The Loner: Killer Poker

by J. A. Johnstone

  Masterson shook his head. “No, no, I sold it several years ago. Got tired of arguing with the city fathers who seemed to believe it’s some sort of den of iniquity. I moved down to Creede for a while and just came back to Denver a couple years ago. I was a little surprised to see the place still operating, but I come here when I can. Old times’ sake, you know.”

  “I’ll bet it’s still a good place to find a high stakes game.”

  “The best.” Masterson frowned in thought. “In fact, there’s a game coming up that might interest you. As I recall, you like to play some cards now and then.”

  Although Conrad was aware of Masterson’s reputation as a buffalo hunter, lawman, and gun handler, he knew the man primarily as the owner of various gambling halls, including at one time the Palace in Denver.

  With a shake of his head, Conrad said, “I didn’t come here to gamble, Bat. Things have changed.”

  “Yeah, I heard you’ve had some bad luck. Some mighty bad luck. I’m sorry, son.”

  Conrad nodded. “I’m obliged for that.”

  They had reached the bar. Masterson said, “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. The buy-in to this game I’m talking about is pretty steep, but I’m sure you can afford it.”

  Masterson signaled the bartender and ordered three cognacs for them. The drinks had just come and Conrad was picking up his snifter when someone jostled him heavily from behind. About half the cognac splashed across the bar.

  Instinct made Conrad swing around angrily. He was about to tell the man who had bumped into him to be more careful, when he saw a gun barrel rising toward his face and heard the unmistakable metallic ratcheting of the weapon’s hammer being drawn back.

  Chapter 6

  Gasps sounded around the bar as Conrad’s left hand flashed up and closed around the gun barrel. He wrenched upward on it at the same time his right fist smashed into the face of the man who was trying to shoot him. The gun went off with a deafening roar that echoed through the room and left a stunned silence in its wake.

  The man’s head rocked back from the force of Conrad’s punch, but he didn’t go down or let go of the gun. Bellowing in rage, he bulled forward, ramming his shoulder into Conrad’s chest and driving him against the bar. A wave of pain went through him as he was bent backward.

  The man was big enough and strong enough to snap Conrad’s spine unless he did something in a hurry. Keeping his grip on the gun barrel, he slashed the side of his other hand into the man’s throat.

  That did the trick. The man let go of the gun and staggered backward, gagging and clutching at his neck as he struggled to breathe. He wore a black Stetson and black Western-cut suit, and his deeply tanned face was rough-hewn under graying hair.

  Several men wearing range clothes surged forward from the crowd, probably friends of the man who had attacked Conrad. The situation might have gotten uglier if Bat Masterson hadn’t stepped in just then.

  With a pistol held rock-steady in his hand, in the loud, commanding voice that had helped bring law and order to numerous frontier towns, Masterson said, “That’s far enough, gents. Rance got himself into this trouble. It’s his lookout, not yours.”

  “Damn it, Bat, he’s our boss,” one of the men objected. “We’ve got to back his play.”

  “Come ahead, if it’s worth a bullet to you.”

  The games had all come to an abrupt halt. Every eye in the place was on the confrontation at the bar.

  The man who had started the trouble was still rubbing his neck, but had caught his breath and was able to talk. In a pained rasp, he said, “Back off, boys. You don’t want to go up against Masterson.”

  “He can’t kill us all, boss,” one of the men said.

  Masterson smiled. “Are you willing to bet your own life on that, friend?”

  “Damn it, I told you to take it easy,” the man called Rance said. “Get on out of here. We’ll find some friendlier place to drink and play some cards.”

  “You’re the one who tried to shoot me, mister,” Conrad pointed out. “If anybody made this place unfriendly, it was you.”

  “I wasn’t gonna shoot you,” Rance said in a surly voice. “Just teach you to have a mite of respect for your elders—and betters.”

  Conrad smiled coldly. “You’re older than me, anyway.” He was still holding Rance’s gun by the barrel. Flipping it around, he caught it easily by the butt, and opened the cylinder. He tilted the gun up and turned the cylinder so the bullets slid out and fell to the floor, clattering as they landed.

