Riverboat Blaze (6 page)

“Beer,” Clint said. “Usually beer.”

He waved at the bartender, who knew by now to bring him a beer.

“Sorry I didn’t come by last night?” she said.

“We didn’t have a date or anything,” he sad. “It’s fine if you had something else to do.”

“Actually, I rehearsed until late, so I was pretty tired,” she said. “And I had to save my voice.”

“Well,” he said, raising his beer, “it’s certainly worth saving.”

“Thank you.” She sipped her drink. “The champagne helps.”

“That’s good.”

“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked. “I mean, in general?”

“In general, I think if I had paid for this, I’d be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“Um . . . well, don’t tell Dean this, okay?”

“Okay.”

“There’s really nothing going on here that I couldn’t see on dry land,” he said, “and I’d rather be on dry land.”

“You don’t like riverboats?”

“I love riverboats.”

“Ah,” she said, “you don’t like this riverboat.”

“See why I don’t want you to tell Dean?”

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, then added, “Just between you and me.”

“Bigger isn’t always better,” he said.

“It’s too big?”

“It’s too damn big,” he said, “and too damn heavy.”

Suddenly, he wondered if that was what was bothering the captain, as well. Maybe the ship was just too big and heavy to maneuver safely and properly.

“But . . . according to Dean, that’s the selling point,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, “for Dean. He just always wants the biggest and the best, but ask the passengers. I mean, any passenger on any riverboat. They’re not on it because it’s the best, or the biggest. It’s not about that.”

“What’s it about?”

“I think it’s about the river,” Clint said. “Passengers, crew, captain, I think they’re all on a boat because they love the river.”

“And do you love the river?”

“I do,” he said. “It’s unpredictable. Sort of like a woman—and you know how much I love women.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “you do love your women. Speaking of which, has little Angela thrown herself at you yet?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because I see the way she looks at you,” she said. “Also, I think I wanted to see if you would be a gentleman—and you were.”

“So I pass.”

She raised her glass to him and said, “With flying colors, Clint Adams.”

Clint played poker with Galvin that night. He watched as Kathy stood behind the man, keeping her hands on his shoulders as if for moral support. He wondered if Galvin could play without Kathy there.

And then he noticed something. It was the way Kathy was looking at him from hand to hand. He wondered what was going on, and then he got it. She was signaling him. She was trying to let him know when Galvin had a strong hand, and when he had a weak hand.

But why? he wondered. What was going on? Trouble in paradise? And was this her way of getting back at her man? By giving up his hands?

Cheating was a very simple thing. You really didn’t have to know exactly what your opponent had. What you needed was just a hint of whether he was strong or weak, and that seemed to be what she was trying to give Clint.

Only he didn’t want it. If and when he beat somebody at poker, he wanted it to be on the up-and-up. He didn’t need any help beating other players. He was that confident in his abilities.

So after a while he just stopped looking at Kathy.

 

From across the room Kingdom was watching Galvin and Clint. He was also watching Kathy. It looked to him like she was sending signals. He wondered if she had made the same offer to Clint Adams that she had made to him, and if Adams had taken her up on it. He didn’t see why someone like Adams would need or want that kind of advantage.

There were seats available at both tables, both his and theirs. He wondered how long it would take for him and Adams to end up at the same table together.

 

Dillon watched the proceedings from the bar, listened to Ava sing, watched Angela deal. He guessed that he was so interested in Angela that he hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t very good at her job. He wondered if he’d made the same mistake with the captain. When they got back to New Orleans, he’d have to take stock, decide what he wanted to do.

Maybe he should give Angela the rest of the night off.

 

Angela was dealing and saw Dillon looking over at her. She looked over at Clint playing poker and not paying her any mind. Then she looked at Ava, up on the stage singing, with the piano player next to her. Bitch. That dark hair and dark skin, it was all over New Orleans. She, Angela, was the one who was unusual. She was the one who should have been considered exotic.

She turned her head and saw Dillon walking across the floor to her.

“Hey, sweetie, I need a card,” one of the players said. “You fallin’ asleep there?”

“Sorry,” she said, and dealt him the card he needed for twenty-one.

“Yes!” he said.

Dillon wasn’t alone. He had one of the male dealers with him. Had he finally figured out that she was bad at this?

“Okay, honey,” he said to her, “why don’t you take the rest of the night off?”

“And do what?” she asked, wondering what the catch was.

“Why don’t you just relax?” he asked her.

She put the cards down. “Fine with me.”

She got out from behind the table and allowed the male dealer to move into her spot.

“Thank God,” one of the players said. “I hope you at least know what you’re doin’, son.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Dillon said.

As Angela walked away, she heard the player say, “Send her to my room, if you want, but don’t let her deal anymore.”

Dillon laughed, the bastard.

She crossed the room to Clint’s table, moved up behind him, and bent over, pressing her lips to his ear.

“I have the rest of the night off,” she said. “Come to my cabin.”

He looked up at her and smiled, but before he could say yes or no, she walked away.

He looked at the cards in his hand. Three kings. He made a point of not looking at Kathy, but it was becoming harder and harder.

“I call,” Galvin said, calling Clint’s bet. “Three sevens.”

Clint put his cards down, raked in his pot, and said, “I think that’s it for me, gents.”

“You leavin’ already?” Galvin asked. “We just got started.”

“There’ll be other nights, Mr. Galvin,” Clint said.

He pocketed his money and stood up. Before he played with Galvin again, he’d have to have a heart-to-heart with Kathy—if he could separate the two.

