Crooked Hearts

by Patricia Gaffney

  In a thoughtful mood, Grace returned the contents of Reuben’s desk to the proper drawers, and relocked them with her hairpins.

  A few minutes later, innocently seated on the sprung couch and perusing the newspaper, she heard the door open. Pretending absorption, she didn’t look up until he’d crossed the room, passed in front of her, and turned for the stairs. She only caught a glimpse of his profile, but it was enough to make her jump up, tossing the paper aside, and cry, “Holy saints, what happened to you?”

  His answer was garbled; he kept moving, shuffling up the steps at an uneven gait, holding one arm across his middle. At the top of the stairs, he turned toward the bathroom, and she followed him in without hesitation.

  “What happened?” she asked again. “You look like a cable car ran over you!”

  He went directly to the sink and peered at himself in the mirror. “Unhhh,” he groaned, and she could only echo his dismay: blood trickled from any number of places, most alarmingly from a jagged gash at the side of his mouth; one eyebrow was divided in half, possibly by a flying ring finger; if his nose wasn’t broken, it had at least been grossly insulted.

  “Sit down,” Grace ordered, taking his arm in what she thought was a gentle clasp, but he winced and yelped, “Ow!” She jerked back, startled. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Mph,” he said, closed the lid to the w.c, and carefully lowered himself until he was sitting on it. “They hung a shanty on me.”

  “Who did?”

  “The Croakers.”

  “No!” She thought of all five of them seated on the couch, like puppies in a humorous photograph. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it.”

  “What happened?” She found a clean towel and began to run hot water into the sink basin.

  “Rough story, Grace. Not fit for delicate ears.”

  She muttered an indelicate word. “Why did they do it? What have they got against you?”

  “Ow!” he yelled again when she held the hot cloth to his eyebrow. “Ow! Damn it!”

  “Don’t be such a baby. Sit still, I have to clean it.” She followed his retreating head until it struck the pipe to the overhead water tank, preventing further escape. “Don’t give me any trouble, Jones, or I’ll use alcohol,” she warned darkly.

  “Alcohol!” His battered face brightened. “Gus, go into my sock drawer—top right, bureau—and bring me that pint of bourbon at the bottom.”

  Without a word, she dropped the towel in the sink and obeyed. In his bedroom, she unscrewed the top to the pint bottle and took a delicate swig. Well, she rationalized, smothering a cough, cleaning blood and gore from a man’s face was no picnic for her either.

  “Thanks,” he said when she handed him the bourbon. “Care for a nip?”

  “No, thank you,” she said virtuously, “I never touch hard liquor.”

  He toasted her and drank deeply. After that, things went a little more smoothly. Reuben grew more talkative in proportion to his acquaintance with the bottle; by the time she’d cleaned his wounds and applied sticking plaster to the worst of his cuts, she knew the whole story.

  It had all started about a month ago, when he’d gone to Stockton on “business,” and also to locate a good poker game. Business over, he got into a high-stakes showdown with five men, four of them brothers. He’d figured out after a couple of hands of stud that somebody was cheating, but he couldn’t pin down who; it wasn’t until they were hours into the game that he realized it was all five of them, taking turns. By then he was practically broke.

  On the last hand, he decided to bet Old Blue, a pet name for the faithful, but fake, silver mine for which he’d been carrying around phony stock certificates for years, betting or selling them as the need arose. They were allegedly worth about two thousand dollars. The Croakers beat him again—three aces and a pair of queens to four miserable treys. He handed over his stock certificates and got the hell out of town.

  So who did he run into at McDougal’s Card Palace on Kearny Street not two weeks later? All five of them. They’d lied about being Stockton boys for the same reason he had, so their deeds couldn’t follow them home. Not surprisingly, they were annoyed with him. Using his natural charm, however, he’d placated them and bought a two-week extension on his debt. It had come due this morning.

