Death Plays Poker (14 page)

NOAH

Noah watched Tiffany smoking outside the casino. She looked peaceful, leaning against a streetlamp in the moonlight. It could be a scene from a musical, complete with grubby passers-by and the four-story parking garage behind her.

He wasn’t sure why he was nervous to approach her. Noah could afford the twenty grand if he lost his bet with Joe. Bert might grumble, but as long as Noah handed him cash at the end of all this, he could justify blowing some in the name of the cause.

He glanced again at Tiffany. Why would some spoiled twenty-three-year-old stress him out like this? It made no sense, so Noah made his approach.

“You’re well connected, aren’t you?” he said from a few feet away.

“What do you mean?” Tiffany blew smoke into the space between them.

It had been a crappy pick-up line. But since he couldn’t think of a smooth way to save it, Noah went with the charming buffoon theme. “I saw you out here with Mickey Mills earlier. I wanted to come over and say hi, but I was intimidated.”

“By me or by Mickey?”

The real Noah would walk away at that point and come back when he was more in control, if ever. But as Nate, he felt emboldened to be honest. “I guess I just think you’re really hot.”

Tiffany snorted. “Is that supposed to be pathetically endearing?”

“Come on. You think I’m hot, too.” Shit. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say. Noah cringed internally as he waited for her reaction.

“Oh really?” Tiffany’s eyebrows arched. She seemed more amused than pissed off, which was good.

“Yeah,” Noah said. “And you would love to come for a drink with me.”

“No thanks.”

“What?” Noah was surprised how casually she’d turned him down.

“I said no thanks. I hate arrogant men. Which is a shame, because you’re cute. Very cute, actually; I love short hair when it’s shaggy.”

Noah grinned. “You’re right. I was arrogant. I’m nervous. I really like you. Would you like to have a drink with me?”

“No thanks.”

“So how did Mickey get you to go to bed with him?” Ouch. He’d taken it too far. Noah wanted to kick himself.

“I’m not sleeping with Mickey.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re too good for us poker players.” Maybe he should walk away and let Joe win the stupid bet. Noah seemed to be messing this up anew with each word he spoke.

Tiffany wrinkled her face. “I’m not too good for anyone. But I’m not going to randomly screw old men . . . or arrogant ones.”

“Okay,” Noah said. “I get it. My opening line was crap and my recovery has been even worse. But I like you — I like what I see, and I even like the superior bitch in you.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

“Can I ask you out one more time?”

“No.” But now a grin tugged at her face. “Well, maybe you can give it a shot. I’ll probably say no, but I’m interested in what your third approach might be.”

“Hi, I’m Nate. I’m a bit of a babbling idiot when I see a girl I like, but underneath I’m kind — a bit insecure even — and I respect women as full decision-making people. And I’m not an arrogant asshole, despite the reasonable conclusion you could draw from our conversation up to this point. Would you like to come for a drink with me?”

Tiffany kept leaning on the streetlamp like it was the most comfortable position in the world. She ashed her cigarette. “No thanks.”

“Why not? I thought that last one was pretty good.”

“It was all about you.”

“Do you not drink?” Noah’s insides screamed,
Walk away!
But his feet weren’t moving anywhere. “Maybe you’d like to go for coffee.”

“I drink plenty. If I said I didn’t want to have sex, would you think I was a lesbian?”

“Joe Mangan thinks you’re a lesbian. He said you want to fuck his girlfriend.”

“His fantasy. Not mine.” Tiffany tossed her smoke to the ground and started walking toward the cab line.

Noah followed her. “Listen, one more time for real. I think you’re really cool, I think you have an original take on life, and I’d love to keep this conversation going over a drink.”

Tiffany stopped walking. “That was pretty good.”

For fuck’s sake, finally. Noah waited for her to say more; he was afraid to speak in case he wrecked it again.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s have a drink.”

