Ace in the Hole Read online

  Winner Takes All

  Clint ducked the shots coming from the bottom of the stairs. The shot from the back stairs had blended in. He didn’t know how many more men were there, but his best play now was to stay on the third floor and let them come to him.

  Suddenly, it got quiet, and a voice called from downstairs.

  “Adams? Is that you? Clint Adams? You ain’t got a chance. We got a dozen men in the house.”

  Clint knew that was a lie, but he still didn’t know how many men there were.

  “Come on down, Adams,” the voice said. “Come on down and we’ll talk. We’ll cut you in.”

  Clint froze at the top of the stairs, waiting…

  DON’T MISS THESE ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

  Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him…the Gunsmith.

  LONGARM by Tabor Evans

  The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

  SLOCUM by Jake Logan

  Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

  BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan

  An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.

  DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer

  Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex…

  WILDGUN by Jack Hanson

  The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

  TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun

  J. T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.

  THE GUNSMITH 316

  ACE IN THE HOLE

  J. R. ROBERTS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ACE IN THE HOLE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2008 by Robert J. Randisi.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1526-5

  JOVE®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “J” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  ONE

  Clint Adams picked up the three cards he’d drawn from the dealer, added them to the two in his hand and slowly unfolded the five cards like a fan. He’d drawn another ace to go with the other two he’d been dealt. He folded the cards again so that they were stacked in his hands and waited for the other players to look at their cards and decide on their plays. He already knew this was the hand he was going to push.

  The play was to Arliss Morgan, the local banker. When Clint had first ridden into the town of Virginia City, Nevada, he had had hopes of finding an interesting poker game, but he had never expected to be involved in a game with the town fathers. Across from him, in a floral vest with a very expensive watch fob hanging from it, was the mayor, William Tisdale. The other two men were local ranchers, Eric Greene and Joe Blocker. Eric was a big man people in town called “Hoss.” He dressed more like a ranch hand than a ranch owner. Joe Blocker, on the other hand, was diminutive and a fine dresser.

  The men had money, though, and were all secretly thrilled to be playing in a game with the famous Gunsmith.

  They had been playing for several hours now, in a large room on the second floor of the largest hotel in town, also owned by the banker, Morgan. The actual host of the game, however, was a fellow named Dave Hopeville, who owned the Red Garter Saloon and Gaming House. He was supplying the table, the cards, the chips, the refreshments and the girls who served the refreshments. A makeshift bar was set up in one corner of the room, and at the bar stood one pretty blonde and one striking redhead, in matching gowns of red and green.

  Hopeville had owned many saloons and gambling halls all over the country, but he was a host, not a gambler. Clint knew him slightly from other towns, but did not know the man’s past. It may have been that he’d never gambled, or at one time he’d gambled very badly and quit.

  In Clint’s experience bad gamblers never quit, they just kept going broke. He suspected Hopevil
le saw a way early in life to make money from gamblers without actually gambling against them. That made him a very smart man.

  Hopeville was standing off to one side, holding a large cigar in one hand and mopping his shiny baldpate with a white handkerchief in the other. He wasn’t nervous; he just had a habit of sweating a lot.

  The banker, Arliss Morgan, rested his hands on his protruding belly and regarded his cards with a frown. Clint had already noticed that this was the countenance the man took on when he was about to bluff.

  “I bet five hundred,” he said, tossing the chips into the pot.

  “Call,” Hoss Greene said.

  “I fold,” Mayor Tisdale said, throwing his cards down in disgust. “I’ve got to stop trying to fill those straights.”

  The other men laughed and Joe Blocker said, “I’ll take a look,” and tossed in his five hundred.

  “Raise a thousand,” Clint said.

  Morgan looked at him, narrowing his eyes.

  “Are you bluffing, Mr. Adams?” he asked.

  “No, Mr. Morgan,” Clint said, “you are.”

  Morgan looked stunned and considered his cards for a moment before folding with a “Humph.”

  Hoss Greene laughed and said, “He got you that time, Arliss.” Then he looked at his cards, dropped them on the table and said, “Got me, too.”

  Joe Blocker looked at Clint, then at his cards, and said, “I gotta keep lookin’, Mr. Adams. I call.” He dropped a thousand dollars’ worth of chips into the pot, which was the largest of the day, almost ten thousand.

  “Three aces,” Clint said, fanning his cards on the table.

  “I almost raised you,” Blocker said, showing his three kings. “But in the end, I believed you.”

  “But you still had to pay to look, right?” Hoss asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Blocker said with a smile. “I had to see those cards.”

  Clint raked in his chips and began to stack them.

  “Break for refreshments, gents?” Dave Hopeville asked.

  “You got some cold beer back there, Dave?” Arliss Morgan asked.

  “Just brought in a cold keg, Arliss.”

  “Sounds good to me,” the banker said, standing up.

  “Me, too,” Clint said. He rarely, if ever, drank while he was playing cards—at the table.

  All five men stood and stretched and made their way to the bar, manned by the two pretty saloon girls.

  Clint finished stacking his chips and walked over to the bar, where the striking redhead handed him a beer and gave him a smile.

  “You’re winning all the money,” she said.

  “Not all of it,” he said, “but enough.”

  “Are you going to play all night?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Loretta,” he said. “I guess that depends on how long it takes me to go ahead and win all the money.”

