Cowboy Grace SS

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  Have you forgotten the meeting with Boyd’s? he’d asked on Monday.

  Do you want me to file Charlie’s extension? he’d demanded on Tuesday.

  Where the hell are you? he cried on Wednesday and she knew, then, that it was okay to call him, that not even the business could bring her home.

  Amazing how her training had prepared her for moments like these and she hadn’t even known it. She had savings, lots of them, because she hadn’t bought a house even though it had been prudent to do so. She had been waiting, apparently, for Mr. Right, or the family her mother had always wanted for her, the family that would never come. Her money was invested properly, and she could live off the interest if she so chose. She had just never chosen to before.

  And if she didn’t want to be found, she didn’t have to be. She knew how to have the interest paid through off-shore accounts so that no one could track it. She even knew a quick and almost legal way to change her name. Traceable, but she hadn’t committed a crime. She didn’t need to hide well, just well enough that a casual search wouldn’t produce her.

  Not that anyone would start a casual search. Once she sold the business, Michael would forget her and Alex and Carole, even though they would gossip about her at Oh Kaye’s every Friday night for the rest of their lives, wouldn’t summon the energy to search.

  She could almost hear them now: She met some guy, Carole would say. And he killed her, Alex would add, and then they would argue until last call, unless Carole found some man to entertain her, and Alex someone else to complain to. They would miss Grace only when they screwed up, when they needed a shoulder, when they couldn’t stand being on their own. And even then, they probably wouldn’t realize what it was they had lost.

  ***

  Because it amused her, she had driven north to Boise, land of the white collar, to make her cell call to Michael. Her offer to him was simple: cash her out of the business and call it his own. She named a price, he dickered half-heartedly, she refused to negotiate. Within two days, he had wired the money to a blind money market account that she had often stored cash in for the firm.

  She let the money sit there while she decided what to do with it. Then she went to Reno to change her name.

  Reno had been a surprise. A beautiful city set between mountains like none she had ever seen. The air was dry, the downtown tacky, the people friendly. There were bookstores and slot machines and good restaurants. There were cheap houses and all-night casinos and lots of strange places. There was even history, of the wild west kind.

  For the first time in her life, Grace fell in love.

  And to celebrate the occasion, she snuck into a quickie wedding chapel, found the marriage licenses, took one, copied down the name of the chapel, its permit number, and all the other pertinent information, and then returned to her car. There she checked the boxes, saying she had seen the driver’s licenses and birth certificates of the people involved, including a fictitious man named Nathan Reinhart, and viola! she was married. She had a new name, a document the credit card companies would accept, and a new beginning all at the same time.

  ***

  Using some of her personal savings, she bought a house with lots of windows and a view of the Sierras. In the mornings, light bathed her kitchen, and in the evenings, it caressed her living room. She had never seen light like this — clean and pure and crisp. She was beginning to understand why artists moved west to paint, why people used to exclaim about the way light changed everything.

  The lack of humidity, of dense air pollution, made the air clearer. The elevation brought her closer to the sun.

  She felt as if she were seeing everything for the very first time.

  And hearing it, too. The house was silent, much more silent than an apartment, and the silence soothed her. She could listen to her television without worrying about the people in the apartment below, or play her stereo full blast without concern about a visit from the super.

  There was a freedom to having her own space that she hadn’t realized before, a freedom to living the way she wanted to live, without the rules of the past or the expectations she had grown up with.

  And among those expectations was the idea that she had to be the strong one, the good one, the one on whose shoulder everyone else cried. She had no friends here, no one who needed her shoulder, and she had no one who expected her to be good.

  Only herself.

  Of course, in some things she was good. Habits of a lifetime died hard. She began researching the best way to invest Michael’s lump sum payment — and while she researched, she left the money alone. She kept her house clean and her lawn, such as it was in this high desert, immaculate. She got a new car and made sure it was spotless.

  No one would find fault with her appearances, inside or out.

  Not that she had anyone who was looking. She didn’t have a boyfriend or a job or a hobby. She didn’t have anything except herself.

  ***

  She found herself drawn to the casinos, with their clinking slot machines, musical come-ons, and bright lights. No matter how high tech the places had become, no matter how clean, how “family-oriented,” they still had a shady feel.

  Or perhaps that was her upbringing, in a state where gambling had been illegal until she was 25, a state where her father used to play a friendly game of poker — even with his friends — with the curtains drawn.

  Sin — no matter how sanitized — still had appeal in the brand-new century.

  Of course, she was too sensible to gamble away her savings. The slots lost their appeal quickly, and when she sat down at the blackjack tables, she couldn’t get past the feeling that she was frittering her money away for nothing.

  But she liked the way the cards fell and how people concentrated — as if their very lives depended on this place — and she was good with numbers. One of the pit bosses mentioned that they were always short of poker dealers, so she took a class offered by one of the casinos. Within two months, she was snapping cards, raking pots, and wearing a uniform that made her feel like Carole on a bad night.

