The Gamble (I) (22 page)

The gout seemed to spread from Alvis’s toes to the rest of his body.

“Oh, she did, huh? And what right’s she got takin’ over my kid, huh? Wasn’t ya dressed good enough t’ suit her?” Alvis struggled to his feet. “She the one behind that damned snoopin’ preacher man come pokin’ his nose ‘round here? Is she, huh?”

“I don’t know, Pa.” The light went out of Willy’s face. “Don’t you like my new things?”

“Git ‘em off!” Alvis hissed. Then he rummaged through the clothes he’d dropped beside the bed last night, searching for his socks. “Just like Brother Jim, ain’t ya?” he mumbled, while the confused child tried not to let his disappointment show.

“But they’re...”

“Git ‘em off, I said!” Barefoot, Alvis lunged to his feet. He stood before the boy with his fists clenched, dressed in a filthy union suit with the legs cut off at mid-thigh, the back hatch sagging. His whiskered face contorted with rage. “Ain’t nobody tellin’ me I ain’t dressin’ my own brat good enough, ya understand?” Willy’s lower lip trembled and two tears formed in his eyes. “And quit that snivelin’!”

“I ain’t takin’ ‘em off. They’re mine!”

“Like hell ya ain’t!” Collinson caught the boy by the back of the collar and tossed him onto a scarred wooden chair. It screeched, tilted back on two legs, then clattered onto all fours. “Where’s your old boots? Git ‘em on, and your britches and shirt, too. I’ll show them uppity sons-a-bitches t’ keep outta my bus’ness! Now, where’s them boots? I told ya, boy, t’ quit your snivelin’!”

“But I like th... these. They’re a pre... present from Sc... Scotty.”

Collinson dropped to one knee and jerked the boots roughly from Willy’s feet. The angle of his big toe against the floor caused a shard of pain to shoot up his leg, incensing him further. “When I decide you need new boots,
I’ll
buy you new boots, ya got that, boy?”

Willy’s eyes streamed and his chest jerked as he tried not to sob.

“Now git on your old ones!”

“I ain’t g... got ‘em.”

“What d’ you mean, you ain’t got em?”

“I j... just ain’t.”

“Where are they?”

“I d... don’t kn... know.”

“Goddammit to hell! How can ya lose your own boots?”

Willy peered up fearfully, his thin chest palpitating as he held in the sobs. Collinson’s fists clenched and he yanked the boy roughly off the chair onto his feet.

“Ya lose your boots, ya go barefoot. Now gimme the rest.”

Minutes later, when Collinson limped angrily out of the house, Willy threw himself on his bed and let the pent-up weeping escape. His hot tears wet the tender white skin of his freckled arm as he cried against it. One skinny bare foot curled around the opposite ankle as he rolled up in a ball. The crest in his gleaming gold hair, which Alvis hadn’t even noticed, became disheveled by the sour bedclothes.

Agatha’s heart slammed into her throat when the voice roared from the front room.

“Where the hell is ev’rybody!”

Violet hadn’t arrived yet. Agatha had no choice but to answer the call herself. She shuffled to the curtains and parted them. Immediately, the gruff voice shouted again.

“You the one they call Gussie?”

She composed herself forcibly. “Agatha Downing is my name, yes.”

Collinson squinted, recognizing her as that “temperance bitch” who was always stirring up trouble lately, the same one who had stuck her nose into his business once before when Willy had come looking for him at the saloon.

“You’re outta line, missus.” He flung down the shirt and pants on top of the aviary display case.

“Miss,” Agatha retorted tightly.

“Aw, well, that explains it, then. Ain’t got no whelps o’ your own, so ya take over other people’s.” Holding Willy’s new boots in one hand, he brandished them at her nose. “Well, git yourself some o’ your own. My boy don’t need your charity. He’s got an old man, and I’ll see after my own. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly.”

Collinson glared at her hard, then headed for the open door. Before reaching it he turned back. “And one more thing. Next time ya go whisperin’ things t’ the preacher, tell him t’ mind his own goddamned business.” He started for the door again and once more stopped to demand, “Where the hell’s Gandy? I got words for him, too.”

“More than likely still asleep upstairs.”

He threw her one last glare, shouldered around toward the door, then disappeared. Agatha’s heart was still thudding sharply when she heard the sound of shattering glass. She hurried to the front door just in time to see Collinson fling the second boot through a window overhead. “Gandy, wake up, ya son-of-a-bitch! I’ll buy my own boy’s boots, so stop interfering! The next time ya take him to the Rest for a bath, you’ll need one yourself t’ wash off the blood—ya hear me, Gandy?”

