The Wrecker by Clive Cussler (book club reads .TXT) 📕

Which was not true, Bell had noticed. The double-dealing Senator had a derringer tugging the cloth of his side pocket. A sensible precaution, Bell supposed, for men in public life since McKinley was shot.

Bell said, “Dealer takes two,” discarded two cards, dealt himself two replacements, and put down the deck. “Opener bets,” he said. “I believe that was you, Judge Congdon.”

Old James Congdon, showing more yellow teeth than a timber wolf, smiled past Bell at Senator Kincaid. “I will bet the pot.”

They were playing pot limit, which meant that the only restriction on any one bet was the amount on the table at that moment. Congdon’s bet said that while he was surprised by Kincaid’s pat hand, he did not fear it, suggesting he had a very powerful hand, more likely a full house rather than a straight or a flush. Bruce Payne, who looked extremely happy to be out of the hand, helpfully counted the pot, and announced, in his thin, reedy voice, “In round numbers, your pot bet will be three thousand six hundred dollars.”

Joseph Van Dorn had taught Isaac Bell to gauge fortunes in terms of what a workingman earned in a day. He had taken him to the toughest saloon in Chicago and watched approvingly as his well-dressed apprentice won a couple of fistfights. Then he steered Bell’s attention to the customers lining up for the free lunch. Clearly, the scion of a Boston banking family and a graduate of Yale had insights into the thinking apparatus of the privileged, the boss had noted with a smile. But a detective had to understand the other ninety-eight percent of the population, too. How did a man think when he had no money in his pocket? What did a man do who had nothing to lose but his fear?

The thirty-six hundred dollars in the pot for just this hand was more money than Judge Congdon’s steelworkers made in six years.

“I bet three thousand six hundred,” said Congdon, shoving all the coins in front of him to the center of the table and tossing in a red baize sack with more gold coins in it that thunked heavily on the felt.

Ken Bloom, Jack Thomas, and Douglas Moser folded their cards hurriedly.

“I call your three thousand six hundred,” said Senator Kincaid. “And I raise the pot. Ten thousand eight hundred dollars.” Eighteen years’ wages.

“The line must be very grateful to you,” said Congdon, needling the Senator about the railroad stock with which legislators notoriously were bribed.

“The line gets its money’s worth,” Kincaid replied with a smile.

“Or you would have us believe that your pat hand is very pat indeed.”

“Pat enough to raise. What are you going to do, Judge? The bet is ten thousand eight hundred dollars to you.”

Isaac Bell interrupted. “I believe the bet is to me.”

“OH, I AM TERRIBLY sorry, Mr. Bell. We skipped your turn to fold your cards.”

“That’s all right, Senator. I saw you just barely catch the train at Ogden. You’re probably still in a rush.”

“I thought I saw a detective hanging off the side. Dangerous work, Mr. Bell.”

“Not until a criminal hammers on one’s fingers.”

“The bet,” growled Judge Congdon impatiently, “is my three thousand six hundred dollars plus Senator Kincaid’s ten thousand eight hundred dollars, which makes the bet to Mr. Bell fourteen thousand four hundred dollars.”

Payne interrupted to intone, “The pot, which includes Senator Kincaid’s call, is now twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars.”

Payne’s calculations were hardly necessary. Even the richest, most carefree men at the table were aware that twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars was enough money to purchase the locomotive hauling their train and maybe one of the Pullmans.

“Mr. Bell,” said Judge Congdon. “We await your response.”

“I call your bet, Judge, and Senator Kincaid’s ten-thousand-eight-hundred-dollar raise,” said Bell, “making the pot thirty-six thousand dollars, which I raise.”

“You raise?”

“Thirty-six thousand dollars.”

Bell’s reward was the pleasure of seeing the jaws of a United States senator and the richest steel baron in America drop in unison.

“The pot is now seventy-two thousand dollars,” calculated Mr. Payne.

A deep silence pervaded the stateroom. All that could be heard was the muffled clatter of the wheels. Judge Congdon’s wrinkled hand crept into his breast pocket and emerged with a bank check. He took a gold fountain pen from another pocket, uncapped it, and slowly wrote a number on his check. Then he signed his name, blew on the paper to dry the ink, and smiled.

“I call your thirty-six-thousand-dollar raise, Mr. Bell, and the Senator’s ten thousand eight hundred, which by now seems a paltry sum, and I raise one hundred eighteen thousand eight hundred dollars ... Senator Kincaid, it’s to you. My raise and Mr. Bell’s raise means it will cost you one hundred fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars to stay in the hand.”

“Good God,” said Payne.

“Whatcha gonna do, Charlie?” asked Congdon. “One hundred fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars if you want to play.”

“Call,” Kincaid said stiffly, scribbling the number on his calling card and tossing it on the heap of gold.

“No raise?” Congdon mocked.

“You heard me.”

Congdon turned his dry smile on Bell. “Mr. Bell, my raise was one hundred eighteen thousand eight hundred dollars.”

Bell smiled back, concealing the thought that merely to call would put a deep dent in his personal fortune. To raise would deepen it dangerously.

Judge James Congdon was one of the richest men in America. If Bell did raise, there was nothing to stop the man from raising him back and wiping him out.

17

“MR. PAYNE,” ASKED ISAAC BELL. “HOW MUCH MONEY IS IN the pot?”

“Well, let me see ... The pot now contains two hundred thirty-seven thousand six hundred dollars.”

Bell mentally counted steelworkers. Four hundred men together could earn that pot in a good year. Ten men, if they were fortunate enough to survive long working lives uninterrupted by injury and lay-off, might together earn that amount between boyhood and old age.

Congdon asked innocently, “Mr. Payne, what will the pot contain if Mr. Bell continues to believe that his two-card draw