Crossfire

by Matt Braun

  Without muttering a sound, he grabbed her pubic mound, jabbed a finger into her moist opening, and again latched on to an erect nipple with his wet mouth.

  “Oh, Doc,” she groaned, “that feels good.”

  She was enjoying his rough and greedy approach, taken, as always, by the power of her sex. When men reached the point where they lost control, she likewise focused her mind on that ultimate moment when, like magic, waves of pleasure would sap all her tension and leave her with several moments of perfect bliss.

  “Oh, Doc,” she whispered, aroused by the loud sucking and the rough finger.

  Then she cupped his sac and began to gently massage the nuggets within. “Please help me, Doc,” she went on. “You know I’ll approach your people on the sly so they’ll never suspect anything. They’ll never know you told,” she continued as she began to finger the tip of his swollen cock.

  “Ahhh, Lizzie,” Stroud said after he stopped his sucking and nipping. “Jesus, I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Doc,” she insisted as she began to pump his shaft while holding it snugly. “Just a name. Just a name and I’ll do the rest.”

  “Sherm Jarrott,” Stroud blurted, his words run together with booze. “Owns a gambling joint in Tucson.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” she whispered in his ear as she stroked harder. “You’ve saved my life.”

  Stroud lurched to his side and grabbed her shoulder. In one violent movement he pulled her on top. “Now ride, goddamnit!” His drunken words were almost incomprehensible. “Sit on it!”

  Vivian got to her knees and reached between her legs for his throbbing cock. She was ready, even anxious. She held the stiff meat and stroked the length of her opening with the head of his rod until it was dripping with her juices. Stroud had a distant look in his glassy eyes when she lowered herself on the blue-veined shaft. Then like a lamp run dry, he flickered and went out. He breathed deeply and his meat went soft, flopping away from her moist curls.

  SIX

  Vivian was contemplating their good luck as the stagecoach rocked and rattled over the rutted Tucson Road. With a minimum of effort, Tallman had infiltrated the gang and she’d been able to pry a name from Stroud. In their short meeting after Stroud had passed out, they both had agreed that Jarrott must have had something to do with the stage robberies. The Wells Fargo district office was in Tucson, and a bum like Stroud wouldn’t otherwise have known a casino owner in Tucson.

  In spite of the heat and the bug-eyed farm-implement wholesaler who’d been bending her ear and eyeing her body, she was jubilant. But building a case that would make it through the courts was harder than she imagined, especially when high-level political skulduggery was involved. She’d find that out, soon enough.

  As the team strained on a winding grade, the image of Stroud’s untimely sleep brought a smile to her tastefully made-up face. It had been two days since the scarfaced outlaw had gone down in a whiskey haze. For a moment she’d been angry as she held the shriveled penis. Then, at the next instant, she’d been struck silly with the scene. The boastful, mean-eyed, scarfaced outlaw . . . with a limp pecker.

  Even as she’d gotten dressed, the nude stage robber lay as still as a corpse. Anxious to get the information to Tallman, she had worked the floor for another half hour before informing Chunk Frazer that she was taking fifteen for a breath of fresh air. Tallman had noted her departure and begged out of his poker game for a trip to the outhouse.

  Minutes later, they had met in the shadows of the alley and decided that she should employ her skills as a card slick and pose as a high-class lady gambler, in an effort to get close to this Sherm Jarrott, while he stayed with Pearl Bowen and her three mutts.

  “Where will you be staying in Tucson?” the farm-equipment drummer asked, his words jolting her to the present, his eyes obviously flickering with images of nude flesh.

  “I don’t know,” Vivian said to the only other passenger, her words as crisp and refined as the dark-blue dress she was wearing. “What hotel do you recommend? I usually like to have the best.”

  “The Governor,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s the best in Tucson. Usually stay there myself,” he lied.

  Vivian nodded with indifference toward the sweaty, round-faced man, who wore a suit which was obviously more expensive than his earnings would justify. He continued to talk as she half-listened and looked at the desolate country that passed beyond the coach window.

