Card Sharks (18 page)

“But—”

“No but. No but.” She pointed to a pair of pink sunglasses and the sales assistant handed them over. “There is no more ‘poor Donny,' do you understand that? Because you're going to cut the guy loose, swear off him for at least six months to a year, and maybe even focus on this amazing guy who has just come into your life.”

“You're right. You're so right. Okay. Donny's a big boy. He's an adult. He makes his own decisions and he can take care of himself. You're absolutely right. Thank you, Bijoux, for doing exactly what a best friend is supposed to do.”

Marianne tried on the sunglasses and studied her reflection.

Beside her, Bijoux threw up her arms in mock despair. “How do you do it? I mean, you weren't even trying to get Peter. You were actually playing poker. God bless you, I don't know what you did to deserve it, but where's
my
amazing guy?”

“Don't worry. First of all, we don't know that Peter is so amazing. They always seem amazing at first, but within two weeks you know as well as I that all the annoying habits show up and the desire to impress disappears. And second of all, your amazing guy is just around the corner. He may literally be just around the corner.”

“Hold still.” Bijoux studied Marianne's look. “Those are so much better.”

Marianne took the sunglasses off and nodded to the saleswoman, who took them over to the register. “Were you listening to me, Bij? I mean, he could very well be literally around the corner at the craps table. But you've got to remember that the difference between my existing possibly amazing guy and your amazing guy-in-waiting is at least a million dollars or so. So it's not surprising that it's going to take you just a little longer to find him.”

Bijoux collapsed into a chair by the register, head bowed, as Marianne signed her credit card receipt.

“No, don't give up! This is Vegas. There are tons of fish here. You just have to keep looking.”

“I'm going to be poor. I can feel it.”

“You're not going to be poor.”

“Are you into him?”

“Who? Peter?”

“Yes.”

Marianne shrugged. “He seems great.”

Bijoux cocked her head impatiently. “I didn't ask if he was convenient; I asked if you were into him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm into him.”

“Okay.”

“Why?”

“No, I was just wondering. You know, wondering if I should prepare myself for the obsessive analysis that we're about to get into now that you've found a new guy. The endless comparisons to Donny, the endless questioning about whether it's ‘right' or not.”

“Well, not at the moment,” Marianne said, checking her watch. “Honestly, Bij, you're obsessing over my obsessing over Peter more than I'm actually obsessing over him. Come on; I've only got a couple of hours left before I'm on, and I want to upgrade my makeup.”

They headed back to the hotel where Marianne beelined to the TV and turned on ESPN.

“. . . another player tearing up the series is one Marianne Hollingsworth.”

The girls shrieked and then quickly shushed each other as the recap package continued to roll, showing Marianne in action at the tables the prior day.

“Hollingsworth is a tax accountant from Los Angeles. . . .”

“Wait for it,” Bijoux said, staring at the screen.

“. . . but she doesn't look like anyone
I've
ever discussed finances with, heh-heh.”

Marianne rolled her eyes.

“That's right, she arrived in Vegas as ‘dead money,' but she's still here, and with a comfortable spot in the middle of the chip count, Miss Marianne is looking very much
alive
. And that's our final player recap as play is about to start. This is Ted Wick on the morning of day two here at the Rio as competition heats up. . . .”

“Wait for it,” Bijoux said.

“. . . and the players try hard not to
cool down,
heh-heh. And now back to the studio.”

Marianne put the TV on mute and grimaced. “ ‘Miss Marianne'?”

“How much do you want to bet they pull you aside for one of those personal-interest interviews?”

“ ‘Miss Marianne'?”

“You'd better get down there.”

“Phil Hellmuth waits for, like, an hour after the day has already started before he comes down. It's some sort of intimidation strategy.”

“Phil Hellmuth is a two-time winner of the World Series. Phil Hellmuth can afford to do whatever the hell he wants. You, my friend, cannot.” She put her hands on Marianne's
shoulders and turned her back to the door. “You should have your butt in your chair at the starting bell. Go down and start getting acclimated.”

Marianne shrugged and grabbed her purse.

Bijoux stuck her hands on her hips. “Are you going diva on me? Pride comes before a fall, missy.”

Marianne opened the door and looked back at Bijoux over her shoulder. “If ESPN does interview me, I'm going to tell them I don't accept that nickname.”

