by Gina Ardito
The cream-colored walls reverberated with creative energy, a low hum that whispered of Lenin, Warhol, and Lennon. With so much noise and so many ghosts, Jodie couldn’t locate their particular bounty any easier than she’d find a particular gum wrapper in a dirty subway train.
Past where Luc landed beside her, a blur of motion caught her eye.
One of the bearded card players lifted two royal blue chips in his fingers before dropping them into the kitty in the center of the table. “Call,” he said firmly.
This is ridiculous. Frustration inched up Jodie’s spine while her gaze continued to scan the room. Note to self: advise the Board to include a physical description along with the biography from now on…
“Tito Alexander?” she shouted over the murmuring voices.
“Who wants to know?” The demand, cracking with the accent of London slums, echoed from the farthest occupant of the card table.
Aha! Found: One punk rock star. With his F-you attitude behind haunted dark eyes lined in black, he was hard to miss. He leaned, chair balanced precariously on its two spindled back legs, his head tilted at a careless angle. Eggplant-hued hair spiked in a dozen different directions, like someone who’d spent a restless night sleeping on an open tube of Krazy Glue. Tattoos of snakes and skulls painted his bare arms. A distressed black t-shirt declared Life sucks, then you die. And that sucks too.
Obviously, Luc shared the contents of his closet. With Tito Alexander.
“Well, well,” Tito said, glancing up from his splayed cards. “Look who’s here. Luc Asante, bounty hunter to the stars.”
“Tito.” Luc offered a terse nod as he floated forward to hover near the table. “Interesting hand.”
Whatever cards Tito held, he set them down and covered them by spreading his hands on the green felt table. “What do you want, Asante?”
Energy screamed in the air between the two men, and Jodie hung back. Let the big bad alpha males have their machismo conference. Once the testosterone mist eased and she clearly understood the static between them, she’d consider jumping into the fray. Until then, these two baboons were on their own.
“You know why I’m here.”
Tito waved in dismissal. “Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it.” Luc’s tone chilled the air. “You’ve been called up. You know the drill.”
“Yeah, I do.” Tito grinned, showing gleaming white teeth behind purple painted lips. “And I also know I can burn your ass if I refuse. Ruin that perfect record of yours.”
“You’re going to let an old rivalry keep you from moving on?”
A draft slipped through Jodie, and she hugged herself to keep from shivering.
“Has nothing to do with rivalry, Luc. I’m just not leaving until Sari comes back.”
Sari. The girlfriend. The woman who had died in this very room. If she focused hard enough, Jodie could visualize that poor woman’s body, pale and cold as white marble, lying on the unmade bed. Sari Snell had suffered her death throes encased in an opium haze. Had she heard Tito’s frantic cries for her to wake up, to open her eyes, to sit up and look at him, dammit?
Shaking the horrid images from her head, Jodie stared at Tito in time to catch him surreptitiously slip a card from the deck and palm it beneath the table.
Oh, my God. The man was cheating. She quickly scanned the room. Had anyone else noticed? No. The other players were all too busy studying their own hands or watching the byplay between Tito and Luc.
“Sari’s soul has already moved on,” Luc said. “You’d have a better chance of reuniting with her if you’d give up the ghost here and come with us.”
“You’re wasting your breath, Asante,” Tito replied. “Here’s where she died; here’s where I’ll wait.” A bland expression softened his features as he set his cards face-up before his friends. “Read ‘em and weep, suckers. Four aces.”
“You cheated!” One of the card players, a scruffy cowboy, pointed an accusatory finger at Tito. “Ain’t no way you could get that fourth ace unless you had it up your sleeve.”
“Oh, for Chrissakes, Jesse, I don’t have sleeves,” Tito retorted, flicking imaginary dust off his shoulder.
“That does it!” Jesse shot to vapor, but his voice remained firmly in the room. “I’m not playing with you anymore.”
“So go, you useless sot,” Tito replied.
