Nan Ryan (9 page)

Johnny started moving toward the stage. At the same time he let his black eyes do a slow, deliberate sweep around the room at the patrons. Whose bed would she warm tonight? Tables of drooling, excited red-faced men were looking up at the pale fragile girl as though she were something good to eat and they could hardly wait for their first greedy taste.

Heroes, her good luck had sent her!

Johnny swore under his breath, “Well, she’s my Lady Luck and they can’t have her!”

And not waiting until her number was finished, he strode determinedly down to the stage and plucked the shocked Nevada from it in midsong. Before he could turn around, Stryker was upon them like a charging bull.

Stryker’s powerful arms enclosed both Johnny and Nevada and he shouted above the pandemonium that had broken out, “Put her down, Roulette, or I’ll squeeze the life out of you where you stand.”

“No!” Nevada screamed to be heard. “Stryker, please don’t hurt Johnny!’’

Never loosening his hold, Stryker said to Johnny, “You’re not taking this girl back upstairs, Roulette.”

Johnny said, “No, I’m not. I’m taking her out of here for good. Off the
Gambler
. Tell Pops she’s my good-luck charm and she’s coming with me.” Stryker’s bulging arms relaxed their punishing death grip. Johnny turned to face the overly protective bouncer. “You tell me, Stryker. Is she better off here?” He inclined his dark head, indicating the loud, hungered throng surrounding them. “Or with me?”

Stryker said, “Take her, Roulette. She’s got no business on this tub. But you treat her right or I’ll kill you. Now, go.”

While dozens of puzzled, disappointed men shouted and booed and whistled, Johnny quickly picked Nevada up and tossed her over his shoulder.

“You’re coming with me whether you like it or not,” he told her as he carried her through the angry, shouting crowd.

Overjoyed, wanting nothing more in the whole wide world than to go anywhere with Johnny Roulette, Nevada said happily, “Oh, Johnny, you came back for me! You do love me, Johnny, you do!”

9

“No, Nevada,” Johnny told her firmly when he had carried her from the smoke-filled gaming room, outside onto the
Moonlight Gambler’s
deck, and down the companion-way to the wooden wharf. Setting her on her feet, he stood looking down into her expectant, upturned face. “I don’t love you. I’m never going to love you. Get that through your head right now.” She started to interrupt. He stopped her. “But you’re my lucky charm—I need you. And it’s evident you need me as well.”

Nevada blinked at him in confusion when he took her arm and guided her across the levee, lecturing her sternly. “You have no business entertaining on the
Gambler
, Nevada. It’s time you aspired to something higher and I am going to help you.”

Almost running to keep up with his long, sure strides, Nevada clutched at her skirts, looking up at his dark, handsome face with questioning eyes. “How? What?”

They had reached the levee’s edge. Johnny handed Nevada in front of him up onto the steep wooden steps that led to the Memphis city streets. He said, “I’ll make you into a genteel, cultured lady so that you can one day meet and marry a fine gentleman.”

Nevada stopped abruptly, whirled about, almost bumping into him. He stood on the steps just below. Hands going to her hips, she said, “Hellfire, I don’t want no fine gentleman. I just want you!”

“Nevada, you can’t have me, so stop talking nonsense. And stop cursing. And get on up the steps, we’re going over to the Silver Slipper.”

She frowned at him. “You’ll teach me to be a lady at the Silver Slipper?”

Johnny frowned back at her. “No. I’ll find out if you’re really my lucky charm. You’ll learn to be a lady in London.”

“You’re taking me to London with you?” Her eyes began to sparkle and she smiled again.

“That’s up to you,” Johnny said, turning her around again and pushing her up the steps. “Bring me luck, I’ll take you to London.”

“I’ll bring you luck, Johnny Roulette,” Nevada assured him over her shoulder, thinking that nothing could be more wonderful than a romantic ocean voyage. Just the two of them. Johnny Roulette and her. Alone together on the high seas. Making love in an opulent stateroom as they had on the
Gambler
. By the time they reached England, Johnny would realize he loved her as much as she loved him.

