The kid’s throw was like a slow dance. He held the dice at the end of his fingers and his straight thumb, like the long beak of a bird. From the wrist, his hand swung back, then swept up again as his arm straightened.
In a flow, his fingers sprang open, the red and blue dice arced through the air and time stood still. I should have taken my money out. I should have hedged. At least half of my stack should have been protected.
Tiny shots of liquid electricity marbled through me in cold pulses. This is why he does it, I realized, This is why Daddy comes back again and again. I could see it. I felt it. The charge was heady and strong like a metallic spark. It was dizzying and delicious. I licked my lips to moisten them but my tongue was dry and tasted metallic.
I understood then what it meant when people said, Hold your nerve. I gripped my fists and dug my nails into my palms to keep cool and to stay light, to keep my mind clear. To resist the pull of the charm. The ready explosion of a win was only half of it. The lure of the loss, the yawning, unbroken plunge was a thrill too.
The vivid red and blue of the dice rolled in the air, a slow ballet. They hit the table just over the pass line and bounced up to the back wall in two soft, rolling glides.
The shiny cubes stopped at the same time right in front of me and my breath stopped. High fives and shouts went all around the table. I watched the croupier’s smile in a daze as he shoved the pile of chips to me.
I looked down at two threes. He made it. I shook. A hundred and sixty dollars. It was nowhere near what I needed, but it was more than ten times what I brought in less than ten minutes ago.
I didn’t protect the winnings, I let them all ride on ‘Pass.’ For three more rolls I was in a calm, detached space. I watched unmoved as the kid rolled an eight, then eleven. My stack on the table doubled after each roll.
One more, I told myself. My heart stopped as the dice hit the table in a blur, bounced up to curve off the table’s back wall and then slid across the baize. Five white dots showed on the red dice. Two on the blue.
It felt as though the room itself groaned. My knees sagged. Seven. A light buzz of dizzying panic flooded me. In slo-mo the five stopped its slide. The dice showing two slowed as it slid right in front of me and my heart pounded. Seven. I blew it.
Sound faded away from my hearing and I felt disconnected from my body, like it didn’t belong to me, like I was operating it through a screen. I watched the die with the two as it slid to a stop. Slowly, like it was moving through sand it fell, flopped over. Another five.
I stood, open mouthed and mute as the croupier slid the chips towards me. There was noise all around me but I didn’t hear a thing. The shooter punched the air and he was beaming at me but I was somewhere else. I scooped up the stack of chips and I tossed two blue ones back to the croupier like I did this all the time.
I turned and began to walk away in a daze. As I turned, the shouts faded away completely. My mind was still calculating the win. Recounting. The chips I took away from the pit were worth just south of twelve hundred bucks. And now I saw the glamor. The thick, acrid air seemed to curl and part ahead of me.
“Hey,” in the distance I heard him, “Wait!” coming nearer. Behind him the sounds of the players, the bettors as they called him back. The boy. I had forgotten about the boy.
Chapter 3
HE HAD A LOW voice, not what I expected, and it carried a soft accent that I couldn’t place. “You brought me luck,” he told me. Maybe I was hyper-sensitive but the warmth of his breath on the side of my neck made me want to hug him. He said, “Let me buy you a drink.”
We drifted together to the bar and perched on stools. I wanted the fire of a bourbon, but I knew that I couldn’t take the risk. Risk is what casino games are all about. Assessing risk and managing risk, and I was very inexperienced.
I asked him for a Mexican beer. He ordered a Mohito from the quiet barkeeper.
“I’m Joel.” The shooter’s smile radiated as he raised his glass to me.
“Good throws, Joel, it’s nice to meet you,” I wasn’t grounded enough for conversation but I was trying anyway. “It looks like you’ve been practicing.”
“I’m trying to get an arm. I don’t think craps is going to be my thing, though.” His voice was comforting. Clean. I felt that I could get relaxed with him. Any other time but now.
As we talked, a heavy-set man in a shiny suit with a lot of gold strode up to the bar.
“Miss?” he spoke smoothly to me with a warm, businesslike confidence, His expression was open, but I watched him warily.
“Miss, I’m Hemming Garland. I’d like to give you some vouchers for drinks,” he looked at the drinks in front of us, “Oh, sorry I wasn’t in time to get these.” I looked at Joel. “Still, next round is on the house, okay, and the one after.”
The man drew some paper slips from his pocket and slid them across the bar top with a bright smile. “The house would like to offer you a suite for the night, if you would like it. Valid for thirty days so, if you have plans for tonight, you can always come back another evening.” Hemming slid a plastic card to her with the Copper River Lounge logo on.