  The drummer continued to babble as if she were hanging on his every word while she wondered how this portly blabbermouth could sell a two-cent cup of water to a millionaire stranded in the desert.

  When they finally lurched to a stop in front of Wells Fargo’s Tucson depot, her shoulders sagged momentarily in an expression of relief. If the short, chubby drummer’s yackety-yack had gone on any longer she would have lost her composure.

  As she waited on the boardwalk for the driver and the guard to fetch her bag, the peddlar asked her to dinner, his voice ringing with phony salesman self-confidence.

  “Well . . . dinner . . . maybe,” Vivian said as she faked a seductive voice. “But first tell me what we’ll do after dinner.”

  “Well, I . . . d-don’t,” he stammered as his face reddened.

  “I’m really quite worried that you might not be able to find your little pee-wee in all that lard,” she bellowed as she stared right at his crotch.

  The two coachmen howled with laughter as the salesman waddled off, suffering a case of terminal humiliation.

  When the humor died, the driver gave her directions to the Governor and confirmed that it was the best hotel in town. Then she nodded toward an eager bag boy who had a big smile, which was a remnant of her spicy putdown of the drummer.

  After three blocks of commercial buildings with colorful false fronts, they came to a sturdy frame building that was painted a pleasing light powder gray and trimmed in a dark blue. A deep-red sign, with routed edges and routed lettering inlaid with gold leaf, stated regally: The Governor Hotel.

  “Here you are, young man,” she said to the boy as she dropped a half-dollar into the lad’s small, hungry hand. “And before you go, would you please tell me where I might find Mr. Sherm Jarrott’s casino?”

  Once in her room, Vivian put the contents of her two bags either in a fine handcrafted dresser or on the silk-padded hangers in the closet. She was glad to have retrieved her good things from the stage depot at Eloy. Truth be known, she didn’t enjoy herself as much when she had to play the part of a floozy, mainly because she disliked cheap clothing. She slumped in the overstuffed wingback chair, suddenly feeling tired as she contemplated the whirlwind activity of the last two days.

  Later in the same evening that had seen Stroud’s drunken failure in bed, Frazer had insisted on taking a piece of her flesh for himself. Overjoyed with a convenient reason to bolt town, she’d slapped Frazer on his stitched eye and fled to her room. Frazer, purple with anger, had limped after her, but the hard case named Hoodoo Dunn had intercepted the splint-legged tree-stump. “Don’t think Doc Stroud would appreciate you buttin’ in,” he’d growled. “I know I don’t!”

  Thankful for Tallman’s intervention, she had packed her single ragged carpetbag as Stroud snored without skipping a beat. After spending the rest of the night in the Red Rock stage depot, she’d taken the eight o’clock to Eloy, where she’d left her good things on the trip in from Santa Fe. After one day to reorganize, she’d spent the morning with the flap-jawed drummer. And that had brought her to her momentary exhaustion. Recalling that she’d noticed an elegant-looking ladies’ bath at the end of the hallway, she decided on a hot soaking in the tub.

  It was four in the afternoon by the time she’d cleaned up and decked herself out as she might have for any evening out in Chicago. As she applied temperate makeup, she kept reminding herself to drop the slang and purposeful abuse of the English language that she’d used in Red Rock.

  Satisfied with her looks, she left the second-floor room and came down the
spiral mahogany stairs into the expensively appointed lobby.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Duncan,” the clerk said pleasantly when she passed the front desk.

  “Good afternoon,” she replied after taking several steps before recognizing her own name. “You must forgive me,” she went on as she stopped and turned. “My mind is in another place.”

  As she sauntered along the boardwalk, she imagined that Tucson was a town with a future. Though still a speck on the savage land, the Arizona territorial capital was alive with commerce. People strode to and fro, their eyes set on some distant goal. Wagons bulging with freight rumbled in the hardpan streets, and the stores were well stocked and bustling with customers.

  After crossing four streets, she turned left at Abelson’s Dry Goods and went only a short distance into Tucson’s “amusements” district before she saw the Buena Suerte on the right. The bag boy’s directions had been exact. No doubt he’d given them many times before.

