Leaving the gloom they entered a well lit and important room. It was a high Gothic library, paneled with French Oak. It clashed so badly with the rest of the house that Jillybean could imagine that it had been transported complete from some far more fancy place overseas, making it sort of a millionaire’s version of a hand me down.
Within it was a much smaller fireplace with a lovely brass gate. Drawn close to it was a gorgeous desk behind which sat Matthew Gloom, the leader of the Santas.
Gloom was tall and strong, and amazingly fat with a wide, round expanse of a beer gut so that it seemed he wasn’t so much dressed as he was upholstered in blue velvet. With all that blue, the pale flesh of his face and jowls glowed.
Jillybean was utterly dazzled by him. To her, Gloom was very much like a circus performer or a stage magician, not that she was fooled by him in anyway. She simply looked on him as entertainment. As they stood there, he made a great display of lighting a homemade cigar with a golden lighter.
They were supposed to be impressed that he could make fire. Jillybean couldn’t help the maniacal grin spreading over her features. It was Eve hungering to put him in his place. The grin went unnoticed. Gloom considered her to be nothing more than arm candy for Stu.
He was shown the pipe bombs. Reaching into the bag, he pulled one out, turned it this way and that. “Very convincing,” he drawled before tossing the bomb in with the others. As was completely in character for him, Stu said nothing to this flippancy which Gloom found more intimidating than the “bombs” which were obvious, but well-produced fakes.
Gloom knew bombs. He had made and used plenty back in the day and knew that pipe bombs such as these would never explode without batteries in both the transmitter and receiver, and there were no more batteries. He hadn’t seen one in years that wasn’t corroded or ruined by temperature or humidity. And even if they were real, what did he care? They weren’t going to blow themselves up.
“So,” he said, letting the word hang there for nearly half a minute. The man was an utter blank and the girl was cute but strange. “So what can I do for you? I take it you’re here about the boats.”
Finally the man spoke. “We are.”
“That’s it? We are?”
The man added nothing else. As far as Stu was concerned, his statement spoke for itself.
“Look, I’m not afraid of the Corsairs.”
“You should be,” the girl said. “Only someone utterly devoid of fear or utterly moronic wouldn’t be afraid of the Corsairs and I have the feeling you have your share of fears.”
It took Gloom a second to realize he was being called a moron or whatever was worse than one. He took a long drag on the cigar and blew it out onto the girl. Her eyes were twitching and the smoke only made them more so. Still, she didn’t say anything and the seconds ticked away.
Gloom rolled his eyes. “Okay, why don’t you stop wasting my time and tell me what you want?”
He had been speaking to Stu, but it was the girl who answered. “I have come for my boats.”
“Your boats?”
“Yes, my boats. I defeated the Corsairs in battle and to the victor goes the spoils and they are my spoils.”
He shot Stu a look, saw the granite face and rolled his eyes a second time, knowing he wasn’t going to add a word. “You defeated them? I find that hard to believe. Who are you with? The Guardians?”
“No, the Hill People.”
His laughter rang out, booming through the mansion causing the fire to join him in merriment, waving back and forth. He laughed so hard that his pale face was transformed, becoming vividly red; his fat face swelled and his small eyes were almost swallowed by the dark-bluish sacks they were suspended in.
“The Hill People?” he managed to choke out.
“Yes, I am their Queen.”
This had him bursting into new laughter. It was truly genuine and it was carried along by a sense of relief. He had been expecting the Corsairs for some time now and yes, he was scared of them. At the same time, he figured he could exact a price from them for generously “storing” the boats. With over a thousand people at his back the Santas weren’t a pushover; they would get something out of the Corsairs.
And yet here was this “queen” thinking she was going to get her boats back? He chortled again. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just been a long time since I had such a good laugh. So, you’re going to go with ‘to the victor goes the spoils?’ I think I will counter with finders keepers, losers weepers. And, I will raise you a nyeah, nyeah, nyeah.”
