Ace in the Hole (8 page)

Diane rolled over in bed and looked at the naked man lying next to her. He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, and his impressive erection was pointing at the ceiling. She reached over and took it in one hand, began to stroke it. She was amazed at the hardness of it, since she had just finished riding it only ten minutes ago.

“You're an amazing man,” she said.

“Because of that?” he asked, looking down at his own penis. “Lady, I tol' you, I been in prison.”

“I know what you told me, Mr. Calhoun,” she said.

“You got hold of my tallywhacker, Mrs. Morgan. I think you can call me Tito.”

“Mmm, yes, I do have a hold on you,” she said, pumping harder with her hand. “I think it was a lucky thing for both of us that you followed Tom when he met with me today.”

“And then invited you to my room?”

“Yes,” she said. “Only it was lucky I waited and didn't run into him here.”

“I knew he had a partner,” Calhoun said. “I wanted to find out who it was. Imagine how surprised I was when it turned out to be a woman—and a beautiful one, at that.”

“Beautiful,” she said, “as well as smart and hungry.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That, too.”

She released his cock and ran her hand over his chest, stopping at each scar.

“Did you get these in prison?”

“Some in prison, some before,” he said.

She touched one. “What's this from?”

“Bullet.”

“And this one?”

“A knife.”

“And this?”

“A bigger knife.”

She touched his side, which had three puckers in it, equidistant from each other.

“And this?”

“A pitchfork.”

“Ouch,” she said. She leaned over and kissed the largest of the scars. “You must be a hard man to kill.”

“I am,” he said, “and I'm a hard man to control. I'm not Tom Kent, or your husband.”

“I know that.” She slid her hand down between his legs again and stroked his heavy testicles.

He grabbed her by the wrist. “So if we do this,” he said, “you're not callin' the shots. I am.”

“I've been waiting for a man to come along and call the shots,” she said.

“I thought Tom was your man.”

“I thought Tom was your friend.”

“I ain't friends with no lawman.”

“But if he does this—”

“I sure as hell ain't friends with a crooked lawman,” he said, cutting her off. “He's provin' he's not a man to be trusted.”

“And you are?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I am. If I say I'm gonna do somethin', I do it.”

“So you'll kill Arliss, and all of the other men in the game, and then you'll kill Tom?”

“I'd kill anybody who gets in my way.”

“Even me?”

“Even you.”

She moved quickly, straddling him, trapping his erect penis beneath her.

“When you called for me at that other hotel today, I knew you were the man for me.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because you're the only real man I've ever met,” she said. “When you opened the door of your room and I saw you standing there, I had to get my clothes off as fast as I could.”

“Did you ever tell Tom Kent the same thing?”

“Tom Kent was a means to an end,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Darling,” she said, stroking his chest, “I was supposed to meet him so I could meet you. It was fate.”

He reached down, lifted her by the hips so that his penis could ride up again, then brought her down on him, impaling her.

“That feel like fate?” he asked.

She laughed and said, “It feels like you're going to fuck me silly again.”

“You got a dirty mouth for a woman.”

“You don't like it?” She rose up and came back down on him, taking him all the way into her steaming depths.

“You crazy?” he asked, reaching for her breasts. “I love it!”

Clint rolled away from the sleeping, naked woman in his bed, stood up and walked to the window. He'd only felt he could keep up with one woman tonight, not two. He let the women decide who that would be, so Loretta was sleeping in his bed at the moment. It was nice to be in demand with two civilized women who were willing to share.

He thought about what he'd agreed to do, play in this big game with gamblers from around the world. Certainly one of his friends Bat Masterson or Luke Short would have been better suited to this. Even Ben Thompson. But the fact was he'd walked into this, and the curiosity level was too high for him not to do it. He'd played in some high-stakes game before, but nothing to match this.

“Clint?”

He turned and looked at the girl on the bed. She was naked, propped up on one elbow.

