The Girl From Blind River

by Gale Massey

  The turn was the ace of diamonds. Loyal tapped a knuckle on the table. “Earth to Jamie.”

  Keating fired a big bet.

  It would take half her stack to make the call. Keating looked smug. She guessed at what he might be holding, maybe ace/queen. In that case, his aces would beat her tens, and if the last card was a jack, he’d have a straight. He leaned back in his chair, linked his fingers over his belly, breathed deeply as though he was struggling not to smile. He didn’t, she noticed, look her in the eye or pat the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. She felt sure he had the aces and a straight draw.

  Had there been a pipe overhead or a high, barred window? Toby’s last lonely wish must have vanished as the chair went out from under his feet and his neck snapped in the noose. Had he hoped that someone—his mother, uncle, or sister, someone, anyone—would step in and pull him back from the edge? Had he changed his mind in that last second? How long had he suffered before the guard came back on his round? Thank God they’d found him in time.

  Loyal rapped impatiently on the table.

  She bent up the corners of her hole cards again. She was supposed to fold here, let Keating take half her stack and move him one step closer to the win. Chances were his aces would hold up and then this whole stupid charade would be over. But no one could blame her for staying in it with a pair of tens. They would say it was a good call. But if she won—then everyone would come unglued.

  The crowd moved in tighter to watch the last hand. Garcia pushed through to stand behind Loyal. When he put his hands into his pockets, Jamie saw the flash of metal cuffs hooked to his belt. She decided to go for it. When she made the call, the top of her head turned cold.

  Loyal hunkered over the table and flicked a warning at her with his eyes. She ignored him. What could he do in front of all these people?

  Lena held the deck with both hands. Loyal said, “Burn one.” She placed the next card facedown in the muck and then turned over the fifth card.

  A blur passed in front of Jamie’s eyes. The jack of spades. If she’d read him right, Keating had made his straight. There were only three spades on the board. That queen was in her cuff, but her pulse was beating wildly and her hands jittered like moths in a streetlight.

  It was Keating’s move. His eyes were dead still on her, practically gloating. Her water bottle sat on the floor beside her chair. As she reached for it, she moved the queen to her palm.

  Keating said, “All in.”

  Her heart banged in her throat. She picked up her hole cards again, switched the ten for the queen, coughed and moved the ten to her jacket pocket. She straightened and counted to three. Anyone who’d seen what she’d done would speak up immediately. But no one did.

  “I call,” she said.

  He turned over the queen of diamonds and the ace of hearts. Just as she thought, he’d made an ace-high straight. The crowd buzzed and whooped. Keating punched the air with his fist and high-fived Eddie. Loyal’s shoulders gave a little and the tension in his jaw relaxed. He pushed Keating’s cards forward to show the straight and let it sit there.

  Jamie turned over her queen/nine and waited.

  Keating read the board.

  A hum rustled through the crowd. “Goddamn,” Eddie said. “She’s got spades.”

  CHAPTER

  37

  JAMIE COUNTED THE spades again, two in her hand, three on the board.

  “My straight is best, right?” Keating asked. His mouth gaped like he needed air, his hopeful tone fading as comprehension sharpened in his eyes.

  Loyal let the straight stand as the winner for a beat until someone said, “A flush beats a straight.”

  Lena set down the deck and put her hands in her lap as though she’d done something wrong.

  “Goddamn it to hell,” Keating said. His hands gripped the edge of the table as though he might turn it over. He looked at Loyal and mumbled something about getting even.

  Loyal studied the board, swiped Keating’s straight to the side, and pushed the spade flush forward.

  Jamie had never experienced a thrill like the one bouncing in her belly now, making her feel like she would burst if she didn’t vomit first. But she waited to see what Loyal would say. He leaned across the table and whispered, “Where’d that queen come from?”

  “From that deck.” It wasn’t exactly a lie because that’s where Phoebe had taken it from. No one had seen Jamie pull that queen out of her sleeve, but he knew as well as she did: Elders kids were rarely innocent. And they never, ever, won that easy.

