by Amelia Wilde
Movement behind the dealer causes me to glance up. Security has his eyes on me. Now I’m really freaking.
Seth happily moves all his chips to the other end of the table. “Mr. Bourie says the odds build up fast on roulette.” I watch as he places two huge corner bets.
In a subtle movement, I pass all my chips over to red before quickly returning to my contorted state. I turn my body so I can get my finger inside my gold cuff without being seen.
“No more bets!” The dealer says.
Security’s eyes are fixed on me, and they narrow. They follow a burning line down my bare shoulder, along my arm, to my wrist, when all of a sudden a slim, olive hand appears on his lapel. His eyes leave me fast and then widen as Ava steps between us, her beautiful face lined with worry.
“Excuse me!” I can just hear her dewy purr. My little sister has perfected the art of innocent tease. “I’m so worried. I seem to have lost my handbag, and it has all my chips in it… my phone…”
Seth’s eyes are on me, his hillbilly pretense gone. Ava’s handled security, now I have to finish this job. The ball is slowing on the track, and I pray I haven’t missed my chance. My breath stills as I activate the device hidden in my bracelet. At once the ball drops, bounces up again, and hovers in air. It seems to wobble uncertainly. Sickness fills the pit of my stomach. A roaring noise is in my ears.
All this work, and we’re going to lose every last…
Thirty-two red.
“WE DID IT!” The old lady shrieks. “We WON! WE WON!!!!”
She’s jumping up and down, hugging Seth so hard his glasses bounce on his nose. He’s grinning, eyes sparkling.
“God Damn!” Seth slaps the table. “I’m hotter than a Billy goat’s ass in a pepper patch!”
I do my best not to burst out laughing as the silver ball rides around in a circle sitting on that red thirty-two. I’m just about to stand when something icy-cold and hard slips between my breasts.
“Oh!” I jump up, clutching my chest.
“Mon dieu! I’m so sorry!” The Frenchman steps back, facing me.
My eyes widen, and I hold my arms tight at the top of my ribcage. “What the HELL did you do?”
His dark brows furrow. “I must have lost my grip… The excitement.” He seems to be trying not to laugh.
My arms are tight around my torso when I turn to the dealer. “Cash me out.” I snap.
The man quickly slides my chips away and passes me a five hundred dollar bill. With one hand, I slip it into my white clutch and start to leave, but the Frenchman’s fingers close like a steel trap around my forearm.
“I’m so sorry, mademoiselle, but that was a thousand-dollar plaque I dropped!”
I can feel the hard piece of plastic wedged between my skin and the side of my bra, and I’m holding it tight with my arms so it doesn’t fall out.
“Then you should’ve held onto it better.” I yank my arm from his grip and walk quickly away from the table.
In the background I notice Seth and the old lady shaking hands and cashing out. Seth says something about Mr. Bourie advising when to walk away, and the old woman nods, taking his arm. The dealer’s face is confusion mixed with embarrassment, but I don’t have time to waste. I’m across the gambling area nearing the exit with the foreigner hot on my heels.
“Mademoiselle… Miss! Wait!” He’s after me, and I see security closing in around him.
“Take it easy, pal.” A hearty growl cuts through the din, and I’m feeling more confident than ever I’m getting out of here with a thousand-dollar bonus.
“You don’t understand,” he continues. “That lady. She has my money!”
Ava is at the door waiting for me, her eyes round. I’m doing my best not to run when I hear the same meaty voice calling after me.
“Lady! Stop!” My shoulders tense. “Stop her,” the guard says, and at once, another man in a suit steps into my path, blocking my way.
I deflect, taking a step to the side. “Oh!” I cry softly.
“Hang on a second, sister.” The beefy security guard holds both hands up to the sides. “We just need to ask you a question.”
My sister gives me a subtle nod and immediately disappears into the coatroom. The other guard and the Frenchman join us.
“Forgive me,” the man says. “I… er… how do you say? I dropped my chip in her… er… décolletage?”
“Miss,” the guard behind me says, “do you have the man’s money?”
