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