Thick black smoke billowed into the cool blue afternoon air as the paddle steamer 'Wilton Weaver' eased slowly away from the old wooden jetty at Broadloom Weft.
   At the gaming table, Rogue Tuft threw his carpet bag on the floor and slid onto a Chesterfield. “Double down on a blackjack and face-up the red queen to an ace on deuces.”
   “I’ll cover that bet,” said Desiree Desire, self-proclaimed Madam of the riverboat queens. She inclined her head, eyes smiling with arrogance.
   Rogue looked up with contempt. “I don’t need no rent lady bailing for me. If my mung’s not good enough I’ll wager my bet at another table.”
   “Cool your ’tude,” said the dealer, passing Rogue three new cards and a cube of best chewing hemp. “My table’s open to any who can pay their distance.”
   Rogue’s unflinching steel-blue eyes studied the cards in his hand; his rugged features perfectly concealing the exhilaration he felt at holding a bouncing black flush with red jacks on the side. It was a win-win hand that would pay his way to the end of the river. He followed the dealer's advice and played it cool. “I’ll raise a thirty and pass to the left.”
   Berber Bob raised an eyebrow. “Sunlike you t’ fol’ on a wager s’weasy, Rogue. Y’am trine t’ be bluffen me? Should’n ever bluff de bluffer.”
   “And never talk with your cards open,” sneered Rogue and reached for his Williamson.
   “Easy, boys,” suggested the barkeep, waving a splattergun towards the green baize. “I wouldn’t want to send none of you fellas for no crocodile bath iffen you’s fulla holes.”
   Rogue reached for the wedge pile at the centre of the table. “Then I believe I’ll just take my winnings and take my leave, gentlemen.”
   “Not so fast,” said Desiree Desire and clubbed him across the back of the head with a leather slogger.

   When Rogue awoke he found himself manacled and chained to an old wrought iron four-poster bedstead surrounded by unshaven rent runners in matching pink dresses. He knew instinctively that his pockets were empty and his holsters bare. With no guns (and no mung with which to pay for his release), Rogue was at the mercy of the riverboat’s lady-boys. The game had been a double bluff and now it was his cards on the table. He knew he would have to think on his feet; no easy task when anchored to a queen-size bedstead.
   “Okay, laydeez. Keep your pistols in your pockets and we’ll talk business. Will you take an IOU?”
   Andy-Mandy stepped forward (at 6'2" he was the tallest rent runner that Rogue had come across). “Sorry honeybunch, but we don’t do IOU’s. Besides, your biro’s red and your pencil out of lead.”
   “How about a cheque?” enquired Rogue hopefully, but deep down he knew he was clutching at straws and drawing shorts.
   “We’ll take a cheek, maybe two. No hard feelings.”
   “That’s easy for you to say,” replied Rogue and wriggled against his bonds. The noise of frilly lace underwear hitting the floor was deafening.

   Several days had passed before Rogue found the strength to crawl from his bed; and a further week before he was able to walk upright in a straight line. By day he searched the now deserted paddle wheeler determined to find the rent runner who had shattered his ankles, while by night he sat on the main deck listening to the sound of the river being churned by the steamboat’s enormous blades. Yet the further up river the old boat took him the more slowly days seemed to pass. He wondered if time might be catching up on itself.
   One evening at sunset, as Rogue stood on the portside walkway looking out across the vast expanse of crystal clear blue water, a blanket of thick fog descended unexpectedly to envelop the old steamer. So dense was the fog that Rogue could barely see, yet still the boat chugged along, moving steadily upriver. And then, from out of the fog, he heard a cry.
   “Ahoy there.”
   Rogue looked long and hard at an image of sorrow that appeared in a patch of clear air to port. Seven men, a woman and a young girl, huddled together in a battered lifeboat barely big enough to hold them. Yet as he studied the forlorn castaways, Rogue realised they were merely shadows in the shape of men.
   “Ahoy there. We are adrift without direction, can you aid us?”
   “How came you here?” asked Rogue.
