Crooked Hearts

  On sixth, Reuben mucked his hand in disgust. Rusty finally saw the light and followed suit. Reuben felt sorry to soak him so badly—he liked Rusty, and had wanted to leave him some change—but it was out of his hands now.

  Fat, happy Wyatt, who already had a hidden pair of eights, caught his third jack. But he was looking across the table at his pal Burgess’s three queens, and the view dampened his euphoria. If Burgess got a fourth lady, Wyatt’s full house would crumble to dust. Reuben relished his indecision, which came out in compulsive stroking of his silk lapels.

  Sharkey was still in, still gloating secretly about his ace in the hole, and still raising on every bet. Grace was the dark horse. She had the nine and ten of clubs showing, the rest junk. The bet was back to Burgess and his three queens. He checked his hole cards with cagey-looking pleasure—a fairly subtle bluff. “See that and raise you another hundred.” Sharkey complied without a murmur. Grace threw in her last chips; she was down to her angel pin now, with one more card to go. Wyatt’s stack wasn’t any higher. Reason came flooding back to him in a rush. He mucked his hand with an oath, stood up, and stalked over to the bar. In spite of himself, Reuben felt glad to know they’d left him walking-home money.

  Burgess, Sharkey, and Wanda.

  “River card down,” Reuben murmured, dealing the last. Everybody got his heart’s desire, and Reuben’s job was over.

  Burgess still looked high with his three queens. Trying not to let his jubilation show, he made a great business of betting everything he had left with apparent reluctance. Reuben sympathized: there was nothing trickier than bluffing that you were bluffing.

  Sharkey called the bet and raised it five hundred, which cleaned him out, too. Burgess turned purple, but didn’t move a muscle. He was betting on four queens, and they’d waived table stakes long ago.

  Wyatt wandered back, a shot glass in his hand, and took up a place behind Rusty’s chair. Everybody looked at Grace. For the first time since they’d called her for cheating she touched her angel pin, nudging it with her fingernail, toying with it. She still only had her nine-ten puppyfeet showing, the rest garbage. Wyatt had shown three jacks before he’d quit, so a jack-high straight flush for Wanda was possible but incredibly unlikely. What were the odds of it? Reuben wondered idly. Sharkey, he knew, was wondering too, but not so idly. It didn’t matter; whatever the odds, Sharkey was going to deem them too high to beat his four beautiful aces.

  “Mr. Sharkey,” Grace said, in a voice so low everybody leaned forward to hear her. “Do I understand the bet to me is now five hundred?”

  Sharkey inclined his bulbous mug in assent.

  She picked up the brooch. It looked pretty resting in the palm of her hand, the silver stream of hair shining in the glow of the gaslights. “What would you say …” Sharkey and Burgess bent closer to catch the words. “What would you say to letting the lady stand in for me?”

  Sharkey blinked, not getting it. “Huh?”

  “Just for tonight,” she clarified softly. “Five hundred plus what’s in the pot, against me, wherever you like. Whatever you like.”

  A feather hitting the table would’ve made them all jump. Reuben wanted to laugh out loud at the identical expressions of dumb wonder on every face. To break the stunned silence, he kicked back in his chair and marveled slowly, “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

  Rusty giggled and cleared his throat. Wyatt closed his mouth and ran his thumbs up and down behind his suspenders, watching his friend Burgess for a reaction. Burgess had gone even purpler, but otherwise kept his composure.

  Sharkey’s thick lips tried to settle in a cynical, unruffled smile, but he kept rubbing his chest as if his heart hurt, or it had stopped and he was trying to restart it. “Get this straight,” he mumbled, and had to clear his own throat. “You’ll see my raise with … with …”

  “Myself.”

  She crippled him then with a white, blinding smile; he blinked in its radiance and rolled over, a dead man. “Okay with me,” he said on a weak puff of cigar smoke. He didn’t even check his cards first.