The cowboy’s essence washed the wall behind him in dusty clay as he zipped to the farthest corner of the room—away from the players, away from where Luc and Jodie stood. “I ain’t nobody’s fool. And I don’t play with cheats and liars.”
Screwing up his face, Tito mimicked the words Jesse threw, and then sneered. “Sore loser. Who needs ya?”
Another ghost at the table, this one decked out in a zoot suit with a black fedora perched jauntily on his head, leaned forward. “Actually, we do, old chap. We’re short a fourth now.”
Tito’s gaze scanned the room, finally landing with acute interest on Jodie. “Let’s get the girl to play.” He waved her forward with all the noblesse oblige of a king beckoning to a serving wench. “Come on, sweetheart. What do you say?”
She barely opened her mouth before Luc zipped in to become the impenetrable wall between her and Tito Alexander. “The girl’s with me.”
An idea burst inside Jodie’s mind with the speed and clarity of fireworks in a cloudless midnight sky. She slinked around Luc’s bulk to stand in the open. “Umm… I’d love to—”
“What’s this, Luc?” Tito cut her off. “Don’t tell me you’ve become such a star they got you going after two of us at the same time these days.”
Another man who talked over her head as if she were a moron? Apparently, Luc and Tito shared the same set of manners along with their wardrobes.
Luc shook his head. “She’s my—”
“I’d love to play,” she exclaimed before Luc divulged too much. “If you’re patient enough to teach me, that is. I’ve always wanted to learn the game.”
The punk rocker’s smile grew predatory, and he cast a quick wink at his partners around the table before turning his focus back to her. “Really?”
What the hell are you up to now? Luc’s question thundered inside her head.
Don’t tell him who I am, she warned Luc while she kept the innocent girl-next-door expression glued in place. It’s the scars. He must think I’m just another bounty because I still have scars. Let him continue to think that.
Why?
We’re going to reel him in using his own vices against him. Right now, complain that we’re wasting your time.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said aloud, throwing up his hands. “I don’t have time to waste while you two play card games. Why don’t you wait until you get to the other side? You’ll have ample opportunity to teach her any games you want while you’re both being processed.”
Tito clucked his tongue. “Aw, but you look shagged out, Luc.” Despite the assessment, his lupine gaze remained pinned on Jodie. “Consider this a brief respite before you return to your duties. Even the Afterlife’s best bounty hunter needs a break every once in a while. Besides, who’s gonna care if you get us there right now or a few hours from now? Time doesn’t exist on the other side, remember?”
Jodie turned pleading eyes to Luc, hands clasped in prayer. “Please, Mr. Asante?” she wheedled. “One last fling before I move on?”
Meanwhile, her mind used their psychic link to give him an entirely different set of instructions. I’m going to let him think he’s got a real shot at beating me. And then we’ll go in for the kill.
Do you even know how to play poker?
I’ve been playing since I was three. Growing up the way I did, you learn fast that a deck of playing cards is one of the few diversions you can pack in a pocket, replace easily when lost, and use in small spaces to find endless entertainment.
Like hers, Luc’s expression never changed, but he seemed to quickly catch the gist of what she was about. How exactly did you grow up where
those were the criteria for your entertainment?
Later. I’ll tell you later. And she would. It was time for her to bare her soul to him, so to speak. Maybe he’d understand her better. Maybe he’d share a little of himself with her in return. It was worth a shot. Maybe Sean and Serenity had a point. If they knew each others’ pasts, they might find some common ground to make their partnership more successful.
Are you any good?
Luc’s question threw her for a minute, but she shook off the stupor and sized up Tito and his cronies with a practiced eye. She smiled. Trust me. They won’t know what hit ‘em.