I turn to face them, but I’m not backing down. “I don’t know what he dropped down my top.” I infuse my voice with venom, narrowing my eyes. “But I can assure you, I’m not allowing him to retrieve it!”
“Er… no. Of course not.” The older gentleman glances to the guards. “However, if you could perhaps step into the dressing room?”
He gestures toward the coatroom, and I make a show of exhaling deeply. “If you insist.” Squaring my shoulders, I step toward the narrow space where Ava waits.
“But… no. Excuse me?” He calls. I pause, but don’t turn. “Would you mind leaving your bag with the guard?”
My head snaps, and I look over my shoulder at him. “What do you think I’m going to do? Hide it? I’ve already said you dropped something in my top.”
“It was a thousand dollar plaque, Mademoiselle.”
“So you say. I don’t know what it was,” I snap.
“I can assure you it was.”
Flashing my eyes at the guards, they both shrug. “If you don’t mind handing me your purse. I won’t open it.”
Pushing my white clutch against the guard’s chest, I storm into the coatroom as if I’m highly offended. Actually, I’m pretty impressed at this Frenchman’s audacity. I’m not sure what he’s after, but he’s barking up the wrong tree with Zelda Wilder.
Once inside, I hastily unfasten the beaded collar of my dress. Ava is right behind me, holding the top so my breasts are covered.
“He must’ve been working hard to get that thing down your top,” she whispers. “It’s a halter!”
I reach down to lift out… sure enough, a powder blue thousand-dollar rectangular chip. “Well what do you know,” I sigh.
We both stare at it in wonder for a moment. All of our cons are small, petty-cash jobs that build to real money. It’s the first time we’ve held the real deal in our hands all at once.
“Here, quick!” My sister snaps opens her clutch and whips out a red and black fifty-dollar chip, exchanging it for the plaque, which she drops into her bag. “This is what was in your top.”
Our eyes meet, and hers flash with determination. “You think I can get away with it?” My voice is hushed.
“Who’s going to prove what he dropped? You already said you didn’t see what it was. He made the mistake. And who the hell is he anyway, to go around dropping shit down your top? He deserves it. Pervert. Now fasten up. Hurry!”
My heart beats faster as I do the buttons behind my neck. “If we get away with this, we’re driving to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow and chartering a sailboat. We’re going to spend the whole day on the water.”
“Good thing I bought a new bathing suit!” She steps to a small room and shuts the door. “I’ll meet you back at our hotel in an hour.”
“I’ll settle this then I have to meet up with Seth,” I pause before going to the door. “You did good tonight, Sis!”
“I got my bonus. Be careful.”
Three men glare at me expectantly when I step from the small room. I square my shoulders and push my hair back. Striding across the space to the men, I resume my offended act.
“I don’t know what kind of con you’re running, Mister, but that wasn’t a thousand dollar chip in my top.” Shoving the red and black plastic in his hand, I reach out for my clutch from the guard. “Nice try.”
“No!” Frenchie shouts. “This is not right! I did not drop fifty dollars down your shirt! Give me my money!”
“I will not stand here and be harassed any longer!” Flashing my
eyes at the guards, I zero in on the weaker of the two. “I am not accustomed to such treatment, and I know this is not how the Hard Rock HQ expects their female guests to be treated. This is sexual harassment!”
Both guards look constipated and confused, and I don’t give them a chance to collect their thoughts. I’m making my way out the door while the Frenchman is still arguing, lapsing into his native tongue at times as they hold him from chasing after me.
Running out into the night, I wave at a yellow cab waiting on the corner. He lurches forward, and I jump in, slamming the door. “Ramada Hollywood Downtown!”
The cab heads south, leaving the Hollywood reservation and driving toward the coast. The radio plays softly, and the guy isn’t chatty. Looking in my clutch, the five hundred is still intact along with a few hundreds I picked up playing blackjack. We’ll pool it all once I get to Seth’s place.
In minutes we’re turning into the cheap hotel parking lot. I pass a ten to the driver. “Keep the change,” and I’m out the door, slamming it behind me.