  Grace shuddered, remembering the leader’s gravel-voiced solicitousness. “And I thought he was nice. Now I just think he’s spooky.”

  “Yes, there is that about Lincoln,” Reuben agreed, rubbing light fingers over his ribs. “But I’m feeling rather fond of him at the moment.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “He’s the only one who didn’t hit me.”

  She shivered again.

  “Then too, he was kind enough to grant another extension on the two grand—one more week.”

  “That’s not kindness,” she scoffed, “that’s good business. If they kill you, you’ll never pay them back.”‘

  “That was mentioned.” He stood up slowly. “I have to lie down now.”

  She followed him into the bedroom, and didn’t protest when he lay down on his own bed, even though she’d begun to think of it as hers. “Aren’t you going to take off your shoes?” she asked, reaching for the folded blanket at the foot of the bed.

  “Can’t. Too stiff. Would you do it for me? Ah, Sister Augustine, you’re an angel of mercy.”

  She remembered the last time he’d called her an angel of mercy, and yanked off his shoes with unnecessary force. “What am I supposed to do while you’re lying here recovering?” she asked crossly. “From wounds you brought on yourself, I might add. Why don’t you have any food in your house? Were you hoping to starve me out?”

  He grinned, then groaned when the movement tore at the sticking plaster on his lip. “Around the corner on Sansome,” he said carefully, “there’s a restaurant called Belle’s. Great corned beef, lousy stew, pretty good pie. They know me there. Say my name and they’ll fix you up.”

  Her mouth had begun to water. “Thanks. What do I use for money?”

  He made a magnanimous gesture with one hand. “Tell ’em to put it on my tab.”

  “Okay.” She stood still, reluctant to leave. “Well.” She quit fidgeting with the blanket edge, jerked it up and tucked it around his chest. “You’ll be all right, I assume,” she said brusquely. “By yourself, I mean.”

  The brown eye that wasn’t bloodshot winked at her. “Fine. I’m going to sleep. Thanks for the first aid, Gus. You’ve got great hands.”

  “Head hurt?”

  “Mm.”

  “It’s probably the bourbon.”

  He stroked the bruised bridge of his nose, wincing. “It’s not the bourbon. Oh, Grace,” he remembered as she turned away. “Be sure to wake me up by three o’clock, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve still got business to take care of,” he answered importantly.

  She leaned against the doorpost and folded her arms. “You want to visit as many post offices as you can before they close,” she guessed silkily. “To see who might’ve enrolled in the International Society of Literature, Science, and Art while you were out of town.”

  It was a deep, warming pleasure to watch his mouth drop open. He regarded her for a long time in silent speculation. “You rummied my desk,” he said at last, and there was a gratifying note of wonder in his voice, maybe even admiration.

  She smiled modestly.

  “What’d you use?”

  “A pick and a little homemade tension wrench.”

  “Which you just happened to have on you?”

  “A girl’s got to be prepared. No,” she chuckled, “I made them.”

  “You made them?”

  “Out of hairpins.”

  “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly.

  She shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “Three o’clock, Gus, wake me up. And then I want to see you crack that lock. I want to see it.”


  She shrugged again, then expanded it into a lazy stretch. “If I feel like it,” she said airily. “Sleep tight.” She closed the door with exaggerated gentleness and tiptoed away.

  4

  I don’t know of anything better than a woman if you want to spend money where it’ll show.

  —Kin Hubbard

  “‘TWO TRAVELERS ON THE stagecoach disappeared immediately following the robbery, absconding with the captured gunman’s horse. One is believed to have been posing as a Catholic nun, for purposes of illegal charitable soliciting. The other, a man calling himself Edward Cordoba, allegedly from Monterey, is suspected of feigning blindness for unknown reasons. Police are unsure of the connection between the two missing passengers and the stage holdup, if any. According—’”

  “Why do they say posing as a Catholic nun?” Grace interrupted, scowling at a pink chunk of corned beef on the end of her fork. It was her second meal that day at Belle’s. “Why do they think I wasn’t a nun? They’ve got no evidence, none at all.”