~~~~
Luc hovered near the bed, curious, but not completely certain allowing Jodie into this fray of degenerates was such a good idea. While several of the other ghosts gathered around the table to watch the unfolding spectacle, he hung back. Partly for Jodie’s protection, but also because he felt something was very wrong with his chemistry. From the moment he landed in this hotel room, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. And the longer he lingered, the harder he had to struggle to inhale. A bluish tint tinged his normally silver aura, frigid as an ice floe. His senses swirled while his guts kinked tightly in his abdomen. When he bent slightly to loosen the knots, a sudden bout of nausea overwhelmed him.
Nausea? How could that be?
His cells itched, as if a thousand ants crawled over his skin. But…he had no skin. What the hell was happening to him? Again.
“Asante. That’s your name, right?” a voice drawled near his ear. Jesse the cowboy ghost had sidled up on his left. “You feeling all right?”
All the odd symptoms suddenly evaporated, and he managed a curt nod. “Yeah. I’m just hunky-dory.”
“Well, you look like shit,” Jesse retorted as he turned back toward his corner. “But it ain’t my concern. So long as you don’t puke on the bed. We don’t need a housemaid popping up here to change the linens. We do a pretty good job of keeping the living away from this room. Don’t screw it up for us.”
“Don’t sweat it, Tex.” Luc forced his focus back to Jodie who had inched her way into the circle of gamblers.
“Do you know anything about the game, sweetheart?” Tito asked as she settled beside him at the table.
“A little,” she replied with the eagerness of a Labrador puppy. “I know…like…three of a kind beats a pair and a full house beats three of a kind. I’ve seen guys play poker in the movies and on television.” Her conversation encompassed every male in the room. “There was this one show, some kind of championship game in Las Vegas? Well, those guys played for real money. I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this is just for fun, right?”
Her feigned ignorance, coupled with the wide-eyed innocence shining from her aura, left even Luc wondering. If not for their private conversation, he would’ve believed the lies she told Tito and the other players, who smiled and nodded, apparently falling for her ingénue game.
“Right, sweetheart,” Tito said, shuffling the cards. “We’ll start out easy for your benefit. Just a little five card draw to get your feet wet. Then, if you like it, we’ll move on to Texas Hold ‘Em and then, Trees or Razz.” He allowed the guy in the fedora to cut the deck. “Ready?”
At her nod, he dealt five cards to each player.
Jodie watched the men pick up their cards to study them before following suit. A puzzled expression crossed her features. “Ummm…how do I know what to do next?”
Damn, she was good. Luc made a mental note to never take her at face value again. Clearly there was more to Jodie Devlin than a few scars and a soft heart.
“Keep your best cards.” Tito could barely keep his knowing smirk in check. “Hold onto any pairs or high cards, and discard the rest.”
Before the first hand ended, Luc realized Jodie Devlin wasn’t just good at poker. She was a goddamn card shark. In fact, if, in life, she’d ever decided to try her hand at those high-stakes games in Vegas she allegedly saw on television, she could have been a multi-millionaire, as well as a semi-celebrity.
The true skill in her game lay in her ability to completely disarm her opponents. For the first few hands, she smiled and simpered and feigned a total lack of sophistication that charmed the other players into letting down their guards. And they fell for her ploy faster than a skydiver fell from a plane.
She started out slowly, losing hand after hand with good-natured giggles, allowing the men to stake her each time her chip supply became depleted. Always, she’d lean forward to her generous donor and purr, “I promise I’ll pay you back when I win. You’ll see. I’ll get the hang of this game soon.”
Through it all, Luc remained outside the circle of spectators, showing absolutely no interest in the game—even when he felt Jodie’s heated stare cocooning him.
Gradually, she turned the tide. Never winning large pots, occasionally still throwing away perfectly good hands, all to draw Tito tighter and tighter into her net.
When her small victories resulted in an impressive pile of blue and red chips, Tito switched the game to Texas Hold ‘Em. Again, Jodie pretended to fumble her way around each hand, never completely out, but coming dangerously close to losing her shirt—and Luc’s perfect record—a time or two. As the game continued to gain momentum, the energy in the room grew frantic. The low hum of interest bounced off the walls, zinged around the spectators, and brightened the dim light.
