Huckleberry Finished:. Livia J Washburn

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СКАЧАТЬ odds always favor the house to start with. We see no need to tilt them even more.”

      “No offense, but I would think you’d be used to folks complaining when they lose. It’s sort of human nature, after all,” I said.

      “Complaints we don’t mind,” Rafferty said with a shrug of his big shoulders. “We don’t like it when passengers try to slug one of our employees, though.”

      I frowned at Ben Webster. “You didn’t?”

      He hung his head and didn’t say anything.

      I turned back to Rafferty. “I’m sorry,” I began. “I hope there wasn’t too much of a ruckus. I didn’t see any signs of trouble while we were coming through the casino.”

      “No, things got back to normal quickly once the commotion was over,” Rafferty admitted. “And there wasn’t much commotion to start with. My security personnel were on the scene before Mr. Webster here could do any real damage.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said again. “What do we need to do to put this matter behind us?”

      “The man who operates the roulette wheel could press charges, you know.”

      I wasn’t sure what law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the Mississippi River. There was bound to be one, though. I said, “Do we really have to get the law involved in this? I was hopin’ we could sort it out amongst ourselves, you know?”

      “Webster gets off the boat in Hannibal and doesn’t get back aboard.” The words came out of Rafferty’s mouth hard and flat, like there was no room for negotiation. That suited him more. He just wasn’t the affable type, no matter how hard he tried.

      Webster’s head came up. “You can’t do that,” he said. “I paid for a round-trip. And my car’s in St. Louis.”

      “You can rent a car in Hannibal and drive back down to St. Louis,” Rafferty said. “As for what you paid, that’s between you and Ms. Dickinson. But as far as the Southern Belle is concerned, you’re not welcome on board.” He went behind his desk and leaned forward, resting his knuckles on the glass top. “Or I can make a phone call and have the authorities waiting when we dock in Hannibal to take you off the boat.”

      “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” I said. I turned to look at Ben Webster. “Will it?”

      I don’t know if he saw the pleading in my eyes, but after a second he shrugged and said, “No, it won’t be necessary. I’ll leave the boat. It’s not fair, though. That guy really was cheating.”

      Rafferty’s mouth tightened into a thin line. I thought Webster had pushed him too far. But all he said was, “You can go back to your cabin now, Mr. Webster, and stay there. The casino is off limits to you.”

      “Fine,” Webster muttered. “I don’t want to lose any more money to your crooked games anyway.”

      It was all I could do not to grab him by the collar and shake him. Either that or smack him on the back of the head. Didn’t he know he was getting off easy? They send people to jail for attacking other people.

      I took hold of his arm and steered him toward the door. “Let’s go, Mr. Webster.”

      Behind us, Rafferty said, “I hope to see you again during the cruise, Ms. Dickinson. Do you need someone to show you out?”

      “No, thanks. I remember the way I came in.”

      “Very well, then. Good afternoon.”

      I figured out then who he reminded me of. With his overly polite demeanor, coupled with the air of violence and menace that hung around him, he was like the movie and TV gangsters played by Sheldon Leonard, the character actor and producer. I had a feeling Rafferty’s civilized veneer was pretty thin.

      Nobody followed us as we went down the stairs and back out through the security office and the casino. Ben Webster trudged along beside me without saying anything until we reached the deck.

      Then he said quietly, “They really were cheating, you know. I’m not just a sore loser.”

      “I wouldn’t know about that,” I told him. “I wasn’t there, and even if I had been, I don’t know anything about how a roulette wheel could be rigged. I think you’d be smart to just let it go.”

      “What about the money I paid for a round-trip?”

      I thought about it. Since he had brought the trouble down on himself, I figured I’d be within my rights to keep his money. But since I like to be accommodating, I said, “I’ll refund you, say, thirty percent. But you’ll have to wait and let me send you a check.”

      “I’ll be out whatever a rental car costs me, too.”

      “Should’ve thought of that before you took a swing at that guy.”

      “Yeah, I guess so.” He nodded, glum as ever. “All right. Thanks. I know you could’ve told me it was my own fault and to go to hell.”

      “That’s right,” I said. “I could have.”

      He stopped in front of a door with metal numerals 1 and 7 nailed to it. “This is my cabin.”

      “I’m sorry this happened. You’d better stay in there, like Mr. Rafferty told you. I got the feeling he was pretty mad. He’ll call the cops if you give him any more trouble.”

      “He looked to me more like he wanted to break my neck.”

      “Yeah, well, he might do that, too.”

      I left Ben Webster at the door and headed back to my cabin. I got out my laptop and wrote an e-mail to Melissa, telling her to pull the file for Ben Webster and send a check for 30 percent of the money he had paid us to his home address. That was another big difference since Mark Twain’s time: The riverboats hadn’t been equipped with wireless Internet service back then. They didn’t even have dial-up.

      The cruise from St. Louis to Hannibal takes a couple of hours. The boat docks in Hannibal early enough so that folks can get some sightseeing done before dark. Then they have dinner on the boat and enjoy an evening of gambling and other entertainment, including Mark Lansing’s performance as Mark Twain. More sightseeing the next morning rounds out the trip, and then the boat cruises back downriver to St. Louis that afternoon, so the whole trip takes about twenty-seven hours. That’s long enough to give the passengers the authentic flavor of a Mississippi River voyage without causing a problem for modern-day attention spans.

      I didn’t have much interest in gambling. I own a small business; that’s enough of a gamble for me. I didn’t intend to spend the evening boozing it up like some of the passengers would, either. My hope was that nobody would get drunk and cause trouble. The incident with Ben Webster was more than enough of a ruckus for this trip.

      So my plan was to take in the Mark Twain show in the salon. Mark Lansing had struck me as a nice guy, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like without the wig and the fake mustache and the old-man make-up.

      I hoped the wild white hair and the big mustache really were fake. You never know, though, with actors. Some of them really get into the parts they play.

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