LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t really say, ma’am. Mr. Rafferty just asked me to see if I could find you. One of the members of your group told me you’d gone to your cabin.”

      He wasn’t claiming not to know what the trouble was; he just wasn’t allowed to tell me. That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

      “Who’s this fella Rafferty?”

      “Mr. Rafferty’s the head of security for the Southern Belle.”

      Uh-oh. There went the hope that this was something minor and easily brushed aside. The head of security didn’t get involved unless the problem was an important one.

      We came to a set of fancy double doors with lots of gleaming wood, gilt curlicues, and stained glass. They opened into a foyer with parquet flooring and several windows where pretty girls sat at cash registers. Gamblers bought chips there for the various games and cashed them in when they were done. If they were lucky enough to have any winnings, that is. The unlucky ones just came back and bought more chips.

      On the other side of the foyer was the casino’s main room. It looked just like what you’d see in a Vegas casino, only on a smaller scale. A couple dozen slot machines instead of hundreds. Poker tables, roulette wheels, faro layouts. Garish lighting. Music blaring from concealed speakers. Laughter, smoke, the chunk-chunk-chunk of slot machine wheels turning over, the clicking of the little white ball dancing merrily around the roulette wheel, the occasional whoop of triumph or groan of despair…It was a seductive atmosphere, all right, but it seemed as far removed from the sedate and stately Mississippi as if it had been on the moon.

      The steward nervously touched my arm to guide me across the room. “This way, ma’am.”

      “Where are we going?”

      “The security office, ma’am.”

      That’s what I had figured. Somebody was being detained.

      I hoped they weren’t about to boot whoever it was off the boat.

      The steward took me to a nondescript metal door. The short hallway behind it was strictly functional. It ended at some carpeted stairs that led up to the next deck. At the top of the stairs was a large open area equipped with numerous computers and monitors. A low, almost inaudible hum filled the air. The feeds from all the security cameras on board wound up here, I assumed. None of the men and women sitting at the monitors looked around as the steward took me to another door. He knocked on this one.

      “Come in,” a man called.

      The office on the other side of the door was spacious and comfortably furnished with a big desk, a leather-covered sofa, a plasma TV hanging on the wall, and a window that looked out on the river. Two men waited in the office, one on the sofa, the other behind the desk. Both of them stood up when I came in. The one behind the desk was deliberate about it. The one on the sofa jumped to his feet.

      “Ms. Dickinson,” the one from the sofa said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

      I remembered him from the luncheon in St. Louis earlier that afternoon. “What’s happened here, Mr. Webster?” I asked him.

      His name was Ben Webster. He was in his mid to late twenties, I’d say, with fairly close-cropped dark hair and what seemed to be a perpetually solemn expression. His age and the fact that he was traveling alone made him a little unusual for one of my clients. I get a lot of families and middle-aged and older couples. Not to overgeneralize, but most young men these days aren’t that interested in seeing where Mark Twain or Margaret Mitchell or Tennessee Williams lived and worked.

      Which meant that Ben Webster was probably here for the gambling, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to find him in the casino. I was surprised that he seemed to be in trouble, though. He had seemed like a nice, polite young man in the short time we had talked together at lunch. He even reminded me a little of Luke.

      “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let it pass,” he said now. “That roulette wheel is rigged. I saw the man working it run his finger over the same little mark on the table several times while it was spinning, and then all the big bets lost. There must be a pressure switch of some sort there, or maybe an optical one built into the table.”

      The man behind the desk let Webster get his complaint out without saying anything. But he wore a tolerant smile and shook his head slowly while the young man spoke.

      When Webster was finished, the man stepped out from behind the desk and extended a big hand toward me. “Ms. Dickinson, I’m Logan Rafferty, the head of security for the Southern Belle. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under more pleasant circumstances.”

      Like his hand, which pretty much swallowed mine whole, the rest of Logan Rafferty was big. He was about forty, with a brown brush cut, and although he wore an expensive suit, he looked like he’d be just as much at home working as a bouncer in a roadhouse somewhere. The afternoon sunlight that came in through the window winked on a heavy ring he wore.

      “What seems to be the trouble here, Mr. Rafferty?”

      He inclined his head toward Ben Webster. “As you just heard, a member of your tour group has a complaint about the way the games are run in the casino. I assure you, all our games are conducted in an honest, legitimate manner.” A faint smile appeared on his face. “As you may know, the odds always favor the house to start with. We see no need to tilt them even more.”

      “No offense, but I would think you’d be used to folks complaining when they lose. It’s sort of human nature, after all,” I said.

      “Complaints we don’t mind,” Rafferty said with a shrug of his big shoulders. “We don’t like it when passengers try to slug one of our employees, though.”

      I frowned at Ben Webster. “You didn’t?”

      He hung his head and didn’t say anything.

      I turned back to Rafferty. “I’m sorry,” I began. “I hope there wasn’t too much of a ruckus. I didn’t see any signs of trouble while we were coming through the casino.”

      “No, things got back to normal quickly once the commotion was over,” Rafferty admitted. “And there wasn’t much commotion to start with. My security personnel were on the scene before Mr. Webster here could do any real damage.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said again. “What do we need to do to put this matter behind us?”

      “The man who operates the roulette wheel could press charges, you know.”

      I wasn’t sure what law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the Mississippi River. There was bound to be one, though. I said, “Do we really have to get the law involved in this? I was hopin’ we could sort it out amongst ourselves, you know?”

      “Webster gets off the boat in Hannibal and doesn’t get back aboard.” The words came out of Rafferty’s mouth hard and flat, like there was no room for negotiation. That suited him more. He just wasn’t the affable type, no matter how hard he tried.

      Webster’s head came up. “You can’t do that,” he said. “I paid for a round-trip. And my car’s in St. Louis.”

      “You can rent a car in Hannibal and drive back down to St. Louis,” Rafferty said. “As for what you paid, that’s between you and Ms. Dickinson. But as far as the Southern Belle is concerned, you’re not welcome on board.” He went behind his desk and leaned forward, resting his knuckles on the glass top. “Or I can make a phone call and have the authorities waiting when we dock in Hannibal to take you off the boat.”

      “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” I said. I turned to look at Ben Webster. “Will it?”

      I don’t know if he saw the pleading in my eyes, but after a second he shrugged and said, “No, it won’t be necessary. I’ll leave the boat. It’s not fair, though. That guy really was cheating.”

      Rafferty’s mouth tightened into a thin line. I thought Webster had pushed him too far. But all he said was, “You

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