When Jodie finally gave Luc the nod, she had allowed her ample chip supply to dwindle to a pitiful little collection. The other two players folded, leaving her facing off against Tito and his Midas-worthy pile.
“How many cards you want?” Tito asked.
“Four.” She fumbled with her hand. “No, wait. Three. No. Two. Oh, dear. Ummm…two…”
He arched a black-lined brow. “You sure?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Definitely. Two.”
To confirm her last reply, she placed two cards face down on the table. Tito dealt her two new cards and chose to discard and replace two also.
Luc took a step closer to the action. What the hell was he supposed to do now to bring this game to a conclusion? Especially since Jodie now studied her hand with an intensity normally reserved for a med student performing his first brain surgery. Should he continue to hang back? Or should he step into the fray and demand they leave now? He stifled a snort. What good would that do? Tito would just refuse to leave again, and they’d be no closer to wrangling the old rock star upstairs than they were before the stupid card game began.
Tito must have sensed victory at hand because he pushed an enormous pile of chips into the kitty.
Jodie shook her head. “I can’t cover that.” She turned imploring eyes toward the other two players. “I do have a pretty good hand. Does anyone want to stake me?”
Both men looked away without replying.
“Darn,” she muttered, and with a dramatic sigh, she placed her cards face down on the table. “I guess I’ll have to fold.”
“Whoa, sweetheart! Not so fast.” Tito swerved his focus to where Luc stood. “Hey, Asante. Why don’t you stake the little girl?”
Christ on a cracker, she pulled it off without him.
Careful. Jodie’s voice entered Luc’s mind. Don’t give in too easily or he’ll get suspicious.
Painting confusion on his face, Luc met Tito’s gaze. “Even if I could, why would I stake her? The sooner one of you loses, the sooner we can get out of here. You may have a lifetime or two to spare, but I don’t. I’ve got other bounties to retrieve.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, eh?” Tito smirked. “I’ll tell you what, Luc. How’s this for a deal? You stake the lady with your perfect record. If I win this hand, she and I both get to stay here and play on for eternity. If she wins, we both leave with you immediately after this hand is played.”
“Oh, now wait,” Jodie interjected, lashes batting furiously. “You’re getting way too serious on me, Tito. This is just supposed to be a friendly game.”
�
�It is a friendly game.”
“I only wanted to have some fun before I moved on, you know?” she argued. “I don’t want to get anyone into trouble or anything.”
But Tito paid her no attention, his piercing stare fixed firmly on Luc. “What do you say, Asante? You got the balls?”
Luc pretended to weigh his options. At last, he shot his weight to one hip. “If she wins, you come willingly—no debates—and you do whatever the Elders tell you, Tito. Have you got the balls?”
Tito’s reply came out as raucous laughter. Between cackles, he added, “You’re on. Everyone here is a witness.”
Biting her lip, Jodie murmured, “Okay, then, I guess I call.”
With a flourish and a serpentine grin, Tito laid down his cards. “Full house, aces over kings. Better luck next time, Asante.”
He reached for the pile of chips in the center of the table, but Jodie’s fingers shot out to grasp his wrist. “Sorry, Tito.”
The shy maiden suddenly became a bloodthirsty vixen. Never losing her grip on Tito, she flipped her cards over to display a perfect line of red hearts from ten to ace.
“A full house is really good,” she said with her own predatory grin. “But a royal flush is much better.”
Chapter 24
In the Reception Area, Sherman bounded forward, arms outstretched. “Luc! You did it again, you old dog! I knew you were the perfect hunter for this bounty. Splendid, splendid!”
Jodie, who’d landed immediately behind Luc and Tito Alexander, felt a spurt of anger shoot through her spine at Sherman’s praise. Once again, the powers-that-be underestimated her. But before she could step forward and take credit for Tito’s capture, Luc held up a hand.
