Buchanan's Revenge

by Jonas Ward

  "This, I suppose, is a private joke," Lime said edgily.

  Buchanan turned the grin on him. "Yes, sir," he said, "it is." He swung away from the table, walked out of the place with Hal Harper dogging his heels like a terrier.

  "Why didn't you tell me you knew that girl?" the gambler demanded when they were on the boardwalk.

  "Don't recall that you asked."

  "There's something between you two. What is it?"

  Buchanan laughed at the other man's eagerness.

  "What would you say if I told you we slept together the last two nights?" he asked mischievously.

  "I'd say you were lying or dreaming," Harper answered. "Or both."

  "And if I said she makes her living the same way you do—betting suckers they can't make twenty-one?"

  "I'd know you were lying."

  "Right," Buchanan said. "Listen, do you know where this hacienda is located?"

  "Where that wild bunch is? Sure. It's out on the old Wagon Road, about five miles. But you ain't going to let me down tonight, are you? I mean, you're paid in advance and all."

  "I'm bought and paid for," Buchanan assured him.

  "Whew! Let's get down to the Crystal Palace then and see if this is really my night to howl." They started walking toward the bright lights of the casino section when Harper spoke up again. "Seriously," he said, "did you really sleep with that queen?"

  "No."

  "Where did you meet her, then?"

  "In a little town north of here."

  "What was she doing?"

  "She was dealing blackjack," Buchanan said. "Like I told you."

  Harper looked up at him. "Now," he said, "I don't know what to believe."

  Buchanan put a hand on the gambler's shoulder. "Just believe this about Cristy Ford: you met a real fine person tonight."

  They entered the Crystal Palace.

  Nine

  JOHN LIME had been obtuse when he said he knew Hal Harper by reputation. In plain fact he knew everything about the dealer that he possibly could learn, and about everyone else who worked in the Crystal Palace—from the chief cashier to the third porter—because the sheriff of Brownsville was not a partner in the city's most profitable gambling house. He owned it outright.

  It was a spacious place, with a domed ceiling that muted the noise, crystal chandeliers that hung from solid silver chains, deep carpeting on the oaken floor, a forty-foot by eight-foot oil painting behind the bar that depicted the epochal meeting of Diana and Apollo in some Olympian glen, and a dozen equally voluptuous real-life Dianas who brought liquid refreshments to the gamblers at the tables and were not available—professionally—for anything else.

  For John Lime, too, had been in New Orleans, and San Francisco, and Chicago and New York. And if he tried to bring the sophistication and refinement of those cosmopolitan cities to the rough and rowdy border town of Brownsville he could only be blamed for just that—trying. You could import the best of everything into Brownsville but you had to take what humans happened to come your way.

  As a result, the Crystal Palace presented a strange nurture of exotic, high-minded decor inhabited by a breed of rough-spoken, hard-handed, free-wheeling gambling men who appreciated nothing more in life so much as an ace in the hole. Oh, they looked at Diana on the wall and marveled at her monumental charms. And guessed at the cost of the chandeliers. And, by and large, accepted the chastity of the hostesses as inviolable. But unlike their gentler brethren in other towns, they made no bones about the fact that their main purpose inside the Crystal Palace was to gamble and win money.

  Which John Lime came to understand, and accept-along with his percentage of all the money dropped at the tables—as did Hal Harper, who sincerely appreciated the attempt that had been made to give the Crystal Palace tone.

  Harper, as he led Buchanan through the gambling casino to his own table, mentioned the various appointments with a kind of personal pride.

  "Them chandeliers come from Italy," he said. "Direct copies of the exact thing in the palace ballroom. How much you think they cost?"

  "Plenty," Buchanan said.

  "Five thousand per," Harper said. "And there's twelve of 'em. How do you like that painting?"

  "Big," Buchanan said.

  "Biggest one behind any bar in the world. And oil, too. I got up there one morning and felt it by hand. All bumpy-like. The real thing."

  "Sure is big," Buchanan said.

  "You feel that rug under your feet? That's one hundred sad fifty separate carpets all sewn together. Goes clear from one wall to the other. Look down. Can you tell where it was sewed?"

  "Nope."

  "You got to get on your hands and knees, in the daylight I mean, that's first class."

  They came, at last, to where he worked, a rectangular able with chairs for six players on one side and a curved-out slot on the other for himself.

  "A lot of money went into this place," Harper said, shedding his coat and high-crowned hat. "And I want to warn you about one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Don't make a pass at the girls when they come around. It’s a house rule."

  "I'll watch it," Buchanan promised.

