Crooked Hearts (13 page)

“Hold on a second, Wanda,” he urged with creepy joviality. “Aren’t you going to give the boys a chance to get even?”

“I really can’t,” she answered, gaze level, looking him in the eye to calm him.

“Sure you can.” He draped his heavy arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Least you can do is have a drink with us. For old time’s sake, huh?” He squeezed tight, tighter, flattening her upper arm against his chest.

“Maybe another old time,” she murmured. Fires started to crackle in the sky-blue of her eyes.

“No, now. C’mon, least you can do. After all, you and me almost got to be real good friends tonight, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but ‘almost’ is the operative word. Take your hands off me or you’ll regret it.”

He was so surprised by the silk-to-steel shift in her tone, he almost obeyed. “Like hell,” he snarled instead, and wrapped his big paw around the back of her neck.

Reuben sighed. “Lady says she can’t stay,” he pointed out, looming between them. Sharkey was bigger than he was, and Reuben was still sore from all those Croaker fists.

The big man responded with a vulgar but prosaic suggestion.

“That’s so unimaginative,” Reuben complained, maneuvering closer. “Not to mention physically impossible.”

“Listen, you.” The good part was that Sharkey let go of Grace. The bad part was that he grabbed Reuben by the collar and lifted him onto his toes. Over the giant’s broad, hulking shoulder, Reuben widened his eyes and bared his teeth, telling her to
go, dammit, go.
She hesitated. He lost sight of her when Sharkey shook him like a dog, baring his own teeth and giving every indication of wanting to rip out Reuben’s throat.

“Has anybody ever mentioned your breath?” Reuben panted, plucking at the muscular fingers Sharkey was trying to gouge into his neck. “Sometimes only a close friend will tell you the truth.” On
truth,
he hauled back with one foot and slammed it into Sharkey’s shin. He gave a shriek and let go, hopping up and down, spewing out more dull-witted expletives.

Twisting toward the door, Reuben caught a glimpse of Grace’s pert behind sashaying through it. It was the second-to-last thing he saw. The last was Sharkey’s ham of a fist streaking toward his sore chin.

6

The devil is the father of lies, but he neglected to patent the idea, and the business now suffers from competition.

—Josh Billings

“W
E NEED TO WORK
on our getaway.”

Grace jumped up, abandoning the bright mound of loot on the sprung couch cushions, and raced to the widening alley door. “Reuben,” she cried anxiously, searching his face for fresh injuries. “Are you all right? I didn’t want to leave you, but I didn’t know what else to do! Did he hit you? Are you hurt?”

“Just a flesh wound,” he muttered, leaning against the door and patting the side of his jaw with delicate fingers. A new bruise was blooming along the bone, but the excited twinkle in his light brown eyes told her he didn’t mind it. “So you got home all right by yourself?”

“I caught a hansom,” she said absently, catching his hand and leading him toward the couch. “Sit down. Oh, dear—is there enough room for you?” She stopped, mock-dismayed, as if just noticing the obstacles on the sofa cushion. His face lit up like a boy’s on Christmas morning, and she clapped her hands with delight. “Look at it! Oh, Reuben” look!”

They sat down on either side of the money pile, beaming at each other. “How much?” he asked.

“One thousand, six hundred and seventy-five dollars and fifty cents,” she answered slowly, relishing the syllables. “And most of it came from that
beast,
Sharkey. How did you get away? At least he didn’t have a gun; then you’d—”

“He had a gun. He had a thirty-two in a shoulder holster.”

“No!”

“Luckily the bartender had a forty-five. He and the bouncer convinced Sharkey to take his losses like a man, and I got out while they were disarming him.”

“Did he know you were cheating, do you think?”

“No, he thought you were. What made him so mad was that he couldn’t figure out how.”

She sat back proudly. “It’s such a good trick, and it almost never fails.”

“How many times have you run it?”

“Oh—
I’ve
never run it. I just saw it once.” He looked completely unconvinced, and she regretted her slip of the tongue. “God, I love money,” she said to change the subject, stirring the gleaming pile of gold, silver, and paper with her fingers. “It’s so comforting, isn’t it? So soothing.” He winked at her. “Do you like it, too, just for itself? Look at it, Reuben. Nothing else is this color,” she gloated, fondling a twenty-dollar double eagle. “I even like the way it smells.”