  Burgess sat erect in his chair, not moving. He’d shuffled the seventh card in with his hole cards, but he didn’t look at them. Instead his eyes were glued to Sharkey’s two exposed aces, and then to Sharkey’s face. Red blotches on his cheeks gave away the ugly man’s excitement; but Burgess’s dilemma was figuring out if he was excited because he was bluffing, because he was stupid, or because he couldn’t lose. Seconds passed. Minutes. Burgess sat on, motionless as a bald sphynx, weighing and measuring. Just when Reuben knew he’d have to strangle Rusty if he cleared his throat once more, Burgess flipped his board cards belly down. “Not me,” he said softly, dignified in retreat.

  Smart move, Reuben congratulated him. Burgess looked like a family man, but he’d never once protested Grace’s unorthodox offer. So either he was a randier old goat than he looked, or Wanda LaSalle had paragon-toppling powers of a magnitude not yet known. Reuben suspected the latter.

  Sharkey’s delight enhanced his ugliness. It was just him and Wanda now, and he could hardly wait for the big moment. He coasted the wet, disgusting mouth-end of his cigar around his fat lips, sucking in smoke and blowing it out through his nostrils.

  Irrationally, stupidly, Reuben felt a snaky slither of jealousy in his gut. “A little brace game I once had occasion to observe,” Grace had called it at the Golden Nugget. The skill with which she played it was all the proof he needed that she hadn’t just observed it, she’d been the second lead in it. With her husband, Henri, no doubt. The retired entrepreneur with the bum ticker. Why should knowing that make Reuben jealous? He couldn’t say. All he knew was that the smoky pall hanging over the table was so thick with the smell and the taste and the feel of sex, he could hardly breathe it anymore. He wanted it for himself. He wanted to be in Sharkey’s shoes, and beat her cold with his four sweet aces.

  It wouldn’t happen, of course. Wanda raised her dark-winged eyebrows at Sharkey to ask what he had. He waited another twenty seconds, wallowing in the suspense, and then turned over his cards. “Four bullets,” he said in a low, purring gloat that made Reuben’s lip curl.

  “Oh, dear.” She faked a truly enchanting mix of sympathy and girlish excitement. “I guess I win. Look, I’ve got seven, eight, nine, ten, and jack of clubs.”

  Sharkey couldn’t move. He’d frozen with his mouth open, holding his cigar in the air at a rakish, celebratory angle. Grace’s straight flush wouldn’t register; he kept batting his eyelids at it, but it still wouldn’t focus.

  Go, Reuben commanded her in his brain—but it wasn’t necessary. With the dexterity of a fan-tan raker, Grace was already scraping back her chair and scooping money, so much money, into her new pocketbook. “Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for everything, and good night.” Her smile bedazzled them one last time, and then she was gone.

  But not quite fast enough. Sharkey came out of his trance, leapt up, and grabbed for her arm. She had to stop—otherwise he’d have wrenched it out of the socket. Reuben was on his feet, moving toward them. Sharkey made a grotesque effort to smile, although anyone could see that what he really wanted to do was kill her.

  “Hold on a second, Wanda,” he urged with creepy joviality. “Aren’t you going to give the boys a chance to get even?”

  “I really can’t,” she answered, gaze level, looking him in the eye to calm him.

  “Sure you can.” He draped his heavy arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Least you can do is have a drink with us. For old time’s sake, huh?” He squeezed tight, tighter, flattening her upper arm against his chest.

  “Maybe another old time,” she murmured. Fires started to crackle in the sky-blue of her eyes.

  “No, now. C’mon, least you can do. After all, you and me almost got to be real good friends tonight, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, but ‘almost’ is the operative word. Take your hands off me or you’ll regret it.”

  He was so surprised by the silk-to
-steel shift in her tone, he almost obeyed. “Like hell,” he snarled instead, and wrapped his big paw around the back of her neck.

  Reuben sighed. “Lady says she can’t stay,” he pointed out, looming between them. Sharkey was bigger than he was, and Reuben was still sore from all those Croaker fists.

  The big man responded with a vulgar but prosaic suggestion.

  “That’s so unimaginative,” Reuben complained, maneuvering closer. “Not to mention physically impossible.”

  “Listen, you.” The good part was that Sharkey let go of Grace. The bad part was that he grabbed Reuben by the collar and lifted him onto his toes. Over the giant’s broad, hulking shoulder, Reuben widened his eyes and bared his teeth, telling her to go, dammit, go. She hesitated. He lost sight of her when Sharkey shook him like a dog, baring his own teeth and giving every indication of wanting to rip out Reuben’s throat.

