Ace in the Hole Read online

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He dried his face, hands and chest, then wiped his armpits with the damp towel. “That’s what he’s supposed to tell me at breakfast.”

  “Well, be careful of him,” she warned.

  “Why?” he asked, getting dressed.

  “There’s talk around town that he may not be completely on the up-and-up. People are talking about moving their money to the other bank.”

  “The small one?”

  “It’s gettin’ bigger,” she said.

  He strapped on his gun.

  “Are you telling me he’s crooked?”

  She rolled onto her side and leaned on her elbow, staring up at him.

  “He’s got a young wife and people are sayin’ that she’s pullin’ the strings. Everythin’ was fine, they say, until he married her and brought her here.”

  “And when was that?”

  “About three years ago,” she said. “He went on a trip to San Francisco and came back with a young wife.”

  “How young?”

  “About thirty years younger than him.”

  “Makes her…what? Mid-thirties?”

  “I guess,” Loretta said. “She’s supposed to have been a showgirl in San Francisco.”

  “So she landed herself a wealthy older husband, huh?” he asked. “Isn’t that every girl’s dream?”

  She reached her arms out to him and said, “You’re every girl’s dream, Mr. Adams.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say,” he replied, “but I’m not coming near you, because I’ll just end up crawling into bed with you again.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “It wouldn’t be bad,” he said, “but I’ve got things to do…and I’m hungry.”

  She slid her hands down her body until they were nestled between her thighs.

  “I bet I could convince you.”

  “Maybe you could,” he said, “but I don’t think so. There are no strings on me, Loretta.”

  “And you know what?” she asked as he headed for the door. “That just makes you even better.”

  Clint made his way from his own hotel to the larger, more expensive Stockman Hotel. One of the reasons it was more expensive was because of the fine restaurant it had in addition to its comfortable rooms. Clint had chosen to stay in the second best hotel in town, the Carlyle House, because a friend of his had recommended it. According to his friend, the Stockman was overrated and overpriced.

  But the restaurant was very good. He knew that because he’d already had a couple of meals there, breakfast and dinner.

  When he walked in, he didn’t see banker Morgan anywhere, and it looked to him like all the tables had been taken.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Adams?” the maître d’ asked.

  “I’m supposed to meet Mr. Morgan here for breakfast. I don’t see him and you look crowded.”

  “That’s no problem, sir,” the man said. “We keep a table for Mr. Morgan in the back. If you’ll follow me…”

  Clint did so, and the man led him to a large table toward the back of the restaurant, which suited Clint just fine. He took the chair with his back to the wall, ordered coffee and settled in to wait.

  FOUR

  At thirty-five, Tom Kent had been the sheriff of Virginia City for three years. Prior to that he’d held various deputy sheriff jobs around the country. He liked his job, but in three years he’d come to realize the things a sheriff had to deal with that a deputy never did. Like the town council and the mayor. Now, as he was walking down the street on his way to breakfast, he saw the president of the town council, the banker Arliss Morgan, coming toward him.

  “Good morning, Sheriff,” Morgan said.

  As usual, the suit he was wearing had cost him more than the sheriff’s horse.

  “Mr. Morgan,” the sheriff said.

  “Off to breakfast?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to the Stockman myself.”

  “A little too rich for someone on a lawman’s salary,” Sheriff Kent said.

  “Well…” Morgan said, and kept walking.

  The old fool had brought a young wife back to town with him three years ago—almost the same month Kent had gotten his job—and now he was trying to keep her.

  Kent didn’t think there was much chance of that.

  Clint was on his second cup of coffee when Arliss Morgan walked in and was shown to the table.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Morgan said, sitting down. “I’m glad Walter took care of you.”

  “Walter?” Clint asked, then realized the banker was referring to the man who had shown him to the table. “Oh, right, yeah, thanks.”

  “I’ll send the waiter right over,” Walter said.

  “Thank you, Walter. Oh, and my guest’s breakfast will be on my check.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Clint picked up the coffeepot and asked, “Coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” As soon as Clint finished pouring, Morgan picked up his cup and sipped. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

  Clint had had better, but he nodded and said, “It’s fine.”

  “I don’t mind telling you,” Morgan said, “I was impressed to learn that you would be playing in our game, but that was because I knew your reputation.”

  Clint remained silent. He didn’t know what the man was getting at, but he was willing to let him get there in his own time. After all, he was paying for breakfast.

  The woman took the man’s penis fully into her mouth and suckled it. He gasped and lifted his hips off the bed. She did things to him he’d never had a woman do before. She was bold, and aggressive, and he couldn’t get enough of her.

