The River Nymph Read Free Page B

the little man’s pigheadedness was reflected in her voice. “As of this moment we have a new arrangement.
     The sum in front of you is exactly thirty-five thousand dollars, your ten-thousand-dollar stake, plus a twenty-five-thousand-dollar
     profit. Take it!”
    “You double-dealing bitch!” Riley had not even seen the old man move, but he was keenly aware of the muzzle of Horace’s .45-caliber
     Colt pocket revolver jammed into his right nostril.
    The old man’s voice was surprisingly deep and strong. “Sir, you have a mouth as filthy as the floor of a stockyard. I grow
     tired of subjecting my niece to it. An English friend of mine is of the opinion that shooting an Irishman in the head is as
     feckless as shooting an elephant in the rump. While the target is large, the area of vulnerability is so minuscule that it
     is difficult to injure the beast. Would you care to put his theory to the test?”
    Riley very cautiously shook his head, no mean feat with a gun barrel stuffed up one sinus cavity.
    “Then,” continued Horace, “I can count on your exercising a modicum of civility?” Although the king of the St. Louis levee
     was as uncertain of the meaning of modicum as he had been of minuscule, it seemed wise to agree.
    “Now,” Horace continued, “before you pocket your money, you will sign this note indicating that your loan of ten thousand
     dollars has been returned, along with twenty-five thousand dollars interest. All dealings between you and Mrs. Raymond are
     concluded.”
    Red looked at the paper, unable to swallow his rage. “I didn’t ask you to sign nothin’,” he said petulantly.
    “No,” Horace agreed, “but then, you are intellectually deficient. Be a good fellow and sign, Mr. Riley.”
    “Yeah, I’ll sign, but this don’t change shit, old man. I converted the Nymph into the classiest floating gamblin’ hell and cathouse on the levee and I’m gonna get her back.”

    Delilah climbed to the wheelhouse, watching her uncle escort Riley down the gangplank and off The River Nymph, then turned her attention south along the cobblestone levee. As far as she could see there were steamboats, scores of them,
     so many that their tall black smokestacks formed what appeared to be a forest of denuded tree trunks. Not a particularly appealing
     vista. Although it was almost noon on a weekday, the levee was not especially busy.
    She drew her cloak more tightly about herself. It was only February. She knew that in another few weeks the last traces of
     ice would be gone. The levee would start to swarm with freight wagons and hand carts, furiously loading the boats for their
     summer runs on the Mississippi and the Missouri. Then the scene would compare with a large litter of greedy piglets vying
     for their mama’s teats.
    “St. Louis, the Sow of the West!” Delilah laughed. She was still young, and now she was finally free. She and Uncle Horace
     were the owners of a fine steamboat and had, counting their own savings, a bit over twenty-five thousand dollars in capital.
     As of this morning they were in the freight business—no more corpse-eyed cardsharps, no more smirking simpletons intent on
     her breasts rather than her hands.
    She took a deep breath, and even in the chill air she could smell that peculiar blend of decay and fecundity that was the
     river. That was life. She slapped the Nymph ’s wheel. “Damn all of them to hell, I will keep you.”

    Clint Daniels pushed his half-eaten breakfast away and poured another cup of coffee. He opened the humidor on his desk and
     absently selected a cigar, clipped the tip, lit up and leaned back in the big leather chair. He rolled the smoke around in
     his mouth, then blew a large blue-white cloud toward the ceiling, watching cat-green eyes and burnished hair materialize in
     the haze. Suddenly it registered on him that he was smoking, something he made it a rule never to do until after supper.
    “Damn.” He put the cigar in the large brass