As suddenly as the shuddering had begun, it stopped, and the ride smoothed out. The train sped on, safe on its rails. Its passengers exhaled sighs of relief that the morning newspapers would not be listing their names among the dead in a train wreck.
“How many cards, Judge?”
But Judge Congdon was not done talking. “I made no reference to mismanagement, Charlie. If you could speak as a close associate of Osgood Hennessy rather than as an engineer, sir, how are things going with Hennessy’s Cascades Cutoff where these accidents seem to be concentrated?”
Kincaid delivered an impassioned speech more suited to a joint session of Congress than a high-stakes game of poker. “I assure you gentlemen that gossip about reckless expansion of the Cascades Line is poppycock. Our great nation was built by bold men like Southern Pacific president Hennessy who took enormous risks in the face of adversity and pressed on even when cooler heads pleaded to go easy, even when braving bankruptcy and financial ruin.”
Bell noticed that Jack Thomas, the banker, looked less than assured. Kincaid was certainly doing Hennessy’s reputation no favors tonight.
“How many cards would you like, Judge Congdon?” he asked again.
Congdon’s reply was more alarming than the Overland Limited’s sudden rough ride. “No cards, thank you. I don’t need any. I’ll stand pat.”
The other players stared. Bruce Payne, the oil attorney, said out loud what they were all thinking. “Standing pat in five-card draw is like galloping into town at the head of marauding cavalry.”
The hand was in its second round. Isaac Bell had already dealt each player five cards facedown. Congdon, “under the gun” to Bell’s immediate left in a position that ordinarily passes, had opened the first round of betting. All of the men playing in the palatial stateroom except for Payne had called the steel baron’s first-round bet. Charles Kincaid, seated to Bell’s immediate right, had impetuously raised that bet, forcing the players who had stayed in to throw more money in the pot. Gold coins had rung mutedly on the felt tabletop as all the players, including Bell, had called the raise, largely because Kincaid had been playing with a noticeable lack of good sense.
With the first round of betting complete, the players were permitted to discard one, two, or three cards and draw replacements to improve their hands. Judge Congdon’s announcement that he already had all the cards he needed, thank you, and would stand pat, made no one happy. By claiming that he needed no improvement, he was suggesting that he held a winning hand already, a hand that utilized all five of his cards and would beat hands as strong as two pairs or three of a kind. That meant he held at least a straight (five cards in numerical sequence) or a straight-beating flush (five cards in the same suit) or even a full house (three of a kind plus two of a kind), a potent combination that beat a straight or a flush.
“If Mr. Bell would please deal the other gentlemen the number of cards they ask for,” gloated Congdon, who had suddenly lost interest in the subjects of labor strife and train wrecks, “I am anxious to open the next round of betting.”
Bell asked, “Cards, Kenny?” And Bloom, who was nowhere near as rich in coal as Congdon was in steel, asked for three cards with little hope.
Jack Thomas took two cards, hinting that he might already hold three of a kind. But it was more likely, Bell decided, that he held a moderate pair and had kept an ace kicker in the desperate hope of drawing two more aces. If he really had trips, he would have raised on the first round.
The next man, Douglas Moser, the patrician New England textile-mill owner, said he would draw one card, which might be two pair but was a probably a hopeful straight or flush. Bell had seen enough of his play to judge him as too wealthy to care enough to play to win. That left Senator Kincaid, to Bell’s immediate right.
Kincaid said, “I’ll stand pat, too.”
Judge Congdon’s eyebrows, which were rough as strands of wire rope, rose a full inch. And several men exclaimed out loud. Two pat hands in the same round of draw poker was unheard of.
Bell was as surprised as the rest of the men. He had established already that Senator Kincaid cheated when he could by skillfully dealing from the bottom of the deck. But Kincaid hadn’t dealt this hand, Bell had. As unusual as a pat hand was, if Kincaid had one it was due to genuine luck, not double-dealing.
“The last time I saw two pat hands,” said Jack Thomas, “it ended in gunfire.”