   “I’m Captain Edward John Smith and this is my Chief Officer, Henry Wilde. Our liner was in collision with an iceberg. She sank. It was her maiden voyage.” Captain Smith smiled wanly, and then indicated another of the dejected seafarers. “This is Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife and their young daughter. They were forced to abandon their ship during bad weather. As for the rest… all that we know is that they are submariners. Germans and Russians, we gather. However, as not one of them can speak English we have been unable to ascertain what became of their vessels.”
   One of the submariners stood up and saluted. "Comrade Vladimir Bagriantsev," he said stiffly, and then, as one, the castaways began to sigh and groan.
   Rogue looked on as the tiny lifeboat disappeared back into the fog. And then he heard a shout.
   “Ahoy there. We are adrift without direction, can you aid us?” It was the same voice; the voice of a tiny lifeboat full of phantoms, and Rogue wondered who else they could have stumbled upon out there in the fog.
   A sudden whoosh of steam was accompanied by the sound of grinding metal as, without warning, the steamboat ran aground. Rogue jumped into the shallows and began to wade ashore.
   And then, as abruptly as it had descended, the veil of fog lifted.
   Rogue looked out across the expanse of parched earth; the sun was high with no breeze to cool the air and, save for a green-painted door that stood in an old oak frame, the landscape appeared barren. Rogue reached for the brass handle and turned it anticlockwise. The door creaked open on ancient rusted hinges.
   With increasing trepidation, he stepped through.

   “Ah, Mr Tuft, how very good of you to join us,” purred the exquisitely dressed buxom bottle-blonde who sat at the head of the baize-covered table. “My name is Abilene Zylon, Mistress of The Casino. Please do take a seat and I’ll introduce you to your fellow players.”
   Warily, Rogue eased himself onto a saddle chair and scanned slowly around the room.
   “To your immediate left,” continued Mistress Zylon, drawing Rogue’s attention back to the gaming table, “is Bogart Humphrey, the Queen of Africa.”
   “Nice dress,” said Rogue and offered Mr Humphrey a friendly smile.
   Bogart’s expression was one of ire. He uttered an outraged grunt. “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter,” he replied and took a sip from his glass of raw eggs and Worcester sauce.
   Abilene Zylon made an airy gesture. “Oh don’t mind Mr Humphrey, he’s just upset that Sam won’t play his favourite song. I’ve told him that the Pianola is out of tune but he’s having none of it.”
   “It played for you, it could play for me! . . . If you can stand it, I can! Play it!”
   “Oh please, Bogart, stop being so petulant,” said Miss Zylon sternly and fixed him with a censorious eye. “And anyway, Sam’s off playing backgammon and you know how he so hates to be disturbed.”
   Bogart Humphrey coughed and lowered his gaze.
   “You mentioned a game,” said Rogue.
   “There’ll be plenty of time for that later, Mister Tuft. Now, to your right is Woody Alan. Unfortunately the mists of time have had rather a curious affect on poor Mister Alan’s biological makeup. Haven’t they, sweetie.”
   “I’m not a puppet; I’m a real three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian and playwright.”
   “Yes, and I’m certain that you will be again, dear,” said Abilene Zylon and patted Woody’s hand reassuringly.
   “Are you going to come up and see me, later,” asked the one time satirical comic actor.
   “No, my Love. Once was enough. I still have the splinters, you know!”
   “The game?” insisted Rogue.
   “There remains one more player I have yet to introduce,” declared Miss Zylon sternly. She paused for effect.
   Rogue knew that the hostess expected him to react to her authoritarian manner but he remained silent, determined not to satisfy her.
   Abilene Zylon shrugged elegantly. “To your far left is Dean Martini, the lil’ ol’ whining drinker.”
   “It wasn’t me, Abi, it was you. Remember? That night you came down to my dressing room and said: ‘Kid, this ain’t your night’. You remember that?” whined Martini. “And what did I get? A one way ticket to Palookaville.”