“I think I prefer what it can buy.”

“Oh, well, that too.” That was obvious; she dismissed it with a wave of the hand. But deep down, what Grace liked about money, even more than how it looked and felt and smelled, was what it stood for: security. Without it, everything and everyone you loved could be taken away from you. With it, at least you had a fighting chance.

“What was your plan if you hadn’t caught that last-nine, Gus, right before you bet the brooch?” He settled back, too, with his long legs outstretched, feet resting on the low coffee table. “You let your stack get too low; it was pure luck when you beat Sharkey’s three kings at the last minute;”

“I know,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t help it. They were dealing slop until you passed me the jacks. If I’d lost that hand, I was going to hit somebody up for a loan.”

“Who?” he asked curiously.

“Not you. Certainly not Sharkey. Rusty, I think—he’d have been the softest.”

“I thought you had ’em all pretty spongy by then.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She smiled fondly, recalling it. “They were nice men, except for Sharkey. I almost felt sorry for them.”

“Did you?” He sent her a lopsided smile back. “I think that must be why you’re so good at it.”

“Do you think I’m good?” A self-serving question, but she wanted the compliment.

“I think you’re the best I’ve ever seen.”

She felt herself coloring for the second time that day. Why flattering words from Reuben Jones could make her blush like a child, she could not imagine. “I’m starving,” she said quickly. “Why isn’t there ever anything to eat in this house?”

“Let’s go out.” He jackknifed to his feet and crossed the room to his clay-pipe pyramid of wine bottles. “What do you feel like, Grace, a nice light Beaujolais? Or something a bit meatier, maybe a Merlot?”

“Mmm, you pick. Are we drinking?”

“We’re celebrating. Ah, just the thing, Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St. Jacques. Carefree but still substantial. Trust me, from this vintage it won’t be too heavy.” He took glasses and a corkscrew from a shelf over the coal stove, came toward her, and held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” He led her toward what she thought of now as the back door, the one leading to the sloping terraced double lot behind the big house where his landlady lived. “I thought we were going out to eat.”

“We are.”

Outside, the night was mild, almost balmy, full dark at nine o’clock, with a smattering of stars blinking between smoke-colored clouds. They walked up a weedy flagstone path to the second tier of level grass, where a cluster of white garden furniture was barely visible in the murk. Reuben checked an Adirondack chair for dew, dried the seat with his handkerchief, and motioned for her to sit. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” she called to his dark-coated back, disappearing toward the house in the gloom.

“To get dinner. Open the wine, Grace, so it can breathe!”

She’d never opened a bottle of wine before; that was supposed to be a man’s job, like carving the meat or driving the buggy. She twisted the corkscrew in easily enough, but had to wedge the bottle between her knees for enough purchase to draw out the cork. Good thing she was alone. Could it “breathe” in the bottle, or did you have to decant it? She decided to leave it alone, anticipating Reuben’s epicurean horror if she guessed wrong. She set the bottle on the table in front of a wooden love seat and sat down, clasping her hands behind her head and leaning back to contemplate the stars.

“All she had was chicken and biscuits. She put mayonnaise on the biscuits and made sandwiches.”

“Who?” She twisted around, watching Reuben saunter down the flagstone path with a covered basket in his arms. She liked to watch him walk; it was something about the way his hips were connected to his long, handsome legs, that and the smooth rhythm of his loose, straight shoulders moving with each step.

“Mrs. Finney. I told her we were drinking Burgundy, but she didn’t care.” His tone held disbelief. “Said it was chicken or nothing. Sorry, Gus—I can go out and try to find something else, maybe some roast beef or lamb—”

“This is fine,” she said hastily, hearing her stomach growl.

“Sure? If I’d known, I’d have suggested the Montrachet. Got two bottles last week. It’s really very nice. Fellow didn’t know what he had; I picked ’em up for practically nothing.”

“This is fine,” she repeated, privately wishing he’d picked up a nice bottle of milk. She set out the sandwiches on linen napkins, pleased to discover two oranges and two bananas in the bottom of the basket, while Reuben poured the wine. She had reached for her glass and started to take a sip when he stopped her.

“Wait, a toast. To luck.”