He smiled again, put his hands on our backs like a preacher, or an uncle. “You have a great evening now.”
Joel and I snickered to each other as he left.
“Hemming?” Joel said.
“Handsome man,” I said, still watching the back of Hemming’s suit.
“Mm,” Joel sounded enthusiastic. I considered him in a new light.
Brushing the thoughts aside I said, “Still, comps. Yay. I wouldn’t expect it here.”
“Ooh,” said Joel, “You got all the terminology, don’t you,” as I sipped my beer from the chilled glass.
I said, “What a shame he wasn’t here in time to buy these drinks.”
“Really,” said Joel with a grin. “Because he wouldn’t want us to get drunk now would he?”
I asked him, “How come he comped me and not you?”
“I think he’s seen me here before. Knows I’ll probably be back.”
“Is that the idea, to make you come back?”
Joel said, “It’s to make you think you’re doing the right thing and you should do it more.”
I said, “Like, I can always come back another evening?”
“Yeah,” we both laughed, “You have to admit, he has a way of making this dump sound like the Ritz Plaza.”
I said, “I wonder what a suite here looks like.”
We were both quiet for a moment. I was wondering very much what a suite might look like. What it might look like with me in it. And Joel, maybe. In the shower, perhaps. Other places perhaps on a rug – I wondered if they would have rugs.
From the look in his eye, I wanted to believe that Joel was wondering something similar. Still, why would he? He was a good-looking guy and he didn’t seem fucked up at all.
Joel was maybe a year or two older than me. He looked at me over his glass and I was reminded of the guy who’d watched me from this same bar as I came in.
When he said, “Want to get into some more trouble?” I nearly jumped at him. This was definitely my night for holding my emotions in check. Not moving too soon. He went on, “I think I’m good for a few more rolls.” His eyes sparkled. I was a little crushed. But my mind wouldn’t stop picturing him. Rolling.
I tightened my lips. Either way, either kind of rolling would work for me. I wanted it very much but tonight was not the night.
I gathered up my purse as I told him, “Sorry. I have to do something and it’s going to take me at least an hour or two.” I thought about how much I had made. And about how very much more I needed.
I didn’t think I could do it all in one night, but the progress I had made – from fifteen bucks to almost a hundred times that in less than an hour. I couldn’t afford to stop now. Not while I had momentum.
“Could be I’ll wait,” he said, “I can play some more, maybe hang around.” He beamed brightly. His puppy-dog eyes
had a dazed look of wonder, spurred at least in part from his run of luck. I tried to guess how much he carried away from the table. A couple of thou at least.
Thinking about that made me realize that he had come after me while his luck was still running. Was he really that dumb, or might he be very smart? He didn’t look all that smart right then, but that wasn’t surprising. As Daddy would say, he was ‘in the glow.’
I told him, “I really don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“That’s okay,” the disappointment in his voice made my heart thump and I tingled right down to my pelvis. He said, “I understand. Let me give you my cellphone number, okay? Then… well, you know. It’s up to you.”
It was hard to leave his smiling face. I felt him watched me cross the floor. Or maybe I imagined it.
Chapter 4
I FOUND MY WAY to a poker room. Small and dark, the room was apart from the main casino floor. Five sullen men hunched sat and watched me enter. Three seats were vacant, but I stood against the back wall. Only one player, a big man with wiry ginger hair and a thick mustache, flicked a glance over his shades at me. It was not a welcoming glance.
The dealer, a smart, black-haired woman with dark skin, slender hands and high, wide cheekbones didn’t acknowledge me. Light in the room was low, even lower than the main room. Three of the players wore shades. The jangle from the slots outside was muffled.
Two players had cards face down in front of them and four of the five community cards were face up. One to go. A pair of jacks was showing, plus a four and a nine.
I watched each of the players. Of the two with cards, one sat behind the tallest chip stack at the table. He had the look of a well-dressed construction worker with a rough, reddish complexion and a black leather suit jacket. He seemed relaxed and he did not wear shades.
The other was slight with thinning gray hair. His big, mirror shades would have looked right on a biker in a TV show, or on ‘man-playing-executive’ in a porn video. His stack was the lowest at the table.
Only one of the other players looked like he might know what he was doing. He was a small, nervy younger man. Unruly black hair, sharp green eyes and a college-boy look. The chips at his elbow were the second highest pile.
When the dealer waved her hand over the table to check that all the bets were done and she turned the last card, the river, it was a ten. The man with the black leather jacket turned his two cards to show a jack and a two.