  She released him from her mouth, straddled him, reached beneath her to take him in her hand and guide him to her. Then she sat down on him, taking him inside slowly. She was hot and wet as she started to ride him up and down. He reached up for her full breasts, squeezed them in his hand, thumbed the nipples. She didn’t seem to notice. She was completely entranced by what was happening between her legs. She began to bounce up and down on him, pressing her hands down on his chest, taking her weight on her legs. She was more squatting on him, not sitting, and she was in total control. At one point she lifted herself up and off him and he reached for her to pull her back down on him.

  “Beg,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You want to keep fucking me, don’t you?”

  Her mouth. He’d never heard a woman talk like she did.

  “Yes, yes, I do,” he said.

  “Then beg for it,” she said. “Tell me how much you need me, or I’ll leave.”

  His penis was swollen and red and prodding the air.

  “Please,” he said.

  “Please what?”

  “Please, let me…back in.”

  “To do what?”

  “To…to fuck you.”

  “Honestly,” Diane Morgan, wife of the mayor, said, “for a lawman you talk like a Quaker.”

  “Come on,” he said, “fuck me.”

  “Ah, that’s it,” she said. She lowered herself so she could run her wet, swollen pussy lips on the head of his penis. “What’s the magic word?”

  He reached for her and said hoarsely, “Please.”

  “That’s it,” she said, and swooped down on him, engulfing him.

  FIVE

  “It’s your poker playing that truly surprised me,” Morgan said.

  “You expected me to play badly?”

  “Well…no,” Morgan said. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. No, Dave wouldn’t have brought you into the game if you played badly. No, no, we’re all good poker players. It just surprised me how…easily you took our money.”

  Clint considered the situation for a moment, then thought, Oh, what the hell.

  “Can I be frank with you without insulting you?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Morgan said. “Feel free.”

  Clint took a deep breath, then sai
d, “You’re all terrible poker players.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s why it was so easy for me to take your money,” Clint said. “You each have a tell that gives away when you’re bluffing. I picked them all up within the first half hour.”

  “A tell?” Morgan asked. “I have a tell?”

  “You rest your hands on your belly and frown whenever you’re going to bluff.”

  Morgan stared at Clint in astonishment. “I do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the others?”

  “I’m not going to tell you what their tells are,” Clint said, “since you’re probably going to continue playing with them. I’ll just explain that the tells are there and very noticeable. All you have to do is look for them.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Morgan said. “I’ll also have to, uh, do something about my own, uh, little…tell.”

  “I suggest keeping your hands on the table for a while, until you get used to keeping them off your, uh, belly.”

  “Yes, well,” Morgan said, “this makes my proposal to you even more, er, necessary.”

  After holding the pot out to Morgan and receiving a shake of the head in return, Clint poured himself another cup of coffee and waited.

  “Some friends of mine and I are having a private game,” Morgan said. “A very private game.”

  “Friends?”

  “Men of considerable…holdings.”

  “Rich men?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And where is this game taking place?”

  “I’ll keep that information, uh, private, if you don’t mind, until you actually accept the proposition.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. “When is this game to take place?”

  “In a week’s time.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “you have time to do something about your tell.”

  “There will be a lot of money on the table,” Morgan said, “a lot of money, and this is a winner-take-all game.”

  “How many players?”

  “Six.”

  “From around the country?”

  “From around the world.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes, it will be very interesting.”

  “And where do I come in?”

  At that moment the waiter came with their plates. They both leaned back to allow him to set them down. After he was gone, Morgan picked up his knife and fork and asked, “Would you like to eat and then continue, or talk while we eat?”

  “Let’s have a couple of bites, and then continue,” Clint said. “I’d just like to take the edge off my hunger so I can concentrate.”

  “Very well.”

  They both cut into their meat and began to eat…

  Diane rolled over and away from her lover, Sheriff Tom Kent.

  “That was…nice,” she said.

  Kent rolled to the other side, swung his feet to the floor and hung his head.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Didn’t you like it?”

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said.

  “Do what, darling?”

  He turned his head and looked at her from over his right shoulder.

  “Make me beg like that.”

  “Oh, darling,” she said, “that’s just a game. If you don’t like it, we won’t play it again.”

  “I don’t like a lot of your games, Diane,” he said.

  She leaned over and ran her hand down his naked back.

  “But you’ll put up with them, won’t you?” She purred. “Just to be with me?”

  “Don’t always be so sure of me.”

  She got on her knees behind him, pressed her full breasts to his back, reached around and took hold of his penis. In her experience, no man could resist when put in this position. She began to stroke his cock until it started to harden again.

  “I won’t do it to you again, darling, all right?” she asked.

  “Hmm, yeah, yeah…” He was starting to breathe hard again. “Okay.”

  She kissed his neck and ran one hand over his chest while continuing to work his penis with the other. It was just so wonderful to be with a young man—and a man younger than she was—after being around her husband. She had studied the men in town very carefully before choosing the young sheriff as her lover—and potential partner.

