JACK OF DIAMONDS

Chap 3 - Pt 3 (WHILE PARTNERS WON AND PARTNERS LOST...)

iii

Artie could feel the rage coming over him, just as it had that first time he went over the top. It wasn’t something he’d call hatred—it’s hard to hate someone you don’t really know—but more of a kill or be killed mentality one used in order to survive. There wasn’t much hope of surviving once you climbed out over the top and into a hail of bullets—it was just blind luck that you weren't killed—so once you actually encountered the enemy, you did anything you had to in order to make it to the end of the day. He remembered once beating a man’s face to a bloody pulp with his rifle butt; another time bayonetting three men; clubbing a man to death once he'd ran out of bullets. He didn’t know if it was the sight of blood, or the scent of it, or even the sound of his fists hitting flesh and breaking bones, but he revelled in it.

“Stop it! You’re killing him!” Jenny cried out, jumping up off the bed. She picked up a heavy feather pillow, swinging it with all her strength.

Artie fell over—caught off guard—looking up at her, and then looking down at Roger.

“He was going to rape you,” he said, as if that should’ve be explanation enough; it was the only thing he could think to say under the circumstances. She wouldn’t understand the rage that had come over him, no one would, except maybe Reggie, but he wasn’t here, was he?

Maybe Roger would understood?

He sat back on his haunches, listening to Roger's laboured breathing before rolling over and crawling away, only to lean his back against the bed frame, wondering what sort of man he had become. He looked down at the bloody pulp that had been Roger’s face. Roger’s eyes were swollen shut; his nose was broken, as well as his left cheekbone. His lips were split open and raw, a broken tooth visible through the top lip.

“What makes you think it wasn’t what I wanted?” she asked, tossing the pillow back on the bed and looking down at her beaten husband.

“My God, you’re a strange woman,” Artie said with a shake of his head. “No woman wants to be raped; no woman pretends to want it, either—not purposely, anyway. Believe me, I saw it plenty of times during the war,” he said, taking his gloves off and seeing a cigarette laying on the floor. His hands were shaking, and lighting it proved a chore.

“He’s my husband,” Jenny said, kneeling down beside him, not knowing where to put her hands; she looked at Artie leaning against the bed.

“You're a bastard.”

“You said he was in London,” Artie declared, trying not to think about the past. He remembered how rape had been used as a weapon.

“It looks like he came here to surprise me, doesn’t it?” she said with a sneer. “Ha-ha, big surprise! You know nothing,” she added, tears spilling from grey eyes strangely luminescent in the soft moonlight coming through the open French doors; glistening like tiny dew drops on a flower’s petals, they slowly spilled down her cheeks.

Artie looked at her in disbelief.

“Well, you’re not wrong about that. I certainly know nothing about you, except that from everything you’ve told me, you made it sound as if you don’t love him. You said he was in London with his mistress. My guess is you wanted to use me to get back at him—that was the implication. Excuse me if I’m wrong. Either way, that didn’t work out the way you planned. Because he came home. He didn’t phone to tell you he wasn’t coming home, because he wasn’t planning to stay in London in the first place. It was an assumption on your part. He probably doesn’t even have a mistress. And why would he? He’s not rich. Again, you thought he was seeing a mistress. So you’re right when you say I know nothing about, what? Women? By that, do you mean women in general, or just you?” he asked, looking at his studded gloves and wiping the bloody knuckles on the carpeted floor.

“You make a lot of assumptions.” Her voice sounded deep, and throaty, sounding muffled in the close confines of the room. Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked at Artie.

“Is he…?”

She steeled her nerves as she sat down on the bed, looking at the unmoving Roger.

“Is he dead?”

“He’ll live,” Artie said, moving his back against the bed frame; something was jabbing into his shoulder blade and making him uncomfortable. “He’ll be a little banged up, but for the most part, he won’t remember what happened. You can say anything you want to as far as an explanation goes.”