Jillybean didn’t grow mad at this or even bat an eye. Right at the moment, she was only barely Jillybean. She was there to pick a fight and who better to do this than Eve? It was what she was best at. Jillybean glanced over at Stu and gave him a wink and a smile which he did not return. He knew the plan and wasn’t happy about it. In his mind, purposely letting Eve out was a disaster waiting to happen.
There was nothing he could do about it since letting her out was simply a matter of Jillybean losing control, something none of her friends really understood. They went about their days not having to worry about who they were or who they were going to be in five minutes. Jillybean struggled every second of every day. It was why she kept her mind going at such a feverish rate, because that was who she was. No matter what, she always had to be brilliant, attentive and scientifically curious. Even if she wanted to take the day off and sleep in or get drunk or spend an afternoon skipping stones, she couldn’t because that wasn’t Jillybean.
Truly, it was exhausting sometimes, and it was, with some relief, that she turned her wide blue eyes to the fire where the flames leapt up in little ecstasies. She had read somewhere that the uncivilized people of the past were afraid of looking into a fire for fear of summoning a demon. It was exactly what Jillybean was doing.
The idea made her feel as though the fire was dancing just for her, in a pagan, sensuous way. In seconds, a grin spread over her face, or rather over Eve’s face.
She turned with the fire in her eyes, the grin so awful that it soured Gloom’s laughter though his guards continued to chuckle.
“As long as we’re being childish,” Eve said, glancing down at the detonators hanging in full view from the buttonholes of her coat. They hadn’t been overlooked by the guard who had frisked her. They had been ignored as weird decorations. Wearing useless trinkets from the past had been something of a fad among the Santas a few years before.
“If I can’t have my toys back then nobody can have them,” she said, taking up one of the detonators.
Gloom’s eyes narrowed while Stu’s went wide in alarm. “Hold on, Eve!”
Stu hissed in a rasp of a whisper. “Do you even know what that’s connected to?”
A shrug. “Does it matter? As long as the explosion is big.” Ignoring Gloom, she hurried to the window, coming close to pressing her small nose to it in her eagerness. Below them were the docks and the jumble of boats, looking blacker than black in the twilight shadows. She gazed at them in quickening excitement. “Let’s see, you raised me a nyeah, nyeah, nyeah? How much is one of those boats worth? I mean in our little gambling game?”
Gloom didn’t answer. He had sat up a bit in his anxiety and was tall enough in his heavy chair to see the tips of the masts poking up like a forest of limbless trees. He didn’t like how the strange woman was suddenly so at ease, while this blank of a man was now pensive.
Eve turned back. “I thought you Santas liked to gamble? Isn’t that what you said, Stu? Didn’t you call them gamblers and degenerates? Didn’t you say the Santas were the lowest scum on earth?” She giggled as Stu’s lips pursed to the point of disappearing. The fact that Gloom was no longer laughing or even smiling spurred the giggle on even more.
The giggle was refreshing and her smile was full and wide. “Come on, let’s gamble Chubby-wumpigans. Let’s place some bets. Which boat will blow sky high when I press this button?”
It was only with a great deal of mental control that Gloom managed
to remain seated. Calmly, he interlocked his fingers and set his hands on his lap. “Chubby-wumpigans? That’s rather rude.”
“And nyeah, nyeah, nyeah isn’t?” she countered. “You see, it’s like this, you reap what you sow. That’s in the Bible, though I suppose a degenerate such as yourself never cracked one of them. Which is too, too bad. Here, let me give you a synopsis: give me back my boats or I’ll send you to hell where you’ll burn in fiery goodness forever and ever, amen.”
“Wow,” Gloom said, shaking his head in utter disbelief.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Probably sort of like how you hear: Hey, who ate all the doughnuts? all the time. Am I right?”
In complete amazement, Gloom slowly revolved his big head toward Stu, who only gave him a what-can-you-do? sort of shrug.
“Okay, let me get this straight. You show up at my home, insult me and then demand my boats?”
