Gold Digger. Vicki Delany
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Название: Gold Digger
Автор: Vicki Delany
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
Серия: A Klondike Mystery
isbn: 9781459706217
isbn:
Jones folded. The edges of Mouse’s lips turned up as he raked in the pot. Sterling would have bet a month’s wages that the big man’s hand had been garbage.
“I’m finished.” Jones got up from the table, moving heavily. “Holy Christ, I’m wiped out.”
“Language, Johnny,” Sterling cautioned.
Jones threw him an ugly look. Sterling braced for a confrontation. It wouldn’t be the first time a heavy loser had looked for someone on whom to take out his anger.
“Good game, Mr. Jones,” Mouse said, as he checked his gold pocket watch. “Thank you for the sport, and let me offer you this.” Mouse held a small gold nugget between his fingers. “Get yourself in another game.” Jones considered the offer, pride struggling with greed. He snatched the gold and headed for the faro table.
“That wasn’t necessary, Mouse,” Sterling said. “He wouldn’t have taken me on.”
Mouse shrugged his shoulders, like glacier ice shifting on the mountains. “Boy can’t play worth a damn…doggone… but he can’t give it up either. A man’s gotta feel sorry for him. Game’s over, boys. Time for my favourite lady to give me a song.” The giant gathered up his winnings and lumbered into the dance hall.
Sterling followed as Ruby’s thin, quaking voice struggled to the end of its song.
Like all the dance halls in Dawson, the one in the Savoy was considerably less than advertised. The tiny stage had been roughly carved out of green wood by workers who didn’t know or care what they were doing, and in a big hurry to get it done and move on to the next job. There were no windows, and the kerosene lamps smoked badly, but no one ever complained. Complaining in Dawson never got a man any further than out the door.
Flags—crossed Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes—had been draped above the stage and used to decorate the private boxes on the second story. Below the boxes, rows of uncomfortable benches, filled with cheering, stomping miners, surrounded the stage in a horseshoe pattern. The room was tightly packed with sweating bodies and clothes gone too long without a wash; cheap lamp oil and dancers’ cologne mingled with the generously applied scent of the toffs and the stink of the labourers. Over it all lay the smell of male anticipation and scarcely restrained excitement.
Ruby’s voice was nothing short of terrible, and the song she sang sickeningly sentimental, but some of the older men wiped away a tear or two as she dragged out the last, painful note.
The audience applauded wildly as Ruby curtsied, allowing the front of her low cut gown to hang temptingly open, and departed the stage. The men shifted in their chairs, sat just a bit straighter and whispered to their neighbours. Fiona MacGillivray stood at the back of the room, close to the wall. She had wiped most of the mud off her dress and her arm was bound in a sling of purest white cotton. Her thick black hair was pinned into a storm cloud behind her head, but stray tendrils caressed her temple and the back of her neck. Her dark eyes never stopped moving across the room.
Ray Walker stood beside Fiona, but unlike hers, his eyes were still, fixed directly on the stage. He could afford to take a break: at the climax of the stage show, the bar would be quiet for a few minutes.
A hush fell over the shabby room, lasting only as long as it took for a heart to give one beat. The orchestra held their instruments still, and the audience—grizzled old miners, tender-footed gold-seekers, hard-hearted gamblers, ruthless businessmen, Indian fighters with nowhere left to go, and one Scottish bartender—held their collective breath.
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