  It only took a few weeks for her bosses to realize that Grace was a natural poker dealer. They gave her the busy shifts — Thursday through Sunday nights — and she spent her evenings playing the game of cowboys, fancy men, and whores. Finally, there was a bit of an Old West feel to her life, a bit of excitement, a sense of purpose.

  When she got off at midnight, she would be too keyed up to go home. She started bringing a change of clothes to work and, after her shift, she would go to the casino next door. It had a great bar upstairs — filled with brass, Victorian furnishings, and a real hardwood floor. She could get a sandwich and a beer. Finally, she felt like she was becoming the woman she wanted to be.

  One night, a year after she had run away from home, a man sidled up next to her. He had long blond hair that curled against his shoulders. His face was tanned and lined, a bit too thin. He looked road-hardened — like a man who’d been outside too much, seen too much, worked in the sun too much. His hands were long, slender, and callused. He wore no rings, and his shirt cuffs were frayed at the edges.

  He sat beside her in companionable silence for nearly an hour, while they both stared at CNN on the big screen over the bar, and then he said, “Just once I’d like to go someplace authentic.”

  His voice was cigarette growly, even though he didn’t smoke, and he had a Southern accent that was soft as butter. She guessed Louisiana, but it might have been Tennessee or even Northern Florida. She wasn’t good at distinguishing Southern accents yet. She figured she would after another year or so of dealing cards.

  “You should go up to Virginia City. There’s a bar or two that looks real enough.”

  He snorted through his nose. “Tourist trap.”

  She shrugged. She’d thought it interesting — an entire historic city, preserved just like it had been when Mark Twain lived there. “Seems to me if you weren’t a tourist there wouldn’t be any other reason to go.”


  He shrugged and picked up a toothpick, rolling it in his fingers. She smiled to herself. A former smoker then, and a fidgeter.

  “Reno’s better than Vegas, at least,” he said. “Casinos aren’t family friendly yet.”

  “Except Circus Circus.”

  “Always been that way. But the rest. You get a sense that maybe it ain’t all legal here.”

  She looked at him sideways. He was at least her age, his blue eyes sharp in his leathery face. “You like things that aren’t legal?”

  “Gambling’s not something that should be made pretty, you know? It’s about money, and money can either make you or destroy you.”

  She felt herself smile, remember what it was like to paw through receipts and tax returns, to make neat rows of figures about other people’s money. “What’s the saying?” she asked. “Money is like sex —”

  “It doesn’t matter unless you don’t have any.” To her surprise, he laughed. The sound was rich and warm, not at all like she had expected. The smile transformed his face into something almost handsome.

  He tapped the toothpick on the polished bar, and asked, “You think that’s true?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. Everyone’s idea of what’s enough differs, though.”

  “What’s yours?” He turned toward her, smile gone now, eyes even sharper than they had been a moment ago. She suddenly felt as if she were on trial.

  “My idea of what’s enough?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “I suppose enough that I can live off the interest in the manner in which I’ve become accustomed. What’s yours?”

  A shadow crossed his eyes and he looked away from her. “Long as I’ve got a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food in my mouth, I figure I’m rich enough.”

  “Sounds distinctly unAmerican to me,” she said.

  He looked at her sideways again. “I guess it does, don’t it? Women figure a man should have some sort of ambition.”

  “Do you?”

  “Have ambition?” He bent the toothpick between his fore- and middle fingers. “Of course I do. It just ain’t tied in with money, is all.”

  “I thought money and ambition went together.”

  “In most men’s minds.”

  “But not yours?”

  The toothpick broke. “Not any more,” he said.

  ***

  Three nights later, he sat down at her table. He was wearing a denim shirt with silver snaps and jeans so faded that they looked as if they might shred around him. That, his hair, and his lean look reminded Grace of a movie gunslinger, the kind that cleaned a town up because it had to be done.

  “Guess you don’t make enough to live off the interest,” he said to her as he sat down.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe I like people.”

  “Maybe you like games.”

  She smiled and dealt the cards. The table was full. She was dealing 3-6 Texas Hold ’Em and most of the players were locals. It was Monday night and they all looked pleased to have an unfamiliar face at the table.

  If she had known him better she might have tipped him off. Instead she wanted to see how long his money would last.

  He bought in for $100, although she had seen at least five hundred in his wallet. He took the chips, and studied them for a moment.

  He had three tells. He fidgeted with his chips when his cards were mediocre and he was thinking of bluffing. He bit his lower lip when he had nothing, and his eyes went dead flat when he had a winning hand.

  He lost the first hundred in forty-five minutes, bought back in for another hundred and managed to hold onto it until her shift ended shortly after midnight. He sat through dealer changes and the floating fortunes of his cards. When she returned from her last break, she found herself wondering if his tells were subconscious after all. They seemed deliberately calculated to let the professional poker players around him think that he was a rookie.

  She said nothing. She couldn’t, really — at least not overtly. The casino got a rake and they didn’t allow her to do anything except deal the game. She had no stake in it anyway. She hadn’t lied to him that first night. She loved watching people, the way they played their hands, the way the money flowed.