CLARE

The night was freezing cold, but Clare had a deliciously soft fur-lined leather jacket, and she was still in love with how fresh the air smelled in Vancouver. They were on the patio of the Elephant & Castle at the Delta hotel, by the river. In this city you couldn’t even smoke on patios, but the waitress was turning a blind eye. The fact that Nate smoked was a point in his favor. But why was Clare giving him points? She had Kevin at home. This was business.

“So . . . New York,” Clare said. “What’s it like there?”

“That’s a massive question.” Nate drained his beer and motioned to the waitress for two more. “Have you ever been?”

“No.” Clare hadn’t, but why wouldn’t Tiffany have been to Manhattan at some point in her privileged life? She took a stab: “Too dirty and dangerous.”

“Please. New York was rough in the eighties, but it’s been cleaned up since. Anyway, what’s wrong with dirty and dangerous?” Nate grinned wickedly.

How had Clare even contemplated accepting a date with Joe Mangan when the Marlboro Man himself had sent his younger, hotter incarnation to her side? Still, she was Tiffany: she had to play hard to get. “Is that how you see yourself? I’d pegged you for tortured and misunderstood.”

“Why did you agree to drinks with me again?”

“Beats a lonely hotel room.” Clare shrugged. “I had no idea how boring this poker tour was going to be.”

“I’m sorry you find us so dull.” Nate yawned, stretched, and pretended to consult his watch as he leaned back in his chair. “You have a boyfriend back home? Or do you scare them all off with that sweet disposition?”

“They scare me off,” Clare said. “With their sheltered stupidity.”

“So a dirty dangerous New Yorker might be just your type.”

“Might be.” Clare felt her cover character all but slip away. “You want to do a shot of Jack?”

“Rich girls don’t do Jack.”

“Because you’ve met every single rich girl.”

“I’ve met enough.”

“So don’t do a shot with me; pigeonhole me, instead.” Clare looked up at the waitress, who was back with their second round. “We’ll have two shots. One Jack, one . . . what should I have, Nate? What do rich girls drink?”

Nate was still leaning back in his exaggerated bored pose. “Do you have a shot called Sarcastic Prima Donna?”

The waitress shook her head. “What’s in that?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll have two Jack Daniel’s.”

“So let me guess,” Clare said when the waitress had gone back inside. “Your father’s a writer — no, an artist — and your mom supports him by waiting on tables.”

“You could not be farther from the truth.”

“So what’s the truth?”

Nate took a sip of beer. Clare wasn’t sure if he was buying time, but his eyes were wandering everywhere. “My father’s a doctor. My mom does nothing.”

“You’re such a chauvinist. You mean your mom looks after the house and meals, and you consider that nothing.”

“I mean she does nothing.” Nate’s brow lowered and his eyes met Clare’s hard. “She has a cleaner come in once a week and the rest of the time the apartment’s a pigsty. If she cooks, it’s take-out from Zabar’s, but more often they go out or order Chinese. She has one hobby: watching daytime talk shows.”

“I’m sorry.” Clare meant it.

“Yeah, just be careful who you pigeonhole.”

GEORGE

George highlighted three paragraphs and pressed Delete as hard as he could. His index finger hurt for a couple of seconds, but whatever. His crap writing wasn’t what was tugging at his conscience.

He’d been a jerk at dinner. He wished there was a pill that could erase the foolish way he felt. Not some drug that made him stupid for an hour, but something that would boost him permanently, give him confidence he didn’t have.

He’d always been his own worst enemy. He couldn’t go to a party or any social gathering without later hating himself for saying something he was sure made him look like a ridiculous asshole. But tonight he was right to be down on himself. He and Fiona were supposed to have moved on — it was supposed to be a friendship without strings. George should be mature enough to maintain that. It wasn’t like he was some lovesick fool in his twenties, which was how he was acting.

He closed his computer file. Wine and negative emotion, despite the folklore, went nowhere toward producing good writing. They might help words flow, but the words would invariably be sloppy, and they would need to be ripped up later.

