Huckleberry Finished

by Livia J. Washburn

  Which meant that Ben Webster was probably here for the gambling, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to find him in the casino. I was surprised that he seemed to be in trouble, though. He had seemed like a nice, polite young man in the short time we had talked together at lunch. He even reminded me a little of Luke.

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let it pass,” he said now. “That roulette wheel is rigged. I saw the man working it run his finger over the same little mark on the table several times while it was spinning, and then all the big bets lost. There must be a pressure switch of some sort there, or maybe an optical one built into the table.”

  The man behind the desk let Webster get his complaint out without saying anything. But he wore a tolerant smile and shook his head slowly while the young man spoke.

  When Webster was finished, the man stepped out from behind the desk and extended a big hand toward me. “Ms. Dickinson, I’m Logan Rafferty, the head of security for the Southern Belle. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under more pleasant circumstances.”

  Like his hand, which pretty much swallowed mine whole, the rest of Logan Rafferty was big. He was about forty, with a brown brush cut, and although he wore an expensive suit, he looked like he’d be just as much at home working as a bouncer in a roadhouse somewhere. The afternoon sunlight that came in through the window winked on a heavy ring he wore.

  “What seems to be the trouble here, Mr. Rafferty?”

  He inclined his head toward Ben Webster. “As you just heard, a member of your tour group has a complaint about the way the games are run in the casino. I assure you, all our games are conducted in an honest, legitimate manner.” A faint smile appeared on his face. “As you may know, the odds always favor the house to start with. We see no need to tilt them even more.”

  “No offense, but I would think you’d be used to folks complaining when they lose. It’s sort of human nature, after all,” I said.

  “Complaints we don’t mind,” Rafferty said with a shrug of his big shoulders. “We don’t like it when passengers try to slug one of our employees, though.”

  I frowned at Ben Webster. “You didn’t?”

  He hung his head and didn’t say anything.

  I turned back to Rafferty. “I’m sorry,” I began. “I hope there wasn’t too much of a ruckus. I didn’t see any signs of trouble while we were coming through the casino.”

  “No, things got back to normal quickly once the commotion was over,” Rafferty admitted. “And there wasn’t much commotion to start with. My security personnel were on the scene before Mr. Webster here could do any real damage.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “What do we need to do to put this matter behind us?”

  “The man who operates the roulette wheel could press charges, you know.”

  I wasn’t sure what law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the Mississippi River. There was bound to be one, though. I said, “Do we really have to get the law involved in this? I was hopin’ we could sort it out amongst ourselves, you know?”

  “Webster gets off the boat in Hannibal and doesn’t get back aboard.” The words came out of Rafferty’s mouth hard and flat, like there was no room for negotiation. That suited him more. He just wasn’t the affable type, no matter how hard he tried.

  Webster’s head came up. “You can’t do that,” he said. “I paid for a round-trip. And my car’s in St. Louis.”

  “You can rent a car in Hannibal and drive back down to St. Louis,” Rafferty said. “As for what you paid, that’s between you and Ms. Dickinson. But as far as the Southern Belle is concerned, you’re not welcome on board.” He went behind his desk and leaned forward, resting his knuckles on the glass top. “Or I can make a phone call and have the authorities waiting when we dock in Hannibal to take you off the boat.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” I said. I turned to look at Ben Webster. “Will it?”

  I don’t know if he saw the pleading in my eyes, but after a second he shrugged and said, “No, it won’t be necessary. I’ll leave the boat. It’s not fair, though. That guy really was cheating.”

  Rafferty’s mouth tightened into a thin line. I thought Webster had pushed him too far. But all he said was, “You can go back to your cabin now, Mr. Webster, and stay there. The casino is off limits to you.”

  “Fine,” Webster muttered. “I don’t want to lose any more money to your crooked games anyway.”

  It was all I could do not to grab him by the collar and shake him. Either that or smack him on the back of the head. Didn’t he know he was getting off easy? They send people to jail for attacking other people.

  I took hold of his arm and steered him toward the door. “Let’s go, Mr. Webster.”

  Behind us, Rafferty said, “I hope to see you again during the cruise, Ms. Dickinson. Do you need someone to show you out?”

  “No, thanks. I remember the way I came in.”

  “Very well, then. Good afternoon.”

  I figured out then who he reminded me of. With his overly polite demeanor, coupled with the air of violence and menace that hung around him, he was like the movie and TV gangsters played by Sheldon Leonard, the character actor and producer. I had a feeling Rafferty’s civilized veneer was pretty thin.

  Nobody followed us as we went down the stairs and back out through the security office and the casino. Ben Webster trudged along beside me without saying anything until we reached the deck.

  Then he said quietly, “They really were cheating, you know. I’m not just a sore loser.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” I told him. “I wasn’t there, and even if I had been, I don’t know anything about how a roulette wheel could be rigged. I think you’d be smart to just let it go.”

  “What about the money I paid for a round-trip?”

  I thought about it. Since he had brought the trouble down on himself, I figured I’d be within my rights to keep his money. But since I like to be accommodating, I said, “I’ll refund you, say, thirty percent. But you’ll have to wait and let me send you a check.”

