“Or just three tens,” sneered Chats-worth. “And I’ve got that beat.”
Brown’s hole card was unmarked.
“After all,” said Johnny, “it’s only money.” He threw the check into the pot, followed with the eight thousand.
“You’re raising ten thousand?” Brown asked.
Johnny smiled.
Jane Langford came over from the bar, stood behind Sam Cragg, her eyes fixed on Johnny.
Honsinger laughed. “Easy come, easy go.”
But Chatsworth was suddenly worried now. “An eighty thousand dollar pot!”
“If you and Brown call,” Johnny reminded.
“Oh, I’m calling,” said Brown. “Not only that, but I’m raising...” He looked squarely at Johnny. “How much have you got left?”
Johnny got out his checks, counted the bills in front of him. “Twenty-one fifty...”
“That’s what I raise,” said Brown.
Chatsworth said slowly, “It costs me eleven thousand and fifty dollars then, to call...”
“Maybe you want to raise,” said Johnny.
“I’ve got three queens,” said Chats-worth slowly. “I guess you’ve got a full house; to me it doesn’t matter whether it’s three fours and two aces or two aces and three fours... It might make a difference to Riley...”
Riley Brown said nothing.
Chatsworth laughed. “All right, maybe I’m being bluffed...”
He picked up his cards, riffled them together and dropped them to the table, face down.
“I’ll call,” said Johnny, “and it’s aces full...”
“I think four tens beat that.” Riley Brown turned up a fourth ten... that hadn’t been nicked.
Sam Cragg groaned aloud. The faces of all the players were taut — with the exception of Riley Brown’s. He looked at Johnny. “All right?”
“All right,” said Johnny, “if you didn’t nick the cards...”
“I didn’t,” said Brown. “But a man has a right to take out nicks, hasn’t he?”
“I guess so,” Johnny conceded. “Well, it was fun while I had it.”
Brown began scooping in the pot.
He never quite got it all in. Carl Shinn came into the game room. With him was a sun-tanned man in cowboy work costume. Both had guns in their hands.
“Take it easy, everybody,” Carl Shinn said ominously.
Chatsworth cried out, “Piper!”
“Sorry, Boss,” grinned the cow-puncher.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Page, the rancher, started to push back his chair. “A holdup!” he boomed. “Well, by cracky...”
Carl Shinn fired at Page. The rancher yelped and looked at his right arm. Blood spurted out of a hole in the sleeve, halfway between the shoulder and elbow.
“That’ll give you an idea,” Shinn said.
Johnny Fletcher suddenly laughed. Shinn gave him an ominous glance. “Funny, is it?”
“You don’t know how funny, Carl, old boy. I just lost all the money I had.” He winked at Riley Brown. “Too bad, Mr. Brown...”
“I’m Riley Brown,” the cold-eyed gambler addressed Shinn. “That name mean anything to you?”
“I’ve heard it,” said Shinn. “But it isn’t going to make any difference. Not to us, it ain’t...” He took a step forward.
That brought him within reach of Sam Cragg. Sam’s right hand shot out, caught Shinn’s left arm in a mighty grip. Shinn cried out and started to swing his gun on Sam. Sam jerked. Shinn hurtled halfway across the room, smashing against the pool table.
Then Sam was up on his feet. He scooped up his chair with one hand, threw it at the cowboy gunman — just as the cowboy fired. The bullet knocked splinters off the chair and deflected it a bit, just enough so that only a leg grazed the cowboy. But his gun dropped from his hand.
Johnny was on his feet then. And Riley Brown’s right hand was under his lapel.
Charles Halton whipped out a .32 automatic and leaped clear of the table. He fanned the gun at Sam, Johnny and Riley Brown.
“Hold it!” he cried.
Riley Brown’s hand froze on the butt of his gun, still in the shoulder holster. Johnny stopped where he was. Only Sam still moved. But now he moved toward Halton.
“Why, you young squirt...!”
Halton took another step back so that he was beside Carl Shinn, who was getting up from the floor.
“Come ahead,” Halton invited Sam.
Johnny yelled, “Sam!”
Sam stopped.
Halton circled Sam and approached Johnny. “Fletcher, I want those cards...”
“Ah,” said Johnny, “now it comes... the chump with the system for beating the dice.”
“There’s more than one way of beating a game,” Halton said grimly.
“Sure,” said Johnny. “You can buy dealers to beat a blackjack game and you can beat a poker game by nicking the cards with your fingernails. And then, to make absolutely sure, you can have your pals stick-up the game. There’s only one thing you can’t beat, Halton... murder...” He took Bloss’s cards from his pocket and plunked them down on the table. “There they are, Halton. You got Jim Langford to kill Harry Bloss for these cards and then you killed Langford because you thought he was holding them out on you...”
“And you had them all the time!”
“No, he didn’t,” cut in Jane Langford. “I had them.”
Halton sneered, “So you’ve gone over to them?”
“I was never on any other side,” Jane retorted coolly.
“Your uncle wasn’t on my side, either — but he grabbed our stake after we’d worked for it. He was an honest dealer all his life, until two hundred grand came along. Then he wasn’t so honest any more.”
Halton put his gun down on the edge of the table, handy for a quick grab and picked up Bloss’s cards. He fanned them out, began sorting them into suits and sequences... ace, king, jack, etc., of spades, then the other suits.
He got them all sorted, then squared the pack. Johnny Fletcher, leaning forward, saw that writing had appeared on the edge of the pack. He read, Cabana 23. Look under bathroom tile.
“He left it for you, Jane,” Johnny said softly.
Halton laughed contemptuously. “Never tumbled, did you? Mixed up the cards had dirty spots on the edges. Put into sequences the spots became words... You had two hundred thousand dollars in your hands, Fletcher... and you were too dumb to know it.”
“Well,” said Johnny, “how long do you think you’ll have the money?”
“Long enough to spend it.”
“Think again. You’ll get away from here — but how long will it be before about twenty deputies are after you... and the state police...?”
“With fifteen minutes’ head start they’ll never catch me. The hills are big — and so’s the desert...”
A gun banged outside the house, then again and again.
Halton grabbed up his gun, jammed the cards into his pocket and leaped to Chatsworth’s side. He rammed his gun into the millionaire’s back.
“All right, Chatsworth, we’re going through — and if any of your men make a move toward me, you get it first. I guess you better announce that as we go out...”
The door slammed open and Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan came into the room. A snub-nosed revolver was in his fist.
Halton took his gun out of Chatsworth’s stomach, stabbed it in Mulligan’s direction. He was a tenth of a second too slow. Mulligan’s bullet got him in the forehead.
Carl Shinn threw his gun to the floor. “Don’t shoot!” he screamed.
Piper, the cowpuncher, was made of sterner stuff... but wasn’t as fast as Riley Brown. Piper died.
Johnny said softly, “I thought you had a price, Mulligan!”