Curious heads poked out of doorways all along the boardwalk. As Collinson limped down the middle of main street, he glared at Yancy Sales, leaning out the door of his Bitters Shop. “Whaddaya gawkin’ at, Sales? Ya want a boot through your window, too!”

Every head withdrew.

Upstairs, Gandy awakened with the first crash. He braced himself up on his elbows and squinted into the morning sun beaming in the window on the far side of Jube.

“What the hell...”

Jube lifted her head like a prairie dog peeping from its hole. “Mmm... mmm...” Her face fell into the pillow and Gandy rolled across her to look at the boot lying beside the bed.

He flopped onto his back and uttered, “Oh, Jesus!”

“Wh... zz... tt?” came Jube’s muffled voice.

“The new boots I bought yesterday for Willy.” He closed his eyes and thought how long it had been since he’d gotten into a rip-roaring fistfight. It would feel mighty good again.

A quiet knock sounded on his door. He rolled from the bed, naked, and stepped into his black trousers. Barefoot,
he padded to the sitting room and opened the door.

Agatha stood in the hall, hands clasping and unclasping nervously.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so early.” Her glance flitted from his stubbled cheeks to his naked chest, then down to his bare feet, and finally to the end of the hall. She’d never seen him any way other than impeccably dressed. She was unsure of the rules of propriety when faced with a man’s hairy chest and toes. Her face turned pink.

“Believe it or not, I was already awake.” He combed his hair back with his fingers, giving her a flash of dark hair under his arms. “Collinson’s a real sweetheart, isn’t he?”

She met his eyes squarely, her brow wrinkled in concern. “Do you think Willy is all right?”

“I don’t know.” He, too, frowned.

“What should we do?”

“Do?” Dammit! He hadn’t wanted to get mixed up with Willy in the first place. “What would you suggest we do? March down to Collinson’s house and ask him if he’s mistreated the boy?”

Agatha’s irritation sprouted. “Well, we can’t stand by and do nothing.”

“Why not? Look what happens when we try to play the good Samaritan.” Even as Gandy replied, he remembered Willy, naked as the day he was born, looking up with his liquid brown eyes, asking him, “When I grow up, will I be like you?”

Just then Jubilee shuffled up behind Gandy, yawning, her white hair bunched in disarray. “Who is it, Scotty...? Oh, it’s you, Agatha. Mornin’.” She was wearing the turquoise dressing gown. It buckled open as Jubilee balled her fists and stretched both arms sleepily, tilting her head to one side. Agatha caught a glimpse of enough cleavage and flank to guess that Jubilee slept in the altogether. Her voice became sharp.

“As soon as you wake up, you can tell Mr. Gandy I’m sorry I got him out of bed.”

Picking up her skirts, she turned and made an exit with as much dignity as she could muster.

* * *

Not five minutes later everybody arrived at the millinery shop at once: Mrs. Alphonse Anderton, for a fitting on her new dress; Violet, for work; Willy, bawling; and Gandy, still barefoot, buttoning a wrinkled shirt with its tails flapping.

“Listen here, Agatha, I resent your—” Gandy pointed a finger angrily.

“Well...” Mrs. Anderton pompously scrutinized them, ending with Gandy’s bare feet. “Good morning, Agatha.”

“Tt-tt.”

“My p... pa... he s... says I c... can’t c... come here no more t’s... see youuuuuu...”

Agatha stood behind a glass counter, so Willy ran straight to Gandy. Gandy went down on one knee and hauled the sobbing boy tightly against him. Willy clung to Gandy’s neck. Gandy forgot his anger and Agatha’s chest felt as if it would crack as she listened to Willy’s sobs. “He t... took away m... my new b... boots.”

“Please take care of Mrs. Anderton, Violet,” Agatha ordered quietly, then moved to Gandy, and he straightened with Willy in his arms.

“Bring him into the back room,” Agatha said.

Even after they were alone the boy sobbed and sobbed and spoke in broken snatches. “M... my n... new sh... shirt and br... britches... he... t... told... m... me...”

“Shh!” Gandy whispered going down on one knee again. Willy burrowed his blond head against the man’s sturdy dark chest and half-buttoned white shirt.

Agatha felt as if she were choking. She sat down on Willy’s little stool beside them, petting his head, smoothing his hair, feeling helpless and woeful. Over Willy’s shaking shoulder her gaze met Gandy’s. He looked shaken. She reached out and touched the back of his hand. He lifted two fingers, hooked two of hers, and pulled them against Willy’s neck.

