Death Plays Poker (12 page)

GEORGE

George highlighted the paragraph he’d just written and hit Delete. In the last half hour his brain had begun to go mushy. He was sick of hotel coffee, but if he wanted to get any more work done he would need another infusion of caffeine.

He threw jeans on over his boxers, grabbed a sweater from his suitcase — still unpacked from his arrival three days before — and left his room. He hoped the Starbucks in the lobby was still open, even though they were a deregulated franchise and charged rip-off prices.

Elizabeth was in the hall, banging like a madwoman on a door a few rooms down from his.

“Are you all right?” George touched her shoulder and she spun around quickly.

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth said. “But Joe won’t be if I find him inside this room.”

George looked at the number plate beside the door. “That’s Fiona’s room.”

“Sorry if it hits home.”

“Why do you think they’re together?” George stared at the door.

“Because Tiffany James has gone home to ride her pony in Toronto, and who else is there to fuck?”

George thought about it. Female poker players were not renowned for femininity. If Joe was
cheating, Fiona was a good bet. Of course, Joe could have picked up anyone in town — or taken his pick from the groupies — but George decided not to speculate out loud.

“I phoned Fiona’s cell,” Elizabeth said, holding up her own phone for emphasis. “It’s ringing inside this room.”

“Have you tried calling Joe?”

“His phone goes straight to voice mail.”

George frowned. This couldn’t go anywhere good. “Come for coffee with me,” he said.

“And give up trying to find Joe?” Elizabeth’s dark eyes narrowed.

“He’ll turn up. There’s probably a simple explanation.”

“Sure there is: Fiona.”

“Fiona,” George said, wondering how much of their conversation was being overheard on the other side of the door, “is anything but simple.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the door. “Fine. I could use a coffee.” She followed George to the elevator.

“Anyway, Joe’s not her type,” George said as they were walking.

“No? What’s Fiona’s type? Angst-ridden writer geeks who only sometimes remember to shave?”

George felt his face. She was right: he had two days’ worth of stubble.

“Fiona likes intellectuals.”

Elizabeth smirked. “Tell that to the biker she was fucking in Montreal.”

“What biker in Montreal?”

“You didn’t know.”

George tried to shrug but ended up making some jerky shoulder motion. “It’s none of my business. We’re not together anymore.”

“But you want to be.” Elizabeth stabbed the Down button.

“I don’t know. We’re only friends now, technically. But sometimes she lets me think she wants more, and it’s driving me insane.” George wasn’t sure why he was speaking so candidly to Elizabeth.

The elevator arrived. Elizabeth went in first.

“So many women are like that,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head. “Fiona doesn’t want you. She wants you to want her.”

“She’s doing a good job,” George said with a sad grin. “She asked me to be her co-anchor in Vancouver — I’ve been on the schedule for over six months. Then, like three hours ago, she sends me a Facebook message saying she wants to use Loni Mills instead, for her permanent co-anchor going forward.”

“She wrote that on your wall? That’s kind of harsh.”

“It was a private message. But she has my phone number. She knows what room I’m in.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Elizabeth said. “The less you see Fiona, the sooner you’ll forget her.”

“Unlikely, unless one of us leaves the scene. But it’s not as bad as all that. I’m dating.”

“Who?”

“I talk to women online.”

“Internet dating?” Elizabeth tossed him a skeptical glance. “Can you have sex online, too?”

“Some people think so. There are
USB
attachments you can buy — his and hers — I guess they vibrate based on what the person at the other end is doing.”

“Gross,” Elizabeth scrunched up her face. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near someone’s computer if I knew they did that. You don’t, right?”

“Right.” George had contemplated buying the attachments, briefly, but the thought left him hollow. “I met one of my online dates in person. She lives in Pittsburgh. I arranged a stopover during the holidays.”

“Did you run screaming when you saw her real face?”

“No. We had a lonely night of motel sex and I cried as soon as I was alone.” George was shocked how easily the words had fallen out of his mouth. They were true; he’d just never told anyone.

Elizabeth touched his arm as they navigated through the casino crowd toward the coffee bar. “You’ll fall in love again. You totally have chick appeal.”

“I do?” George nudged his glasses up on his face.

“Sure. The whole geek-with-an-edge thing is getting hotter every minute. Look at Mac Guy. He’s sleeping with Drew Barrymore. Or maybe that’s
was.
I can never keep her men straight.”

“I have a Mac,” George said brightly.

“Then you’re set. Which is more than I can say for myself, trapped with a man who screws around with other women when he’s staying in a hotel with me.”

George was happy to see that the lobby Starbucks was still open. “Why do you stay with a guy who cheats on you?”

Elizabeth stopped walking and faced George. “He’s cheating? For sure? Do you know something I don’t?”

“No.” George felt a slow, confused smile spread across his face. “Are we having the same conversation? You just told me Joe was sleeping around.”

“I don’t
know
he is. I suspect it. What you said sounded like knowledge.”

“Sorry.” George shook his head. He had his suspicions like anyone else, but nothing concrete.

“At least it’s Fiona and not Tiffany James.”

