As far as Dan went, Mason had been completely right. After the raise that had been made, Dan folded up his tent and was out of the hand. Since Mason wasn’t absolutely certain that Jervis or Maggie would raise, it was up to him to do the honors. The only question was . . . how much?
Now that the number of players still in the hand had been trimmed down a bit, Mason didn’t want to scare away any potential contributors to the pot he intended to win. Too big a raise could very well take a bite out of his own profit.
Too small a raise would let the others off the hook. For a gambler, anything that took money from his pocket was intolerable.
“Raise,” Mason said after one last moment to think it over. “Five hundred.”
Jervis had clearly made some sort of hand, because he stared at his cards as if they were speaking to him. It was also possible that he was simply aching to play. After all, he hadn’t been in the game for as long as everyone else and was most likely just getting his feet wet. That was the time when any gambler wanted to keep rolling. If he didn’t have something worth playing, he would have been more than happy to dump his cards already. Eventually he shrugged and put the money in.
Maggie, on the other hand, didn’t have such a dilemma. She’d reached a decision, but it had nothing to do with her cards. “I’m out. In fact,” she added while getting to her feet, “I’m going to get some fresh air.” She left the table, walked past the overmen, and made a straight line toward the closest door.
“Five hundred, is it?” Greeley asked in a voice that wasn’t nearly as distracted as it had been the last time he’d used it. “What did you catch, Abner?”
“One good way to find out,” Mason replied.
“Eh, I’m not all that interested in seeing them cards.”
Inside, Mason clenched. Even after his consideration, he still could have overplayed his hand.
“I’ll just take it down right here,” Greeley continued. “That is, unless you care to pay three thousand to put me to the test?”
Not only was Mason no longer clenching his guts into a twist, but he was back to trying not to look overjoyed when he reached for his money. He’d laid out the bear trap, and the biggest grizzly of them all had stumbled right in. It wasn’t smart to poke the grizzly with a stick, but there was no way in hell he was going to let it out of the trap.
“Make it eight thousand,” Mason said in what would surely drive the other man to the hills.
“Twenty.”
“Twenty thousand?”
Greeley nodded.
Mason was back to clenching.
His first instinct was that Greeley was posturing. He had to have still been stinging from taking the loss from Dan. Even though he’d played it off like the benevolent host and gone away to let off some steam with a few of his girls.
All those hours, Mason had been studying Greeley, using every observational instinct he’d honed during his years of sitting at poker tables across the country. He’d picked up on more than a few signs that Greeley was trying to represent a hand instead of actually having one. Greeley had been distracted before and was too proud to admit as much now by laying down his cards.
Instead of admitting he’d been outplayed again, Greeley meant to buy the pot. It was not only a common tactic used by rich men, but was also one that annoyed Mason the most. Rather than rely on skill or even dumb luck, a rich man could crawl into the bottom of his wallet and hide like a coward in the dark. Mason, along with any other gambler on the circuit, had lost hands to men like that simply because the player in front of him had a better family name or a bigger inheritance. They could afford to put a man’s livelihood at stake just to save face. And once again, rich men got what they wanted simply because they threw enough money in a certain direction.
“I call,” Mason said through gritted teeth.
Greeley leaned back in his chair, looking to Mason like just another rich man trying to play the part of emperor. “You sure you want to do that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Do you have enough to cover a bet like that?”
“No offense, but we’ve already gone through all this before,” Mason said. “Are you honestly going to bring the game to a stop every time someone makes a big bet?”
“I’m just making sure you can back that mouth of yours,” Greeley said.
“Don’t you worry about my mouth.”
Leaning forward, Greeley placed one set of fingertips on the table as if he was making a spider with his hand. “If you can’t back up your bet,” he said in a low voice that sounded more like a rake being dragged across dry slate, “there’ll be consequences.”
“You don’t have to teach me the rules of this game, Cam. You made a bet and I’m calling it. Right now you’re the one who needs to back yourself up.”
“You’re sure?”
“Tell you what,” Mason said. “Let’s just play the game and take it from there. Isn’t that why we’re here, after all?”
Greeley leaned back again. “You’re right. On all counts, you’re absolutely right. You called my bet, that’s part of the game, and the game is why we’re here. What have you got?”
Strictly speaking, Greeley was the one who needed to show first. At that point, however, Mason was glad to put an end to the matter before he let his temper get the better of him by saying something he might regret. He turned over his cards, spread them for all to see, and said, “Straight to the eight.”
Everything Mason had put together in his mind thus far told him he had Greeley beat.
Everything Mason had observed told him that Greeley was in a prime position to be steered into a trap. All that was needed was a hand big enough to do the job, and a straight was pretty big.
Everything Mason had put together and observed was proven wrong the instant Greeley showed his hand.
“Flush,” Greeley said coolly. “King high.”
The clench Mason felt at that moment was worse than all the previous ones combined.
Much, much worse.