“The point of nicknames is that you don't get to choose them. Now get out of here.”

Marianne looked dreamily off into the distance. “Machine Gun Marianne. That's so much better. I need something with a little . . . fear in it. Oh, well. At least I got airtime. Oh, crap. I almost forgot; toss me my sunglasses, will you?”

Bijoux walked the Coach pair over to her pal and checked her watch. “I'll be down in about half an hour. So don't even think about losing.” She gave Marianne a hug. “Good luck. Oh! Do you have your card cap?”

Marianne's eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. Where did I put it?” She started lifting up magazines, poker books, hotel menus. “Okay, don't let me panic. This is a bad time to panic. Where is it?”

Bijoux tried to hand her a quarter. “Just use this. If I find it, I'll bring it down.”

“No! Donny gave that to me and it's lucky. It was a stretched penny from New Orleans.”

“Listen to yourself. It's just a stretched penny from New Orleans—and Donny gave it to you.”

Marianne looked up. “I want it back, Bij. Help me.”

Bijoux frowned and shook her head. “I seriously don't get it. But whatever. Let's calm down and be systematic about the search.” She started stacking things in neat piles while Marianne got down on her hands and knees and looked under the bed.

“Oh. Here it is. It must have just slipped off the bedside table.” She got to her feet and stood up to face Bijoux, feeling sheepish.

Bijoux stood there, her arms folded across her chest, tapping her pump toe against the carpeting.

Marianne stared down at the silly stretched penny. Donny.

She tossed the penny in the air, caught it neatly in her hand and tucked it into the tiny pocket on the outside of her purse.

Bijoux gave her a hug. “I'll be right down. Don't lose. Good luck.”

T
hings were getting really frenetic around the table. In particular, two of the men were arguing about seating. ESPN had done a good job picking a featured table. It was packed with a cast of characters that would certainly give a good story.

Marianne looked over at the spectator section. Bijoux was squinting, apparently trying to figure out who else was at Marianne's table. She pointed at something in her tournament guide, and Peter looked down where her finger was trailing across the page. He looked over at the table and then wrote something down in his notebook. Donny looked straight over at Marianne and winked.

Marianne settled her water bottle down on the table, then decided she didn't like where it was placed and fidgeted with where to put it for the next few moments. As she waited for the attendant to come around with their plastic bags of chips from the previous day, she tapped her index finger on Donny's stretched penny. She had to confess she liked the idea of him watching her play.

Marianne pulled her new sunglasses from her purse and
slipped them on. In the glare of the camera lights, it was actually helpful to wear them, though as Bijoux had warned, if there hadn't been so much light she wondered how she'd even see her cards.

She'd had enough sleep, but almost wished she hadn't expended so much energy on shopping in the earlier part of the day. Everyone was looking a little ragged, and it was only going to get worse.

The ESPN officials ran around organizing things, pointing camera lenses, lighting the area, taking down names, and getting waivers signed.

“You're an asshole, Noonan,” the guy on her left suddenly blurted out, leaning over Marianne to direct his comment to the man directly on her right side.

Okaaay.

The guy on her right leaned over her. “You're a bigger asshole, Pierce.”

Marianne leaned back as far as her chair would allow as the two men held a standoff, eyes narrowed, fists curled.

She cleared her throat. They both swiveled their heads and looked at her. Marianne smiled in hopes of de-escalating the situation with her innate charm. They smiled, looked at each other and glared, then sat back in their own seats.

Marianne looked across the table, where another trio of competitors were studiously avoiding eye contact with either of the men.

“Whatever,” she muttered below her breath, opening her bag of chips. “Focus.”

“Don't even think about looking at my cards!” Pierce yelled out with the classic undertones of the deranged, apparently not realizing that with the seating arranged as it was, Noonan's being able to see anything to Marianne's right was patently impossible.

Suddenly the man on her right swooped in and practically tongued her ear in an effort to hiss, “You watch that son of a bitch on your left. He'll try to sneak a peek at your cards. You just remember, pull the cards straight into the keyhole camera and peek—only enough so's you can make sure you're really seeing what you think you're seeing—and then put that cap right down on your cards. You lean into me if you have to, sweetheart.”

