Nan Ryan (8 page)

“Yes, Nevada, I am.”

Barefoot, she padded into the room, holding the sheet together with one hand, shaking her head as if to clear it. “But why? I thought … Johnny, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I—I love you.” She reached him, touched his forearm.

Johnny drew a deep breath. “No, Nevada, you don’t love me, you think—”

“I do. I love you and I’ll always love you!”

Johnny’s big hand covered the small one now gripping his sleeve. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. In me you’ve picked a very bad prospect.”

“That’s not true, you must love me too … you … you held me and—”

“Listen to me, Nevada. I was very drunk and you’re very beautiful and I desired you. It was nothing more. Nothing. I don’t love any woman. I never have, never will.”

Bright tears stinging her eyes, Nevada, refusing to believe what she couldn’t bear hearing, anxiously reached up and gripped his lapels with both hands. Her covering satin sheet fell away and slipped to the floor.

“Oh, Jesus,” groaned Johnny. Quickly grabbing both her wrists and holding them in one hand, he bent, picked up the sheet, and whirled it around her naked body. Clutching it together atop her left breast, he looked into her tear-bright eyes and said, “I’m not like you, Nevada. I don’t know what it is like to love somebody. That part of my makeup was left out altogether.”

Nevada’s dormant pride began to surface, despite her breaking heart. She nodded bravely, blinking back her tears, and said, “I want you to go now, Johnny Roulette.” Her jaw hardened ever so slightly and she lifted her chin defiantly.

“All right, sweetheart,” said Johnny, releasing her hands. As soon as she took hold of the covering sheet, he took a step back. “You … you take care of yourself, you hear?”

Her small raised chin quivered, but she said, “I’ll do that You do the same. And, Johnny …”

“Yes, Nevada?”

Tucking the sheet’s edge in securely over her breasts, she walked to the table, picked the bills he had placed there, and held them out to him. “You’re forgetting your money.”

“It’s yours, sweetheart” He flashed her a boyish smile. “I left it there for you.”

“Why?” There was a cold, sad look in her blue eyes.

The timbre of his voice was low, kind. “Well, darlin’, for all the happiness you gave me last night.”

The tears she’d tried so hard to hold back surged and spilled over, washing down her pale cheeks. But her voice was level and firm. “I did not come to this stateroom with you for money.” She walked directly up to him, reached out grabbed the waistband of his trousers. Stuffing the bills down into his pants, she added, “Now, get out of here, you arrogant, insulting bastard.”

“Ah, honey, don’t—”

“Out!”

8

Nevada stood staring at the carved door long after it had quietly closed behind Johnny’s departing back. Moving not one muscle, she held her breath, waiting. Waiting for the heavy door to fly open. To see Johnny standing there, grinning at her, his arms open wide, apologizing, telling her he couldn’t live without her.

A loud knock on the door made her heart race with happiness. She flew across the room, laughing and crying at once, and called out teasingly, “Yes? Who is it?”

The
Gambler’s
burly bouncer, Stryker, answered in a low, gravelly voice, “Miss Nevada, you okay? Did Roulette do anything out of line?”

“No, no,” she called out, heartsick and disappointed, “I-I’m fine, Stryker.”

“You sure?”

Hand going to her mouth to hold back the sobs threatening to erupt from her aching throat, Nevada shook her dark head yes.

“Nevada?” he said again.

“I-I’m … sure,” she managed, jerking the hem of her covering sheet loose and shoving it into her mouth to stifle her weeping as the hot, stinging tears poured down her cheeks.

“All right, then,” said the big bouncer. “You get some sleep, before afternoon rehearsals.” He turned and left.

Nevada, hearing his heavy footsteps falling away, sighed with relief and pulled the choking sheet out of her mouth. Trembling like a leaf in the wind, she turned about and leaned back against the door for support. Still, her weak legs would not support her. Slowly she sagged to the carpeted floor, sat flat down, and cried until there were no tears left.

