Nan Ryan (3 page)

“You do?” Pops’s white eyebrows shot up.

“Yes. Just give me a chance. You’ll see, I can sing like a nightingale and dance like a dream and I’ve spent my entire life charming men.” Nevada then favored the skeptical white-haired man with a dazzling smile.

Pops sighed and shook his head. “Very well. I was planning to hire another girl here in Memphis.” He rose. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Leroy, the piano player, and then to the other girls. Tell Lilly I said for her to fix you up with a costume and to do something about that hair.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. McCullough. You won’t regret it, I promise.” Nevada couldn’t hide her excitement.

“Pops. Call me Pops. And I just hope you won’t.”

“Won’t what?”

“Regret it.”

3

For a man who was losing at cards, Johnny Roulette was in exceptionally high spirits. Johnny grinned confidently at the four gentlemen around the green baize poker table, took one more quick look at his cards, and said, “See your hundred and raise you two.”

He continued to grin as he stacked up four blue chips, then four more, and pushed them to the center of the table. All eyes were on him. Johnny leaned back in his chair, reached for the glass of whiskey at his elbow, tilted it up and drank.

“I’m out,” said the graying thin-faced banker next to Johnny.

“By me too,” the off-duty riverboat captain echoed, and threw in his cards.

“Same here,” said a disgruntled merchant.

“Call,” said the slim Virginian who had begun this round of betting. He laid down his cards faceup. “It’s full, Roulette. Queens over fives. What have you got?”

Johnny looked down at the full house staring him in the face. His wide grin remained well in place when he showed his own cards and said, “Not enough.” He laid down a hand on which he should never have bet, much less raised on. “A pair of jacks and deuces.”

It had been that way for the past hour. The distinguished Virginian had buttonholed Johnny the minute he stepped aboard the
Gambler
and directed him straight to one of the small salons off the main gaming hall where the others were waiting. Johnny, in a magnanimous mood, had put up no resistance.

“I warn you,” he said, his words slurring slightly, “this is going to be my night” He ordered straight whiskey and took his place at the table.

And promptly started losing.

Johnny’s luck at cards and dice had been consistently bad for more than six months. It had been so long since he had won at anything, he had almost forgotten what it felt like. The thick roll of bills he always carried was much thinner than usual, and the accounts in various banks up and down the river were getting dangerously low as he withdrew great sums of cash to cover his gambling debts.

Still, he was smiling as he sat losing and never noticed that the gentlemen at the table were staring at him and shaking their heads and wondering what had gotten into the big dark-haired man who was usually such a cool, unreadable card player.

Anteing up, Johnny remarked, “Lilly’s onstage. I’d know that whiskey voice anywhere,” and fanning his cards out before his face, he hummed along in a deep baritone, blithely ignoring the looks of annoyance he drew from his dead-serious companions.

“Now, you’re going to be fine,” Belle Roberts said to a very nervous Nevada Marie Hamilton.

The pair stood in the wings just offstage, watching Lilly wind up her rousing rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.” The tall blond Lilly, attired in virginal white, had lifted one edge of the gossamer gown and was marching across the stage, her right hand raised in a salute to Old Glory as a dozen flags unfurled from the ceiling. Exposing glimpses of her long stockinged-legs and flashing a naughty smile, Lilly was bringing down the house.

Watching the popular performer, Nevada wondered how she could possibly follow such an impressive act.

“Belle, after seeing Lilly, those gentlemen will boo me off the stage,” she said, her heart pounding with fear.

“Not bloody likely,” said Belle, laughing at Nevada’s foolish doubts. “Honey, they are going to think you’re an angel come down out of heaven.” She affectionately tucked one of the small blue satin bows back in place amid Nevada’s upswept raven curls, and added, “You’ll see. Trust old Belle. I know most of these boys.”

Too frightened to speak, Nevada clung to the hand Belle offered and did her best to draw long reviving breaths while she peeked out at the cavernous hall beyond the foot-lit stage.

