Vampire Beach: High Stakes (9 page)

Jason stared in surprise. ‘I thought he said he was in trouble.’

‘Doesn’t look like trouble,’ Zach replied. ‘I’d say he’s at least ten grand up. Maybe more.’

Jason headed over to the table, trying to ignore the stares of the other patrons. When Adam spotted him, a huge smile spread over his face. ‘Jason!’ And then he saw Zach, and his smile got even bigger. ‘My friends are here, guys. Deal me out.’

The four nasty-looking guys at the table turned to check out Jason and Zach. The one dealing the cards grunted and started to shuffle. Adam took his money and started to get up.

‘Not so fast,’ The dude closest to Jason said standing up. He was at least six foot five, and had a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on the back of his shaved skull. ‘You have my money.’

Adam froze. ‘I won the money. You all saw me.’

One of the other guys, a skinny dude with black, greasy hair, laughed. ‘He won the money, all right.’

‘Let’s go, Turnball,’ Zach said, stepping forward.

But the Grim Reaper was still standing between Adam and the door. More importantly, he was standing between Adam and his friends. ‘Sit your ass down and play,’ he ordered Adam. ‘You can leave when I’ve won my money back.’

‘He has to go now,’ Zach said evenly. ‘We’re not waiting.’

‘If he tries to leave with my money, I’ll break his arm,’ the Grim Reaper replied, his eyes never leaving Adam.

Adam’s face paled and he sank back down into the chair.

‘That’s not very sportsmanlike,’ Zach said softly.

The skinny dude laughed again. ‘You want in,
pretty
boy? You can play, too. Teach us all to be sportsmanlike.’

‘We’re leaving now. Adam, get up,’ Zach said flatly.

Adam glanced at Jason. Jason nodded. Slowly, Adam stood up. He shoved the money into his backpack and started inching his way around the table. When he reached the Grim Reaper, the guy pounced.

Zach hit him before Jason even realized he’d pulled back his arm. The big guy’s head snapped to the side, and he stumbled backwards.

Instantly, all the lowlifes jumped to their feet. Jason heard a hollow thudding sound, as if something heavy had fallen to the ground. He caught a glimpse of something black and metallic under the table.
A gun?
he thought frantically. And then the skinny guy was rushing him.

Jason instinctively ducked the blow. He wrapped his arms around the guy’s waist and tackled him to the floor, landing with his weight on the dude’s chest.

‘Oof!’ The skinny guy struggled for breath, trying to wriggle out from under Jason. Jason punched him in the jaw, then punched him again. The guy stopped struggling.

As he climbed to his feet, Jason could see Zach moving – fast. The Grim Reaper was down, his chair was knocked over, and another guy’s fist was flying
toward
Zach’s head. Then somehow Zach wasn’t there anymore. The guy’s punch went wide. Zach grabbed him in a chokehold from behind and spun quickly, using his momentum to throw the guy into one of his friends. They both hit the ground, hard.

Where’s the gun?
Jason wondered, scanning the floor around the poker table. Zach could win in a fight, but if he got shot, he’d still be in bad shape. The floor was covered with the shattered glass of beer bottles knocked over in the fight, and cards were everywhere. But there was no gun.

‘Break it up!’ the bartender shouted. Jason saw the big bouncer heading toward them, and Adam scooping up his backpack again. As the bouncer rushed Zach, Jason slipped in behind him and jabbed the guy in the small of his back. The bouncer gave a grunt of pain, and his momentum carried him forward, right onto his face.

Zach was moving so fast it was hard to see what he was doing, but, in another second, he had the last of the poker players pinned against the wall.

‘Adam, let’s go,’ Jason commanded.

‘That’s fine, you can go,’ gasped the guy Zach had pinned.

‘Thanks.’ Zach let him go, then turned and nodded at Jason. Jason shoved Adam in front of him all the
way
to the door. Everybody watched them go, but nobody dared to interfere.

Outside, the cab was waiting. Jason jerked open the door, waited for Adam and Zach to get in, then jumped in behind them. ‘Let’s get out of here!’ he cried.

