The Sixteen Burdens (6 page)

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

E
LSIE
A
VERY
SAT
on her regular stool in the corner, unnoticed and discarded. To guests, she was little more than a shadow against the wall, a nicely dressed young woman who looked as if she were left to wait while a thoughtless father or a rich uncle made his rounds at the blackjack tables.

A bird’s eye view of the casino, however, would reveal something very different. It would show every table turned so that the dealers and pit bosses were facing her. Alone in the corner, she was the center of attention.

For the moment, Elsie’s hands remained folded demurely in the lap of her Brunswick Green dress. Of all the outfits she had brought from England, this was her least favorite, but it served her purposes best. The dress was plain, adorned with nothing but a wide white belt cinched high on her waist. Her long auburn hair was kept tame by a white headband, and white gloves gave her an air of sophistication. It wasn’t sophistication she was looking for, though, but contrast.

Against her dark dress, any of the dealers would easily be able to see a slight movement of her hand. A command to proceed as normal, or to hold back, or to lean on a guest hard. A signal to distract a guest with conversation, or a warning to be silent and let the guest ruin himself. How she wished she didn’t have to wear those gloves tonight! Her nails were growing out nicely and she had just painted them a color called Blushing Petal. She felt a pang of guilt at how aghast her mother would be to see her “flapper fingers.”

The casino door swung open and Elsie saw the “Women’s Dressing Room” sign affixed to the front side that kept uninvited guests away. In walked a nicely dressed man who headed directly for the back. Elsie groaned internally.

Not him.

Charlie Chaplin was the best gambler in town. She would have to focus all of her attention on him. Actually, it wasn’t so much that he was the best gambler, but the luckiest. No matter what game he played or how little he tried, Chaplin always seemed to win. He rarely left the casino without his pockets full of cash. Elsie was convinced he cheated somehow, and she had a difficult time managing him.

Why does the richest actor in Hollywood need to gamble, anyway?

Few of the other patrons took notice, because Chaplin looked little like his famous on-screen persona, the Tramp. He wasn’t wearing his trademark toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, or cane. Instead, he was clean shaven in a nicely tailored suit, with his salt-and-pepper hair neatly parted on the right side. Only a wave in the front hinted at the curly mop he used to wear in the early days of his career.

Chaplin seemed to always be in high spirits when he was out, and he had a relentless humor that would disarm even the most impassive blackjack dealer. He was, after all, Hollywood’s king of comedy. At the moment he was pantomiming some story to the folks at the craps table, and half of them were doubled over in stitches. Their laughter vibrated the entire room.

“Not one dollar.”

Elsie felt the hot breath of Jack Siegel on her neck. She turned and glanced sideways at the owner of the Bali Ballroom. He was shorter than Elsie and small, but he wore his expensive tuxedo as an answer to anyone who questioned his status. Siegel was staring at Chaplin, strangling him with his eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” Elsie said.

“Don’t do your best,” he said, his accent heavy with the streets of working class New York. “Do what I say.”

And then he was gone. Elsie knew Siegel wanted to ban Chaplin from the casino entirely, but the actor’s cachet made that impossible.

Chaplin eventually settled in at a high-stakes poker table right next to Elsie. It was his normal spot as of late. He seemed to notice her for the first time, a nicely dressed young woman sitting alone in a casino.

“Abandoned by your father?” he asked, in a light English accent that reminded Elsie of home.

She nodded politely.

“What a coincidence. So was I.”

“Oh, mine will be back,” Elsie said. “Once he’s done gambling and drinking.”

“That’s what mine said too. That was forty years ago.”

He flashed her a smile and turned to the table. Aside from Chaplin and the dealer, two other men were sitting at the poker table, one Elsie knew was a land developer and the other a man who worked in railroads. They were soon joined by one of Siegel’s men, Max, who would pretend to be a banker from New York. The minimum buy-in was a whopping one hundred dollars, and to Elsie’s amazement, Chaplin pulled out an actual hundred dollar bill.

“Gentlemen, the game is hold ’em,” said the dealer through his walrus mustache. “No limit.”

Cards were dealt and blind bets were placed. Chaplin, whose back was to Elsie, reclined casually with his two cards in his hand. But when the three cards at the center of the table were flipped over, he closed his free hand into a loose fist and rubbed his thumb against his nails. He raised his bet by five dollars, but Elsie was sure he was bluffing. She could feel his emotion as if it were her own, as if there were wires connecting the two of them that transmitted feelings instead of electricity.

What Chaplin was feeling was anxiety, and while it was similar to excitement it pulsed differently. She signaled for Max to bet aggressively, and he did. The other players dropped out, but Chaplin matched his bet. When the next card in the center of the table was turned over, Max signaled to Elsie that he had two pairs. It appeared he would win. But when the last flip revealed a four of clubs, Chaplin showed two other fours in his hand. He won with three of a kind. Elsie groaned in frustration.

She had been able to do this as long as she could remember. As a little girl she thought everyone was the same, able to feel others’ emotions as easily as their own. Her mother had called her hyperemotional, but that wasn’t true; by herself, she could be quite cool and collected. When she heard her mother was dying of tuberculosis, Elsie was handling it quite well until they told her younger sister Lulu, and then they became a blubbering mess together. There was no one as attuned to others’ emotions as Elsie. She had to fight to keep them out, and her best tactic was to think about herself.

Maybe next time I’ll paint my nails lavender.

In the next six hands, Elsie helped Max win three of them. Chaplin won two, and the land developer won one. Chaplin furrowed his brow; he suspected something was suspicious, and he even glanced back once at Elsie, but he would never be able to put together what she was doing.