   “I was assured by the travel agent that Palookaville was quite nice at that time of the year,” replied Abilene Zylon smoothly. She let out a mordant chuckle. “What’s the matter, Martini; you still feeling hard done by? I had some bets down for ya. You saw some money.”
   “You don’t understand,” continued Martini emphatically. “I could have had a glass; I could have been a bartender!”
   “I’ve heard quite enough of this childish nonsense,” scolded the Mistress of The Game and turned to face Rogue. “Do you play craps, Mister Tuft?”
   “I’ve had a few off days, I’ll admit, but on the whole I’m a dab hand at sharking.”
   “Then roll the dice, Mr Tuft. Let us see if Mademoiselle Luck is smiling on you.”
   “I bet he shoots snakes eyes,” whined Martini.
   “Play it,” groaned Bogart Humphrey and handed Rogue two dice. “You know how to blow, don’t you?”
   Rogue scooped up the cubes and made a fist. He kissed his knuckles then pursed his lips and blew. “I’m hustling for a pull numan,” he said and threw the purple dice across the baize.
   “I’m not a puppet, I’m a real -”
   There were two loud bangs and Woody Alan slumped headfirst onto the gaming table with a hole between his gloss-painted eyes. The dice had been loaded!
   Abilene Zylon smiled. “Very impressive, Mister Tuft - mere moments at the table and you’ve already eliminated an opponent. You have the makings of a quite formidable player.”
   A disgusted shudder ran through Rogue’s frame. “But I… it was an accident, I didn’t -”
   The hostess gathered up the pair of smoking dice and passed them to Bogart Humphrey. “Don’t fret over poor Woody, Mister Tuft. In his current condition he’s quite resilient, you know. Why, only last week he lost a whole leg in a loan shark incident. We had to have him fitted with a prosthetic! Not that he noticed, of course. One wooden leg is much the same as another. Although it has left him with a bit of a limp, the poor love. No, you mark my words, Mister Tuft, a touch of wood filler and a lick of paint and Mister Alan will be as good as new.”
   Placing her parasol under her left arm, Abilene Zylon lit a long yellow cigarette. “Tell me, Mister Tuft, how is it that you came to arrive here?”
   “Where, exactly, is here?”
   “Some call it the void, others the abyss. Some even refer to this place as… limbo. We could be at the end of time or the very beginning; I’m not certain that I can give you the answer you deserve, Mister Tuft.”
   “Then who can?”
   “The House Captain; he runs the whole shebang,” replied Abilene Zylon and made an expansive gesture.
   Rogue stared at her without faltering. “And how do I get to meet this Captain?”
   “Isn’t it obvious, Mister Tuft? You play the tables. You play them as if your very life depended upon it.”
   “And does it?” asked Rogue, fixing her with an intense, quizzical stare.
   Abilene Zylon averted her eyes. “You still haven’t told me how you came to arrive here, Mister Tuft.”
   “It’s a long story, one I’m not certain you’d believe.”
   “Try me, Mister Tuft. You’ll find me very receptive.”
   “I’m from East Napahoma, a wrangling cardsharp by trade. I was on a gaming boat, a paddle steamer, trying to win my passage to the end of the line. From there I hoped to -”
   “Tell me, Mister Tuft, was the Captain a mouse with an annoying tendency to whistle inane tunes?”
   “Yes! But how could you know that?” asked Rogue suspiciously.
   “Trust me, Mister Tuft; it all fits in with the great scheme of things. Willy’s steamboat has brung a fair few hustlers to my tables. Now, if you’d care to follow me I’ll give you a tour of the establishment. You might care to sample a few hands.”
   “I’d like nothing better, but I’m all out of mung.”
   “Mung?” enquired Abilene Zylon raising an eyebrow.
   “Moolah, Foldaroll… Spondooliks.”
   “Don’t be silly, Mister Tuft. By eliminating Woody you inherited his stash. His cash, too.”