  “I can wait in your room,” she said in a low voice.

  “That would be great,” he said. She certainly knew where his room was. She’d spent all night in it, and in the bed, with him.

  She moved off to help the blonde, Andrea, serve the other men. Andrea had been in his bed the night before. It had made him nervous when he’d walked into the room and seen the two girls setting up the bar, but they had either not compared notes, or they had and didn’t care. The possibilities inherent in the second case were endless.

  As he drank his beer, the banker, Arliss Morgan, came up next to him, holding a cold one.

  “I usually prefer brandy,” the man said, “but sometimes there’s nothing like a cold beer.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You’re playing very well.”

  “Thanks. You’re…holding your own.”

  “No,” Morgan said, “I’m not, but it’s nice of you to say. I wonder…”

  “Yes?”

  “After the game—whenever it ends—would you be open to talking with me?”

  “About what?”

  The banker shrugged and said, “Possibilities.”

  “I’m always open to possibilities,” Clint said.

  “Excellent,” the man said. “We’ll talk later.”

  The man drifted over to his neighbors and Clint wondered what that was all about.

  TWO

  The game didn’t go all night, but it did go deep into the night, so that when they were done, the banker said to Clint, “Come and see me tomorrow morning.”

  “Sure, Mr. Morgan,” Clint said. “Right after breakfast.”

  “Why don’t we have breakfast?” the man asked. “Meet me in the dining room of the Stockman Hotel. Eight a.m.”

  “It’s kind of late, Mr. Morgan,” Clint said. “What do you say to…nine?”

  “That’s fine,” Morgan said, “and please, just call me Arliss.”

  “Okay, Arliss.”

  As all the men were leaving, Hopeville came up to Clint and asked, “What’s that about?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “I’m going to find out at breakfast.”

  “Well, make sure he pays,” Hopeville said. “If it’s not gambling, the man’s a great skinflint.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Clint looked around. Two other girls had come in to handle the bar a few hours ago and both Andrea and Loretta had been relieved.

  “I’ve got to help the girls break down the bar,” Dave Hopeville said. “How’d you do?”

  “I did well,” Clint told him. “I did very well. Thanks for getting me into the game.”

  “Well, one of the regulars canceled and I knew these men would get a thrill out of playing with you.”

  “I hope they were thrilled to give me their money.”

  “That’s probably open to debate,” Hopeville said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be around.”

  Clint left the room and went up one more level to the third floor, where his hotel room was.

  Arliss Morgan entered his big house just outside of town. It was easily the largest house in town, two stories with ante-bellum white columns and a Mexican-style roof. He had designed the house himself and the mixture of styles was rather jarring, but he liked it.

  “Is that you, Arliss?” his wife called from upstairs.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Don’t be cross with me, dear,” she said, appearing at the head of the stairs. As she came down, he marveled again at the luck that had brought him a wife thirty years his junior. He knew they talked about them in town. How she was a gold digger and he was an old fool, but he didn’t care. She was beautiful, and he’d do anything to keep her.

  And she knew it. She made him jump through hoops, sometimes cruelly, but he still didn’t care. It made him angry sometimes, but he still did it.

  Now she came down and kissed his cheek. She was wearing a long, low-cut nightgown, and her generous breasts threatened to spill out. An ex–saloon girl and entertainer, at thirty-five she was still stunning.

  “How did the game go? Did you win?”

  “No,” he said, taking off his jacket, “I lost. Big.”

  “You need a nightcap, then.”

  She went to a small sidebar they kept in the living room and poured him a brandy.

  “I think I may have found our man, though,” he said as she handed him the glass.

  Her hand gripped his arm.

  “Truly?”

  He nodded.

  “Who?”

  “His name is Clint Adams.”

  “The Gunsmith?” she said with a sudden intake of breath.

  “Yes.”

  “Will he do it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’re having breakfast in the morning to discuss it.”

  “Then you better come to bed and get some rest,” she said, taking the brandy from him before he could finish it. “You have a big day ahead of you.”

  “With any luck,” he said, following her upstairs. “With any luck.”

  THREE

  Clint woke the
next morning to the pleasant sensations of a firm, smooth little bottom being pressed into his crotch. He opened his eyes and found Loretta spooned back against him, her naked buttocks rubbing up and down him, making him hard. He reached around to caress her breasts, then ran his hand down over her belly until his fingers were buried in the red pubic patch between her legs. He found her wet already, so he lifted her leg and slid his hard penis up into her. She moaned, gave up any pretense of being asleep and began to rock back and forth, sliding him in and out of her. He moved with her, found her tempo, and the room quickly filled with the sound of flesh slapping flesh as they both enjoyed a quick, hard wake-me-up.

  The had fucked themselves to sleep the night before, so a quick one to wake up to was fine with both of them.

  “My God,” she said as he got up from the bed, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk today.”

  “Who says you have to?” he asked. “Stay here and sleep some more.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, stretching her long, lean body. “You woke me up good. What are you doing this morning?”

  “I’ve got breakfast with the banker.” He poured water from a pitcher into a basin and began to wash.

  “Are you opening an account?” she asked eagerly. If that were the case, wouldn’t that mean he was going to stay awhile?

  “No,” he said. “He’s got something he wants to talk to me about.”