  “Has anybody ever mentioned your breath?” Reuben panted, plucking at the muscular fingers Sharkey was trying to gouge into his neck. “Sometimes only a close friend will tell you the truth.” On truth, he hauled back with one foot and slammed it into Sharkey’s shin. He gave a shriek and let go, hopping up and down, spewing out more dull-witted expletives.

  Twisting toward the door, Reuben caught a glimpse of Grace’s pert behind sashaying through it. It was the second-to-last thing he saw. The last was Sharkey’s ham of a fist streaking toward his sore chin.

  6

  The devil is the father of lies, but he neglected to patent the idea, and the business now suffers from competition.

  —Josh Billings

  “WE NEED TO WORK on our getaway.”

  Grace jumped up, abandoning the bright mound of loot on the sprung couch cushions, and raced to the widening alley door. “Reuben,” she cried anxiously, searching his face for fresh injuries. “Are you all right? I didn’t want to leave you, but I didn’t know what else to do! Did he hit you? Are you hurt?”

  “Just a flesh wound,” he muttered, leaning against the door and patting the side of his jaw with delicate fingers. A new bruise was blooming along the bone, but the excited twinkle in his light brown eyes told her he didn’t mind it. “So you got home all right by yourself?”

  “I caught a hansom,” she said absently, catching his hand and leading him toward the couch. “Sit down. Oh, dear—is there enough room for you?” She stopped, mock-dismayed, as if just noticing the obstacles on the sofa cushion. His face lit up like a boy’s on Christmas morning, and she clapped her hands with delight. “Look at it! Oh, Reuben” look!”

  They sat down on either side of the money pile, beaming at each other. “How much?” he asked.

  “One thousand, six hundred and seventy-five dollars and fifty cents,” she answered slowly, relishing the syllables. “And most of it came from that beast, Sharkey. How did you get away? At least he didn’t have a gun; then you’d—”

  “He had a gun. He had a thirty-two in a shoulder holster.”

  “No!”

  “Luckily the bartender had a forty-five. He and the bouncer convinced Sharkey to take his losses like a man, and I got out while they were disarming him.”

  “Did he know you were cheating, do you think?”

  “No, he thought you were. What made him so mad was that he couldn’t figure out how.”

  She sat back proudly. “It’s such a good trick, and it almost never fails.”

  “How many times have you run it?”

  “Oh—I’ve never run it. I just saw it once.” He looked completely unconvinced, and she regretted her slip of the tongue. “God, I love money,” she said to change the subject, stirring the gleaming pile of gold, silver, and paper with her fingers. “It’s so comforting, isn’t it? So soothing.” He winked at her. “Do you like it, too, just for itself? Look at it, Reuben. Nothing else is this color,” she gloated, fondling a twenty-dollar double eagle. “I even like the way it smells.”

  “I think I prefer what it can buy.”

  “Oh, well, that too.” That was obvious; she dismissed it with a wave of the hand. But deep down, what Grace liked about money, even more than how it looked and felt and smelled, was what it stood for: security. Without it, everything and everyone you loved could be taken away from you. With it, at least you had a fighting chance.

  “What was your plan if you hadn’t caught that last-nine, Gus, right before you bet the brooch?” He settled back, too, with his long legs outstretched, feet resting on the low coffee table. “You let your stack get too low; it was pure luck when you beat Sharkey’s three kings at the last minute;”

  “I know,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t help it. They were dealing slop until you passed me the jacks. If I’d lost that hand, I was going to hit somebody up for a loan.”

  “Who?” he asked curiously.

  “Not you. Certainly not Sharkey. Rusty, I think—he’d have been the softest.”

  “I thought you had ’em all pretty spongy by then.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” She smiled fondly, recalling it. “They were nice men, except for Sharkey. I almost felt sorry for them.”

  “Did you?” He sent her a lopsided smile back. “I think that must be why you’re so good at it.”

  “Do you think I’m good?” A self-serving question, but she wanted the compliment.

