Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956
- Автор: Дил Борден, Томпсон Джим
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: H.S.D. Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956». Краткое содержание книги:
“Put both lunches on my bill,” he said. And then to me, “Sorry, Brady. I’ll have to get back to my place right away. Come by in the morning.”
He gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder then and left.
I flashed a look toward the card game and caught the blonde’s eyes. Sometimes it’s there. You’ve seen it now and then — everyone has. Maybe she’s sitting across from you in a subway or bus. Maybe you see her for a few seconds when the light comes on in a show. Or she might be in a car beside yours waiting for a light to change and you know that you’ll never meet in a hundred years, but the instant that your eye holds hers there is a leaping spark, a quickening of the pulse and you’re both aware that it’s there.
For the blonde and Matt Brady, the spark was alive.
I slipped a sawbuck out of my wallet and slid off the lunch-counter stool. It had been some time, but I thought I could hold my own in a blackjack game. I found a place at the end of her table.
“Ten,” I said. She stacked five, matched it, and poked the paper money down the slot in the table. She dealt nimbly. And when a hand broke, she scooped the loser’s bet into the tray and folded his cards under in one smooth sweep. I put two bucks on the table for the next deal. When the cards came around, I raised the corner of the top one and saw a K. I slid it over and checked the bottom. An ace! Blackjack, my first hand! I flipped the cards over.
“Nice start.”
She said it casually and pushed a stack of three silver dollars my way. And once again I got the feeling that the look in her eye was above and beyond the call of duty.
“Keep ’em coming,” I grinned.
What happened to me in that session of blackjack should happen more often. Only maybe I couldn’t take too much of it because playing in a fixed game is a little hard on the nerves — even when things are stacked in reverse. That’s right. I caught it about twenty minutes after I sat down. I played a lot of cards when I did a stretch in the service and a guy just naturally keeps tab on what’s been dealt. The game was going along, the blonde giving me an eye now and then as she had from the very first. Then I split a pair of aces for one card down on each. My first was a queen. When I raised the corner of the other for a peek, it was the ten of diamonds.
And the ten of diamonds had just busted a hand down the line. I glanced at it again, then checked the other players. They weren’t looking at me, so I risked one long tight look at the blonde’s face. Her left eyelid came down just a fraction of an inch and stayed there an instant — half a wink, a silent message that she was for me and to hell with the house.
There’s a little larceny in all of us, they say — that eternal yen to get something for nothing. The call of the fast buck. I settled back to milk this one for all the law — or the babe dealing — would allow. I raised my bets to five and she smiled at me. My hand still won almost every time. Then I went up to ten and the cutie with the cards lifted an eyebrow. Too strong. I went back to five. But I kept winning — winning like you do in one of those wonderful dreams where money rolls around your feet ankle-deep. At five bucks a hand, she was paying me off in the small brown chips embossed with a silver king and a number. Little by little I kept working them off the table and into my pockets, to keep the stack from getting high enough to attract attention.
It went like that until almost six o’clock. I’d lose one now and then, but over the long haul those brown chips in my pocket were getting to be quite a bulge. Then the blonde started looking at her watch. The third time she peeked at the thing I caught on.
“Where’s a good place to eat in Reno?” I asked the gent on my left. He didn’t answer until the cards were out. Then he checked his hand, pushed them into the square, and piled his money on top signifying he was holding.
“Two blocks down and a half over,” he said, his thumb jerking in the general direction of east. “Place called Slagle’s.”
“Thanks. Guess I’ll give it a try, after a bit.”
The babe dealing didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she ignored our little conversation so carefully that I knew she’d be there. It would be interesting to find out what kind of cut she expected. When her relief took over, the blonde disappeared through the employees’ door. I played four more hands and it cost me twenty bucks. Then I slipped off the stool, went to the cashier’s cage, and stacked my chips at the window. They paid me off in the green — an even four hundred and twenty clams. With the silver dollars I’d stashed away, the kick went up another twenty-seven. I walked out feeling like Dillinger.
2.
A few minutes later, I leaned against the plate-glass front of Slagle’s, blew smoke into the warm evening breeze, and watched the blonde fluff coming toward me. When she was close enough to hear a real low wolf whistle, I gave her one. She winked that halfway wink of hers and smiled.
“Wow!” I said.
“You like it?” She wasn’t being coy, but a tinge of pink came into her cheeks. They’re wearing them all over this year, I guess — a thin nylon blouse and a slip out of the same stuff so that a lacy bra shows up to good advantage. On her it wasn’t wasted. She linked her arm through mine and we went into the grill. The booth was on the side — of leatherette, and real cozy. A waitress dropped two menus and went her way.
I said, “I’m Matt Brady. I like to start with chilled wine — then steak.”
She smiled. “My name is Margaret Blake — Maggie for short. I don’t think I could improve on cold wine followed by a steak.”
“Sky’s the limit,” I grinned. Then I looked around like a guy who’s going to part with a deep dark secret. I leaned toward her. “Just cleaned up in a blackjack game down the street, babe,” I said out of the side of my mouth. “Over four hunnert fish. Let’s go first class.”
She smiled again and already it was doing things to me. Even before the wine came I felt a warm glow rising within. We took care of the unimportant pleasantries over the sparkling glass. Then the steaks arrived, broiled crisp and brown on the outside, and still kicking on the inside. By the time they cleared away the main dishes, we’d gotten down to our little hopes in life. She knew that the Matt Brady Trucking Company was my chief interest as well as my bread and butter. I learned that she’d dealt in the Silver King for over a year.
“You like the work?” I asked.
“The hours are good. Bart Akers — he’s our boss at the King — isn’t bad to work for. The pay’s good, too.”
“And the future?”
She hesitated on that one. “No. No future in dealing blackjack. And I’ve thought about that, Matt. My sister in L.A. is always asking me to come down there and take a job in something more stable. Maybe I will sometime, but I don’t know. I sort of like Reno.”
“It must be a fast life,” I admitted. Then I said: “This Jake Wirth — you know him?”
“I know who he is. He doesn’t know me, but he comes into the King now and then.”
The cutest dame in the place and Wirth didn’t know her? Maybe she was being modest about that, but she said he came in now and then. You don’t run a charge account in a place you patronize once in a while. Charge account? Hell, Wirth hadn’t even signed a tab. Just said “put it on the bill” and walked out. I drummed the table, then reached for cigarettes — always good for a stall while you think things out. I tapped the bottom of the pack, offered a smoke to Maggie, then snapped my lighter and put flame to our smokes.
Something wasn’t on balance, like a truck with one low tire. Someone wasn’t leveling with Matt Brady, and her name was Blake. I blew smoke toward the ceiling, looked across the table.
“Look, cookie,” I grinned. “Let’s get down to dollars, shall we? You tell me the cut and we’ll split the take. Then—”