The Rogues' Game

by Milton T. Burton

  “And Heydrich tried to recruit you that night?” Van Horn asked.

  “Not that night, and he didn’t make the offer himself, of course. He just sized me up, and then a week later a minor German industrialist who’d been present at the game approached me.”

  “Why you?”

  I laughed. “Rest assured that I wasn’t the only one they had their eyes on, and I don’t flatter myself into thinking I was all that important to them. They were after anybody they could get who might prove useful.”

  “I don’t suppose you let yourself be recruited,” Rasco said with an uneasy laugh.

  “Hardly,” I said. “I have a lot of faults but treason’s not one of them.”

  * * *

  After another hour Robillard left the game. I played on until dawn and then fell into bed in one of the rooms. I came alive once again in the early afternoon and went down to have some late breakfast. Passing up the hotel restaurant, I walked four blocks up the street to a barbecue joint and had a double order of pork ribs. When I returned to the Weilbach I went into the barbershop for a shave and a trim. A few minutes later I was back in the Plainsman Suite and ready to play. Five men sat at the table, including Robillard. Miss Teeny-Tunes and her fashion magazines were nowhere to be seen, but two women Van Horn had brought up the night before were still lounging around, one of them dressed only in her slip. Each weekend that passed, there was more money on the table and more sleaze in the air, and I didn’t mind a bit. The reporters would have a ball with it.

  When I left the room earlier I’d scooped up my chips and put them in my coat pockets. Now I piled them on the table, and said, “Deal me in, please.”

  By nine o’clock that evening I had hammered Robillard into the ground three more times and he was ready to cut my throat. The pots weren’t particularly large, but in each case he thought he had me beaten. On the last hand I turned over the fifth diamond against three queens and saw murder in his eyes. He carefully raked his chips off the table into his hat. “I’m cashing in for today,” he said.

  “Hate to see you leave,” I told him with an easy smile.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why don’t you and I go head-on for a while next weekend? I’d really like to find out which of us is the best player.”

  If there was any doubt on that subject left in his mind by this time, then he was a fool. But I didn’t say so. “I see two problems with that, Mr. Robillard. In the first place I won’t be here next weekend. And secondly some of these gentlemen might think it’s rude of us to cut off on our own.”

  “That’s no worry,” Zimmerman said, his voice a deep rumble. “It’s been done before.”

  “Very well,” I said. “But we’ll have to make it the following weekend.”

  “What’s the date?” Robillard asked.

  “The weekend of the twenty-ninth. Are you planning to be here?”

  “I’ll be here with bells on,” he said. “You can count on it.”

  It wasn’t necessary to my plans for the two of us to be playing alone that Saturday night, but it didn’t hurt anything either. So I agreed. “Fine with me.”

  He extended his hand and we shook. With any luck at all I’d only have to shake hands with him one more time.

  THIRTY-THREE

  That Monday I got a call from one of my Washington friends. He was coming through town the next day on the morning train and had decided to take a few hours layover so the two of us could visit. I picked him up at the depot and we drove to the Weilbach for breakfast.

  Bascomb Barfield IV was my senior by seven years. When I was an undergraduate at Harvard he’d been in the law school, working his way through as a clerk in the federal courthouse in Boston. Because he came from an old South Carolina family that had produced one governor and two generals, everyone assumed he was wealthy, an impression he’d never quite been able to correct. I knew better. The truth was that while the Barfields had once owned over fifty thousand acres of prime rice land, three generations of alcoholic gamblers had depleted the family fortune to the point that his father finally shot himself in despair of his crumbling finances before my friend was out of the University of South Carolina. Fearful of his heredity, Bascomb neither gambled nor drank. After Harvard, we’d served together in the navy, where we’d both tried cases in the Judge Advocate General’s Office. Then I’d lost track of him for a few years until we both turned up in the OSS during the war. He’d been my immediate superior, a man naturally prone to worrying in a business where tension and anxiety were the common currency of everyday life. Though a brilliant fellow, his appearance was not at all impressive. Short, stumpy, and muscular, he had a bald, domed bullet of a head and a round, care-filled face that held a pair of tired brown eyes.

  “So … I hear you’ve become quite the oil baron,” he said after the waitress had filled our cups and left with our orders.

  “I had some free time on my hands,” I said defensively.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m not complaining, and your oil speculation has just made your cover that much more credible.”

  “Then what’s this visit all about?” I asked with a grin. “Just a social call? After all, I could have gotten the exchange money to you by bonded courier.”

  He sipped at his coffee for a few seconds, then put down his cup and sighed. “I had to go to San Antonio anyway, so I decided to come by and tell you that this new scheme of yours is better than what we had planned at first.”

  “You honestly think so?” I asked.

  “No doubt about it. I mean, after all, this country is a democracy. It’s always better not to kill when you don’t have to. Every time you do something like that, you weaken the fabric.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  He sighed tiredly once again. “I also wanted to ask you face-to-face if you’re certain sure you want to go through with this thing.”