  Vivian opened the heavy casino doors, which were decorated with stained-glass windows, one an artistic replica of the jack of spades, the other, the ace of hearts. Just as she set foot in the door, a piano, a five-string banjo, and a bass fiddle came to life as if to announce her entrance. Momentarily taken aback by the random occurrence, she stopped at the door and looked about the large room. As far as small-town Western gaming joints went, Sherm Jarrott’s Buena Suerte was among the top twenty percent. When she noticed eyes focusing on her entrance, she strode toward the bar as if she belonged.

  “Mr. Jarrott in?” she asked.

  “He’s in his office, but he don’t wanna be bothered,” the barkeep said as he polished glasses.

  “Where is his office?” she insisted, her voice full of authority.

  “Up there,” the bartender said in a flat voice as he nodded toward the balcony overlooking the floor, which was already teeming with card games, scantily clothed drink hustlers, whirring roulette wheels, and highly animated and boisterous dice throwers.

  “He’ll see me,” she said firmly. “It’s personal.”

  “I don’t know, lady.”

  “Trust me,” she said, stabbing him with her mellow voice and determined smile.

  With a host of eyes following, she made her way across the room toward the stairs that led to the balcony. Once at the top, she found the door marked with a brass plate: OFFICE.

  “What!” a peevish voice said from behind the door.

  She opened the door and took several steps into the room with practiced and bold determination. It always worked.

  “Yes?” the man asked from his leather chair, his hands planted on the polished mahogany desk top.

  “Susanna Duncan,” she said as she extended her hand and glued her eyes on the bridge of his nose.

  “What can I do for you?” the man asked, his voice flat.

  “It’s simple, Mr. Jarrott,” Vivian said. “I think I’ll be working for you once you give me the opportunity to prove to you that I can put money in your pocket.”

  “Oh!”

  “So far, I’ve never known a casino owner to turn down a blackjack dealer who could keep the house ahead . . . always.”

  “Do we have some mutual friend, Miss Duncan?”

  “No,” she said. “I just asked around and soon determined that I’d see you first.”

  Jarrott stared back through his wire-rimmed glasses. Though he was in his middle forties, he looked younger, even considering the thinning brown hair. His face was tanned and a thick red-brown mustache and bushy dark eyebrows accented his angular jaw. He was a good-looking man by any standards.

  “Sit down . . . please, Miss Duncan,” he said, closing the black-leather ledger on his desk. Once he had cleaned the desk top, he produced a deck of cards, which was wrapped in paper and sealed with the manufacturer’s stamp. With no talk, he slid the package toward his uninvited visitor. His face revealed that he had seen a lot of self-proclaimed card artists, and that he guessed that she was just another inept dreamer.

  Vivian scooted forward on her chair and accepted the cards. After she deftly broke the seal, the deck fell into her right hand and she fanned them on the table in one fast stroke, which left the cards perfectly spaced so as to reveal the upper-left corner of each. She then took the jokers between her fingertip and thumbnail and flipped the fifty-two pasteboards face down, making the deck act like a giant inch-worm taking a quick step. She dropped the jokers to one side and collected the cards into a perfect stack with another snap of her agile hand as Jarrott’s eyes widened slightly.

  Vivian kept her stare fixed on Jarrott’s eyes while she shuffled five times. Jarrott saw her organizing the deck, but admitted to himself that few if any would be able to catch the moves. Then she began dealing, pulling seconds and bottoms so expertly that he missed most of her work. In less than three seconds eight cards lay on the table, four aces up. Then she turned the bottom cards: ten of hearts, king of diamonds, jack of clubs, and jack of spades.

  “Blackjack,” she said, faking surprise in her voice.

  Then, with equal skill and speed, she dealt four more hands with two up. As Jarrott watched, Vivian turned the bottom cards.

  Jarrott nodded, aware of her point.

  “You agree, Mr. Jarrott, that the cards compel the player to take another?”

  He nodded again.