“Oh no, not at all,” Eve answered. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were as dumb as you are fat. You see, I showed up, then demanded my boats back and then insulted you. You had the order mixed up.”
It took all of Gloom’s self control to keep from flying at her. It was also difficult to keep his eyes from straying towards the bag of pipe bombs which he was beginning to realize were probably real. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to relax. This was not the first time he’d been called fat or stupid. The woman, Eve, was playing a game. She was trying to get under his skin. She was trying to upset him, but to what end?
“Do you really think you’ll get your boats back by acting this way? Like a child, I mean. Come sit down and we can talk.”
She wagged a finger at him. “Oh, you naughty boy. You want me to come sit down? On your lap? Like Santa, the real Santa? You are a sick…walrus. I was going to say pup, but who’s kidding who? But I do like how you called them my boats.” She came to sit down, rocking her thumb along the edge of the “send” button.
He pretended not to notice. “Why don’t you lay out your proposition concerning the boats. I’m open to making a deal. These bombs for instance. If they are real, that is, perhaps we could make a trade. I have a lovely 23’ boat out there that I could let go for maybe thirty of these. What do you say?” He sat back, throwing one massive leg over the other.
“Thirty? I was thinking more like two hundred. Yes, two hundred would reduce this little island to shambles. You see, I don’t trade my bombs, I blow ‘em up. It’s much more satisfying than being a mere shopkeeper or merchant or whatever it is you are. Buy high! Sell low! Money, money, money. Gimme a dollah, my baby needs her medicine. Pathetic.”
She spat the last word contemptuously before her eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Jillybean called you an opportunist. That’s even worse. You’re like a vulture, getting fat on roadkill.”
He needed another breath before he was calm enough to say. “I dabble here and there, that’s true, but what I really do is gamble. Are you a gambler, Eve, or just a talker?”
This was a challenge and her eyes sparkled. “I like games and I love risk. What do propose?”
“Texas holdem’,” he answered without hesitation. It was one of a thousand variations of poker with the major difference being that there was no limit to the bet size. He explained the rules as one of his men ran off for a new deck of cards. “We’ll each start off with a thousand in chips. Whoever runs out first loses. I’ll put up my 23’ boat, the Windy Rose against whatever bombs you brought with you, agreed?”
He held out his big hand and she was quick to snatch it up. “The Windy Rose? Agreed!” A crowd of Santas saw the hand shake and many of them tried to hide their smiles. Gloom was an excellent card player. He could read people like a book and had such a wealth of experience that he had seen every combination of cards, chip stacks and players that was possible.
Quicker than Stu could believe, chips were handed out and cards dealt. This was not part of any plan as far as he knew, but he was forced to watch in shock as Eve proved as a player to be in stark and embarrassing contrast to Gloom. She was a gambler through and through. To her the game consisted solely of luck and dash. She splashed her chips around without a care in the world and for a while her luck was good and she gained a sizable lead.
Gloom was not the least perturbed, however as she cackled and scraped the chips towards herself. Despite his losses, he had not misplayed a single hand and given the same circumstances would have played them in exactly the same manner. Knowing that skill would eventually win out, he kept playing his way and although things see-sawed back and forth, he eventually gained the upper hand and after a good deal of theatrically hemming and hawing, he shoved all in with the best possible set of cards.
Without hesitation, she went to reach for her chips. Stu had to step in. “Eve! What the hell are you doing?” He had played the game many times before and his appreciation for Gloom’s skill was well grounded. He had clearly baited Eve and she was snatching up the poison hook.
“Unless you put up a stake, stay out of it, boy!” Gloom growled. The Santas around them, and the crowd had grown so that it filled the room and part of the hall, hissed in anger at the clear violation of game etiquette. All of which should have told Eve to put on the brakes. Instead she matched the bet and lost. Gloom was all smiles as Eve cursed like a sailor.
