Aces Wild

by Taylor Lee

  Gabe persisted. “I thought Harcourt was a financial guy. That was the impression he gave me. Sure never mentioned anything about a ranch. But I can tell you he’s making money somewhere from the looks of his clothes and the like.”

  “I dunno. Gabe. I just know he hangs around here a hell of a lot more than I like. Like we don’t know that he’s sniffin’ around Miss Ana. But shit, that only makes him like eighty percent of the men within five counties.’

  Gabe felt his stomach clench. Why would he be surprised? He had seen what happened at the party. Ana didn’t want to be there that was clear, but every man there was glad she was. Hell, it was like watching a swarm of bees circling the queen.

  ~~~

  He said good night to Clem, then headed into the barn to saddle up Wild Card, his stallion. He planned to meet Gunnar and Eagle at Shorty’s. A big bottle of whisky sounded pretty damn good. He heard a noise and assumed Clem had remembered something else. He turned to see Kai standing in the shadows,

  Gabe shoved down his annoyance. Christ, this was all he needed tonight. First, an altercation with Ana and now her damned brother. What did he want? A rematch? From what he could see in the shadows, Kai’s eye was swollen shut, his lip was split, and there was a nasty bruise on one cheek. Hell, Gabe thought, if this is what he looked like after the healers got him cleaned up, no wonder Chao thought he didn’t look human? The worst part was that Gabe was intentionally easy on the kid’s face. Sure, he’d wanted him to have marks. Something he couldn’t hide, couldn’t run from. But the real damage was on places that didn’t show. He’d be surprised if Kai didn’t have at least a couple of broken ribs. And that shoulder joint, if he hadn’t dislocated it, then Gabe was losing his touch.

  Gabe reached in his vest and took out his cigarette case. May as well enjoy a smoke while the kid decided if his was brave enough to take him on again. In the flair of the match, he got a closer look at Kai. He didn’t look angry. He looked scared.

  “What can I do for you, Kai?” Gabe made a point of calling him by his name. Think he’s earned the right to not be called kid. Hell, at least he was walking. That showed something. Guess he’d find out soon enough if he was talking.

  Kai stared at him for a long moment. The tension vibrated off of him

  “What was that you were doing?”

  “Ah, can you be a little more specific, Kai. What was I doing other than beating the shit out of you?”

  Kai’s face flushed and a spark of anger flared in his eyes. He took a visible breath and muttered, “What were doing to me when you had me down on the ground?”

  Gabe nodded. “Oh, yeah, that. It’s called savate, French kickboxing. I picked it up in the alleyways in Boston. Used it to throw off those big tough Irish brawlers who thought it was fun to beat the crap out of a kid smaller than they were.”

  When Kai didn’t speak, Gabe shrugged.

  “It’s a nice addition to Kung Fu. Unexpected. Especially if your opponent is Chinese trained. Now I use it to surprise a fighter like you.”

  “Will you teach me?”

  Gave studied him for a long moment. He saw the determination on his face. Fierceness had replaced anger. He looked earnest. Young.

  “Yeah, Kai, I will. I told you last night, you have the potential to be a great fighter. I have a partner I’m gonna introduce you to. I taught him for the same reasons I’m willing to teach you. I needed him, bad. To protect me, watch my back when I’m absorbed in my poker gambits. Only problem was he had so much anger that I couldn’t count on him. Savate is a terrific rage reducer. You’d be amazed how twenty minutes kicking the shit out of someone can burn off tension. And what it does to the other guy isn’t pretty. An added bonus.”

  ~~~

  Gabe nudged Wild Card to a gallop. His stallion couldn’t go fast enough to satisfy Gabe’s churning gut. Getting as far away from Chao Li’s ranch as possible was critical, essential. His brain was buzzing like a hive of wasps had taken up residence, scaring away rational thought. Riding hard and riding fast would help. So would meeting with Gunnar and Eagle.

