Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [26]
This last remark was uttered through an unwholesome smile that the pudgy accuser would never forget. Faced with such an unexpected display of weaponry, the poker players decided in unison to yield the table, and when their chairs were empty the claw blades retracted and the gambler eyed the young boy.
“You think I cheated? You think me a scoundrel?”
Lloyd shook his head. “You count the cards. You calculate in your head. You have a method. It merely gives you an advantage.”
“Hah! Do you know how to play the gentlemen’s game, then?”
“I think I do now,” the boy replied.
“How do you mean?” St. Ives puzzled.
“I watched. I listened.”
“That you did, lad. I could feel your glance penetrating me like one of my own fingers. But have you ever played? Do you know the rules?”
“You just taught me. All of you … by how you played,” Lloyd answered.
“Posh!” declared the gambler.
“Would you care to bet your winnings to find out?”
St. Ives smiled. There was something about this child, preternatural and unnerving—and yet engaging, too. “I like your manner, lad. Always up the ante.”
At this point a burly steward with great muttonchop sideburns barged into the drawing room and jabbed a muscular digit into the gambler’s chest.
“See here, charlatan. And don’t think of taking a swipe at me with that fancy stump. I don’t like your kind. Gambling is only allowed when it’s honest and aboveboard.”
With that the steward reached out and seized a wad of the notes that still remained on the table.
“Is that your commission for overseeing the play?” St. Ives jibed.
“That’s the price a cheater pays.”
“He didn’t cheat,” Lloyd piped up behind the man. “I was watching.”
The steward withdrew his finger from St. Ives’s chest and whirled around.
“What are you?” he demanded, noticing the boy for the first time. “His hired monkey? A poker table is no place for young’uns. Get along with you! Or I’ll throw you to the bilge rats, you little shit.”
“I don’t know if the captain would be pleased to know you’re taking that money,” Lloyd returned without moving. “He might want some of it himself.”
A spark of anger and resentment flared across the steward’s face, mingled with a flush of surprise that someone so young could be both so astute and so matter-of-fact. But the boat’s whistle blew just then and some other passengers waltzed by, so that he became flustered and chucked the money back on the table and stomped out.
“Well, Monkey,” St. Ives said, grinning. “What a good team we make, eh? Here. Here’s your share. Rightfully earned and, from the look of you, rather needed.”
St. Ives swiped the notes the steward had returned to the table and stuffed them into the boy’s eager hands.
“If you are the savant you appear to be, who knows what we could achieve?” the gambler mused. “As partners.”
“Equal partners?” Lloyd inquired. “That’s the only kind of partnership I think works.”
“Right you are.” St. Ives smiled. “There’s wisdom in you, too.”
And so their little conspiracy began.
There was a sign in the dining saloon that St. Ives enjoyed. It read, IF YOU NEED TO CARRY LARGE SUMS OF MONEY, WEAR A MONEY BELT. AVOID GAMES OF CHANCE ON RIVERBOATS. Thanks to the gambler, Lloyd made a new friend and had something to look forward to other than reading his uncle’s letter yet again. He also made some much needed money. His parents were glad to have a little privacy, as their intimate life had suffered in recent times, and so let the boy wander the boat at will. Lloyd, meanwhile, was careful to keep the banknotes he accumulated for helping St. Ives hidden from his parents.
The Sitturds’ stateroom was in a sorry state, six feet square with crimson moth-eaten curtains, a narrow slat bed, and a mothball-scented dresser, but it was considerably more luxurious than the bales and boxes the deck passengers were forced to share with animals ranging from horses to chickens, all sheltering among the walls of crates they arranged, and all scrambling for space as cargo and passengers came and went and the manure was scooped.