   “I’m not a man who’s prone to acts of violence, Miss Abilene. I prefer to win my money fair and square-pants,” replied Rogue and turned his back on the table to gaze in awe around the gaming hall. A substantial and exquisitely decorated room lit by incandescent gas mantels, the hall measured in excess of ninety feet in both length and breadth, its walls clad in reclaimed timber that still bore the scars of a long since eradicated woodworm infestation. The four corners were occupied by enormous oak figureheads carved into Minotaur heads, while cut into the walls were wide archways through which Rogue could see yet more baize-covered tables crowded by eclectic groups of elegantly dressed players. In the high fan-vaulted ceilings, mammoth four-bladed fans rotated slowly behind mesh frames, lending a cool breeze to the charged atmosphere of the gaming hall. Rogue pondered the maze of rooms, trying to form a mental image as to the size and shape of the casino.
   “Our tables offer the best action a wager can exploit,” said Abilene Zylon. “Cambodian Poker, Stud Cribbage, Two-handed Octopi, Happy Families - have you a preference, Mister Tuft? We even have a room set aside for fifty-two card pickup should you wish to indulge in the intricacies of that particular game.”
   “I can turn my pot to most things, Miss Zylon, but when push comes down I’m partial to a game of Brag.”
   “Oh dear! You boys. You just never seem happy with what you’re born with! I expect that being a wrangler you’ll no doubt feel the need to partake in a stimulating game of Buckaroo Banzai?”
   “No, not really. In all honesty I find it a tad fiddly. However, I play a mean game of Italian rules Kerplunk.”
   “Ah, and so we return to Brag!”
   “You’ve got me all wrong, Miss Abilene. I’m an honourable man, I just speak as I find.”
   “Then I can only hope that you may soon find yourself a romantic novel, Mister Tuft. I’m a Southern belle. Where I come from a lady needs a-wooing not a-shoeing!”
   As Rogue raised his palms in a placatory gesture and made to apologise, from one of the adjoining rooms came a cry of exultation followed moments later by guttural curses. All the indications were that another player had gambled a moody.
   “Ah, here we are, the backgammon table,” said Abilene Zylon. “Do you play, Mister Tuft?”
   “Backgammon? No! I prefer Ouija.”
   “WEEGIE! De ah hair yi coll us a WEEGIE?”
   Abilene Zylon ran her fingers through the receding hairline of a smartly dressed Scot. “Mister Tuft said Ouija, dear.”
   “Ah sees tae im, nivva stir ma drink. Et’s sheken, mon… sheken! But e dusnae lissen dus ’e, so’s… och, tha’s awe a need! Ah kin smell gas! Ken yi smell gas?”
   “You’ll have to excuse Mister Canary, he’s not playing with a full deck,” said Abilene Zylon.
   “Who’s he talking to?” asked Rogue.
   “Letters of the alphabet, Mister Tuft. However, you must pay him no heed. He’s quite harmless.”
   “Pay m’ nae heid ez et? Well lemmy tell yi, yi ken pay attention, blonde. Like R telt im, straight doon, yi dinna ivir stir ma drenk. Nivva!”
   “It’s bottle-blonde, Mister Canary, and then only to my friends,” said Abilene Zylon and gestured towards a chair. “Take a seat, Mister Tuft. It will pay you dividends if you get to know some of your fellow players.”
   Canary grunted suddenly and held out a hand to Rogue “Aye, tek a seat. Iss a gran wee pairty, eh buddy. But if yi dinnae ken the score, yi’ll nivir mek it. Wass yi’r nem pal?”
   “The names Tuft, Rogue Tuft.”
   “Huv a drenk pal, eh? Ah’m Shorn, bah th’ wae… Shorn Canary.”
   Throwing a handful of dull bronze coins onto the hammered-nickel salver of a passing waitress, Rogue helped himself to a fluted crystal glass full of yellow liquid. Gingerly, he placed the glass on the baize in front of him then cupped his hands around its slender body as caressing some eager young virgin lover.
   Canary’s backgammon opponent licked his lips. “May I try some of your tasty beverage?”
   “Hell no!” exclaimed Rogue, noticing extraordinary eagerness in the man’s expression. “You’re holdin’ foldin’ - go get your own eggnog.”