  His partners had been his lifeline to sanity for years now. Somehow, the unlikely trio of damaged men had created a safe haven, a sanctuary where the demons that drove each of them were held at bay. It wasn’t a physical place. It was more than that. It was an unspoken agreement. Whoever was the strongest at the moment stepped in to beat back the devils tormenting his partners. The beauty of the unlikely arrangement was that none of the three ever mentioned it. It was too sacred, too necessary to discuss. It was just there, making sure that each of them would survive, hell, maybe even thrive. Given the specters that haunted them, each man was relieved to survive. Thriving was an impossible goal, better left to better men, more deserving men.

  Gabe allowed his frustration to boil up. What the hell was wrong with Chao? If anyone besides his partners knew who Gabe was, it was Chao. And here he was practically giving him permission to court his daughter. Jesus, didn’t he know? Gabe didn’t court, he dallied. No, that was too fine a take on it. He fucked. As many women and as often as he felt the need. Thinking back over the last decade, that need had damn well driven his life. The more anonymous the sex, the better. Names weren’t necessary and repeat performances sure as hell weren’t. That didn’t mean he wasn’t polite, a gentleman. Women raved about him, not only his skills, but his courtesy. He didn’t make them feel cheap, just lucky to make the infamous Angel’s roster.

  Now, somehow, some way, a haughty little princess was making him take a fresh look at that roster and the behavior that created it. Looking at it through her uninitiated eyes, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Anger swept over him. Who did Ana think she was? A reformer? The one woman who was going to make Angel rethink his wanton ways? Ha! That was an unlikely scenario.

  Ana didn’t know how natural, how ingrained, how unexceptional his behavior was. She didn’t know Rory McKenna, U. S. Senator Rory McKenna. But that conniving wimp Peter Harcourt did. Peter was right about his father. Senator McKenna was a household name in every brothel on the east coast. It wasn’t just whores that enticed the unrepentant Irishman. In fact, his primary passion was society matrons the wives and daughters of other powerful men. The better to underscore his power, rub his prowess in the face of his peers, establish his reputation as the most consummate lover Boston’s upper crust had seen. And the best way to torment his wife.

  Gabe wanted to believe that at one time his father loved his mother. Maybe when the raven-haired beauty with the emerald green eyes shocked her society family and fell in love with the brash red haired Irishman from the decidedly wrong side of the tracks. Breena Doyle’s family had made it. They’d eschewed their poor Irish roots and clawed their way to the top of Boston society. To the ranks where money talked, even new money, if it was plentiful enough. And the Doyle money, disregarding its source, was one of the largest fortunes in the new Boston elite. In time, even Brendon Doyle came to admire his reprobate son-in–law. Like attracts like. And it was clear that Brendon and Rory were cut from the same cloth. Neither apologized for the questionable sources of their wealth. Both knew how to impose their will on powerful men, with outright violence or the threat of blackmail, often the more potent tool with men who had a reputation to protect.

  But it was their treatment of women that bonded the two degenerates. In time, they were trading women, sharing them, or simply passing them along until a drunken cuckolded man drove a sword through Brendon’s throat, missing his unfaithful wife’s heart by mere inches. Brendon’s death left the throne open. Rory didn’t hesitate to grab the crown.

  Gabe was seven or eight when he started asking his mother about the bruises on her face; why she was crying. But even at that young age, he knew her tears always followed screaming arguments with his father. He’d tried to protect her, but he couldn’t. His father just batted him away, cursing the fucking devils that gave him a scrawny son with black hair and green eyes, just like his mother. Over the years, his mother stopped fig
hting back. First it was the laudanum that glazed her eyes, made her sleep through the days and wander the house at night. Not answering, no matter how hard Gabe pounded on her door or begged her to talk to him. But it was the opium, the white death, that finally stole her away from Gabe. From the time he was twelve, he couldn’t remember a coherent conversation with his mother.

  Her drug use infuriated his father, never acknowledging that it was his violent drunkenness and promiscuity that caused her downfall. Before Gabe left home at sixteen, Rory had given up on niceties. It wasn’t unusual to wake up to four or five women in various stages of undress parading through the house, ignored or unnoticed by his thin mother with her pale face, vacant stares, and disheveled clothes.