  It was like being an accountant, only in real time. She got to see the furrowed brows as the decisions were made, hear the curses as someone pushed back a chair and tossed in that last hand of cards, watch the desperation that often led to the exact wrong play. Only as a poker dealer, she wasn’t required to clean up the mess. She didn’t have to offer advice or refuse it; she didn’t have to worry about tax consequences, about sitting across from someone else’s auditor, justifying choices she had no part in making.

  When she got off, she changed into her tightest jeans and a summer sweater and went to her favorite bar.

  Casino bars were always busy after midnight, even on a Monday. The crowd wasn’t there to have a good time but to wind down from one — or to prepare itself for another. She sat at the bar, as she had since she started this routine, and she’d been about to leave when he sat next to her.

  “Lose your stake?” she asked.

  “I’m up $400.”

  She looked at him sideways. He didn’t seem pleased with the way the night had gone — not the way a casual player would have been. Her gut instinct was right. He was someone who was used to gambling — and winning.

  “Buy you another?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “One’s enough.”

  He smiled. It made him look less fierce and gave him a rugged sort of appeal. “Everything in moderation?”

  “Not always,” she said. “At least, not any more.”

  ***

  Somehow they ended up in bed — her bed — and he was better than she imagined his kind of man could be. He had knowledgeable fingers and endless patience. He didn’t seem to mind the scar on her breast. Instead he lingered over it, focussing on it as if it were an erogenous zone. His pleasure at the result enhanced hers and when she finally fell asleep, somewhere around dawn, she was more sated than she had ever been.

  She awoke to the smell of frying bacon and fresh coffee. Her eyes were filled with sand, but her body had a healthy lethargy.

  At least, she thought, he hadn’t left before she awoke.

  At least he hadn’t stolen everything in sight.

  She still didn’t know his name, and wasn’t sure she cared. She slipped on a robe and combed her hair with her fingers and walked into her kitchen — the kitchen no one had cooked in but her.

  He had on his denims and his hair was tied back with a leather thong. He had found not only her cast iron skillet but the grease cover that she always used when making bacon. A bowl of scrambled eggs steamed on the counter, and a plate of heavily buttered toast sat beside it.

  “Sit down, darlin’,” he said. “Let me bring it all to you.”

  She flushed. That was what it felt like he had done the night before, but she said nothing. Her juice glasses were out, and so was her everyday ware, and yet somehow the table looked like it had been set for a Gourmet photo spread.

  “I certainly didn’t expect this,” she said.

  “It’s the least I can do.” He put the eggs and toast on the table, then poured her a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar were already out, and in their special containers.

  She was slightly uncomfortable that he had figured out her kitchen that quickly and well.

  He put the bacon on a paper-towel covered plate, then set that on the table. She hadn’t moved, so he beckoned with his hand.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s getting cold.”

  He sat across from her and helped himself to bacon while she served herself eggs. They were fluffy and light, just like they would have been in a restaurant. She had no idea how he got that consistency. Her home-scrambled eggs were always runny and undercooked.

  The morning light bathed the table, giving everything a bright glow. His hair seemed even blonder in the sunlight and his ski
n darker. He had laugh lines around his mouth, and a bit of blond stubble on his chin.

  She watched him eat, those nimble fingers scooping up the remaining egg with a slice of toast, and found herself remembering how those fingers had felt on her skin.

  Then she felt his gaze on her, and looked up. His eyes were dead flat for just an instant, and she felt herself grow cold.

  “Awful nice house,” he said slowly, “for a woman who makes a living dealing cards.”

  Her first reaction was defense — she wanted to tell him she had other income, and what did he care about a woman who dealt cards, anyway? — but instead, she smiled. “Thank you.”

  He measured her, as if he expected a different response, then he said, “You’re awfully calm considering that you don’t even know my name. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who does this often.”

  His words startled her, but she made sure that the surprise didn’t show. She had learned a lot about her own tells while dealing poker, and the experience was coming in handy now.

  “You flatter yourself,” she said softly.

  “Well,” he said, reaching into his back pocket, “if there’s one thing my job’s taught me, it’s that people hide information they don’t want anyone else to know.”

  He pulled out his wallet, opened it, and with two fingers removed a business card. He dropped it on the table.

  She didn’t want to pick the card up. She knew things had already changed between them in a way she didn’t entirely understand, but she had a sense from the fleeting expression she had seen on his face that once she picked up the card she could never go back.

  She set down her coffee cup and used two fingers to slide the card toward her. It identified him as Travis Delamore, a skip tracer and bail bondsman. Below his name was a phone number with a 414 exchange.

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the surrounding areas. Precisely the place someone from Racine might call if they wanted to hire a professional.

  She slipped the card into the pocket of her robe. “Is sleeping around part of your job?”

  “Is embezzling part of yours?” All the warmth had left his face. His expression was unreadable except for the flatness in his eyes. What did he think he knew?