“Fortunately,” said Moser, “no one at this table is armed.”
Which was not true, Bell had noticed. The double-dealing Senator had a derringer tugging the cloth of his side pocket. A sensible precaution, Bell supposed, for men in public life since McKinley was shot.
Bell said, “Dealer takes two,” discarded two cards, dealt himself two replacements, and put down the deck. “Opener bets,” he said. “I believe that was you, Judge Congdon.”
Old James Congdon, showing more yellow teeth than a timber wolf, smiled past Bell at Senator Kincaid. “I will bet the pot.”
They were playing pot limit, which meant that the only restriction on any one bet was the amount on the table at that moment. Congdon’s bet said that while he was surprised by Kincaid’s pat hand, he did not fear it, suggesting he had a very powerful hand, more likely a full house rather than a straight or a flush. Bruce Payne, who looked extremely happy to be out of the hand, helpfully counted the pot, and announced, in his thin, reedy voice, “In round numbers, your pot bet will be three thousand six hundred dollars.”
Joseph Van Dorn had taught Isaac Bell to gauge fortunes in terms of what a workingman earned in a day. He had taken him to the toughest saloon in Chicago and watched approvingly as his well-dressed apprentice won a couple of fistfights. Then he steered Bell’s attention to the customers lining up for the free lunch. Clearly, the scion of a Boston banking family and a graduate of Yale had insights into the thinking apparatus of the privileged, the boss had noted with a smile. But a detective had to understand the other ninety-eight percent of the population, too. How did a man think when he had no money in his pocket? What did a man do who had nothing to lose but his fear?
The thirty-six hundred dollars in the pot for just this hand was more money than Judge Congdon’s steelworkers made in six years.
“I bet three thousand six hundred,” said Congdon, shoving all the coins in front of him to the center of the table and tossing in a red baize sack with more gold coins in it that thunked heavily on the felt.
Ken Bloom, Jack Thomas, and Douglas Moser folded their cards hurriedly.
“I call your three thousand six hundred,” said Senator Kincaid. “And I raise the pot. Ten thousand eight hundred dollars.” Eighteen years’ wages.
“The line must be very grateful to you,” said Congdon, needling the Senator about the railroad stock with which legislators notoriously were bribed.
“The line gets its money’s worth,” Kincaid replied with a smile.
“Or you would have us believe that your pat hand is very pat indeed.”
“Pat enough to raise. What are you going to do, Judge? The bet is ten thousand eight hundred dollars to you.”
Isaac Bell interrupted. “I believe the bet is to me.”
“OH, I AM TERRIBLY sorry, Mr. Bell. We skipped your turn to fold your cards.”
“That’s all right, Senator. I saw you just barely catch the train at Ogden. You’re probably still in a rush.”
“I thought I saw a detective hanging off the side. Dangerous work, Mr. Bell.”
“Not until a criminal hammers on one’s fingers.”
“The bet,” growled Judge Congdon impatiently, “is my three thousand six hundred dollars plus Senator Kincaid’s ten thousand eight hundred dollars, which makes the bet to Mr. Bell fourteen thousand four hundred dollars.”
Payne interrupted to intone, “The pot, which includes Senator Kincaid’s call, is now twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars.”
Payne’s calculations were hardly necessary. Even the richest, most carefree men a
t the table were aware that twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars was enough money to purchase the locomotive hauling their train and maybe one of the Pullmans.
“Mr. Bell,” said Judge Congdon. “We await your response.”
“I call your bet, Judge, and Senator Kincaid’s ten-thousand-eight-hundred-dollar raise,” said Bell, “making the pot thirty-six thousand dollars, which I raise.”
“You raise?”
“Thirty-six thousand dollars.”
Bell’s reward was the pleasure of seeing the jaws of a United States senator and the richest steel baron in America drop in unison.
“The pot is now seventy-two thousand dollars,” calculated Mr. Payne.