  Gabe hated his father more than his father hated him. His father enjoyed taunting him. First, because he was small, weak. But as Gabe grew taller and stronger and his exploits with the bullies in the alleyways became known, Rory tried to reclaim the son who now looked like he had potential. When Gabe ignored him, refused to speak to him, was as silent to his father as his mother was to him, Rory struck back. Over and over, he drove it through Gabe’s head, “Don’t think you can get rid of your blood, son. Blood is thicker than water and nothing can change that. And you ungrateful little pissant, you’re doubly cursed. You got the blood from both of us. Your mother’s ain’t any purer than mine.”

  When Gabe last saw his father, the big man was naked, towering over the three strange women hovering at his feet. He shook his fist at Gabe, who now had an inch on him, and roared, “You ungrateful little fucker. You think you can just leave? Turn your back on everything I’ve created for you? Damn you, Gabe! You’re Rory McKenna’s son. Nothing will ever change that! Nothing! You hear me?”

  Gabe had just shrugged, hoisted his pack higher and closed the door behind him. The clothes on his back and the few supplies in his pack were the last things he ever took from his father. He hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in twelve years. He’d heard that his father had put his mother in a sanitarium a few years back. Gabe didn’t try to find her. When he went to say good-by to her that last day, she had stared at him as if she didn’t recognize him, as if he was a stranger. She’d begged her maid to send him away. The last words he heard was her pathetic whisper, “Make that boy go. He doesn’t belong here.”

  Gabe comforted himself with the thought that his mother was right. He didn’t belong there.

  ~~

  Chapter 19

  Eagle stared at the notes spread across the table. His frown was as dark and intense as his eyes. He glanced over at Gabe.

  “We agree. This is an inside job. No question about it.”

  He picked up the two stacks of notes, the ones from Chao and the ones from Ana and laid them out side by side.

  “Even though there is a modest attempt to differentiate the signatures, there are intentional giveaways. The sender wants Chao to know it is the same person, that he can get as close to Ana as he can to Chao. Think about it, Gabe: it’s one thing to get notes to a guy in his business, even a man as powerful and protected as Chao. There are hundreds of people who could get one of these notes inside Chao’s offices, from the guy who delivers their booze to his most trusted advisers. But to Ana? In their family home? Damn, you said she found one of them at that canyon hideout of hers. That is a familiarity, a closeness that can’t be ignored.”

  Gabe nodded and dragged his hands through his hair, not trying to hide his concern.

  “Yeah, Eagle, it was that note she found at the canyon that did it to me.” He shook his head, a mix of disgust and anger choking him. “But knowing that doesn’t narrow it down much. According to Clem, everyone from the scullery maids to those assholes who attacked her know where she goes every day and when. And Ana sure isn’t much help.”

  He picked up one of the notes and pointed to the handwriting in the corner. “If I hadn’t seen her notation where she found this, I never would have known that someone put this up at the waterfall. Fuck, he probably was hiding in the bushes watching her when she discovered it, gloating over her reaction.”

  Gunnar reached over and refilled Gabe’s glass. Pushing his cowboy hat back off his face, his eyes narrowed as he focused on his friend, “I take it the little Chinese recluse isn’t being forthcoming with her would-be knight in shining armor?”

  A quick flash of pain in Gabe’s eyes was Gunnar’s answer. As was his disgusted snort. “No, Gunnar, to both your questions. She isn’t telling me a goddamn thing I don’t pry or threaten out of her, and the last thing she sees me as is a knight in shining armor.”

  Gunnar grinned, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t tell me the master lover, the conquering hero of all women, large and small, young and old, has met his match? A woman, a person of the female variety, hasn’t fallen prey to his infamous charms?”

  Gabe managed a grin that was closer to a grimace. “Nope, Gunnar. As surprising as it may be, Ana Ming Li is unimpressed with my charms. In fact, a better characterization would be that she despises them--and me.”

  Gunnar and Eagle exchanged a surprised glance, watching their partner swirl the amber liquid in his glass, then raise it to his lips and drain it.

  When Gabe reached out to refill his glass, Eagle intervened.

  “Okay, Gabe, we can see this one is hitting close to home. But the last thing I want is to deaden your ability to see the big picture. You always get the strategic view before either one of us. And I can tell by that gleam in your eyes that you’ve got a plan. Let’s hear it. Then we can congratulate you once again on your brilliance and we can get drunk together to celebrate.”

