Queen of Spades Read online

Page 14


  Faye was, as in their first meeting, small, dapper, and this time, dressed more casually, in a sweater off one shoulder and jeans. “I’m glad you called,” Chan told her. The bar was empty that afternoon, and they spoke softly.

  “You said when we met previously that the old woman’s car was a silver Rolls Royce Phantom,” Faye continued. She pushed two documents across the table. “I took the liberty of contacting someone in the Department of Licensing who owed me a favor. It turns out there are only two vehicles matching that description in the entire Snoqualmie County database. The first is owned by a high-end limousine company. The second is privately owned.” Before Chan could look at the faxed forms, she placed her hand over his, halting him. “Remember,” she said. “This information is strictly confidential. My friend could lose her job.”

  “I understand,” Chan said.

  The Phantom belonging to the limousine company was a recent vintage, and not the one he was after. Chan flipped the page. This one described a 1965 model Phantom V, silver in color, registered to a Thomas Eccleston.

  “Does the name ring a bell?”

  “No—but the car is from the right time.” The name puzzled Chan. Then something clicked in his mind. “Perhaps he’s the driver.”

  “Recognize anything else?” Faye said, pointing to the place of residence listed for the vehicle—1442 Majestic Avenue. It was the address of the Royal Casino.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It suggests the owner has no permanent place of residence. My friend said that’s what people sometimes do when they live out of an RV or camper. They make an arrangement with a relative or a business to collect their mail.”

  “What an odd notion,” Chan said. “The Countess with no home.” He imagined her and the driver living in the Phantom, stopping only to gamble at the Royal. No wonder no one knew where she lived!

  Faye shrugged. “It’s certainly unusual.” She looked around the bar, before leaning close to Chan. “So,” she said, “have you learned anything more about her system?”

  Chan recalled the night of his pursuit and shook his head. “Only more questions. As far as I’ve heard, she hasn’t played a hand in several weeks.”

  “What’s she waiting for?”

  Chan shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” He placed his straw on the table, next to his empty glass, and glanced over at their waiter.

  Chan had recognized him immediately. It was the same spiky-haired boy he’d sat with at the public library, months ago. The boy’s reappearance now, while he was chatting with Faye, served to raise in Chan’s mind an odd sense of the connectedness of things. The coincidence wasn’t surprising—Snoqualmie at its heart was a very small town. But it was the contingency of moments, of events, and of people that struck Chan. He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes momentarily, and when he reopened them, Faye was looking at him from across the table, a quizzical and bemused expression on her face.

  BOOK THREE:

  HIGH-LIMIT SALON

  There exist untold pathways that twist between the world of the infinite and the soul of man, most of which remain undiscovered. The three most direct are dreams, first and foremost; second, art; and lastly, the wagering of prodigious sums of money.

  —Marquis de Rocheford, Les Caprices du Hasard (The Vagaries of Chance)

  A Darker Luster

  In the midst of a heater, one with no sign of cooling, Barbara promised herself she would be smarter this time. After setting aside enough winnings to pay two months’ rent, she estimated she still held more than sufficient funds to become a member of the unusual aerobics club in the old Snoqualmie Theater: the place called Hair & Now. She returned there the Monday after Thanksgiving and saw the large plate-glass windows were now draped in lavish, gold-tinted Grand Opening banners. An arrow lit by flashing bulbs enticed her to enter, and Barbara did, feeling both curious and apprehensive.

  There were several young people chitchatting in the lobby—fit, dressed in chic leotards—and they looked up when she entered. Barbara smiled nervously and then saw to her relief that the enormous red-haired man, Simon, was working the front desk. He rose to greet her, saying “Hello! Welcome back! Barbara, isn’t it? So happy you returned.”

  “I like what you’ve done here,” she said. The lobby was freshly tiled in a lush green-and-white checkerboard, and tall houseplants surrounded the doorways leading to the salon and gym. “Nice touch with the ferns.”

  “My idea,” said Simon, smiling. “Gets more oxygen into the air. I’m hoping you’ve returned to sign up?”

  “I think I just might’ve talked myself into it.” Barbara took one of the brochures from the reception desk and opened it, pointing at the Body & Soul package. “I want this.”

  Simon clapped his palms together. “That’s fantastic, Barbara! That’s our finest package. You won’t be disappointed.”

  Barbara paid for twelve months up front, $2,000 in cash, counting out the twenty hundred-dollar bills on the counter quickly and efficiently. Simon respectfully watched as the pile accumulated in front of him and then, collecting them, he inserted the sheaf into a yellow envelope he placed inside his desk. He wrote out a receipt and handed it to her, along with a registration form attached to a clipboard. Barbara spent several minutes filling it out with her personal information.

  “Your last name is Chimsky?” Simon said, looking it over.

  “Yes. It’s not my name—I’m divorced.”

  “Is your ex-husband a dealer? We may know him.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Barbara said. “He comes into contact with a lot of people. He works at the Royal.”

  “Yes, of course.” Simon was silent as he perused the rest of the form. When he was finished, he initialed the bottom and then shook her hand gravely. “Welcome to the club, Barbara. We’ll have everything in order for you by tomorrow.”