As the bets got larger in the next round, the railroad tycoon dropped out and moved on to a low-stakes blackjack table.

Smart man.

Elsie could sense Max itching for a big payout, and there was nothing she could do after the next deal when he pushed fifty dollars worth of chips into the pot before the flop was even turned over. Although Max kept his cool, Elsie could sense the anxiety of a bluff.

A commotion erupted from the front of the casino.

“Never mind me, I’ll find my way!”

Elsie turned to see a woman step dismissively past the doorman. She was dressed all in black, and she wore a veil that completely covered her face.

Siegel himself stepped in her path to see what she wanted. She grabbed his elbow.

“A Manhattan, please,” she said to him. “Glenmore if you have it. Old Overholt if you don’t. Two cherries, extra vermouth. You’re a dear.” She then patted his arm and moved on. Siegel was so stunned he just stood there. Elsie watched her walk directly toward the high-stakes table.

“There you are, Charlie! I’ve scoured half the nightclubs in Hollywood looking for you. Then I remembered to go where there was gambling. Are you going to finish that?”

She pointed to an untouched whiskey and water sitting in front of Chaplin. He always ordered but he never drank.

“No, of course you’re not.”

The woman took the drink and raised it under her veil. She acted casual, even flippant, but Elsie could sense fear rolling off her in waves. Who was she?

She sat down next to Chaplin, closer than he seemed comfortable with. He flashed a big smile.

“Good evening, Mary,” he said. “Have you been drinking or is your new fragrance by Seagram’s 7?”

Suddenly it clicked in Elsie’s mind:
Mary Pickford
.

Chaplin matched Max’s bet and the land developer followed; the three cards comprising the flop were then turned over.

“He’s coming for me tonight,” Pickford said in a low voice. Elsie leaned toward them.

“How do you know?” Chaplin said, staring at the pile of chips in the center of the table. “You’re not exactly his type anymore.”

“I got a tip,” she said. “From Gray of all people.”

“What? You spoke to him?”

“It’s a long story,” Pickford said. “He’s a sharp young man, but more than a little rough around the edges. His grammar is atrocious.”

Chaplin lowered his voice.

“Did you tell him…things?”

Pickford nodded.

“More or less. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s safe and we’re short on time. We have to act now.”

“And ruin my winning streak? I have half a mind to let him kidnap you too.”

Elsie wondered if they were talking about the abducted women. It was all the taxi dancers had been talking about the past two weeks. Even Mrs. McGiverney, the dormitory matron, who rarely had a kind word for Elsie, had warned her not to go out alone at night.

“I know where he is,” Pickford said. “I saw him.”

Elsie’s ears perked up. There was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the Star Stalker. If she could get the man’s name and location, she could go to the police. The reward money would pay off her father’s debts to Jack Siegel many times over.

Max raised the bet another fifty dollars.

“You in or out?” Max said to Chaplin. “I ain’t got all night.”

“I can stop him,” Pickford said. “If I have luck on my side.”

Chaplin grabbed his chips and threw them in, meeting Max’s latest bet.

“The world’s strongest man?” Chaplin said, then lowering his voice. “You have no idea what he is capable of doing.”

The fourth card was flipped over and everyone but Chaplin and Pickford looked at it.

“The physical talents are overvalued,” she said. “Together, you and I can take him.”

Max looked to Elsie for guidance. Should he stay? Raise his bet? But Elsie couldn’t get a read on Chaplin. His emotions were all mixed up, and Elsie couldn’t pick out which ones were related to his conversation with Pickford and which ones to the game.

She took a chance and signaled to Max to go all in. Max pushed all of his chips in the center of the pot. By now Siegel had turned his attention to the game. Without so much as a blink, Chaplin pushed the rest of his chips in as well. He then removed his wallet and pulled out two more hundred-dollar bills. Elsie had never seen so much money all at once.

“If you’re so sure of yourself,” Chaplin said to Max, “why don’t you take these off my hands as well?”

“Mr. Chaplin raises,” the dealer said. “Do you call?”

Max glanced at Elsie, but this was beyond her authority. He shot a quick glance at Siegel, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod. Max removed a billfold and counted out two hundred more dollars in tens and twenties.

“That’s a pot worth more than twelve hundred dollars,” the dealer said.

Twelve hundred dollars!

With just that much money Elsie could grab Lulu, run out of there and never come back.

Chaplin flipped over his two cards—he had a six of clubs and a nine of spades. Combined with the cards on the table, he had nothing. Smiling now, Max flipped over his cards, which made two pair combined with the cards on the table. The dealer scrutinized both hands.

“Your only chance of winning is a seven to give you a straight, Mr. Chaplin,” the dealer said. “That makes your odds—”

“About one in thirteen,” Chaplin said. “Believe me, I’ve had much worse.”

The dealer flipped over the last card. Everyone but Chaplin and Pickford seemed surprised to see a seven of diamonds. The sides of Max’s grin melted.

“That’s a lucky break,” Max said, his eyes narrowing.

“Luck,” Chaplin said, “is a funny thing.”

Pickford stood impatiently.

“Let’s go.”

She then walked out without another word.

“Gentlemen,” Chaplin said, nodding to the men at the table.

He collected his winnings and followed Pickford, but not before turning to Elsie to give her a wink. She watched him go.

I’ve got to see where they’re going.

Elsie leapt off her stool to follow Chaplin and ran smack into Siegel. His face was roughly the color of a pickled beet. She didn’t need her ability to see the rage emanating from his face.

“I said not one dollar.”

She looked over to Max, who was equally to blame; he had conveniently ducked out of the room. Siegel removed the rings on his right hand and then cracked his knuckles.