A deep silence pervaded the stateroom. All that could be heard was the muffled clatter of the wheels. Judge Congdon’s wrinkled hand crept into his breast pocket and emerged with a bank check. He took a gold fountain pen from another pocket, uncapped it, and slowly wrote a number on his check. Then he signed his name, blew on the paper to dry the ink, and smiled.
“I call your thirty-six-thousand-dollar raise, Mr. Bell, and the Senator’s ten thousand eight hundred, which by now seems a paltry sum, and I raise one hundred eighteen thousand eight hundred dollars ... Senator Kincaid, it’s to you. My raise and Mr. Bell’s raise means it will cost you one hundred fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars to stay in the hand.”
“Good God,” said Payne.
“Whatcha gonna do, Charlie?” asked Congdon. “One hundred fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars if you want to play.”
“Call,” Kincaid said stiffly, scribbling the number on his calling card and tossing it on the heap of gold.
“No raise?” Congdon mocked.
“You heard me.”
Congdon turned his dry smile on Bell. “Mr. Bell, my raise was one hundred eighteen thousand eight hundred dollars.”
Bell smiled back, concealing the thought that merely to call would put a deep dent in his personal fortune. To raise would deepen it dangerously.
Judge James Congdon was one of the richest men in America. If Bell did raise, there was nothing to stop the man from raising him back and wiping him out.
17
“MR. PAYNE,” ASKED ISAAC BELL. “HOW MUCH MONEY IS IN the pot?”
“Well, let me see ... The pot now contains two hundred thirty-seven thousand six hundred dollars.”
Bell mentally counted steelworkers. Four hundred men together could earn that pot in a good year. Ten men, if they were fortunate enough to survive long working lives uninterrupted by injury and lay-off, might together earn that amount between boyhood and old age.
Congdon asked innocently, “Mr. Payne, what will the pot contain if Mr. Bell continues to believe that his two-card draw improved him sufficiently to call?”
“Umm, the pot would contain four hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred dollars.”
“Nearly half a million dollars,” said the judge. “This is turning into real money.”
Bell decided that Congdon was talking too much. The hard old steel baron actually sounded nervous. Like a man holding a straight, which, in pat-hand terms, was at the bottom of the barrel. “May I presume, sir, that you will accept my check on the American States Bank of Boston?”
“Of course, son. We’re all gentlemen here.”
“I call, and I raise four hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred dollars.”
“I’m skunked,” said Congdon, throwing his cards on the table.
Kincaid smiled, obviously relieved that Congdon was out of the hand.
“How many cards did you take, Mr. Bell?”
“Two.”
Kincaid stared for a long time at the cards Bell cupped in his hand. When Bell looked up, he let his mind stray, which made it easier to appear unconcerned whether Kincaid called or folded.
The Pullman car was swaying due to an increase in speed. The muffling effect of the rugs and furniture in the palatial stateroom tended to mask the fact that they had accelerated to eighty miles an hour on the flats of Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin. Bell knew this arid, windblown high country well, having spent months on horseback tracking the Wild Bunch.
Kincaid’s fingers strayed toward the vest pocket where he kept his calling cards. The man had large hands, Bell noticed. And powerful wrists.
“That is a lot of money,” the Senator said.
“A lot for a public servant,” Congdon agreed. Annoyed that he had been forced out of the hand, he added another unpleasant reference to the Senator’s railroad stocks. “Even one with ‘interests’ on the side.”
Payne repeated Congdon’s estimate. “Nearly half a million dollars.”
“Serious money in these days of panic, with the markets falling,” Congdon added.
“Mr. Bell,” asked Kincaid, “what does a detective hanging off the side of a train do when a criminal starts hammering on his fingers?”
“Depends,” said Bell.
“On what?”
“On whether he’s been trained to fly.”
Kenny Bloom laughed.
Kincaid’s eyes never left Bell’s face. “Have you been trained to fly?”
“Not yet.”
“So what do you do?”
“I hammer back,” said Bell.
“I believe you do,” said Kincaid. “I fold.”