There was a knock on the door and George jumped. He managed a smile — his first in several hours — when he remembered that life wasn’t quite so dark outside his murderous pages. Yeah, people were dying. But not every knock on a hotel room door was a death knell.

He put his eye to the peephole and opened the door immediately.

It was Fiona. Shaking. “My room was broken into.”

“Just now?” He ushered her inside.

“Of course just now. If it had happened before, I would have mentioned it at dinner.” She slumped into the armchair by the window.

“Was anything taken?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything important?”

Fiona nodded. George waited for her to speak. It took several seconds. “Some notes. I’ve been receiving them since Halifax. Since . . .”

George knew what she was telling him. It’s what Mickey had told him already.

“I — can I have a glass of water?”

George went to the bathroom, keeping his eye on Fiona until the wall obscured her. He came back with two waters and sat in the other chair.

“I’ve been . . . God, I can’t even say it.”

“It’s okay,” George said. “Whatever it is, I’ve probably done worse.”

“No, you probably haven’t. I’ve been helping people cheat. The hole cards. During the tournaments.”

“Jesus, Fiona.” George felt too heavy to even reach for his glass of water. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer, but he needed to ask: “Who’s been paying you?”

Fiona shook her head. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I want it to be over. I’d even go to the police if I didn’t think it would get me killed.”

“You’ve been getting paid anonymously?”

“It’s all in the notes. I got the first one in Halifax, a couple of days before the tournament started. They come under my door with instructions. I wouldn’t have even considered cheating if it hadn’t been — but the person must know me pretty well, because the first note said,
Do you want to save your mother’s house?
”

Fiona’s weakness. George knew it; who else did?

“You can’t protect her from everything, Fiona. A lot of people lose their houses — especially in the past few years. She could move to an apartment. You could have helped her with that, with the money you make legitimately.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Yes, George. That’s what I should have done. But it isn’t, okay? My mom worked her ass off to get us all through school. And the bank — it was one of those mortgages where the fine print should be criminal. So I thought I could be Robin Hood. Steal from the hollow selfish poker world and give the money to someone more deserving.”

“You’ve been contributing to that household since your dad left. How old were you? Ten?”

“Eleven. And a paper route and other odd jobs don’t count. All I did was buy my own clothes and pay for the odd school trip. My mother was the one working nights to keep the heat on.”

And breaking down periodically, and not working for months on end while Fiona got her sister’s and brother’s lunches packed. But this wasn’t the time for George to point that out. “I’m guessing the house is now safe from the collectors.”

“She’s paid off the whole mortgage with the money I’ve sent her. Now all this cash I’m getting from the scam is just . . . paper. And there’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way out,” George said, not sure if he believed himself. “Could you leave a note for the guy who’s leaving you notes, asking him for options?”

“He calls himself the Dealer,” Fiona said. “It’s like this is a game to him, so he can show everyone how clever he is.”

“Or how in charge he is. Do you think he’s also rigging the deal somehow?”

Fiona shook her head. “That would be way too complicated.”

George wasn’t sure she was right. Still, he asked, “What would be his motivation to cheat?”

Fiona looked at George like he’d asked if a flush beat a pair. “Pretty sure it’s the money.”

George frowned.

“Money drives everything, George. We can’t all be artists like you and find richness in the life of our soul. For some of us, the material world is all we have.”

“You can find a way back from this, Fiona.” George wondered if that was true. She was already breaking down. If she made her weakness too apparent, this Dealer wouldn’t be able to trust her for much longer. Fiona smiled sadly. “I’m not so sure.”

“I’ll help you. Maybe you should crash with me until this whole thing is resolved.”

“You mean I should sleep here?” Her eyes grew wide. George loved when she looked vulnerable. “You’re not still mad at me from dinner?”

“At
you
? No. Come on. I’ll go with you to your room. We’ll get your stuff.”