Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (10 page)

We looked amongst ourselves, no one really knowing where Jimmy was going with this.

“They was lookin’ for reactions. Trying to see what we’d do when we heard the news that Danny was dead.”

Still nobody said anything, so Jimmy continued. “And we now know we weren’t really needed to identify the body. And I don’t believe the cock and bull story they told me about finding my name on Danny’s body.”

“That’s what they told me, too,” Ben said, as I nodded in agreement. Gus and Saul did as well.

“They came and got us, told us the news, then had us sitting there for Christ knows how long…letting us stew about Danny. Not knowing if the other three were dead too.”

“That’s right,” Saul said, in an almost accusing tone. Accusing of whom, I didn’t know.

“It took so long to get me there because I made them wait for Hannah to come home,” Ben said.

Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I was there a helluva long time before they rapped on the door and led me out into the hall…only to see the three of you.”

“Me too,” Saul said. “And what was that all about, anyway? Getting us all in the hall like that?”

“Reactions,” Jimmy said, and this time everyone began to slowly nod their heads, finally getting Jimmy’s drift.

“We’re all suspects,” he said.

Gus scoffed at that. Ben waved his hands in dismissal. Saul said something in Yiddish that I hadn’t picked up from Ben.

But a different feeling came over the table, and we all drifted to silence, watching Jimmy eat, finishing our coffee.

Thinking.

If I ever saw him again, I was going to rip Jack Schiller a new one for the looks that passed between those four men in the next half hour.

At first it was nothing, then an occasional glance at each other. And at some point, the looks had turned to questions.

Did one of them kill Danny?

“S
o Ben,” I said on the drive home.

“Yes?” His voice was quiet, tired. No wonder, it was now eight in the morning. I hadn’t been to bed and I wasn’t sure if Ben had either. If he had, he’d been awakened by Jack Schiller in the wee hours.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be coming home at eight in the morning, but I knew this night had taken a toll on Ben.

Would take an even harder toll in the upcoming days.

“Danny and Moira were married for how long?”

“Fifty-two years,” he answered, a small trace of pride in his voice.

 
“And Saul? He was only married to Rachael, right, for, like forever?”

“Twenty years,” Ben said, his face still to the window.

“That’s all? The way he talks about her I thought it was longer.”

“It was as long as she had.”

Right, the love of Saul’s life had died and he’d never gotten over it.
 

“And Gus? Was it two wives or three?”

Ben turned forward, a tiny smile on his face. “Gus has been married four times. Gus and women…” he put his hands up as if to explain, then threw them down into his lap. “Oy,” he summed up.

“When was the last one?”

“Oh, fifteen, twenty-years ago. Long before you and I met.”

 
“And Jimmy? He never talks about his personal life. Or at least not when I’m around.”

“Mmmm, Jimmy,” Ben said. I waited. “Jimmy and his wife split up when Jimmy’s son was a little boy. His gambling did them in,” he said, looking at me pointedly.

I kept my eyes on the road, not answering.

“His wife took the boy back east, remarried.”

“Did Jimmy see his son very often?” I’d never heard Jimmy mention seeing his son in the ten years I’d known him.

Ben shook his head. “No. They tried at first, but Elaine didn’t want Jimmy’s ‘bad habits’ influencing little James. They’d fight. It was a mess.”

“When was the last time he saw him?”

He thought about it. “Nearly forty years ago, I guess.”

“That’s so sad,” I said, feeling sorry for Jimmy. As much as I could feel sorry for Jimmy.

“Yes, Hannah. Gambling. Addiction of any kind…there’s no place for it when you’re raising children. You always put it first, when it should be the child.”

“I’m not raising children, Ben. Unless you count you and Lorelei.”

He let out a soft snort. “Not yet you’re not. But there’ll come a day, mark my words.”

At this point I doubted it, but I didn’t argue with him. “Besides,” I said, “gambling is my profession not my addiction.”

He looked closely at me, his stare making me squirm. “Hannah, darling,” he said quietly, “don’t ever mistake me for Lorelei.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence.

When we got home, I went around the front of my car to help Ben out. We do it every morning, and it’s not an easy task, but this morning Ben huffed and grunted a little more than usual as he got out of the low seat. It took a good pull from me to get him upright. I put the walker in front of him and stepped away, knowing he wanted as little help as possible.
 

He got past the car door and before I could reach to shut it for him, he slammed it shut with a force I didn’t know he had. “God damn car,” he whispered under his breath as he shuffled up the sidewalk.

L
orelei was full of questions when we came in, but Ben only patted her arm, said he was tired and continued on to his room.

I told Lorelei what I knew, that Danny had been shot, execution style, in the back of the head and found in a parking lot. One rarely used and without any kind of security camera set-up. The police were unclear whether he’d been killed at the scene or if he’d been moved there after.

“Oh, come on,” Lorelei said. “They can tell that stuff right away.”

“I know. I thought the same thing. The boys seemed to buy it.”

 
“Did you get anything out of him? That yummy detective that was here?”

Ah, so Lorelei had noticed Jack Schiller’s…yumminess. Not the first adjective that came to mind when I thought of him—I’d use intense, shrewd, disturbing—but certainly not off the mark.

“No, not really. I tried, but by the time they offered up even that much the boys had just seen Danny’s body and were in no condition to really think straight. And then they just wanted to get out of there.

“I need to get some sleep,” I said and started to rise, but then fell back into the chair, a new thought invading my mind.

