Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (20 page)

And a man.

During the interminable drive Paulie gave me no words of encouragement. He said nothing the entire ride. Once I even saw him wipe a bead of sweat off his upper lip. I knew he didn’t want to beat me up—but he would if Vince gave the word.

He didn’t take me to a casino. Instead we pulled up to a no tell-motel dive in one of the seedier sections of town.

No cars were parked out front, but Paulie knew exactly what room to park at. He pointed to the room in front of us and released the locks on my car door.

I let myself out of the car and slowly walked to the motel room door. I looked back at Paulie, but he couldn’t meet my eye. I turned to the door and knocked.

“Come in,” Vince answered and I did.

He sat in a chair at a little round table in the room. There was no chair for me I noticed. No book with Vince. No coffee cup. It was if he’d just transported into that chair. Nothing of any personal nature anywhere in the room.

Because he didn’t want to leave any evidence at a crime scene?

“Vince, I…” I stopped as he held up a hand. I didn’t really know what I’d say anyway.

“Don’t, Anna,” he said. He looked at me, turned his head from one side to the other, as if measuring me.

I just hoped it wasn’t for trunk size.

“You’ve always been a good customer, Anna,” he said. I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to go on. My hands were shaking by now and I clasped them behind my back.

This was different than controlling your emotions in a poker game. That was money, and money could sometimes feel like life or death, but this truly was life or death—or at the very least really horrible pain.

 
“Other than that one unfortunate incident ten years ago, we’ve done very well together.”

My foot ached as he mentioned my “incident”. I vaguely wondered if Paulie would break the same one, or if I’d have a matching set of fractures?

“So, you can imagine my predicament. I’ve made lots of money off of the games you’ve… worked… for me.” I liked his choice of euphemism. Like I was one of the timekeepers or refs or something.

“Because of that, I’m giving you a choice,” he said.

My eyes grew wide with surprise, then narrowed with suspicion. “What’s the choice?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t just between my left foot or right.

“You can either owe me the original thirty with the interest still running and one week to pay.” That was unbelievable to me and I was about to jump at it when he added, “Taking, of course, the requisite physical punishment.”
 

Which is what I’d expected, a hospital stay, pissing blood, rehab and still owing Vince money I didn’t have.

“Or?” I asked.

“Or your tab goes to one hundred large which is your thirty and what I lost today.”

“No…physical punishment?” I said, and my heart started beating again.

“No. Same terms apply. You have one week to pay it back.”

“Can I pay it off with a different game?” I asked.

He thought on that. He must have known it was the best chance to see his money again, but I didn’t blame him for being gun-shy after my screw up today. “I’ll take thirty k off for services rendered. You’re on your own for the other seventy.”

“What if you took the money line, and it was a long shot?” I asked. “Would that be worth a hundred grand to you?”

When betting a game, you usually bet the point spread—such as in the Louisville / Pitt game, the point spread was 10, with Louisville the favorite. So, if you wanted to bet Pitt, you had the same relative chance of winning getting ten points as you would if you bet Louisville giving ten points. And the payouts would be the same, or nearly so.

The money line didn’t take point spreads into account—you bet on who you thought would win the game, so the odds were much higher for the underdog to win outright, and thus the payout higher.

The kicker was, to get a really high payout for a money line, it would have to be a big time underdog winning in a huge upset. Those didn’t happen every day.

But one would have to happen soon, with JoJo’s help.

“You’d have to have some buy-in if you went for a moneyline game,” Vince pointed out the conclusion I’d reluctantly just come to. “You can’t just have a high-scorer out with a roofie hang-over.”

I nodded, not surprised that he’d deduced JoJo’s methods. And waited.

“One week. The money line has to be at least +500.”
 
With that, Vince could bet ten thousand—a fraction of what I owed him—and walk away with winnings of $50,000.

I nodded, started to feel a shimmer of hope that I was going to get out of here with all my limbs intact.
 

“And, Anna,” Vince said. “You know what will happen if this doesn’t work.” I nodded again, still unable to trust my voice. He motioned to the door, dismissing me. “I want to know the game within two days,” he said.

I nodded once more. “Thanks, Vince,” I managed to croak out and quickly headed for the door.

“Send Paulie in here,” Vince said. I did, and sat in the car waiting for Paulie to get the benign—and surely puzzling—instructions to take me back to the airport and my car, not off into the desert and then to the hospital.

“G
in!” I heard Lorelei declare from the foyer as I entered the house. I plopped my carry-on down on the tile, then thought better of it and quickly carried it to the back of the house and my bedroom, stowing it in the back of my closet and shutting the door.

I then made my way back into the main part of the house, following the noise to the dining room where Lorelei, Jimmy, Ben and Saul were playing cards.

“Hannah, dear, come and join us,” Ben said as if I’d only been away a few hours rather than two days.

Ben was no dummy; he knew he was setting the tone. Nobody would ask where I’d been if he didn’t. Jimmy did flash me a questioning look and I gave him a slight nod. He seemed satisfied with that.

Lorelei saw that and then gave me a questioning look of her own—about the money I deduced. I shook my head this time and she leaned back in her chair with a soft sigh.

I went to the sideboard where Lorelei had set up a coffee pot and some snacks, and filled myself a mug. I took a piece of one of the sub sandwiches she had provided and put it on a plate. I took it all to the table and sat down. “Who’s winning?” I asked.

Lorelei beamed. “Me! Can you believe it?”

“That’s great,” I said. Then in between bites I managed to get out, “Thanks for the sandwiches, this really hits the spot.” I reached across the table, grabbed her hand as she was reaching for her just-dealt cards. “Thank you for everything you do, Lor. I couldn’t make it without you.”

