The Rose’s up card was the jack of clubs, the Lady’s the four of hearts. Both women peeked at their hole cards. The Rose then winked at her admirers, bet twenty dollars. Lady One-Eye called and dealt a ten of diamonds to go with the jack, a deuce of spades for herself. This time the Rose bet fifty dollars. Again, silently, Lady One-Eye called.
The fourth round of cards brought the Rose a spade jack, the Lady a five of diamonds. The challenger grinned at her high pair and said, “Jacks have never let me down,” a remark that caused Lady One-Eye to cast a quick glance at her husband. “One hundred dollars on the pair of ’em, dearie.”
Quincannon wondered if the remark about jacks had been deliberate — if the Rose, too, had noticed the intimacy between Jack O’Diamonds and Lily Dumont. Likely she had. Lady One-Eye was as aware of it as her brother, he was fairly certain of that.
Without another glance at her hole card, the Lady called the hundred-dollar bet. Slowly she dealt the fifth and final cards. Jack of hearts. And the trey of clubs. Three of a kind for the Rose, a possible open-ended straight for herself.
The onlookers began to stir and murmur. Play at the few other open gambling tables suspended for the moment. Nearly everyone in the cavernous room stood or sat watching the two women. Even McFinn, leaning against one of the roulette layouts, was temporarily motionless.
“Well, dearie,” the Rose said, “three handsome jacks.” She tapped her hole card. “Is this the fourth I have here? It may well be. What do you think, Lady, of my having the jack of diamonds?”
Quincannon was sure that this innuendo was intentional. But whatever Lady One-Eye thought of the remark, she neither reacted nor responded.
“Or it may be another ten. A full house beats a straight all to hell, dearie. If you even have a six or an ace to fill.”
“Bet your jacks,” Lady One-Eye said in her soft, cold drawl.
The Rose separated four blue chips from her small remaining stack, slid them into the pot. “Two hundred says it makes no difference if you have a straight or not.”
“Your two hundred, and raise another two.”
Voices created an excited buzz, ebbed again to silence. Neither of the women seemed to notice. Their gazes were fixed on each other.
“A bluff, dearie?” the Rose said.
“Call or raise and you’ll soon know.”
“Four hundred is all I have left.”
“Call or raise.”
“Your two hundred, then, and my last two hundred.”
“Call.”
The pile of red-and-blue chips bulged between them. The crowd was expectantly still as the Rose shrugged and turned over her hole card.
The queen of hearts. No help.
“Three jacks,” she said. “Beat ’em if you can.”
Her one good eye as icy as any Quincannon had ever seen, the Lady flipped her hole card. And when it was revealed in the glistening mirrors, a triumphant shout went up from her champions.
Ace of clubs to fill the straight.
The pot and all of the Rose’s table stakes were hers.
2
Quincannon
For the next half hour Quincannon was busy attending to the unquenchable thirst of the Gold Nugget’s steady stream of customers. But not so busy that he was unable to maintain his observations.
The Saint Louis Rose, after fending off a pair of drunken sports who considered her fair game, slipped quietly out of the hall. Lady One-Eye gathered her winnings, turned the chips over to her taciturn brother to be cashed — all the while keeping watch on her husband. Jack O’Diamonds made no further move to Lily Dumont’s faro bank, nor did he approach his wife. Instead he bellied up to the bar at Quincannon’s station and called for a brandy.
The Nevada City saloonkeeper, Glen Bonnifield, took this opportunity to stalk to Lily’s table, lean down with his face close to hers. Their conversation was brief and clearly heated. To end it Bonnifield slapped the table hard with his open hand — as a substitute for slapping Lily, Quincannon thought — and then swung away, back past the bar. His eyes met Diamond’s in the mirror; the two gazes struck sparks, but neither man made a move toward the other. Bonnifield stalked to the front entrance and was gone.
Quincannon served Jack O’Diamonds his brandy. “Your wife had a fine run of luck tonight, Mr. Diamond.”
“My wife’s luck is always fine.” The gambler didn’t sound as pleased about it as he might have. Jealousy? Compared to Lady One-Eye’s skill with the pasteboards, honest or not, his own was mediocre.
“And your luck with Lily Dumont? How has that been?”
The comment, delivered casually, produced a tight-lipped glower. “What do you mean by that?”
“No offense, sir. I was asking if you’d won or lost at faro.”
“I didn’t play faro tonight.”
“Mr. Bonnifield seemed to think you did,” Quincannon said blandly, “and that you spent a great deal of time at Lily’s table. So did Mr. Gaunt.”
“I don’t care a tinker’s damn what either of them thinks.” Jack O’Diamonds fingered his flashy diamond stickpin, downed his brandy at a gulp. Then he, too, left the Gold Nugget — alone, and still without speaking to his wife.
Jeffrey Gaunt, clad in a rusty black frock coat, striped trousers, and string tie, sidled up to take his brother-in-law’s place at the bar. He was a year or two younger than Lady One-Eye, clean shaven except for a thin shoelace mustache, his face and body as gaunt as his name, his black hair combed flat to his skull and glistening with pomade. His only distinguishing feature was a deep chin cleft the size of a thumbprint.
“What’s your pleasure, Mr. Gaunt?” Quincannon asked.
“A glass of water.” The man’s Southern drawl was even more pronounced than those of his sister and Jack O’Diamonds.
“Just that?”
“Just that. I don’t take strong spirits.”
“Nor do I, sir. I only serve them.”
“I noticed you talking to Jack O’Diamonds. What about? He seemed agitated.”
“I asked if he’d won or lost at faro tonight. He said he hadn’t played.”
“And the question upset him?”
“No, sir. It was my mention of Lily’s swain, Mr. Glen Bonnifield.”
“What about Bonnifield?”
Quincannon set the glass of water on the bar in front of Gaunt. “He seemed to think Mr. Diamond has been spending a great deal of time at the faro bank.”
“Did he now.” The ice-blue eyes narrowed into a steady stare. “And what did you say to that?”
“Nothing, sir. It’s none of my concern.”
“That’s right, it isn’t. I’d remember that if I were you.”
Gaunt drank his water, set the glass down sharply, and ambled off to join Lady One-Eye. Bad blood between him and his brother-in-law because of what was going on between Diamond and Lily Dumont? Quincannon wondered. Maybe so; the pair seldom spoke to each other in public. A potentially volatile situation, in any case, though whether or not it was relevant to the investigation remained to be seen.
Lady One-Eye, meanwhile, had stepped down off the platform, approached Lily Dumont, and engaged her in a brief, heated discussion just as Bonnifield had. Lily’s reaction to whatever was said to her was to call the Lady an unladylike name, in a voice loud enough to cause a commotion among the miners seated at her bank. Lady One-Eye responded by making a warning gesture with her gold-knobbed cane before limping away. She then left the hall in the company of Gaunt and the bouncer assigned by McFinn as escort and bodyguard.