  “‘According to San Mateo sheriff’s deputies—’”

  “They’re just guessing.”

  “‘According to—’”

  “That really galls me.”

  Reuben sighed and looked up at her over the top of page nine of the Daily Examiner.

  “I take pride in my work, and I don’t appreciate being slandered in the newspaper as a poser by some incompetent, second-guessing sheriff.”

  “Maybe they checked up on the Blessed Sisters of Bewilderment,” he suggested mildly.

  “Hope,” she corrected, “the Blessed Sisters of Hope.”

  “You mean they really exist?”

  She popped the meat into her mouth and chewed it unhurriedly, staring at him across the table. She was figuring the angles, he knew, trying to decide if there was any reason to keep lying. “No,” she finally conceded.

  “There you are, then.”

  “They probably checked,” she agreed grudgingly. “That’s the only way they could know. Because I never let it go, never, not even when that slimy son of a gun was pawing me.”

  “I never let it go either,” Reuben pointed out, “but I never get any credit for it. I was Edward Cordoba to the end.” (In the jargon of flimflam, you “let it go” if you stepped out of character while running a skin game.)

  “That’s different. Why should you get any credit for that?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because Fireplug could’ve killed me! I might’ve died while you were being true to Edward Cordoba!”

  Not that again. He drummed his knuckles on the table, annoyed because she had him and she knew it. He guessed it was an advantage she planned to keep reminding him of forever.

  “So, go on,” she said, satisfied, leaning back against the high leather banquette in their secluded booth at Belle’s. “What’s it say about the robbery?”

  The small piece of raw steak she’d made him stick on his swollen eyebrow came unstuck and fell in his lap. He retrieved it absently, deposited it on his plate, and went back to reading. “‘According to San Mateo sheriff’s deputies, the only objects stolen from the traveling art exhibit were an undetermined number of funerary sculpture pieces, among them a jade dragon used as a tomb guardian during the Wei period, a Han earthenware unicorn, and twelve calendrical representations from the Ming dynasty.’”

  “Eleven,” Grace amended smugly.

  “‘Priceless paintings, scrolls, and ceramics were left behind by the miscreants, for motives the police have not yet determined. The captured Chinaman has refused to speak, and at last report had not even divulged his name.’”

  Reuben folded the paper and laid it aside, reaching for the mug of beer at his elbow. He took a sip, then gingerly pressed the cold glass to his eyebrow, grimacing. “So. Fireplug won’t talk.”

  “Maybe that piece of paper has his name on it,” she theorized. “If so, we did him a favor when we lifted it.”

  “Mm. My friend with the curio shop can find out what it says.”

  She looked unimpressed. “I can take it to the local laundry and find out what it says.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the fewer people who know about this, the better. Especially since we don’t know what the paper says yet,”

  “What difference does it make?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve got something on your mind, haven’t you? Something besides making sure you’re not connected to the robbery.”

  Instead of answering, he set his elbows on the table and leaned toward her, the picture of earnest entreaty. In his best you-can-trust-me voice, he asked, “How much money did you lose in the robbery, Grace?”

  “I told you, it’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, come on,” he coaxed. “I came straight with you about the Croakers, didn’t I? I lost almost two thousand dollars, and I need forty-five hundred by next Tuesday. How much more forthcoming can I be?”

  She played with the buttons at the wrist of her new India silk day dress, probably admiring the contrast between the dark burgundy and the white skin of her long, slender hand. She had a new cape, too, black with a cream satin lining, hanging on a hook behind her. He hoped she was remembering that neither the gown nor the cape, nor her new high-button walking shoes, had come cheap, and that he hadn’t so much as batted an eye when he’d heard the price. In fact, after she’d modeled the burgundy silk for him this afternoon in Miss Jolie’s Fashion Salon and Ready-to-Wear, he’d parted with his money without a peep.

