Some Like It Hotter (Sweet Life in Seattle #3) (5 page)

“Hmm, thanks. I’ll check it out.”

He eyes Giovanni lurking behind her. Lindsay doesn’t introduce him, and Varik doesn’t ask any questions.

She goes to the cage and chats with Petra, the woman who’s working behind the glass tonight, as she buys a couple thousand euros’ worth of chips.

Giovanni studies her hefty stack. “You’re here to play poker?”

“It looks that way.”

“So you’re not here to meet men after all.”

She shrugs. “Who says I’m not here for both? There’s some hot guys who play cards.”

He doesn’t say anything, but much to her irritation follows her over to the poker floor.

“Look, despite what Dagmar said, I don’t actually need or want a bodyguard. I’m just here to have some fun. Why don’t you go do the same?”

“I don’t gamble.”

Lindsay bites her tongue before she tells him she doesn’t either. Skill is foremost in poker, though a bit of luck certainly doesn’t hurt. “You’re going to be very bored then. Why did you bother coming with us at all?”

He glances around. “I wanted to see what kind of trouble you were up to.”

“What are you, my keeper now?”

“No, but I suspect you need one.”

She moves to one of the empty cocktail tables in back which gives her a nice view of the floor. It’s crowded, but not overly so, and she sees plenty of tourists mixed in with a few of the regulars.

Her eyes go to table five and she immediately sees what Varik was talking about. There’s some heavyset guy with glasses playing on tilt. He’s drinking too much and talking too loudly. There’s a large stack of chips in front of him—by her estimate, a few thousand euros—and she suspects those aren’t his winnings.

As she watches the floor, Giovanni is watching her again. He might only be trying to get her in bed again, but her spidey senses are tingling.

There’s some kind of classical music coming from his pocket, and he digs his phone out. His tense expression becomes worse.

“Something wrong?”

He doesn’t answer her but goes quiet, listening to a message from someone.

Lindsay continues her careful analysis of the floor, trying to decide what her best play is here. The guy on tilt is at a table with no openings, and she’s not sure if she should wait.

When Sabine, one of the waitresses, walks past, Giovanni flags her over and orders a beer. Lindsay orders her usual mineral water.

After a short while, he puts his phone away. “How often do you come here?” he asks.

“Only occasionally.”

“You seem to know everybody.”

“Oh, that.” She shrugs. “I like to be friendly.”

When their drinks arrive, she picks up her glass, still keeping her eye on table five. She’s decided she’s going to wait it out.

“Wasn’t your dad some kind of famous poker player?”

She sips her water. “Famous is a strong word, but yes, he played cards.” In truth, her dad—who’s no longer alive—was once a world-class player. He won a few bracelets at the World Series of Poker and even won the Main Event one year. Unfortunately, he also had an addiction to both gambling and women.

“What was his name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to Google him.”

Lindsay frowns to herself. She doesn’t want Giovanni nosing around in her business.

Suddenly, she sees someone getting up to leave table five. There’s finally an opening, and it’s not just any opening—it’s the Jesus seat right next to the guy on tilt.

“My table just opened. I have to go!” She quickly grabs her tray of chips along with her mineral water and heads over as one of the regulars tries to swoop in like a vulture. She gets there just in time too.

“Excuse me,” she says breathlessly, as she slides into the chair. “I’d love to join the game.”

The table is all men, which is typical for Berlin. Most women here seem to prefer tournaments over cash games. What she’s found is that male players usually eye her with desire, annoyance, or indifference. The indifferent men being the ones to watch out for, as they’re typically the real card players.

The men who are annoyed by her are often chauvinistic assholes, but she’s learned to use that to her advantage. Men who try to show her up or teach her a lesson typically don’t play well and will often find they’ve lost all their money to her.

At this table, she sees the men are mostly looking at her with desire, though one of the regulars is displeased. Lindsay nods a greeting at him, and he grudgingly nods in return. She’s played him a few times. He’s one of the chauvinistic assholes who used to make snide remarks about how she should go play the slots, how poker isn’t a game for women. That is, until she cleaned his clock a few times.

He doesn’t say that anymore.

The guy on her right, the one drinking too much and playing badly on tilt, is giving her a lascivious grin.

