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And then one night I ran into her. It was the Sunday night after I drew my first time as foreman, $120 for two weeks at ten dollars a day. I had just finished dinner at the International, roast beef, potatoes and gravy, stewed peaches and coffee, and I had poured myself a second cup when she came in with Brewer. I had heard about what he was buying her, the pony cart, rings, clothes, and hats, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what she looked like in all that stuff. The dress was crimson silk, with a big floppy lace hat, and yellow flowers pinned to one shoulder. Her face was all painted up, and she had lace gloves on with the fingers cut off so they stuck through bare, and on every finger were at least six rings with diamonds. She looked exactly like what she was. Brewer took her to a big table in the middle, and then here came Biloxi all dressed up too, and Renny in evening clothes with a white tie, and Haines dressed even fancier than Renny. I drank my coffee and paid my bill, and I didn’t hurry that I know of, but just the same, when I was done I left.

I got down to C Street, and could feel my face burning, and turned into a place and took a seat and ordered a glass of beer and watched them gamble. About six of them were near me, playing roulette and losing their shirt, three or four men and a couple of girls, and all of a sudden I thought about her system and the money in my pocket and stepped over and laid down a silver dollar. I laid it on the first twelve and lost. I followed it with the same bet on the same twelve and won. I was a buck ahead. I let it lay and won again. I was three bucks ahead and I laid one on number one, one on the first four, and one on the first twelve. The ball dropped in three, and I was ten bucks more to the good. I kept it up, and soon as the croupier took an interest and the others began to follow my lead, I quit. Because with them all over the board he’d have a hard time staking me out, because if he didn’t have to pay me he’d have to pay them. But with all of them aboard the same numbers, his play was so easy he wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t make it.

But I had $45 of his money, and I drifted on to the next place. I won $300 there and next door, and across the street, and began to realize I was riding a run of luck, as well as playing one hell of a system. And I had this excited feeling it wasn’t going to let me down. I won and lost here and there, and my winnings kept rising, and then pretty soon I upped the ante and left ten dollars on number one, with ten dollars on the first four and another ten dollars on the first twelve, as usual. And the ball dropped in number one. I cashed $450 in gold, and went back in the washroom to count up. With what I’d been paid and what I’d won, I had $1,085.

Back in the hotel, Renny was at the piano, and Haines was facing the people, getting ready to sing. Renny was tall and thin and dark, with an olive tint to his skin and kinky black hair. He was around thirty, and Creole French. Haines was an Irishman, kind of stocky, with a round, good-looking face, China-blue eyes, and sorrel gold hair. When I got in there, he was making a little speech, saying he didn’t often get a chance to sing for such a distinguished audience in Virginia City, but so long as he was here he was going to sing some arias he had used in a tour he made with an opera company in Italy or France or Germany or wherever the hell it was they took the show out. So that got a big hand, especially from some women over in one corner that seemed to be from out of town. So that was the first I heard of Italian opera, which he sang in Italian and Renny played without notes or anything. I found out afterward that opera was what he and Renny lived for, only of course they never bothered with music like that on a big Saturday night at Biloxi’s.

I didn’t break in on the singing at all. I just took a seat in the bar and listened to the music, and kept an eye on things so nobody walked out or anything before I got around to what I was there for. Then after five or six selections, when Haines had got a big hand and he and Renny had sat down to the table again, I went in and walked over and clicked my heels in front of Morina. “Good evening, Miss Crockett.”

“...Roger, what do you want?”

“An engagement, whenever you’re free.”

“What do you mean, engagement?”

“Business.”

“I told you once, no.”

“That’s not what you told me. It’s what you would have told me if you didn’t love money more than you love anything else on earth. What you told me was, for one thousand dollars business would be done. All right, I’ve got the one thousand dollars, and I want to make a date.”

Her eyes flickered, and while it soaked in I spoke to the others. None of the men said anything. Brewer lit a cigar and looked at me under the heavy black eyebrows that he had. Renny had eyes like a snake, and kept them on me without winking or showing expression of any kind. Haines kept looking at Brewer, wondering why he didn’t do something, and not knowing what Brewer must have known, which was what happened to Trapp when he did something. But Biloxi put out her hand, and smiled, and pulled me down for a little kiss. “My little Annapolitain is back, ’allo Rogay! Come, let me ask something. Why you no let my Rina alone, ha?”

“Just want her, that’s all.”

“But I ’ave ozzer girl. Prettier girl.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You come down, I show you. Li’l girl, ’alf Irish, ’alf Chinois, oh, oh, oh! Such ’air, such skin, such eyes! Is fourteen, jost right for my petit Annapolitain!”

“She sounds good, but first—”

“Roger.”

“Yes, Morina.”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, over there in the bar.”

I went back to the bar, and next time Haines got up to sing, she came in there. “Roger, this has to end. You have no right to follow me around the way you do, and—”

“Follow you?

“I can’t stir out of the house that you’re not there, watching me, counting how much money I bet, how much I win, how much I lose, what I have on, who I’m with—”

“Can I help it if I happen to be there?”

“It don’t just happen.”

“Have it your way.”

“Roger, you asked me something just now. I don’t want anything of the kind. I’d hate it. But if it makes you happy, if you’re willing to have that and leave, you can go on down to the house and I’ll be with you directly.”

“What do you mean, leave?”

“Get out of Virginia City, go back where you came from, do what you’re supposed to do, the wonderful things you told me about, the first night we were together, forget me and this place and everything else you’re not in any way fit for.”

“...All right then.”

“You’ll be a lot happier.”

“What about this other hombre? This Brewer?”

“That’s none of your business.”

She stepped in the lobby, snapped her fingers for a boy, told him to get her carriage. I paid for my drinks and started on down.

I had just crossed C, taking the short steps you always took to keep from sliding down the hill, when I heard the footsteps behind me. They came in a rush, like somebody rolling a drum, and then all of a sudden I was hitting and kicking with everything I had, and getting it through my head, too late, that what I had really done, with that trip through the roulette wheels, was collect a gang at my heels, and a gang that was out to get me, first chance it got, on account of what I’d done to the union. I’ll fight anybody if I have to, but nobody’s good enough to fight ten, or twenty, or however many there were. I went down, and they began kicking and stomping and spitting. A kick missed me, and caught my coat pocket, and gold coins spilled over the street in a shower, and went bouncing and rolling down the hill, even past D Street. They left me and ran after the money, yelling like Indians and fighting each other about it. A deputy rounded the corner at C Street and drew his gun and still they kept on hollering and fighting and picking up gold. He helped me up and asked what had happened. I told him nothing, and as soon as he left me and started toward the ruckus, I slipped away. Because in front of the hotel I could see her and Biloxi getting into a pony trap, and I didn’t any more have the thousand dollars.