Cold Hearted by James Hunter

Author:James Hunter [Hunter, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press, Inc.
Published: 2015-05-21T23:00:00+00:00

TWENTY:

Dangerous Game

Ferraro sat at our table by the stairs, back to the wall while keeping her eyes on me and one hand cautiously close to her waistband. But I didn’t let the situation get the best of me. I was actually having a pretty good time, considering I was being held hostage at gunpoint while a scale-covered human-viper played a game of cards and got crazy drunk. Believe it or not, this was actually kind of par for the course, I felt on familiar ground here. Even though I’ve been a lot of different things over the years—Marine, mage, fix-it man—at my heart, my core, I’m just a rambling, gambling bluesman.

So I smoked cigarettes and played tune after tune, “The Piano Man” followed by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps,” then on to the Allman Brothers Band’s “Ramblin’ Man,” trailed by Memphis Slim’s “Let the Good Times Roll Creole.” Saloon-goers bought me cheap beer by the bucket and dropped tips into an old copper bowl, which sat next to me on the piano bench. I took requests, as any proper Song-Slinger would, and hammered out tunes on the black and whites while belting out the songs amidst the hubbub of the room: glasses clinking, the scrape of chairs on wooden floors, rough laughter, and coarse shouts, followed, occasionally, by a gunshot or two.

No one else died though, and despite Fast Hand Steve’s earlier threats and posturing, he seemed more than content to go back to his table and his drink once I’d played his request.

He still kept an eye on me though, taking long, calculating glances over every time I stopped for a break or needed to grab a drink. He’d smelled my power, even through the sickness raging in me—and I had the distinct impression that he’d never completely bought my changeling story. I could practically see the doubt in him.

But those glances were coming fewer and fewer as the hours stretched on and the night grew late.

The more he drank—shit, the more everyone drank—the less I seemed to draw eyes. All to the good. Something I’ve learned from all my years of gambling is this: sometimes, it’s best to play real conservative, so that when it’s time to make your big play, folks don’t even see it coming.

My time was getting close, but it wasn’t quite right, not yet. If I just held out a little longer, played a little harder, let those fools drink themselves into a stupor—or into liver failure—I’d be that much better off when it was time to go. Another ten or fifteen minutes and I could probably slide away under the guise of taking a piss, grab Ferraro, and just slip right out the back with no one the wiser. With the crew being as drunk as they were, no one would probably notice until the next morning.

So I pounded out “The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash, and killed more time. Patient as a mouse, hunkered down, waiting for the pesky cat to lose interest.

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