sidney sheldon - Master of the Game

When the luncheon was finished, Madam Agnes rose and

said, "This way, honey."

Margaret and the girls followed her into a second parlor which

Margaret had not seen before. It was filled with dozens of gifts, all of them beautifully wrapped. Margaret could not believe her eyes.

"I—I don't know what to say."

"Open them," Madam Agnes told Margaret.

There was a rocking cradle, handmade bootees, sacques, embroidered bonnets, a long, embroidered cashmere cloak. There were French-kid button shoes, a child's silver cup, gold-lined, and a comb and brush with solid sterling-silver handles. There were solid-gold baby bib pins with beaded edges, a celluloid baby rattle and rubber teething ring and a rocking horse painted dapple gray. There were toy soldiers, brightly colored wooden blocks and the most beautiful thing of all: a long, white christening dress.

It was like Christmas. It was beyond anything Margaret had ever expected. All the bottled-up loneliness and unhappiness of the past months exploded in her, and she burst into sobs.

Madam Agnes put her arms around her and said to the other girls, "Get out."

They quietly left the room. Madam Agnes led Margaret to a couch and sat there holding her until the sobs subsided.

"I—I'm so sorry," Margaret stammered. "I—I don't know what came over me."

"It's all right, honey. This room has seen a lot of problems come and go. And you know what I've learned? Somehow, in the end everything always gets sorted out. You and your baby are gonna be just fine."

"Thank you," Margaret whispered. She gestured toward the piles of presents. "I can never thank you and your friends enough for—"

Madam Agnes squeezed Margaret's hand. "Don't. You don't iave no idea how much fun the girls and me had gettin' all this together. We don't get a chance to do this kind of thing very often. When one of us gets pregnant, it's a fuckin' tragedy." Her hands flew to her mouth and she said, "Oh! Excuse me!"

Margaret smiled. "I just want you to know that this has been one of the nicest days of my life."

"We're real honored that you came to visit us, honey. As far as I'm concerned, you're worth all the women in this town put together. Those damned bitches! I could kill them for the way they're behavin' to you. And if you don't mind my sayin' so, Jamie McGregor is a damned fool." She rose to her feet. "Men! It would be a wonderful world if we could live without the bastards. Or maybe it wouldn't. Who knows?"

Margaret had recovered her composure. She rose to her feet and took Madam Agnes's hand in hers. "I'll never forget this. Not as long as I live. Someday, when my son is old enough, I'll tell him about this day."

Madam Agnes frowned. "You really think you should?"

Margaret smiled. "I really think I should."

Madam Agnes saw Margaret to the door. "I'll have a wagon deliver all the gifts to your boardinghouse, and—good luck to you."

"Thank you. Oh, thank you."

And she was gone.

Madam Agnes stood there a moment watching Margaret walk clumsily down the street Then she turned inside and called loudly, "All right, ladies. Let's go to work."

One hour later, Madam Agnes's was open for business as usual.

It was time to spring the trap. Over the previous six months, Jamie McGregor had quietly bought out Van der Merwe's partners in his various enterprises so that Jamie now had control of them. But his obsession was to own Van der Merwe's diamond fields in the Namib. He had paid for those fields a hundred times over with his blood and guts, and very nearly with his life. He had used the diamonds he and Banda had stolen there to build an empire from which to crush Salomon van der Merwe. The task had not yet been completed. Now, Jamie was ready to finish it.

Van der Merwe had gone deeper and deeper into debt. Everyone in town refused to lend him money, except the bank Jamie secretly owned. His standing instruction to his bank manager was, "Give Salomon van der Merwe everything he wants." The general store was almost never open now. Van der Merwe began drinking early in the morning, and in the after-noon he would go to Madam Agnes's and sometimes spend the night there.

One morning Margaret stood at the butcher's counter waiting for the spring chickens Mrs. Owens had ordered, when she

glanced out the window and saw her father leaving the brothel. She could hardly recognize the unkempt old man shuffling along the street. I did this to him. Oh, God, forgive me, I did this!

Salomon van der Merwe had no idea what was happening to him. He knew that somehow, through no fault of his own, his life was being destroyed. God had chosen him—as He had once chosen Job—to test the mettle of his faith. Van der Merwe was certain he would triumph over his unseen enemies in the end. All he needed was a little time—time and more money. He had put up his general store as security, the shares he had in six small diamond fields, even his horse and wagon. Finally, there was nothing left but the diamond field in the Namib, and the day he put that up as collateral, Jamie pounced.

"Pull in all his notes," Jamie ordered his bank manager. "Give him twenty-four hours to pay up in full, or foreclose."

"Mr. McGregor, he can't possibly come up with that kind of money. He—"

'Twenty-four hours."

At exactly four o'clock the following afternoon, the assistant manager of the bank appeared at the general store with the marshal and a writ to confiscate all of Salomon van der Merwe's worldly possessions. From his office building across the street, Jamie watched Van der Merwe being evicted from his store. The old man stood outside, blinking helplessly in the sun, not knowing what to do or where to turn. He had been stripped of everything. Jamie's vengeance was complete. Why is it, Jamie wondered, that I feel no sense of triumph? He was empty inside. The man he destroyed had destroyed him first.

When Jamie walked into Madam Agnes's that night, she said, "Have you heard the news, Jamie? Salomon van der Merwe blew his brains out an hour ago."

The funeral was held at the dreary, windswept cemetery outside town. Besides the burying crew, there were only two people in attendance: Margaret and Jamie McGregor. Margaret wore a shapeless black dress to cover her protruding figure. She looked pale and unwell. Jamie stood tall and elegant, withdrawn and

remote. The two stood at opposite sides of the grave watching the crude pine-box coffin lowered into the ground. The clods of dirt clattered against the coffin, and to Margaret they seemed to say, Whore!... Whore!...

She looked across her father's grave at Jamie, and their eyes met. Jamie's glance was cool and impersonal, as though she were a stranger. Margaret hated him then. You stand there feeling nothing, and you're as guilty as I am. We killed him, you and I. In God's eyes, I'm your wife. But we're partners in evil. She looked down at the open grave and watched the last shovelful of dirt cover the pine box. "Rest," she whispered, "Rest."

When she looked up, Jamie was gone.

There were two wooden buildings in Klipdrift that served as hospitals, but they were so filthy and unsanitary that more patients died there than lived. Babies were born at home. As Margaret's time for delivery drew closer, Mrs. Owens arranged for a black midwife, Hannah. Labor began at three a.m.

"Now you just bear down," Hannah instructed. "Nature'll do the rest."

The first pain brought a smile to Margaret's lips. She was bringing her son into the world, and he would have a name. She would see to it that Jamie McGregor recognized his child. Her son was not going to be punished.

The labor went on, hour after hour, and when some of the boarders stepped into Margaret's bedroom to watch the proceedings, they were sent packing.

"This is personal," Hannah told Margaret. "Between you and God and the devil who got you into this trouble."