The Great West Detective Agency Read Free

win!

2

    A few minutes after he lost the deed to the ranch to a merchant he thought was bluffing with his full house, Lucas also lost Claudette’s attention. She increasingly left his side to take drinks to others in the Emerald City and even ran an errand for Lefty that took her away for almost a half hour. In that time Lucas burned through the pile of chips with bets he shouldn’t have lost and had only a few greenbacks left. Not only Claudette but Lady Luck had abandoned him. He tried to be philosophical about it. He had quite a run before the cards turned against him. Memory of owning a huge ranch somewhere out in Middle Park would stick with him for quite a while.
    After losing yet another hand to a cowboy with a knack for drawing to inside straights, he leaned back and looked around the saloon. He carefully took out his watch, opened the case, and as always, stared for a moment at the picture of the woman in the lid, before deciphering the time. Most of the painted roman numerals were gone, leaving him only the large brass hands and a few specks to guess at what was revealed.
    â€œWhat time is it, Mr. Stanton?”
    â€œTime for me to quit,” he said to the young cowboy. “It’s telling me if I stayed for just one more hand, you’d be in possession of what I have left.”
    He squared up the stack of bills, riffled through them, and got an idea of his night’s profits. For all he had won and then lost, it was skimpy. He had begun with a hundred-dollar stake and now had only two hundred. Still, any profit was better than none at all.
    â€œLefty, see that my friend gets a drink on me.”
    The barkeep inclined his head, then repeated the gesture. Lucas left the table, settled his elegant jacket across his broad shoulders, and carefully put his hands on the sticky bar to lean forward as Lefty whispered, “You owe me for the round you bought after you won.”
    â€œA hundred dollars should cover it,” he said, counting out the bills onto the bar.
    Lefty’s huge hand slapped down and snatched away the roll of greenbacks. With surprising dexterity, the one-armed barkeep counted out all but seven singles. These he shoved back toward Lucas. The gambler smiled ruefully, then tucked the bills into his vest pocket across from his watch.
    â€œYou owe me more but this will do if you come in and deal faro for a couple hours tomorrow night.”
    â€œNot for free!”
    They dickered until Lucas squeezed the promise of a fifty-fifty split from the man. Working halftime for the house wasn’t to his liking, but he stood to get back his stake and not end up a loser.
    â€œYou got a bonus comin’ for the work, too,” Lefty said. The man’s pale eyes glowed with an inner light that had less to do with a desire for money than lust. This told Lucas what he needed to know.
    â€œWhen did Carmela get back to Denver?”
    Carmela Thompson had a voice like a morning dove and a body to make it difficult for any man to notice her true singing ability. Lucas had crossed paths with her a dozen times or more, often spending as long as a week in the same emporium before she continued her concert tour throughout the West and he moved on to another cow town or boomtown where miners valued a moment’s thrill at the poker table over actually winning. For all the times they had worked under the same roof, he and she had never spent a night under the same blanket.
    It wasn’t for lack of trying on Lucas’s part either. He knew he was a handsome man, dressed expensively, and preferred the finer things—when he could afford them. The last time he and Carmela had met had been in New Orleans. He had been flush and willing to spend lavishly. She was as willing to receive his largesse and had proven to be a witty conversationalist and a lady who would be as at home with the crowned heads of Europe as she was in a dive. Lucas cherished their time together, but somehow