Death Plays Poker (16 page)

CLARE

“Doing anything on your break?” Nate came up behind Clare, his voice low and scratchy and sounding like it wanted a cigarette.

“Ah.” She twirled around to give him a smile. “The arrogant New Yorker.”

“The slutty Canadian,” Nate fired back, but made a hurt face.

Clare rolled her eyes. “I’m grabbing a coffee. Come if you want.”

Some dark hair flopped into Nate’s eyes. He didn’t brush it away. “Don’t sound so excited to spend time with me.”

Clare wanted to brush the hair away for him, but held back. “How are you doing in the tournament?”

“Crap,” Nate said. “I’m playing okay, but the cards are killing me.”

“It’s probably karma.”

“Thanks. How’s your day working out?”

“Great.” Clare started toward the coffee bar and was glad when Nate followed. “I’m playing so-so. But the cards are running my way. I’ve been saved twice by a brilliant river.”

“I guess that’s karma, too,” Nate said.

“What else could it be?” Clare batted her mascara-laden eyelashes. It felt strangely fun.

“Dumb luck,” Nate said. “Have you run into T-Bone?”

“He stopped to insult my hair on his way past my table.”

Nate looked at Clare appraisingly. “I assumed the messy look was an avant-garde fashion trend.”

“You have too much faith in me.” Clare grinned. “It’s actually because some asshole kept me out drinking last night. I overslept and had no time to shower.”

“Ew. Do you smell?” Nate waved a hand in front of his nose.

“It’s amazing what perfume can do.”

Nate laughed. “Anyway, I think it’s hilarious how mad you’ve got T-Bone. You ready to take him on?”

“With verbal jabs, happily. But at cards?” Clare shook her head. “I’d rather wait until tomorrow. Are you ridiculously hungover?”

“Not ridiculously.”

“You’re lucky,” Clare said. “My body is screaming at me to stop poisoning it.”

They arrived at the end of the coffee line and stood together to wait.

Nate put a hand on Clare’s shoulder. “What else does your body say?”

“It says that I should stay away from you.” Actually, Clare’s body wanted to stay close to Nate; it was her other instincts telling her to stay away.

“Do I tempt you away from your chastity vows?”

“Please.” Clare attempted a haughty head-toss inspired by Blair Waldorf from
Gossip Girl
. As part of her Tiffany training, Amanda had made her sit and watch endless boring
TV
shows about rich kids. “I’m not chaste. I’m selective.”

The line moved slightly. Mickey walked by them with a hot drink in his hand.

“Gotta love this game, huh?” he said in Clare and Nate’s general direction.

“You look chipper,” Clare said to Mickey. “What happened to that misery from yesterday?”

“Huh?” Mickey looked blank. “Oh. That was yesterday.” He moved on to wherever he was going, his black suit jacket weaving through the crowd.

Nate watched him leave and said, “Has Mickey’s coaching helped you much?”

Clare nodded. “The guy’s a genius.”

“What has he taught you?”

“I’m not going to tell you. What if we’re up against each other in the tournament and I’ve spilled the secret move I want to use to take you down?”

“You’re brutal.” Nate pushed Clare lightly, reminding her to move forward in the line.

“It’s a brutal game,” Clare said.

“That one of your lessons from Mickey?”

“It actually is.” Clare leaned in close. She liked Nate’s aftershave: not musky, but manly. Probably Axe. “You know people are dying on this scene, right?”

“I’ve heard that.” Nate frowned. “But I didn’t join the tour until Niagara. No one died there, right?”

“Right. Or here. Yet.”

They arrived at the cash register and they both ordered black coffee. Nate paid and Clare thanked him.

“No problem,” Nate said, as they made their way back toward the poker room. “Maybe now you’ll put out.”

Clare laughed. “You’re closer than you know. I like beer, but I can live without it. But cut off my coffee supply, and I’ll happily whore myself out until my chemical balance is restored.”

“Good to know. You were so insistent on splitting the bill last night, I was afraid I couldn’t buy you at any price.”

“Splitting? I wanted to pay the whole thing.” Amanda had advised Clare to take every opportunity to grab the cheque, to create the impression that a hundred bucks was small change to her.

“I know,” Nate said. “But if I’d let you pay,
I
would have felt compelled to put out. There’s nothing less sexy than being a kept man.”

“There’s lots that’s less sexy. Like men who cheat on their wives.”

“You don’t think cheating’s hot, in a clandestine kind of way?” Nate lowered his voice even deeper to say this.

“I’d rather a man told me he liked to fuck sheep.”

“Really?” Nate’s eyebrows arched.

“I’d walk away regardless, but animals are a preference. Cheating’s immoral.”

“No kidding,” Nate said. “Because I find moralistic people a turn-off. I’m going to make an exception for you, though.”

“Appreciate it,” Clare said, realizing that maybe fucking sheep had its own morality questions — like, for the sheep. “Hey, I heard a rumor that those murders might be connected to some cheating ring. Have you heard that, too?”

Nate’s brow lowered. He took Clare’s arm — carefully, so as not to spill the coffees — and led her to a wall where no one could overhear.

“Wow,” Clare said. “Why the serious face?”

“You should be careful what you say out loud around here.”

“Why?” Clare smiled blandly, trying her best to look innocent.

“I don’t know where you come from or how sheltered your world was growing up. My suspicion is that a lot of your innocence is a fucking act. But you must understand that the killer could be anyone on this scene. You can’t go around speculating out loud what these deaths do and don’t relate to. If the wrong person overhears you, they could think you know something and you could become the next victim.”

“Okay,” Clare said. “I’ve never been around this world, around criminals, really. Well, my father had a friend who went to jail for fraud. But he wasn’t a close friend — more of an acquaintance —”

“Shut up.” Nate leaned in and kissed her, and Clare was glad she was leaning into the wall, because the feeling nearly melted her. She hoped her Juicy Couture perfume really did mask that she hadn’t showered.