The air is heavy and thick with heat. It smells like rain and cooling asphalt, and I give the parking lot a quick scan. I’m alone, but I see Seth’s green Civic in the lot.
I pop open my clutch and pull out the door card he gave me, swiping it so I can enter the courtyard. Tall palm trees outline the perimeter, but I can tell it’s empty. A kidney-shaped swimming pool glows blue in the center. It’s also empty, but as I’m making my way to the balcony stairs, I hear a woman’s gravelly voice.
“Zee,” she calls. “Over here.”
Squinting in the dim light I see two figures sitting at a table in shadows. Hustling toward them, I recognize Seth. His coat is off, and the fake glasses are shoved up on his head. He’s counting out our winnings.
“Think it’s safe to do that here?” I pull out a heavy iron chair and drop into it with a sigh.
“What happened to you?” Helen takes a long pack of brown cigarettes from her bag and flicks her Bic. The small yellow light briefly illuminates her “May Contain Alcohol” sweatshirt, and I can’t help a laugh now that we’re safely away.
“Where the hell did you get that shirt?”
She looks down and coughs a congested laugh. “On the strip in Fort Lauderdale. This shop has every kind of shirt you can imagine.”
“I bet,” I exhale, but Seth leans forward.
“Okay, what you got Zee?” All trace of accent is gone, and he’s back to flat Kansas, as nondescript as you can get.
Opening my clutch, I scrape out all the contents. “The five hundred.” He takes it and adds it to the pile. “And a few hyundais I picked up at blackjack before you arrived.”
He grins and waves it away. “Keep ’em. Your winnings outside the con are yours.”
“Thanks,” I say, leaning back. I can’t help wondering if he caught what happened after his big win—my encounter with our foreign tablemate.
He’s back to counting our pot and then dividing it into thirds. “That guy was crowding you tonight,” he says, and my heart stops.
It’s quiet a moment, and Helen takes a pull on her cigarette. The orange cherry glows in the darkness.
“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “I was worried for a second he might see me.”
“That’s why this is a three-person job.” He leans back and looks at me. Three even stacks are before him on the table.
“Ava played an important role, in case you didn’t notice.” My chest is tight, and if we hadn’t run our own, separate con, I’d be pissed. Seth never acknowledges Ava’s role in keeping security distracted. “You guys made as much noise as possible. I’m surprised we didn’t have the entire police force standing around watching us play.”
That makes him laugh, and he leans forward. “Take it easy, Fireball. I know little sister is an asset.”
“You never include her in the winnings.”
Lifting his eyebrows, he does a little shrug. “If she brings in cash, she can have a share of the winnings.”
I’m still not sure if he’s waiting for me to confess what happened with the thousand-dollar chip. The old saying “no honor among thieves” drifts through my mind, and he can wait all night if he thinks I’ll cave. Whatever he knows, if anything, he’ll have to say it.
“It was so much easier when they let us smoke in the casinos,” Helen sighs a long cloud of blue smoke. “Hiding that transmitter in your cuff is not ideal.”
“Either way, we’ve burned up our chances of winning any more here.” My eyes ache. My spine is tired from absorbing all the stress of the evening, and exhaustion is rolling over me like the warm surf.
“We’ll lay low for a month or so. I’ll call with our next rendezvous point.” Seth shoves a pile of money toward me, and I stand. “You should have enough there to keep you both comfortable until I call.”
Picking up my clutch, I tuck the stack inside without bothering to count it. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
He’s on his feet equally fast. “Hey, Zee…” Hazel eyes twinkle in the tall lights, and he reaches up to slide the black glasses off his head. “That’s it? No hug before you go?”
I pause, evaluating his request. I’ve known Seth Hines since I was twenty-one, hustling pool players in panhandle bars while Ava lifted food and petty cash off vendors in the farmer’s markets.
