“It paid off, did it?” Jensen asked. “Because you’re a lousy forty dollars ahead in the game?”
Jensen’s vanity was piqued at the thought of a rank amateur taking the pot. Frank had counted on that. He planned to make this an interesting game.
“I’m going to ante the limit this time,” Frank said hesitantly. He put his hand on the money and held it for a moment, as if thinking about it. Then, with a sigh, he pushed the money forward. “Ten dollars.”
“Oh, ten dollars?” Jensen teased. “We’re getting into some heavy money now. What do you say we up the ante a little?”
“Up the ante?” Frank asked.
“You say your system is paying off. Let’s up the ante and see,” Jensen challenged.
“All right, if you want to,” Frank replied, still talking as if he were being manipulated by Jensen.
“That’s more like it,” Jensen said. He shoved the cards across the table to Frank. “Here, it’s your deal.”
When Frank picked up the cards, he felt them as he began shuffling, checking for pinpricks and uneven corners. They were playing with an honest deck. He smiled. Evidently Jensen was so sure of himself that he felt no need to cheat in this game. And of course, Frank had played his hands in a way that would tend to support Jensen’s belief.
Frank dealt the cards. The betting was quite brisk and within a few moments the pot was over two hundred dollars.
“Now, cowboy, I’m afraid it’s going to cost you to see what I have,” Jensen said. He slid a stack of chips to the center of the table. “One hundred dollars.”
Jensen’s bet was high enough to run everyone else out of the game, and he chuckled as he gazed across the table at Frank.
“What about it, mister? It’s just you and me now. You want to pay to see what I’ve got?”
Frank studied his cards for a long moment.
“Come on, mister, you can’t take all night,” Jensen said. “What’re you going to do?”
“I’ll see your one hundred, and raise it one hundred,” Frank said.
Jensen gasped, and he looked at Frank in openmouthed surprise.
“What kind of hand do you have, mister?” he asked.
“A pretty good one, I think,” Frank answered. He put the cards down in front of him, four to one side, and one off by itself.
“Son of a bitch, he’s got four of a kind,” someone said. “Look at the way he put his cards down.”
“I’ll tell you this, whatever the man had, there’s over three hundred dollars in that pot,” another said.
By now the stakes of the game were high enough to attract the attention of everyone else in the saloon, and there were several men standing around the table, watching the players with intense interest. Only Jim hadn’t come over to join them. He remained back at the bar, ostensibly uninterested in the game. In reality, he was keeping a close eye on everyone and everything, covering Frank’s back. It was a procedure they had developed long ago.
“He’s bluffin’, Jensen,” Perkins said. “Hell, I can tell by lookin’ at him that he’s bluffin’. Call his hand.”
Jensen snorted. “I’m supposed to listen to you? You’ve already proved how good a poker player you are,” he said sarcastically.
“Call him,” Perkins urged again.
“It’s my money you’re talkin’ about,” Jensen said. “You give me one hundred dollars, and I’ll call him.”
“I already gave you a hundred dollars,” Perkins said. “You won that much from me today.”
“Yeah, well, it’s mine now, and I don’t plan to throw it away.” He rubbed his chin as he studied Frank. “And don’t forget, this is the fella who wouldn’t even raise a flush.”
Frank’s face remained impassive.
“What are you going to do, Jensen?” one of the bystanders asked. “Like you told this gentleman a few moments ago, you can’t take all night.”
“All right, all right, the pot’s yours,” Jensen said, turning his cards up on the table. He had a full house, aces over jacks. “What have you got?”
Frank’s cards stayed facedown on the table just the way he left them, four in one pile, one in another. He reached out to rake in his pot.
“I asked you a question, mister. What have you got?” Jensen asked again. He reached for Frank’s cards, but Frank caught him around the wrist with a vise grip.
“Huh-uh. You didn’t pay to see them,” Frank said easily.
With his other hand, Jensen slid some money across the table. Frank saw two twenties and a ten.
“Is that enough to let me see?”
“All right, if you want to,” Frank said. He let go of Jensen’s wrists, and Jensen turned up the cards. Instead of four of a kind, there were two small pairs.
“What the hell is this?” Jensen gasped, glancing up from the cards with an expression of exasperation on his face. “You beat me with two pairs?”
“Won’t two pairs beat a full house?”
“No, you idiot!”
“Oh. Well, then, I guess I just don’t understand the game that well,” Frank said innocently.
The others around the table laughed uproariously, not sure whether Frank was telling the truth or if he was perpetrating a gigantic hoax on Jensen.
Frank started to pick up the money. “Gentle men, it’s been fun, but now I must go—”
“Just a minute! Hold it! Where do you think you are going? You aren’t leaving the table with those winnings.”
“Then I guess I really don’t understand the game,” Frank said. “I thought we were playing for keeps.”
“We are playing for keeps,” Jensen sputtered. “But if you play with me, you don’t walk away without giving me a chance to get even.”
“Is that a fact? Then remind me never to play with you again.” Frank began stuffing the money into his pockets.
“Better do somethin’, Jensen. That feller’s gettin’ away with your money,” Perkins teased.
“It’s your money, too,” Jensen said.
“Not anymore it ain’t. Now it’s all his. And truth to tell, if I can’t get it back I’d rather the stranger have it than you.”
Perkins’s declaration was followed by even more laughter.
With his pockets now bulging with money, Frank started toward the bar. In the meantime, in a move unnoticed by nearly everyone, Jensen made a slight signal to a man who was standing near the rail at the overhead landing.
Jensen might have thought that he gave the signal unnoticed, but Jim saw it. When Jim looked up, he saw someone on the upstairs landing pointing his pistol at Frank.
“Frank, look out!” Jim shouted.
Jim’s warning was barely in time. Frank dived to the floor just as the upstairs gunman fired. The bullet punched a hole in the floor beside Frank’s sprawled form.
Realizing that his target had been warned by the man standing at the bar, the gunman swung his pistol toward Jim, squeezing the trigger as he did so. His bullet crashed into the mirror behind the bar, leaving jagged shards to reflect grotesquely twisted images of the events taking place before it.
Frank was not the only person who had dived to the floor. By the time the gunman had fired a second shot nearly everyone else in the saloon was on the floor, behind chairs, or under tables. The only one who was still standing upright was Jim Robison and by now he had his own pistol out. His first shot rang out just over the top of the gunman’s third shot. The gunman’s third shot smashed into the bar, splintering the mahogany. Jim’s shot caught the gunman in the middle of the chest. Startled, the would-be assassin dropped his pistol, then put both hands over his wound, trying to stem the flow of blood spilling through his fingers. He reeled for a moment, fighting hard to stay on his feet. Losing that battle, he pitched forward, smashing through the rail. Falling to the floor below, his body did a half flip on the way down before crashing belly-up through a table.