Was it cheating if Clare wanted Tiffany to fuck this guy?

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth watched Nate kiss Tiffany, up against the wall like they were in some romance movie. What a little fucking drama queen.

At least it looked like Nate had won the prop bet. Which was good, because Elizabeth didn’t know how long she could pretend to be buddy-buddy with Tiffany without vomiting on her own words.

She sipped her green tea. There were ten minutes left on the break and Elizabeth was alone at the poker table.

She saw Joe near the coffee bar. Joe caught Elizabeth looking and waved. He had that stupid grin on his face, the one he plastered on in the morning and left on all day in case the cameras caught him in one of their candid shots. At least he’d taken off his Paris Hilton wig during the break. Still, the poison started a dull throb through Elizabeth’s body.

Shit. She did a double take, but it was true. Her brother Peter was standing there talking to Joe. He was animated, grinning — Peter looked like he thought Joe was the greatest guy on Earth.

The polite thing would be to go talk to them. Elizabeth used to care a lot about what the polite thing was, but that was one value the poker world had cured her of. Her veins wanted to explode, and now her head was beginning to go. She didn’t trust herself to get up; she was afraid she’d say something horrible to Peter.

Oh, who was she kidding? Of course Elizabeth was getting up, walking over to the men, smiling broadly as she gave her brother a hug.

“Liz!” Peter squeezed Elizabeth like she was a teddy bear he’d found buried at the bottom of a moving box after several years in storage. It actually felt kind of good. “Great to see you. Did I miss the email where you said you’d be in town?”

Elizabeth gave a small laugh. “It’s not you I’m avoiding.”

“Good,” Peter said. “Because I came to watch you play.”

Joe wandered off, which Elizabeth appreciated. She looked her brother in the eye. “Please don’t watch me play. You know it throws my game off.”

“I watch all your games on
TV
. What’s the difference?”

“I’ve already played them by the time you’re watching.”

Peter nodded at the indoor bleachers. “The spectators don’t bother you?”

“They’re just background noise; I don’t see them as real people.”

“How about a deal?” Peter said. “I won’t watch you play if you come out for dim sum on the weekend.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“Mom and Dad and me.”

Her veins started pulsing, like the poison wanted out. “Do they know you’re inviting me?”

Peter shook his head.

“I want to see you, Peter. It’s just — Mom and Dad — and when everyone’s together — I can’t help feeling like I’m a teenager again. Only when I was a teenager I never disappointed them.”

“You should hear them brag about you behind your back.”

“So they can save face in front of their friends.” Elizabeth wrung her hands together. Maybe she
should
go for dinner, if only to buy some time until the next obligatory visit. “They make sure to let me know how they really feel.”

“How do they really feel?” Peter shifted his black vinyl briefcase from one hand to the other.

“Like I let them down when I stopped working for Dad and I’ve been letting them down ever since.”

Peter didn’t say anything.

“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth worried that something she’d said might have offended him.

“I miss you.”

Elizabeth bit her lower lip. “I miss you, too.”

“So come for dim sum. It’s one meal. It’s painless.”

“It won’t be painless for me. How about we get together, you and me? You don’t have to tell them I’m in town.”

Peter’s eyes moved around the casino. The warning bell sounded. Most players were already in their seats. “You can’t not talk to them forever.”

“I’m not
not
talking to them. I’m just, you know, not talking to them.”

“I’m sure that’s different somehow,” Peter said.

“You don’t know what it’s like. They’ve never put the same pressure on you.”

“Why do you think I became an accountant?” Peter gestured toward his briefcase.

“Because you love to be bored.”

“Wrong. So I wouldn’t have to deal with constant disapproval. I’m not strong like you are.”

Elizabeth wondered why people seemed to think she was strong. “If I was strong, I’d go to dim sum and the shit they spewed would be in one ear and out the other.”

“So make a shield.”

“What?” Elizabeth pictured herself in the back of someone’s metal shop, soldering and hammering until she’d built herself a medieval-looking shield.

“Build a little imaginary shield that you can put up to deflect their insults. Say
ping
in your head every time you use it. The insults will bounce right back to them.”

“I don’t want to ping insults back at Mom and Dad,” Elizabeth said. “They’re not like this on purpose.”

“So ping the insults into the atmosphere.” Peter held up his hand and used a finger from the other hand to demonstrate the insult reflecting off in the direction of the sky. “Or imagine the insults dissolving as soon as they’ve bounced off the shield.”

“My brother the video game freak.”

“Come on, Liz. Visualization works.”

Elizabeth frowned. “I’ll give it a try.”

“So you’ll come to dim sum.” Peter’s face lit up.

“Let me work on my shield first.”

“Fine.” Peter shrugged. “While you’re working on that, I’ll just take a seat in the spectator area.”

“Peter!”

“Doesn’t have to be dim sum. Dinner can work. Dad loves this place at Westminster and Three Road. Their soft-shell crab is dangerously good.”

“I hate deep-fried food.”

“You won’t hate this.”

“I have to get back to my table. The game’s going to start in — shit, like five seconds.”

“Okay. I’ll be cheering you on.” Peter gave Elizabeth a little wave and started walking toward the spectator stands.

“Please?” Elizabeth pleaded with her eyes. “I really don’t want you watching me.”

Peter stopped walking, but he didn’t reverse his direction.

“Okay,” Liz said. “Dinner. Or dim sum. This weekend.”

“Deal.”

“Oh, and Peter? Do you have time to do me a favor?”

“I love it when someone asks me that question before they tell me the favor.”

“Can you dig around Dad’s office for me? I need to find out everything I can about a furniture importer whose last name is James.”