  “I think you’re the best I’ve ever seen.”

  She felt herself coloring for the second time that day. Why flattering words from Reuben Jones could make her blush like a child, she could not imagine. “I’m starving,” she said quickly. “Why isn’t there ever anything to eat in this house?”

  “Let’s go out.” He jackknifed to his feet and crossed the room to his clay-pipe pyramid of wine bottles. “What do you feel like, Grace, a nice light Beaujolais? Or something a bit meatier, maybe a Merlot?”

  “Mmm, you pick. Are we drinking?”

  “We’re celebrating. Ah, just the thing, Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St. Jacques. Carefree but still substantial. Trust me, from this vintage it won’t be too heavy.” He took glasses and a corkscrew from a shelf over the coal stove, came toward her, and held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” He led her toward what she thought of now as the back door, the one leading to the sloping terraced double lot behind the big house where his landlady lived. “I thought we were going out to eat.”

  “We are.”

  Outside, the night was mild, almost balmy, full dark at nine o’clock, with a smattering of stars blinking between smoke-colored clouds. They walked up a weedy flagstone path to the second tier of level grass, where a cluster of white garden furniture was barely visible in the murk. Reuben checked an Adirondack chair for dew, dried the seat with his handkerchief, and motioned for her to sit. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” she called to his dark-coated back, disappearing toward the house in the gloom.

  “To get dinner. Open the wine, Grace, so it can breathe!”

  She’d never opened a bottle of wine before; that was supposed to be a man’s job, like carving the meat or driving the buggy. She twisted the corkscrew in easily enough, but had to wedge the bottle between her knees for enough purchase to draw out the cork. Good thing she was alone. Could it “breathe” in the bottle, or did you have to decant it? She decided to leave it alone, anticipating Reuben’s epicurean horror if she guessed wrong. She set the bottle on the table in front of a wooden love seat and sat down, clasping her hands behind her head and leaning back to contemplate the stars.

  “All she had was chicken and biscuits. She put mayonnaise on the biscuits and made sandwiches.”

  “Who?” She twisted around, watching Reuben saunter down the flagstone path with a covered basket in his arms. She liked to watch him walk; it was something about the way his hips were connected to his long, handsome legs, that and the smooth rhythm of his loose, straight shoulders moving with each step.

  “Mrs. Finney. I told her we were drinking Burgundy, but she didn’t car
e.” His tone held disbelief. “Said it was chicken or nothing. Sorry, Gus—I can go out and try to find something else, maybe some roast beef or lamb—”

  “This is fine,” she said hastily, hearing her stomach growl.

  “Sure? If I’d known, I’d have suggested the Montrachet. Got two bottles last week. It’s really very nice. Fellow didn’t know what he had; I picked ’em up for practically nothing.”

  “This is fine,” she repeated, privately wishing he’d picked up a nice bottle of milk. She set out the sandwiches on linen napkins, pleased to discover two oranges and two bananas in the bottom of the basket, while Reuben poured the wine. She had reached for her glass and started to take a sip when he stopped her.

  “Wait, a toast. To luck.”

  “To cheating,” she amended, touching glasses.

  “To your skill with the cards,” he tacked on generously.

  “And yours.” Full of good will, she started again to take a sip, but stopped when she saw Reuben swirling his wine in the glass, dipping his nose into it like a heron, breathing deeply, sighing. She mimicked him, bemused, with no idea what she was doing. He even held the glass strangely, by the bottom of the stem instead of the bowl. “When do we get to drink it?” she cracked. He just smiled at her across the rim of his glass, and finally took a sip. She copied him, but drank it down too soon—he kept the wine in his mouth for a good ten seconds before he swallowed it. “Nice,” she ventured. “Isn’t it?” It tasted like wine to her.

  He looked faintly disappointed. “Needed another year.”

  “Another year?”

  “To establish its character. It’s got plenty of fruit and charm, but not enough staying power.” He went back to inhaling, nose buried deep; when he sipped it the next time, he drew it in through his teeth with a lot of air, making a liquid hissing sound. “Still, it’s got courage, don’t you think? Backbone in the face of adversity.” Another small sip. “And resourcefulness. Do you taste that, under the tannin?”