Hush (26 page)

Police chief, con man, and extortionist José Fejos was about to deal, but when she didn't go away, he glanced up, deck in hand, fake-startled to see her. “Ah! The American. You are still here?” His tone said
go the hell away.

“
Sí,”
she said with a slight shrug. Where did he think she could go with no money and an incapacitated husband?

“Señora Stark.
Qué sorpresa maravillosa
. How is your husband?”

“Much better, thank you.” She smiled and brushed a tendril of hair back behind one ear in a deliberately feminine gesture. “Asleep, actually. I hope you don't mind me intruding, but I'm so bored I could scream.” The last time she'd been this sweet and girlie was when she'd conned a mother-made school lunch out of Skip Thomson in ninth grade by convincing him that the school bullies had threatened her and stolen hers. He'd had a turkey sandwich, cut-up apples, and a Ding Dong in there, for pity's sake.

She'd even managed a few tears, if she recalled correctly. Poor Skip; he hadn't had a chance. It had gotten
her a mom-made lunch then, and it was going to get her the money she needed to get out of town now.

“No. No. Not at all. This is, after all, a place that people can go, yes?” He glowered at her. He wore the same clothes he'd had on yesterday, and had what looked like the same disgusting, smelly cigar smoldering in the filled ashtray beside him. The tortilla chips beside the ashtray were liberally scattered across the rounded table of his hairy belly.

She suppressed a small shudder. A hairy belly and food should never be thought of in the same sentence. She tried to maintain eye contact. “Hmm.”

“I would not recommend Teo's food,” he warned, close-set eyes shadowed by the bill of his cap. He tap-tap-tapped the deck of cards on the table in an irritated fashion as he talked. “You are better off eating over at the mission.”

No kidding. Eating here would probably give her some deadly intestinal disease. “Thanks for the warning,” she said cheerfully, giving him a beaming, open smile. And waited, looking pointedly at the cards and the poker table. “I'm not hungry, anyway.” She cocked her hip out to one side and smiled shyly.

Police Chief José Fejos looked at her expectantly, lifting the cards in a subtle
we'd like to get on with our game
gesture.

“Oh! Am I interrupting you?” She put a hand to her mouth. “I'm sorry, it's just that I love watching men play cards,” she explained, sliding her fingers casually into the pockets of her khaki pants as if she hadn't a care in the world. “My daddy used to let me stay up once in a while
and watch him and his friends when I was just a little girl. He's been gone eight years now, and I still have great memories; it was such a rare treat to see men who really knew how to play well.”

Chips dropped from his shirt like golden snowflakes as he sighed. She was familiar with that sigh; it wasn't the kind of sound that suggested he thought highly of women in general, and her specifically. “Do you play poker, Señora Stark?”

Acadia laughed softly. “Well, I wouldn't say
play
. It's been so long, I don't really even remember the rules. But I used to enjoy watching. May I …?”

His smarmy smile was almost as repulsive as his fat, hairy body. Oral hygiene was another thing not high on his grooming list. “But we play for money,
querida
, and you are without funds, not so?”

Because you swiped my last twenty, you dishonest, unchivalrous, disgusting pig.

She faked disappointment, then brightened, digging in her back pocket. “I have this. It's real silver.” Placing the chain on the table, she arranged the medallion carefully.

The care wasn't fake. Her father would have enjoyed the hell out of what she was about to do. St. Christopher had better step up to the plate.

Acadia smoothed it with her fingertip. “Is that enough for a round or two?”
Or twenty
. Depending on how fast they decided to take it and send her on her way.

Cigar between two fingers, he picked up the chain on the nail of his pinkie. “This is worth nothing,
señora
. What else you got?”

Thank you so much for asking
. She gave a disappointed sigh. “Nothing here, I'm afraid.” She brightened. “But I have plenty of money back home. I just won the Kansas lottery, you see, just in time for my birthday!” Her smile widened. “Which is today, in fact. So I thought maybe I'd try to see if I could play, to celebrate. But of course, I don't have access to the lottery money here …” She trailed off, leaving the bait lying on the water like her father had taught her.