“Come back to bed,” she said. “I'm cold.”

He was kind of cold, too. He went back to bed, took her in his arms and they fell asleep while keeping each other warm.

Clint rose the next morning and left the room without waking Loretta. They'd already said their good-byes. He took all his gear, because he doubted he would be returning to Virginia City.

He left the hotel and walked to the livery. When he got there, he was surprised to find the banker, Arliss Morgan, already there, the horse hitched to the buggy.

“What took you so long?” Morgan asked.

“You're very anxious to get going, aren't you?”

“You bet,” Morgan said. “I would have saddled your horse, but I couldn't get near him.”

“Yeah, he's temperamental sometimes. I'll saddle him and be right with you.”

“I can ride over to the general store and pick up our supplies,” the man offered.

“It's better if we do everything together from now until we get to the ranch,” Clint said.

“You think somebody would try something?”

“You're carrying a lot of money, aren't you?”

“Well, actually, no…”

“I thought you told me a banknote wouldn't work.”

“Actually, our host is arranging to have something set up so that we can all get the money we need rather easily.”

Clint squared up and stared at the banker.

“Is there anything else you haven't told me yet?”

“I don't think so.”

“Why was it so important to hold back that little bit of information?”

The banker actually shrugged, looked as if he'd just been scolded.

“Look, just wait here while I saddle my horse,” Clint said. “Don't do anything, and don't go anywhere. Somebody is sure to know where we're headed, and they won't know that you don't have a bunch of money with you.”

“All right.”

Clint turned to go inside, then turned back and pointed his finger at the banker.

“Once we're on the trail, you're going to have to do what I tell you to do, when I tell you, without question,” he explained. “Is that understood?”

“Understood,” Morgan said.

Clint went into the livery…

“Get away from the edge!” Tom Kent hissed.

Looking down at the livery from the roof of the building across the street, Tito Calhoun said, “They're not gonna look up here.”

“They might.”

“Relax, Tom.”

“And how are you gonna get down from here fast enough to follow them?”

“We just have to see what direction they take when they leave,” Calhoun said. “I'm not gonna be right on their trail, Tom. They'd see me for sure.”

“What about this other fella you said was gonna help you track 'em?”

“I'll be catchin' up to him outside of town.”

“Maybe I should go with you.”

“You leave when we planned,” Calhoun said, “in a few hours. You head for Carson City and pick up the rest of the men there.”

“I don't know if this is gonna work.”

“It'll work,” Calhoun said. “We know the general area the ranch is in, and they're gonna be there for days.”

Kent wasn't sure that Diane was going to be happy with this plan.

Tito Calhoun, on the other hand, had seen Diane happier than Kent had ever seen her, and just the night before. Running into a woman like Diane Morgan fresh out of prison was something Calhoun had not expected. He intended to enjoy her as much as possible, and use her to get ahold of the money. But he had no intention of sharing the money with Kent, Diane or any of the other men involved, except maybe for one. His intention was to use this money to make sure he never went to prison again.

He'd learned a valuable lesson in Huntsville Prison. No matter how tough you think you are, prison will wear you down and kill you, if you're there long enough. Luckily, his stretch was short—this time. But he thought if he ever went to prison again he'd probably die there. So he would do whatever he had to do, to whoever he had to do it to, to make sure that never happened.

But Diane Morgan…well, she'd be the last one he killed. He'd been without a woman for too long to dispose of this one too soon.

Clint saddled Eclipse and walked him back outside, where Morgan was waiting. They then went over to the general store to pick up the supplies he'd ordered. Now that they had the buggy, they probably could have carried more, but Clint decided to stick with what he'd bought—coffee, beef jerky, some beans and bacon and cans of peaches.

As Clint stowed the supplies, Morgan, dressed in a banker's version of trail clothes—which meant he could have worn them to church on Sunday—stood by and asked, “Is there any way we could make it to the ranch tonight?”