Those pleasant thoughts were running through Nevada’s head when Johnny ushered her along the cobblestones of the steeply sloping Memphis waterfront and into the plush gambling casino called the Silver Slipper on Front Street. Perched on tall, sturdy pilings at the river’s edge, the Silver Slipper, Nevada noted with breathless curiosity, had silver-painted walls and ceilings and a small stage where silver curtains were parted to reveal a silver stage upon which a tall beauty with silver hair and a shimmering silver dress and high-heeled silver slippers stood beside a gilt piano singing “Silver Threads Among the Gold.”

Nevada was all eyes.

Johnny Roulette was not He hurriedly guided the gaping Nevada across the crowded silver-walled hall to a pair of double doors at the back of the big room. Holding her by the arm, Johnny lifted a hand and knocked.

One of the doors opened and a pallid-faced man in evening clothes smiled in recognition.

“Johnny, come in,” he said, and nodding to Nevada, “Miss.”

“Tell Crook I need five thousand. I’ll sign a marker,” said Johnny.

“At once,” replied the club’s manager. He turned and went immediately to speak in private with the Slipper’s owner, Blair Crook. In moments Crook himself, a dapper little man with drawing-room manners and river cunning, appeared.

He looked from Johnny to Nevada, then back to Johnny. Smiling, he said, “I’d love to oblige you, Johnny”—his gaze kept straying to Nevada—“but it’s really not possible. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the two thousand on your tab from this afternoon’s losses.”

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Johnny said.

“Really?” said Crook. “In that case you must surely understand why I can’t …” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Then reaching out, he took Nevada’s free hand, raised it to his lips, and brushing a kiss to it, added, “unless you can offer, in return for the five thousand, some … ah … collateral.” His small gray eyes lighted as he lifted his head and looked up at Nevada.

Johnny Roulette protectively freed Nevada’s hand from Crook’s, put an arm around her, and drew her close. “Don’t even think it,” he told the small, crafty club owner. And then, one-handed, just as he had done in the silk-walled boudoir of the
Moonlight Gambler
, Johnny slipped the gleaming gold studs from his shirt front. “Here’s your collateral,” he said, holding the heavy studs out to Crook.

Crook chuckled softly. “Not exactly what I had in mind, Roulette.” He pocketed the studs. “Five hundred on the jewelry, just as always.” Then, addressing Nevada, he said, “I’ve had these studs in my wall safe almost as often as Johnny has worn them.”

Johnny was unbothered by the insult, but the young unsophisticated girl looked the smiling club owner in the eye and told him, “Well, this will be the last occasion that you’ll get them.”

Charmed by her quick defense of a man he was certain didn’t deserve such fierce loyalty, Crook said, “And why is that, my dear?”

“Because now Johnny Roulette has me as his lucky charm.” She lifted her chin. “He’ll have the studs back within the hour. And the five thousand you refused him as well.”

“Indeed?” Crook glanced up at Johnny. “The lady seems quite certain. A side bet, Roulette?”

“Sure! Why not?” said Nevada before Johnny had time to reply.

“Forget it, Crook,” Johnny said, wrapping his long brown fingers around the back of Nevada’s neck. He turned her about and escorted her toward a dice table. “Don’t,” he cautioned her, “ever do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Speak for me about anything. Do you know what kind of side bet Crook was speaking of?”

“I suppose he wants—”

“You.”

“Me?”

“You. And I don’t mean he wants you to sing on the Slipper’s stage.”

“He thinks that I would …” Her words trailed away.

“Jesus, you’ve got a lot to learn,” said Johnny, shaking his head in annoyance. He commandingly guided her up to the table. A croupier handed him the dice and Johnny’s mood sweetened immediately. Smiling down at Nevada, he maneuvered her into position, saying, “I want you to stand at my right side, sweetheart.”

“Johnny, you’re superstitious,” she accused.

“No I’m not,” he said, grinning. “It’s bad luck to be superstitious.”

She laughed and so did he. Then he said, “Sweetheart, you just do the same thing you did for me last night, all right?”

Nevada took the dice from Johnny’s upturned palm, nodded, and said, “I will, Johnny. You know I will.”