“To cheating,” she amended, touching glasses.

“To your skill with the cards,” he tacked on generously.

“And yours.” Full of good will, she started again to take a sip, but stopped when she saw Reuben swirling his wine in the glass, dipping his nose into it like a heron, breathing deeply, sighing. She mimicked him, bemused, with no idea what she was doing. He even held the glass strangely, by the bottom of the stem instead of the bowl. “When do we get to drink it?” she cracked. He just smiled at her across the rim of his glass, and finally took a sip. She copied him, but drank it down too soon—he kept the wine in his mouth for a good ten seconds before he swallowed it. “Nice,” she ventured. “Isn’t it?” It tasted like wine to her.

He looked faintly disappointed. “Needed another year.”

“Another year?”

“To establish its character. It’s got plenty of fruit and charm, but not enough staying power.” He went back to inhaling, nose buried deep; when he sipped it the next time, he drew it in through his teeth with a lot of air, making a liquid hissing sound. “Still, it’s got courage, don’t you think? Backbone in the face of adversity.” Another small sip. “And resourcefulness. Do you taste that, under the tannin?”

She was pretty sure he wasn’t joking. She took a taste, mulled it over, swallowed. “Yes, I see what you mean. And maybe a hint of misanthropy? Beneath the resourcefulness, I mean. And beyond that, a tendency to make snap judgments.”

He stared down into his glass, arrested, actually thinking it over. His laugh when he got the joke was appreciative, but mostly surprised: it really had never occurred to him that his wine pronouncements might sound odd to a layman.

Sliced chicken on biscuits was an underrated delicacy, Grace decided, hunting in the basket for a third one. Not having eaten anything since before noon might have something to do with her judgment, but even so, the meal was delicious. She and Reuben ate with gusto, silent and purposeful during the first two sandwiches, talkative during the third, recounting the evening’s highlights and dissecting poker hands. Reuben was almost as knowledgeable about seven-card stud as he was about wine, and had lots of hints and suggestions on how she could improve her play. She took them in good part, feeling mellow, and entirely too pleased with herself to take offense at the note of male superiority in his voice. “Tell me your life story,” she invited, dabbing at crumbs on her lips from the last bite, and refilling their glasses herself. “Where were you born?”

He stuck his feet up on the table and stretched an arm out along the back of the love seat in her direction. He didn’t touch her, but she was aware of his hand behind her shoulder, just resting there. “In Virginia,” he answered readily, “on a plantation near Richmond. Sweetbriar, it was called.” His voice softened nostalgically.

“Really? You’re from the South?” Somehow it didn’t fit.

“Yep.”

“Were you born before or after the war?”

“During—1862, smack in the middle. My father had freed all his slaves years earlier, but when the war came he felt duty-bound to fight for his homeland. He rose to the rank of colonel—Colonel Beauregard Jones,” he said proudly “—but he was killed in ’62 at the battle of Malvern Hill.”

Beauregard Jones?
Hiding her skepticism, she asked in a level tone, “Then you never knew him?”

“I was conceived on a one-day leave, as he was marching his troops north from Fredericksburg to Richmond. He died four days later.”

“How terrible,” she hazarded, in case it was true.

“A year later, the Union army burned Sweetbriar to the ground.”

She shook her head pityingly. “Your poor mother.”

“Yes. She … wasn’t a very strong person. When the war was over, rather than lose everything instead of almost everything, she married a Yankee carpetbagger named Cramer. I don’t blame her—at least, not anymore. We were starving; he was rich. Son of a bitch owned the town bank. He took over Sweetbriar and restored it—that was something.”

“But?” she prodded when he hesitated. The strain of bitterness in his voice made her narrow her eyes and stare at him.

“But …” He stopped again, and she found herself laying her hand lightly on his outstretched arm. “But I hated him. And I was scared of him. I saw him slap my mother once—I was four, maybe five years old. When I tried to stop it, he hit me, too. Broke my collarbone.”

“Reuben!’”

“She started staying in her room all the time. When I was about eight, I found out what she was doing in there.” He looked away. “To this day, I can’t stand the smell of bourbon whiskey.”

She frowned, and removed her hand. “But you
drink
bourbon whiskey. You keep it in your sock drawer.”