The Great West Detective Agency by Jackson Lowry Page B

sharp.
    He smiled as the gambler shot him a black look. The deal went down and Lucas folded. It didn’t surprise him that the card cheat also folded what might otherwise have been a big pot for both of them. Lucas paid no attention as the gambler shoved his chair back and left. This only gave him a better view of the stage as Carmela finished her last performance of the night. Little Otto stood beside the stage, looking up at her. Lucas thought she might have given him a big, knowing wink but her act included come-ons for about everyone in her audience.
    She turned, kicked up her skirts, and then dashed offstage laughing.
    â€œWhy not admit she’s not interested in you, not the way I am?” Claudette whispered in his ear, then followed the words with her darting tongue.
    A thrill of expectation passed through Lucas. He needed to romance Claudette to restore some measure of his confidence, and it would be easy enough since she was already willing. But his mind kept wandering, not to Carmela but to Amanda Baldridge. The mystery of why she came to a detective agency to find the dog gnawed at him. She had continued the hunt herself, but was Dunbar part of the searchers she had enlisted? A man like Dunbar couldn’t be used that easily, and somehow Lucas doubted Amanda had gone to him rather than the other way around. She was a lovely woman, and batting her long eyelashes certainly set a red-blooded man’s heart racing a bit faster, but Jubal Dunbar valued power. Was he also a man who indulged in a woman’s charms outside marriage?
    â€œWhat do you know of Jubal Dunbar’s wife?” Lucas looked back over his shoulder, his lips close to Claudette’s.
    â€œWho’s that?”
    Claudette’s question was sharper than he’d expected.
    â€œYou fooling around with her because you can’t get Carmela?”
    â€œNothing of the sort, my dear,” he said. Claudette backed away from him. At the table the remaining players grew restive since he was interrupting their inexorable loss. “I wondered if he had a wife and cheated on her.”
    â€œYou have business with him?” The pretty waiter girl looked at the others at the table. “Is he one of them?”
    â€œNo, not at all. Forget it. You’re the light of my life and all that matters to me.”
    â€œLiar,” she said, slapping him on the shoulder. “But I like it. Don’t stop lying to me. Nobody else ever tries to sweet-talk me.”
    â€œTheir loss, my gain.”
    â€œYou gonna play? If not, let somebody else get into the chair.”
    Lucas turned to the players, nodded solemnly, then raked in his winnings. He had done what he could here. The gambler who left might return since the men remaining hadn’t realized what had happened. Both professionals had lost, after all.
    â€œMay luck be with you, gentlemen.” He stuffed the chips and greenbacks into his coat pocket and pushed back.
    â€œI can’t just go off with you now, Lucas,” Claudette said. “Lefty keeps me here till the cows come home.”
    â€œHe’s sweet on you.”
    â€œLefty? Don’t joke, Lucas. He doesn’t like anyone or anything but making money.”
    Pointing out the sour look the barkeep gave him wouldn’t convince Claudette of such a romantic connection. He looked at the empty stage and wondered how the world worked in such a strange fashion. He had put Little Otto and Carmela together, even as he wanted the singer for himself. Claudette ignored Lefty’s obvious glances while hanging on to Lucas’s arm as they made their way through the crowded Emerald City. Everyone sought another’s arms and ignored what was at hand. It made no sense.
    And what of Amanda Baldridge? Did she share Dunbar’s bed to find her dog? Only, from everything he heard, piecing together all that happened and Little Otto’s snippets of rumor, the dog belonged to someone else. Amanda