  “I’ll be out whatever a rental car costs me, too.”

  “Should’ve thought of that before you took a swing at that guy.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He nodded, glum as ever. “All right. Thanks. I know you could’ve told me it was my own fault and to go to hell.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I could have.”

  He stopped in front of a door with metal numerals 1 and 7 nailed to it. “This is my cabin.”

  “I’m sorry this happened. You’d better stay in there, like Mr. Rafferty told you. I got the feeling he was pretty mad. He’ll call the cops if you give him any more trouble.”

  “He looked to me more like he wanted to break my neck.”

  “Yeah, well, he might do that, too.”

  I left Ben Webster at the door and headed back to my cabin. I got out my laptop and wrote an e-mail to Melissa, telling her to pull the file for Ben Webster and send a check for 30 percent of the money he had paid us to his home address. That was another big difference since Mark Twain’s time: The riverboats hadn’t been equipped with wireless Internet service back then. They didn’t even have dial-up.

  The cruise from St. Louis to Hannibal takes a couple of hours. The boat docks in Hannibal early enough so that folks can get some sightseeing done before dark. Then they have dinner on the boat and enjoy an evening of gambling and other entertainment, including Mark Lansing’s performance as Mark Twain. More sightseeing the next morning rounds out the trip, and then the boat cruises back downriver to St. Louis that afternoon, so the whole trip takes about twenty-seven hours. That’s long enough to give the passengers the authentic flavor of a Mississippi River voyage without causing a problem for modern-day attention spans.

  I didn’t have much interest in gambling. I own a small business; that’s enough of a gamble for me. I didn’t intend to spend the evening boozing it up like some of the passengers would, either. My hope was that nobody wou
ld get drunk and cause trouble. The incident with Ben Webster was more than enough of a ruckus for this trip.

  So my plan was to take in the Mark Twain show in the salon. Mark Lansing had struck me as a nice guy, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like without the wig and the fake mustache and the old-man make-up.

  I hoped the wild white hair and the big mustache really were fake. You never know, though, with actors. Some of them really get into the parts they play.

  First, though, there were sights to see, and a little later, as the riverboat’s steam whistle let out several shrill blasts, I knew we were about to dock at Hannibal, Missouri, boyhood home of Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens himself.

  CHAPTER 3

  I’d never been to Hannibal before. As I walked toward the front of the boat, I saw the town sprawled on the western bank of the river with rolling green hills behind it. Since tourism was an important industry here, it was deliberately picturesque. Oh, there were plenty of modern touches visible, but many of the buildings really were old and had been restored to look like they had in Mark Twain’s time, like the riverboat itself.

  Quite a few of the passengers had gathered on the bow to watch the approach to the dock. I saw about half the members of my group among them. The others were still in the casino, I supposed. I noticed Eddie and Louise Kramer at the railing. She was snapping pictures with a digital camera. I was sort of surprised to see that he wasn’t talking on his cell phone but was resting his hands on the railing instead and looking at Hannibal with what appeared to be genuine interest. Maybe his wife had read him the riot act about actually enjoying this vacation of theirs, even though she didn’t seem the type to do such a thing.

  I didn’t see Ben Webster anywhere. I supposed he was still holed up in his cabin. That was good. Once we docked he could come out and get off the boat.

  The whistle blew again. Several people strolled out onto the dock and waved enthusiastically at the passengers as the riverboat approached. The women wore bonnets and long skirts and carried parasols. The men were in old-fashioned suits and beaver hats. One young couple wore the sort of period clothing that youngsters would have in Mark Twain’s time. I knew from the Internet research I’d done before the trip that they were supposed to be Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher. Folks in Hannibal played up its literary heritage for all it was worth, and I didn’t blame them a bit for doing so. The tourists would have been disappointed if it wasn’t that way.

  The captain, or whoever was at the wheel of the Southern Belle, maneuvered the boat next to the dock and brought it to a stop with a smooth, graceful touch. The big paddlewheels on the sides stopped turning. Water sluiced off the paddles and sloshed against the pilings that supported the dock. Members of the crew hurried to extend a railed gangway from the main deck to the dock so that the passengers could disembark.

  I didn’t have any group activities planned for the afternoon or evening, although I had a table reserved in the riverboat’s dining room so anyone who wanted to eat together could. My clients were free to take in whatever sights they wanted to, and there were plenty of dinner theaters and restaurants in Hannibal where they could eat if they chose. Or they could continue gambling in the boat’s casino if that was what they wanted to do. The more informal tours like this were welcome breaks from having to herd groups of tourists around from one attraction to another.

  People began disembarking from the boat as soon as the gangway was in place, among them the Kramers. I lingered there along the rail, waiting to make sure that Ben Webster got off the boat. I could see the door to Cabin 17 from where I was and expected to see it open any minute now.

  But it didn’t.

  I waited some more. Still no sign of Ben Webster. He couldn’t have gotten off the boat without me seeing him, I thought. I’d been close to the gangway ever since the boat docked.

