A Congregation of Jackals

Chapter 7

“On Thursday, after we . . .” (The women trailed off here, embarrassed, momentarily excited, and then ashamed of that excitement.) They then continued, “On Thursday,”—they leaned close and whispered—“afterwards . . . while we laid intertwined, he said that he was going to send his driver and carriage around to pick me up and take me to Connecticut. He intended to introduce me to his family.”

“What was the name of this man?”

“Dicky.”

Once that name was said, the listeners, the comforting confidants of the disenchanted ladies, began to lose their sympathy. The world of caviar and pearls and diamonds and champagne and dancing gowns and polo fields and Connecticut mansions is not offered to women by a man who was named Dicky.

With kind voices, the listeners asked, “Did you really believe him? Did you truly believe that he could offer all of that to you?”

The women pondered their confidants’ inquiry and realized how silly, how absurd the whole affair was, and soon learned to laugh when they thought of this idyllic fantasy proffered them by a grown man who went by a child’s name. There was also the memory of that Thursday, the women thought as heat suffused their tear-stained cheeks, that secret evening about which their future husbands would never know . . .

Dicky liked to think of that memory as his gift.

The casino was Dicky’s second-favorite place in the world (although he admitted that “wrapped in the arms and legs of a woman” may not be considered a place by some). Casino attendees were inclined toward thoughtless behavior—inspired by the free money that was gained or the hard-earned money that was lost—and there was always an angle to be played on people willing to take risks.

Wearing a finely-tailored brown three-piece suit, a matching top hat inlaid with silk, loafers, a maroon bow tie, and matching gloves, the handsome man strode across the Oriental rugs that protected the burnished wood floor of Callington’s over to a roulette table around which were seated two sweaty, plump men, greed like a weird light in their eyes, and the pretty young woman upon whom he had been focused for the time it took him to c***k the shells of and slowly chew nine rugose walnuts. Though occasionally a pretty lady did wander into the casino alone, the single woman found in such an establishment was most often a daughter who had been dragged out by her folks (and then abandoned) or somebody’s sister who lacked an itinerary of her own and was included as an afterthought. If a fellow brought his wife and did not hate her, she sat near him; if a fellow brought his girlfriend, she sat near him; if a fellow brought both (Dicky had seen that twice in Charlotte), he held his wife’s hand while winking suggestively at the other.

“Would you find it an impropriety for me to sit beside you, madam?” The young woman looked up at him; from this distance he could see that she was just north of twenty and unaccustomed to consorting with strange men. Her mouth was a tiny bit slack—her tongue and upper teeth showed in a way that suggested continual befuddlement—but her eyes were not those of a simpleton, which was good: an unintelligent woman knew that everyone else was smarter than she was and consequently mistrusted people. A smart woman who mistook herself for a genius was far easier game.

“You may sit there,” said the prospect.

Dicky could not yet tell where she was from—he needed to get her to say something more before he could divine her place of origin from her dialect. (This skill he had cultivated in the shops of Park Row and later at bars in Louisville.) He removed his top hat and purposely let it slip from his fingers onto her lap. A nervous woman would have been startled or perhaps exclaimed, but this woman had only blinked and looked at the dropped item.

“I apologize,” he said as his fingers whisked along her thigh and pinched the brim of his fallen hat.

The croupier looked at Dicky and said, “Final wagers please.”

“I’ll sit this one out, Alabama.” (The croupier’s accent was a thick proclamation of his birthplace.)

The pretty young woman beside Dicky rearranged her orange skirt, her dark eyes furtively assessing the handsome man now seated on her left while his cologne invaded her nostrils. The little silver ball hopped and skipped and clicked and leaped as the squares beneath it flickered black and red and black and red and black and red. The porcine fellows leaned toward the spinning wheel as if emanations from their foreheads might alter the sphere’s destiny. The pretty young woman watched, but with less interest. Either she was wealthy or she had not wagered substantially on the spin, presumed Dicky.

The wheel slowed, and after a desperate hop, the roulette ball took up its place of residence in black eleven, changed its mind, and skipped back to red thirty.

As Alabama said, “Red thirty,” the weird light of greed dulled in the eyes of the porcine gentlemen. Dicky looked at the table. The woman had placed her bets upon red and even and was a winner twice over. The croupier stacked progeny upon her half dozen chips and looked at her; with an index finger twice tapping the air, she indicated for him to replace her bet; he nodded. Dicky was about to advise her differently when a hand landed upon his left shoulder so heavily that it raised the opposite one in an inadvertent shrug.

“Your name is Dicky.” This was not a question, but an imprecation. The handsome man recognized the enervated, sullen tone and the loathing that roiled deep within the speaker. This was the voice of a cuckolded man or an outraged father.