“Not if it's where you told me it is,” Clint said. “Better to spend one night on the trail. Why?” He turned to face the man. “When's the last time you slept on the ground?”

“To tell you the truth,” Morgan said, “I don't think I've ever slept on the ground.”

“Then it's probably a good thing you're not trying to ride, as well,” Clint said. “One new experience at a time should be enough. Ready?”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” Morgan said.

He walked around and climbed into the buggy while Clint mounted up.

“Are you armed?” Clint asked.

“I have a thirty-two-caliber Colt in a shoulder holster,” the banker said. “I usually only wear it when we're transporting large sums of money.”

“Can you shoot?”

“I can hit what I aim at, at close range.”

“Okay,” Clint said. “If we get into a shooting situation, you'll wait for word from me.”

“Understood.”

“Are we ready to go?” Clint asked. “You've said good-bye to your wife?”

“Oh, yes,” Morgan said. “That's all taken care of.”

“Does she know where you're going?”

“She knows I'm going to a poker game,” Morgan said, “and that a lot of money is involved.”

Clint studied the man. He knew when Morgan was bluffing at the poker table, and he knew now the man was lying. He was going to have to act on the assumption that Diane Morgan knew every detail, and go from there.

From his office window Tom Kent could see Clint Adams and Arliss Morgan loading their supplies onto the buggy. Kent wondered how much money Morgan had on him at the moment, and if it would be worth it just to ambush them for what the banker had on him. Given what Diane had told him about the amount of money involved, the banker must have had a hundred thousand dollars, at least.

That kind of money would last Tom Kent a lifetime. It would not, however, be enough for Diane Morgan.

Diane looked at the time on the grandfather clock in the sitting room of the house she shared with Arliss Morgan. If things went well, though, she would not be sharing it with him any longer. In fact, if things went the way she planned, she wouldn't even be seeing him again, ever.

Tito Calhoun had come into her life and transformed it. One afternoon with him and she knew that she was his sexual slave, and not the other way around, which is the way it usually went with men. She'd finally found a man who could enslave her. And not only that, he had modified her plan, making it even better. Rather than robbing the game and taking off with the money, she'd stay behind, become a wealthy widow and then sell off everything her husband owned. After that, she'd meet up with Calhoun. Between Arliss Morgan's personal fortune and the money they picked up from the game, she and Calhoun would be millionaires.

Millionaires!

That she had never planned on. It had taken Tito Calhoun to come up with that plan, and that's because he was a real outlaw, and not a wannabe like Tom Kent.

A real man and a real outlaw. That was what she needed, and that was what she had.

Finally, things in her life were going to go her way!

Tito Calhoun had sent Kent away because the man was driving him crazy. He thought he might have to kill him before the job just to shut him up.

He watched from the roof as Clint Adams and the banker left the livery and went to the general store. Tito had chosen this vantage point because he could see both structures very easily. While he watched, they loaded their supplies, had a discussion, then climbed aboard their buggy and horse and started west.

Calhoun had his horse saddled and ready behind the building. He got down from the roof, mounted up and slowly rode out of town. He had to pick up Dave Coffin—the other man he thought he might split his take with—outside of town. Dave was camped to the north. But he wanted to give Adams and Morgan a good head start anyway, and then track them. That gave him the time he needed to pick up Dave.

Dave Coffin was the only man he knew he could count on: uneducated, loyal and good with a gun. Coffin had laid low the entire time Calhoun was in prison, but once he was out, Dave was ready to go. As soon as Calhoun heard from Kent, he had sent a telegram to Dave.

Tom Kent could never be a Dave Coffin. He'd spent too many years wearing that star, and whatever potential Kent may have shown years ago, whatever edge he may have had, that little hunk of tin had smoothed off of him long ago. Calhoun didn't even think Kent was going to be able to go through with this. The man was going to balk at some point, and that was probably when Calhoun was going to have to put a bullet into him.