  "Look 'em over, though," Harper said. "If you see one you like I'll fix it up for you." He winked. "I got connections," he said.

  "I'll bet."

  Two men came up to the table then, their faces serious, took chairs without a word of greeting and sat there waiting. A colored boy appeared, holding two decks of cards, and threw them atop the felt-topped table.

  "Would you open one of those, mister, and count 'em?" Harper said casually, "like to have a man pick his own poison."

  As the man unwrapped the fresh deck Buchanan drifted unobtrusively backward, lowered his big frame into one of the spectator seats nearby. He glanced then at Harper, who shook his head to tell him neither of these was the one he was worried about.

  Play began, for token stakes, and though one of the bettors began to win, Harper held his losses to a minimum by scoring against the other. The winner, after twenty minutes, upped the value of his cards to two dollars, doubling the amount whenever he was dealt an ace. And, as Buchanan had been expecting he would, Harper began to concentrate a little more deliberately on that man's layout and to change his tactics. It was, of course, the old come-on. The dealer begins the game in a wild fashion, taking unlikely risks and going over twenty-one himself more often than not. And instead of noting the dealer's chance-taking, the opponent too often credits his own skillful play for his winnings. He doubles his bets, as this one did, and anticipates a killing. Abruptly, the game changes pace. The dealer no longer takes new cards for himself like a bear in a honey barrel. He begins to stand pat on sixteen, even fourteen, and unless his opponent really has Lady Luck standing behind his chair, the old law of averages catches him. Now his game becomes the wild one and he doubles the bet again to recoup. Good money chasing bad, and it all has a way of winding up beside the dealer's elbow.

  Another player joined the game, and a fourth, but still no warning signal from Harper. The blackjack game droned on—exciting enough when you're playing but deadly dull to watch. At least it was for Buchanan, who by this time had figured the gambler's style, observed enough small mannerisms to believe that he could give him a lively time across the table. That, however, didn't seem very sporting, somehow. To beat Harper using the man's own twenty-five dollars for a stake . . .

  There was a stir nearby and Buchanan looked to see that John Lime had included the Crystal Palace in Cristy's tour of the city. He smiled at the look of surprise the girl feigned as the sheriff demonstrated how a roulette wheel worked, and the birdcage dice, and explained the meaning of all the numbers painted on the side of the big craps table. Slowly they were working their way in his direction and Buchanan was curious to hear what Lime was going to tell her about blackjack.

  Hal Harper, in their honor, interrupted his game, rose from the slot and bowed politely. The other players followed suit.


  "Perhaps Miss Ford would like to play a few hands?" Harper suggested.

  "You mean—gamble?" Cristy said, so convincingly that Harper threw Buchanan an accusing look.

  "Go on, Cristina," Lime said. "You might find it diverting."

  "Oh, but I couldn't. Really-"

  "Of course you can, my dear," Lime insisted, taking a wallet from his coat and extracting a fifty dollar bill. "You just sit there and I'll explain how to play."

  Cristy's eyes, by force of habit, followed the course of the bill across the table with hawklike interest.

  "Fifty ones?" Harper asked, preparing to break it. "Or ten fives?"

  "Five tens," Lime told him. "We'll give you a run for it."

  "John, really, I couldn't," Cristy was still protesting demurely when her glance happened to lock with Buchanan. He was grinning at her from ear to ear. She turned her face to Lime. "All right," she said. "If you insist." She sat down in the chair opposite the slot and the play began. Buchanan edged closer to the table, remained standing to get a full view of what was going to happen here. By mutual consent it was to be just she and Harper.

  On the first face-up card, Cristy was dealt a nine spot. Lime, peering at the hole card, advised her to take another. She did and it was an eight.

  "Well, we lose," Lime said, turning the cards over.

  "We do?"

  "Yes. You see, my dear, there was a five in the hole. That plus the seventeen makes twenty-two, one over the limit."

  "Oh, I see," Cristy said.

  Harper dealt again, one down, one up. A jack was showing and Lime leaned down to see the other card. He told her to take a third card. She nodded to Harper and he dealt a second jack.

  "Well," Lime said, "we lose again. Those two jacks gave us twenty-four."

  "Yes," Cristy said sweetly. "I know."

  "Just bad luck, that's all," Hal Harper said sympathetically, but only Buchanan could enjoy the true meaning in the girl's expression at the gambler's remark. Bad luck? it said. That was plain stupid playing.

  The third hand was dealt. This time the king of hearts was the up card. Lime took his peek at the hidden one.

  "This time, my dear, we'll play these."

  "No, John, let's try one more."

  "But-"

  "One more, please," Cristy said firmly.

