Ace in the Hole

by J. R. Roberts

  “Okay,” Kent said.

  “Hey!”

  ‘What?”

  “I see you got rid of the badge.”

  Kent looked down at his chest.

  “How do you know it ain’t in my pocket?”

  “You’re walkin’ lighter.”

  Kent passed Coffin as he went in, and they exchanged a nod.

  “Is he gonna be a problem?” Coffin asked Calhoun.

  “Maybe.”

  “What should we do about it?” Coffin asked.

  “Well,” Calhoun said, rubbing his jaw, “we really don’t need him.”

  “But if he don’t show up back in Virginia City, folks are gonna wonder.”

  “Yeah, they’ll wonder where he is, what happened to him,” Calhoun said, “but they’ll never connect him to this.”

  “So whataya wanna do?”

  “Let’s all eat,” Calhoun said, “see how things go, and then I’ll make up my mind.”

  “I’ll do ’im,” Coffin said. “No problem.”

  “Like I said,” Calhoun said, “we got time. Let’s just see what happens.”

  FORTY

  By the time dinner came around, the sixth player had still not arrived. Clint was once again seated to John Deal’s left, with Arliss Morgan right across from him.

  “There are still three hours to go before you all collect your stake from my banker, Mr. Green.”

  Deal inclined his head toward the other end of the table, where Mr. Green, his Sacramento banker, was sitting. He had been introduced, acknowledged as the moneyman, but no one was talking to him. Clint noticed the man was a very fussy eater and spent most of his time with his head hovering over his plate, removing or moving something.

  “Well, I hope he makes it,” Clint said. “I’d like to see a full table.”

  “You wouldn’t rather have that sixth stake end up in the kitty?” Deal asked.

  “Where’s the sport in that?” Clint asked.

  “Mr. Adams,” Deal said, “you surprise me more and more.”

  “In a good way?”

  “In a very good way.”

  They had dessert and then moved to the den for cigars and brandy. This time Clint took the brandy but not the cigar. He noticed Dick Clark did the same, and was nursing the brandy.

  At one point John Deal was called from the room. Clint was standing in a corner, studying some of the books on the shelves—he noticed Deal had a large selection of Mark Twain and Dickens—and noticed that the Sacramento banker was in another corner of the room, also standing alone. The Frenchman, Marceau, was still dogging Dick Clark, who looked at Clint with pleading eyes. Clint just smiled, shrugged and toasted the man with his glass.

  The Conrad brothers, Red and Johnny, were talking with Micah McCall, who tonight looked every inch the gambler who could afford a hundred-thousand-dollar buy in. A diamond sparkled from each pinky and from a stickpin in his tie.

  The other two bankers, Arne Blom and Arliss Morgan, stood close together and were talking earnestly.

  Deal reappeared and beckoned to Green, who set his brandy glass down and left the room to join Deal in the hallway. The two men put their heads together, had a short conversation, and then Green left and Deal entered the room.

  “Gentlemen, the last player has arrived,” he announced. “Allow me to introduce Mrs. Charlotte Thurmond.”

  “A woman?” Arne Blom said.

  A woman entered the room, wearing a silk gown of greens and golds, her auburn hair piled atop her head. She had a slim waist and a full, firm bust. She appeared to be in her late thirties, but Clint knew for a fact she was at least ten years older than that. That was about how long it had been since she disappeared from Fort Griffin, Texas, after establishing herself as a female gambler who was a force to be reckoned with. At that time she had been in her late thirties, but looked ten years younger then, too. He had met her, known her slightly, never been intimate with her. He wondered if she’d recognize him on sight as a man who had known her as the notorious Lottie Deno.

  Clint looked across the room at Dick Clark, wondering if he had recognized her as well.

  If Charlotte Thurmond had heard what the Swedish banker Arne Blom had said—or the tone with which he’d said it—she did not reveal it. Deal took her around the room to introduce her to each man individually. Obviously, he had known all along that the final player was a woman.

  When they came to Clint, Deal was about to make the introduction when Charlotte put out her hand and said, “Mr. Adams and I are acquainted.”

  “Indeed?” Deal asked.

  “I had a different name then.”

  Clint kept quiet. If she wanted to mention that she had once been “Lottie Deno” it was up to her.

  “Yes,” she said, “I wasn’t married then.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s nice to see you again, Clint,” she said.

  “The pleasure is mine, Lottie.”

  Even in her late forties she was a beauty. Clint didn’t have to wonder what had brought her out into the open again. It was the size of the game.

  They moved on and she greeted Dick Clark with more warmth, as they had, indeed, known each other, better than she and Clint did.

  “You know her?”

  He turned and saw Arliss Morgan standing there.

  “I knew her years ago, when she was not married and was gambling regularly.”

  “Is she any good?”

  “She was always an excellent poker player,” Clint said. “I don’t know what she’s been doing since then. She might be rusty.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Actually,” Clint said, “I’d like everybody to be at the top of their game. Makes winning even better.”

  “And more nerve-wracking.”

