Hold ’Em Hostage (8 page)

Instinct told me this was not good.

“Help me!” I yelled to Mommy Dearest.

That Dragsnashark yelled “Get her” was
especially
not good.

“Right,” she mouthed as she reached for her hairy husband in muscle shirt and pointed at me accusingly.

Seeing no other option, I jumped onstage. The collective gasp that arose from the crowd was that of awe unfortunately, not surprise, which meant they thought I was part of the show. Only in Vegas. King Neptune's daughter then arose from behind another fake rock and began waving her arms around and bellowing at her dad. I dove behind her at the exact wrong time and nearly got backhanded off the stage by her swinging arm that I was forced to grab. She waved me around in the air, back and forth. Her computer-generated voice was screaming like a banshee and I was worried this might go on for longer than I could hang on. Not for the first time in Vegas I lamented the fact that I didn't frequent the gym. Weird, I know, but welcome to my life. The audience started clapping wildly. I was an accidental hit; I just hoped I lived through it. I saw Dragsnashark waiting with a creepy anticipation for me to fly off Despina's right arm. My good friend the king stamped his triton with a bang and put an end to her tantrum. Her arm whipped down to her side, flinging me onto the plastic that was harder than it looked.

The three automated figures continued their disagreement, including some distracting special effects that allowed me time to crawl around the stage and see it was circular. Dragsnashark's friend was following me and I had no avenue for escape. I could jump off now, break a bone or two and hope the audience would stop my stalkers from abducting me. Since the collective group thought I, in my magenta walking shorts and silver stilettos, was part of a legendary show, I didn't put much stock in that option. Then I remembered how the motorized beings arrived on the scene—they arose from holes in the fake scenery. Hmm. Suddenly, Despina screamed and dissolved in a mass of steam into the hole, way too quickly for me to reach her even if I had considered sustaining a whole body sauna to get free. I was closest to the king at this point, so edged over and grabbed him just as a bolt of fire came out of his triton and felt like it was singeing every hair on my body. The audience gasped and stepped back. Man, it was hot. I almost gave up and went for the broken-bone option but just then I felt the stage move. The king and I sank into the hole under the stage, where it was dark, and blessedly cool.

My phone rang. “Hello?” I whispered.

“Where the hell are you, Honey Bee?”

G
etting out from under the stage at Poseidon's might
have been a bit tricky if Frank hadn't shown up. Apparently it was controlled by a remote computer. Humans only ventured under the stage for routine maintenance, conducted by my savior—Eminem's mini-me.

“Wow, like, people were talking about how totally rad the Neptune show was there in the casino and we were like, what? It's totally lame, except for the fire at the end that feels like it's burning your face it's so hot.”

“Hmm, try being in Neptune's lap,” I muttered.

“Anyhow, then somebody asked one of the dealers how they came up with the idea to put a real person with the, like, fake figures and then, whoa, we were totally, like, blown. I'm sure we would've come to check on the place in a couple of days to see what everybody was talking about.”

“Great, how comforting,” I said.

Frank, who'd come with Junior Pranksta to set me free, wasn't talking. Not a good sign.

Fortunately, Frank had somehow fixed it with the casino so I wasn't in big trouble for messing with their stuff. He passed the kid a fifty-dollar bill. Damn. I hated owing anyone, especially Frank when he was mad at me.

We paused in the walkway. Frank grabbed a tendril of hair off my cheek and examined it. “Hmm. You might want to consider getting a trim.”

“Why?” I stepped just out of his reach.

Frank leaned in to examine my face. “And maybe some fake eyelashes.”

“What?” I trotted over to the Prada store, ducked in and looked in the first mirror I encountered. Ack. It hadn't just felt like I was getting singed. I had been! Super.

“The good news is, though, you won't have to pluck your eyebrows for a while.”

I glared at him. “It's not
that
bad.” He raised his eyebrows. “Is it?” I demanded, looking back at the mirror and leaning in for a closer inspection.

Putting his arm around my shoulders, he led us out of the store. “What's bad is your behavior. Why did you ditch me at the tournament and decide to come ride on King Neptune's lap for fun? You knew I was coming to get you for dinner.”

I explained about the text message and the misunderstanding, about seeing Dragsnashark and his colleague in the audience. Frank's mouth narrowed to a thin line. “Bee, this is serious. We don't know what these guys want. We don't know what they'll do. We have to be more careful. Maybe I should get you out of Vegas right now.”

“Frank, I can't! What about Affie?”

“All you can do might not make a difference for Affie.”

My imagination spelled out what that meant in the silence. I swallowed hard. “Well, I can't live with myself if I don't at least try. I refuse to run away and hide.”

Frank shook his head. “Let's come up with a code word no one else can figure out, but if it's not used in a message, it isn't me, it isn't you. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Rediwhip,” he said.

“Why that?”

“Remember that first long weekend we shared after the Big Kahuna…”

Aw.
Maybe the man was a romantic after all. Either that or he was a sex fiend.

Frank glanced at his Rolex, grabbed my elbow and led me down the Forum. “We barely have time to grab a bite.”

Las Vegas, once the prince of cheap all-you-can-eat buffets (keep them full, keep their wallets full for the casinos) now boasts some of the finest restaurants with the most sought-after chefs in the world. In fact, I could easily eat my way across The Strip without stopping. The last trip I gained five pounds even
with
all the running from bad guys I'd had to do. Odds were, grabbing a bite here would be a culinary sensation.

I wasn't wrong. Frank led me to Spago. I'd never been to Wolfgang Puck's famous eatery but heard it was fabulous. It sat right on the Forum promenade, great for people watching.

“I wanted to take you to a quiet dinner, but I think we'd better keep our eyes open for Dragsnashark and his friend. Just in case.”

