Murder by Candlelight (15 page)

"Seconds?"

"Deal off the bottom. Got to watch a
dealer whose fingers are flapping on the hand holding the deck. A
sure sign he's dealing off the bottom."

"How did you ...?"

"Just part of my job when working for
the city. I've been put into games so I could testify in court. Not
much gets past little Jamie Stewart!"

Grudgingly, Z could believe
it.

"One time, incredible as it sounds,
there was a game in which the pigeon actually let himself be seated
with a mirror behind him, the others able to see his hand in the
mirror. Can you believe that? The raw stupidity of the human animal
never ceases to amaze."

Z wondered if he would
have thought of being seated in front of a mirror. Maybe not, but
then he never played cards. The last time he could remember
even
holding
cards was when he'd played "war" as a child.

"On another occasion" --
Jamie was in her lecture mode -- "there were spectators, a lady
kibitzer knitting. By knitting slow or fast, she was giving signals
to her partner who was in the game." Jamie shook her pretty head.
Picked up one of the unopened packs. "I wouldn't want to play with
these
sealed
decks, either."

"But if the wrapping's still on
..."

"Someone's been tampering
with the seals. If you can steam them
off
intact," she pointed to the
cellophane wraps Kunkle had gotten off, "you can put them
back
on
after the
deck's been marked.

"Let's see." Picking up
what Z had taken to be an unopened deck, she shucked off the
cellophane wrapper to thumb through the new cards inside. "Yep. I
was right. These have been pre-dented. Which is
also
something of a surprise.
Whoever did this, wasn't all that good a crook, if you ask me. What
you normally do is, if you're dealt a card you want to keep track
of, you dent it with your fingernail. When you're the dealer later
on, you can feel the dent as you deal. That way, you know who got
that particular card!" She frowned. "But
pre
-denting?" She shrugged her
huggable shoulders.

"Never heard of that," Z said,
impressed.

"First law. Don't gamble with people
you don't know. Second law. Never play with
professionals."

They seemed like good
rules.

Since it was established that Jamie
knew about card cheats and Z didn't, he might as well ask. "What's
a glib?"

"Glim," Susan corrected. "This little
mirror." She picked it up. "What you do -- using this instant
glue," she pointed to the small tube, "is stick the mirror to the
palm of the hand you use to hold the deck. When dealing,
remembering to cup your hand so only you can see the reflection,
all you have to do is make certain a corner of each card passes
over the mirror as you deal. That way, if you're quick, and your
memory's good, by the time you've finished dealing, you know every
card in every player's hand. Takes some of the fun out of gambling,
but has the cheat crying all the way to the bank."

"The alcohol?"

"That's new. I'd bet anything the
small-timer who did this," she pointed at the items on the desk,
"couldn't get the hang of that. In Vegas, they're having trouble
with people surreptitiously swiping alcohol over the back of key
cards. The alcohol evaporates, so there's no sign of it. The trick
is, that someone with super-sensitive feeling can tell the
difference between a treated and an untreated card. Like in the
days of Jesse James, when a safe cracker twiddled the dials of a
bank vault to feel for the faint vibrations when the lock tumblers
fell in place. A genuine mechanic would first sandpaper his
fingertips. Sort of bring the nerves to the surface as a way to
improve his touch."

Z couldn't help but
shudder.

So, he thought, trying to forget the
agony of raw fingertips, Jamie knew a lot of about card sharps. It
was just that he hadn't realized gambling was in her line of fraud
detection.

"Anything else?"

"Besides the fact that the owner of
the house was a homosexual? Nothing."

"Homo ....?"

"Sure."

"And how can you tell
that?"

Z
had
her
there
, his advantage over her, that
he'd checked out Kunkle's car. Though shrimpy in size, Kunkle was a
man's man. And how did Z know that? Two ways. First, the muscle
magazines Z found in Kunkle's car. Second, there was the box of
condoms in the glove compartment.

"Just a guess," Jamie admitted. "Over
there in the magazine rack. Muscle magazines."

"Indicates he's a body builder." A
guess that was as far from the truth as you could get, though Jamie
couldn't know that.

"So, where's the weights?"

"Couldn't afford them?"

"Maybe. But how much do
free weights cost? Then, too, there are the
missing
magazines."

"Missing ...?"

"Girlie magazines.
No
Playboy
.
No
Penthouse
."
Even in the dark, Z could see the ghost of her smile.

"I found condoms," Z said by way of
rebuttal, indicating he'd discovered them in the bedroom when he'd
actually seen them in Kunkle's car.

"You ever hear of AIDS?"
Jamie wasn't accepting the discovery of rubbers as proof that
Kunkle was straight. "If you're going to bugger your brother, you
got to have protection." She grinned again. "By the way, did you
know that when
Cosmo
began putting in male centerfolds, the circulation of the
magazine rose?"

"So?"

"Not from increased sales to women.
From sales to homosexuals."

Z hadn't known that.

"Women are not as turned on by looks
as men are," she said matter-of-factly. "Which is good for old guys
who look like you."

Though Jamie smiled to show she was
teasing, that hurt.

"In my case, it's your outgoing
personality that drives me wild."

Kidding again.

"Yeah."

"To say nothing of your subtle
communication skills."

