Where Fortune Lies

by James Short

They raced a hundred feet across the damp sloping lawn to a stand of thick brush that rimmed the grounds. As she caught her breath, April glanced back at the hotel, praying they hadn’t been spotted. The people who had come to their balconies were gazing with mild astonishment at the fallen trellis. Several dozen guests were streaming onto the lawn and examining the tangled mass of splintered wood and vines with curiosity.

  “Nobody saw us!” April rejoiced, not taking in the full extent of their predicament.

  At that moment, a woman in a flaming red nightgown leaned over a second-story balcony, emitted a melodramatic scream to get everyone’s attention, then pointed and shouted, “They went over there! Over there! Right behind the bushes!” The woman finished by hyperventilating. Several men started to trot in the direction she had indicated with unfortunate accuracy.

  “I hope you run better than you climb,” Aquino said as he grabbed April’s arm again. She shook his hand off, but followed him, slipping and sliding down a bank, uprooting clumps of vegetation and landing bottom first in a creek. She would have preferred to remain a moment longer in the water to wash off the dirt that seemed to cover her from heel to waist. Unfortunately, Aquino righted her. They ran along the shallow creek bed. After about a hundred yards, they splashed into a stagnant pool, the muck running up to their thighs. A drainage pipe at the far end of the pool siphoned off the top layer of water.

  “This is our deliverance,” Aquino exclaimed. “On your knees! Crawl in!”

  April balked at the black hole. It was no more than three feet in diameter, and for all she knew led directly into the main sewer system. “No, no way, no thank you. This is where I get off. No, not in there. Not on your life! Not for a million dollars!”

  “I won’t argue. Stay if you prefer. I hope you’re good at making explanations.”

  April heard the heavy breathing of their pursuers as they broke through the brush above them.

  “We’ll never get out alive,” she moaned on the verge of tears. Her rational mind just wasn’t equipped to decide between two irrational alternatives.

  “You’ll be safe,” Aquino said with absurd confidence. “I know what I am doing.”

  “How can you?” April wailed in protest before bending down and entering.

  For a few yards, April ran doubled up, then the muscles in her lower back gave out, so she fell on all fours, immersing her hands as well as her feet in the ooze, scrambling ape-like. The diameter of the pipe seemed to decrease; her back scraped the corrugated metal, forcing her to crawl. Gagging on the thick stench of rotting dead things and mushy live things, she had no doubt she was inhaling poison and disease.

  “In another few feet, there will be an intersection. Go to the left, and then make a right in about fifty feet.” Aquino spoke as calmly as if he were giving directions to a lost tourist.

  “I should have guessed you’d be familiar with sewers.”

  “Acquaintance with the flood control system of a municipality is a professional necessity. In Paris, the sewers were the highways for fugitives and thieves. In Constantinople…”

  “Spare me the history lesson!” April tried to shout over her shoulder.

  Aquino fell silent, and they continued crawling. April’s back developed a fierce ache, and her knees and palms were raw and, for all she could tell, bloody. She hated with a passion the man who crawled a few feet behind her and began to fantasize killing him in a variety of ways.

  “Be careful now,” Aquino whispered, “just before we come out, the pipe’s angle changes…”

  The warning was too late. April suddenly found herself sliding down the corrugated metal tube unable to stop or even slow down, despite bracing with all four limbs. She exited the chute with considerable velocity and landed stomach first in a pool of water. Turning around, she saw Aquino crouching in the mouth of the pipe. He nimbly leaped to the side avoiding the dunking.

  “I’d like to see our pursuers do that!” Aquino gave a self-satisfied chuckle and held out a hand to April.

  “I don’t have any clothes,” April mumbled softly as she stood up and came forward. The pool was too shallow to attempt to hide in.

  “What?”

  “No clothes.”

  He laughed.

  “You’re evil!”

  “I’m laughing at myself. I take pride in not missing a single detail of a scene, and yet all this time I hadn’t noticed your lack of attire.”

  April tried to cut his amusement short. “You got me into this mess. Now, fix it!”