And she did.

Nevada rolled a seven. Then an eleven. Then another seven. And Johnny, confident she’d bring him luck, let the five hundred Crook had advanced on the gold studs ride on the pass line. His stack of chips grew taller and taller as Nevada made point after point. Totally relaxed and impervious to the looks of disdain his beige linen daytime suit and the open white shirt were drawing from the evening-clad patrons, Johnny complimented and encouraged and laughed and gave Nevada’s small waist affectionate squeezes.

And when exactly forty-eight minutes after she had picked up the dice, Nevada finally sevened out, Johnny Roulette, tens of thousands of dollars up, impulsively wrapped his little Lady Luck in his long arms, kissed the top of her head, and said, “Sweetheart, you’re the greatest. Let’s get my gold studs out of hock and go to the Plantation House.”

Her flushed face pressed against Johnny’s open shirt front. Beneath her hot cheek, Nevada felt smooth warm flesh and crisp hair and a steady rhythmic heartbeat. And she remembered exactly how it felt to have that broad hot chest pressed to her bare breasts.

“Yes. Let’s go to the hotel,” she murmured.

In moments the pair walked into the lobby of the Plantation House and Johnny Roulette smiled broadly when his old friend Ben Robin, the hotel’s owner, approached them from the back dining room.

“Ben,” said Johnny, “meet Miss Nevada Hamilton, my personal lucky charm.”

Ben Robin looked at Nevada with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. Ben knew Johnny well. And never had he known his friend and fellow gambler to bring a woman of Nevada’s kind back to his hotel suite. He thought her pretty in a tawdry way, but the satin gown she wore and the painted face proclaimed what she was, even before she spoke.

“Miss Hamilton,” said Ben, bowing, “welcome to the Plantation House.” He glanced at Johnny, then directed his attention back to her. “You wish to dine?” His smile was warm. “We’ve a splendid menu and the chef’s—”

“We’ll have something sent up if Nevada has an appetite,” Johnny interrupted. “She’s a little tired and so am I.”

“Oh,” Ben said, understanding written clearly in his eyes. “Yes, yes, of course. May you rest well, then, Miss Hamilton.”

“Thank you, I will,” said Nevada, knowing she and Johnny would rest little, but uncaring.

“Good night, John.” Ben looked at him.

Johnny threw back his dark head and laughed. He knew exactly what his old friend was thinking. Well, let him think it.

“Meet us for breakfast, Ben. Around eleven,” Johnny added carelessly, then took Nevada’s hand and led her across the deeply carpeted lobby.

Ben Robin shook his blond head, turned, and went toward his office wondering what Johnny’s river doll would look like without all that paint.

“Wait,” said Johnny when Nevada lifted her blue satin skirts to climb the stairs. “I need to reserve you a suite.”

She gave him a questioning look. “Why?”

He ignored the question and Nevada assumed that he felt he had to engage an adjoining room for appearance’s sake. When he spoke with the tall hotel clerk briefly, then returned to inform her he had taken quarters that connected with his suite, she smiled knowingly.

When they got upstairs and Johnny ushered her into his sitting room, Nevada sighed happily and turned to face him, expecting him to take her in his arms at once.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No. Not a bit,” she said, wanting only to be held by him.

He stepped past her, pointed to a closed door across the dimly lit suite. “That’s your room. I’m sorry you have no night clothes. You’ll have to sleep in your …”—he gestured with one lean brown hand—“in whatever you’re wearing under that dress. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping.” Yawning, he shrugged out of the beige linen suit jacket.

She stared at him. “Johnny?”

“Hm?”

She stepped closer, put her hands on his shirtfront “Aren’t we going to sleep in the same room?”

“Most assuredly not.” Johnny moved back a step and began again slipping the gold studs out of the buttonholes of his white shirt.

That done, she watched him jerk the long shirttails free of his tight beige trousers. She said, “Let’s make love in your bed and then—”

His hands stilled. “Dammit, girl, we are not going to make love. Not now. Not ever.”

“But why ever not? Last night we—”