  Keating’s eyes went flat. He stared at the cards as though they were evil, as though in a moment they would correct themselves and line up in his favor. There was a lot of cursing as the spectators started paying out side bets. Eddie slapped Jamie’s shoulder and set a tiny wooden plaque trophy on the table in front of her.

  Jamie felt an impulse to run and tell Toby—he would be so psyched—then remembered he was laying half-conscious in a hospital bed.

  Loyal said, “Pull up your sleeves.”

  “Whatever,” she said and showed her wrists.

  Loyal grabbed her wrists and yanked at her cuffs, but she’d tucked the card into her jacket pocket, so he turned her loose.

  Garcia stepped closer.

  Loyal picked up the lockbox he’d been keeping under his chair and stood as if to leave. If he didn’t give her the prize money in front of this crowd, she’d never see it.

  “You’re not going until you award the prize,” Eddie said. “You always pay out the money at the end of the game.” Loyal shook his head, but Eddie persisted. “She won it; give it to her.”

  The crowd pressed closer to the table. Eddie started chanting, “Show her the money!” A few other men joined in.

  “All right, all right.” Loyal set the lockbox on the table and opened the lid, said low enough that only she could hear, “You’re giving this back to me before you leave this building.”

  A few men clapped. The wad of hundred-dollar bills in her hands was heavy and wonderful and intoxicating. She jammed it in her pocket, wondering how she could get out of the building before Loyal cornered her and demanded she give it back.

  Across the table, Garcia motioned to a uniformed officer. The man took Lena’s arm and walked the Bangor family out the front door. Two more uniformed cops stepped inside.

  Loyal pulled on his coat and stood up, but Garcia stepped in front of him and wheeled him around. Loyal slapped Garcia’s hand away. “Jesus Christ, Garcia. What the hell do you want?”

  Garcia took the handcuffs off his belt. “I have a warrant for your arrest.”

  “The fuck you do.” Loyal pushed Garcia and lunged at Jamie. “Girl, what the hell did you do?”

  She tripped backward, but Eddie and another man caught her from falling. Loyal hit the ground hard, though, and Garcia swiftly cuffed him. He and a cop helped Loyal to his feet as Jamie got her balance and righted herself. She’d never expected to see cops manhandle her uncle, and now she noticed just how much his belly protruded over his belt, how his pants sagged at his ass, how gauzy and washed-out his eyes were, the amount of gray in the scruff on his jowls. She’d never expected to feel such pity for the man.

  Garcia held a document in Loyal’s face. “This doesn’t have anything to do with her. We confiscated thirty-seven illegal gambling machines purported to be owned by you.”

  “What? Are you kidding me? What are you talking about? Those machines raise money for charities.”

  “That’s bullshit and everyone knows it.”

  “You’re taking food out of the mouths of children!” Loyal yelled.

  “You’re being charged with operating illegal gambling equipment,” Garcia continued. “The information came from a highly reputable source.”

  Jamie bet no one would take her as the reputable source but still wanted to run from the room. She fought the urge and stared hard at Keating because everything hinged on Loyal believing he’d been sold out by his buddy.


  “A reputable source?” Loyal wheeled around and looked at Keating. “You? What did you do?”

  Keating’s face shifted to recognition.

  Loyal pulled out of Garcia’s grip. “Don’t do this, Keating. Don’t you do this!”

  Keating cleared his throat and held up his hand. For the first time in his life he was outnumbered. He took the safe route and rolled on Loyal. “It seems like it’s already been done. It’s time to clean up Blind River. Certain things…” He stopped and glanced at Loyal. “Certain things have been going on unnoticed in this county for too long. I’m promising right here and now that a vote for my reelection is a vote for a more decent town. You can count on that.”

  Loyal stood dumbfounded, flanked by Garcia and the cop.

  Garcia faced Keating and said, “Maybe it’s time we called it a day. What do you say, boss? Isn’t it time for some whiskey?”

