3 Men and a Body (22 page)

folded early, not yet ready to bluff. But when Chance

threw him a look of exasperation, Wesley decided if he

was going to lose, he would do it with style.

In the next round he was dealt the two of clubs and the

eight of diamonds for his pocket cards—a truly shitty

hand. He bet high, hoping to scare the others into thinking

he had something. Two folded, leaving him and two other

guys playing the hand—a fat, squishy character with moles

on his eyelids, and a clean-cut fel ow who chewed gum like

a girl. But Wesley liked gum chewers. They had more tel s

than a four-year-old. He put Squishy-Moley with at least

one face card, and Chewy with a low pair.

The first three community cards, the flop, were dealt

faceup: the three of clubs, the four of clubs, and the eight

of spades. The next two community cards, the turn card

and the river card, were dealt facedown. With a possible

straight flush going and now a pair with the flop cards,

Wesley slow-bid the hand until everyone had raised twice.

The dealer flipped the turn card, a six of diamonds. Chewy

folded. Squishy-Moley raised. Stil working a straight,

Wesley cal ed the bet. The river card was the eight of

hearts, giving Wesley three of a kind. Not bad, but the

other guy could have the straight. Squishy-Moley

hesitated, then raised. Wesley cal ed and raised. Squishy

called, then revealed his pocket cards—a pair of fours.

With the community cards, he had three fours. Wesley

won the hand with his three eights, and set the tone for

the next two hours of play. One by one, the players fel ,

leaving Wesley and Squishy-Moley to square off.

Chance was so excited he could barely watch. Wesley’s leg

was jumping badly now, so he asked for a bathroom break

and chewed another pil . By the time he emerged, his leg

was stil and he was feeling good again. This was the kind

of local exposure he needed to build his reputation as a

solid card player and make his way to a big regional game,

leading up to a tournament sanctioned by the World

Series of Poker.

He lowered himself into the chair and nodded at Squishy-

Moley, whose real name, he discovered, was Andy. Andy

had that hangdog jowly look that was hard to read—his

eyes were hooded and he rarely glanced up from his cards.

But that was a tel , too, because it meant he usually bet on

the basis of his own hand rather than trying to figure out

what the other guy was holding.

They played a few rounds, passing chips back and forth

across the table. Then slowly, Wesley began to get the

upper hand. And at last, he got gorgeous pocket cards: a

pair of aces, clubs and hearts. Stil , he bet conservatively,

because he’d seen plenty of ace pairs beaten with a low

three of a kind. Andy didn’t seem overly excited about his

pocket cards, either.

The flop was the queen of hearts, the seven of hearts and

the four of clubs. The best Andy could have at this point

was three of a kind, but Andy was probably thinking the

same thing about Wesley’s hand, and he was wrong.

Wesley raised twice. The turn card was another queen,

which stung. If Andy held queens, he was looking at four of

a kind, and three of a kind was stil a winner over Wesley’s

pair of aces. The river card was a ten of hearts, which

didn’t help. Wesley kept raising, though, and just when he

thought Andy would fold, the guy pushed his chips to the

center of the table.

“Al in.”

Wesley hesitated. He didn’t want to be one of those

chumps who bet the farm and lost it on a pair of aces—

that was a beginner’s mistake. If he folded, he stil had

time to make it up, and he’d been getting good cards all

night.

On the other hand, this could be the end of his streak, the

last decent pocket cards he’d get all night. And he didn’t

want to be the chump who folded with a pair of aces to a

guy who held squat. Thirty seconds went by, then a

minute. Under the table his knee started jumping again,

and to his embarrassment, sweat dripped off the end of

his nose onto the table.

The dealer cleared his throat, a warning to place a bet or

fold by default.

“Call,” Wesley said, pushing the better portion of his chips

in to match the other man’s bet. “What d’ya have?”

His opponent rol ed his eyes upward and Wesley felt a

flash of panic. Then Andy sighed and tossed down his

cards. A three and a nine—garbage.

Chance came off his chair, whooping with joy. Applause

broke out and players pumped Wesley’s hand in

congratulations. His arm hurt like hel , but he didn’t mind.

Grimes carried the til to Wesley’s table and started

counting out the twenty grand in bundles of hundreds.

Between the Oxy and the win, Wesley felt as if he were

floating. With his half of the pot he could get The Carver

and Father Thom off his back for a while, and give Carlotta

some money for bil s. This time he wasn’t going to blow

the cash like he had before.

For once, he’d be a hero.

A commotion sounded at the door. “Everybody, hands in

the air!”

Wesley jerked his head around to see three hooded men

standing in a semicircle, handguns extended. One guy shot

into the ceiling, sending drywall raining down. “I said

hands in the air!”

Wesley obeyed, as did everyone else in the room. While

two of the men kept their guns trained on everyone, the

third guy walked up to Wes’s table and stuffed the cash

into a duffel bag. Twenty guys had paid five grand

apiece—not a bad take for a few minutes’ work. Wesley

set his jaw to keep from crying at the sight of his prize

money disappearing. He’d been so damn close.

While the masked man crammed the money in the bag, he

looked up at Wesley with mockery in his eyes, then zipped

the duffel closed and backed out of the room.

The other two gunmen waited a few seconds, then backed

out, too. Their pounding footsteps echoed in the empty

building, then the front door slammed.

Nobody moved for a few seconds. And nobody dared call

the police because the impromptu card house was

completely il egal. It was exactly what the gunmen had

been counting on. Grimes threw a few chairs and cursed a

blue streak, but they’d all been had. It wasn’t the first time

a card club had been robbed. They were lucky everyone’s

wallets hadn’t been stolen, as wel .

