The Irish Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee

Author:Rebecca Hagan Lee [Lee, Rebecca Hagan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781943505906
Publisher: Teresa Medeiros

CHAPTER 19

“If possible, honestly, if not, somehow, make money.”

—Horace, 65-8 B.C.

* * *

“Last call, gents.” At five minutes to closing, Jack strolled into the Grand Salon at the Silken Angel with a bottle of Reserve Glenaonghais Scots whisky, six glasses, and two cash boxes on his tray. Their guests from the California Cattlemen’s Association had already gone staggering on their way, leaving only the five regular poker players at their usual table.

As Jack approached, the men finished their hand, clearly anticipating Jack’s announcement that he had summoned a cab to carry them home. After their last celebratory drink, of course.

Littleton claimed the pot and began raking the cash toward him.

“Hold up a minute, Joel.” Jack set the bottle on the table and began filling the glasses. “We need to talk about your winnings.”

“What about my winnings?” Littleton said, sparing the other players a grin and a wink.

Jack distributed the glasses of whisky, keeping one for himself. “We have a problem.”

Taking note of Jack’s grim expression, Littleton sat up straighter in his chair, his own smile fading. “What’s going on, Jack?”

Jack let out a deep sigh. “I’ve spent the past half hour going around to the other poker tables, checking the winnings before closing time. And now I’m here to check yours.”

McNamara scowled at Jack. “You’ve never checked our winnings before.”

“I’ve never had to before,” Jack replied.

“What’s this?” Royce chuckled. “A new city saloon ordinance?”

“You must have missed that one, Ed,” Amos Dennison shot back.

“Impossible,” Royce replied. “I haven’t missed a board meeting in four years.”

Ed Royce served on the Board of City Supervisors. If there was a new city ordinance about saloons, he would know about it.

“He didn’t miss an ordinance,” Jack told them. “The reason I’m checking the poker winnings tonight has more in common with a bank than with a saloon.”

Owner of two branches of the California Farmers and Merchants Bank, Royce sat up straighter in his chair. “What are we talking about, Jack?”

Reaching into the pile of Littleton’s winnings, Jack separated the gold and silver from the currency. Pushing the coins toward Littleton, Jack began sorting the bills into stacks of denominations. The lower denominations were all legitimate legal tender. Every denomination below the fifty-dollar notes had been issued by the U.S. Treasury, but everything over that included suspect bills, with the hundred-dollar-bills being the most suspect.

Jack didn’t see them very often any more, except in large cash transactions to and from banks, securities brokers, and the U.S. mints, but his work at Craig Capital and Pinkerton had made him very familiar with legal notes of the highest denominations—five-thousand and ten-thousand, up to a hundred thousand and the lesser, five-hundred-dollar and one-thousand-dollar notes, that regularly appeared as part of the stakes on the table when the five regular poker players played. Jack picked up a fifty-dollar bill and a hundred-dollar note and handed them to Royce. “Feel any difference?”

Royce had begun his working life as a teller. He had worked his way up to the ownership of the bank through hard work and shrewd investments.

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