   With her ample bronzed bosom threatening to spill from the front of her red satin bodice, Abilene Zylon leaned forward to whisper in Rogue’s ear. “You’ll have to excuse Mister Jackson; he just likes trying to break people’s concentration.”
    “But I’m not playing.”
    “I don’t believe that Mister Jackson gives a pony!”
   “There’s such a lot of guns around, but so few brains!” muttered Sam Jackson.
   “What's the matter? You sound like a man who’s not seen a gun before?” sneered Rogue. He noticed that the toggle on Sam Jackson’s bootlace tie was a solid platinum Minter double-plus. Mysterious!
   Sam Jackson sneered back. “Hah! Somebody's always giving me guns.”
   “Then I suggest that you save them for the tables, Mister Jackson,” said Abilene Zylon with a mocking tone to her voice. “Come along, Mister Tuft, it’s time we took our leave of this particular game.”
   Rogue swallowed a mouthful of his drink and slid the glass in the direction of Jackson. He stood up. “There you go, Sammy. Have a couple of units on me.”
   Abilene Zylon placed a gentle hand upon Rogue’s left arm. “Onwards to the roulette tables, Mister Tuft, where your gambling will begin in earnest.”
   Rogue could still hear the raised voices of Jackson and Canary as the hostess led him across the marble floor of the gaming hall.
   “No bad, no bad. Another fifty in ma pocket and I’m away hame tae ma scratch.”
   “I dare you to say ‘what’ to me, Daddyshagger.”
   “Another wydo, eh? But see, if ye gets too wide it’ll be ma law ahm tell’n yi. Ah’ll split yir hied open. R yi listenin tae ays?”
   “I double dare you to say ‘what’ to me, Brotherlover.”
   Passing through a wide archway into an adjoining room, Rogue paused to reconnoitre. The new gaming room contained four roulette tables and a stage decked out in the style of a Leiber-Strasse vaudeville show; complete with missing wheels and authentic Indian arrows. From the colour of the feathers, Rogue surmised they were either Cheyenne or Madrasi in origin; it wasn’t that easy to tell them apart and Rogue was no expert.
   Abilene Zylon placed her hand in the crook of Rogue’s left arm and led him to the table nearest the stage. “Let me introduce you to your fellow players, Mister Tuft. This is Mister Harrison Fjord, son of Harrison Fjordson the renowned Dutch tomb raider.”
   “Howdy,” said the unshaven leather-clad explorer. His silver-grey hair hung lank about his rounded shoulders, eyes deep sunk and dark.
   “Fjordson! Isn’t that an Icelandic name?” asked Rogue suspiciously.
   “Not in Tahomaville, it ain’t.”
   “Oh, I’m -”
   “Don’t trouble yourself, bub. It’s an easy mistake to make,” suggested Fjord.
   “At the far end of the table we have Robin Sherwood,” said Abilene Zylon, gesturing towards a bearded middle-aged gentleman who was in the process of stealing markers from Harrison Fjord's stack; the Dutchman being momentarily distracted from his chips while shaking Rogue’s hand.
   “Good day to you, fine sir,” said Sherwood. “Mum’s the word, aye.”
   “Over here is Emperor P-Penguin,” continued the hostess, smiling politely as she indicated a gaunt looking individual with a monocle placed to his right eye and an impossibly long cigarette holder protruding from the corner of his thin lips.
   Rogue studied the bony almost bird-like features of a man whose clothes were worn so thin as to be almost invisible. “Nice tails,” he said, by way of polite conversation. Yet the man remained silent, taking care to reveal nothing of his emotions through facial expressions and thus damage his chance to bluff on a loser.
   Seemingly indifferent to the cold shoulder offered by the taciturn Emperor P-Penguin, Abilene Zylon moved swiftly around the table and came to rest behind a ruggedly hansom olive-skinned gentlemen. She placed her hands upon his broad shoulders. “Let me formally introduce you to our friend from the Middle East. This is mister Michel Demitri Calhoun Omaha Sheriff.”