  “Don’t worry. It’s too dark to see anything.”

  “Then why are you staring at me? Give me your shirt!”

  “I just happen to have an extra one.” Aquino took the shirt out of his pack and handed it to her.

  The fit was hopeless. It wouldn’t button, wouldn’t even hang in front, affording her a vestige of modesty. April sniffled a couple of times, yet strangely didn’t feel bad enough to cry. She didn’t even feel embarrassed. Although she had skinned elbows and knees, and there was a slight abrasion on her left breast, the exertion had revived her spirits, and her skin was glorying in the cool silky textures of the night air.

  The pipe which jutted out of a short rocky slope had ejected them into an estuary. Fifty yards away, the ocean waves pounded the shore with muffled thunder. At the top of the slope, April glimpsed a railing and the post of a street lamp. She heard cars and saw the heads of a couple engaged in a deep conversation as they walked along the promenade. They seemed to belong to another world, as starkly different as the world of microorganisms or of soaring birds were to her own.

  “It shouldn’t be hard to find clothes. On the other side of the road, there’s a small boutique, nice dresses, and blouses, a bit pricey but, of course, we don’t have to worry about the cost. If you like, we could borrow several outfits.”

  “More than one would be stealing.”

  “Have it your way. The challenge will be in crossing the street. The promenade is usually crowded. Let’s see, if I borrow a car, I could drive it right up there. Then you could jump in, and then we’ll drive around to the back of the store and park. I need about two minutes to disable the alarm and break in. I’ll give you a signal when you can join me inside and select what you need.”

  They made their way up a rocky embankment until they were at eye level with the feet of the promenaders. The walkway was crowded: perhaps Solvidado’s most popular simple pleasure was this stroll along the ocean boardwalk after a fine meal. As April gazed at this sampling of humanity, she almost envied these unpretentious beings with full stomachs and relaxed smiles and amiable conversations.

  Then, Ravela, who had been hitherto silent in the presence of Aquino, started her harangue: “April, look at them honestly. Stare hard. Blinking not allowed, dear. Look at how the dull beasts plod through the days and years and decades of their lives. Listen to them. Were they passionate once? What happened to it? Their passion has died a slow death from monotony and mutual annoyance until the only thing left is meaningless habit. That deception might do for others, my dear, my precious darling, but not for you.”

  Ravela struck home, of course.

  “I don’t have to be like them,” April replied in a mutter she hoped Aquino wouldn’t hear. Even during her most self-destructive periods, April had always harbored a small secret conceit that she wasn’t destined for an ordinary life. Rather, her tenancy in this world would be something unique.

  “No, you don’t,” Ravela agreed with her. “But, as you know, the unique and beautiful pay for their blessings with the brevity of their lives.”

  “Why now?” April asked, meaning why she should end her life on this particular evening? Aquino glanced back at her.

  “Because you have enough strength now,” Ravela hissed.

  “I don’t have to be like them. I can be different and live defiantly. I’ll prove it.” April was careful not to vocalize her reply.

  Ravela’s laughter sounded like a staple gun. “You’re sta
rk naked in the middle of town. You can’t prove anything.”

  “Watch me. I will confront the world with a terrible and wonderful honesty it tries to deny.” April turned to her detestable companion and proclaimed: “I went along with you and ended up in this mess. It’s your turn to go along with me.”

  April climbed up, stepped over the guardrail onto the sidewalk: a damp Venus in the glow of a street lamp. Contrary to expectation, Aquino slipped in beside her and hooked her arm. They began to stroll.

  “My tragic flaw is I can never back away from a challenge,” Aquino said. “I hope you can run fast because I believe that may be necessary very soon.”

  “Why? Are you afraid of facing the world bravely and nakedly? I refuse to run.”

  “I’m afraid of calling attention to myself, given that I’m carrying over fifteen thousand dollars in stolen jewelry in my satchel.”

  April continued strolling with a calm queenly deliberation. “Then run, hide, skulk in the shadows like your kind always does.”

