AHMM, September 2012
Page 8
“Could you mail it? We're catching a plane to Cozumel tonight; Maria needs a change in perspective,” I said, as we turned to leave.
As we walked out, the cell phone in my pocket began ringing. I heard Maria clear her throat. I took out the phone and dropped it in an industrial-sized shredder at the exit and continued out. Behind me, I heard Maria slap the shredder's start button, its starting roar, and the ring tone die.
Copyright © 2012 Doc Finch
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Fiction: FOOL'S GOLD
by Dee Long
It was spring. Like bears out of their caves, we'd all crawled out our shacks and come down through the pines. Some of us hadn't been off our claims in months, and we were all looking for a little antidote to the cabin fever that set in around the new year in Dark Timber and didn't let up until the snow melt. I squeezed my way in through the door at the Pole's and ordered a shot of the house rotgut. I sipped it as if it were a fine wine. The whole winter had passed, and I'd barely a dollar to show for it. After about ten minutes, Bea came over and made it clear that I had to either start drinking for real, start gambling, or start leaving, otherwise I was just taking up her real estate. It might have been the Pole's place, but Bea ran it.
I went over to the game. Doc was at the table, and that was usually a good sign. Everyone knew the Pole cheated, but when Doc was playing, the rest of us could usually get a straight game. This was because Doc was the only man in Dark Timber besides the Pole who was making any money out there—he owned the general store—and as a result, the Pole made a habit of fleecing him when he gambled. At that point, Doc was still winning, drinking, laughing. It'd keep on that way for a couple hours, until he was good and drunk, and then the Pole would start taking it all back. It'd end when the Pole said “closed,” the only word the Pole ever said.
Everyone knew the Pole cheated. Everyone knew, but we all played anyway. There were always a few winners—the Pole made sure of that—and the odds didn't really feel any longer at that table than they did on our claims, where a month of panning might get you a handful of dust.
I put down a nickel bet and Shaw called me tighter than a rusted screw. He had a jar on the table in front of him with what looked like a couple raisins floating inside. I asked him what they were.
“They're my good luck charms,” he grinned, showing me the toes he'd lost that winter. I wasn't sure how that constituted luck, but he did seem to draw a lot of doubles to split.
It was twenty-one. It was always twenty-one with the Pole. I don't think he knew any other game.
I played next to Vera. Vera never talked to anyone, but every now and then she'd shake her head or point that I should hit. I followed her advice and won more than I lost. More folks were coming in but nobody was leaving, and it got so that you couldn't turn sideways without spilling someone's drink. Once I got up a dollar I started drinking like Bea wanted me to, then McInney pulled out a nugget the size of a tooth and started buying rounds for everyone.
So I can't say when the stranger arrived. He was just there at some point, standing by the table, in a purple coat with tails and a big stovepipe hat. He had a watch on a gold chain tucked into the breast pocket of a vest that shined in the light of the room, and he was wearing pants that were almost skintight. Shaw took one look at him and started laughing till tears were coming out his eyes. When the stranger spoke, Shaw laughed even harder.
“Ma name eez Guy,” he said, “Pleeze, if I might have accommodation for the night.”
The whores were happy to accommodate him, but Doc waved them away, struggling to his feet.
“Monsieur,” he said, almost falling with a bow, “I will be happy to provide you with accomodations of the finest sort in Dark Timber, as soon as I have finished at this table.”
The stranger's nose twitched like a rabbit's. He was clearly nervous. The Pole watched him with narrowed eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” somebody asked.
“I come for gold,” the stranger said, plainly, at which point McInney let out a whoop and pushed a bottle into the man's slightly confused face.
“Well, then, drink up, Frenchie!” McInney commanded, “And tomorrow we'll all go out and get so much gold you'll buy the Eiffel Tower!”
Guy did as he was told, and pretty soon he was so lit that he was speaking to everyone in some other language that sounded like French. He had taken out a purse and picked up the tab for the house once McInney's nugget had played out, and so we all laughed and started toasting France, though I think he told us at some point that he was Belgian. Doc took him under his wing and endeavored to teach him twenty-one.
He lost of course. Round after round he lost, betting way too much and not even caring. All the rest of us were winning, though, and the Pole appeared to be willing to share the wealth of this particularly choice score, and so we all rejoiced and became Guy's best friends. Shaw and I told him we'd help put up his shack on the claim McInney was going to help him scout. Doc even pledged to set him up with a full prospecting kit in the morning, free of charge, “That's how Dark Timber is,” he said, which we all laughed at, including Doc.
I remember stepping outside to piss and spying the stranger's horse around the side of the shack. There was barely more than a bedroll on the animal. Of all the strange things about Guy, that probably struck me as the strangest. I didn't think too hard about it, though. It was after midnight, and we were all drunk, happy, and winning. On one particular hand, we all bet generously, but Guy bet immensely. Even in that state, we all took notice of the size of the bet. I saw a faint grin twitch across the Pole's typically stoic face.
The cards came. The Pole turned up an eighteen. The rest of us had nineteen or twenty, and we all raked in our cash and watched to see Guy bust again.
But Guy turned over an ace and a jack.