It was probably a good thing Spago's was a crowded, electric atmosphere instead of a candlelit, romantic one, because over a bottle of Chianti, his legendary meat loaf and my seafood fettucine, Frank insisted on lecturing me on changing my life.

“Honey Bee,” Frank began. “I just want you to consider a new hobby. Trouble follows you when you hold cards.”

“Does that include you?”

“What?”

“I met you because of Texas Hold 'Em.”

Frowning, Frank shook his head. “You know that's not what I meant.”

“Life is trouble, Frank. If I weren't having it playing poker, I'd be having it somewhere else.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Come on.”

“What was your hobby before you started playing Hold 'Em?”

I thought for a moment. “My job and my fiancé.”

Frank raised his eyebrows.

“I didn't realize it at the time but I did the laundry list of things Toby asked me to do. I kept myself up the way Toby wanted me to, and all that took a lot of time. Beauty maintenance, what a drain. There was no time for anything else. I don't want that hobby again. Ever.”

“Should I be insulted?”

“Are you my fiancé?”

“No.” Frank shook his head to punctuate his answer.

“Well, then, I guess you shouldn't be insulted.” I tried not to look at the emotions playing through his dark eyes. I'd never be able to figure them out and even when I thought I had, I'd be wrong. There were too many of his ghosts I knew nothing about. “Look, Frank, I have a hard time ‘playing' for the sake of fun. I always have. Everything I've done for ‘fun,' I've turned into work. When I was in Brownies, I pressured myself to get all the badges so I was working so hard, none of it was fun. When I was in a sorority in college, I had to organize
this
fundraiser and
that
membership drive. When I joined a country club for a while, I had to be number one golfer every week or I was unhappy.”

“And how is Hold 'Em different? You are ranked as a pro. You have a website. A fan club. It's a second job to you.”

“Hey, now, you can't blame me for the website. You sicced Ingrid on me and that was her idea. And, if you will notice, I delegated all the work away except the little intro I write every month and the e-mails I answer.”

He shrugged, conceding the point. I continued, “Despite all that you mentioned, I don't think about working at playing poker—except when I am forced to play to save my goddaughter's life. I just play and have fun. Probably because I think luck plays such an incredible role that hard work and talent don't matter all that much. I can relax when I sit down at the table and try to read the players, hope for some decent cards, get a charge when I win, chalk it up to entertainment when I lose.”

“I just don't like the way
I
feel when you're in danger,” Frank finally admitted, obviously grudgingly.

A sudden flash of intuition struck me with no warning. Perhaps my psyche had finally read what lurked in a shadow behind those sexy dark eyes. “Frank, did something happen to your ex-wife?”

The color drained from his face for only an instant. He slipped his aviators down over his eyes and stood abruptly, throwing some bills on the table. “We have to go, to get you back to the tournament in time if you are so dead set on playing.”

His body was wracked with tension, although he still put his fingertips on the small of my back as was his protective habit. Even through them I could feel anger, hurt and defensiveness.

And guilt.

 

T
he picket line was in full force as we arrived back at
the Fortune. Phineas Paul was at the other end preaching to a group of onlookers about the evils of gambling, most especially that of poker. “It is as seductive as sex. Texas Hold 'Em requires no skill, no brains and is driven by greed and temptation. If you want to break every commandment our Lord God has sent down, then sit down at a felt table.”

“Amen!” chorused the picket line, rather desultorily, I thought.

“Do you notice something about the picketers?” I asked.

Frank looked them over carefully as he held the door for me to enter. I was immediately flanked by a phalanx of security. Frank elbowed his way back next to me and spoke in my ear. “They are predominantly teenage white girls.”

“Isn't that weird?” I asked. “How many teenagers do you know are born-again Christians? Maybe young, idealistic twentysomethings, but not many teens. It's against their hormonal religion.”

“Every now and then I'm struck with the fact that you would be a good investigator, and then you pull a stunt like the King Neptune thing and I know I'm wrong.”

Ever the master of the backhanded compliment, Frank left me feeling simultaneously deflated and uplifted. Go figure.

The chimes rang us back to the tables. Frank whipped out his trusty notepad and jotted down my description of Dragsnashark's possible partner. “Maybe I can get a look at the security tape,” he mused. That's how he'd kept me out of jail after the Poseidon's incident. He knew someone on the inside. Sometimes Frank's life was so labyrinthine it gave me a headache, and I was sure I only knew a tenth of it, if that.

He brushed a kiss on my cheek. I resisted the urge to move my mouth into it. “Remember our code. I'll contact you or you contact me if they close the tournament down sooner than expected. The security here is watching you, but only when you are near the Main Event action, understand?” I nodded as he continued, “So you make sure you stay here until I get back or I send Joe or Ben or Ingrid to take you back to the room. Under no circumstances do you leave alone—got it?”

I smiled and waved as I made my way to my table, trying to ignore his dark gaze boring into me. Another player from a short table was moved to ours. Without introducing himself, the short, dark man who reminded me a bit of Joe Pesci shook my hand with a quick smile. He paused halfway into his seat, his eyes hung on something on the felt in front of me.

“Excuse me, ma'am, but where did you get that marker?” he asked with a studied calmness as he eased into the chair.

I fingered the worn wooden piece Frank had given me as a lucky charm before my first tournament. Made of rare Hawaiian koa wood, it had some faded marks on it that neither I, nor anyone I asked, could discern. Frank wouldn't tell me the story behind it. Maybe this guy had stayed at the same casino and remembered what it had looked like when new. Maybe it had been won in a underground tournament in some shady bar in Casablanca. Believe me, I'd spun those stories and more.

I tried to contain my excitement when I answered: “Why do you ask?”

“Because the man I lost that marker to ten years ago is the coldest killing son of a bitch our department has ever known.”