“You won a lotto?” Fejos's heavy jowls quivered, his piggy eyes bright. “How much?”

Acadia cast a nervous glance to the biker guy and a tremulous, hopeful glance at the old man, and smiled shyly at the bald man, who was all but levitating out of his chair with glee. “I won ten
thousand
dollars,” she told them in a conspiratorial whisper filled with awe and excitement. They'd take her for ten. They'd kill her for five hundred thousand. “Can you believe it? I wish I could get my hands on some of it. But it's the weekend, and besides, there aren't any banks nearby.”

“You give me the bank and numbers and I will take care of everything,” Fejos assured her. More tortilla pieces rained down as he puffed up his already puffed-up chest. “I'd be honored to help you.
Feliz cumpleaños, señora
.”

Happy birthday to her. He wanted to rob her blind.

She opened her eyes wide at his cleverness.
Snap
went the trap. “You
can?
Well, if a girl can't trust the chief of police, who
can
she trust?” She smiled happily. “Just take out … how much do you think, to keep me playing for a couple of hours until my husband wakes up? Maybe five
hundred dollars? No. Make that a thousand.” She made damn sure her smile went all the way to her eyes. “I feel lucky. Okay. Take out a thousand dollars. Oh, this is so exciting! I'll write down my account number for you.

“Do you have—Thank you.” Acadia took the pencil and piece of notepaper they'd been keeping score on, flipped it over, and wrote the bank account number she'd used for her father's medical expenses. Barring any recent bank fees, the balance was still holding at seventeen dollars and eleven cents.

After a brief bit of business with multiple speaking glances among the men, Fejos motioned for the skinny old guy to bring over another chair from one of the nearby tables. Acadia didn't have to guess where she'd be placed. Between Darwin and the rotund police chief, where she'd be on the dealer's left. Which meant she'd have to place the first bet.

“Oh, this is so cool.” She scooted the chair closer to the table, all bright-eyed and eager and as girlie as she could be. “Thanks, guys.”

Darwin's dark, wrinkled face scrunched up into a grin. Lots of teeth there. Big teeth. “¿
Conoce usted el juego de cartas
Texas hold 'em?”

Acadia shook her head, her ponytail, intentionally high and ingénue, bobbing on her shoulder as she gave him a wide-eyed look. “Just tell me the rules. I'll learn as I go.” She turned to give Fejos a self-deprecating smile guaranteed to make him believe her IQ had just dropped another ten points. “I don't want to slow you down or anything. But can you try to not take all my money too
quickly? I'd like to play awhile—at least until my husband wakes up!”

The police chief gave her a spotty recap of the rules, leaving out a few pertinent details. Of course.

If she'd been Dogburt, she would've wagged her tail. Subtly, of course. Just because the cards weren't in her hand yet didn't mean the game didn't begin now. Her poker face came wrapped in an airhead smile.

“I will be generous and lend you twenty American dollars, yes? Ladies first,” Police Chief Fejos told her expansively. Everyone anted up, and he dealt each player two cards. Acadia glanced at her red cards. Not bad. A ten of diamonds and a ten of hearts. A pocket pair.

Fejos ran his thumb over the pile of banknotes in front of him. As her daddy used to say, an obvious tell. He was anxious to bet.
Bring it on.

She could afford to lose several hands before she had to win a little to stay in the game. Three or four hands should be enough to read the men and learn their tells. She'd lose this hand; she frowned at her cards.

“I'm not so sure about these cards.” she asked timidly, clutching them too tightly against her chest. “What do you call it when you don't want to bet?”

José looked up at her. “Tap the table and say ‘check.'”

Acadia awkwardly tapped the table twice as if she wanted a second drink at a bar. “Check!”

The chief threw the equivalent of five dollars into the middle of the table. Darwin and gangster-prisoner Gomez followed and muttered, “Fold.”

Fejos glanced up and looked away. Oh, yes. The slime
bucket had a decent hand, as well. He threw another five dollars into the pot.