“Lor, how’s the slush fund these days?” I asked, referring to the fund that Lorelei kept for the household. The fund built on my winnings.

“Good. Healthy as a matter of fact.” She seemed to realize that I’d never asked her this question before. If it was getting low, she’d let me know and I’d take care of it. I never queried the amount. And I
never
asked for any money from the fund. It was a one-way fund as far as the family was concerned.

 
“Why?” she asked, with just a trace of suspicion in her voice.

I pulled the
Sports Illustrated
that sat on the table over to me. It was the one that had the article about The Corporation in it. Lorelei had bought twenty copies when it came out. I flipped through it until I came to the article. The picture of them all at the Sourdough brought stinging tears to my eyes. I flipped the magazine shut and turned back to Lorelei, hoping her suspicion had abated.

“Think it could spare thirty thousand?”

“Yeeeessss,” she said in a question, her voice definitely suspicious now.

Feelings rushed through me. Guilt. Fear. I looked at Lorelei, her pretty face turning from suspicion to apprehension. She bit her lower lip waiting for my …request? Sob story? Outright lie?

Loyalty. And shame. Those were the emotions that won out. Mostly shame. “Could you take Ben shopping for a new car in the next few days?”

Relief washed over her face. “Yes. Of course.”

I nodded. “Something big, that’s easy for him to get in and out of. Make sure you have him test a couple of them out. He’s not going to like it, but make him.”

She was nodding, grabbing for her pad and pen, which always seemed to be just a reach away from Lorelei. “Right. Right. This is good. It’ll take his mind off Danny.”

I nodded, like that had been my plan all along. Who knows, maybe it had been.

She was writing furiously on the pad. “What about the Porsche? You want me to trade it in?”

I looked behind me, through the windows to my baby parked in the driveway, next to Lorelei’s BMW. “Nah, not if the slush fund can swing it without it.”

“It can. No problem.” She wrote something else.

Another thought occurred to me, and I pulled my cell phone out of my cargo pants pocket, laid it on the table. “While you’re at it. You’re right, it’s time to upgrade our phones. Go to town.”

A look of bliss passed over her face. For a dancer by trade, Lorelei had an odd penchant for techno gizmos. Thank goodness someone in the household did or we’d still just have a toaster in the kitchen and be woken up each day by hand-wound alarm clocks.

“Iphones,” she whispered with reverence.

“Really? That fancy? I won’t know how to use it.” And if I couldn’t, Ben probably wouldn’t be able to either.

She rushed on, not wanting to lose me. “I’ll do everything. I’ll totally set it up for you. It’ll just take a couple of clicks for you to do anything.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. Technology kind of intimidated me. We had one family computer in our house growing up, and not even internet access until after I left for college. Which was just before every student had a cell phone and a laptop. I was out here by then, and those first few years either didn’t have the time—because I was busy winning at cards—or the money—because I was losing—to buy all that stuff.
 

 
I still got all my scores from newspapers unless Lorelei got online and printed them out for me. I was the only poker player I knew that didn’t play online.

Fifty-two playing cards had been working for hundreds of years—that was my kind of technology.

I could still learn all of that stuff, it wouldn’t be hard, but I don’t trust myself to not be online all day playing poker if I did.

Yeah, much better to be in a smoke-filled casino all day playing poker.

“And I’ll set it up so with just one little click you’ll be able to get scores,” Lorelei pulled me back into the conversation.
 

Ah, Lorelei, a born saleswoman, which is probably why she still got an occasional dancing gig at the ripe old age—for dancers in Vegas—of forty.

“Okay. Iphones,” I said and was instantly rewarded with a squeal of delight.
 

“You’re more excited about a phone than a new car?” I asked.
 
She just shrugged.
 

“Make sure mine is idiot-proof,” I said. “And set up a separate ring tone for Ben and a separate one for you,” I said, remembering my looking around stupidly when my phone had rung at the poker game earlier.

“And a separate one for Jeffrey?”

I shrugged. “Nah,” I said. Lorelei shook her head with dismay. “He doesn’t call much, we see each other at the Bellagio,” I rationalized to her, but she wasn’t buying it.

Neither was I.

I rose from the table, taking my phone with me. “I’m going to hang on to this one. Even after the new ones, so keep getting me a refill card every now and then, okay?” She nodded, lost in her Iphone victory. Good. I really didn’t want her thinking too much about why I wanted a phone that wasn’t traceable to any account or contract.

“I’m headed for bed. You need anything from me before I go?”
 

She shook her head. “Oh. Wait. The new car? You want that in Ben’s name, right?”

I thought for a minute. “Put this one in yours, Lor.”

“Really?” she said, obviously touched. That made me wish I’d done it sooner.

I really
had
to start thinking about things other than gambling.

“Okay. You sure you don’t want to come with us?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Can’t. I have to be somewhere later.”

I thought of my eventual visit to see Vince today—empty handed. Yes,
definitely
time to think about things other than gambling.

I went to my room, pulled off my jacket. I turned on the television then went to draw the black-out blinds Lorelei had thoughtfully had installed when we’d moved into this place. I toed off my shoes, peeled off my socks, slipped off my cargo pants and crawled into bed, shirt, panties and bra still on.

My clothes held a strong aroma of smoke from the poker game and ammonia from the morgue. I peeled my shirt off and threw it across the room as if to rid myself of the last twelve hours.

Scores were running across the ticker on the television. I waited to see the one I wanted. The game I’d needed money to bet. The reason I went to the back room game in the first place.