Card Sharks

by Liz Maverick

  Bijoux walked the entire circumference of the craps scene. Her outfit showcased her well, and she noticed the looks of admiration. A little surprised by how unenthusiastic she was feeling about her goal, Bijoux decided to settle in a bit and just play and see where things went from there. She found an open spot at a fairly energetic table and lined up two rollers down from where the dice were.

  She tentatively put her money on the pass line, but after making a point apiece, the two men crapped out. The dealer collected the dice with his stick, and as he snaked them toward her, the entire table started hooting and hollering.

  “Lady roller! Now we’re talking! Let’s see some action . . . lady luck, give us something we can work with!”

  Bijoux smiled nervously and took the dice. Her heart beat furiously, and the surge in adrenaline made them practically lurch right out of her hand. She tossed them down the felt, rolling a five and a two.

  “Seven, seven . . . that’s a seven! A win for the pass line!”

  The stickman pushed the dice back toward her, and the table cheered and clapped even louder than before. Bijoux picked up the dice and threw them once more, making a point for the table. The cheers grew louder, the compliments bolder, and Bijoux felt something inside of her relax.

  With an enormous smile on her face, Bijoux began flirting with a tuxedo-clad, silver-haired businessman like there was no tomorrow.

  She smiled across the table at some of her other admirers even as she encouraged yet another suitor on her opposite side. He was telling her a joke about the time he shot an armadillo in Texas after mistaking it for something else. The story was apparently wildly funny, and Bijoux dutifully laughed as she placed another bet and the dice came around.

  “Give us something good, sweetheart!”

  Armadillo Tuxedo bellowed as cheers went up around the table. Bijoux threw the dice and put another point on the board. A six.

  She doubled up behind the bet on the pass line and asked for a bet on the eight, to boot. Chips and hands went flying as everyone placed their bets and the stick swooped in to deliver Bijoux’s dice right back to her.

  “Come on, baby. You look good in that dress, but you’ll look even better if you throw another six,” her silver-haired admirer whispered in her ear.

  She flashed him a smile that took a bit of effort to pull off, then glanced around the table at the men who were watching her. They were really watching her. She shook the dice, and calmly uttered, “Six,” landing another six like a batter guaranteeing a home run by pointing to heaven. The table went wild as her consecutive sixes paid off, and once more the chips and money scattered across the felt.

  Bijoux was rolling red-hot. She rolled for fifteen minutes, building points and paying them off. The table was packed, every slot filled, the felt covered in chips.

  A college-age guy with spiked hair he’d obviously spent a couple hours on came around from the opposite side of the table. He put his hands on her shoulders, and gave her a joke shoulder rub as if she were a boxer about to go back into the ring.

  God, it felt good to be the center of attention.

  She could feel the hot flush in her cheeks. She was delivering what they all wanted: cold, hard cash. And everybody loved her for it.

  She left the table only after sevening out when the vast quantities of champagne forced her to take a break. She headed to the restroom, making a conscious effort not to weave her way across the noisy casino floor.

  Bijoux finished her business, then reapplied her lipstick and attended to the makeup smudges accumulated over the course of the evening. On her way back she was nearly run over by a group coming out of the VIP rooms.

  The men wore tuxedos; the women had on full evening wear, colorful dresses made out of silk and chiffon and ruffles like all the characters on Dynasty and Dallas once wore. And they dripped with diamonds. One of the women stumbled and planted her high heel squarely on the toe of Bijoux’s shoe, knocking her against the wall as they laughed and pushed themselves through the crowd like they owned the casino itself. One woman’s diamond pendant swayed through the air, and Bijoux stared at the gemstone as if it were some sort of hypnosis device, self-consciously sweeping her hand up to her own neck and brushing against nothing but bare skin as the woman passed.

  Eyes sparking with threatening tears, she leaned against the wall and lifted her foot out of her shoe to have a look. Bijoux Sterling, born a VIP, was losing her grip on the acronym as well as on the wall.

  She lost her balance and nearly fell on the walkway, into the path of what appeared to be a set of linebackers for some Midwestern football team, only to be snatched away from certain death by Peter Graham.

  Bijoux let him help her up, searching her addled brain for some explanation for his presence down here in the casino with her when he was supposed to be rolling about on a bed in some vaguely European romance-hero manner (as compared to Donny’s supposed impassioned-caveman approach).

  Marianne was probably playing hard to get; hell, Marianne was hard to get. And good for her for it. Bijoux had to respect that her friend would rather get a good night’s sleep to be fresh for the poker game the next morning than thrash about with Peter, but she couldn’t really claim that she would have made the same choice.

  “You have a knack for finding trouble,” Peter said, not unkindly.

  “I wasn’t in need of a rescue,” she said, knowing it was really a lie. “I’m heading back to the tables.”

  “You’re not ready to go back upstairs?” he asked, looking as though he thought she should be going upstairs.

  “No. I’m rolling hot! Come with me.”

  He laughed. “Sure.”