“What do you have against Tiffany?” George had seen the young woman who was already creating her own buzz. She was cute, but she didn’t seem to have much substance. Maybe that was the appeal.

“I feel like if Joe cheats with Tiffany he might not come back.”

“That’s nuts,” George said. Was that even a comforting thing to tell someone?

Elizabeth shrugged. “I know he wants her — he can’t stop talking about her. That’s why I’m working from the other end.”

“What other end?” George was both baffled and impressed by the complexity women could assign to human dynamics.

“Tiffany’s end. I’m working on being her friend. I can’t stop Joe from wanting her. But I can stop her from feeling morally okay about fucking him.”

“Crafty. Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, it’s hard considering I hate everything about her.”

They arrived at the coffee bar and ordered their drinks. George paid the extortionary price and waited while Elizabeth fixed her tea. He watched the casino. Ten years before, when he’d first joined the poker scene, he’d found the lights and the bells of the slot machines magical. They’d been an invitation; a giant welcoming hallway into a world he had wanted to be a part of. Now they were sad. It wasn’t just the people playing them; it was the machines themselves. They made George think of a has-been seaside town in England. The lights and the bells were still working, but the crowds had moved on to other things.

When Elizabeth’s tea was sugared and milked to her liking, they went outside and strolled toward the center of town.

“Have you ever felt like you had poison in your veins?” Elizabeth asked out of the blue. “Crawling through them, taking you over and making you feel kind of evil?”

George tried to imagine what she meant.

“It’s been happening to me a lot lately. It’s happening now.”

“What does it feel like?” The dark roast tasted good, but it was still too hot; George burned his tongue trying to drink too quickly.

“Like poison.” Elizabeth let out a sigh. “Aren’t you listening?”

“Sorry.” George suppressed a smile. “I don’t know what that feels like.”

“Sometimes it starts with a weird feeling in my head. Not strong like a headache, but physical pressure, like something’s trying to push my skull outward from within.”

“Are you dehydrated?”

“It’s weirder than that. Sometimes it starts in my mouth, with this metallic taste. And other times it starts in my arms — like right now — they feel all trembly and weak, and I know the poison is coming. Soon the feeling takes control of my head and starts living in me.”

They turned down the main drag and passed Screamers House of Horrors. “You sure you haven’t been spending too much time in there?” George said, pointing.

“Oh, ha ha. Seriously — I haven’t told anyone this yet. I feel it in my neck and shoulders, too.”

“Sounds like tension.”

“If it was tension, I would call it tension. This is like poison, which is why I call it that.”

“And you’re feeling it right now?” George asked.

“Wow. You’re good.”

“I take it there’s an emotional component as well.”

“Sorry.” Elizabeth stopped walking. “I’m not trying to be rotten, but yes, the emotional part comes next. The world becomes dark and pointless, I’m positive people hate me, and worse than that: I’m sure they’re right to. So then — as you’ve just witnessed — I start saying mean things — almost like, if people are going to hate me anyway, I might as well give them reason to.”

“That’s weird, Liz.” George wondered if there was a polite way to suggest a sanity test, if such a thing existed.

“And then not too long later — maybe an hour, or two at the most — it’ll clear up again, and I’ll be my regular self.”

“Charming and peaceful,” George said with a straight face.

“Oh my god. Make fun of me all you want. But this is real, and it’s starting to freak me out.”

“I can see why. Does something usually trigger it? Like thinking Joe’s out cheating on you?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes it comes on its own, when I’m feeling great.”

George’s mind went to the darkest place it could. “Have you thought about going for a
CT
scan?”

“You think I should?”

“What can it hurt? At the very least, a scan can rule out all the scary options.”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “Or it can confirm them.”

CLARE

Clare stood outside the airport smoking. Vancouver air felt thick. Even through cigarette and car exhaust fumes, it smelled fresh and healthy — like back home in Muskoka, but denser, like the air was pressing down on her skin. It was three p.m. but it seemed later, probably because it was six o’clock back in Toronto.

She missed Kevin. She was glad she’d seen him — though it might have been nicer if the night off hadn’t been a direct result of Cloutier doubting her skills. Clare wondered if she’d ever feel like a real cop. She couldn’t imagine being married to the job like so many of her colleagues. They said stuff like “It’s in my blood,” or “This is who I am.” They talked about “civilians” like they were another species of human.

Clare tossed her smoke to the curb and rolled her suitcase to the taxi line.

Her hotel was downtown, which annoyed her. She wanted to be where the action was, in the casino hotel with the other players. How was she supposed to get up close and personal with the poker crowd if she was fronting as some posh bitch who thought she was too good for their gritty underworld?

Clare got out of the cab in Yaletown. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around. All the buildings were the same: tall, glass, aiming at upscale but managing to look cheap because of their completely unoriginal design. From one of these buildings, Amanda emerged, immaculate in a tailored green pantsuit. For a supposedly intelligent woman, Amanda poured a lot of her creative energy into looking good. When this assignment was over, Clare planned to wear her oldest jeans and her rattiest T-shirt for a week without washing. Amanda probably felt like the job was forcing her to dress down.

