He walked around the counter and found the register on a shelf. It was a large, leather-bound tome. He placed it on top of the counter and flipped through the pages. It was only about a third full. He found the most recent entries and began to scan the names: Walter Sturgeon, Bill Smith, Lou Rutger... He turned back a page, running his finger up the list of names: Pandora Parson, Daniel Wilkins, William Steed.
Corey stopped scanning and focused upon the name: William Steed, Room 201. He closed the book, returned it to the shelf, and headed straight for the stairs. The front door opened and Gentleman Tom McGee hurried through. He was moving very fast and very well — especially for a man who was pretending to be unable to fight on Friday. “Callaghan,” he whispered, “thank God I’m in time.”
Corey paused to look at the Gentleman. The notion flittered through his mind that if the Gentleman hadn’t tried to back out of his arrangement with Steed, then Patrick would not have been hurt tonight. But the thought was unfair and Corey discarded it. The Gentleman was trying to protect his family as Corey should have been protecting Patrick. As he was going to protect Patrick now.
Corey started up the stairs.
“Callaghan!” The Gentleman’s voice was louder this time. The note of relief was changing to desperation. “This won’t help Patrick!”
Corey ignored him, so the Gentleman leapt up the stairs behind him and grabbed hold of Corey’s arm. “Please, Callaghan, think it through, man. Do you think simply beating Steed will keep him off of Patrick? We have to break him. And I think we have a plan.”
Corey paused and turned back to the Gentleman. “Break him?”
“Please, Callaghan, I’ve put my family at risk coming here to you. Steed will wait. Come home with me now, and let us tell you our plan.”
The red-haired woman was in the Gentleman’s kitchen drinking tea with Elaine McGee. Corey stopped in the doorway when he saw her, the anger inside him stoking hot again. “Do you know who she is?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Callaghan,” Elaine McGee answered him. “This is Miss Pandora Parson, an acquaintance of Mr. Steed. Won’t you come in and have tea?”
Corey turned angrily toward the Gentleman. “You brought me here for this?”
“Please, Mr. Callaghan,” the redhead asked, “will you give me a chance to explain myself? I think I have thought of a way to let you protect Mr. O’Sullivan, and let the McGees protect their sons, and stop William Steed from ever doing this to anyone again.”
Corey allowed the Gentleman to guide him to a chair.
“Tea, Mr. Callaghan?” Elaine McGee asked again. She lifted an ancient, fragile-looking teapot that could well have come from the Old Country, and poured the steaming liquid into an equally fragile-looking cup. She set the pot down near the edge of the table. “If you don’t mind, Tom, I would like to get us started.” When her husband did not protest, Mrs. McGee continued. “Mr. Callaghan, am I correct in assuming that Mr. Steed has approached you in regard to throwing Friday’s fight?”
Corey restrained his temper and answered only the question. “Aye.”
“And knowing your reputation, Mr. Callaghan, I’m certain we can assume that you rejected Mr. Steed’s offer.”
“Aye.”
She nodded. “Just as my Tom did. And now, as he did, you have learned that rejecting Mr. Steed’s wishes does not affect only yourself. Your problem and Tom’s problem are quite similar. How do you stop Mr. Steed from threatening those you care about? Miss Parson’s problem is somewhat different, and if you are to trust her enough to continue this conversation, I think you need to hear how she met Mr. Steed, and why she travels in his company.”
Miss Parson took a sip of tea and looked uncomfortably at Corey. “I think, Mr. Callaghan, that I will actually have to start a little earlier than that.” She sipped again, considering.
“My mother died when I was very young. I really don’t remember her at all. Just little things I associate with her in my mind — a white dress, the smell of cinnamon, and her silver wedding ring.
“My father was left alone to raise me. He was a good man, but he couldn’t hold a steady job no matter how hard he tried. Some people get the wanderlust and move from place to place. My father had a gambling lust. He was only truly happy in a card game. When most girls were in the kitchen learning to cook from their mothers, I was at a table with my father learning to shuffle decks and play cards. And when my father died, he left me only two things: my skill in games of chance and my mother’s wedding ring.”
As she spoke, Miss Parson’s eyes had slowly drifted down from Corey’s face until she stared straight into the teacup in her hands. “I started gambling myself when my money ran low. I knew the games well, and I had always been lucky. I was good at it. I am good at it. I got by, slowly building a stake, which opened a higher quality game. Until one day I got into a game a little over my head and had a full house king high and no money left to call the bet. Mr. Steed was at the table and had already folded out of the hand. He offered to lend me the money I needed to finish the hand, with my mother’s ring as surety. I accepted his offer and lost the hand. It’s the only time I have ever seen a man draw four of a kind in straight five card stud.”
She paused, took a sip of tea, and swallowed hard. “So I lost my mother’s ring and my luck has been... erratic ever since.”
Miss Parson stopped and took a deep breath. Mrs. McGee reached forward to pat her hand. Her arm brushed the teapot, shifting it slightly on the table. For a moment the pot tottered on the edge. The Gentleman leaned forward to grab it as his wife quickly pulled back her hand with the same intention. They succeeded only in jarring the table. The pot shifted again and fell spinning to the floor to land miraculously unharmed at Mrs. McGee’s feet. The McGees and Corey froze in place looking at the undamaged teapot. Miss Parson did not appear to notice. At length, she broke the silence. “My luck,” she said again, “has been erratic ever since.”
Mrs. McGee shifted her attention back to the young woman, staring in bewilderment. Then she reached down toward the floor and lifted the teapot carefully in her hands. She began to place it more firmly on the table, thought better of it, stood, and carried it to the kitchen counter. She stood there for a moment steadying her nerves.
Corey sat back in his chair, suddenly cognizant of the strange events that happened in Miss Parson’s presence: the keg, the porch, the teapot. He was Irish and he understood luck, but this luck set his brain to hurting when he focused on it. He consciously willed his attention back to the task at hand. “What I don’t understand,” he said, slowly articulating each word. “What I don’t understand is why you are still traveling with Steed.”
Miss Parson did not immediately answer. Elaine McGee returned cautiously to the table. “Because, Mr. Callaghan,” she said, trying to act as if nothing unusual had happened, “Mr. Steed still has Miss Parson’s ring. He won’t sell it back to you, will he, my dear?”
“It’s my luck,” the younger woman confirmed indirectly, “my last memory of Mama. I can’t leave it with him.”
Corey tried to think about what Miss Parson had explained about herself, and he just couldn’t understand how it related to his problem protecting Patrick. He said as much. “So Steed is a snake, Miss Parson. We already knew that. I don’t understand how this helps us. Are you asking us to help you recover your mother’s ring?”