“That's very kind of you,” Marianne said, leaning distinctly away from the staleness of him and then recoiling back from the staleness of his adversary. She sighed. This was going to be a very long session. “Let the idiots shake out,” she muttered. All the same, she knew it was time to up the risk factor. As the players all emptied their bags and arranged their stacks she was actually a little alarmed to see the amount of chips the others had amassed. “Don't get nervous. Just play your game.” She circled her shoulders a couple of times and stretched out her neck. God, she was tired. Everyone looked like hell.

Noonan put his hand on Marianne's back. Her eyes popped wide-open, and she tried to form the correct words to scream under the circumstances. “If that son of a bitch tries to cheat, you call him out,” he said. “You just call him right out and I'll support you.”

“Thanks. That's . . . really . . . kind of you. So do you guys know each other, then?”

“Yes.”

No additional information was forthcoming, and the unpleasant sensation of his creepy hand on her back was just a bit more than she was prepared to tolerate. Marianne smiled, scooted her chair back, and stood up, running through a series of runner's stretches, putting her shoe on the chair, stretching her back by bending over. Suddenly she noticed the ESPN assistant pointing in her direction as he spoke to a cameraman who appeared to be filming her.

Marianne played to the camera, and then suddenly the announcer appeared and asked everyone to settle in, and day three was on. It started out slowly. Two players had squeaked into day three from the prior day pretty low in the chip count. The first went out almost immediately after going all-in on a decent enough pair of tens. Nobody dominated for the first few hours, with good-size wins being evenly distributed among the chip leaders at the table.

Halfway through the day, with her lower back on fire, Marianne took a moment to stretch again and review the chip situation. She was pretty much smack in the middle of things, winning just enough hands at just the right time to stay above the danger line. But if she didn't start ramping things up a bit, she was in jeopardy of draining the life out of her game. In other words, it was time to start playing a little riskier than she had been.

In the next few hours she put the balls to the wall, changing things up and risking bigger amounts of money, limping in, then raising big after the flop, sometimes making faces opposite from what she was feeling in order to draw an easy bluff . . . and sometimes not. As some of the other men at the table gambled on all-in play and lost, she began to sense a change in the air. She began to sense . . . respect. Or if not respect, maybe a little concern that she wasn't going down so easily. And there was certainly nothing wrong with currying either one of those sentiments.

The concentration, the constant sitting, the ache in her back, the hot lights—it was all making her really tired. Marianne knew the day couldn't go on and on. The end would come at some point, and she needed to hold on, as high up on the ladder as she possibly could.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time, the dealer dealt out two cards apiece to the table survivors. Marianne looked at her cards—an off-suit ace and seven—and decided to limp in
from the button, then raise big if she liked what she saw on the flop. Unfortunately, a quiet elderly man named Tran who'd only stepped up for one really big hand so far took this as an opportunity to go for glory raising Marianne's bet. Willing to gamble on the possibility of flopping an ace, Marianne called. After all, Tran had bluffed several hands back, flipping his cards over at the end of the hand to prove he'd snowed his opponent well. So it was possible he didn't really have anything.

But when the flop came it turned over a king, a five, and a two. Marianne cringed inwardly. No immediate help at all, though it had remote straight potential and she'd committed a lot of her chips already. If she let this hand go down, she'd be horribly crippled for the rest of the play. If she pursued it with what she was holding . . . well, she might have to try the biggest bluff she'd ever done. She didn't want to chase a straight under the circumstances, but if that ace popped up . . .

She looked up at her opponent, mentally cycling through the stuff she'd read about tells, and unfortunately not seeing any of it reflected on his face. He smiled politely. She smiled back.

What did he have?
Okay, let's see.
Worst-case scenario, he had a pair of kings, pair of aces, or ace/king. If he'd had a superstrong pair, he would have raised higher. Maybe. Probably. And with one ace in her hand, the probability of his having one, much less two, was significantly decreased. So what to interpret?
Sigh
.

“Your hand is not so good,” Tran said sympathetically.

Marianne's eyes narrowed in spite of herself. He was doing the chatty thing—the chatty thing she'd heard the commentators talk about on television, where your opponents struck up idle chitchat in hopes that you'd accidentally spill a piece of information they could use against you.

Not so fast, buddy.
Of course, the fact that she'd shot him a
death glare at all was something of a tell.
Control yourself. You're good at that. Control yourself.