“Clare!” Amanda’s smile was bright.

“Hey.” Clare’s was less so.

“Your hotel’s just up the street.”

Amanda took the suitcase, leaving Clare with her laptop shoulder bag. Clare had planned to rest the shoulder bag on top of the suitcase and roll it. But she lugged her computer along silently. In her ignorant way, Amanda was probably trying to be helpful.

The air still smelled fresh in the middle of the city — that made a change from Toronto. When they came to a stoplight, Clare looked down the cross street and saw water.

“That’s False Creek,” Amanda said. “Nice, huh? You’re going to love it here.”

How could she possibly know that?

They arrived at a modern-looking building. A doorman let them into a trendy lobby. Clare supposed it was meant to be artistic, but she felt like the hotel had been designed to intimidate her. Or maybe it was the staff who were designed that way.

She got her room card from the front desk and she and Amanda rode up in the elevator.

“Thanks for coming with me.” Clare slid her card into the door and let them both into her new room. It was small, but that was fine. There was a desk with an Internet connection and a window from which she could see False Creek, a million moored boats, and several more of those glass condo buildings.

Amanda set the suitcase against a wall. She frowned, pushed blond hair from her face, like she wasn’t sure what to do next. “Should I leave you alone? You must be exhausted.”

“Thanks.” Clare hadn’t slept much, but she wasn’t tired.

“Do you have plans for the evening?”

“Um. Yeah. I mean, nothing official.” Clare wanted to get her bearings on her own, maybe grab a coffee and walk around the neighborhood for an hour, then get to work. “I thought I’d head out to the casino, see if some of the players are around.”

“Good idea,” Amanda said. Her tiny nose and ears made her look twelve years old. No wonder she had to dress for success, wearing three-inch heels even in daytime. People would probably be more inclined to give her candy than respect otherwise.

“Is the River Rock Casino far from here?” Clare asked.

“Maybe a twenty-minute cab ride.”

“Does Tiffany take cabs? I thought maybe she’d rent an Aston Martin for her stay in Vancouver.”

Amanda laughed. “She takes cabs. It’s also twenty minutes by SkyTrain, so count yourself lucky.”

Clare fingered her clingy pink shirt. The cotton and silk blend felt great against her skin, and it made her breasts look at least one size larger. She just didn’t like the divide it represented — like she was supposed to feel superior somehow for wearing a more expensive shirt. “Why am I staying downtown? Is that to be close to you, or is the casino hotel too grubby for Tiffany?”

“You’re staying downtown for protection.”

Clare was surprised. “Mine?”

Amanda nodded. “At the casino, there’s too much action. Too many of the suspects are moving around legitimately. Here, we can monitor who’s coming and going. If someone from the poker scene goes into your hotel, it’s a red flag.”

“This is Canada, not some international spy game.”

“So we want the criminals to believe.”

Clare rolled her eyes. “Am I being followed?”

“Not so far. I’ll let my boss know where you’re going today. The guys at the casino can look out for you.”

“The guys?”

“
RCMP
has extra security on this. Plainclothes — they should blend in as background players.”

Clare didn’t know why this rubbed her wrong. Of course she wanted the killer found, and maybe it was a job for more than one person. But having other undercovers there made her feel like the
RCMP
didn’t trust her to do good work. “Are these other guys playing in the tournament?”

Amanda shook her head. “You’re the only one in the game.”

That, at least, was something.

“This is your first case, right?” Amanda sat down in the armchair, which the room didn’t quite have the space for.

“Second,” Clare said.

“But it’s your first with the
RCMP
.” Why was Amanda asking if she already knew the answer?

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m not being rotten, but working with us is different than working with a small-town police force.”

“I worked in Toronto.” Clare wished there was a balcony where she could smoke. “I figured out who killed the mayor.”

“Okay.” What was Amanda smiling about? “I thought there must be a good reason we took on someone so young.”

We.
Like hiring Clare had been partly Amanda’s decision.

“But there’s a difference to how the
RCMP
runs a case. We’re set up for undercover operations in a way the police departments aren’t. We don’t throw you into the field and say ‘Go.’ We have teams, working together to cover each other’s backs.”

Clare didn’t like to hear the Toronto Police maligned. She’d only been with them for not quite a year, but they were still technically her employer. She hoped her displeasure was apparent from the scowl on her face.

“There’s nothing sinister here, Clare. We trust your instincts, which is why you have this job. But a hotel room isn’t a safe place right now. Anyone from the
RCMP
who’s watching you is only watching over you.”

“Fine,” Clare said. “And by the way, I need a pair of sunglasses.”

“You can buy sunglasses. Just keep the receipt.”

“Okay. It’s just . . . I don’t want to buy the wrong thing. They have to be heavily tinted so you can’t see my eyes. And they should be, you know, blingy. Something Tiffany would wear.”

Amanda grinned. “You’re starting to like your new wardrobe.”

“No, I still hate it.”

“Don’t worry,” Amanda said. “Your secret’s safe with me.”