He won on a pure bluff, the thought jumped into my head. When he bet on his jack, it was all that he had. ‘You don’t play the cards, you play the man,’ Daddy said.
The gray-haired man threw in his cards without showing them and stood to leave. He could have been carrying a pair of aces, or a pair of kings through that whole hand, I thought. Dangerous game.
The ginger-haired man directed his voice at me. His tone was neutral, neither hostile nor friendly. “Sit in or leave.”
I looked around the table for where to sit and I checked the position of the white button. It determined who made the compulsory ‘blind’ bets and it was due to move to the college boy in the coming deal.
If I take place to his left, I figured, I’ll need to push twenty-five dollars in for my first deal. I thought, If I sit to his right, I won’t be compelled to make a bet for the next three hands, but then I’ll have to chip in fifty. It’ll cost me less to pony up straight away. And it looks like a ballsier entrance.
I dropped two tens and a five into the center of the table, then took the chair to his left. The ginger-haired man with the mustache was an empty seat away to my left, and he scowled as he pushed in his fifty dollars afterwards. The dealer slid two cards to everyone.
I lifted the edges of a red three and a black eight. With resignation I thought, I’ll fold these. But I’ll be on the end of the first betting round, so I held back to watch.
Left of the ginger mustache and the first to speak was an unkempt dark-haired biker with shades and, now, the smallest stack of chips. Immediately he pushed in all of his chips and stood. His fingertips rested on the table. All in. Dumb bluff, I thought.
My thighs shook as I thought, I could have a chance at this table. I’m not the dumbest player here.
The player to his left folded. The college boy didn’t look up but straightaway folded next. My choice was to fold or to match the biker’s bet and see him to the end of the hand. I was sure he had nothing, but there were five cards to go. Anything could happen.
And if ginger went in too, the stakes would be huge. The odds were a mess and there was no scope for any kind of play. Reluctantly, I folded. Either the biker takes the blinds, or he and the other guy sweat it out until the river card.
Either way, I thought, I can learn something about my opponents. And one of them may well leave. Pity, I thought, That will make it one less deal before I have to pony up again.
I was sure I made the right choice. Still my palms were damp and tingling and my heart thumped. If I’m this nervous just folding, how am I going to react when I get a playable hand?
Ginger mustache didn’t take the bait, so the biker scooped the pot and stayed in and nobody got to see his cards.
My chips were precious, so I played them and my cards carefully. My nerves jangled. My aim was to play a quiet game. Spend as little as I could in the games I wasn’t going to win, steal one pot, maybe two if it went well, and get out of there. The men at the table stayed tight-lipped between hands, and barely spoke during play.
The college boy took two of the next four hands. Ginger took one, but it was a big pot. His lead was growing. The next pot went up to about four hundred and fifty, and the biker and the quiet man split it with pairs of fours.
On the next hand the college boy got three tens and he took a big piece of ginger’s stack.
All of my cards were drab and my position was bad on every hand. On the sixth deal, I pulled up the corners of the cards and saw a pair of queens.
I made the minimum bets and I was sure that my signs of nerves were no greater or less then before. When the flop put out a queen and two nines, I didn’t raise. I didn’t want any attention.
All three of the men stayed in the hand for the turn card, which was a king. The college-boy quietly raised. My hands shook as I matched his bet. More than half of my bankroll was in play. If he has a pair of kings, I thought, I’m dead.
Ginger re-raised and the biker folded. The quiet man on his left did the same.
College boy went all in. I couldn’t match his stack, so I would have had to put all of my remaining five hundred dollars all in, too. That or fold and lose half of what I had won. Just two hundred dollars was protected in my purse.
I trembled as I stood and shoved in all of my precious chips. Ginger mustache had enough chips to match the college-boy’s stack. He looked at his cards, then he looked a long time at me. Then he studied the college boy.
HE could have the pair of kings. College boy could be betting on a pair of nines. I had to hold on to the back of my chair for support. My breath labored and my chest pounded. As my knuckles whitened on the chair back, ginger shoved in eighteen hundred dollars to match college boy.
The college boy turned his cards over. Two nines. When I flipped my cards, he made the first sound I’d heard from him.
“Awwwww, maaaan!” it was an agonizing whine. I heard it only distantly. My concentration was on watching Ginger. His face was impassive as he turned over a queen and a king.
The last card, the river had still to be turned. If it were a king it would give him the pot. The dealer waited for just a moment and I watched her eyes as she relished the drama. One full house in play, and possibly two. One with queens and one with kings.
Laurent: Devil's Hand – A reverse harem MC romance (Steel Riders Book 4) Page 2