Still expressionless, Bell laid his cards facedown on the table and raked in nine hundred fifty thousand four hundred dollars in gold, markers, and checks, including his own. Kincaid reached for Bell’s cards. Bell placed his hand firmly on top of them.
“Curious what you had under there,” said Kincaid.
“So am I,” said Congdon. “Surely you weren’t bluffing against two pat hands.”
“It crossed my mind that the pat hands were bluffing, Judge.”
“Both? I don’t think so.”
“I sure as hell wasn’t bluffing,” said Kincaid. “I had a very pretty heart flush.”
He turned his cards over and spread them faceup so all could see.
“God Almighty, Senator!” said Payne, “Eight, nine, ten, jack, king. Just one short of a straight flush. You’d sure as hell have raised back with that.”
“Short being the key word,” observed Bloom. “And a reminder that straight flushes are scarcer than hens’ teeth.”
“I would very much like to see your cards, Mr. Bell,” said Kincaid.
“You didn’t pay to see them,” said Bell.
Congdon said, “I’ll pay.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“It’s worth one hundred thousand dollars to me to prove that you had a high three of a kind and then drew a pair to make a full house. Which would beat the Senator’s flush and my miserable straight.”
“No bet,” said Bell. “An old friend of mine used to say a bluff should keep them guessing.”
“Just as I thought,” said Congdon. “You won’t take the bet because I’m right. You got lucky and caught another pair.”
“If that is what you would like to believe, Judge, we’ll both go home happy.”
“Dammit!” said the steel magnate. “I’ll make it two hundred thousand. Just show me your hand.”
Bell turned them over. “That fellow also said to show them now and then to make them wonder. You were right about the high three of a kind.”
The steel magnate stared. “I’ll be damned. Three lonely ladies. You were bluffing. You only had trips. I’d have beat you with my straight. Though your flush would have beaten me, Charlie. If Mr. Bell hadn’t forced us both out.”
Charles Kincaid exploded, “You bet half a million dollars on three lousy queens?”
“I’m partial to the ladies,” said Isaac Bell. “Always have been.”
KINCAID REACHED ACROSS AND touched the queens as if not quite believing his eyes. “I will have to arrange to transfer funds when I get to Washington,” he said stiffly.
“No rush,” Bell said graciously. “I’d have had to ask the same.”
“Where should I mail my check?”
“I’ll be at the Yale Club of New York City.”
“Son,” said Congdon, writing a check for which he did nothave to transfer funds to cover, “you sure paid for your train ticket.”
“Train ticket, hell,” said Bloom. “He could buy the train.”
“Sold!” Bell laughed. “Come back to my observation car and drinks are on me, and maybe a bite of late supper. All this bluffing makes me hungry.”
As Bell led them to the rear of the train, he wondered why Senator Kincaid had folded. It had been a strictly correct move, he supposed, but after Congdon had folded it was a lot more cautious than Kincaid had been all night, which was puzzling. It was almost if Kincaid had been acting a bit more the fool earlier than he really was. And what was all that blather about Osgood Hennessy taking enormous risks? He certainly hadn’t improved his benefactor’s standing with the bankers.
Bell ordered champagne for all in the observation car and asked the stewards to serve up a late-night supper. Kincaid said he could stay for only one quick glass. He was tired, he said. But he let Bell pour him a second glass of champagne and then ate some steak and eggs and seemed to get over his disappointment at the card table. The players mingled with one another and some other travelers who were passing the night drinking. Groups formed fluidly, broke up, and formed again. The tale of the three queens was told over and over. As the crowd thinned, Isaac Bell found himself alone with Ken Bloom, Judge Congdon, and Senator Kincaid, who remarked, “I understand you’ve been showing the train crew a wanted poster.”
“A sketch of a man we’re investigating,” Bell answered.
“Show us!” said Bloom. “Maybe we’ve seen him.”
Bell took one from his coat, pushed plates aside, and spread it on the table.
Bloom took one look. “That’s the actor! In The Great Train Robbery. ”
“Is it really the actor?” asked Kincaid.
“No. But there is a similarity to Broncho Billy Anderson.”