  “Gentlemen,” John Deal said, when the introductions were over, “if you will accompany me and the lady, it’s time to pick up your stakes.”

  FORTY-ONE

  John Deal led all the players—and their backers—to a room on the third floor where none of them had ever been. It was down the hall from Clint’s room, but the door had always been closed. As they entered, they were all very impressed. There was a round table with a green felt top, six comfortable wooden chairs, a bar set up in one corner, and behind the bar stood Mrs. Pyatt.

  “Mrs. Pyatt,” John Deal said, “is an excellent bartender.”

  Clint was more and more impressed by the woman, but still wondered what that warning was about.

  In another corner Mr. Green sat behind a desk, and on the desk he had a large, black metal box. Clint assumed that the cash for everyone’s stake was inside.

  “If you’ll all take a place at the table, Mr. Green will bring you your stake.”

  The only things on the table at the moment were several sealed decks of cards. There were only six seats, so Clint assumed there would be no house dealer.

  They each selected a chair and sat down. Clint ended up sitting with Red Conrad on one side and Micah McCall on the other. Directly across from him was Charlotte Thurmond.

  “Mr. Green?” Deal said.

  Green stood up and approached the table with the black box. One by one he placed each player’s hundred-thousand-dollar stake in front of the player.

  “Thank you, Mr. Green,” Deal said. The banker bowed, then left the room with the black box. It occurred to Clint only then that he’d never heard Mr. Green speak.

  John Deal stood by the table and said, “This is the first poker game I have ever hosted. I have seen to every detail.”

  “Except one,” Micah McCall said. “There’s no dealer.”

  “I assumed you would be playing dealer’s choice,” the Englishman said. “Was I wrong?”

  “Dealer’s choice is fine with me, gentlemen,” Charlotte said. “Anyone object?”

  No one did.

  “Good,” Deal said. “Then that’s settled.”

  “Except for one thing,” Red Conrad said.

  “And wh
at is that?” Deal asked.

  “Who deals first?”

  “First ace,” Clint said.

  “All right,” Marceau said. “But who deals ze cards for the first ace?”

  “This is silly,” Clint said. “Let’s just open a deck and do it.”

  He reached for a deck. But before he could reach one, Micah McCall grabbed his wrist.

  “Why you?” he asked.

  “Somebody has to do it,” Clint said, “or we’ll never get the game started.”

  “Oh, dear,” Deal said, “I suppose I should have secured the services of a dealer.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Johnny Conrad said from the corner.

  “What’s that, John?” his brother Red asked.

  “Let the lady do it.”

  McCall released Clint’s wrist, and Clint withdrew his arm.

  “Anyone object to Mrs. Thurmond doing it?” Clint asked.

  They all looked around at each other and no one objected.

  “Very well,” Charlotte said. She picked up a deck, opened it, shuffled it expertly and fast, and then dealt the cards out until the first ace fell in front of someone.

  “Mr. Adams deals,” she said.

  Tom Kent was getting himself ready for the ride out to the ranch. It was finally going to happen. Six hundred thousand dollars and Diane Morgan were all going to be his.

  He checked his gun, made sure it was fully loaded, then holstered it. When the knock came at his door, he answered it, gun still in the holster.

  “Tito,” he said, “are we ready?”

  “I am,” Tito Calhoun said. “You’re not.”

  “Wha—”

  Calhoun produced a small, two-shot derringer. He pushed the barrel against Kent’s belly and pulled the trigger. The first shot shocked Kent and he didn’t feel much pain. The second shot made his belly feel as if it was on fire.

  He grabbed his stomach and staggered back into the room. Calhoun followed him in, closing the door behind him. The two quiet pops of the derringer had gone unnoticed in the hotel, just as he’d planned.

  Kent’s legs went out from under him, and still clutching his belly, he fell facedown on the floor, then rolled over and stared up at Calhoun.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “For money,” Calhoun said, “and a beautiful woman. What else is there?”

  FORTY-TWO

  Clint dealt the first hand and won a small pot. He also won a glare from Micah McCall, and wondered if he was going to have trouble with the man.

  “For the money we’re playing for,” the man complained as the deal passed to him, “we should have a dealer.”

  “I don’t mind dealing my own games,” Charlotte said. “Mixes things up.”

  “Five-card stud,” McCall said, and dealt the hand out.

  With Kent gone—lying dead on the floor of his hotel room in Gardner, a town Calhoun would never return to—they had six men: Calhoun, Coffin and the four men who had come to town with Kent. Those four men were not at all curious about where Kent was. They still looked at him as a lawman, and as far as they were concerned, it was good riddance.

  The six men rode out to the Double-D Ranch and, in the dark, were able to slip through the sparse security patrols John Deal had arranged.

  “He’s bound to have better security than this at the house, though,” Calhoun said to Coffin.

  They were riding together, ahead of the other four men.

  “That’ll be for you and me to handle,” Coffin said. “We can let those four take care of whatever foot patrol they have outside the house, then we slip in and take care of the inside.”