It was a long, rectangular room filled with tables crowded with gamblers, tables for all kinds of games Nevada had never seen before. There were tables for roulette, for blackjack, for faro. And big, heavy tables at the room’s far end around which men stood playing dice.

Along one side of the smoke-filled room was a long, polished mahogany bar where men stood laughing and drinking. Opposite the bar, on the other side of the room, were doors leading into small private salons meant for poker and red dog.

Around the whole of the big, noisy room, ran a wide balcony where heavy mahogany doors led into plush salons where Nevada assumed leisurely midnight suppers were served in private. Most of the doors stood open at this early hour.

Nevada’s eyes returned to the area right down front, below the stage. There, at white-clothed tables meant only for dining and enjoying the show, sat gentlemen who had come aboard the
Gambler
solely to watch the entertainers.

Nevada looked from face to face and felt her heart sink a little. Almost all were middle-aged men, many overweight and balding. Nowhere in the loudly applauding, whistling crowd did she see the kind of “refined handsome gentlemen” her papa had told her about.

All at once the applause grew thunderous and Nevada realized that Lilly’s well-received act had come to a close. The tall blonde was bowing and blowing kisses as she inched her way steadily off the stage. Out of breath, perspiring, Lilly joined Nevada and Belle in the wings, the brilliant smile immediately evaporating.

“He’s not here.” she said, obviously disappointed. “I looked at every male face in the whole damned room! Johnny hasn’t shown up.”

“Relax. Johnny Roulette will be here,” said Belle. Then turning to Nevada, “Honey, you’re on. LeRoy’s playing your intro.”

Frozen, Nevada stood rooted to the spot. “I—I can’t.”

Lilly, wiping her shiny face on a linen towel, put her disappointment aside temporarily and smiled. “Sure you can. The only problem you’ll have is getting them to quiet down long enough for you to sing.” Nevada turned big, questioning eyes on the tall blonde. Lilly lowered the towel and impulsively hugged the tiny, terrified girl. “I mean because you’re so pretty, Nevada.” She gave the trembling beginner a motherly squeeze, turned her about, and pointed her toward the stage. “Get out there and give them what they came for.”

“Good luck, Nevada,” offered Belle, giving her a pat on her shiny blue derriere.

Nevada, knowing it was now or never, shook off all traces of doubt, squared her slender shoulders, and walked confidently onstage while LeRoy, seated at a black walnut piano, winked at her and gave her a wide, reassuring grin.

Lilly had been right. The throng of ringside gentlemen took one look at Nevada and went wild. They shouted, they whistled, they stamped their feet, and one excited admirer tried to rush the stage. He was quickly and soundly discouraged by the
Gambler’s
giant bouncer, Stryker. Stryker was at the drunken man’s side in the blink of an eye and, grabbing him up by the scruff of the neck, calmly deposited him back in his chair with a warning from his raised eyebrows.

Stryker’s sudden appearance had a calming effect on the crowd and LeRoy, recognizing the opportunity, snapped his fingers, nodded to Nevada, and said in a loud, warm voice, “Now, child. Sing it!”

She did.

With the aplomb and poise of a seasoned veteran, Nevada went immediately into a song well-suited to the leering all-male crowd. A song that was brand-new, one she’d learned only that afternoon. One that the talented piano man LeRoy had taught her.

Hands going to her hips, Nevada bent one knee slightly—just as Lilly had showed her—and belted out the show-stopping lyrics:

Frankie and Johnnie were sweethearts,

Oh, Lordy, how they could love …

In the small salon where he was losing at poker, Johnny Roulette, picking up the cards that were being dealt him, abruptly turned his dark head to listen. Above the din he heard an unfamiliar female voice singing an unfamiliar song.

“Pops hire a new girl?” he asked, looked at his hand. Discarding, he added, “Give me three, Cap’n Henley.”

“So I hear. Pops says he found a real little beauty, a young girl that looks like an angel,” said the riverboat pilot as he shot Johnny three new cards.