  “Has your husband given you a clue yet about the game?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “I still don’t know where it’s going to be. But I will. You are going to help me, though, aren’t you, Tommy? Hmm?”

  “I’m still…thinking about…it…”

  She released her hold on him and scraped her nipples across his back as she got off the bed and onto her knees in front of him. From that position, she took hold of his erection again.

  “Let me help you decide,” she said, and slid him into her hot, eager mouth…

  SIX

  “The game was supposed to be private,” Morgan said as they ate, “but as is usually the case with men of this stature, the word had gotten out.”

  “Cancel the game.”

  “We can’t,” Morgan said. “Certain parties have already come here from abroad.”

  “Move it.”

  “Again, we can’t,” Morgan said. “Our host insisted on the location.”

  “Your host?”

  “Someone had to step up and vouch for all parties concerned,” Morgan said, “and provide the location for the game.”

  “So you’re stuck with the time and the place?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Well, initially,” Morgan said, “my idea was to have you accompany me there, as sort of a bodyguard, and then function as a security consultant. For which you would be well compensated, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I say initially, as the idea struck me as soon as Dave Hopeville told me you were in town and were going to play with us.”

  “But your idea changed?”

  “Yes,” Morgan said. “During the game.”

  “And what’s your idea now?” Clint asked.

  “Well, you would still be well compensated,” Morgan said, “and you would still accompany me to the game.”

  “What’s different?”

  Morgan pushed his plate aside—he had decimated the breakfast in record time—and leaned forward. “I want you to play in my place.”

  Tom Kent left the small hotel on shaky legs. An hour with Diane Morgan exhausted him and exhilarated him at the same time. And in spite of the fact that Diane swore that the clerk was well paid to look the other way, there was the element of danger.

  But the danger had only just begun. Diane no longer wanted just sex from him anymore, she wanted him to rob this big game her husband was planning. She told him she’d find out the time and the place, and that the rest would be up to him. She said they’d split the money—minus whatever he had to pay others for assistance—or they could simply keep the entire amount and go away together.

  At a young age Kent had wanted nothing more than to wear a badge. Now, after years as a deputy and a few years as a sheriff, the novelty was wearing a little thin. The salary was terrible, the treatment he received from the town council even worse. The mayor, Diane’s husband, and others bent the law to suit them, and it was his job to back them up. They’d made that clear. His job depended on it.

  So why should he not take Diane up on her offer? He’d end up rich, and he’d have her, and they’d be living in Mexico somewhere.

  The prospect was hard to resist.

  After Kent left the hotel room, Diane reclined on the bed, still naked, and stared at the ceiling. Kent was a bull in bed, though easily controlled. Two of her favorite attributes in a man. She knew he’d go along with her plan to rob Arliss Morgan’s big game, but she had no intention of going away with him. The man had limited imagination if he thought Mexico was the place to go when you were rich. She had much la
rger aspirations, like Paris, France, or maybe Rome, Italy.

  And she certainly had no intention of taking a small-town, small-minded sheriff with her, or even of sharing the money with him.

  Her hand drifted down over her breasts and her belly and then down between her legs as she thought about all that money, and about getting away from both her husband and Tom Kent.

  SEVEN

  “You want me to what?”

  “Play in my place,” Morgan said. “You see, there have to be six men at the table. It doesn’t matter who, as long as the original six are backing them. Do you see?”

  “So you want to stake me in that game,” Clint said. “What’s the buy-in?”

  Morgan looked around to be sure no one was within earshot, then leaned forward and said, “One hundred thousand dollars each.”

  “You have that much money to risk in poker?” Clint asked.

  “The risk is commensurate with the prize,” Morgan said. “Six hundred thousand dollars.”

  Clint was able to do the math himself, but he let that pass.

  “What’s my cut?” Clint asked. “I mean, if I do this.”

  Morgan studied Clint and he could see the banker’s mind working. How cheap could he get Clint?

  “Ten percent.”

  Not so cheap, Clint thought. Sixty thousand.

  “Do you know who else is going to play?” he asked.

  “I know the five men who are putting up the money,” Morgan said. “I know that two of those men will definitely want to play themselves. So there will be three others I don’t know about. Why?”

  “This kind of game could attract some pretty good poker players,” Clint said. “Bat Masterson, Luke Short, someone like that might show up.”

  “And are you acquainted with these men?”

  “Yes,” Clint said, “very well acquainted.”

  “And do you find the prospect of playing against them…daunting?”

  “No,” Clint said, “not daunting. I’ve played with them before. But they are professional gamblers. At best, I’m a talented amateur.”

  “A talented amateur who was able to pick out the tells of four other men in half an hour. I find that impressive.”