Twenty-one.
All the prospectors, Doc, and even some of the whores, cheered wildly. I glanced at the Pole. His face—it looked like he'd swallowed a turd.
Vera cashed out then and there. She left without a word.
Guy bet again. We all laid down our money.
Again, he won.
Twenty-one.
Most of the rest of us won, too, and the entire shack positively shook with our shouts. Only the Pole was silent, and he looked murderous.
On the next hand, everyone bet heavily.
This time, though, everybody lost.
Everybody, that is, except Guy.
When the current changed, it changed fast. Within a half dozen hands Guy was back in the black against the Pole while no one else had won a single hand. Everyone bowed out at that point, most of us up a bit, and simply watched the game. We cheered on Guy and watched the Pole's face became paler and paler as he lost again and again, a queer mix of nausea and rage flashing across it periodically.
And then Doc changed everything.
Instead of placing a bet down for himself, he put money on Guy, and challenged the Pole to cover.
The Pole hesitated, and in that moment the whole shack went silent. The Pole hesitated, and for the first time in anyone's memory there was weakness perceptible in his features, a fear. The expression passed in a moment and the Pole grimaced, as if such a sensation had been disagreeable to his pride. He let Doc's bet stand, and promptly began losing to both Guy and Doc.
A month in Dark Timber is a long time. I'd been there a year, but most of the folks at the Pole's that night had been there two or three years. Some had even been there as long as the Pole, who'd been there when the whole camp began, five years before. No one had ever seen the Pole lose. The whores, who'd merrily flitted about during the period of our collective prosperity, now dithered in uncertainty. Some of them hesitantly stayed with Guy, either because they figured the Pole would want them to get business, or because they felt the tide in Dark Timber was turning. Others rallied behind the Pole, who was livid and appeared to need support. Bea, however, staye
d at Guy's side.
We all started putting our money down on the Stranger's hands, and the Stranger kept winning. There was very little conversation now, the game had taken on a different complexion. Before, it'd been joyous, a kind of celebration, now it had taken on a tone more akin to an act of vengeance. There was a general feeling that the Pole had had this coming for a long time, and we all placed our invincible bets and silently watched him bleed.
He could have closed. He could have swallowed his pride, licked his wounds and tried to build back from that day, and I think everyone expected him to do just that, but he refused. He just kept going until the sky had gone grey outside the windows and a mountain of money lay on the table. At that point, the question arose as to whether the Pole could even cover the bets. He'd sent Bea away three different times in the course of the night to return, each time, with an identical black iron box full of cash, but he couldn't send her away anymore, it was clear, because there was nothing left to get. There was a bead of sweat running down over the Pole's eternally smooth brow. He was chewing his lip with a nervous tic I'd never seen. I remember glancing at Doc, who some time before had left the Pole's only to return with a wad of bills as thick as his fist. He was beaming. Guy spread his hands.
“I tell you what,” he said, and it seemed to me, at that moment, that his accent wasn't quite as pronounced as it had been before, “You cover their bets,” and Guy pointed to all of us around the table, “you cover their bets, as best you can, and I'll make up the difference. To even it, though,” and here Guy held up a single finger, “You will wager this entire establishment,” and Guy's hand swept over the room, “including the women ... against my horse.”
Guy smiled a thin, polite grin. The Pole never looked at him. He stared only at the money. Years of savings were piled there, not only his own but those of many of the men of Dark Timber. But for the Pole there was only his money, and it was all his money in his estimation, and to part with that money by anything other than force would have been like him tearing out his own heart with his hands and tossing it out into the street.
He nodded, once.
He dealt.
The Pole showed a seven. Guy had twelve. The stranger grinned, leaned back, hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets. He took out his fine, gold watch, and glanced at the time. Then he leaned over, cut the deck, and tapped the table. He waited for his card.
The Pole's face was inscrutable, not even a trace of a smile as he turned over a ten.
Twenty-two.
The feeling of a big loss, it's like falling in place, like disappearing a little, collapsing on the inside. Everyone felt it. Everyone but the Pole. We'd all lost. We'd all bet too much, but Guy and Doc were in the worse shape of all. They were white as sheets. The whores began to gather in the money. Bea drew a dagger as thin as a stilleto heel and pressed it to Guy's throat. “About that horse...” she said. The two of them went outside together, she with the dagger at his back. McInney puked over the bar. Shaw was weeping over his dismembered toes. The Pole said, “closed.”
We were all backing away from the table, trying to accept the awful reality of the morning, when a gunshot sounded just outside the door. We heard someone shout. We all flooded outside just in time to see Guy galloping away with Bea. She was holding onto him with one arm, and under the other she held one of the Pole's black iron cash boxes. The Pole had come out with us and roared an inhuman bellow at the vision of a large portion of his cash, his prize whore, and his brand new horse riding away with the stranger, and inside of a half hour he had his entire brothel saddled up and sallying forth as a posse. He rode at their head with a rifle and a gun, and after they cleared Dark Timber that morning none of them ever came back.