Johnny laughed, as did the others. The
Gambler
girls were hardly angels, but then angels were not what a man was looking for when he stayed the night on board. It was unspoken knowledge that for a handsome price any one of the friendly beautiful women would, after entertaining onstage, willingly entertain an amorous gentleman in one of the fancy upstairs suites.

Johnny looked at his three new cards, shoved all five together, and tossed them in. Rising, he said, “Looks like I can’t beat you gentlemen this evening. Give me a chance to get my money back tomorrow night.”

Nodding good night, he made his way out into the big gaming hall and looked at the girl onstage. From his vantage point at the far back of the room, he could see little save the fact that she was tiny and dark-haired.

Intrigued, Johnny Roulette, carefully balancing a nearly full glass of bourbon in his big right hand, unsteadily weaved among the crowded tables, making his way toward the stage. He didn’t stop until, happily ignoring shouts of “down in front,” he stood directly below the stage, not ten feet from Nevada.

Johnny was drunk but not too drunk to appreciate Nevada’s youthful beauty. Blinking to clear his liquor-clouded vision, he studied the little girl with the big voice and decided then and there that he wanted her.

Gleaming hair, the color of his own, was artfully arranged in shiny curls atop her head. In a delicate oval face with high dramatic cheekbones were the bluest pair of eyes and the cutest turned-up nose and the reddest, softest lips he’d ever seen.

Swallowing a drink of the bourbon, Johnny allowed his eyes to move with lazy appreciation from the bare ivory shoulders and the pale tempting bosom to the waist so small he knew he’d have little trouble spanning it with his big hands.

The ice-blue satin of her evening gown was molded tightly over a flat stomach and flaring feminine hips that made his throat go dry. He turned up the whiskey again as his gaze climbed reluctantly back to her beautiful face. Nevada’s heavily painted eyes, cheeks, and lips, coupled with the fact that Johnny was uncharacteristically inebriated, caused him to badly misjudge her age.

He surmised she was somewhere on the green side of twenty-five, young enough to still be blessed with a ripe lush beauty, old enough to know how to use her charms.

Feeling the first pleasant stirrings of physical desire, Johnny unbuttoned his black evening jacket, pushed back one side, shoved a big hand down into his pants pocket, and stood there, feet apart, looking up at Nevada, allowing his black eyes to caress her. Lazily looking forward to when his hands would.

Nevada had momentarily lost her place, forgotten the words to the new song, when she saw the tall, broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned man making his sure, purposeful way toward the stage. He’d emerged from the smoke and noise like a mysterious masculine apparition emerging from the mists of her girlish dreams.

Stumbling over the words, repeating one entire line of the lyrics, Nevada felt her breath catch in her throat when she saw the approaching man stop directly before the stage, unbutton his jacket, thrust a hand down into his trouser pocket, and lift his glass in salute.

His presence was so overpowering, Nevada couldn’t take her eyes off him. Soon she stopped trying. She wanted, she thought fleetingly with the part of her brain that was still functioning, to memorize everything about this magnificent man.

A man she recognized at once to be the handsome, infamous Johnny Roulette. No wonder the girls were excited that he was back in town!

Nevada was far too young and naive ever to have had sexual fantasies. Until tonight. With a jolt of shock and shame, she looked at Johnny Roulette and imagined what it would be like to be held and loved by him.

His thick wavy hair gleamed in the illumination of the stage’s footlights and his eyes, almost as dark as his hair, flashed with heat and mischief. His nose was straight and pleasingly prominent, his cheekbones high and chiseled. His mouth was wide and full, and as he smiled—he hadn’t stopped smiling from the first moment she saw him—his even teeth shone starkly white in his dark, handsome face. Most appealing of all was a sleek, well-trimmed mustache above those heavy male lips.

Nevada forced her eyes from that marvelous mouth and down over his strong brown throat. An ebony European-cut evening jacket strained across a pair of broad shoulders, while fashionably long matching trousers fell to a perfect break atop shiny black leather shoes that were apart in a distinctly arrogant stance. His starched snow-white shirt contrasted dramatically with the darkness of his smooth olive skin and, going down the shirt’s carefully pleated front, gold studs glittered in the footlights.