  “Poor girl. Your exhibitionism is nothing but banal…”

  April didn’t hear the rest of the sentence because one couple had caught her attention—especially the man. The awkward way in which his arm rested on the woman’s shoulder was familiar. He was engaged seemingly in an intimate conversation with his partner and hadn’t noticed her yet. Just like him to be so oblivious, April thought hopefully, then gave a small gasp when Philip lifted up his head and stared.

  Aquino nudged her in the opposite direction saying, “You can practice exhibitionism later. This is our first stop. Over the guardrail here. Be careful. The way down is steep.”

  Gratefully, April obeyed.

  “Why are we here?” April asked once they were safely in the shadow of the rocks.

  “Penelope’s father built a dock right over there for the barges which transported the redwood trees he harvested to San Francisco. He died in the same place when one of the trees evened the score by rolling off a wagon and crushing him. And five years later, the widow Madeleine Boller returned to the same dock with her six-year-old daughter from an extensive trip abroad.”

  “So you want me to imagine a man squashed beneath a huge log?”

  “I want you to imagine the thoughts and feelings you had as a little girl, then ask yourself whether this little girl would feel and think any differently than you.”

  April shook her head. Starting over in childhood was the last thing she intended to do.

  Parlor Car Games

  Philip hadn’t paid attention to where they were going until they came to an iron gate. Jacinto took out a key and jiggled it into the rusty old lock.

  “Ghosts don’t unlock gates!” Philip said, outraged.

  “I really prefer not to be called a ghost. The appellation is so limiting, and people have so many unfortunate stereotypes of spectral beings. Although a graveyard is appropriate, wouldn’t you say, considering you probably think I belong here.”

  Jacinto led Philip on a path that wound through the gravestones and up a knoll where there was a view of the inky ocean and the lights of the boardwalk.

  “It’s rumored you stole from the graves.”

  Jacinto laughed. “Only with the consent of the occupant, but we’re here to talk about Tomàs, not me. This is what remains of my cemetery. It survives because the more morbid tourists like to visit the graves of the star-crossed lovers. Many of Tomàs’s friends and family are also resting beneath our feet. Right over there,” Jacinto pointed to the darkest corner, “You can see Tomàs’s gravestone broken in half. His grave has been dug up sixteen times. He and Penelope, contrary to rumor, were interred in separate coffins. Shall I go on with the story?”

  Philip nodded, and Jacinto continued with Tomàs’s early careers:

  Having no other place to go after the stagecoach robbery, Tomàs briefly returned to the Flats, although now he felt that with innocent blood on his hands a barrier had formed between him and these good people, who had clothed, fed and nursed him throughout his boyhood. Nor were they fools. They could see that Tomàs was hiding a painful secret. After a month of awkwardness, early one morning to nobody’s surprise, he sneaked out of the Flats.

  Tomàs was gone five years. Rumors came to us that he was ranching in Australia, prospecting in Mexico, building train tracks in India or had fallen into the company of crooked poker players headed by the infamous Vincent Olmstead who ran a game out of a parlor car. The last turned out to be true.

  Discerning his natural talent, Vincent had taken a liking to Tomàs and hired him on as an apprentice of sorts. With his salt-and-pepper hair, broad careworn face, sagging jowls, and air of dignified failure, Vincent was the kind of man who made you want to like him. You still wanted to like him even after his cohorts had bled you dry.

  Tomàs’s apprenticeship wasn’t easy. The general opinion in those days was the only way to really learn a trade was to, “Go at it.” Every waking hour Tomàs worked—as a shill, a setup man learning how to make friends with the passengers, discovering who had the cash and the gullibility, mastering the skills of riffle shuffling, false shuffling, bottom dealing, palming, and other maneuvers of legerdemain. Tomàs practiced memorizing cards—until he was a superb counter—and improved his arithmetical ability, thanks to Vincent’s lessons on calculating odds. He possessed a natural gift for the latter skill, despite initially having little more familiarity with numbers beyond the single digit multiplication table.