  Rance’s face darkened with anger, but he held his temper.

  Conrad put the empty gun on the bar and kicked the shells away.

  “Why don’t you come back and get your gun later, Rance?” Masterson suggested. “They’ll hold it for you here.”

  “Fine,” Rance said bitterly. “I’m no shootist like you, Masterson. Never claimed to be. But there’ll come a day when somebody takes you down a notch.” He glared at Conrad. “You and this fancy-pants kid both.”

  With that, Rance turned around and stalked out of the Palace’s gambling room. His men had pulled back a little but hadn’t left. They followed him down the stairs, but not without casting some mighty hostile glares toward Conrad and Masterson first.

  Masterson didn’t lower his gun until they were all gone and a buzz of sound had begun to grow in the room again. Then he reached behind his back and slid the pistol into a holster he wore under the tails of his coat. “That was a near thing. Rance McKinney isn’t a good man to cross, and his men are almost as loco as he is. Or can be. He’s not always quite so proddy.”

  “Friend of yours?” Conrad asked.

  Masterson grunted and shook his head. “Not so’s you’d notice, but we’re civil enough to play a little poker together from time to time. Rance fancies himself pretty good at it.”

  “Is he?”

  Masterson shrugged. “That depends on who he’s playing against.”

  “What was the idea of pulling a gun on me? He’s the one who ran into me and spilled my drink.”

  “He’s a high-handed son of a gun. He probably meant it when he said he was going to teach you a lesson. Just turning around to challenge him when he bumped into you like he did was enough to set him off.”

  Conrad shook his head. “He’s lucky somebody hasn’t shot him before now.”

  “Rance owns one of the biggest spreads in Colorado, and he’s always got that crew of curly wolves with him. People tend to step well away from him when he comes around.”

  “I don’t remember him from the last time I was here.”

  “He moved into the area about five years ago. Bought the old Double Star ranch from Milt Tompkins and started gobbling up all the range around it.”

  Conrad shook his head. Five years earlier, he hadn’t had much interest in ranching, so he didn’t remember the spread Masterson mentioned. It didn’t matter. McKinney was gone, and Conrad didn’t intend to have anything more to do with him.

  He turned back to the bar and found that the bartender had mopped up the spilled cognac and replaced the drink with a fresh one. “Thanks.” He nodded to the man. “I’m sorry about the disturbance.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, sir.” The bartender smiled. “Anyway, it doesn’t take long for things to get back to normal in here.”

  That was true. The mood in the Palace was as jovial and high-spirited as it had been when Conrad and Arturo went in a short time earlier. No blood had been spilled, so the patrons had gone back to having fun.

  Conrad sipped his cognac and looked at Arturo. “What do you think of the place?”

  “I think that wherever you go, trouble seems to follow you there,” Arturo said bluntly.

  That made Bat Masterson laugh. “Yeah, he really is a chip off the old block!”

  Despite Arturo’s comment, no more trouble broke out while they were at the Palace. Conrad enjoyed catching up on old times with Masterson, and as they left later, Masterson said, “If you change your
mind about that high-stakes game, let me know. You can find me in here or one of the other usual places.”

  The next day, Conrad paid another visit to Ellery Hudson’s office. He knew it was probably much too early to expect any results from Hudson’s investigation, but he couldn’t sit around the suite at the Lansing House doing nothing.

  Rose Sullivan smiled brightly as Conrad came into the outer office. The place was busy. The door behind Rose’s desk was open, so he could look along the hall and see lawyers and clerks passing back and forth as they went about their work.

  “Hello, Mr. Browning,” Rose said. “Mr. Hudson told me to tell you—if you came in—that he’s in the law library.”

  “He wants to see me?” Conrad was a little surprised.

  “I think so.” Rose got to her feet. She wore a pale blue blouse over a black skirt and looked as lovely as she had the day before. Her blue eyes were just as bold, too. “I’ll show you.”