  “Of course I do,” I said, more than a little surprised by his question. “What gives you the idea I’d want to pull out now?”

  “I believe I’d chuck it if I were in your position.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged and picked up his cup. “Your life’s taken a different turn. Look at what you’re risking. All this money you’ve made, and you’ve got a good thing going with a really fine woman. You’re a lucky man there.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But why did you think I might want to quit now?”

  “I really didn’t, but it’s important that you understand that we’re not the damned Gestapo. We don’t expect people to do things against their better judgment.”

  “I know that. But just who are you talking about when you say ‘we’? I mean, when this venture was hatched it involved just a few of us old buddies from the OSS, but now…” I looked at him sharply across the table. “By any chance are you involved with the new outfit that Congress just chartered?”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. We’re just some of Wild Bill’s boys cleaning up leftover details. And you’re one those boys, as you well know.”

  “Do you have any plans to join the new agency?” I asked.

  “Oh, hell no! I’ve had enough of this business. In six months I’ll be back in Charleston practicing law.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said. “I’ve gotten my fill of it myself.”

  “So it’s next weekend, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Any reason why he might not be there?” he asked with a frown of mild worry.

  “He’s missed a couple of weekends since I’ve been playing. Business, he claimed, and I imagine he was telling the truth since he’s got some pretty far-flung interests these days. But I expect him to make the extra effort this time because he wants to nail me pretty badly.”

  I went on to tell him about the girls who had been coming to the game, and the twenty-five thousand I’d won from Robillard at the cockfight. “Young women, huh?” he asked with a cold smile.

  “Oh yes. Young enough that he ought to kno
w better.”

  “You’ve really done a fine job,” he said as the waitress set our food on the table. “It’s all falling into place.”

  An hour and a half later we were back at the depot. “I almost forgot,” he said just before he stepped onto the train. He quickly jotted down a name and number on the back of one of his business cards and gave it to me. “A reporter in Dallas,” he told me. “Get in contact with him when the time comes. He’s on the team.”

  “Another one of Wild Bill’s?” I asked.

  “Not exactly, but his heart’s in the right place, and he knows what to do.”

  I handed him the satchel containing a hundred thousand dollars of the money Della had slipped out of our accounts. “Just be sure those two guys are at the Alamo Plaza on time,” I said. “The success of the whole thing hinges on them being there.”

  He regarded me bleakly. “You’ve been out here in the amateur world too long if you think you need to remind me of something like that.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Sorry.”

  He hefted the satchel. “This money will be paid back, but it may take a year or so.…”

  “Doesn’t it always with the government?” I asked.

  We shook hands and the door to the coach closed behind him. I never saw Bascomb Barfield again. In less than six months he’d be dead of a heart attack, brought on by overwork and stress. The madness of the late war had claimed yet another victim.

  * * *

  That Friday I went back down to the Texas & Pacific station and picked up five pounds of fresh gulf shrimp I’d ordered sent in on ice. The next morning I went out to a local meat market and bought a large prime sirloin, and at my favorite liquor store I found three bottles of prewar Taittinger. That evening I put a stack of records on the Philco, and as soon as the shrimp were boiled and rechilled and the steak grilled I brought the food in from the kitchen and spread it out on the coffee table. We sat on the floor and ate a leisurely supper washed down with glass after glass of cold Champagne. Then we rose and danced for a while. A slow, moody Artie Shaw number finished and Andy Kirk’s arrangement of “Big Jim Blues” dropped onto the turntable. I began to gradually remove Della’s clothes as I guided her around the room. When she was naked I lowered her to the sofa and we began to make unhurried, gentle love. Afterward I cradled her in my arms and held her close.

  “It’s almost time, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Next Saturday night.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay here by the phone and wait to see if I call. Little will phone you a few minutes before ten. If you haven’t heard from me, then you tell him that everything is okay.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s it. And there’s one thing I want you to know. When this is all over, I’ll tell you the whole story and answer all your questions. But as it stands now, the less you know the less chance you have of being pulled into it if something goes wrong. Do you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you,” she said, and rose from the sofa. She went into the bedroom and came back with our robes. Once she’d slipped into the black silk, she filled both our glasses with Champagne, then sat down beside me on the sofa. She picked up one of the shrimp and dipped it in the cocktail sauce and began to nibble.

  “Something else on your mind?” I asked.

  She slipped her glasses back on and gave me a critical look. “There’s always something on my mind, but I’m not going to bother you with it now with this business about to come up.”

  “Whatever it is, I want to know.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “When this is all over can we move someplace else?” she asked plaintively. “I hate West Texas.”

  I laughed and gathered her into my arms, shrimp and all. “Is that all? I thought you were at least going to tell me that you’re leaving me.”

  “Leaving you? Why would I leave you?”

  “I’m an old man, Della.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you in a few years.”

  “Where do you want to move?” I asked.

