Crossing the Line Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  Teaser chapter

  Killer in the Window

  The modified Colt bucked against Clint’s palm, sending two quick shots up to the window across the street. He wasn’t sure who else was in that second-floor room, so he did his best to be as accurate as possible. Both bullets found their mark without shattering any glass or even nicking a window frame.

  The rifleman jerked up and back as hot lead ripped through him. His finger clenched around the trigger to send a wild shot into the large wood sign directly over Pace’s main entrance. . .

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  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  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.

  CROSSING THE LINE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / November 2009

  Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Randisi.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14900-3

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ONE

  Pace’s Emporium wasn’t the best place Clint had ever played cards, but it was the finest establishment of its kind in town. Considering that the town in question was Trickle Creek, Kansas, that wasn’t saying much. Built around a pair of mills that had been shut down after a rockslide choked off the town’s main water supply, Trickle Creek had carried on well enough. There were railroad tracks not too far away, a well-used trail bringing travelers straight down Main Street, and enough drinking going on to keep most of the local saloons flush for a long time.

  Clint had intended on riding through Trickle Creek without much thought, but Eclipse had other ideas. The Darley Arabian stallion began fretting as soon as he caught sight of civilization. At first, Clint figured the big fella was thirsty. After stopping in front of a trough, Clint had climbed down from the saddle to let him drink. When Eclipse didn’t so much as flick his tongue into the water, Clint guessed he was hungry for something other than what he could get from grazing. Leading the stallion to a stable forced Clint to venture a bit further away from Main Street.

  If Eclipse had wanted to trick Clint into staying in town, the plan had worked perfectly. The smell of a hot meal perked Clint’s interest, and a sign advertising a local poker tournament held that interest even longer. Clint put the Darley Arabian up for the night at the livery and even paid extra for some good greens. Eclipse pulled his weight more than enough, so Clint figured he owed it to the stallion to indulge him every now and then. Besides, there was plenty in Trickle Creek to keep Clint busy for a day or two.

  Before sundown that first day, Clint had found Pace’s Emporium. By that same evening, he’d made it to a lucrative little game being played there. A little ways past midnight, he’d caught the eye of a tall brunette dealing Faro at one of the tables lining the perimeter of Pace’s main room.

  Judging by the crowd around her table, Clint realized he wasn’t the first one to spot the pretty dealer. When she stood up to shake winners’ hands or wave to someone else in the place, she proved to be taller than a good portion of the men surrounding her table. Her dark red dress clung to a trim yet shapely body, which she displayed proudly. Clint caught her sweeping her long hair over her shoulder just to make sure the players got a look at the ample cleavage shown by her dress’s low-cut neckline. More than once, she’d snapped her eyes up to catch Clint watching her from across the room. When that happened, she flashed him a warm smile followed by a playful wag of her finger.

  “You watching this game or the one over there?” one of the men at Clint’s table asked.

  The man to Clint’s left turned to look toward the faro tables and then chuckled. “He’s just watching Delilah work her magic, is all.”

  The first one to cut into Clint’s line of sight sat directly across from him. He didn’t need to twist around to get a look at the pretty dealer. “Him and every other man in this place. Ain’t none of you ever seen a woman before?”

  “What’s the matter, George?” the man to Clint’s left grunted. “Has it been a while since you seen one?”

  While eve
ryone else at the table found that amusing, George obviously didn’t. “You wanna dip your wick into some whore? Go do it. You wanna play cards? Stop gawking and do it!”

  While he may have cracked the first joke, the man to Clint’s left was the first to stop laughing. “Delilah ain’t a whore,” he snarled as he began getting to his feet.

  Reaching out to nudge the other man back into his chair, Clint said, “Forget about it, Jack. He’s right. We’re here to play poker, and it’s my turn to bet.”