She waved my thanks away, but I could tell she was touched. She kept her head down as she looked at her cards, and let her red mane fall to shield herself.

“Christ, what happened to you while you were gone? Getting all touchy-feely on us?” Jimmy asked, earning a scowl from Ben and Lorelei.

I put my cup down after a satisfying gulp of the hot liquid. I couldn’t tell them that I was relieved to be alive—or at least upright—after my meeting with Vince. I couldn’t tell them that I was saddened by the thought of my burgeoning whatever it was with Jack Schiller was now doomed thanks to Paulie.

Thanks to me, I corrected myself—the root of it all came back to me. Always came back to me.

And gambling.

What I did say, and I meant it, was, “I think the things that have happened lately can only make you stop and take stock of your life. Remind you what you’re grateful for.”

Ben and Saul nodded, never looking up from their cards. Jimmy snorted. Lorelei leaned over and squeezed my hand, then returned her gaze to her cards.

“Has there been any break in the case? No
 
more…attempts…have been made on
 
any of you, have they?”

I, of course, knew there hadn’t been or Jack would have told me. But they didn’t know I’d had my own personal police escort up until a couple of hours ago.

“No news from the police,” Ben said. “And nothing strange has happened to any of us.”

“And you’re all being careful? Sticking close to each other?” I asked them all, but I looked at Jimmy, who only shrugged as Ben and Saul nodded.

“How’s Gus?” I asked.

“Much better,” Saul answered. “Much better. This morning when we went he had his barber in giving him a trim and a darling girl doing his nails.”

“Sounds like Gus,” I said with relief, and a little awe.

“He’ll be able to leave tomorrow,” Saul continued.

“He’s not going back to his apartment is he?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that, dear,” Ben said, placing his cards down on the table, earning a huff from Jimmy that the card game had come to a stop.

“Absolutely he can stay here. The other guest room is okay, isn’t it Lorelei?”

When we bought the house, Lorelei insisted there’d be times when we’d want five bedrooms. Because of Ben, we’d only looked at ranch-style houses, and to have all we—we as in Lorelei—wanted, it had to be a sprawling house, and it was. U-shaped, with the main living areas, one guest room and the office in the base and each extension containing two bedrooms.
 

In normal circumstances, Lorelei and Ben shared one wing, so that Lorelei could hear Ben in the night while I was out. I had the other wing with the empty guestroom, which I assumed held either Saul, or was soon to house Gus.

Other than helping Ben at times in his bedroom, and looking for Lorelei in hers, I don’t think I’ve stepped foot in the guest rooms since the last time my parents had come for a visit.

“The guest room is fine, all set,” Lorelei said to nobody’s surprise. “Although we wouldn’t have room for both Gus and all his clothes.” We all chuckled, thinking of Gus having to wear comfy clothes like pajamas or sweats for a while instead of his dapper suits. “We’ll put Gus in the one in the main part of the house so that people are around him more.”

I nodded, then looked at Jimmy. “The offer still stands, you know. There’s plenty of room.” I could easily bunk with Lorelei or take a couch or the fold-out in the office, I’d certainly crashed there many times after a long night and not even making it to the back and my room.

Jimmy just raised a brow at me. I was surrounded by men who had perfected that look of derision. Though I didn’t really expect to see Jack again—not in anything other than an official capacity anyway.

“We gonna play cards, or what?” Jimmy said in answer to my offer.

“Shuffle up and deal,” I motioned to them, and got up to refill my plate.

Lorelei had pushed the framed photos that usually took center-stage of the sideboard to the back to make room for the food and coffee. One in particular held my gaze. Ben, Saul and Rachael, Saul’s deceased wife. I’d seen the picture hundreds of times as I’d walked by, but I looked at it this time—really looked at it.

It was taken in the late sixties, in black and white. The three of them stood together, arm in arm, Rachael in the middle. Behind them was the door to Ben’s office at the casino he’d worked at.

Saul and Ben both had crew-cuts, though they’d been out of their army stint during WWII for years by then. They wore identical white (or at least light-colored in the black and white photo) short-sleeve work shirts and black, plain ties.

Rachael, her dark hair in a Jackie Kennedy knock-off do, wore a sleeveless shift with a crazy print that made me glad I couldn’t see what was bound to be bright colors.

She was a beautiful woman. She’d followed Saul out to Vegas from New York after the boys got back from the war. I’d seen her picture tons of times, and yet today there was something about her that made me look closer.

Something somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

I took the picture and my full plate back to the table and sat down. I put the picture down flat on the table and looked at it while I ate.

“What’s up?” Jimmy said, nodding toward the picture between hands while he shuffled the cards. Ben and Saul turned their heads, taking in my studying of the picture of the three close friends in happier times.

“Nothing. I just…” I didn’t know what it was that captured my attention. “Saul? Rachael was from New York, right? Like you and Ben? She didn’t have any family around here?” I was thinking about how familiar her face seemed to me, but Saul took my introduction of the subject of his dead wife as a means to reminisce.Which I knew I’d infinitely enjoy, as I always did when the boys let the memories flow.

“Yes,” he said, in a small voice and I felt a twinge of guilt about bringing up something that still seemed so painful to him even decades later. “We fell in love in high school, but she wouldn’t come out here when Ben and I did. We stayed in touch though. Even then I knew she was the one for me, that there’d never be any other woman.

“So, I waited. I waited for three years, and then the war broke out and Ben and I went. I wrote her a letter every week while I was overseas. She wrote back, but never told me how she felt. But…I knew…I knew,” he tapped his head, as if Rachael’s love was at the tip of his head.