  Conrad thought he remembered where Hudson, Burke, and Hardy’s law library was, so he started to say, “I can find it—”

  “No, I wouldn’t hear of it. I’ll escort you, so you won’t get lost.” She came around the desk and took his arm.

  He was too much of a gentleman to pull away from her, letting her link arms and steer him back out the pebbled glass door into the outer corridor. He was sure it was no coincidence that the soft warmth of her breast pressed against his arm as they walked around a corner to another door. It had pebbled glass in the upper half, too, but no writing on it.

  Rose opened the door and led him into a hallway. A door off that hall led into the vast, high-ceilinged law library. The smell of fine paper and rich leather bindings would have been pretty heady stuff to a bibliophile, Conrad thought.

  Ellery Hudson stood in front of one of the tall bookcases that lined the walls. He had just slid a thick volume back into place and was reaching for another one when Conrad and Rose went in. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Ah, there you are, Conrad. I was going to telephone you at the Lansing if you didn’t come in.” He nodded to Rose. “Thank you, Miss Sullivan. That’ll be all.”

  She let go of Conrad’s arm with obvious reluctance. “If you need anything else, Mr. Browning, don’t hesitate to let me know.” She lingered as long as she could without annoying Hudson.

  When she was gone and the door had closed behind her, the lawyer chuckled. “I’m sorry, Conrad. Our Miss Sullivan appears to be something of a fortune hunter. I didn’t know that about her. She’s dealt with many well-to-do clients before without acting like that. But perhaps not many who have youth and good looks to go along with their money.”

  “I’m not here to talk about my money or good looks,” Conrad said with a wry smile. “I was just curious to know if you’d found out anything yet.”

  “Not really. However, I mentioned to Violet that you were in town, and she suggested that you come to dinner at our house tonight.”

  Violet was Hudson’s wife. Conrad had met her a few times and thought she was a nice enough woman, but he didn’t relish the idea of spending the evening with the Hudsons.

  “Ellery, I don’t know—”

  “Of course, when I say dinner, I may be understating the case a bit. There’ll be fifty or sixty people there.”

  The idea of attending a party at the Hudson mansion was even less appealing. Back in Boston, Conrad had ventured into the high society circles he used to frequent, but that had been to help him find out more information about Pamela and her activities.

  Of course, the same tactic might work there, he realized. Pamela had friends in Denver from the time of her engagement to him, and she might have visited some of them when she came through the Mile High City three years earlier. Conrad hadn’t considered that possibility before.

  Hudson went on, “I thought that someone who’s there might be able to tell us something about Pamela.”

  Conrad smiled. “Great minds work alike, as the old saying goes, Ellery. The same thought just occurred to me.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  “I will. What time?”

  “Eight o’clock. I’ll send a buggy for you.” Hudson frowned. “There’s just one thing. Violet won’t like it if there’s an odd number of guests. We’ll have to come up with someone to accompany you.”

  “And by someone you mean a lady?”

  “Of course. Violet’s a great one for pairing everyone up. The problem is, I can’t think of anyone who’d really be suitable right now.”

  Conrad smiled. “Maybe I can.”

  Chapter 7

  “You want me to go with you to a dinner party at Mr. Hudson’s house?” Rose Sullivan asked with a surprised but happy smile on her face.

  Hudson cleared his throat as he stood in front of Rose’s desk with Conrad. “This was Mr. Browning’s idea, not mine,” he said, as if he wanted to be on record about that.

  “I think it’ll be fine, Ellery,” Conrad said. “Will any of your guests actually know Rose that well?”

  “I’m sure some of them have seen her here in the office. . . .” Hudson shrugged. “But if she wore her hair down, say, and was in an evening gown rather than business attire . . . we could tell people that she’s Violet’s niece or cousin, something like that, visiting from back east.”

  A frown replaced Rose’s smile. “You want me to pretend to be somebody I’m not?”

  “Just for this evening,” Conrad said. “And it would be very helpful to me.”

  “Well . . . is this part of my work, Mr. Hudson?”

  “Of course I can’t order you to do it,” Hudson said quickly. “But it would be a favor to us, and Mr. Browning and I would appreciate it.”