“
Guten Abend,
” he leers.

Lindsay smiles. “
Guten Abend
.”

“Oh, you are American?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I like Americans.” He leans closer and lowers his voice. His breath is strong enough to kill a cockroach. “Especially beautiful American women.”

She resists the impulse to gag. “Thank you.”

Her usual poker calm comes over her as she sets up her stack of chips and mineral water. They’re playing Texas Hold’em—her favorite game. The same game she played with her dad at the kitchen table as a little girl. She adored him when she was growing up. He’d swoop in like a handsome prince, and everything was wonderful. Her sister was smart enough to stop trusting him early on, but it took Lindsay a long time to get to that point. Just like their mom, she always believed his lies.

The cards are dealt and she spends the next two hours in concentration, playing her best game. Cockroach Breath bemoans every lousy hand, losing one large pot after another. He makes a ‘tsk tsk’ noise toward her every time she raises and tries to offer unsolicited advice.

“Big mistake,” he tells her when she raises after the turn, which brings a king. Happily, her hole cards are pocket cowboys. “You are going to lose a lot of money playing that way.”

Lindsay only nods politely. She’s pretty sure he has a pair of sevens, which he’s dumb enough to think is the best hand at the table.

Somewhere after she wins her third large pot, Cockroach Breath starts to eye her with suspicion.

“What is this? Beginner’s luck?”

She shrugs innocently. “I guess so.”

The other new players, the ones who figured out it wasn’t beginner’s luck, have already left. A couple of the regulars drift over and take their place. One of them tries to outplay her with kings over nines, but her instincts tell her he’s bluffing, and she’s right.

So far she’s up fifteen hundred and is really in the zone. Her best night ever.

A waitress, one she doesn’t know, brings her a fresh mineral water. Lindsay sips it as she glances around, wondering where Giovanni went. She saw him wandering through a little while ago, but doesn’t see him anymore. It’s possible he finally went back to his hotel.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and he won’t mention any of this to Anthony.

The problem is she doesn’t believe much in luck.

Eventually, Dagmar comes over and stands beside her for a short while, smiling. She leans closer and whispers in Lindsay’s ear, “You are having an amazing night! And this guy next to you is almost giving you his money.”

Lindsay doesn’t reply. In truth, she’s starting to feel a little sorry for Cockroach Breath, despite the way he keeps grabbing her leg under the table and pinching her thigh. She’s been shoving his hand away for the last hour and finally had to kick him hard enough to make him yelp. Unfortunately, he’s been telling her his whole sad-sack story, how his wife left him for another man recently.

“I saw it coming,” he bemoans. “I begged her on my knees to stay, but she still left me.”

“Love isn’t worth the heartache,” Lindsay informs him. “Trust me, you’re better off alone.”

“You are wrong. Love is everything.” He picks up his drink, bleary-eyed, and takes another large swallow.

Lindsay shakes her head, surprised to hear such a romantic sentiment coming from him. Apparently, he’s been on a two-week bender with no end in sight.

Not that this stops her from cleaning him out. Or almost cleaning him out. When he’s down to his last few hundred, Lindsay folds her cards intentionally and tells him maybe he should just go home and sleep it off.

“
Nein
,” he says, shaking his head. “I have to win my money back first!”

“Just leave while you still have some money left.”

“You think you can beat me?” He stares at her with bloodshot eyes. “No dumb bitch ever beats me. Never!” He snarls something at her in German, probably calling her a bitch again.

She glances around at the other guys at the table. Two of them shake their heads, but nobody says anything, and they all keep playing. At least the casino has stopped serving him liquor.

Eventually, Cockroach Breath loses it all and throws his cards aside angrily. He tells everyone to go to hell then stands, swaying a little on his feet.

Lindsay, who still feels sorry for him, grabs a couple hundred euros’ worth of chips from her stack and tries to hand them over to him.

“Here, take these. Then find a cab out front and go home.”

“Fuck you! You think I want your money? Keep it, you stupid whore!” He shoves her hand away.

She tries to hand the chips to him again. “Take them, you dumb ass!”

Finally, he grabs them from her and staggers off. Instead of leaving, though, she watches him go right up to another poker game.

“Forget him. He is a lost cause,” some guy with a Russian accent says beside her.

