Card Sharks (13 page)

I am
so
going to eviscerate you.

A
few hours into the tournament, Bijoux left an enthralled Peter and slipped out of the mob, beelined for the casino lobby, and asked the doorman to hail her a cab. One pulled up immediately and emptied itself of the tournament curious, no doubt.

Ditching the tournament after Marianne dumped a pair of queens and shot what Bijoux recognized as a death stare on that Texas champion guy's face was no problem at all. Marianne was fixated on the tournament,
Peter
was fixated on the tournament, and Bijoux had, of course, prepared for the possibility of becoming terminally bored watching poker by wearing her bathing suit under her clothes.

In the backseat of the cab, she threw her shoes into the tote bag she'd lugged down with her and swapped them for more pool-appropriate designer sandals. By the time she'd touched up her makeup, she'd arrived at Caesar's casino and looked the part.

She paid the taxi, stepped into Caesar's sumptuous lobby, and began bribing the appropriate nubile young man for a pass to VIP poolside treatment.

She meant to be a good supporter. She'd stuck in there at the tournament for hours, straining to catch a glimpse of Marianne the entire time.

But the video screens mounted on the ceiling were too small and didn't have a special one just to feature Marianne, which Bijoux couldn't understand at all, given that she was the cutest player out there and undoubtedly one of the most interesting to watch.

The nubile young Roman escorted Bijoux to the pool area. Bijoux pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and slipped it into the hand that he raised to his lips.

She strutted out to the pool, choosing a lounge chair and accepting a snowy-white towel from a toga-clad cart jockey.

Well, who could blame her for being anxious? Marianne might be putting her time to good use making money, but Bijoux wasn't accomplishing a thing. The men squashing into her from all sides at the tournament clearly weren't of interest, and obviously she couldn't make money gambling if she were sitting on her ass all day watching Marianne do it.

Bijoux settled and looked around. This was more like it. This had potential.

Bijoux had picked the pools at Caesar's over the other casino pools for a reason. Mandalay Bay had a wave pool, sure. But what the hell did Bijoux want with a wave pool? Wave pools attracted kids, and the last thing she wanted was to put herself in a situation with a bunch of married folk and their sticky progeny.

At Caesar's, with the white, white of the Roman columns and the blue, blue of the water in the pool, she could actually start to imagine herself in a place of peacefulness.

A waitress approached in full sassy toga-themed getup and handed her a menu.

“First, a cocktail. Let's see . . . is this a new menu? I think
it's changed since the last time I was here. Well . . . I'll have an Aphrodite's Kiss, please. And just a snack . . . just a snack . . . yes, I'll have a side of the fried cheese balls.”

“The Kiss and David's Balls. I'll have that out to you shortly.”

She reached back and managed to raise her lounge chair up a bit, then began to work her low-digit sunblock into her skin. She frowned as she reached her feet; tiny little chips appeared along the very tips of her toenails. A polish change was in her future. She could go up to the spa and maybe get a massage and some Jacuzzi time first.

The waitress returned very quickly with the refreshments and prepared an attractive little presentation on the table next to Bijoux's chair.

Bijoux ate her snacks and sipped her cocktail as she surveyed the scene over the top of her sunglasses. There were several very nice-looking men out. Perhaps some of them had all of the qualities Bijoux was looking for.

One of them sat up to apply more sunscreen and made eye contact. Bijoux smiled and licked cheese-ball grease off her fingers. He smiled back and then proceeded to rub suntan lotion into his male companion's back in a way that implied he wouldn't be coming over to share snack balls.

Bijoux sighed and pushed her plate aside. She stretched out on the lounge chair, arranged her bikini top to maximize the presentation of her assets, closed her eyes, and waited for someone of wealthy persuasion to come over and try to pick up on her.

She could sense the moment someone was hovering and slowly opened her eyes.

The cocktail waitress bent down. “I'm sorry, but this card didn't go through.”

Bijoux's eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

The waitress looked sympathetic, but didn't offer a comp. “Do you want me to charge it to the room?”

“Um . . . um . . .” She looked around for a white knight and, giving that up, tried to conjure up how the numbering system might work for the rooms at Caesar's. “No, I'd rather go to the ATM. I hate debt.”

“There's one just around the corner on the casino floor.” She looked at Bijoux's skimpy getup. “I'm really sorry. . . . Are you sure I shouldn't just charge it?”

Bijoux wasn't above guessing a room number, but a sick feeling in her stomach wouldn't have allowed her to rest easy at the pool any longer even if she had. The hotel room hadn't been charged yet. Had she been shopping for something else lately? Well, of course. She was always shopping. Good God, had her parents really been serious about implementing a limit and phasing her out? Was this cold-turkey? What day was it? How old was she? She wasn't thirty yet.

Bijoux slowly removed her ATM card from her purse, her mouth parched and her skin breaking out into a cold sweat. She held the card out in front of her, cradling in her palm that ugly little orange-and-brown rectangle that didn't match any of her wallets. And then she stood up and began the walk to the ATM.

Her breathing became shallow, her thoughts racing. “Please work. Please work.”

The ATM sat there against a wall, oddly plain in a place filled with machinery emblazoned with lights and colors. Bijoux approached quickly once she saw it, shooting little glances to each side to make sure no one was watching. It was rare that she had to resort to this, and each time, she thought with a sigh, it was a little like learning to ride a bicycle all over again.

Bijoux looked at her ATM card and then almost defiantly slipped it into the machine. It requested her password and she typed it in. The account revealed a zero balance, which was
strange. She must be looking in the wrong account. There must be another account. She pushed a few buttons but couldn't seem to navigate to any other accounts. So she took the card out, put it back in, and typed in a different password. The card was rejected.