   Rogue nodded a hello. “That’s a mighty long name you’ve got there, Mister Sheriff.”
   “I am renowned for my length,” replied the Gyptian and feigned a smile. “My close associates call me The Tin Man; on account of I wear this badge with my title engraved upon it.”
   Rogue stared hard at the badge, a frown furrowing his brow. “Your tin star says you’re a Marshal, Mister Sheriff.”
   “Well now, how do you like that!” exclaimed Omaha Sheriff. He shifted uneasily in his seat. “It appears that I have received a promotion and yet no one has taken the trouble to inform me.”
   Abilene Zylon lifted her right hand from the shoulder of Sheriff and gestured towards another player. “And finally this is Mister Sinatra, a former Mafiosi with the infamous Rat-packs of Holly Wood.”
   Immaculately attired in a white tux and glittering silver bowtie, Mister Sinatra looked up at Rogue and smiled a cool smile. “My name is Nancy, how do you do?”
   “How do I do what?” questioned Rogue.
   “You’d better not let Sam Jackson hear you say that.”
   “Say what?”
   “Precisely,” replied Sinatra. “Pull up a pew, pard.”
   Nonplussed by his short exchange with Sinatra, Rogue pulled back a chair and made to sit down.
   “Careful there pard, you almost sat on Tom!”
   “Tom?”
   “Tom Thumb Mapother the Fifth. Although fare’s fair, he’s easily missed,” said Nancy Sinatra.
   “Show me the money,” squealed a young player who sat no more than two-feet tall.
   “It’s on the table in front of you, Mister Mapother,” said Abilene Zylon with a tone of voice that hinted at irritation.
   “I can’t see it, I can’t see it! Show me the money, show me the money.”
   “If you’ll just display a little patience I’ll have someone bring you a cushion to sit on. Would that help you?” asked the hostess.
   “Show me the money.”
   “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Please, take a seat, Mister Tuft. I’ll just go and organise a highchair for Mister Mapother.”
   Sinatra extended his right arm across the table to shake hands with Rogue. “Ciao, pard. My friends call me Frank.”
   “And are you?”
   “Darned straight,” replied Sinatra passionately. “In fact, let me tell ya somethin’ I ain’t never not told no man, livin’ nor dead. When my dear old pappy was lyin’ a-dyin’ on his death bed he done says to me: ‘Son, this world is rough an’ if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough. But I won’t be there to help ya along the ways on account of I’m gonna be dead, so’s I went an’ give ya a sissy name because I knew you'd have to get tough or die. It's a name that’ll help to make you strong, Nancy boy’.”
   Sinatra paused and downed two fingers of redeye to rein in his runaway emotions. “Now this might sound mighty strange, Mister Tuft, but as I looked down at my pappy I felt a tear slide down my cheek. I cried at the words my pappy done spoke. Then I done shot the no good lousy son of a bitch between the eyes.”
   “Rough justice!” suggested Rogue.
   “Rough justice indeed, my friend. But ho, ho, ho, I got the last laugh! My dear ol’ pappy use t’ say that it’s a mighty rough road that we all must walk. Course, ’e ain’t walkin’ it no more. Tell me, Mister Tuft, are your boots made for walking, Mister Tuft? Because either you do it my way or it’s the highway.”
   Abruptly, the monotone voice of a compère erupted from large brass trumpets that hung at regularly spaced intervals across the ceiling. “Ladeeez and Gen-tle-men, please offer up a show of enthusiasm for the star of tonight’s show… the very wonderful, the very beautiful, the very hermaphroditical… Charles Monroe.”
   A somewhat lacklustre round of applause was promptly followed by fervent catcalls as a stunningly attractive brunette appeared from behind the red velvet drape to the left of the stage. The coach driver commenced the ceremonial whipping of the four stuffed horses and the young starlet clambered onto the flat roof of the diligence; accepting the microphone proffered to her by the shotgun messenger. As the four piece string ensemble played a jaunty Hispanic reel, Miss Monroe’s dulcet baritone voice filled the gaming room.