Dead Man’s Hand (15 page)

Monk nodded curtly. “Love. Or more properly in this instance, infatuation. One so
fast and unbreakable that poor John appears unable to move from the proximity of the
woman who has caught him fast.” The driver’s expression darkened. “A woman of the
East, no less.”

“New York?” Malone mused aloud. “Chicago? Dare I say Boston?”

Monk shook his head sharply. “Were that it were so, Mr. Malone, were that it were
so. The east to which I refer is at once less and more civilized than those fine upstanding
American cities. There are over a thousand Chinee in Carson City, sir, and this woman
is of that country that supplies to us both labor and mystery. She has enchanted my
friend, Mr. Malone. Bewitched him from the blond curls of his young forehead to the
accumulated fungus between his toes. No argument, no logic, no reason or threat or
promise of wealth has proven sufficient to bestir him from her quarters. I am not
the only one who finds it more than passing strange. If there is not more to this
than the straightforward draw of the loins, sir, I’ll gnaw the hindquarters off a
northbound polecat!”

Malone considered. “If your need be so urgent, and the attraction so unambiguous,
why not go with a few armed companions and drag him out by the heels?”

“I thought to do just that, sir, but this woman has friends and a respected employer.
Somehow, she commands others with words as well as with movement, to the point that
those who might help find themselves dissuaded in her company and depart her presence
wondering what became of their senses. I have felt a touch of it myself. The sensation
is akin to drunkenness, but without the vomiting. Also, it smells strongly of jasmine.”

The mountain man sighed and turned back to his drinking. Monk looked on anxiously.
As the whip teetered on the cusp of certainty that his appeal had failed, Malone turned
back to him once more and rose. He had been slumping on his bar stool in a courteous
attempt to somewhat mute his mass, and, now, standing, his head nearly scraped the
ceiling. Conversation in the room grew quiet, as though an unearthly presence had
suddenly made itself known.

* * *

The djinn was out of the bottle, Monk realized. Or rather, out of the bottles. There
was no backing down now. It occurred to the driver only briefly to flee. He was a
brave man, having in the course of his employment faced down everything from starving
catamounts to desperate bandits. All these paled, however, in the shadow of the immense
and ripely unwashed simian shape that now stood, swaying ever so slightly from having
ingested a truly prodigious quantity of liquor, before him.

“Let’s go and see if we kin speak some sense to your pal, Mr. Monk. I make no promises.
Of all the drugs that befuddle a man’s senses, love is by far the strongest.”

“Stronger even than, dare I say, sex?” Monk inquired as the room cleared precipitously
before them.

Malone stared solemnly down at the driver. “We have yet to ascertain under which particular
affliction your friend reposes. Does he say nothing of his circumstances?”

“I’ve not seen him in weeks, sir, and despite my most sincere efforts have succeeded
in drawing no closer than the door to the rooms where he now resides. I did not see
him, and could hear him shouting but one thing over and over before I was summarily
ejected. ‘Holy jingle!’ he kept bawling. ‘Holy jingle!’”

“Interesting,” declared Malone as the two men, one traveling in the umbra of the other,
exited the bar. “If naught else, we can believe that whatever has inveigled him is
nothing if not costly.”

* * *

The building to which Monk brought him in the open buckboard was one of the more substantial
structures of Carson City. Several stories tall, it was fashioned of local stone and
boasted fine glass windows imported from San Francisco.

San Francisco. It called to Malone. For a scion of the mountains and the plains, he
was inordinately fond of the occasional draught of salt air. Soon enough, he promised
himself. Tilting back his head, he let his eyes rove the numerous windows, eventually
settling on one on the topmost floor. Light from oil lamps within, the hue of soft
butter, lit the rectangular opening. He nodded knowingly.

“That one. There.”

Mouth agape, Monk stared up at him. “Now how could you know that, Mr. Malone? You’ve
never been here before.”

Nearly buried beneath an incautious bramble of rabid, unkempt whiskers, a prodigious
nose contorted. “I kin smell jasmine. And lotus essence, sandalwood, and other emollients
most foreign to this part o’ the world.”

Frowning, the driver inhaled deeply. “All I can smell is street muck and night soil.”

