Huckleberry Finished Read Free

they weren’t about to boot whoever it was off the boat.
    The steward took me to a nondescript metal door. The short hallway behind it was strictly functional. It ended at some carpeted stairs that led up to the next deck. At the top of the stairs was a large open area equipped with numerous computers and monitors. A low, almost inaudible hum filled the air. The feeds from all the security cameras on board wound up here, I assumed. None of the men and women sitting at the monitors looked around as the steward took me to another door. He knocked on this one.
    â€œCome in,” a man called.
    The office on the other side of the door was spacious and comfortably furnished with a big desk, a leather-covered sofa, a plasma TV hanging on the wall, and a window that looked out on the river. Two men waited in the office, one on the sofa, the other behind the desk. Both of them stood up when I came in. The one behind the desk was deliberate about it. The one on the sofa jumped to his feet.
    â€œMs. Dickinson,” the one from the sofa said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
    I remembered him from the luncheon in St. Louis earlier that afternoon. “What’s happened here, Mr. Webster?” I asked him.
    His name was Ben Webster. He was in his mid to late twenties, I’d say, with fairly close-cropped dark hair and what seemed to be a perpetually solemn expression. His age and the fact that he was traveling alone made him a little unusual for one of my clients. I get a lot of families and middle-aged and older couples. Not to overgeneralize, but most young men these days aren’t that interested in seeing where Mark Twain or Margaret Mitchell or Tennessee Williams lived and worked.
    Which meant that Ben Webster was probably here for the gambling, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to find him in the casino. I was surprised that he seemed to be in trouble, though. He had seemed like a nice, polite young man in the short time we had talked together at lunch. He even reminded me a little of Luke.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I couldn’t let it pass,” he said now. “That roulette wheel is rigged. I saw the man working it run his finger over the same little mark on the table several times while it was spinning, and then all the big bets lost. There must be a pressure switch of some sort there, or maybe an optical one built into the table.”
    The man behind the desk let Webster get his complaint out without saying anything. But he wore a tolerant smile and shook his head slowly while the young man spoke.
    When Webster was finished, the man stepped out from behind the desk and extended a big hand toward me. “Ms. Dickinson, I’m Logan Rafferty, the head of security for the Southern Belle . I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under more pleasant circumstances.”
    Like his hand, which pretty much swallowed mine whole, the rest of Logan Rafferty was big. He was about forty, with a brown brush cut, and although he wore an expensive suit, he looked like he’d be just as much at home working as a bouncer in a roadhouse somewhere. The afternoon sunlight that came in through the window winked on a heavy ring he wore.
    â€œWhat seems to be the trouble here, Mr. Rafferty?”
    He inclined his head toward Ben Webster. “As you just heard, a member of your tour group has a complaint about the way the games are run in the casino. I assure you, all our games are conducted in an honest, legitimate manner.” A faint smile appeared on his face. “As you may know, the odds always favor the house to start with. We see no need to tilt them even more.”
    â€œNo offense, but I would think you’d be used to folks complaining when they lose. It’s sort of human nature, after all,” I said.
    â€œComplaints we don’t mind,” Rafferty said with a shrug of his big shoulders. “We don’t like it when passengers try to slug one of