Seth is two years older than me, and when we met, he was selling human growth hormone in South Beach. He cleaned us up, taught us how to talk right, made me stop saying fuck all the time. That swear jar almost broke me on the F-bomb alone. I’d never realized how useful (and versatile) that term was.
Basically he turned us into knock-off Bar Harbor society girls as opposed to the panhandle hicks we truly are. He also taught me how to gamble in nice casinos, which is different from gambling in shit-hole dive bars.
He taught me how to stay cool when it looks like I’m about to get busted. He taught me to be a pro. But not Ava. Back then she was too young. Then when she was old enough, he said she was too pretty.
“Targets will want to sleep with her or at the very least hit on her,” he’d said. “Having a memorable face is a liability in this game.”
By saying that, he had essentially called me plain and forgettable, but I shook that shit off. He was right. Ava’s beauty was the reason we were forced into a life of petty crime in the first place. It wasn’t what I promised her when I said I’d take care of us, but we were making it. I didn’t want her taking chances like me.
Two years later, and we’ve graduated from small-time card tricks to more complex schemes with bigger payoffs. We’re only loosely associated with Seth, and I like to keep it that way. He has a mean side. He’s never hurt me, but I don’t get too close. I don’t trust him.
Seth’s a grifter like me, and a grifter like me will do anything to get what he wants. In my case it’s security, a safe place for Ava and me. In Seth’s case, it’s the big score, the ultimate win.
I step forward into his outstretched arms, but I only hug him briefly before pulling back.
“What? That’s it?” he laughs.
“Ava’s back at the hotel alone, and I’m ready to crash.”
He waves and drops in his chair. “Suit yourself.”
“Night, Helen.” I wave at the part-Seminole granny, who always adds color to our jobs. “Can’t wait to see what you show up wearing next.”
She takes another pull off her cigarette and exhales a chuckle. “Night, Zee. Take care of you two.”
“It’s what I do,” I say as I go.
It’s what I’ve been doing for the past six years, and I don’t intend to stop. Survival skills have gotten us this far.
I think about earlier this evening and how Ava knew instinctively to sneak into the coatroom and wait. My sister and I have become a well-oiled machine. I can’t take credit for being the brains anymore because my little sister is right there spotting every angle and preparing to maximize any situation.
One day
we won’t need Seth to come up with cons. One day we’ll have enough money to take care of ourselves for a long, long time.
One day we’ll be free.
2
Playboy Prince
Rowan
Shoving the clutch into fifth, I steer into the straight and punch the accelerator all the way to the floor. The noise of the engine rips through the air, and the speed of the Mercedes CLR vibrates up my legs as the needle moves past a hundred.
The track is slick and the tires of my Formula One car are slicker. A single wrong move could send me into a potentially deadly spin. Every muscle in my body strains as I ride the lightning, as a bead of sweat glides down my neck. A curve is ahead. I’ll cut the first one to nail the second exiting into another straight to pick up more speed.
Pushing the breaks hard, the wheel fights me as I turn it. I cross my arms like a pretzel, never letting go as I guide the car through the first turn, only to whip it around again coming out and hitting the gas hard, flying into the straight.
The black and white checkerboard of the finish line is in view, and I let her rip, giving everything to beat my previous time. Scenery blurs into a wash of color. My eyes are fixed on the top third of the windshield. I blaze past the flagman faster than a blink, his frantic waving barely registering in my vision.
Foot off the gas, I exhale, my muscles vibrating with adrenaline. Coasting through the downshifts, I bring it into the pit.
“Fuck me, you did it! Seven seconds!” Cal is laughing and shouting at the side of the car, grasping my underarm and pulling me up. “You’re one away from the record.”
Pulling off my helmet, I scrub a hand back and forth through my dark hair. “It’s not enough,” I say, pulling the zipper down on my red and white fireproof suit.
It’s a gorgeous day on the track. The sky is brilliant blue, and the air is dry. Zero humidity, and not a cloud obstructs the sun from beating down on us. Standing on the black asphalt, my entire body is covered in sweat from both the exertion of the trial run and the heat. If we were closer to the coast, at least we’d have the constant breeze.