She turns and discovers somebody new has already taken the place on her right. A muscular guy with short dark hair. He studies her with black eyes and an interested smile.

She stays to play another hand. The guy on her right keeps asking her questions about herself in a thick Russian accent, trying to make eye contact, but she only answers them politely. The vibe coming off him is unsettling.

Just as she decides to make this her last hand, she senses someone behind her shoulder, surprised to discover Giovanni.

“I thought you left.”

“No.” He leans in close and puts his mouth to her ear. “But you’re leaving.”

She turns to look at him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.” His face moves close to hers. “You’re finished here. I want you to fold.”

“I don’t take orders from you!”

“Tonight, you do.”

She ignores him and lets her breath out in a huff.
Who the hell does he think he is?

“I mean it, Lindsay. I’m going to stand here until you leave with me.”

She glances at her cards. Obviously, she was already planning to make this her last hand, but is so annoyed she’s tempted to stay.

The Russian guy, who’s been coming on to her, glances at Giovanni, then leans in. “Is all okay?”

“It’s fine.”

He nods slowly.

Her eyes flash down to the guy’s hands for some reason. His left is resting on the table, and he has some kind of elaborate black Cyrillic tattoo webbed on all his fingers. She’s had a lot of boyfriends with tattoos, and has some ink herself, but has never seen anything quite like this guy’s.

The dealer lays the flop, and Lindsay calls. After the turn, she’s in line for a ten-high straight and doubts anyone else will beat it. She considers raising. She already has four hundred in, but then Giovanni’s mouth is at her ear again. “I want you to end this
now
.”

She grinds her teeth. When it’s her turn, she hesitates, but does what he tells her and folds. For a split second, the Russian seems surprised but quickly hides it, and she realizes he’s a skilled card player.

She announces she’s calling it a night. All the men at the table watch her as she gathers her pile of chips together, tossing the dealer a generous tip.

Giovanni follows her over to the cage so she can cash everything in.

“I hope you’re happy,” she mutters. “I don’t know why I listened to you.”

He doesn’t reply, just watches the pile of bills being counted out to her.

“I would have won that hand. You just cost me a lot of money.”

“Stop complaining. I did you a favor.”

She scoffs. “How?”

But he only shakes his head and scowls. “Let’s get out of here. This place is giving me a headache.”

Lindsay’s not sure why she’s going anywhere with him, but she follows him out to the front. On the way, she sees Dagmar and her boyfriend, Werner.

“I’m going to tell Dagmar I’m leaving.”

They go over to where the couple is standing at a table with drinks in front of them.

Dagmar grins when she sees them. “How did you do?” She reaches for Lindsay’s arm to draw her in closer, then whispers in her ear, “And I see the doctor is still here.”

“I did okay tonight.”

“It looked like you were winning a lot! That is so great. You will for sure have enough money saved before you leave.” Dagmar knows all about her plans to go back to school in the fall.

“What is all this?” Werner asks politely.

Dagmar turns to him and speaks in German, telling him about Lindsay’s productive night.

“Good for you,” he says. “You must have a large bankroll now.”

Lindsay doesn’t say anything. Werner is not her favorite person.

“Oops, I have to go.” Dagmar is staring down at her phone. “My tournament is starting in a few minutes.” She’s only been playing poker about a year, but in the same way she’s helped Lindsay navigate her way around Berlin, Lindsay has been helping her improve her game. Dagmar comes from a wealthy family though and plays poker mostly for fun. She leans in to kiss Werner good-bye and then turns back to Lindsay. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can go over our hands.”

“Sounds good. I should get going now too.”

“No! You and the doctor must stay and have a drink with Werner,” Dagmar says. “Get to know each other better.”

Once she’s gone, Lindsay already sees the shift in Werner, who always acts like a gentleman in front of Dagmar, but is actually a total sleaze. She knows he’s using Dagmar but is unable to convince her friend otherwise. For the life of her, Lindsay can’t figure out what she sees in him to begin with since he literally looks like a rat. He’s perpetually pale and sweaty, and has this strange haircut that’s long and thin in back, yet short and spiky on top. Plus, he wears dark eyeliner, which he apparently thinks makes him look tough.