Malone grinned. “I once spent some time in Paris sojournin’ with a master parfumerie
and have retained a bit o’ that knowledge.” He started forward.

Monk contemplated the swaying, rolling gait of the giant before him and tried to imagine
a connection between the mountain man and the tiny crystal bottles of mostly floral
scent he had occasionally seen in rooms occupied by ladies of the evening. Failing
quite thoroughly in the attempt, he set the unresolved contradiction aside and followed
grimly in the big man’s wake.

Not all the way, though. He was stopped inside by the redoubtable Bigfoot Terry, the
madam of the house, who was quick to inquire as to their purpose in visiting. The
question was rhetorical, as her establishment dispensed one class of goods and one
kind only. “The best in Nevada,” as the hefty owner was oft heard to declare. She
glanced only briefly at Monk, her attention immediately drawn to his companion, her
Carolina accent as thick as her thighs.

“Ah declare, suh, you strike me as a man in need of some serious service.” Blue eyes
twinkled amusedly. “The question is, can a sizeable but roughhewn bumpkin like yourself
afford the finery for which my establishment is famed?”

Malone was not looking at her, his gaze drawn instead to the wide walnut stairway
that cleaved the back of the parlor as opposed to cleavage of a more neighboring but
no less sturdy kind. Brushing past her without a word, he headed directly for the
stairs.

Startled by his indifference, the proprietress seemed about to summon forth the men
of unpleasant mien whom she kept on retainer to cope with just such discourtesy. Monk
hastened to forestall her.

“I will pay for my friend. Despite your assessment, it is hoped his visit will be
brief, and accounted accordingly.”

Adjusting the feathers that encircled her shoulders and neck like the boa for which
the adornment was named, the madam calmed herself. Her attention turned to the smaller
and more voluble visitor. “Fair enough.” She proceeded to name the figure for a standard
visit. Monk nodded his understanding and reached into a pocket.

“I am at present a mite short of coin, but I have this watch…”

* * *

The chamber was at the end of the hall on the top floor. As he passed the intervening
rooms, Malone listened for the sounds of commerce. There were none to be heard. Did
Madam Terry reserve this entire floor for one employee because she was special? he
wondered. Or could it be that her fellow courtesans were fearful of working in the
stranger’s vicinity? Did they perhaps shun her because she was Chinese? He already
suspected that there were things at work here that transcended love and sex, and that
was saying something.

To any other inhabitant of Carson City, the smells that emerged from beneath the solid
wooden door would have reeked of exoticism. Malone, however, was familiar with them,
being as he was rather more widely traveled than anyone save his horse suspected.
Inhaling their familiarity, he identified one fragrance after another. Shanghai and
Hong Kong, Kuching and Singapore, Calcutta and even Lhasa. No wonder this woman had
so thoroughly enchanted the man called John Barrel. She had taste. She had reach.

It was time to find what else she had.

He knocked. Softly at first and then, when ignored, harder. A voice from the other
side mewed, “Come in—it is not locked.” Turning the knob, he pushed against the wood
and entered Paradise.

Or so it would have seemed to the unsophisticated, uninitiated miners and drovers
and businessmen likely to frequent such an establishment. Heavy carpets on the floor
were cartographies of interwoven patterns: lanterns and birds, dragons and Chinese
characters, all rendered in finely wrought wool. Tables sculpted from dark wood supported
oil-filled lamps and incense burners. In one corner, a pair of ceramic Ming lions
glared ferociously. A rainbow waterfall of glass beads separated one room from another.
Densely arrayed on the walls were paintings rendered in pale watercolor, in fine ink,
in bird feathers and butterfly wings. The room was aswirl with luxury.

There was movement behind the beaded curtain. The shape of a woman eased into the
room, the smoke parting around her like a diaphanous veil. Malone had seen much in
his time, but the sight made him draw in his breath.

This was not going to be easy.

Glistening black hair was drawn tightly back into a single braid. Her face was as
blemish-free and pure as a bowl of cream, save for the double crimson slash of her
lips, which were as red as the wound from a cavalryman’s saber. Packed into the glittering
sequined cheongsam she wore were breasts more substantial than might have been anticipated,
a narrow waist, and hips whose curves would have troubled Newton. When she smiled,
the whole room seemed to sigh.