  His hard-earned money, make that. They’d traipsed around town to four different post offices before going to Miss Jolie’s, and from each box he’d collected half a week’s worth of pickings from his numerous business enterprises. “Slim pickings,” Grace had labeled them, and he’d had to admit to her that his rackets were currently in a slump. Which, to Reuben’s mind, made his generosity all the more commendable. Naturally he expected to be repaid, at a rate of interest he hadn’t told her about yet, as soon as her husband wired money in response to the telegram she’d sent him earlier in the day. But still. He’d bought the clothes she was wearing, the meal she was eating—the bed she’d be sleeping in again tonight. Even on Grace Rousselot’s cockeyed scale of justice, that ought to earn him one honest answer.

  “Okay,” she said finally, “I’ll tell you. On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you promise not to whistle.”

  Reuben looked down at the unappetizing slurry of ground beef, mashed potatoes, and applesauce on his plate. “I can’t even chew.” The Croakers had loosened one of his molars.

  She swept the half-empty restaurant with a glance, bent forward, and mouthed, “Four.”

  “Four?”

  She sat back.

  “Four what? Hundred?”

  She looked disgusted.

  “Four thousand? Four thousand dollars?”

  “Shh!” She took a sip of coffee, relishing his amazement.

  “And you collected all that as Sister Augustine?” he hissed.

  She smiled.

  “How long did it take?”

  “About three weeks.”

  He muttered a number of oaths and curses in a language she wouldn’t understand. “I’ve been running the wrong gyps,” he marveled, shaking his head over and over. “Christ almighty, I should’ve been playing a priest.”

  “Three long, grueling weeks,” she pointed out. “And don’t think it’s just a matter of putting on a clerical collar and waiting for people to start throwing money at you. It’s an art.”

  “Art, shmart. I watched you on the stagecoach with Sweeney, don’t forget. He was going for his wallet even before you started batting your eyes at him.”

  “Art, shmart?” Obviously she’d never heard that expression. “Anyway,” she sniffed, “I don’t bat my eyes.”

  “The hell you don’t.” She also blushed, wept, pouted her lips,
and stuck her chest out whenever she thought it would get her where she wanted to go.

  “We’re getting off the subject,” she snapped. “I’ve told you how much the thieves got from me. Are you thinking of doing something about it?”

  “How badly do you need the money back?”

  “You’ve got a really irritating habit, you know that? Of answering a question with a question.”

  He folded his arms and waited.

  “I’m not in debt, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Nobody’s going to beat me up if I don’t get it back.”

  “What do you need it for?”

  “Medical bills,” she answered too quickly.

  “You look pretty healthy to me.” His leer wasn’t successful; he couldn’t raise his bad eyebrow high enough, and he winced when he tried to smirk.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but my husband…” She looked down, took a deep breath, looked up. “My husband,” she got out with a catch in her voice, “has a bad heart.”

  Oh, she was very, very good. So good, he wasn’t a hundred percent positive she was lying. “That would be Henri, the entrepreneur?” he asked neutrally.

  “He’s a former entrepreneur. I forgot to tell you he’s retired.”

  “Aha.”

  “Aha,” she mimicked, impatient. “Back to the question, Mr. Jones. What’s your interest in my financial affairs? What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?”

  He acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “What I’ve got in mind is pretty simple, Mrs. Rousselot. Being such a smart lady, you’re probably already there ahead of me.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.” She smiled to disarm him.

  It worked; he lost his train of thought for a second, caught up in the sly, unexpected friendliness of that smile. It took a big gulp of beer to get his wits back. “I’m suggesting that you and I don’t take the combined loss of six thousand dollars lying down,” he said softly. “I’m suggesting we take steps to get it back. Together.”

  The quick gleam in her eye, there and gone in a second, proved his suggestion hadn’t taken her by surprise. She pushed her plate to the side and rested her chin on her twined fingers. “How?”