We were all dumbstruck and wandered back up the slopes to our shacks to try and piece together in our heads just what exactly had taken place. We spent a lot of the summer talking about it, sipping whiskey on the porch of the General Store. No one went near the Pole's, which was abandoned and felt like a cursed place, and no one gambled anymore either. The whole camp folded up a year later and I kept on drifting west.
* * * *
It took me years to make California. I went from South Dakota gold to Nevada silver to a long, drunken haze in Reno. Finally, I made it out to San Francisco on my way to chasing gold again, this time in the Yukon.
The day I found passage north, I wandered into a place called Comrades just up from the wharf. He was a good bit older, of course, and a bit more stooped, but it didn't take me a minute to recognize the Pole, tending bar behind a nice, varnished oak counter complete with a real, brass railing. He remembered me. Of course, people like him never forget a face, but to my surprise, he was genuinely warm toward me. His vocabulary, apparently, had expanded to include “welcome” because he kept saying it over and over to me, clapping me on the back and even setting me up with a free shot of whiskey. It was good stuff, too, a good deal better than anything we'd ever known in Dark Timber anyhow. It was while sipping that drink that, to my surprise, I spotted Bea.
She was dealing a card game in the corner of the room. It shocked me so much when I saw her that I had to move closer just to be sure it even was her, but despite the years, there could be no doubt. Either she didn't remember me, though, or she didn't want to, because our eyes met for just a moment before her gaze passed on, neutral, back to the game before her.
It was twenty-one. There were a half dozen or so players. One of them, his back to me, was betting big and losing. The other fellas at the table kept laughing and patting this man on the back, and he seemed indifferent toward his losses. I saw him order a round for everyone at the table.
I didn't have to hear his voice to know who it was; even after I heard his voice, and there was no accent at all in it, I knew who it was, just the same.
For a moment, I was almost angry. I gulped the last of the whiskey and let it burn right down to my heart. It didn't last, though. I simply buttoned up my parka and walked out into the San Francisco fog.
Hell.
Everyone knew the Pole cheated.
Copyright © 2012 Dee Long
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* * *
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED
by Robert C. Hahn
What can compare to the pleasure of discovery? To the joy of reading an author's debut novel and finding a unique voice and talent? And if that new author comes with authority in terms of subject matter, so much the better. This month we consider three debut crime novels by writers who write what they know; that is, their professional backgrounds include exposure to or experience with law and law enforcement.
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Elizabeth Haynes has served as an intelligence analyst for police in England, trying to determine patterns in criminal behavior that could be used to direct resources effectively. Her debut novel, Into the Darkest Corner (Harper, $24.99) is a chilling look at domestic violence.
At the beginning of this skillfully constructed novel, Lee Brightman is being questioned in court about his relationship with Catherine Bailey and denying that he harmed her. That brief court transcript doesn't include a verdict but it sets the stage for Haynes to compile two contrasting portraits of the same person. Before Brightman, a happy, outgoing Catherine Bailey enjoys clubbing with her girlfriends, drinking, dancing and occasionally hooking up with someone. Post-Brightman, Cathy Bailey is a frightened, obsessive-compulsive woman who shuns social contact and cannot leave her flat without checking five or six times that the door is properly locked. Haynes builds both pictures piece by piece as if the reader is seeing not one but two puzzles assembled simultaneously.
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Catherine meets Lee at a club. At first, he is handsome, charming, and attentive, and he impresses her girlfriends as a “keeper.” Gradually he insinuates himself into every aspect of Catherine's life, undermining her self-confidence and asserting more and more control over her behavior. Soon, Lee is thwarting her increas
ingly desperate attempts to leave.
Cathy's timeline begins in 2007 after she has left Lancaster and moved to a flat in London, where she tries to cope with her insecurities with endless daily rituals. A new tenant, psychologist Stuart Richardson, moves in, meets Cathy, and soon realizes that she suffers from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He manages, slowly, to befriend the timid and fragile young woman. But Cathy's gradual improvement almost disappears when she learns that Brightman is being released from prison. Even though she has moved away, she becomes convinced that he is again stalking her.
Haynes has crafted a superb thriller that is agonizing to read at times as Catherine/Cathy fights to escape her abuser and to regain her sanity.
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Canadian David Whellams has spent more than thirty years writing criminal law and amending the Criminal Code in areas such as dangerous offenders and terrorism. In Walking into the Ocean (ECW Press, $24.95), he introduces former Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Peter Cammon who, from time to time, emerges from retirement to help on particular cases.
Cammon is a cerebral sort who prefers to work alone and whose methods are unconventional but usually successful. His erstwhile Scotland Yard superior, Sir Stephen Bartleben, asks him to go to the coastal town of Whittlesun, where it appears that Andre Lasker has beaten his wife Anna to death and then stripped himself naked and walked into the sea to drown. Almost as an afterthought Bartleben mentions that the local police have their hands full trying to find a serial murderer.
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Initially, Cammon is asked to confine his investigation to the Lasker killing. Andre Lasker's drowned body has failed to turn up and after an initial examination of the situation, Cammon puts the odds of his still being alive at fifty-fifty. As Cammon visits the Lasker home and interviews those who knew them, he develops an understanding of their complex relationship and discovers reasons why Andre might have chosen to disappear.