  The next afternoon, Simon escorted her to her personal locker in the spacious and carpeted changing room. The carpet was maroon, accented by overlapping gold circles. Imprinted on an embossed plaque above her locker was her name (“Barbara C.”), followed by her membership number (17) and the current year (1984). Several of the lockers close by had plaques on their doors, but there were entire rows that were empty. Simon assured her word of mouth was quickly spreading through Snoqualmie, and that they would have a full coterie of members very soon—by the following spring.

  “We only have room for two hundred,” he said. “After that, we expect to have a very long waiting list.”

  In her first week of membership, Barbara spent much of her time on the second floor, in the cafe. She went there on her lunch break to take a light meal, a salad and half an avocado sandwich, and began meeting the other members as they trickled in. Member number one was a businessman who lived upstairs in the same building as the club, and Barbara rarely saw him. Member number two was an older, gray-haired woman named Frances Murphy, and they quickly hit it off. Frances told Barbara she was the mother of one of the primary investors in the club, a son she referred to as “my sweet Henry,” whom Barbara did not know.

  Dutifully, Barbara attended an aerobics class every third day, despite protests from her ill-toned body. Simon and Quincy were excellent instructors—Simon was effusive, while Quincy’s style was more quiet and cerebral. Barbara also availed herself of her two salon visits per month, where she entirely gave her hair over to the whims of a talkative stylist named Monty. His thin, perfect eyebrows reminded her of a silent film actor. He convinced her to get a feathered perm with frosted tips, and Barbara hardly recognized herself in the mirror afterward, her face framed by the ghostly new halo. Her coworkers seemed genuinely impressed; in the weeks to follow, several of them got their own perms and dyes, and the office, which had previously looked like a relic from the seventies, was transformed into what one of her interns described in glowing terms as “very MTV.”

  Each day after work, Barbara returned to the club, and she and Frances Murphy went around introducing t
hemselves to new members. She plunged into her life at Hair & Now as she had plunged into new endeavors in her past—with full vigor and intensity—and she soon knew most everyone. The people struck her so differently from the ones she knew at Gambling Help. They were vibrant, full of life, and passionate about things; she could tell by the way they moved and the way they spoke. They never seemed to be on the verge of tears, nor close to revealing a shameful secret, a fact which Barbara discovered she greatly appreciated.

  Once a week now, she and Chimsky met at Rudy’s in their usual spot—they had settled into what Barbara felt was the most satisfying phase in their relationship thus far, including their marriage: a convivial care without, as she thought, any of the bullshit. Chimsky, of course, desired more, but their weekly drink would have to suffice. Inevitably, his talk would turn to his latest gambling venture, but Barbara did not allow herself to be drawn back into his web, no matter how certain he was of this or that outcome.

  She did not tell him about Hair & Now until she had been a member for ten days, after she had gotten her hair styled and was confident she had not made a mistake. Chimsky was obviously taken with the new look, complimenting its fresh style, and Barbara mentioned where she’d had it done. Chimsky, who had been eating, immediately set down his spoon.

  “You said it’s run by a couple guys,” he said. “Simon and Quincy?”

  “Yes. They said they know you.”

  “Well, I come into contact with a lot of people—”

  “That’s what I said. Anyway, what’s their story?” It was a chilly Tuesday in early December, and quiet at the bar. As was their normal practice now, they were sharing a large bowl of noodles with their drinks.

  “Do you have any idea where their money comes from?” Chimsky said after a moment.

  “Will it affect my opinion of them?”

  “It could. That’s why I hesitate to say.”

  “Is it something illegal?”

  “Nothing too untoward,” Chimsky said. “But remember my little trouble with the bookmaker a few months ago? Remember how I put you in touch with someone to place your election bet?”

  Her winnings from the election had been delivered in a stuffed envelope—Chimsky had picked it up for her, at his insistence that he was going over to Fong’s anyway. Now she pushed her chair back from the table and crossed her legs. “They’re bookmakers?”

  “Not them exactly,” Chimsky said. “But the person who’s bankrolling them—his name is Fong. Or sometimes he goes by Murphy.”

  It was Barbara’s turn to be surprised. She imagined the polite, older woman—Frances Murphy—and all her talk about her “sweet Henry.” Could it be the same person? She couldn’t see why not. “That’s very interesting. But no, I’ve never actually met him. I’m friends with his mother.”

  “Really? That guy has a mother? Anyway, I just thought you should know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “Well, I’ve got nothing to do with any of that. The club is legitimate, which you would see if you drop by. As for the bookmaking, I only intend to ever make that one bet.”

  “I didn’t mean to alarm you,” said Chimsky. “I’m sure it’s all above board.”

  “It’s beautiful inside—very tasteful. You should drop by, like I said,” Barbara added politely, although she was unsure whether she really wanted her ex-husband in that part of her life.

  Thankfully, he seemed dismissive of her suggestion. “That’s your thing, Barbara. I’m not exactly the gym type, if you haven’t noticed. I’m just happy you’re happy.” He raised his glass and drank it in one gulp. “I’m especially glad you’re no longer going to that other thing.”