The driver peeled out, racing down the deserted street and around two more corners before slowing down. He glanced over his shoulder at them. ‘I don’t know what happened in there, but you boys are crazy,’ he said. He grabbed the little door in the plastic divider between the front and back seats and slammed it closed.

Jason and his friends stared at it for a moment. Then they all laughed.

‘So thanks for saving my butt and everything,’ Adam said. ‘I wish I could’ve filmed you in action, Zach, but I was too busy being terrified.’

‘What were you doing in that place?’ Jason asked.

‘Well, I started out in a bar just off the Strip. You know, so I could see how the real people party in Las Vegas.’

Zach snorted.

‘That wasn’t bad. It was this excellent little Hawaiian-themed place with surfboards on the wall.’

‘Three metres away from the Strip isn’t exactly the mean streets of Vegas,’ Zach told him.

‘Yeah, I don’t think theme bars really attract the downtrodden locals,’ Jason agreed.

‘I know. So I asked the waitress there where I could go to find real Vegas types. And she sent me to another place a few blocks further away. I think it was called McAllen’s or something like that. I got some great footage of these guys playing poker. They had all kinds of good, cinematic tats.’

‘Like the Grim Reaper?’ Jason guessed.

‘Yeah,’ Adam said sheepishly. ‘Anyway, they noticed me filming them and they asked me to join them. So I did. And I won, like, a thousand dollars!’

‘Let me guess. Once you were winning, they asked you to leave the nice Irish pub and go with them to the Red Lake,’ Zach said.

‘Right. Wait, how did you know that?’ Adam asked.

‘It’s a standard con artist move. Get the mark to feel all self-confident, then start the real con job,’ Zach explained. ‘They made you think you could win some real money, then they took you to a place where they could rough you up if you decided to bail on them.’

‘You think they were con artists?’ Adam gasped. ‘I thought they were just mean guys.’

‘Who knows?’ Jason put in. ‘But they thought you were a naïve rich kid, and they figured they could bleed you for all your money.’

‘I guess. Except I’m not rich,’ Adam said. ‘So instead they bled me for everything else. They took all my money, then when I ran out they took my watch. Then my camera. That’s when I sent you the text.’

Jason nodded.

‘They saw me do that, so they took my phone,’ Adam said. ‘I figured they were gonna make me keep playing until they had the shirt off my back! But it’s your shirt, Jason, so I didn’t care too much.’

‘What?’ Jason examined Adam’s button-down white shirt. ‘That
is
my shirt!’

‘Yeah, I can’t believe you really thought I was willing to
iron
,’ Adam said. ‘Anyway, then the skinny guy joined in the game, and I think he threw the others off, because I started winning again.’ He grinned. ‘I won it all back, and then some.’

He dug through his backpack, doing a quick count of the money as the cab turned back on to the Strip.

‘How much?’ Jason asked.

‘I’d say 15, maybe 18,000 dollars.’ Adam did a little dance in his seat.

‘Sweet,’ Zach commented with a nod. ‘Too bad it’s counterfeit.’

ADAM STARED AT
Zach in open-mouthed horror. ‘Say what?’

‘It’s counterfeit.’ Zach took a twenty from Adam’s hand and held it up to the lights of the Strip. ‘Look. The watermark is wrong. Check it against one of mine if you want.’ He dug out a twenty and handed it over.

As Adam frantically held the two bills up to the window, Zach went on. ‘And I’ll bet you every dollar I won at the Rouge et Noir tonight that the serial numbers on those bills are sequential. It’s not the kind of thing you would’ve noticed in the middle of a poker game, but I bet you could line them up in order.’

‘Don’t take that bet, Adam. Zach won a ton of money tonight.’

‘Yeah,
real
money,’ Adam agreed, slumping back against the seat. ‘And here I thought I had suddenly turned into a poker god.’

‘I think the skinny guy wanted you to win so that he
could
funnel the fake money to you. Then you’d go spend it around town,’ Zach said.

‘But the Grim Reaper wasn’t in on the plan,’ Jason guessed. ‘He was just trying to take you for as much as he could get.’