  "Better listen to Mr. Lime," Harper said. "He knows this game like an expert."

  "Another card," Cristy said. "Please."

  Harper shrugged, peeled the card from the top of the deck. It was an eight, making a total of eighteen showing, and Harper actually looked like he was sorry he'd, won.

  But had he?

  "Now we have enough," Cristy was saying. "Don't you think so, John?"

  "Yes, my dear," Lime said, his voice admiring. "Now it's your turn, Mr. Harper, isn't it?" Cristy said with an innocent smile.

  "It sure is," Harper replied. His up card was the jack and now he looked to see what he had in the hole. "The dealer takes another," he announced. It was the four of clubs. "All right, Miss," he said. "The dealer pays twenty."

  "Why, that's just what we have, isn't it, John?" And she did, eighteen up and a two spot under. Cristy won the fourth hand, the fifth and the sixth, each time gently but firmly overruling Lime's "expert" advice. Harper had just begun dealing the seventh round when there was an objection raised in a surly, ill-tempered voice.

  "Whatta you doin', dealer?" Jules Perrott snarled. "Tryin' to cut me out 'cause I got your number?" He pulled a chair out, sat down in it defiantly, and Buchanan didn't need any signal from Harper to know that this raw-boned, tough talking newcomer was the one he'd been hired to handle. He shifted his position so that he was behind the slot.

  "Deal me in, small man," Perrott demanded. "I bet a hundred."

  John Lime walked to where he was seated. "There are other tables where you can play blackjack," he said to him. "Go find yourself one."

  Perrott surveyed the other man with an insolent leer, paid particular attention to the fact that Lame had come out for a social evening unarmed.

  "I like it right here, dude," he said. "And tonight I'm gonna break this game for good."

  "I'm ordering you to move," Lime said tightly. "In fact, I’m ordering you out of this casino altogether." Perrott laughed up at him, slid his hand back along his belt to the protruding gun butt. Lime turned halfway around, searching for a deputy.

  Buchanan had quit watching the argument a moment before. He was looking down at Cristy, reading the expression of startled concern in her beautiful face. He glanced sharply at the newcomer again, took a step to his left that put the length of the table between them.

  Perrott had laughed in John Lime's face, moved his long fingers to the .44. "Whatta you mean, you're orderin'," he asked menacingly. "Nobody orders me—"

  "Stand up, mister," Buchanan's voice said, cracking like a whip. The seated man switched his attention swiftly. "Are you Gill?" Buchanan asked. "Or Perrott?"

  "What's it to you?"

  "Gill or Perrott?" Buchanan repeated.

  "I'm Jules Perrott! So what?"

  "Mr. Lime," Buchanan said, "take Cristy out of the way. Harper, the rest of you—back off."

  "No, Tom!" Cristy cried out.

  "Get her out of the way," Buchanan said again, his wintry gaze boring into Perrott's face. Lime pulled the girl from the chair, moved her aside. Hal Harper and the other players jumped clear.

  "Say, boy," Jules Perrott drawled, "what the hell's goin' on here tonight?" He accompanied it with a lazy smile, but his own scowling, deep-set little eyes watched Buchanan intently.

  "A shiny new red wagon," Buchanan said. "The Double-B Fast Freight. Remember it?"

  "Maybe."

  "A 'B' for Bogan and a 'B' for Buchanan. I'm Buchann-"

  Jules Perrott fired without leaving his seat. Fired through an open-end swivel holster that he kept greased for times just like this. That sneak shot was his favorite; and there wasn't a man in Leech's gang who wasn't wary of him for it. Perrott fired through the holster and then did leave his seat. He was blown clear out of the char by a slug from Buchanan's Colt that caught him almost dead center. Off center about one-sixteenth of an inch Buchanan hit him with two more before the man's boots had reached the carpeted floor, then swung around, searchingly.

  "Fred Perrott, you here?" he called out to the stunned room. "Are you here, Sam Gill? Now's your chares, boys!"

  They weren't present and Buchanan holstered the smoking .45 until the next time. That was the signal that released the onlookers.

  "Jeezu!" Hal Harper breathed for them all. "I'll tell the world you can use that thing."

  John Lime agreed, was impressed, but the thin-skinned and position-conscious sheriff was having some immediate second thoughts on what had occurred and he didn't like at all the role in which he'd been cast. He could hear Buchanan ordering him around, relegating him to shepherd, to common spectator. And not only in front of this impressionable crowd but before the eyes of the young lady he, himself, was trying to impress. Second best was not for John Lime, and now he acted impulsively to regain face. "Buchanan!"