Luckily, with Tran the big blind and Marianne acting behind him, he was first to bet. And he hadn't made his decision yet, either.

“Your hand is not so good,” Marianne echoed sweetly.

A couple of the other guys at the table chuckled.

Tran bet. Marianne called. The dealer flipped the turn and things didn't really improve. A four.

Chasing a straight, indeed.
Should I get out? If he bets, I'm out.
But Tran checked.

Marianne studied his face. He stuck out his tongue good-naturedly and Marianne laughed. Well, if he wasn't sure he really wanted this pot, she'd take it.

Marianne bet. And Tran called.
Huh.

“Miss Marianne's maybe not so sweet as she looks,” Pierce said to Tran, who merely raised an eyebrow.

The dealer flipped over the river card. Oh, god. A ten. So not helpful, and she'd already committed so much. She should get out. No, wait! Marianne looked at the chips on the table and tried to calculate pot odds. Oh, hell. If Tran didn't bail out, this would require the bluff of the century. And she was going to deliver it.

Tran bet. Marianne raised.

Tran's eyebrow arched, giving away his surprise. She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he calculated the pot odds. And then suddenly, almost as if it were an impulse, he mucked his cards and swore.

Several men at the table released a breath at the same time.

Marianne considered turning over her cards to show them her bluff. Instead she just said, “It's not ‘Miss Marianne.' ” Raking the chips toward her current stacks, she looked up and smiled. “It's Machine Gun Marianne.”

Things seemed to only get better as the remaining hours dwindled. She was just playing really hot. Very few of her hands were completely horrible. Many of them were playable. And some of them were downright terrific. Luck, it seemed, was simply on her side today.

Her average take wasn't, perhaps, as lucrative as one might have expected, but she was raking in chips at a consistent pace. They said that with the top pairs one could generally expect to win small pots and lose big ones; she preferred to be on the winning side, regardless of the size of the pot.

The next hand the dealer laid out, Marianne couldn't believe her streak of good luck. A king and an ace, suited.
Sweet!
Marianne decided to play it strong this time, hoping to knock out some of her competitors before the flop. On her turn she bet and forced out a couple of players who had checked. The blinds called, but Noonan played back at her with a hefty re-raise. Marianne called. The blinds folded, leaving her heads-up with Noonan.

Sure enough, Noonan bet; but Marianne decided to keep the faith, and raised. She couldn't just call because that would make her look weak. A raise would give Noonan the chance to fold if he didn't like his hand. It would probably also stop his betting on the turn, which would mean she'd get a free card. And, of course, an ace or a king might hit on the turn or the river. In which case she'd have him by the . . . well, by the nuts.

The flop came with a lackluster array of rags of three different suits. If she was operating against a low pair somewhere on the table, things were about to get very sticky. Sure enough, a raise came in before it ever got to her, and Marianne decided to keep the faith, reraising with hopes of a second ace or king hitting on the turn or river down the line.

Noonan stayed in, prompting some more warnings from Pierce about concealing her cards properly, and the dealer
burned one and flipped over the next community card. Marianne got the ace she was looking for and had to work hard not to reveal any signs of elation. Her Coach sunglasses were doing their job, and she was doing hers. All she had to do was hang on.

Pierce mumbled something again, and Noonan slapped his in-play hole cards down on the table, stuck his card cap on top of them and glared at Pierce. “You coaching her?”

“What?” Marianne yelled out in outrage. “How dare you?”

Pierce stood up, knocking his chair back, his fists curling as he threw some jabs into the air. “You talking to me, Noonan?”

ESPN was all over it as a couple of tournament employees moved in to settle things down. Marianne requested a seat change but apparently there was no such thing. They told her to calm down, that nobody was accusing her of anything, and that these guys were legendary for their extreme dislike of each other.

Everyone sat back down. Marianne glowered at Noonan and bet an outrageous amount of money, immediately cursing herself for falling into the trap of playing hotheaded. Anything could happen on the river.

Noonan had apparently decided that Marianne had officially sided with Pierce, which wasn't entirely untrue. This day could not be over soon enough. She looked over her shoulder into the stands. Donny was leaning forward, his fists clenched. Peter was writing furiously in his notebook, and Bijoux was just staring at Marianne, her mouth gaping wide open.