 

He knocked on Angela’s door.

“Did I take you away from something important?” she asked when she opened it. “A winning streak, maybe?”

“Winning, yes,” he said, “but nothing really important.”

She backed away to allow him to enter.

“Dean gave me the rest of the night off,” she told him.

“So you told me. Any idea why?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he thought I’d spend the time with him, but I’d much rather spend it with you.”

“Angela, Dean’s my friend,” Clint said. “I don’t want to get in between you two—”

“There’s nothin’ goin’ on between me and Dean, Clint,” she said. “He may want to, but I don’t, and I made that decision before I ever met you.”

She moved closer to him and put her hands on his chest.

“We have more time now than we did the first day,” she said, playing with a button on his shirt. “I’d like to go nice and slow this time.”

“Sounds good to me—” he started, but that was when they heard the noise. It was a great big
Whump!
that they felt in the floor.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

When they got to the deck, they saw people running back and forth and, beneath them, the flames. And the boat started to list to one side . . .

They were going down!

Still holding tightly to Angela’s arm, Clint practically dragged her down the stairs to the next deck. The crush of people kept them from getting to the first deck, however.

“Angela, do you have any idea how many people this boat holds?”

“I think I heard Dean saying he could get eighteen hundred on board.”

“And how many for this cruise?”

“Not a full load,” she said, “but there still has to be eight or nine hundred.”

And they were all trying to get to safety as the flames started to spread.

Clint looked around. There was no way he could find Dean or Ava in this crush of humanity. The boat listed even more to the left, and they had to hold on so they wouldn’t be thrown off balance.

“We should get to the other side if we’re gonna jump off,” she said. “That side is lower.”

“No, the boat’s listing that way,” he said. “If we jump off that side the boat might roll. Anybody in the water then will be crushed. We’ve got to go over on this side. If it rolls, I want to be on the other side of it.”

He wondered where the captain was. If the man was good at his job, he was still on the bridge.

 

Captain Hatton gritted his teeth as he held onto the wheel of the big riverboat. This damn boat . . .

He knew that this was not his fault. He hadn’t hit anything. The fault was with the boat itself, and when he saw the flames he was convinced that the problem came from belowdecks. He’d felt the explosion beneath his feet and knew immediately what it was.

The boat continued to list to the port side, no matter how he tried to fight it. It was his guess they were taking on water on that side.

He maintained as much forward motion as he could. There was just the slightest chance he could reach a bend in the river where the water was shallow. It could save the boat from going completely under.

Goddamn weight of the damn vessel!

 

Dean Dillon felt the deck shudder beneath his feet and knew something was wrong.

The rest of the people in the salon all stopped what they were doing and froze. Cards, dice, the roulette wheel—they all stopped. The piano ceased to play and Ava stopped singing.

“What was that?” one person yelled.

Dillon knew he had to do something quickly, so he left the bar and hurried to get up on the stage with Ava.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “everythin’ is under control, I assure you. Just go on with your gambling, enjoy the music. This boat is quite safe. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation—”

Abruptly, the boat listed to port, and Dillon was almost thrown off balance. Some glasses hit the deck and shattered, and the piano rolled on its rollers.

“We’re sinking!” somebody shouted, and that was it.

Everyone panicked and ran for the doors.

Dillon reached out, grabbed Ava’s arm, and said, “Come on!”

Clint and Angela were flattened against a wall on the second deck as people ran by. The majority of the passengers did not seem to have grasped the gravity of the situation yet. They were still running to and fro rather than abandoning ship. People were being knocked off their feet and trampled.

Clint helped an older woman to her feet before she got trampled, and he said to her, “You have to jump overboard.”

She stared at him as if he was crazy, then shook loose and started running.

“You can’t help everyone, Clint,” Angela said. “We have to save ourselves.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get off this thing.”

They had to push through a wave of people in order to get to the rail.

“Can you swim?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

When they hit the water, it was ice cold. The shock went right through Clint, but he knew he had to keep hold of Angela. Otherwise, if she couldn’t swim, she was finished.

The force with which they struck the water took them under immediately. Angela started to thrash, almost pulling free of his hold. He grabbed her around the waist so he’d be sure not to lose her, and kicked for the surface. But she was struggling so much she was keeping them under. There was a chance she could drown them both. If that was the case, he’d have to let her go or die with her.

He shook her, trying to send her a message to relax and let him do the work. Finally, she seemed to get the message. Her struggles ceased and he was able to carry them both to the surface.

Their heads broke the surface and he took a deep breath. He looked over at her and saw the reason she had stopped struggling. She was unconscious. She had probably swallowed a lot of water.

“Angela!” he called. “Angela! You have to wake up.”

His arm was around her waist, so he squeezed, trying to drive water out of her lungs. He did it again and again, and finally her mouth opened and water came streaming out. She choked, and he tried to keep her chin above water, so she didn’t just take more in.

She choked again, her eyes fluttered, and she looked directly at him, which was a very good sign.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You’re all right,” he said. “You swallowed some water and lost consciousness for a few minutes.”

She looked around, then turned and looked up at the burning boat.

“Oh my God,” she said, as it all came back to her.

“Dean’s perfect boat.”

“Yeah.”

Something hit the water to their right, and then to their left.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“People are getting the message,” he said. “They’re jumping off.”

But it was only a smattering of people. He was afraid the majority of them were jumping off the left side, seeing that it was not as high a jump.