Michael Collins - The brass rainbow

“Walter. I think Mr. Fortune wants to talk to you.”

He turned fast as if afraid he might respond too slowly and make Deirdre Fallon angry. His shadowed eyes scanned me. He did not like what he saw, and he was not a good enough actor to hide it. Or maybe he didn’t give a damn.

“Fortune? You’re working for that killer? Damn you, he killed my uncle for his blood money!”

“I thought it was Paul Baron’s money?”

“Sure, Baron’s money, but Weiss came crawling to get it! Why don’t you find the money! Find it and you’ve got Weiss!”

His voice was loud, and people were looking at us. Deirdre Fallon put her arm around his thin waist.

“Walter is upset,” she said. “He feels his uncle was killed because of him, and…”

He squirmed. “Deirdre, don’t…!”

“It’s the truth, Walter,” she snapped.

“I know, damn it, but not to him!”

I was the alien, the outsider, in front of whom no Radford should ever drop the wall. Deirdre Fallon did not seem as worried about me. Maybe because she wasn’t yet a Radford. She wasn’t quite in the castle.

“Maybe you could tell me more about this money you owed to Paul Baron?” I said.

He seemed about to answer when the stickman tapped him. It was his turn to roll. He forgot me as if I had gone up in smoke. The dice were in his hands. His dull chip eyes shined. His mouth tightened, became firm, almost cruel. He was taller, as if he had gathered his muscles. He laid a hundred-dollar bill down.

“Shoot a hundred,” he said in a smooth, cool voice that had taken on a faint British accent. He rolled a four.

“Four the point,” the stickman droned. Hard point or easy, winner or loser, they were all suckers to the stickman.

“Another hundred rides on Little Joe,” Walter said. Except he barked it like an officer ordering a bayonet charge.

He was a man at war. A soldier for glory and victory. A man like his ancestors battling heavy seas and steaming jungles. He thrilled to the battle, and it was the game that mattered, not the result. Maybe Deirdre Fallon could bring him out. Maybe no one had ever helped him to find anything worth fighting for.

Deirdre Fallon was watching me. “You look disapproving.”

“A man has to get his kicks,” I said. “I guess Walters One, Two and Three were gamblers, too.”

“You don’t like the suggestion of aristocracy in the numbers?”

“I’m not much impressed by family. My grandfather would have been. He was arrogant about being a Fortunowski of Poland.”

She smiled a nice, open smile. “I would have liked your grandfather. Family is important in a chaotic world.”

“If the family has values.”

“The Radfords have many values. Mostly good ones. Walter simply hasn’t found the right values for himself yet.”

“And you mean to help him find them?”

She smiled again. “Perhaps reshaping men is a disease of women, but Walter loves me, and I’m going to like being a Radford.”

Before I could answer that one, Walter crapped out. I saw him deflate as the pot was raked away and the dice passed. His eyes were deep pools of loss. It wasn’t the pot he stared at, it was the dice in another man’s hands.

Deirdre Fallon took his arm. “We can have a drink and talk.”

His sorrowful eyes looked at her. It was as naked a look as I had ever seen. His whole face said that the dice were gone and there was nothing left in the universe for him but Deirdre Fallon. What more could a woman ask? Especially when wealth, position, and maybe even power went with it?

I followed them into one of the lounge rooms. Deirdre Fallon ordered for all of us: martinis for them, an Irish for me.

“You wanted to know about Paul Baron, Mr. Fortune?” she said.

“I wondered how Walter lost so much to him.”

“By playing bad poker over quite a few months,” Walter said. He had changed again. He was more open, direct, a pleasant young man. He was something of a chamelon, changeable. “Paul was always very nice about accepting my markers.”

“How did you meet him?”

“When my uncle closed Costa, I was shut off everywhere in Westchester. They were all afraid of Jonathan. So I moved into New York and met Baron at a party about seven months ago.”

“Sammy Weiss, too?”

“I met Weiss twice. He hung around some bigger games Baron took me to. I usually played in small games at Paul’s East Sixteenth Street apartment. I told him I’d pay the $25,000 in installments. I thought he had agreed. I told him that Jonathan wouldn’t pay.”

“You didn’t know he was sending Weiss to collect?”

“No. I’d never have let him.”

“Did your uncle know Weiss was only a messenger?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell Jonathan about the money this time. Paul must have contacted him directly.”

“How did you plan to pay even in installments? From what I hear, you don’t have any money like $25,000.”

Deirdre Fallon said, “I don’t see how that matters.”

“I don’t know what does matter yet,” I said.

“I hoped to float small loans,” Walter said. “I’m twenty-nine; there was less than a year before I got all my father’s money anyway. People will lend on that even with my record. Baron just wouldn’t wait! He had to send Weiss, and Weiss killed my uncle!”

Deirdre Fallon said, “I’m sorry for your friend Weiss. I’m sure he didn’t mean to kill Jonathan, but he did.”

“He’s no friend, and he’s a cheap hustler, but I can’t see him as a killer. Was Jonathan involved in anything shady?”

Walter laughed. “Not Jonathan.”

Deirdre Fallon didn’t answer me. She was watching something behind me. I turned. Two men in dinner jackets stood over us. The taller of them had an easy smile aimed at Miss Fallon.

“Mr. Costa,” she said.

Carmine Costa bowed. “Miss Fallon, Mr. Radford, nice to have you back. Gives the place class.”

Costa was big, dark and handsome. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist; clean hands and thick dark hair and snapping black eyes. He seemed to paw the ground like a stallion as he looked at Deirdre Fallon.

“Nothing could do that,” she said with contempt in her voice, “but at least you don’t cheat, or do you?”

“For you I’d cheat myself.”

“You’re a pig, Mister Costa,” she said.

He put his hand on her shoulder and moved it up to her neck. “A boar, Miss Fallon. A wild old boar.”

She looked up into his face, and then reached up with both hands and gripped his wrist as if to pull the hand away. For a second or two she just held the wrist. Walter Radford moved.

“Get your hands off her!” Walter said, and swung at Costa’s face.

The other man with Costa moved like a snake. His hand caught Walter’s wrist before it had gone four inches. Costa barked:

“Strega!”

The man, Strega, dropped Walter’s wrist and stepped back as if he had never moved. I had never seen anyone move so fast. Strega was not as tall as Costa, not as broad, seemed quieter in his dinner jacket, and yet there was no question which of the two was the stronger man. Strega was blond and smooth and there were no marks on his Nordic face, but he seemed to exude pure power. The muscleman, the bodyguard.

Costa bowed. “My mistake, no offense to the lady. Strega, apologize to Mr. Radford.”

Strega inclined his head. “Mr. Radford.”

“Sure,” Walter Radford said. “Okay, Deirdre?”

She nodded. “Mr. Costa can’t help his bad manners. He probably intended a compliment. But we better leave, Walter.”

I watched her lead Walter out. Costa watched her, too.

“There’s a woman,” Costa said. “Right, Strega?”

“Some woman, Sarge,” Strega said.