  Gabe looked from one to the other of the men closest to him and sighed.

  “Thanks, Eagle and you, too, Gunnar. This one’s a bitch. Not only is it Chao they’re after, my friend and a man I admire, but they’re trying to take him down by going after his son and daughter. And yeah, Ana’s pushing buttons I didn’t know I had. Let’s just say she’s got my protective streak in high gear and it’s making it hard to keep perspective. That’s where you two come in. Yeah, I have a plan, but goddamn if you see any holes in it, don’t hold back. I’m concerned that I’m too close, that my judgment isn’t as good as it needs to be.”

  Ten minutes later, Gunnar called for another bottle of whisky. He winked at Eagle as he filled their glasses.

  “Guess we didn’t have to worry about the big guy. He’s as sharp as he ever was. Hell, that’s reassuring. I don’t want anyone messing with the best three-way partner I’ve ever had.” He grinned at Eagle’s grunt. “Sorry, I meant to say one of the two best three- way partners I’ve ever had.”

  Eagle raised his glass, “I’ll drink to that!”

  Gabe saluted them both and grinned, taking a large swallow of the pungent liquid.

  Several hours later, as they were wrapping up their strategy session, Gabe recapped the critical points. Among the three of them they had identified the six men that fit most of their criteria for the perpetrator. All six had lost significant amounts of money to Chao Li over the past year, all knew Chao well enough to know his family, all were connected in some way to Dominic, and all had publically voiced their hatred for the Chinese.

  They agreed that they would position four of their men at Chao’s ranch incognito, letting Clem assign them to jobs that wouldn’t raise suspicions. Since everyone at the ranch had seen Eagle and Gunnar haul away Jake and Marty, there was no point in trying to disguise their participation. Instead, along with Gabe, the three of them would indicate that they were doing some work for Chao Li.

  Gabe tugged at his chin, a frown creasing his brow. “One more question that is nagging me: you know how I get when my neck starts itching. I have to figure it out or let it go. Clem said two of his men bailed on him to go work at the Harcourt spread next to Chao’s. Several days later, Jake and Marty show up looking for work. It could be nothing, but Clem says Peter Harcourt, one of the smarmiest assholes you’ll likely meet, is a frequent visi
tor at Chao’s place. I’m gonna be honest. Clem also said he’s there sniffing around Ana. That, according to Clem, makes him just one of eighty percent of the men in the county.”

  Gunnar looked over the various lists.

  “I dunno, Gabe. He’s not on Chao’s lists. We can find out easily enough if he hangs out at Dominic’s when we get there tonight. We can ask around, see if anyone’s heard him making any derogatory comments about the Chinese. Seems unlikely if he is after Ana.”

  Gabe grimaced.

  “I’m sure you’re right. I’m probably reacting to his interest in Ana. But let’s put him on the list, watch him close at the dance. See if he takes our bait.”

  “Hell, yeah, Gabe. The last thing we want to do is ignore that neck of yours. It’s the most important shit detector we have except for Eagle’s visions.”

  Eagle huffed. “They’re not ‘visions,’ asshole. They’re insights.”

  Gunnar grinned. “Oh, right. Just because you go into that trance like thing where your eyes roll back in your head and you turn a couple shades lighter isn’t ‘cause you’re seeing a vision, just getting an insight or two.”

  Eagle shook his head in disgust, but didn’t try to hide his grin.

  ~~~

  The Lucky Lady was the swankiest gambling palace in San Francisco and not incidentally the highest class brothel. Dominic Vicente, the owner, insisted that it was a gentlemen’s club. Qualifying members didn’t have to be or even act like gentlemen. But they did have to have the wherewithal to pay the hefty membership fees and not balk at the cost of the liquor or the favors of Dominic’s “ladies.” Among the various entertainments that Dominic provided his eager clientele were monthly auctions of various sorts. Occasionally, fine jewelry was offered, a cattle ranch was one of the most significant prizes, and it was rumored that a very select group of members on rare occasions had the opportunity to “purchase” one of Dominic’s prized ladies for an erotic adventure