  “Chim,” Barbara said. “Please. I needed Gambling Help once. But this is what I need now.” She smiled and leaned back in her chair. It was interesting news, what Chimsky had told her, but she found that, if anything, it made Hair & Now and its owners more appealing than before. The idea that they were secretly engaged in the underground world of gambling seemed to her, in her new state of openness, to be a fact loaded with meaning—it was as if all her interests in life, past and present, were converging at this one point, and in her mind, Hair & Now shone with an additional, darker luster now.

  The next day, Barbara entered the club doors, and Quincy, who was sitting behind the front desk, flagged her down as she headed toward the changing room.

  “New members?” she asked.

  “Several,” Quincy replied. “It’s been a good week. But one in particular—a man in rather poor health. He put you down as a referral.”

  Barbara had told her coworkers about the place, and wondered if one of them hadn’t decided to enroll. Or had Chimsky changed his mind? “Who? Let me see the name,” she said.

  “It’s right here.” Quincy shuffled through the paperwork on the desk. He pulled out a form and turned it so that it faced her on the counter. “He came in this morning.”

  For a second, Barbara scanned the page without its information registering. Then she saw the name signed at the bottom of it, and her blood froze. Written in jagged block letters was Arthur Alan Dimsberg. He was forty-eight years old, lived in East Snoqualmie, and had listed as his reasons for joining, “exercise, healing, and the company of close friends.”

  Another Audition

  After his meeting with Faye, Chan began driving to the Royal two hours earlier than was required for his shift in order to espy the Countess and her driver as they arrived for their nightly engagement with the Faro table. Chan did this even on his off night, loitering at the boundaries of the casino entrance, dressed in his dealer garb so as not to draw undue attention. Regarding the Countess, Chan noticed only the slightest deviations in time and dress from evening to evening. Sometimes, the Phantom was a minute early or late, which Chan attributed to traffic. Despite the color of her gowns changing, the cut remained the same, as if all her dresses had been made by a single hand. He noticed both he and the Countess preferred rich, deep hues, shades of red in particular.

  Her driver—Thomas Eccleston, Chan assumed—appeared to have only one outfit: a gray chauffeur’s jacket with two columns of brass buttons tapering from the shoulders down to a thin waist, and gray blousy pants stuffed into shiny black calf-length jackboots. Over the period of Chan’s observation, a thin, black mustache was starting to form on the driver’s upper lip.

  The driver went outside twice an evening, to have a smoke and look over the car. The rumor was that he was mute, and Chan saw no one attempt to converse with him at any time, although he was cordial with the valets, inclining his head in passing.

  During this period of observation, Chan carried a note he’d composed to the Countess, using one of the blank sheets left behind by Dumonde. After several attempts, the letter of introduction read simply:

  Esteemed Madam,

  I am interested in learning your system at Faro.

  Would you consider teaching me?

  Signed, Arturo Chan, Pit Dealer

  Chan was not used to obtruding, making himself a nuisance (or worse) in a stranger’s eyes, and for two nights, he failed to deliver the note, excusing himself for the reason that it was a particularly busy time in the pit. But when he carried the message with him to the casino on the third night, he was determined to convey it at the first opportunity. He knew the driver’s pattern: the man would go outside at one a.m. for a cigarette and to check on the Phantom, and Chan made sure to engineer his downs with Mannheim so that his break corresponded with this time.

  At five minutes to one, Chan sat on the couch in the lobby, vaguely flipping through the pages of a recent Casino Times. His eyes were on the entrance vestibule, a high arch surrounded on either side by a suit of armor. Several minutes passed before the driver emerged. Chan watched him walk by, then rose from the couch and followed him through the revolving doors. He saw the driver standing several feet away, underneath the awning, his back to the casino, smoking. Chan steeled himself and made his approach.

  “Ex
cuse me, sir,” he said. The driver did not turn around, and Chan plunged on: “My name is Arturo Chan. I’m a pit dealer. I have a note I would like conveyed to your madam.”

  Still, the driver smoked calmly, appearing not to hear at all.

  “Sir?” Chan tried again. “Mr. Thomas Eccleston?”

  The name did the trick: the driver gave a little start, and turned to look at Chan, seeing him for the first time. He extinguished the cigarette under his heel, parted his lips, and spoke very thinly and softly: “How is it that you know my name?”

  “My apologies,” Chan said. “I discovered it through your vehicle’s registration.”

  “It’s not my vehicle,” the driver said. He looked around to ensure no one was near. “What is it you want?”

  “I would like to learn from your mistress,” Chan said. “Her system of gambling.”

  The driver’s thin mustache twitched. “You’ve made some sort of mistake,” he said. “She has no students.”

  “Nevertheless, could you pass along this message on my behalf?” Chan held out the note. “I would like her to decide if she will speak with me.”

  The driver looked at Chan again. Then he took the note and put it in the front pocket of his jacket. “You can be assured she will hear about this, although I can hardly vouch for a favorable response—or any response at all.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Eccleston. That’s all I ask.”