Unwilling to accept that there wasn't somehow more money somewhere on the card, she tried a series of different but plausible passwords for the same card. Her mother's maiden name, the name of the first guy she'd ever slept with, her magic number, her secret number, her magic, secret number . . . and then the card just didn't come back out.

Bijoux frowned and pushed the clear button. Nothing happened. The machine was completely silent.

Her pulse picked up again. She looked around, thankful there was no one in line behind her, and gave the machine a little kick. Just a little one. Nothing violent or too noticeable. Sort of like a nudge. A suggestion.

The card wouldn't come out.

Bijoux began to sweat profusely at this point as she pressed every single button on the kiosk. The screen started glitching and blinking, but no card.

“Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.” If this was someone's idea of a joke, it sure as hell wasn't a funny one.

Her towel slipped to the floor, and Bijoux stood there in the lobby of the casino in just her bikini and sunglasses, her fingers fixed around either side of the machine, just shaking the thing as if the world would end.

This is what it's going to be like to have no money. When you push the button, nothing comes back. No more good life. No more easy life.
Everything was going to be hard. From here on out, things were going to be just too damn hard. “I need some money. Please,” she begged, bending over the ATM.

“Tilt.”

Bijoux stood straight up and turned around. Behind her stood a portly woman with brunette beehive hairdo about the same height again as the rest of her body, calmly sweeping the floor all the way up to where Bijoux was standing.

“What did you say?” Bijoux asked.

“Tilt. The machine. I don't think it's coming back, hon,” she said cheerfully in a voice that under more pleasant circumstances might have registered to her ear as a comforting Southern drawl.

Bijoux took her by the shoulders. “I don't think I can live like this.”

The cleaning lady picked up Bijoux's towel and handed it back to her with a commiserating look. “When the money done all run out, the money done all run out. This isn't the real Roman Empire, honey. All this fancy stuff isn't real. It's just Caesar's, Las Vegas. When you walk outside that door, you're just outside. That's all there is. Better get used to it.” She picked up her broom and swept away in the opposite direction.

Bijoux leaned against the ATM and started to sniffle. A tear wound its way down her cheek; she picked up a discarded ATM receipt and pressed it against her skin in an effort to stanch the makeup rivulet eeking its way down her face.

Down the hall at the entrance leading out to the pool area, the cocktail waitress peeked in from the outside, chewed nervously on her lower lip when she saw Bijoux standing there, and then disappeared again.

Bijoux swore under her breath, looked around her, and finally went back out to her lounge chair by the pool, completely deflated. Ignoring the stares of the rich and beautiful basking on lounge chairs as she passed, she pulled her cell phone from her tote bag and dialed Marianne. No answer. She was probably still playing poker, which was a good thing, of course. . . .
But dammit! I really need you, Mare. Where are you?

She hung up and chewed on her fraying nail, hunched over and hiding her face from the passersby. Then she dialed Peter.

He answered quickly. “ 'S up? I don't really think we're supposed to be using the phone in here,” he whispered.

“Peter, thank God.” Bijoux's heart was beating fast enough to qualify her for a completely different species.

“What's wrong?”

“Look, I need a rescue,” Bijoux blurted out, absolutely mortified. “I'm at Caesar's and I . . .”

She could hear the sound of him jostling the phone and apparently moving through the crowd.
Bless him.

“What happened?”

“I . . . I can't pay my bill,” she said, but it came out only in a whisper.

“What's that?”

“I can't pay my bill,” she repeated.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. He obviously didn't understand. “Please come,” she said. “I'm at the pool.”

“I'm getting a cab. I'll be right there.”

Bijoux hung up. She leaned back in the beautiful lounge chair by the side of a pristine blue pool and looked up at the Roman columns decorating the scene.

“I can't pay my bill,” she whispered again.

Feeling nothing at all like a Roman goddess, Bijoux put her sunglasses on and let the tears stream down her face.

She stared up at the tops of the columns and thought about how much she'd always liked Las Vegas. Each casino with its own personality. You walked into Paris and you were in a completely different world. You walked into Hard Rock, completely different world. There were so many casinos, so many different worlds. And then just like the lady had said, you walked outside and you were just outside.

“Bij?”

Bijoux took her sunglasses off and Peter frowned. She must look worse than she'd thought.

He sat down on the end of her lounge chair. “How can I help?”

“Can you pay my bill?” she said, too embarrassed to make eye contact. “It's not a big one.”

“Sure.”

“And then can you pretend this never happened?” She looked at him then.

He pursed his lips and slowly nodded. She still didn't think he understood. But he held out his hand and she put her hand in his and he gave it a comforting squeeze.

“This is so embarrassing,” Bijoux said, wiping under her eyes with the fingertips of her free hand. “But you see my situation.”

He nodded sympathetically, and Bijoux felt the need to explain. “I'm sure Marianne's told you. About my situation, I mean. I'm going to lose all my money, so I've got to find a replacement source. What you see is what you get; I'm a common golddigger.”

Peter leaned over the lounge chair and slipped her a private smile. “You may be a golddigger, Bij, but there's nothing common about you.”

Oh, my God. He does understand me.
Something inside of her snapped. And she looked into those blue eyes and felt herself fall a little. “That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me in a long time,” she said in a whisper.

Peter used his grip on her hand to help her up out of the lounge chair. “If we leave now, I bet I can slip back into the tournament, and Marianne will never notice I skipped out on her.”