  Bijoux took his arm, commandeering him toward the tables. With Peter holding her steady, she felt the most intense sense of relief rush through her. Of course, she told herself that she would have been relieved to see anyone. That she would have felt more comfortable if Marianne had come down and gambled with her. But once Marianne started wrapping boys around her little finger, Bijoux probably would have changed her mind about that. But it had been strange to be down in the action, drunk off her gourd, with no one to take care of her. There was always someone taking care of her. There was always someone to call and make things right. Marianne and Donny were at the top of the list, but now Peter was on the list, too.

  Bijoux fixated on Peter’s big, strong hands as he guided her in a mostly straight line back to the table, and she felt herself melt a little bit in the kindness of his care.

  Oh, dear.

  She was always developing crushes on the wrong people. It came with the territory. When the characteristics of a desirable mate limited your candidate list to a fraction of a percent at any given time, in any given place, having crushes on inappropriate people happened fairly often. You simply had to accept it for what it was and then move on to the next potential millionaire.

  Bijoux knew what she needed to do. She simply made a mental note to refer to him as “Marianne’s Peter” so that she never forgot what was what and who was whose.

  Back at the table, Bijoux took over her original spot where the dealers had been watching out for her chips, leaving Peter to find an empty slot on the other side.

  Someone at the table had purchased more champagne by way of thanks for her successful rolling and it was clear that the entire table was pleased to have her back just in time to start rolling again.

  Bijoux downed half a glass of champagne in the time it took for the player next to her to crap out. And then she put down her bet, reached for the dice, and started rolling again, glancing up at Peter now and then to see if he was still watching.

  Oh, hell . . . I want that boy. “Marianne’s Peter,” she murmured to herself, flushed from the champagne, the roar of the crowd around her. She didn’t even look at the table this time, just stared right at Peter and swung her arm out and started rolling straight through for about fifteen minutes.

  She finally crapped out with a seven slammed into the
opposite end of the table. But she didn’t care. She was too tired and drunk to stand much longer and she was sure she’d made enough to pay Peter back for Caesar’s and Donny back for the loan. Judging by the massive quantity of chips in the little trough in front of her, she’d probably done a fair bit better than that, even.

  In fact, nobody who’d been around for the original run seemed to care that Bijoux was clearly done for the evening. As she had her chips colored up, the men around the table started tossing more chips over to her as thanks.

  Peter’s face went blurry. She put her hand to her head, laughing and laughing as they added hundreds of dollars to her winnings.

  When Peter came back into focus, he just looked worried. He came around the table as Bijoux stuffed chips into her purse, spilling them onto the floor in an orgy of money and male attention.

  He helped her pick up her stray chips, said something to the onlookers, and helped her toward the elevator banks. “You’ve been like that all evening?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Bijoux said, drawing the sound out in a drunken slur. “You should’ve come down earlier.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I’ve never felt so decadent,” she said, surprised at the slight slur in her speech. “A bit drunk.”

  “Yeah. I’ll get you back to your room. Don’t worry.”

  The elevator door closed behind them, leaving them alone. Peter looked up at the security camera, then looked away, his brow furrowing in a funny way.

  Bijoux turned and grabbed him by the collar. He looked . . . like a guy who wasn’t going to take advantage of the situation. How tiresome. He seemed to interpret her come-on as if she’d reached out to steady herself from falling.

  When the elevator doors opened on their floor, he helped her down the hall to her room.

  At the door she fumbled with her card key, dropped it, and then let Peter do it for her.

  “You going to be okay now?” Peter asked, one hand still attentively at her elbow.

  Bijoux nodded. Kiss me, you idiot. Just kiss me.

  He gave her shoulder a brotherly squeeze.

  “Marianne’s Peter,” Bijoux said sadly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Take care of this,” he said, handing over her purse. “When you wake up tomorrow and count this, you’re going to wonder who the hell you robbed.”

  She looked in the purse and just saw a mess of chips, then pulled some out and pressed them into his hand. “For Caesar’s. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, handing half of them back to her.

  After a strange little pause, he kissed her hand in a teasing, gallant manner and backed away from the door.

  And just like that, he was gone.

  The room was just barely lit up by the lights coming from the Las Vegas Strip below. The drapes were still open; it was gorgeous.

  In the dim light she saw Donny holding Marianne in his arms, the two of them asleep on top of the covers, both fully clothed.

  Bijoux stared at the tableau for a moment, then shuffled to her bed and sat down, just barely managing to remove her high heels before being swamped by overwhelming exhaustion. Clutching her bulging purse and practically swimming in spilled poker chips, Bijoux finally let her guard down and relaxed.

  chapter fifteen

  “Bij, wake up!” “Ungg?”

  “Wake up! What did you do? Are you okay? Should we expect the police?”

  Bijoux turned over and blinked sleepily; then suddenly her eyes flew open. “Oh, my God.” She sat straight up. “Oh, my God!” She looked around at the piles and piles of poker chips in the bed with her. She had the disk-shaped imprints of poker chips pressed into various parts of her body.

  Marianne reached out and peeled a thousand-dollar chip off Bijoux’s cheek, then handed it back to her.

  Bijoux’s eyes widened. She looked up at Marianne, grinned and then fell backward on the bed. “I remember drinking champagne and throwing lots of good numbers. And I remember . . .”