“What have we here?” She approached him. He held his ground as one hand reached out
to stroke his arm. “I sense need bottled as tight as hundred-year-old brandy, and
just as hot. Relax to me and I will release it.”

He swallowed. Safer to be facing a troll in the Arctic or a shark in the sea, he thought.
Monk was right to be worried about his friend.

At that moment, a moan came from a back room. It was weak, yet not an expression of
pain. Back there, out of sight, a man was dying slowly. But not painfully. Malone
nodded in its direction.

“You are entertainin’, if that’s the right word, a guest name o’ John Barrel. He has
been here a long time. Too long. You speak o’ need. Well, his friend needs him… now
and right quick.”

A second hand reached out to slip between the mountain man’s right arm and his waist.
Fingers dug in hard, clutching, trying to penetrate the thick buckskin. The lacquered
nails did not break.

“But I need him, too. I need him
more
.”

Malone frowned. “His friend needs him to ride shotgun. What d’you need him to ride?”

The irresistible lips parted, eyelids fluttered, and there came a whisper that was
part pure physicality and entirely feral. “He is a fine young man, healthy and strong.
Being Occidental you will not understand, but I need what moves him. Call it a lifeforce.
Say it is an Oriental obsession.”

Malone shook his head to clear it. The room, the incense, the nearness of his hostess
were making him dizzy. Hips were moving against him with a strength that would have
impressed the Krupps. Resistance was not futile, but it was becoming increasingly
difficult. He struggled to keep his senses about him.

“I thought you only worked for money. Lifeforce is a demonic obsession that spans
all continents. ’Tis something far from exclusively Asian.”

A growl escaped her throat as she stepped back from him. He was quite certain it was
a growl; low but not heavy. “Who are you, to speak of such things, far less to know
of them?”

“A traveler. One with needs less immorally acquisitive than your own.”

“Do not judge me, master of stinks!” Regaining her poise, she replayed her smile.
“You want to free the youth? Very well. I will trade you.”

The mountain man hesitated. “What could I possibly have that you would want?”

When she smiled this time, sharp points seemed to flash briefly from the tips of her
teeth. “You. I will trade John Barrel’s lifeforce for yours. Come and lie with me
and I will take what I need. You will feel no pain.” As she turned to walk away from
him, the oceanic roll of her backside caused his eyes to water as if they had been
doused with pepper. She looked back over her shoulder, her inviting smile at once
coquettish and carnivorous. “Come, big handsome devil. Are you afraid?”

“Let Barrel go first.”

She shrugged. “Will you then run out on me? I think not.” Obsidian eyes flashed. “You
are intrigued. Of course you are. Having set eyes on me, you have no choice.”

* * *

It took Hank Monk plus one of Bigfoot Terry’s men to get John Barrel out of the building.
Monk was shocked when he saw his friend. Normally stout and muscular, the shotgun
rider had been reduced to a shrunken shell of himself. It was as if someone had stuck
a straw into his body and sucked out half the juice.

“A steak.” Monk spoke worriedly as the madam’s man helped load Barrel into the back
of the buckboard. “Two steaks. With potatoes, and bread, and ale. We’ll have you fixed
up right quick, John. Be back on your feet in a day or two.” Climbing up onto the
front of the buckboard, Monk took up the reins and set it in motion. Lying in the
open bed behind him his companion moaned, his voice barely audible.

“Holy… jingle…”

“No need to worry about money now, John. Don’t let such things worry you. We’ll soon
have you right.”

As they passed the far end of the building, Monk glanced upward. The light from a
window on the top floor was flickering oddly. He chucked the reins a little harder,
urging the team to a faster pace.

* * *

If the greeting room was overflowing with objects d’arte and seductive smells, the
bedroom into which Malone found himself escorted redefined opulence. A beveled mirror
on the ceiling reflected a rumpled bed that had been made up with sheets of French
silk trimmed with Irish lace. Embroidered pillows rode the plush mattress like manatees
on a rippled silver sea. Lamps glimmered while cherubs sculpted of wood and gilt parasitized
the walls. Everywhere was crystal and smoke.