Waltz Into Darkness

57

This time he did not tell her; she guessed it by his face. She saw him standing there by the window, staring out at nothing, gnawing at his lip. And when she spoke to him, said something to him, his answer, instead of being in kind, was to turn away, thrust hands in pockets, and begin to pace the room on a long, straight course, up and down.

She understood him so well by now, she knew it could be nothing but the thing it was.

She nodded finally, after watching him closely for some moments. “Again?” she said cryptically.

“Again,” he answered, and came to a halt, and flung himself into a chair.

She flung from her irritably a stocking she had been donning upward over her arm in search of rents. “Why is it always that way with us?” she complained. “We no sooner can turn around and draw our breaths, than it’s gone again, and the whole thing starts over!”

“It goes, with anyone,” he said sombrely. “It’s the one thing you can’t hold and yet use at the same time.”

“With us, it seems to dash!” she exclaimed bitterly. “I never saw the like.” It was now she who had sought the window, was seeking out that distant, faltering star of their fortunes, up beyond somewhere, that he had been scanning earlier. There for only the two of them, and no one else, to see. “Does that mean New Orleans again?”

They had grown so, they could understand one another almost without words, certainly without the fully explicit rounded phrase.

“There’s no more New Orleans; that’s done. There’s nothing left there any longer to go back for.”

They had even grown alike in mannerisms. It was now she who gnawed at her underlip. “How much have we?”

“Two hundred and some,” he answered without lifting his head.

She came close to him and put her hand to the outside of his arm, as if she wished to attract his attention; although she had it in full already.

“There are two things can be done,” she said. “We can either sit and do nothing with it, until it is all gone. Or we can take it and set it to work for us.”

He simply looked up at her; this time there was a flaw in their mutual understanding, a blind spot.

“I have known many men with less than two hundred for a stake to run it up to two or three thousand.”

She kept her hand on his arm, as if the thought were entering by there in some way, and not by word of mouth. It still failed to.

“Do you know any card games?” she persisted.

“There was one I used to play with Jardine in our younger days, of an evening. Bezique, I think. I scarcely remem—”

“I mean real games,” she interrupted impatiently.

He understood her, then.

“You mean gamble with it? Risk it?”

She shook her head, more impatient than ever. “Only fools gamble with it. Only fools risk it. I’ll show you how to play so that you’re sure of running up your two hundred.”

He saw what she really meant, then.

“Cheat,” he said tonelessly.

She flung her head away from him, then brought it back again.

“Don’t be so sanctimonious about it. Cheat is just a word. Why use that particular one? There are plenty of others just as good. ‘Prepare’ yourself. ‘Insure’ against losing. Why leave everything to chance? Chance is a harlot.”

She stepped away, caught at the back of a chair, began dragging it temptingly after her, at a slant.

“Come, sit down. I’ll teach you the game itself first.”

She was a good teacher. In an hour he knew it sufficiently well.

“You now know faro,” she said. “You know it as well as I or anyone else can show it to you. Now I’ll teach you the really important part. I must put on some things first.”

He sat there idly fingering the cards while she was gone. She came back decked with all her jewelry, as she would have worn it of any evening. It looked grotesque, overlaying the household deshabille she wore.

She sat down before him, and something made his hand shake a little. As does a hand that is about to commit something heinous.

“There are four suits, mark them well,” she said briskly. “I will not be sitting in the game with you, they do not play with women, and everything depends upon the quick coordination between us, you and me. Yet on the river boats it never failed, and so it should not fail here. It is the simplest system of all, and the most easily discovered, but we must use it, for your own fingers are not yet deft enough at rigging a deal, and so you must rely on me and not yourself to see you through the tight places. We will use it sparingly, saving it each time for the moment that counts the most. Now, mark. When my hand strays to my bosom so, that’s hearts. The pendant at my throat, that’s diamonds. The eardrop on the left, spades. The one on the right, clubs. Then you watch my hand as it goes down again, that gives you the count. The fingers are numbered from one to ten, starting at the outside of the left hand. The little finger of the left hand is one, the little finger of the right, ten. Whichever one I fold back, or only shorten a little, gives the count.”

“How does that tell me when he’s holding jacks, queens or kings?”

“They follow in regular order, eleven, twelve, thirteen. A king would be a folding-back of the little finger on the left hand and of the third finger on the left hand. An ace is simply one.”

“How can you hope to see every card he holds in his hand, and signal me?”

“I can’t and I don’t try. One or two of the top cards are all you need, and those are all I give you.”

She thrust the deck toward him over the tabletop.

“Deal me a hand.”

She arranged it.

“Now tell me what I am holding in my hand.”

He watched her.

“Your top cards are the queen of diamonds, knave of hearts, ace of clubs.”

He got no praise.

“You stared at me so, a blind man could have seen what you were about. You play this with your face, as well as with your fingers; learn that. Now again.”

He told her again.

“Better, but you are too slow. They won’t wait for you, while you sit there summing up in your mind. Now another.”

Her only praise was a nod. “Once more.”

This time, at last, she conceded: “You are not stupid, Louis.”

He threw the cards aside suddenly.

“I can’t do this, Bonny.”

She gave him a scathing look.

“Why? Are you too good? Does it soil you?”

He dropped his eyes before hers, ran desperate fingers through his hair.

“You killed a man once in Mobile, if I remember!” she accused him. “But you cannot sharpen up a card game a little. No, you’re too goody-goody.”

“That was different somehow—” (And why do you throw that up to me, anyhow? he thought.)

“If there’s anything that sickens me, it’s a saintly man. You should be wearing your collar back-to-front. Very well. We’ll say no more about it. Sit and nurse your two hundred until it is all gone.” She flung her chair angrily over to one side, while she rose from it.

He watched her stride to the door, and pluck the knob, and swing the door back to go out.

“You want me to do this very much?” he said. “That much?”

She stopped and turned to look at him. “It is to your advantage, not mine. I was only trying to help you. I gain nothing by it. I can always make out. I have before, and I can again.”

Louder than all the rest, he heard in it the one word she had not spoken: alone.

“I’ll do it for you, Bonny,” he said limply. “I’ll do it for you.”

She dropped her eyes a moment complacently. She came back and sat down. Her face slowly smoothed out. She bent to her tutoring attentively. “Now what am I holding?”