  Jack looked to be about twenty years Clint’s senior, but he wasn’t some frail codger. The wrinkles under his eyes were more like cracks etched into stone and the gray dusted throughout his bushy hair made him look weathered instead of just plain old. Although he could have easily pushed himself all the way up, Jack allowed himself to drop back onto his chair. “Guess I’ll let it slide,” he grumbled.

  The man directly across from Clint smirked as if he’d won a major battle. Unable to let a sleeping dog lie, he mumbled, “Damn right, you will.”

  There were two others sitting at the table that hadn’t spoken up yet. One was a skinny banker named Wendell, and the other was big enough to make the chair beneath him look like a poorly constructed toy. The other men called him Bull. It wasn’t the most original nickname, but it was appropriate.

  “That’s enough of that,” Bull said. “We ain’t here to gawk at women, and we ain’t here to kick up trouble.”

  “Fine by me,” Clint said.

  “What about you, George?”

  Grudgingly, the man across from Clint nodded. “I guess.”

  Since that was the best truce he could expect, Clint looked down at the two pair he was holding and shoved in a five-dollar bet.

  Without taking his eyes off of George, Jack said, “Call.”

  “Five to me, huh?” George asked. “That’s the best you could do? Make it ten.”

  Bull sighed, glanced at his cards, and promptly folded them.

  Just then, Clint noticed the pretty faro dealer again. Unlike the last few times, he hadn’t watched her just because she was a fine-looking woman in a formfitting dress. Instead, she’d caught his attention because she’d been staring at him with enough intensity for Clint to feel it from all the way across the room. When he met her gaze, he saw her shake her head.

  “Ten?” Wendell groused. “Did you make a hand for yourself after all?”

  “One way to find out,” George told the banker. “Call or fold.”

  Letting out a pained groan, Wendell plainly wanted to fold. However, since he’d been the one to make the initial bet, he found it difficult to abandon his investment so easily. When he placed the correct number of chips in the pot, he might as well have been handing over one of his own children.

  Clint had played plenty of poker in his years. He knew when another man was posturing because he had a real hand and when he was just trying to look strong. At the moment, George struck him as a man who was impatient and making a bet just to save face after being scolded by Bull. His intention had been to raise, just to push George out or soak him for a few extra dollars. When he touched his chips, Clint got another searing gaze from the faro dealer.

  George sat as he always did, leaning one elbow against the table and holding his cards in a wide fan. “What’s the matter, Adams? Too rich for ya? Maybe you’d like to ask that whore you fancy so much?”

  “She ain’t a whore!” Jack roared.

  Clint couldn’t figure out what was bothering the dealer, but she shook her head fiercely. He must have been staring a bit too hard at her, because George realized where Clint was looking and twisted around to see for himself. A split second before George was facing her, the dealer shifted her attention to one of the players at her own table.

  “What is it?” George asked. “What the hell’s got you so distracted?”

  Before another ruckus could get going, Clint shoved in some chips. “See your raise and bump it up another twenty.”

  It wasn’t a big raise to a professional gambler, but was more than enough to make some waves in a pond as small as this one. Jack threw in his cards as if they’d burned his fingers, but George called. Bull was already out and Wendell was next to drop, leaving Clint and George as the last men standing.

  “Well?” George asked smugly. “What’ve you got?”

  Clint showed his two pair. “Queens and nines.”

  “Three aces!” George announced as he raked in the pot. “Bite down on ’em!”

  Clint looked across the room to the faro table to find the pretty dealer shaking her head and shrugging in a manner that practically screamed “I told you so.”

  TWO

  It was well past two in the morning, but Clint’s poker game was still going strong. The only one of the players to show any sign of slowing down was Wendell, but that only amounted to a lot of yawning in between hands. Bull always looked half asleep and Jack was drinking enough cheap whiskey to fuel a furnace.

  George sat behind a pile of chips bigger than anyone else’s at the table, which included a pocket watch and a tarnished pair of cuff links. Clint decided that the other man wasn’t so much a good bluffer as he was a smug pain in the ass. He was always an asshole, which made it difficult to tell when he was putting on a show or just being himself.