Then wearily she rose, crossed to the bedroom, and stretched out on the rumpled bed. Flat on her back, every muscle in her body aching, Nevada slowly turned to look at the empty place beside her. Her red, swollen eyes fell on the pillow where Johnny’s dark head had left a deep indentation. Reaching out, she clutched a corner of the satin-cased pillow, drew it slowly to her, and placed it directly atop her bare breasts. Her arms came around it and she hugged the pillow tightly to her, inhaling deeply the unique masculine scent that clung to it.

Nevada lay there hugging Johnny’s pillow, feeling as though she were somebody else, not herself, not Nevada Marie Hamilton. And indeed she was a new person. The starry-eyed, innocent girl who had preceded the roguish, heavily intoxicated Johnny Roulette into this lavish floating playroom for grownups was gone forever.

In her place was a sad young woman with swollen lips, an unfamiliar tenderness between her legs, and a painfully aching heart, who clung tenaciously to all she had left of her handsome, heartless lover.

Exactly one hour after Johnny had gone, Nevada—face washed, hair brushed, broken heart bravely concealed—exited the scene of her loving and loss. With a tight smile she stepped out onto the wide inside balcony and, almost at once, Stryker materialized out of nowhere. His frowning florid face wore a look of inquiry as his keen eyes swept slowly over Nevada. He looked at her as though he was checking all her parts to see that they were still intact.

“How are you this morning, Stryker?” Nevada asked, smiling, making her voice sound cheerful.

“It’s afternoon and I’m always okay.” He blocked her path; his eyes met hers. “I knew it,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Knew what?” Nevada asked nervously.

“You’re in love with him.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re … I most certainly …” She was faltering badly, but pressed on. “I’m far too sophisticated to … to … I …”

Stryker shook his sandy head and his arms opened wide. Nevada fell gratefully into them. “There, child,” he crooned, patting her back awkwardly with a big, gentle hand. “I knew what would happen when Roulette took you upstairs.”

Nevada found herself swallowed up in Stryker’s gargantuan arms, her face pressed to the rough cotton shirt stretching across his broad chest. To this big strong man she said, “Stryker, don’t tell the other girls I was fool enough to fall for Johnny. Promise me.”

“Say anything you please to the others and I’ll back you up,” assured the tenderhearted bouncer.

So that’s exactly what Nevada did. Smiling as though she were guarding a delicious secret, Nevada swept confidently into the dressing quarters where Lilly and Belle and Julia and Betsy were relaxing before afternoon rehearsals.

They looked up and saw her. Their squeals and shouts were loud enough to be heard all the way downriver to New Orleans. They crowded excitedly around Nevada, all firing questions at once, dying to know everything that had happened between her and Johnny Roulette.

It was Lilly, her arm around Nevada’s slender shoulders, who said truthfully, “We are all green with envy, Nevada. My God, I’ve been trying to get Johnny in my bed since the first night I saw the handsome devil some four, five years ago.”

The others concurred, all in awed agreement that she, Nevada Marie Hamilton, was to the best of their knowledge the only
Gambler
gal who had ever spent a night with Johnny Roulette.

“Was he as good as he looks?” Belle asked.

“Is he highly passionate?” quizzed Julia.

“Is he as pretty without his clothes as he is in them?” Betsy asked, then went into peals of laughter.

Nevada’s only replies to their embarrassingly candid questions were knowing smiles and the lowering of her dark lashes, until Lilly asked the one question that demanded an answer. “Will Johnny be coming back to see you?”

Desperately needing to retain some small trace of her bruised pride, Nevada did the only thing she could do. She lied to Lilly.

“Johnny Roulette is mad about me,” Nevada heard herself saying with cool assurance. “Of course he’s coming back. I’m expecting him tonight.”

They didn’t believe her for a minute.

His dark face set in rigid lines of pain and self-loathing, Johnny squinted angrily in the glaring afternoon sunshine. Stone-cold sober now, he walked hurriedly from the levee, his destination firmly in mind.

Hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black trousers, he walked briskly, though every time his heels struck the wooden wharf, pain exploded behind his hooded eyes. With his soiled white shirt open at the throat and his disheveled dark hair falling onto his furrowed forehead and his face badly in need of a shave, Johnny looked sullen and dangerous.

