"You can't fool me," Downing said darkly. "I reckon you don't like me very much, do you?"
Red turned on him, giving him the full effect of her scornful eyes. "No, I don't like you, Mr. Frank Downing," she said. "To be honestly frank, I don't like you a darned bit!"
"Well, there's nothing like being honestly frank," Downing murmured. "Unless it's redundant."
Red started. She blushed, tried to look indignant and suddenly giggled. "Why, you-you-!"
"Something wrong, lady?" Downing said innocently. "There certainly is!" Red declared. "Just where have you been hiding?"
"Me? I been here all the time, ma'am. Sittin' right next to the humidity."
"Then that's quite long enough," Red said firmly. "You get right up from there and bring me a drink!"
Downing laughed and got up. He brought drinks for both of them, along with a plate of hors d'oeuvres. A brisk conversation sprang up between them, and a feeling of liking as well. One of those peculiarly strong likings, which so often evolve from meetings that have started off badly.
Meanwhile, the man nearest Mitch had picked up the dice. He was apparently the big winner of the evening, the pockets of his dinner jacket bulging with currency. An oldish young man, with prematurely gray hair, he dug out a fistful of bills and dropped them on the table.
"Let's see. Four, five, six…" He sorted it with one finger. "Seven, seven-five. Shoot it all."
Money showered down on the green felt. Rattling the dice, he announced that he was shooting seventy-five hundred, with a thousand still open.
"Only a thousand, people. Don't make me fall back before I fire." His eyes swept the group, hesitated at Mitch, then tendered an invitation. "A thousand open. All or any part."
"It's only money," Mitch smiled, and he took Out his wallet.
The dice rolled. Came out with a hard eight. The man followed with a four, a six, another four-another hard four-and bounced back with his hard eight. Another hard eight.
He let it ride. Fifteen thousand dollars. There was two thousand open that time, and Mitch took it.
The dice rolled and stopped with two deuces up. Another hard four! Three of them in less than as many minutes! To Mitch it was like a red flag.
It could be on the level, of course. It couldn't be anything else in a place like this. But still…
He watched the progression of numbers, the dice combinations as they rolled out. Six-four-two. Six again-and again four-two. And here came another hard eight! Then, two deuces-a hard four! That made four of them now, four hard fours! And it made the man winner.
Mitch stood stunned, certain of the truth but unable to associate it with the circumstance. The man wasn't a hustler. These people knew him; he was obviously a friend of long standing. At any rate, no hustler would be so crude. He wouldn't have to. It was too dangerous. The dice handler depended on skill, not some device which he might be caught with.
Laughing, the prematurely gray man gestured, indicating that he would shoot the whole thirty grand. Then he saw Mitch's expression, and his smile drew in, and he acted. Swiftly he swept the money up with his dice hand, jamming it into his already-bulging coat pocket. With the same movement, his hand came out of the pocket and spun two dice out on the table.
"Pass the dice," he smiled pleasantly at Mitch. "I hope you'll have my luck, sir."
"It isn't luck," Mitch said. "You're using crooked dice."
"What?" A perplexed smile-frown. "That's not a very good joke, my friend."
Mitch nodded, agreeing that it wasn't. He asked to see the dice the man had been using. "The ones in your pocket, I mean. You switched them when you were handling your money."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Downing rise, march Red firmly toward the door while she looked anxiously back over her shoulder. That was the right thing to do, of course, but it added nothing to his assurance. There was a hint in it that he, Mitch Corley, had pulled a giant economy-sized goof.
"I mean it," he said doggedly. "You won that money with crooked dice."
"Did I? Does anyone else feel the same way?"
No one did, and they made it clear. They seemed to move a little closer to the gray-haired man, staring coldly at Mitch; a kindred group, facing a common enemy.
"You're free to search me, if you do." The man looked around at them, beaming. "I'm always willing to oblige a friend."
"Don't be silly, Johnny,"-an embarrassed murmur. "What the hell, Johnny? We're all pals here."
The gray head turned to Mitch, focused amused eyes on him. "It looks like you made a mistake, my friend. Possibly you've had a little too much to drink."
"There's no mistake. Now, I'll take a look at those dice!"
"Help yourself. The dice are on the table."
"I mean the ones in your pocket. I'll take a look at them, or I'll take three thousand dollars!"
"No," the man smiled firmly. "That isn't what you'll do, at all."
Mitch took a step toward the man. The man fell back into a fighting crouch. At the same instant, a steely grip closed over Mitch's arm and whirled him around.
It was the stocky, broad-shouldered man who had met him and Red at the entrance to the clubhouse. The maоtre d', perhaps, or a captain of waiters.
"Yes?" he said, in his faintly musical voice. "What seems to be the trouble?"
Mitch told him curtly. The stocky man shook his head. "That's impossible. Just who are you to make such a charge?"
"You know who I am," Mitch snapped. "You saw, my guest card tonight."
"May I see it again, please?"
Mitch handed it to him. The man scanned it, ripped it in two, and dropped the pieces on the floor.
"You're not welcome here, Mr. Corley. I advise you to leave immediately."
"Now, wait a minute!" Mitch raged. "What kind of a place is this, anyway? I get cheated out of three thousand dollars, and you-Just who the hell are you to push me around?"
"No one has pushed you around, Mr. Corley. Any disturbance has been caused by you."
"We'll see what the manager has to say! Now, I want your name!"
"Of course," the man nodded. "The name is Jake Zearsdale."
8
Red had fallen asleep, at last.
Mitch moved quietly from her side, tucked the covers back around her and went into the front room. He fixed himself a drink. Taking it over to a window, he stood looking out over the city. Troubledly, staring unseeing at the sleeping metropolis, he sorted through the night's happenings.
There had been nothing to do but leave the club quietly, of course. Cheated of three thousand dollars, a serious loss at this particular time, he could only leave, hoping that this would be the end of the matter. Which, according to Frank Downing, it might not be. The gray- haired man, Downing told him, was a long-time friend and business associate of Zearsdale. And Zearsdale was a man who cherished a friend and cracked down hard on an enemy.