  Keating’s face relaxed. He gathered his things with the same dignity Jamie imagined he displayed in his courtroom and began moving through the crowd. Garcia and the cop guided him toward the door. Someone mentioned Crowley’s Pub and the crowd began to disperse and follow them outside.

  Loyal glared at Keating as the man walked out the door, and something inside Jamie shifted in reaction to the defeat on her uncle’s face. It surprised her how calm she felt. He stood alone behind the table, his hands cuffed across his waist.

  Part one of her plan was complete. Jamie walked up to him, hoping to set the last part in motion. She needed Loyal to believe Keating had ratted out the gambling operation. “What are you going to do?”

  He seemed stunned. “This is bullshit. What the fuck just happened?”

  She shook her head sympathetically. “Looks to me like things got too hot for Keating and he sold you out. He used your operation to throw the law’s attention off that missing man, so if things start surfacing, he’ll look innocent and you’ll get pegged as Toby’s accomplice.”

  “I don’t know. He’s never let me down before.” He looked her in the eye. “How do I know it wasn’t you?”

  A good bluff, her mother had always said, starts and ends with a blank face. She made her face unreadable, realizing it was her only weapon. “Wasn’t me.”

  She saw a flicker of doubt cloud his face and held his gaze until his eyes dropped and he shook his head.

  “I got to think. Get the flask out of my back pocket.”

  “He could’ve pulled the plug whenever he wanted. But he waited till right now, till that man’s goes missing, till right before the election. You going to let him get away with that? Who do you think is going to walk away from this thing? You or the man these people elected?”

  She got out the flask and unscrewed the top. It would be his last taste of whiskey and she knew he’d miss that more than anything.

  “All you ever needed was the location of that man’s body. You said as much yourself that night.”

  He lifted the flask to his lips.

  “You think about that when they book you, when they take your belt and shoes. Think about how Keating sold you out same as he did Toby.”

  He drained the whiskey. “You’re right, little girl. That fucker will regret this. You figured that out fast, though, didn’t you?”

  “I always heard that apples don’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Maybe. Maybe that’s true.” His eyes turned to her and she read suspicion there. “You be careful now. Sometimes you get what you want in this world, but what’s more often true is you get what you deserve.”

  Jamie took a step back. He was cuffed but he was still a big man. “You’re not threatening me, are you, uncle?”

  “It’s not a threat, it’s a prediction. Every Elders gets their due.”

  She tried to shrug it off, but that wicked chill ran up her spine again. Was that true? Didn’t her father die stupidly, her mother spend years in prison? Wasn’t her brother lying half dead in a hospital bed this very minute? Wasn’t she trying to outsmart a lifelong con man? She lowered her voice, but her words still came out shaky. “The way I see it, you got one chance to settle the score. Go for the man who came for you.”

  Garcia brought another cop over and told him to take Loyal downtown.

  She figured she had an hour or two before Loyal met with a public defender and spilled the details on Bangor.

  The cards and the lockbox sat on the table. Jamie brought the missing card out of her jacket pocket and slipped it back in the deck.

  “I didn’t see that,” Garcia said. He gathered the deck and put it inside the lockbox, which he opened and held out in front of her. “In here.”

  “What?”

  “All money associated with Loyal Elders’s operation is considered evidence while he’s under investigation by the state commission.”

  “This is my money. I won it. Everyone saw.”

  He held the box up and shook his head. “You can’t have it both ways, Jamie. Nothing Loyal Elders touched is legit.”

  She pulled the wad out of her pocket and put it in the box. Garcia closed the lid and handed it to another cop, who bagged and sealed it with the date as Jamie watched her last hope at getting the hell out of Blind River disappear.

  Garcia had done exactly what she’d wanted. He’d used the photographs of the ledger off Keating’s phone to find Loyal’s gambling sites and bust the whole operation. And Loyal’s only retaliation would be to give up the location of the Bangor’s body. The two men would likely never speak to each other again and, even if they did, they’d never figure out how she’d set them against each other.