  “Anywhere we can find real trees. Oaks and pines and elms. Forests and shade. How about East Texas? You grew up there. Would you like to go back?”

  “I’d love to, but I thought that if we stayed together you would want to go back to Tennessee.”

  “No,” she said. “There’s nothing there for me. And you’re not getting rid of me unless you run me off.”

  “Della, running you off is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Then East Texas sounds good. After the first of the year we’ll get in the car and just drive and drive until we find someplace we like.… How about it?”

  “Splendid,” I said, and began to nuzzle at her neck.

  “Again?” she asked. “I think you’re the kind of old man I like.”

  * * *

  The Monday before the game I ran into Simon Van Horn in the lobby of Manlow Rhodes’s bank. We shook hands, and I said, “Say, I’ve been meaning to come see you.”

  “Really? What about?”

  I put my goofiest grin on my face. “Could I guess that like myself you have a small investment in the local constabulary?”

  “I think that’s a safe assumption,” he replied with one of his cold smiles. “It seems to be the cheapest insurance one can buy these days.”

  “And have you been getting good service on this investment?”

  “I believe I have,” he replied. “Why?”

  “Well, I was thinking that perhaps it would be both neighborly and prudent to send them a little holiday cheer this weekend in gratitude for the attention they haven’t been giving us. I mean with this head-on match between me and Clifton, plus it will probably be the biggest game of the year…”

  “You’re right,” he said. “‘Don’t bind the mouths of those that tread the grain,’ as the Bible says.”

  “You know, Mr. Little is fond of that verse,” I said.

  “Chicken Little’s no fool,” he said. “But what did you have in mind for the cops?”

  “I thought I’d have a couple of cases of good whiskey delivered to the police station and a couple to the sheriff’s office. Since I don’t want to seem like I’m hogging all the glory, I thought I might put your name on the card too.”

  “That’s fine with me,” he said. “Let me know how much and I’ll get half the tab. But why don’t you just say it’s from ‘The Weilbachers.’ I think they’ll get the message.”

  “That’s a superb idea,” I replied.

  “Thanks,” he said. “And with Will Scoggins at the game that night his deputies might actually get some of the whiskey for themselves. If he was there when it came he’d take it all home for himself.”

  “Scoggins? At the game?” I asked. “What brought this on?”

  “Gossip, I suppose. All this business about you and Clifton.”

  We shook hands and he left. A few moments later Rhodes’s secretary called me into his office.

  “I hear that quite a match is coming up this weekend at the hotel,” he said as we shook hands. “I hope no hard feelings come of it.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” I replied. “We’re just a bunch of lighthearted fellows having a little fun.”

  An hour later I was at home and on the phone to Chicken Little. Later that afternoon I paid a premium price to a local courier service with an impeccable reputation to deliver a case each of scotch and bourbon to the police station and the same to the sheriff’s office. The deliveries were to be made at eight o’clock the evening of the game, and the card had specifically reminded the recipients to see to it that the boys on patrol got their share. There was nothing more I could do; from here on out it was in the hands of fate.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Early in the afternoon of the twenty-ninth a blue norther howled in off the Panhandle plains and the temperature dropped thirty-one degrees in nineteen min
utes. Large flakes of snow whirled and eddied through the air as we drove to the hotel. Della sat at the wheel wrapped snugly in her mink with the car’s heater turned on high. When I kissed her good-bye and stepped out onto the pavement I was hit by a north wind that felt like razors against my face. I stood shivering on the sidewalk and watched with a mixture of sadness and elation as the little Ford disappeared into traffic. When I could see its tail lights no more, I turned and pushed my way through the revolving door. As soon as I stepped into the Plainsman Suite and looked at the card table, I felt a wave of revulsion rise in me, and I knew in that instant that for the first time in my life I was tired of poker. And I understood something about the nature of the game I’d never seen before: it was the commonplace become unbearable, the mundane raised to a fever pitch and turned into a lifelong obsession. I knew then as I stood there amid the familiar rustle of cards and clatter of chips that no matter what else happened that night, the game would no longer have its old allure for me.

  Will Scoggins was already there and dressed to the nines in a three-piece suit of charcoal gray. He’d had the sense to take off his hat—something he hadn’t done in my office the day he’d arrested me—and his hog-leg .44 was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t a bulge under his arm either, which caused me to think that if he was armed he carried no more than a little ladies’ pocket automatic in one of his pockets. Probably pear handled and nickel plated, too. He gave me a polite nod and a wary handshake, but I was as courteous to him as I was to everyone else.

  Robillard was playing when I came in the room. When he finished the hand he rose from his chair and approached me with a false smile on his face. “Time for our little match, it seems,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “Yes, it’s time,” I replied with more cheer than I felt.

  The management had sent up a bridge table for us. Made of heavy oak, it was covered with felt like the poker table, though it was somewhat smaller. It sat to one side of the room, behind the sofa, flanked by two comfortable-looking chairs.

  “Why don’t you break open a pack of cards,” I told him. “I want to get a drink.”