  Then she snatched four more cards, each of which put the hands over twenty-one.

  “Would you like me to tell you which twenty-eight cards I have left and the odds in favor of and against the house based on any hand you might make out of any three of the twenty-four cards down?” she said with a smile that would disarm any man. “Or should I go on?”

  “Well, Miss Duncan,” Jarrott responded after clearing his throat. “I’d say I’m having a lucky day. I’m glad I was first on your list. Hate like hell to have you working for one of my competitors.”

  “I don’t want a wage,” she said. “Fifty-fifty split on the table’s take. I guarantee you that no one will be the wiser. I’m well aware that greed can easily kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

  “I don’t doubt your understanding of the game,” Jarrott said as he removed the silver-rimmed glasses and set them on the closed ledger. “But something does bother me. I wonder if you might explain why you’re in Tucson. It’s obvious that a lady of your skills and, I might add, beauty, could work better gaming houses than the Buena Suerte.”

  “You are very observant, Mr. Jarrott,” she agreed, her eyes beaming sexual energy. “But . . .”

  “Sherm,” Jarrott interrupted.

  “Sherm . . . Well, you might say I was a victim of circumstances.”

  “How so?”

  She explained that she had worked a very profitable casino on the Barbary Coast. For over a year, she’d run the biggest and the most popular table for the owner, who, for some reason unknown to her, fell out of grace with the crooked San Francisco political structure. His rivals had hired an expert and sent the card shark and two undercover lawdogs to her table. They’d accused her of numerous violations of the local laws. Once caught, she explained to Jarrott, she had faked an illness and escaped the hospital in only a nightgown.

  “A friend got me on a ship for Puerto San Carlos, halfway down Baja,” Vivian went on. “That was over a month ago. My boss wasn’t as lucky. I heard he’d been robbed and had his throat cut in the process. You don’t fight politicians and their silver-starred henchmen for too long and get away with it. At least, that’s been my experience.”

  “I see,” Jarrott said as he knuckled his mustache. A wide smile came to his face. “Politics will not be a problem in Tucson,” he bragged, already working on having more of Susanna Duncan than her mastery of the pasteboards. “In fact, you’re welcome to start now, if you wish.”

  “Lead the way,” she said. “I need to put a little weight in my purse.”

  “And how about a late dinner or early breakfast? Your choice.”

  “I’d love it,” s
he said honestly, as she again contemplated the speed of her progress. “Dinner sounds fine.”

  Jarrott spent the next half hour explaining the details of his gambling operation, including his scheme for rewarding political hacks with net winnings whenever he signaled her to do so. Down on the floor, he introduced her to the floor manager, Obie Stallybrass, the other dealers, the six bar girls, and the two bartenders.

  As she followed Jarrott about the floor, Vivian was amused, as she often was, at how easily a person could take a slice of the world with only the right mix of common wisdom, a bold manner, and self-confidence. It was one of the things that continued to amaze her after all her years as a bunco artist and now, still as a Pinkerton operative. It was so easy, she mused, but most accepted their miserable stations and wasted a lifetime blaming everyone and everything for their broken dreams. From her vantage point, this was one of life’s imponderables.

  An hour and a half after she’d poked through the stained-glass doors, she was dealing to three respectable types who were decked out in suits, clean stiff collars, and polished boots.

  As the evening advanced, store owners, miners, cowhands on the drift, itinerant peddlers, and a host of suspicious-looking characters with no apparent purpose or profession all tested their skills against her version of that cruel mistress, Lady Luck. Some won. Others lost. And she was hauling in plenty, hoping to keep Jarrott happy.

  As the beer and whiskey consumption went up, so did the noise. By eleven, the trio of red-vested musicians could barely overcome the din of laughter, the hoots of winners and, more often, the muffled curses that came as gold and silver coin slid across the green felt into the hands of the house.

  In a few short hours, Vivian had fallen into her role. With the exception of the name, there was really little difference between Susanna Duncan and Vivian Valentine. The crafty blackjack dealer and the undercover Pinkerton were really the same woman.