Dan Marlowe - Shake a Crooked Town

Coming out of the curve he saw a straight stretch ahead and no immediate traffic. Braking quickly, he slowed the car across the road. “Lock the doors behind me an' don't open 'em no matter what happens!” he said urgently. He jumped out and slammed the door.

The sedan had already squealed to a halt and started to turn as Johnny ran up the road toward it. With a screech of burning rubber it roared away before he could reach it.

He walked back slowly to his own car and a white-faced Jessamyn. He shook his head at the raw scrapes along the entire left side. “Boy, the man who rented me this is sure goin' to have a few unkind words for me.” He climbed back in under the wheel and tried to meet her eyes. “Still feel the same way about your friends?”

She tried desperately to screw herself together under his regard. “You probably staged the whole thing yourself!”

“You don't really think that, Jess. The boys were just givin' you a warnin'.”

“Warning!” She shuddered. “We might have been killed!”

“No.” He shook his head. “It was just a warnin'. Look at the spot they picked. Perfectly flat. I probably could've run out through the field except you never know what you'll sink a wheel in. A few miles back there was a two an' a half foot ditch. If they'd meant business that's where they'd have tried it. An' if they'd meant business they wouldn't have taken off when I stopped.”

“Take me home,” she said in a small voice. “I-take me home.”

The balance of the trip was completed in silence.

Jingle Peterson stepped out of the living-room doorway as Johnny passed through the lower hallway on his way to the stairs. “Val says I've got to apologize to you,” she said. She sounded subdued.

“Forget it,” Johnny said breezily. “Do me a favor, though.” He waited for her inquiring look. “Come around in a couple of years.”

Her smile was wan. “I must have seemed like a perfect fool.” Dark blood rushed into the round features.

“You were just rushin' your fences a little.”

Her face screwed up until he was afraid she was going to cry. “I th-thought you'd despise m-me.”

“For what, for God's sake? We both knew you were just kiddin' around. It was kind of bad taste, though. That's why your mother got hot.” He held out his hand. “No hard feelin's?”

Her small one gripped his hard. “Oh, no.” She drew a long breath. “I'm so ashamed. And I was so afraid you'd come in and laugh and crack wise about Val spanking me.”

“Look-it never happened, see?”

“Oh, yes it did!” she said with more of her usual pertness. “Well, thanks.” She retreated inside.

At the top of the stairs Johnny found Valerie Peterson waiting for him. She came directly to the point. “If you haven't found another place to stay yet, don't bother.” She started down the stairs.

“Well, thanks,” Johnny said in unconscious imitation of Jingle.

“Thank yourself,” Valerie Peterson said over her shoulder.

Johnny stood staring down after her until she disappeared into the living room.

Johnny raised his eyes from the green baize tabletop at a touch on the shoulder. He turned his head to find Rudy at his right. The competent-looking gambler bent down until his lips nearly brushed Johnny's ear. “Fella to see you outside,” he muttered.

“Yeah. Sure. In a minute,” Johnny said absently, his eyes on the flow of the cards from the dealer's hands. He had been in high-level, concentrated combat for six hours. He o picked up his hand, looked at an ill-assorted trey, six, eight, ten, and jack, and pitched them into the discards when the pot was opened in front of him.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the base of his neck. Successful poker is a game of very little chance in which stamina, patience, intuition, and the ability to concentrate to the exclusion of everything except the card table kept a man consistently on the right side of the ledger. Johnny had learned at an early age that in no other card game does luck play as small a part.

He looked down at a satisfying accumulation of chips in front of him. He had weathered an early dry spell by conservative tactics until the cards began to run his way. He was well aware that poor cards carry nowhere near the penalty in such a game as good cards that are not good enough. It had been a night of small hands, few raises, and air-tight, grinding poker in which he had managed to win a bit more than his share of the skimpy pots. It was a night in which running second two or three times on big pots could wipe I out the profits of hours of concentrated effort. It was not a I bad time to be called out of the game, he decided.

Johnny pushed back his chair. “Cash me in for now,” he said to the banker, and rose and stretched his cramped muscles. He remembered times when he had sat in a game from Friday to Monday and wound up with his feet in a pail of water to keep awake, but six or eight hours now left him tightened up physically and mentally. He counted his stacked chips, checked the banker's count on the stack of crisp green bills and stuffed the folded wad in his pocket.

Rudy held him for a moment at the door. “I like the way you float with the current when you haven't got 'em,” he said. “Also the way you make 'em pay to see 'em when you do. I thought maybe a little stronger bankroll would let you dig in the spurs a little deeper. How about it?”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “You'd bankroll me?”

“I like to keep a man of my own in the game,” Rudy explained. “I can't be everywhere at once in here. You'd keep the game moving, watch out for sharpies, hold down the arguments, that kind of thing. I'll pay you a flat two fifty a week or if you like your own game you can have twenty-five per cent of what you win. I stand the losses regardless.”

Johnny shook his head. “It's a good offer, Rudy, but I like to pay my own.”

“Okay, okay,” Rudy shrugged, opening the door. “It's open if you change your mind. Your man's up the block around the corner. To the right.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Johnny had nearly forgotten why he had left the game. He stepped out on the street, shivering in the chill wind that had risen during his hours inside. He walked up the block, his trousers wind-whipped against his legs. He wondered what had brought Dick Lowell out on such a night. He turned the corner and lowered his head against the full force of the wind. Damn, winter surely came early in this country.

“Over here, Killain.”

Johnny came to a dead stop in the middle of the sidewalk. He looked at the parked car from which the voice had come and then hastily checked the store doorways behind him. It had not been Dick Lowell's voice.

A car door slammed on the street side and a bulky figure emerged from behind it. “This is on the level, Killain,” Chief Riley said. “I know you won't get in the car. Where can we talk?”

Johnny looked up and down the deserted street. He noticed that the chief was out of uniform. “What's the matter with right here?” he asked warily.

“Fine with me,” Riley agreed. “Let's just step into this doorway out of the damn wind.”

“Let's just let me set up the housekeeping arrangements,” Johnny countered. In the doorway they stood so that Jack Riley's broad back shielded Johnny from anyone passing by. “Did you just stop in yourself at the game and ask for me?”

“Yes.”

“No flies on that Rudy,” Johnny said. He explained about the job offer. “Lowell walks in an' asks for me, you walk in an' ask for me, so Rudy figures right away to hire himself someone close to the crown to add a little depth to his defenses.”

“What did Dick Lowell come to see you about?” Chief Riley demanded at once.