Stu was just beginning to put together a plan that would allow them to give out their precious bombs without getting ambushed and snatched up as slaves, when Eve suddenly cried out: “Double or nothing!”
Chapter 39
Stu was rendered speechless as Eve went on, “I’ll put up my boat for the Windy What-not and the bombs.”
“Done!” The two shook hands while half the Santas cheered and the other half crowded the windows to see what prize Gloom was going to win next.
“Before you start, can I talk to her for just a moment?” Stu asked and then didn’t listen to the answer as he hauled Eve away. She fought him until he hissed into her ear, “He’s cheating.” They went to a side room where she ordered two people out as if she were their queen.
They left, laughing at her. She wanted to charge after them, but Stu pulled her around. “No! Forget them. Gloom’s cheating. He’s been running pot odds, but we can turn it around on him using reverse pot odds. It’s sorta complicated but you’re smarter than he is so pay attention.”
He went on to describe made up ratios, statistics and fractions until her eyes glazed over. He knew there was a way to play “perfect” poker by constantly calculating and recalculating every decision in connection with the myriad of possibilities available, but he had never played that way and nor could he actually describe it that way. Still, he knew enough to weaken Eve’s hold and to draw Jillybean out.
“We’re doing what?” Jillybean asked in shock. “I’ve never played poker before. And we can’t back out? Maybe you should play for me.”
With Gloom on a streak, there was zero chance of that happening. “We’ll try that, but if he doesn’t go for it then let me go over the basics. I trust you.” He ran down the essentials and never once had to repeat himself or give more than a cursory explanation. Next, he explained the way Gloom had been playing which was called tight-aggressive, meaning he didn’t throw money at poor hands, but when he had good cards he played them like they were monsters.
“You should play that style as well until you feel comfortable, then loosen up,” he advised. She asked a few more questions before Gloom sent someone for them.
Gloom was shocked by the complete change in the woman’s tactics and for a few hands he laid off fearing that he was being conned in some fashion. It wasn’t as if Jillybean had become an expert at the game in ten minutes, but she proved too smart for trap after trap.
She proved amazingly adept at sniffing out his bluffs, while he could do the same for her. For an hour they went back and forth, neither giving or taking much. Then she ran up against three straight hands of just terrible luck: three kings losing to t
hree aces, a run of two cards giving Gloom an against all odds straight when they were both certain he would lose, and lastly a miracle two of diamonds to give him three of a kind on the last card.
Stu had been watching with eagle eyes and there had been no cheating involved. From then on Jillybean grew more and more flustered until Eve was on the verge of coming out again. It wouldn’t have mattered. With her confidence blown, the game ended quickly.
Gloom sat back, a smarmy grin on his face, his hands behind his head. “And that’s why they call it gambling.” He stood and shoved his knuckles into his back, pushing out his huge velvet covered belly. “Now let’s see that boat.”
Jillybean was still treading water, barely keeping her head above the dark waters of her mind. “We’ll need a ride north first.” Gloom snorted and she begged, “Please. It’s important.”
“Not to me it isn’t. What? Did you think I would forget all those snide-ass comments? Beg somewhere else, girl.”
They were utterly screwed. It was nearly thirty miles back to San Francisco. It would take them at least two days to get back and even if the Corsairs hadn’t attacked by then the time away might very well undermine everything Jillybean had built up. And that was if they were allowed to walk away.
Matthew Gloom was not Tony Tibbs and Eve couldn’t read him. Chances are they would all die in a fiery blast.
“It’s my turn to play,” Stu said, quieting the room. “All or nothing. We become your slaves if we lose. There are four of us, young and strong, and she,” he indicated, Jillybean, “can make those bombs and a lot of other stuff. It’s why she became queen.”
“Four people?” Gloom asked, then corrected himself. “Four slaves, I mean, against two gorgeous, fantastic boats and who knows how many of these bombs? Hmmm.”
Stu nodded. “I understand. You think you’re going to lose, too.”
The Queen of the Dead Page 39