  If Webster didn’t leave, like Logan Rafferty had told him to, Rafferty might call the cops and have him arrested. That would lead to bad publicity for my tour. Webster seemed like a pretty good kid overall, so that was another reason to avoid bringing the law into this. I walked along the deck to Cabin 17 and knocked on the door.

  No one answered. I knocked harder and called, “Mr. Webster!” When he still didn’t respond I added, “This is Ms. Dickinson. We’ve docked at Hannibal. You need to get off the boat now, Mr. Webster.”

  Nothing.

  I was starting to get mad now. Rafferty had offered Webster a way to smooth this over with a minimum of fuss and no legal involvement. Sure, he’d lose a little money and have his trip ruined, but that was his own fault. Now, by refusing to come out of his cabin, he was causing more trouble for me.

  Assuming, of course, that he was actually in his cabin, I suddenly thought. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on Cabin 17 ever since the incident. He could have slipped out of it almost anytime. He could be anywhere on the boat’s three decks by now. I didn’t relish the idea of having to search the entire Southern Belle for him.

  So much for him being a good kid. Maybe he really was a troublemaker.

  I wanted to find him myself. I could go to Rafferty and get his security personnel involved in the search, but if I did that, Rafferty would likely call the police because Webster had reneged on the agreement to leave the boat. I wished Luke were here so I could split up the chore with him.

  But he was back in Atlanta, so it was up to me to locate Ben Webster on my own. I started by making a circuit of the main deck.

  This deck had passenger cabins, the casino, and the dining room. On the second deck were offices, the salon, and more passenger cabins. The third deck was off limits to passengers except for observation areas at bow and stern; crew quarters were up there, as well as more offices. The pilothouse that sat on the very top of the boat was off limits as well except for scheduled tours that let passengers see the river from the vantage point of the captain and the pilot.

  It took me an hour to cover all the areas where passengers were permitted. Since Ben Webster was already in trouble, I figured it wasn’t very likely he would venture into the off-limits areas. But nothing was impossible. If I didn’t find him in any of the public areas, I’d have to consider asking Rafferty for help in searching the other parts of the boat.

  When I had looked everywhere I could look and still hadn’t found any trace of Ben Webster, I went back down to the main deck. I was getting pretty hot under the collar. I’d wanted to see some of the sights in Hannibal myself, and I couldn’t do it as long as he was missing. This time I didn’t just knock on the door of his cabin—I pounded on that sucker.

  While I was doing that, somebody came up behind me and said, “Excuse me? Can I help you?”

  I turned around to see a tall young man with blond hair standing there. He looked familiar, and I realized after a second that he was another member of the tour group. I had met him at the luncheon earlier that day. I’m usually pretty good with names, but I was upset enough right then that I couldn’t come up with his.

  He knew me, though. He smiled in recognition and went on, “Ms. Dickinson, right? I’m Vince Mallory. I’m a member of your tour.”

  “Of course, I remember you, Mr. Mallory,” I told him. “I was just looking for another member of the tour.”

  A slight frown of confusion appeared on his face. “Then, uh, why are you pounding on the door of my cabin like you’re trying to knock it down?”

  “Your cabin?” I blinked. “This isn’t Ben Webster’s cabin?”

  “Who?”

  “Ben Webster,” I repeated. “About your age, six feet tall, dark hair…”

  Vince Mallory was shaking his head before I finished describing Webster. He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know the guy. But I’m sure this is my cabin.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a key. “See, here’s the key to this door.”

  He slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and sure enough, the door opened. I looked into the room. It was empty.

  I closed my
eyes for a second and told myself that I was a darned fool. I had walked off and left Ben Webster standing in front of the door like he was about to go in, but I hadn’t actually seen him enter the cabin. He’d waited until I was gone, then headed for somewhere else on the boat!

  “Is there a problem?” Vince Mallory asked.

  “No, not at all,” I lied. I had an unaccounted-for rogue tourist with a grudge, that was all. Ben Webster had to be hiding somewhere on the riverboat, and the only reason for him to do that would be if he wanted to cause trouble of some sort. To avenge his losses in the casino that he thought were caused by a rigged roulette wheel. To get back at Rafferty for threatening him. Heck, who knew what was going on in Ben Webster’s mind. All I knew was that it couldn’t be anything good.

  “I’d be glad to give you a hand if there’s anything I can do,” Vince Mallory said.

  “No, everything’s fine,” I said. I had thought of something else I could check. But first I forced myself back into tour director mode. “Are you heading into Hannibal to see some of the sights this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, I thought I would. I’ve been in the casino, but you can’t just gamble away the whole trip, now can you?” He waved a hand toward Hannibal. “Not with all this history waiting to be seen and experienced.”

  “You’re a history buff, are you?”

  “I had a double major in college: history and American literature. That was before I sort of got sidetracked into the military.”

  He had sort of a military look about him, all right. Probably the short hair and the fact that he was in really good shape. He didn’t really seem like the academic type, but he went on, “Mark Twain has always been a particular interest of mine. When I was doing graduate work I planned to write my doctoral thesis on him.”