"Howdy, gents," he said, and looked them over. When his eyes fell on Kirby, his mouth dropped open and he took a step backward. His look went to the too intent poker players and then back again to Kirby. He made a valiant effort to recover his professional manner. "What'll it be?" he asked.
Josh answered for them. "The bottle you keep under the bar."
The barkeep essayed a weak grin. He set four glasses before them, then bent to get a bottle kept out of sight.
"The best," he said. "Drink hearty." Kirby, downing his drink, realized that the man was looking at someone over his shoulder… at his back. The hair prickled on the back of his neck, and chill laid icy cold ripples along his spine. But he was ready for the voice when it came.
"Pardon me for butting in like this, but I'm wondering if I'm seeing things. Know a man looks like you!"
Kirby nodded in cold agreement. "Expect you're talking about my brother… my twin brother."
The florid face smiled… or rather the facial muscles were contorted in what was meant to be a smile. His eyes, cold and hard as agate, didn't lose their watchful wariness. Far back in their depths was something else. Was it the beginning of fear? Kirby wondered. Surely this man wasn't afraid of anything.
"Where is Bill? Haven't seen him around for several days." His voice was as thin and as cold as his eyes.
Kirby stared at him, anger beginning to light little red danger lamps in the back of his eyes.
"Your name King?" he asked brusquely.
The big man nodded. "That's what they call me."
Kirby didn't take his eyes from King's face. "Then let's stop beating around the bush. You know darn well where Bill is… where Hub Dawes and his bunch are."
"I don't quite get your meaning, friend," King answered, with a quick glance at the poker table.
"The devil you don't." Kirby checked his anger by sheer willpower. He felt his gorge rise at the necessity of standing so close to this man who had murdered his brother and ached to bury his fingers in the fat red neck.
He knew that trouble was beginning. He heard Josh as his foreman slid along the bar behind his back and stood between him and the poker table. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Curly and Ringo separate. Curly gave the bartender his attention, and Ringo had the two strangers under his regard.
"You here to make trouble?" King demanded, his agate-hard eyes beginning to glitter. "Might be you came to the right place."
"I'll meet trouble when it comes," Kirby told him. "You thinkin' of startin' something? Make your play."
King regarded him stonily but said nothing. Kirby felt the man's puzzlement.
"I came here on business, King," he went on. "Maybe this business and trouble are one and the same. Depends. I want the papers you're holding on Lazy B; the mortgage you had Hub Dawes rig for you."
Again that fleeting expression of fear. "You're making some pretty brash statements for a young fellow. How do you know…?"
Kirby stopped him. "Cut it out, King. I know you've got the paper. I want it. And I mean to have it, one way or the other."
"You got money to meet the principal and interest?"
"Yeah, I have, but not the way you think."
"Meaning?"
"I've heard you're quite a gambling man, King. We'll play one hand of poker, ten thousand cash against the note."
"That's a sucker bet." A hard grin crossed the florid face. "What if I win? I'll have your ten thousand and Lazy B, You're trying to run some kind of joker on me. But you ain't that smart. Oh, I'll take you on. But I don't get it… yet."
"I don't intend to lose," Kirby told him.
Again King's icy grin. "Well, you know how poker is. Some days you don't; some you do. Let's see the color of your ten thousand."
"Get the mortgage out on the table, I'll cover it."
Kirby followed the broad back to the table where he had been sitting. The three occupants got up, wearing worried expressions, and ranged themselves behind King's chair. The punchers, taking in the scene avidly, hadn't moved. The barkeep shuffled his feet uneasily as Curly stopped him with the soft command, "Put your hands on the bar and keep 'em there. Understand?"
The barman cast an agonized glance at the poker table, but his beefy hands flattened out on the bar and stayed put.
Kirby took his place opposite King. He caught a glimpse of an underarm holster as King reached into an inside pocket. From a wallet he extracted a paper, unfolded it and spread it out on the table where Kirby could see it. "Leave it there," said Kirby, and took a bundle of bills from inside his shirt. "I'm covering," he said. "Want to count it?"
King took in the denomination of the bill on top of the stack. He shook his head. "You're word's good. We cut for deal?" He pushed the pack of cards with which he had been playing earlier across the table.
Kirby's heart was in his throat as he reached out and halved the pack. He turned up the nine of spades. He replaced the cards, and King cut… the jack of diamonds.
Relief flooded through Kirby's entire body, so violently that he felt almost nauseated. King had won the deal.
Thick but incredibly swift fingers riffled through the pack. King finished his shuffle and passed them across. "Cut?"
Kirby separated the deck into three piles, then replaced them in different order.
"Takin' no chances," King sneered.
"As few as possible. Deal!"
Kirby's first card was the seven of spades. King drew a red queen. His next was the eight of hearts, King's the deuce of clubs. On the third round Kirby watched the five of diamonds flutter down on his pile and a red four on King's.
The agile fingers flicked Kirby's fourth card to his hand. He felt a moment's puzzlement. His card was the six of diamonds. He's going to give me a run for my money, he thought, and watched the three of hearts drop to King. Kirby held the five, six, seven and eight, a possible straight, open on each end. Unless he paired on the last card King had nothing, and even a pair would lose if Kirby caught a nine.
Someone in the room drew a deep breath, which sounded loud in the unnatural stillness. And King dealt the last card. Kirby watched with inward satisfaction as he caught the ace of spades, and even greater pleasure when King turned up the black queen. He held the winning pair.
King was grinning an icy grimace. His hands moved to pick up the stakes, and he said softly, "Too bad, Street. But some days you don't pick up a copper."
"Hold it, King!" Kirby's voice rang like a bell in the quiet. King's hand stopped in mid-air, then dropped to the table as Kirby picked up his five cards and studied them closely, turning each one over and over. King's face had grown ashen. A muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched. Kirby looked up from the cards, and the big man flinched visibly when he saw his expression.
Kirby's voice was deadly. "You don't give your customers much of a run for their money, do you?"
King didn't answer, but his hands clenched into fat claws; his pallor changed swiftly to crimson. Kirby's voice cut into him.
"That last queen you drew, the black queen, was the bottom card of the third stack I cut before the deal. You put the other two stacks down on top of it. I'm lucky I saw it. You even deal from the bottom, too fast for a sucker to catch you." Kirby's gaze was boring into the agate eyes.
"I'm not finished. There was more to tonight's play than trying to cheat me. This pack of cards has been fixed. It's a shaved deck. And that proves you didn't win Bill's money; you stole it. You're crooked all the way, you and your whole murdering, cow-thieving outfit. But you're through now."
King watched, fascinated, as Kirby's left hand moved slowly to pick up the stakes. He tucked the stack of bills back into his shirt. Then he picked up the mortgage and ripped it to shreds. Without a word, he flung the pieces into the gambler's face.
With an animal-like snarl, King's hand darted under his left arm, but before he could complete the draw, Kirby had kicked back his chair and was on his feet. His fist slapped leather and his gun barked twice; the slugs, not an inch apart, thudded into King's chest just beneath the hideout gun. His heart shattered, the big man was dead before reflex action fired the snub-nosed .44 he had tried to draw.