  “Then certainly I’ll do it.” Rose got to her feet. “And I won’t disappoint you, Mr. Browning.” A worried look suddenly came over her face. “But I don’t have a gown that would be all right for something like that.”

  “Julia can help you,” Hudson said. “The two of you can go out and buy whatever you need. Have the bills sent here to the firm.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Rose smiled again. “I’ll go tell Mrs. Moorehead right now.”

  As she bustled down the hall, Hudson looked over at Conrad. “Are you sure about this?”

  “It’ll be fine, Ellery,” Conrad assured him. “And it’ll be an evening Rose never forgets.”

  Hudson grunted, as if that might not be such a good thing.

  Conrad went back to the Lansing House and told Arturo about the plan. “I’ll see to it that your best suit is cleaned and pressed, sir. And if I may be so bold, perhaps you should pay a visit to the barber.”

  “Getting a little shaggy, am I?” Conrad laughed. “All right. I’ll do that.”

  Conrad spent the rest of the day getting ready for the dinner party. In his mind, he went over the people he knew who were important figures in Denver’s society circles, trying to remember if any of them had been particularly close to Pamela. He thought of several people he definitely wanted to talk to that evening. Even if they weren’t close, Pamela might have gotten in touch with them when she passed through Denver three years earlier.

  By the time the buggy picked him up at the hotel shortly before eight o’clock that evening, he didn’t look anything at all like Kid Morgan anymore. Elegantly dressed, carefully barbered, smelling a little of bay rum, he carried himself with the casual arrogance of the very wealthy. The people he would be seeing at the party would expect that of him.

  But in the back of his mind, he unexpectedly found himself thinking that he would have been happier in some lonely trail camp far from civilization, drinking Arbuckle’s and eating bacon and beans next to a campfire. He couldn’t help but wonder if The Kid was now the real person, and Conrad Browning only a pose.

  He put that thought out of his head. Conrad Browning was the father of those two children, so Conrad Browning he would be.

  The buggy’s driver was a burly, middle-aged black man. “Good evening, Mr. Browning.”<
br />
  “Good evening. We’ll need to pick up Miss Sullivan—” Conrad stopped short. “Blast it. I don’t know where she lives.”

  The driver smiled. “Mr. Hudson provided me with her address, sir. That’s where we’re going next.”

  “Excellent.” Conrad nodded. “Ellery usually thinks of everything. I suppose that’s what makes him such a good lawyer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The driver sent the buggy rolling over Denver’s cobblestone streets and pulled up a short time later in front of a boarding house.

  “Is this it?” Conrad asked.

  “Yes, sir. Miss Sullivan should be ready. Would you like me to fetch her?”

  Conrad stepped down from the buggy. “No, I’ll get her. I’m her escort for the evening, after all.”

  He went up the walk to the boarding house’s porch. The building was a gabled, three-story Victorian and appeared to be fairly new. It even had a bell-push next to the front door, instead of a knocker. Modern progress was everywhere in Denver.

  A middle-aged woman answered the door. She smiled at Conrad and said, “Oh, my goodness. You must be Mr. Browning. Rose has told me all about you.” She stepped back. “Please, come in. I’m Mrs. Sherman, her landlady.”

  As Conrad went into the foyer, he took off the soft black hat he was wearing. “I’m very pleased to meet you. Is Rose ready?”

  “I’m sure she is. I’ll just go and let her know you’re here.”

  Mrs. Sherman started toward the stairs, but before she could get there, Rose appeared at the second-floor landing. She started down the stairs, being careful in her descent.

  The long-sleeved, dark blue gown hugged Rose’s body closely enough to show it off to her advantage, and the square-cut neckline was low enough to reveal the start of the valley between her breasts. The glittering necklace she wore drew even more attention to that area. Fine white lace at the cuffs and neckline of the gown set off the dark blue color of the material. Her honey-blond hair hung down around her shoulders with an attractive wave now that it wasn’t pulled up on her head in a more conservative arrangement.