  As far as Clint could tell, George acted like a prick when he had a hand and acted like an even bigger one when he didn’t. On the occasions when Clint had beaten him, George acted like a prick because he’d lost. After a few hours of that, it became tough for Clint to tell one level of smugness from another. There was, however, one peculiar element that kept him intrigued. That element was still dealing faro from the other side of the room.

  Every so often, Clint would still get either a frown or a smirk from her. Sometimes those expressions were accompanied by a nod or a shake of her head. Sometimes, those were aimed at other players instead of at Clint. It took a while, but he eventually realized when the dealer was looking at him and when she wasn’t. Even more importantly, he’d figured out just what all those nods and shakes actually meant.

  George threw in a bet, which was called by Bull. Wendell folded, leaving the next decision up to Clint.

  Since the faro game across the room was on an upswing, the dealer was preoccupied. Clint called and then waited for his replacement cards to be dealt. In that time, a few faro players bickered about something or other, which allowed the dealer to shift her eyes in Clint’s direction.

  When he looked at the two cards he’d been dealt to replace the ones he’d tossed, George smirked. Unfortunately, it was one of the same toothy smirks he always showed when he wasn’t cussing at someone. “Fifteen dollars,” George grunted as he threw in his chips.

  Bull surveyed the table, glanced at his cards, looked around, and then looked at his cards again.

  “They ain’t changin’,” George snapped. Although cowed by the fire in Bull’s eyes, George still muttered, “Well they ain’t.”

  “Fold,” Bull declared. Not only did he lay down his cards, but he also stood up and added, “I’m going home.”

  “What?” George asked. “You still got some of my money!”

  “I won it.”

  “Yeah, and a man should have a chance to win it back!”

  “You’ve had plenty of chances,” Bull declared. He then tipped his hat to the rest of the table and walked away.

  Gritting his teeth, George said, “Someone should teach him some proper card table manners.”

  “Really?” Clint chuckled as he reached for his chips. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the dealer standing up and leaning forward. While her own players were content to gaze down the front of her dress, she was gazing across at him and shaking her head.

  As much as Clint wanted to keep George from pulling in another pot right then and there, he laid down his cards.

  “You fold?” George asked.

  Clint nodded. “That’s right.”

  “You can’t fold.”


  “Why not?”

  “The man wants to fold, let him fold,” Jack grumbled.

  “What about you, old man?” George asked. “In or out?”

  “I suppose I’m out.”

  George nodded solemnly as he pulled in the pot and snarled, “Best hand I get all night and there ain’t nobody with the balls to play the hand with me.”

  “Eh, go stuff yerself,” the older man grumbled as he dealt the next hand.

  Betting commenced, which George bumped up to a slightly higher level than normal. Clint stayed in the game after answering a few modest raises. After pitching one card to fill a straight, he only got a six to pair the one he’d been originally dealt.

  “Twenty-five,” George announced as he shoved in some money.

  The faro dealer was watching the game intently and she displayed a wide smile that was obviously intended for Clint. Not one to disappoint a lady, Clint put in a twenty dollar raise.

  “Too rich for my blood,” Jack said.

  “Raise?” George asked.

  “You heard me,” Clint replied.

  Putting on another one of his smug grins, George shrugged and shoved in even more money. “Then I suppose I’ll have to raise it again. Make it another eighty.”

  Clint’s instincts told him that George didn’t have what it took to bluff away such a generous portion of his stack. The dealer’s wide smile, on the other hand, told him he might just have a bad read on the man across from him. Reluctantly, Clint pushed in all of his remaining funds to cover the bet.

  “You sure you want to do that?” George asked.

  “Too late to fix it now.”

  “This is a gentleman’s game. You can take it back if you made a mistake.”

  Now, Clint felt like an idiot for giving George any credit whatsoever. “Since when have you conducted this as a gentleman’s game? I’ve got a pair of sixes.”