Why couldn’t this child have been ours? We would have been so good to him, so good for him.
It was a fleeting thought, but it brought to Agatha a bitter realization of the injustices of this world.

In time Willy calmed. Agatha withdrew her fingers from Gandy’s and pulled a scented handkerchief from a pocket concealed within the back drapes of her dress.

“Here, Willy, let me clean up your face.”

He turned, dripping, eyes and lips puffy. As she mopped his cheeks and made him blow, she wondered what either she or Gandy could say to restore Willy’s broken heart.

“You mustn’t blame your father,” she began. “It was our fault, Scotty’s and mine.” She had never called Gandy by his first name before. Doing so gave her strength and a feeling of communion with both him and Willy. “We hurt your father’s pride, you see, by giving you new clothes, taking you for a bath. Do you know what that means—pride?”

Willy shrugged, trying not to cry again.

Agatha didn’t think she could speak one more word without breaking into tears herself. She looked to Gandy for help and he came through.

“Pride means feelin’ good about yourself.” His long, dark fingers combed back the blond strands above Willy’s ears. “Your father wants t’ buy you things himself. When we bought them instead, he thought we were tellin’ him that he wasn’t seein’ after you properly.”

“Oh.” Willy said the word so softly it was scarcely audible.

“And as for you comin’ t’ visit us—I don’t see why you shouldn’t. We’re still your friends, aren’t we?”

Willy gave the expected smile, though it was tentative.

“But it might be a good idea t’ slip in the back door and make sure you don’t come when your pa’s in the saloon, all right? Now, how about a licorice stick?”

Willy’s face remained downcast as he answered unenthusiastically, “I guess so.”

Gandy got to his feet, lifting the boy on his arm. He waited until Agatha, too, rose, then hooked an arm loosely about her shoulders as the three of them ambled toward the back door. She felt awkward, bumping against his chest and hip with each clumsy step she took. But he didn’t seem to mind. At the door he dropped his arm and told her, “Willy’ll be down later, but send him back up at dinner time and I’ll
have Ivory go over to Paulie’s and pick up some picnic food.”

Perhaps that was the moment when Agatha first realized she was falling in love with Gandy. She looked up at him, his hair still tousled, his cheeks still shaded with a night’s growth of whiskers, his shoulders and arms looking as if they could handle all the Alvis Collinsons of this world as they held Willy.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry I was short with you upstairs. I understand. I feel the same way at times.”

For a moment his eyes lingered on hers, bearing a soft expression, while Willy glanced back and forth between the two of them, his freckled arm resting on the back of Gandy’s neck.

“Ain’t you comin’, Gussie?” the child asked plaintively.

“No, Willy.” She dried a lingering tear with her thumb. “I’ll see you later.” She raised up and kissed his shiny cheek. As they left she realized she had placed herself in double jeopardy. She was falling in love not only with the man, but with the boy as well.

Later that day the girls came to try on their finished cancan dresses and Agatha seized the opportunity to apologize to Jubilee for her snappishness that morning.

Jube passed it off with a wave of her hand. “I was still so sleepy I didn’t even know what you were saying.”

All the while Agatha buttoned Jubilee into the sleek-fitting bodice she couldn’t forget the way Jube had padded to Gandy’s door, all warm and tumbled from sleep, looking more beautiful in disarray than most women looked after an hour at their dressing tables. She recalled Gandy’s bare chest and mussed hair, his trousers with the waist button still freed, his bare feet.

Then she glanced at Jubilee, twirling before the wall mirror. Radiant, beautiful Jubilee.

Gandy is spoken for, Agatha,
she told herself.
Besides, what would he want with someone like you when he has a stunning gem like her?
“Will you dance the cancan tonight?”

“Tonight’s the night,” Jube answered. “Second show, though. We’re going to make them wait till eleven so they’ll be good and anxious.”

“Will you be there?” Pearl asked Agatha. Nobody found the question the least bit odd. The girls had grown used to seeing Agatha and her troops in the Gilded Cage at one time or another each night.

“I’ll be there earlier,” Agatha replied, squelching her disappointment. After all the work she’d done on the dresses, she wanted to see them flashing to the music.

But that night, true to their word, the girls saved the best for last, and Agatha bade good-night to the W.C.T.U. ladies on the boardwalk without seeing a solitary flash of red or a single high kick. It was a warm, sultry night for mid-June. The saloons had been stuffier than usual. No wind blew under the doors. The odor of dung from the hitching rails seemed to permeate everything. She took the shortcut through her store, made her last trip to the necessary, then mounted the stairs.