  Less natural to Tomàs, and more necessary, was the demand he always played a role, making him feel like an actor stuck in a never-ending theatrical production with only occasional intermissions. Tomàs must have crossed the country a hundred and fifty times with hardly a glance out the window. He learned the trade well—too well. One morning, after completely cleaning out a stockman from Fresno, Olmstead gave him ten one-hundred-dollar bills and said, “You’re good, lad, and you know it. You’re also young and feeling your oats. Young men like you with more skill than sense are too risky to have around. If you can avoid getting yourself shot or lynched, come back in five years, and we’ll become partners.”

  Tomàs found a niche going from town to town, hustling in the saloons. Occasionally, he’d purposely lose if he saw a chance to get into a richer game. He used a variety of poses, his favorite being a boy fresh off the farm who had gambled with his friends for pennies and who now had an overrated opinion of his skills. The local sporting men seized on the opportunity to take advantage of this ignorant hick. They plied him with liquor and laughed at his foolish jokes. Whenever another player made a witty comment, Tomàs would stare slightly cross-eyed at the person and say, “Can you say that again more slow-like?” Yet, after he cleaned the other players out, the losers couldn’t claim that he hadn’t warned about his skill—in fact, he had spent the whole night bragging about it.

  Most of his games were straight. Tomàs’s natural ability at keeping track of the cards and calculating odds, in addition to being an acute observer of men and their tells, made stacking the deck or other card manipulations the last resort. Keeping in mind Vince’s admonition, “A sharp who claims he has never been caught is lying. That’s why most of us are dead,” Tomàs took precautions. He kept a derringer in an inside pocket of his coat, and a spring-blade knife secreted in a boot. He always prepared a plan of escape.

  Ignoring Vincent’s dictum about being too softhearted, Tomàs frequently made his move early in the game and, as a consequence, often won less than he could have during the evening. It was hard to sit across from certain individuals and clean them out. Tomàs never slept the night after a big game and never left early in the morning, because that would stir up suspicion. He always thanked the losers profusely, often claiming that the extra money was going to enable him to buy a few acres back home, raise hogs and marry his sweetheart.

  However, the fact of the matter was that professional grifters rarely worked alone. It was more common to have one sucker and four confidence men at the
table, rather than the other way around. Finding a lucrative mark, convincing him to join the game, misdirecting possible suspicion by making sure another player was a bigger loser and the man who stacked the deck was never the same man who won, in addition to spotting and covering up the inevitable mistakes, all necessitated a team effort. And then there was the principle of security in numbers. Tomàs, however, persuaded himself that taking an ounce of blood from four or five men was safer than four or five cons bleeding one well-heeled sucker dry.

  In a private game with a wealthy rancher, a large hand abruptly grasped Tomàs’s wrist as he tried to sweep in the takings, and he heard the words which congealed his blood. “Take me for a mooncalf and sap, young feller? Played poker longer than you’ve been wiping your ass. That card on the top don’t belong there.”

  Tomàs hadn’t been careless. Over the course of the last three hours of bluff, he had only fixed the cards once before, beating two pairs with three of a kind, and this last move had been silky smooth.

  “Sir, I don’t…” Tomàs inched his other hand towards the edge of the table.

  “Keep your pickers and stealers in sight, boy.” The words came out in a low rumble on either side of a stubby cigar. The rancher was in his mid-forties with iron-gray hair, strong features stretching dry leathery skin and a scar that misaligned his bottom lip. Though broadly built, there was no paunch, no excess flesh on the rancher’s body. The muscles in his forearms and neck stood out like twisted strands of wire. Throughout the course of the evening, Tomàs hadn’t seen those strands relax once.

  The ranch hands and servants called him Mr. K. Even the young Mexican girl, who wafted in for a moment with the air of somebody more than a servant, addressed him by that title. Neither had anyone else at the table contradicted an opinion of Mr. K or attempted a joke to ease the tension.

  “Conrad, let the boy go,” said another rancher with a fat neck and greasy hair, the owner of vast acreage and thousands of head of cattle. He was the only player at the table whose presence seemed to carry enough authority to influence the situation, but Mr. K waved him off.