The Rich Shall Inherit by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

was, the highs had not been high enough and the lows had been merely boring, and Jeb still craved the ultimate excitement of the big game … the one where a fortune rested on the turn of a card.
    Calling for another drink, he folded his lean height against the wall, watching the poker game in progress. His face was impassive, but inside he was seething with frustrated excitement. He had been playing poker since the age of nine, perfecting the art in the poor shebeens and shabbier taverns of his native land. Now he played on three levels: skill, intuition—and an uncanny abilityto sense the underlying excitement of a man holding good cards. Jeb was a master of the bluff, a connoisseur of character—and a man for whom the game meant more than the money. His only trouble was that right now he didn’t have
enough
money to join this game!
    There was a certain man at the table whose progress Jeb had been following for three nights now—a rancher, up from the hill country near Lompoc. He’d been playing a flashy game, placing large bets and out-bluffing the others, guffawing loudly when he won—which he did most of the time. The sound of his winner’s laugh was a constant irritant, and Jeb ached either to ram a fist into his florid face or to take him on at the tables. He turned away with a shrug; he would do neither. If he wanted to get back into any game around here, he’d have to get hold of some money—and fast.
    He had exactly twenty dollars in his pocket and that didn’t suit his extravagant way of life at all! He grinned ruefully as he remembered the girl who’d stolen his billfold from the hotel room a week ago. He couldn’t blame her—after all, he’d left it lying around on the dresser, stuffed with bank notes. He’d just laughed it off as his stupidity and her good luck, thinking maybe it was a fair price anyway.
    He turned his attention to a young man sitting alone at a table by the window. He was just a boy, really, but he was built like an ox, six feet four or five, with a massive torso and powerful shoulders. A lock of thick straight blond hair fell across his brow and his broad-boned face was clean-shaven. His eyes were of such a pale blue, they seemed to reflect the light, hiding his expression. Jeb could tell he was a foreigner—and not long off the boat. He was all alone and he guessed he had his savings from the old country strapped safely in a money belt around his waist. Sipping a beer, he thought out his plan before going over and taking a seat opposite him. “Jeb Mallory,” he said, offering his hand with a friendly smile.
    The young blond giant shook his hand warily. “Nikolai Konstantinov,” he replied, “from Arkhangelsk.” Just speaking the name of his hometown sent a throb of longing through Nikolai, and he blinked away the surge of emotion that threatened to crack his stoic facade.
    “Arkhangelsk, eh? And where might that be?” inquired Jeb, lighting a thin cheroot and settling comfortably in the high-backed wooden chair.
    “Is in Russia.”
    “Now there’s a place I’ve never been. Tell me boy-o, what’s it like?”
    “Is better than here,” Nikolai sighed, observing the gray fog pressing dankly against the windows of the smoky saloon. He recalled the small, cramped wooden house by the River Dvina that had always felt so cozy on the frozen black nights of Arkhangelsk’s long winter. But he knew he was romanticizing things—there was no security in that house. The Konstantinov family was very poor and that was the reaosn he was here now, in San Francisco. “I am eighteen now and I will seek my fortune like other men,” Nikolai had told his weeping mother as he left, “I’ve read of the gold out there in western Amerika—gold that is waiting for any man strong enough to take it. One day I shall bring all that California gold home to you, Matushka, and you will live like a princess, just the way my father always promised you.”
    “Let me buy you a whiskey,”