Dock workers scattered to get out of his way, sensing that the big gambler who was generally so friendly and good-natured was in no mood to be messed with. Everyone gave him a wide berth.

Back on the city sidewalks, Johnny intended to go at once to see a dentist. If he had done so yesterday, he reflected miserably, he wouldn’t be the world’s biggest heel today.

Far too stubborn to return to the Plantation House to ask the steward for his dentist’s name, Johnny walked the streets for several blocks until he saw, painted in gold letters on a wide window of frosted glass: J. T. McClanahan, Dentist. Painless and affordable.

Johnny stood before the dentist’s closed door. The old pervasive fear returned and the shiny perspiration on his face quickly dried. He felt like a scared little boy and considered turning to leave. Then he reminded himself that little boys didn’t do what he had done last night.

Johnny barged in the door, startling the dozing dentist. The small man sputtered and blinked and jumped up out of the patient’s chair.

“Yes? Is there something I can do for you, sir?” he asked, unconsciously backing away from the big, fiercelooking man backlit by the sun.

Johnny stuck a forefinger into his mouth, pointed out the throbbing wisdom tooth, and said, “Pull it!”

“Well, yes, certainly, ah … sit right down and I’ll have a look,” said the dentist. Johnny slid into the chair while the dentist washed his hands. Then the little man, who smelled of peppermint, poked, probed, shook his balding head, and finally told Johnny, “You’re right, son. That tooth’s got to come out. I’ll just bring down a bottle of whiskey so …”

“No liquor, doc,” said Johnny, shaking his head.

“But it will hurt like the devil,” protested the dentist.

“I deserve it” was Johnny’s reply.

Pale and shaken, Johnny stumbled back out onto the street a few minutes later, the offending tooth having been extracted.

After a bath and a shave in his Plantation House suite, he was beginning to feel better. And to quit blaming himself for Nevada Hamilton.

Dressing in the afternoon dimness of his heavily draped hotel bedroom, Johnny pulled on a cool summer suit jacket of tan linen, reasoning that what had happened was as much Nevada’s fault as his. Didn’t she know that the girls entertaining on the
Gambler
made most of their money in the bedrooms, not onstage? Sure, she did! The hell with her. She’d gone into it with her eyes wide open. He just happened to be the unlucky cuss who was her first.

Pushing her out of his thoughts, Johnny went in search of a game. The Silver Slipper, a small, classy joint built on stilts at the river’s edge, was one of his favorite places for afternoon action. The Slipper was filled to capacity with well-heeled gentlemen who, like himself, enjoyed wagering on the turn of a card, the throw of the dice.

Johnny, grinning, relaxing at last, sat down at a faro table. He was not lucky. He dropped two thousand before leaving the Slipper. It was the same story at the Four Queens. Johnny couldn’t win at cards, couldn’t win at craps.

His luck was lousy. He had the superstitious hunch that if tiny dark-haired Nevada Hamilton was at his elbow, luck would turn his way. He continued to buck the tables. And to lose. And although he had shaken off the foolish idea several times throughout the losing afternoon, when night fell Johnny found himself standing on the levee before the party boat,
Moonlight Gambler
.

He climbed the long companionway, headed at once for the gaming room, and was stopped by the swarthy slender maitre d’ at the door.

“Mr. Roulette, you can’t go in. You’re not dressed for evening and …”

Johnny, hearing an unmistakably sweet feminine voice coming from inside, replied, “Sorry, Franco, I left something inside last night. I’ve come back to claim it. Won’t take but a minute.” And he breezed right past and into the smoke-filled gaming palace.

There she was. Onstage, singing about “Johnny doing her wrong” and looking like she was forty years old. Johnny Roulette swallowed hard and raked a brown long-fingered hand through his hair. God, she had aged! It was the eyes, those deep blue eyes that had flashed so excitedly only last night. Now they looked sad, hurt. Old. Maybe she was dreading what was before her, after she left the stage.