Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(42)

“He started the night with a fifty-dollar coin,” explains a redheaded man standing beside us. “And now he has more than three thousand dollars.”

“Maybe he should quit while he’s ahead,” I say.

“He should keep going while he’s lucky!” Henry says, exchanging a grin with the redheaded man.

Two hands later, the miner has doubled his money again. On the third hand, the cards fall against him, and he loses everything. A collective groan of disappointment sweeps around the table on his behalf. Several bystanders offer to buy him drinks.

But he looks crushed. He’s a boy barely old enough grow a beard, not even Jefferson’s age. Tears roll down his sunburned cheeks.

Under the nearest table, trapped beneath the shoe of a man who’s doubling down on a losing streak, I sense a small coin, dropped and lost. I bend down to pretend to adjust my boot, focus my energy very carefully, and call the coin.

The coin skitters across the floor and into my hand. But my control isn’t as focused as I would like; on the table, the loser’s stack of gold coins topples over.

I rise and turn to the young boy being consoled by his friends. I press the coin into his hand and say, “So you won’t leave broke tonight. Here’s a second chance.”

His jaw hangs open. I expect, sooner or later, a thank you will emerge.

Instead he spins around and shoulders his way back to the table. “I’m in the game,” he says. “I’m back in the game!”

“That was very kind of you,” says Henry.

The boy sits down and scrubs away the tears with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m not so sure,” I say. “Where’s Hardwick? I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Oh, he’s almost certainly in the private rooms in the back.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because we won’t be able to get in, at least not until much later in the night, when they start to relax the rules. In the meantime, we should just enjoy the entertainment, and if Hardwick leaves, we’ll follow him to the next place.”

“Why can’t we get into the private rooms?” I ask.

“It’s high stakes. You need at least a thousand dollars just to walk through the door.”

When we came into San Francisco, with my saddlebags full of gold, I had thought I was the richest woman in the world. Now my resources are rapidly dwindling before we’ve even put a dent in Hardwick’s enterprises.

But I came here to see him in action. I need to know who he associates with, how he spends his leisure time, figure out what he cares about.

“What if I happened to have twenty gold pieces with me? The fifty-dollar gold pieces.”

He grabs my arm, then promptly lets it go again. “Are you teasing me?”

“Henry, am I a person who teases?”

“But you have a thousand dollars in gold on you?”

Slightly more than a thousand. The weight of it tugs at me, both physically and mentally, from the small purse hung over my shoulder and tucked inside my sweater. “I always carry gold with me now. Jefferson keeps some of my stake. A fair bit is with Peony. Even Mary has some, back in Glory. Never keep all your money in one place, right?”

“True enough.”

“So, where do we go?”

He stares at me, as if torn. I don’t get to ask him what he’s torn between, because he grabs my hand and leads me through the parlor and down a long hallway.

Two men in wool suits stand outside a door: my old friends, Large and Larger.

“There’s a thousand-dollar minimum,” Large says.

“Do I need to count out the coins for you, or will you take my word for it?” I ask.

The two behemoths glance at each other. Finally Large shrugs.

“We can take your word for it,” Larger says.

“Mr. Hardwick thought you might be coming tonight,” Large explains. “Told us to look for you.”

Unease fills me. We didn’t go to huge pains to keep our presence a secret, but even if he had noticed the carriage, how could he have known it was us inside? Maybe someone had spotted me peeking from the window.

Henry and I move to enter, and Larger places one of his huge, meaty hands on Henry’s chest. “But your thousand dollars, we’ll need to see.”

“Mr. Hardwick didn’t say anything about you visiting tonight,” says Large.

Henry’s eyes plead with me for a moment. I’m not carrying enough for both of us, and I doubt Henry has more than one or two coins left. “He doesn’t intend to gamble,” I say. “He’s my associate.”

Larger rolls his eyes. “Nice try.”

My heart sinks. It’s one thing to be brave when you’re with a friend; it’s another thing entirely to do something brave all by yourself. “I’m sorry, Henry.”

He squeezes my hand. “I’ll wait for you in the main parlor.”

My gold sense flutters my stomach as I enter the room. This parlor is much smaller. In one corner is a short bar manned by a single bartender. Even so, there’s a lot more gold in this room. Four tables play host to a number of distinguished-looking gentlemen who are sipping from glass tumblers, smoking fragrant cigars, laughing. Each one has a stack of gold coins at hand.

I feel like a fish in a tree, and everything in me wants to escape. But then I spot Hardwick, sitting at the farthest table from the door. He’s as impeccably dressed as ever, with a gold watch chain swooping across his left breast. His stark-white sideburns are combed flat over gaunt cheeks, and a cigar dangles from thin lips. Helena Russell stands beside him.