“What if I were to tell him the truth?” she asked.


“What part of the truth?”

“What if I tell the Constabulary that Roger was beaten by an intruder bent on robbing the house? And Roger fought him off valiantly, but the man was younger, lighter, faster, and caught him unawares; there was little my husband could do.”

“A proper martyr to the Upper Class Englishman,” Artie said with the trace of a sneer.

“He’s hardly Upper Class.”

“He’s not dirt poor, either,” he said, a little too quickly.

She looked at him, startled at his response.

He knew there was little he could do to prevent himself from saying what he’d said. A man marrying into this kind of opulence doesn't even get a foot in the door if he’s poor, he thought. Someone like Reggie isn’t going to be invited in for afternoon tea.

But he needed her.

The more he thought about her telling him who had the grandest treasures, who the most jewels, the more he thought about what he could sell to London’s wealthy clientele. He did enjoy the London lifestyle though, even if he wasn’t as successful there as he was tonight. As the last born child of a third rate Lord, he could pass himself of as anything out in the country. As long as he knew the latest trends and fashions in London, life in the countryside would be a breeze.

“And when are you planning to call the Constabulary?” he asked.

“Immediately.”

“This changes nothing between us,” he said, standing up after a moment.

“What?” she said in disbelief.

“We’re partners,” Artie said. “Remember?”

“And if I renege?” she said flatly.

“You can’t.”

“Perhaps you did not hear me?” she repeated.

“I heard you.” He was looking at her in disbelief. “You can’t renege on a deal like this;that's not how it works. Not when you fellate the man you’ve made the deal with,” he tried explaining. “It’s a little more than just a simple handshake.”

“Yes. I understand. All the same, I renege.”

She turned on him quickly. “It was never part of the deal that you would beat my husband half to death.”

“The same husband who’s at your feet, whom you’ve made no effort to help, or comfort? Is that the husband you mean?”

“He’s not conscious.” She looked down, saying it with a certain hardness: “What would you have me do? He could be dead for all I know.”

Artie looked at him and saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

“He’s breathing.”

“And you expect me to…what? I’m not a nurse,” she said, turning to pick up the phone. She picked up the ear piece and rapped on the hook a few times, trying to get the operator’s attention.

“Put it down,” Artie said with some degree of restraint. She could hear the hardness in his voice; see it in his eyes. His body was tense, and she could see his fists twist and contract with every pulse of breath.

She hung the phone up.

“This is what’s going to happen. You will phone the Constabulary, but not until I tell you to. When you do, you'll tell them a thief has broken into the house and beaten your husband. You’ll need a doctor. You have to insist they send you a doctor. You’re afraid he may die.”

“Is he?”

It was only natural that she question him.

“No. I’m going to leave, but I’m taking a horse when I do. I’ll make it easy for you.You can tell them you saw me riding east—do you know your east from west?”

“Of course I do!” She was definitely offended.

“I’ll bring the horse back tomorrow. I expect there’ll be a reward for its return?”

“A reward?”

“For the horse?”

“You want me to pay you for the return of my horse?”

“I didn’t say I was taking your horse; I said I was taking a horse.”

“Why are you taking a horse?”

“Because I told my partner, who’s outside waiting for me, that I’d only be an hour. Any longer than that, and he was to contact the local Constabulary.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“No. I expect you to honour our deal. When I come back tomorrow, I expect to be welcomed into your home by your mother. How old is she, by the way? I wonder how happily in love she really is with your father? Do you think she has a man hidden away somewhere—your mother? A certain Footman she keeps at her beck and call? If not, she might be averse to servicing the needs of a young thief who may hold her captive in her room one night. Do you think she’d give herself freely, or would I have to threaten her? I wonder.”

“You said you did not like rapers.”

“I did. But like you, I also lied.”

“You will never be allowed in this house,” she said. “I’ll see to it.”

“We’ll see what happens when I arrive with the horse first thing in the morning.”