Worse, Wesley thought there was something familiar

about the hooded gunman who’d handled the money. The

way he stood, the bulk of his shoulders…the mockery in his

eyes as he’d singled out Wesley.

It was Leonard, he was almost positive. E.’s boyfriend,

Chance’s drug runner. The man had been listening when

Chance had told Wesley about the card game. And Wesley

wouldn’t put anything past the guy.

Anger burned a hole in Wesley’s stomach. Leonard had

everything that Wesley wanted—including E.—for now.

But Wesley would find a way to even the score.

24

“Hannah, hi, it’s Carlotta. I just called to check in.” She

laughed gaily into the receiver. “Oh, I’ve got the funniest

thing to tel you. Did you know that when Detective Jack

Terry was here, I caught him watching the Gilmore Girls? I

kid you not. The man isn’t nearly as macho as he likes to

pretend. Call me on my cel when you want to catch up.”

Carlotta put down the phone and sighed. Or make up. She

knew Hannah was upset over her taking the road trip with

Coop, but Carlotta hadn’t thought her friend would hold it

against her for this long. She’d always assumed Hannah’s

comments about Coop were just indiscriminate flirting.

But maybe Hannah really cared about him.

Carlotta picked herself up from the bedroom floor. If her

friend was in love with Coop, all the more reason for

Carlotta not to get involved with him. He deserved

someone who could give her entire heart.

In Hannah’s case, if she really loved a man, she’d probably

be wil ing to cut out and hand over any body part he

wanted.

Carlotta left her bedroom, conscious of the quiet hush in

the house. It was nice for Wesley to have someplace to be

every morning, she conceded, and he seemed content

with his community service job. Every day he brought

home a stack of manuals about things that would make

her head explode. But without him bustling around the

kitchen and playing his music at deafening levels, she felt

restless in the house alone, bored and claustrophobic.

And since Kiki Deerling’s memorial service the previous

day, she’d been nursing a feeling of discontent. Granted,

her disappointment was probably rooted in the “lifting of

the veil” on the fantasy of celebritydom that the whole

experience had produced. But this lingering sense of grief

seemed more…pervasive.

She glanced down the hall to the closed door of her

parents’ room and sighed. And then, of course, there were

her parents.

Always, her parents.

Giving in to the pul , she went to the door and twisted the

knob. The door had swol en in the heat, so she had to give

it a shove with her good shoulder. When it creaked open

she slid back in time ten years—as she always did.

Their bedroom was much the same as Randolph and

Valerie had left it, only without some of the photographs

and other personal items the police had taken after the

pair had gone missing. The matching furniture—bed,

dresser, wardrobe and two chests—that had sat in one

corner of their enormous bedroom in the house they’d

lost, overwhelmed this modest-size master bedroom. The

oversize pieces made it feel as if the wal s were closing in.

Her mother had hated living here. She’d hated the small

rooms in the cramped town house on the unimpressive

street in the inconsequential neighborhood. She’d missed

lunch at the club and afternoons at the spa, personal

shoppers and domestic help. Valerie had rarely talked

about her childhood, because her parents had died when

she was young, but Carlotta had the impression that her

mother had grown up very poor. Perhaps that was the

reason she’d affixed herself to Randolph Wren and the

luxurious lifestyle he had provided, why she had chosen to

go with him on the lam rather than stay behind with her

children and struggle to make ends meet.

Carlotta couldn’t say her parents had been in love. What

they’d had was so much more unhealthy. It was an

obsession for each other that was almost immature in its

intensity, a possessive, jealous bond that left no room for

anything or anyone else…at least not to her mother’s

knowledge.

The air in the room was stale, but stil reeked of them

both, if that was possible. The box of cigars on her father’s

nightstand had long since dried out, but the scent of

tobacco lingered. Her mother’s perfumes had turned to

mostly alcohol, yel owing the glass of the fancy bottles.

Her father’s ties stil hung over his valet stand. Her

mother’s flowered silk robe was draped over the back of

the chair in front of her dressing table. A layer of dust

made everything fuzzy and slightly out of focus, like an old

photo. Wesley had come in occasionally over the years

and dusted, but Carlotta had always refused. She’d spent

less than twenty minutes in this room since her parents

had left.

Now she went to their bathroom and removed a folded

washcloth from the closet, wetting it with water from the

faucet that ran rusty before it ran clear. Then she

backtracked and began cleaning everything. One by one,

she picked up items and careful y removed the dust and

built-up grime. The job somehow seemed more purposeful

now that she knew they were both stil alive. She picked

up a photo of her parents that had been taken at some

gala event. Her father was in a tux, her mother in a long

white, sequined gown. They looked glorious together,

tanned and fit, smiling.

But her mother’s eyes looked glassy, the telltale sign of a

wel -functioning alcoholic. Valerie had always been fond of

happy hour. But after they’d lost the Buckhead house, her

Bloody Mary breakfast extended to a two-martini lunch,

which stretched into an afternoon nip that morphed into

the cocktail hour which held her over until after-dinner

drinks and wrapped up with a nightcap.

Randolph had indicated that her mother was stil drinking

“on and off.” Had Valerie tried rehab? Entered a twelve-

step program? If so, she hadn’t yet gotten to the part

about seeking forgiveness from those you’ve wronged.

Carlotta lifted her mother’s robe to her face and inhaled

the scent of dust and age and the merest hint of ylang-

ylang. Tears fil ed her eyes, but as always, she was hard-

pressed to attach any one emotion to her parents—anger,

fear, frustration, love, hate, betrayal. She stil felt al those

things.

But she was so profoundly grateful that they were stil