  Soon enough Loyal would be sitting in the same jail where Toby had been just yesterday. It was hard to imagine her uncle confined to a small cell, the guards laughing when he asked for a cigarette and some whiskey or demanded an aspirin and a cup of coffee.

  She scanned the room for a soda or a bag of pretzels, but the players had wiped the refreshments table clean. She dug through her backpack for leftover crumbs from the trail mix, anything to stop the grumbling in her stomach. Something sharp in the bottom of the bag jabbed her finger and she pulled out a Greyhound bus ticket. Departure time: 8:30 PM, destination: Atlantic City. There was a message written on it: Follow your heart but always bet your spades.

  CHAPTER

  38

  “THERE’S ONE MORE thing I need from you,” Garcia said once they were inside his car.

  “I need to stop by the hospital and see my brother first,” Jamie said.

  Garcia gave a glacial sigh and shook his head no. “There’s a family waiting for their father and husband.”

  “I just gave you the biggest arrest this town has ever seen and you just took my last dollar.”

  “What you gave me was a list of illegal gambling sites. Your uncle just got arrested and if he has any information on Bangor he’ll play it right away. I’m guessing you have a very short window of time to get out from under whatever part you played in this.”

  “All I need is ten minutes.”

  Garcia turned south on Main and pulled into the hospital’s emergency drive. He got a letter out of his jacket pocket and held it open for Jamie to see. “Sign this right now or I can’t help you.” The car doors clicked locked.

  She pushed the paper away and tried the handle. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You aren’t getting out of this car without signing this first.” He handed her a pen.

  “Christ, Garcia. What is this?” Jamie took the form and saw her name on the first line.

  “This makes you an official informant in your uncle’s illegal activities and lets me give you protection and keep you anonymous in an investigation. Whatever your involvement was, I know you were a pawn to these people. Sign this form and I got your back.”

  There was that word again: protection.

  “But Keating would never agree to something that helps me. Where’d you get this?”

  “He has no influence with the state’s gaming commission, and Bangor’s disappear
ance seems connected. It’s too suspicious. This is their jurisdiction now.”

  Jamie sank in her seat. “This makes me an official snitch?”

  “That form puts you on the right side of things and is likely to keep you out of jail. The courts tend to take illegal gambling operations seriously. Sign the bottom line.”

  “Is this how you deal with your own daughter? Because it probably pisses her off.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I never had children.”

  She didn’t see another option. He was offering protection and, real or not, no one else seemed to even care. It was her only play. She took the pen and signed her name.

  He unlocked the doors and pulled a lighter from his pocket. “You got till I finish this cigarette.”

  A cop was stationed outside the ICU and told her she wasn’t allowed inside. Through the glass wall she saw Phoebe sitting next to Toby’s bed, holding his hand, her clunky white sneakers sticking out beneath her ridiculous high-water jeans. Except for the single tube protruding from his mouth, Toby looked like he was sleeping off an all-nighter. Jamie tapped on the window and Phoebe came outside.

  “How is he?”

  “His eyes opened when I took his hand. I think he might’ve smiled at me.” Phoebe’s eyes glistened. “The doctor is optimistic, but the nurse said he’ll be in county rehab and it will be weeks before he’ll be able to talk.” She lowered her voice. “Come on, let’s get away from this cop.”

  The two of them went to the vending area for whatever the snack machine had in it. Jamie sank onto a plastic chair near the window, stared at the dingy hospital walls while Phoebe dropped coins into the coffee machine.

  “Interesting thing you’ve done with your eye makeup,” Phoebe said, and Jamie bristled.

  What did she have in common with this woman? Love for a self-destructive boy? DNA? A mutual fate? Neither of them had ever had the freedom to make their own choices in life, and they’d fought back as best they could, with a tendency toward theft. That’s what they had in common. That’s what she’d inherited. She didn’t want to be near her mother, the source of her dark side, but she wanted answers.