‘So you’re saying I got taken in by two different con men with two different agendas, all in the space of one poker game?’ Adam asked. ‘Damn! I should’ve been filming that.’

‘Even you couldn’t film and play at the same time,’ Jason consoled him.

Adam was rifling through ten and 20 dollar bills as they talked. ‘I can already see four sequential numbers,’ he moaned. ‘Zach is totally right. It’s fake. Oh, my God!’

‘Don’t freak out,’ Zach said, glancing through the divider at the driver.

‘Why not?’ Adam cried. ‘I’m trafficking in counterfeit money!’

‘You are not,’ Jason said. ‘Trafficking means spending it. All you’re doing is carrying it in your backpack.’

‘That’s still illegal,’ Adam argued. ‘What if I get caught? My father will kill me!’

‘You’re not going to get caught,’ Zach said. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘But the cops won’t believe that. I’m sitting here
with
thousands of fake dollars!’ Adam clutched his head. ‘I can see the headlines now.
Sheriff’s Son in Funny Money Ring Bust
. I’m a dead man.’

The cab pulled up in front of the hotel, and Zach handed over another fifty. The driver just snatched it and peeled out.

‘I don’t think he liked us,’ Jason commented, watching him go.

‘He was just worried those guys from the Red Lake were going to come after us,’ Zach said. He yawned. ‘I seriously need to sleep.’

‘Sleep? We can’t sleep,’ Adam said. ‘You have to help me figure out what to do with this cash.’

‘Keep it in your bag and don’t spend it,’ Jason told him, leading the way across the empty lobby to the elevator. ‘The cops aren’t going to randomly ask to search your bag.’

‘What if they do, though?’ Adam insisted.

‘Then they would be breaking the law and doing an illegal search,’ Zach replied. The elevator whooshed up to the 17th floor. ‘You, of all people, should know that, Turnball.’

‘No. I have to get rid of it,’ Adam was saying as the doors opened. He stepped out into the hallway with Jason, still talking. ‘But how? That’s the hard part. Maybe I can just throw it away?’

‘Goodnight, guys.’ Zach let the doors close before Adam could stop him. Jason headed to their door and swiped the key card to open it.

‘I don’t think that will work, though,’ Adam went on as they stepped inside the room. ‘It’s hard not to notice someone throwing away thousands of dollars.’

Jason flopped face down onto his bed. ‘It’s almost five in the morning, Adam. Goodnight.’

Adam ignored him. ‘Maybe I could just put a few bills into trash cans all over Vegas. I guess that would take a long time, though. Or maybe I could just bury it in the desert …’

Jason pulled the pillow over his head and went to sleep.

The morning sun streaming through the hotel windows woke Jason at about ten o’clock. Yawning, he sat up and looked around.

Adam was gone.

‘Oh, my God, he actually went to bury his counterfeit money in the desert,’ Jason said aloud. He dragged himself out of bed and trudged over to the bar, where Adam had left a note propped up on the coffee maker. Jason rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and read it: ‘
CSI
shoot today. Meeting Grissom. Woohoo.’

There was a knock at the door. When he opened it,
he
found Brad, Van Dyke, and the Devereux girls standing in the hallway.

‘Did you just wake up? Lame,’ Van Dyke greeted him. ‘Got any mini muffins in your bar? I ate all of ours.’ He pushed his way past Jason and went to search the bar.

‘What’s going on?’ Jason asked as the rest of them trooped in. Sienna stopped to give him a kiss.

‘Maggie, Erin, and Belle are off shopping, and Zach is MIA,’ Paige told him. ‘We figured we’d wake you guys up before finalizing plans.’

‘Where’s Adam?’ Sienna asked. ‘You did find him last night, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, he’s fine. He’s at the
CSI
shoot,’ Jason said. ‘But we didn’t get home until five. Maybe Zach’s still asleep.’

‘Whatever. He can take care of himself,’ Paige said with a dismissive wave. ‘The question is, what are
you
going to do?’

‘Huh?’

‘Will you be having a manly day with Brad and Van Dyke, or will you be getting pampered in the hotel’s world-class spa with Sienna and me?’ Paige gave him a mischievous grin.