Jamie could be a real pain, when she
wanted to be. Which was most of the time.

Still, Z had to admit
she'd come up with observations he hadn't made himself. Of course,
providing proof that Kunkle was what Johnny Dosso thought, a
gambler, didn't add much to Z's knowledge. Knowing that Kunkle was
a
crooked
gambler
did help Z feel a little better about Kunkle's accidental
death.

And that seemed to be that. They had
given the house the once-over Z wanted.

The conclusion? That the death of
Howard Kunkle had to have been some kind of accident. In a vague
way, Z may have had something to do with it. But chance played the
greatest part.

One bird (the Kunkle bird) down. One
to go.

Leaving the house, Z and Jamie walked
side-by-side down the dark, deserted street to their
cars.

"One more thing?"

"What?"

"Something else you wanted to
see."

"Oh?"

This was taking a risk, but you
couldn't play everything safe all the time.

"At my apartment."

"My, my," Jamie said
slyly. "Whatever could interest me about your apartment? Anyway,
what have
you
got
to show me I haven't already seen?"

Z was afraid his answering grin was
more queasy than mysterious.

"On the other hand, since you've
already popped my cherry, why the hell not?"

His invitation accepted, with Jamie
following in her truck, Z pointed the Cavalier home, down Vivion,
right on Oak, north until the turnoff. Down the side street and
right again, Z parking in front of his rooming house.

The two of them sliding out, he guided
Jamie through the dark, along the sidewalk to his door.

Strangely, Z felt like he should be
picking his own lock. It had been that kind of night.

Using his key, Z unlatched the
deadbolt, holding the door for Jamie, coming inside himself,
closing the door, switching on the ceiling light.

Jamie, now that he could see her
clearly, had packed herself into a pair of dark blue jeans. Was
wearing a black long-sleeved shirt. Also packed.

"This place looks just like you,"
Jamie said, turning her head slowly to take in the small living
room and the kitchenette at the back. "It doesn't have a lot to
say."

"Yeah." A smart mouth
could damage
any
girl's looks. "The bedroom's this way."

"Got some etchings back
there?"

Z didn't say anything, just led Jamie
through the short hall into his "boudoir" where he snapped on the
overhead light.

"Not much room," Jamie said, looking
around, "reminding me of the old saying, 'Head for the roundhouse,
Nelly. He can't corner you there.'"

As usual, Z had no idea what Jamie was
talking about.

"There," he said, pointing to his
bed.

"Want to flip me for it?"

"I mean. That's what you
want."

"What ....?"

"To see the bed where Susan and I make
love."

"That wasn't exactly ...."

"Now that you've seen it, you can call
off the seance."

"Oh! Is
that
what this is all
about? Not luring me to bed, but protecting little
Susan?

"When you called, I wondered what the
deal was. You're going on and on about what a professional I was,
how you needed my expertise, how much respect you had for me, all
that kind of crap. That's why I came. Followed you around like a
little lamb. To find out what kind of shit you'd pull.

"And now I really
do
feel
insulted."

"But, you said ...."

"And how did you hear
about the seance? ... Of course, Susan told you. Has she figured
out who
I
am,
yet?"

"No!"

"And you got to pray she
doesn't."

"No more games." Z was getting
irritated. "How did you find Susan?"

"Tracking Susan wasn't hard. In
addition to her picture, you had her business card in your
billfold. As for the seance, if you got ghostly noises in the
house, you want to talk to someone about it."

Suddenly, it hit Z!
"
You're
the one
who
made
those
noises."

"He catches on, at last."

"But why go to so much trouble
....?"

"Like I told you, to see the bed you
and Susan make love in."

"But ...." Z pointed to his bed
again.

"Cute," Jamie said,
unimpressed. "You
knew
what I meant. Not
your
bed, Susan's." Jamie shook her head. "You just
don't learn, do you? That you can't mess with Jamie Stewart." She
grinned the smile of crocodiles. "After losing
this
round, buster, I'm not even
going to
tell
you
what it'll take to tear up your marker!"

And turning on her heel, the girl was
gone ... Z left with the echo of the front door slam.

* * * * *

Chapter 9

Goddamn son of a bitch! Motherfucking
asshole of a cocksucker! Frigging, fart-faced, corn-holed buggery!
Shitfaced, whore. That bull dyke, flit of a hairy-pawed pussy
licker, muff diver! ... Fork-tongued weasel-snatcher
.......

Weasel-snatcher?

For the last two days, Z had been
sitting at his desk, cursing his shabby, wood file cases, the old
cabinets taking it pretty well. It was with "weasel-snatcher," that
he'd been brought to his senses; made to see that he'd run out of
both curse words and steam.

It was early Wednesday
afternoon.

The seance was this
evening.

And he'd thought of nothing he could
do to stop it.

Susan had called yesterday evening,
all excited about the coming event. Two of her friends from work
would be attending, she'd said, young women who Z had probably
heard about but had never met.

The devil of it was that Z
no longer had any idea what Jamie Stewart was up to. He knew he
might be making a mistake by having Jamie out to his apartment --
but thought it was because it was risky to let Jamie know where he
lived. He
hadn't
expected Jamie to react like she had to the
reason
Z had her
over.

Women were funny creatures.