  “We’ll have to let them in,” Calhoun said. “We don’t know how many guns are gonna actually be in the room with the cardplayers, but we have to take care of Clint Adams first.”

  They knew they would have to search the house for the room where the game was being played, unless they could get somebody to tell them.

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” Coffin said. “If we kill one man in front of another, then that one should talk.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Calhoun said.

  “You were tellin’ that sheriff we were gonna wear masks,” Coffin said. “What was that about?”

  “I didn’t want him backin’ out until I was ready to get rid of him,” Calhoun said.

  “So no masks?”

  “No masks.”

  “That means we’re gonna do some killin’,” Coffin said.

  “We’re gonna do some killin’.”

  “How much?”

  Calhoun looked at his partner and said, “Everybody in or around that house.”

  Not to mention, they both thought, the four men riding behind them. Calhoun and Coffin were determined to be the only men walking away when it was all over.

  FORTY-THREE

  The first hour was a feeling-out period. The only man Clint ever played against before was Dick Clark. He had never played against Charlotte when she was Lottie Deno. He didn’t know if Dick Clark had.

  The Frenchman was just plain bad. He had a habit of clearing his throat when he had a good hand. Clint didn’t know why the Swedish banker had chosen this man to represent his hundred thousand.

  Red Conrad played his cards close to the vest in a very tight game. Clint knew that when the man raised, he had something.

  Micah McCall was aggressive, which made him hard to read. He pretty much bet the same way whether he had something or not.

  Dick Clark was, of course, a brilliant poker player.

  Clint didn’t know what Charlotte had been doing since her days as Lottie Deno, but it didn’t seem to have affected her play.

  After the first hour Clint was slightly ahead. He had raised on three hands and had taken them all down. He had made folds on good hands twice, once to Dick Clark’s full house and once to Charlotte’s flush. Five good hands out of six played the first time around the table, and he had won three of them.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Micah McCall said to Clint as they started the second time around the table.

  “Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” Clint said. “It’s all skill.” He wanted to get under the man’s skin.

  He thought he was succeeding.

  Dave Coffin snuck behind one of the guards. One arm snaked around the man’s neck, and before he could make a sound, a knife was thrust into his back. The man bucked and shuddered. Coffin lowered him to the ground gently and released him when he knew he was dead.

  On the other side of the house Calhoun had his arm around the neck of a guard. He and Coffin had agreed that they should probably be the ones to take out the guards. The other four men were just guns at the end of an arm. They were for show. They didn’t want to have to depend on them for anything fancy.

  He tightened his arm and asked in the man’s ear, “How many guards inside?”

  “Two.”

  “Where?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “What floor is the game being played on?”

  “We don’t know,” the guard said. “They didn’t tell—”

  Calhoun snapped the man’s neck and lowered the body to the ground, then he waved for the four other men to join him. They were all hiding near the barn, and came running at the same moment Coffin came around from the side of the house.

  “See anybody else?” Calhoun asked him.

  “No, just those two.”

  “You can tell this jasper has never hosted a high-stakes poker game before,” Calhoun said. “His security is a joke.”

  “Good for us,” Coffin said.

  ‘Very good for us,” Calhoun said. “According to this one there are two guards inside the house, both on the first floor.”

  “Let’s go, then.” Coffin turned to the other men. “No shootin’ unless we say, got it?”

  “We got it,” one of them said.

  Coffin didn’t know his name, but it didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, they were faceless and nameless. And soon t
o be dead.

  FORTY-FOUR

  During the second hour everyone was deeply into the game, especially the spectators.

  Arliss Morgan was very nervous, even though Clint was doing well. He leaned forward on every hand, holding his breath until the last card was dealt and the last bet was made. Arne Blom had quickly decided his man was overmatched and could only rely on luck. The Frenchman himself remained arrogant, but he was either posturing or clueless.

  Conrad and McCall were losing. Conrad seemed unconcerned; McCall was growing more agitated. Clint knew Conrad had given up his gun. He assumed McCall had, too, since he saw no telltale bulge—unless the man had an expert tailor.

  As far as Clint knew or could tell, he and Johnny Conrad were the only ones in the room who were armed.

  Unless Mrs. Pyatt, still standing behind the bar, had a gun.

  Downstairs, Calhoun, Coffin and their men had rounded up every member of the staff and gathered them in the kitchen. On the floor were the two guards, both dead.

  “What the hell do they need all these people for?” Coffin asked, looking around the kitchen at the men and women who worked for John Deal.

  “Cooking, cleaning,” Calhoun said, “whatever else a rich man wants done.” He thought that once he got away from here with his money, maybe he’d have a house like this, with people working for him.

  Coffin pointed to one of the dead guards.

  “He said the game’s on the third floor. That’s the top.”

  “What do we do with all these people?” one of Calhoun’s men asked.

  “Tie ’em up for now,” Calhoun said. “We don’t want to risk them makin’ any noise.” He turned to Coffin, and they both turned their backs as he said, “We can finish them later.”

  Coffin nodded and turned back.

  “’Course, any of you wanna scream, we’ll just shoot the bunch of you and deal with it.”