  “Please tell me you’re not hungover,” Marianne said. “I need your help.”

  “I don’t get hungover. You know that. It’s a bad policy, and I don’t believe in it.” She turned over and splayed facedown on the bed.

  Marianne put on her new sunglasses and poked Bijoux’s leg. “How bad are these?”

  Bijoux instantly sat up, then recoiled as she took in the full effect of Marianne’s shades. “What in God’s name is on your face?”

  “An admittedly unattractive, pair of squarish wraparound sunglasses I picked up at the gift shop.”

  Bijoux inched to the edge of the bed, stuck one foot on the carpet, tested her ability to hold her own weight, and stood up. “Sunglasses. For sun. Right. We haven’t left the hotel since we arrived.

  “These aren’t for sun. They’re to prevent my competitors from reading my tells.”

  Bijoux started stripping off her stale clothes. “Well, they certainly aren’t going to want to even look at you in those things, so I guess that could work. But I think those are glasses for half-blind elderly people. They’re so dark, you won’t even be able to read your cards. I read in the in-flight magazine that Annie Duke doesn’t wear sunglasses. She says that part of the game is exposing yourself, and that besides, you risk misreading the cards through your sunglasses.”

  “Hmm. Well, what about the outfit? Is it enough exposure? Too much? Maybe I’m showing too much cleavage. But I’m trying to use my feminine wiles to my advantage.”

  Bijoux glanced over and shrugged. “You look great. I would even go so far as to suggest that you turn it up a notch. Borrow something else of mine if you want. Though I should point out that Annie Duke probably never used her breasts to get an advantage either.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Bij, but I’m no Annie Duke. And if I have to use all of my weapons against the condescending brotherhood of patronizing, ‘tit’-happy, poker-playing men I’ll likely be playing with today, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “You look like Paris Hilton,” Bijoux said, heading for the shower.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

  “No! I mean you look good for what you’re going for. Now could you remove those atrocities from your face? They make me nauseous.”

  Marianne ignored the request. Instead she tugged her skirt down a bit and stepped into the doorway of the bathroom. “Does my—”

  “Your butt doesn’t look big at all in that skirt,” Bijoux said with a smile, then closed the bathroom door in Marianne’s face.

  The sound of the water turning on drowned out Marianne’s next question, and then suddenly Bijoux yelled, “Can we get back to the sunglasses? You really don’t want to show up on ESPN wearing horse blinders. Let’s go shopping at the Bellagio and get some decent ones that you can feel good about wearing on national television. How much time do you have?”

  “I’m not on until the afternoon.”

  “What?”

  “The afternoon! Later!”

  “Okay. I’ll go shopping with you! I’ll be out in ten!”

  “Okay!”

  Bijoux was as good as her word, and was made up and just about ready to go in another ten.

  Marianne looked around for the card key. “So Peter kissed me last night,” she said.

  Behind her Bijoux stumbled trying to put on her shoe and landed on her ass on the floor. “What?”

  Marianne looked over her shoulder. “Peter kissed me.” She looked suspiciously at her friend, who was suddenly spending quite a bit of time bent over that shoe, giving it more effort than it really should have required, given that there were no complicated laces involved. “Are you that shocked because I’m supposed to be focusing on the game at this point, or because it happened at all?”

  Bijoux stammered a bit as she said, “I didn’t really get that you were that interested in him. Like, already kissing interested.”

  Marianne shrugged. “Why not? I like hi
m. He seems like a contender.” She looked at Bijoux in horror. “Oh, no. Did you like him? Because if you like him—”

  “Absolutely not. Don’t be ridiculous. He kissed you, and I’m absolutely not interested. Ready to go? I’m ready.”

  “Yep.” Marianne grabbed her purse, and the girls headed out of the casino for the first time in days, both of them stumbling back, their hands flying up to shade their eyes, blinded by the sunlight.

  “Holy crap,” Marianne said. “You weren’t kidding.”

  Bijoux steered them both to the side while their eyes adjusted to the light. “I think the Bellagio is that way,” she said, pointing down the strip, which was still looking very white-light bright.

  It felt good to be outside, and Marianne enjoyed the walk. Unfortunately the shops were about as crowded as the casino had been. They had to push their way through the throngs of gawking madras-plaid tourists and sugar daddies with their mail-order supermodels just to get in the door of the designer sunglasses shop.

  Marianne beelined for the Chanels. The clerk raised an eyebrow but unlocked the case and pulled out the tray while Bijoux pulled a mirror over. Marianne picked up the first pair. She adjusted them on her nose and turned in profile to see if the insectlike appearance was as bad as it seemed to be.

  “So if he hadn’t kissed me, would you have been interested?”

  Bijoux froze with a pair of white Marc Jacobses in her hand. “What?”

  “You said, ‘He kissed you, and I’m absolutely not interested.’ And I’m asking whether, if he hadn’t kissed me, you’d’ve absolutely been interested.”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly. Those are dreadful. You’re like an enormous fruit fly. Try these.”

  “Okaaay. Because all you have to do is say the word and I’ll back off.”