Her turn. “I guess I'll call?” She looked up innocently. José dealt the flop and put three cards faceup on the table. King of hearts, queen of spades, and ten of spades. Acadia noted the twitch in his lip and concluded he had either kings or queens in his hand. A pair, unless she was misreading the signs—and she knew she wasn't.

Her heart twinged. God, she missed her father; he and his poker pals would be howling with laughter if they could see her now. Gomez threw the equivalent of ten dollars into the pot.

The chief leaned back in his chair, feigning disinterest while he stroked his stack of bills with his sausage fingers. “I'll see your ten and raise you five.” He took a puff of his cigar and blew out a cloud of smelly smoke.

Acadia turned a cough into a sigh of frustration. “I don't think I should bet this hand.” She threw her cards faceup so that the whole table could see them.

Gomez smiled at the perfectly good three of a kind she'd thrown away and glanced up at Fejos, whose eyebrows rose in surprise. “Next time,
señora
, throw your cards facedown,” he said with irritation.

“Oh! Sorry!” She reached over and flipped the cards over, giving him a sheepish look.

Alberto folded, the openmouthed cobra on his neck looking on a little too realistically, and the chief raked in the first pot. She felt a pang as her St. Christopher medal was swept up into a pile of crumpled banknotes, bits of chip, and cigar ash.

She played several more hands, carefully reading her opponents, noting their barely suppressed excitement. She held on to her very small winnings, feigning surprise and pleasure when she won and frowning with disappointment when she lost.

The chief dealt her a five and a four. Frowning, she shook her head, ponytail bouncing. “How come I keep getting such horrible cards?” Everybody bet a dollar all the way around.

The police chief's pupils dilated in pocket-ace excitement. Oh, she'd seen that look before; he had a decent hand. Too bad she didn't. Crap.

He dealt out three more cards. Acadia's heart raced, and she struggled to look deflated. A ten and a two. Nothing by itself, but matched with the other three twos on the table, she knew she had it. “Check.”

Alberto bet five. Darwin and Gomez both called. The chief called and raised. Acadia just called, knowing she had to look weak. One more card.

An ace.

The police chief draw in a telling breath. He had aces, and everyone else at the table had—Her mind raced, calculating the cards she'd already seen with the probabilities of folded hands—a possible full house.

The four men played each other with bluffs. The pile of money in the center of the table grew and grew.

There was one last community card to be dealt. The fifth card, the river card, make or break. The jack of spades.

Alberto checked.

Darwin checked.

Gomez checked.

The police chief rolled his cigar from one side of his fleshy lips to the other, the saliva shiny on the outside of the tobacco. He could barely contain himself and pushed all-in.

Acadia called without hesitation. But she made sure her eyes were wide and guileless as she did so. Alberto paused and called. Darwin called. Gomez called.

With an innocent look, she asked the chief, “Is it okay if I see your cards?”

His grin smeared from ear to ear as he turned over his aces. “Aces over deuces.
Completo.”
Full house.

Alberto couldn't beat the hand. He folded. Darwin and Gomez folded.

Fejos stared at Acadia, who maintained a serious, if slightly puzzled, expression with some effort. She wanted to punch the air.

“What do you have,
señora?
”

She slowly turned over her ten. “I'm not sure … I think I might've have won?” God, she loved seeing the dawning realization that she'd wiped the floor with all four of them.

Beginner's luck, or skill? They'd never know.

Acadia plucked a stained bill from the pile of cash she pulled closer and set it in front of him gleefully. “What a
fun
birthday. Here's the twenty you fronted me, Chief. Thanks for letting me play!”

His eyes narrowed. “Your other card,
señora
.”

With a wide grin, she flipped over the ten and slammed down the two. “Yes,” she said with a good deal more cheer than maybe she should have, “I do believe I did.” She scooped up the pot and shoved the notes into her pockets. “Thanks, guys, that was really fun! We'll have to do it again. I better go check on my husband now, I bet he's waking up and cranky at being cooped up inside.”

Shoving away from the table, she picked up her St. Christopher medal and dropped the long chain over her head, then strolled past the table.

Apparently old Saint Chris had ducked out for a coffee break. Hard fingers snapped around her wrist. Acadia's heart plummeted into her stomach.