Play Dirty

by Sandra Brown

  He’d gambled because it was fun and because he could get away with it.

  Then, when he got deep in hock, it stopped being fun. And he couldn’t get away with it anymore.

  As he sat sipping his second beer, trying to make it last, he idly wondered how much money had been gambled on the outcome of this Rangers game. How much would his former business associates in the fancy Las Colinas office make off these nine innings? Plenty, you could be sure. The Vista boys had bookmakers all over the country working for them.

  One less, now that Bill Bandy was no longer in their employ.

  Griff hoped that sniveling little snitch was being slowly turned on a spit over the fieriest fire in hell.

  “You got any money on it?”

  Having been lost in thought, Griff turned his head to his right, to make sure he was the one being addressed. The man on the next stool was glaring at him, his upper lip raised in a belligerent smirk.

  “Pardon?” Griff said.

  “Ask him again.” A second man was standing behind the first. His truculent expression matched that of his friend, and his eyes were equally bloodshot from too much drink.

  Calmly Griff said, “Ask me what?”

  “I asked if you put any money on this game.” The one on the stool hitched his thumb toward the TV screen.

  “No. I didn’t.” Griff turned away, hoping that would be the end of it.

  “You don’t gamble anymore?”

  Ignoring him, Griff reached for his beer.

  The one on the stool jabbed his arm, causing him to slosh beer onto the bar. “Hey, asshole. Didn’t you hear me? I asked you a question.”

  By now, those nearest to them had become aware of the cross words being exchanged. The music continued to blare through the speakers with palpable percussion. Action continued on the TV screen, but conversations were suspended as attention was directed toward them.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Griff said under his breath. “Why don’t you guys just back off, go somewhere and sober up, okay?” But he knew they weren’t going to simply walk away. The second one had moved up behind his barstool, crowding in close. Griff’s back was to him, but he sensed the man’s hostile, challenging stance.

  He made eye contact with the bartender and motioned that he wanted his check. The bartender hastened over to a computerized cash register. Griff glanced across at the brunette who’d been flashing him. She was sucking her drink through a straw, watching him over the frosted glass. Her escort was looking at him, too.

  The guy standing behind Griff’s barstool said, “I guess he only bets on the games he throws.”

  “Fucking cheater.” The first guy jabbed his arm again, hard. “Fucking, fucking cheat—”

  Griff’s hand shot out with the speed of a striking snake, grabbed the man’s wrist, and slammed it down onto the bar like the coup de grâce of an arm-wrestling match.

  He howled in pain. The second one landed on Griff’s back like a mattress stuffed with lead. Griff came off his barstool and tried to shake the guy off. There was a noisy shuffling of feet as people hastily backed away. Somewhere a glass broke. Two bouncer types appeared and pulled the guy off Griff’s back. “Break it up.”

  One of the bouncers pushed Griff’s shoulder, shoving him back several steps. Griff put up no resistance. He raised his hands. “I didn’t ask for any trouble. I didn’t want it.”

  The two bouncers took firm hold of his hecklers and escorted them away. They protested drunkenly but were taken outside. But the show wasn’t over. All eyes remained on Griff, especially now that he’d been recognized. His whispered name moved through the crowd like a spreading stain.

  The bartender presented his check. Before he could count out the bills to pay it, a young man in a fashionable suit materialized beside him. He was obviously the man in charge. “It’s on the house,” he said to the bartender, who nodded and retrieved the check.

  Griff said, “Thanks.”

  But the young man’s expression wasn’t hospitable. “I’m asking you to leave and not come back.”

  Anger and embarrassment caused Griff’s face to grow hot. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I’m asking you to leave and not come back,” the young man repeated.

  Griff stared at him for several seconds more, then pushed him aside and strode past. The crowd parted to clear a path. When he reached the door, one of the bouncers held it open for him. As Griff walked through, the bouncer muttered, “Cocksucking cheat.”

  Outside, the air wrapped around Griff like a damp shroud. However, he would have had better luck throwing off the cloying, humid atmosphere than he would his anger. He’d been minding his own business, hurting nobody, and he’d been asked to leave and not come back by a guy wearing one of the shirts he’d passed over at Neiman’s because it looked too faggy.

  Screw ’em. He’d had better burgers at Dairy Queen for a fraction of the cost, so what the fuck did he care, anyhow?

  He cared because he’d been humiliated in front of people who used to cheer him. And going from a superstar of the Dallas Cowboys, surrounded by media photographers and screaming fans, to being escorted out of a glorified burger joint was quite a comedown.

  He got to his car and unlocked it. Before he had time to open the door, he was grabbed from behind and flung against the rear quarter panel.

  “We’re not finished with you.” It was the guy from the bar, the one who’d first spoken to him. His buddy was standing right beside him. They weren’t drunk. They were stone-cold sober. And, Griff realized with a blast of clarity, they weren’t disgruntled fans, either.

  “This is for my wrist,” the guy snarled. He buried his fist in Griff’s stomach.

  No, Griff thought as his knees liquefied, these guys aren’t sports fans with too many beers under their belts. They’re pros.

  CHAPTER

  12

  FOSTER?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will you come to the office tomorrow?”

  He set down the book he’d been reading and looked across at Laura. She’d brought home paperwork from the office. Since dinner, she had been sitting on the sofa in the library, riffling through various reports. “If you want me to.”

  “Some of this stuff is over my head,” she said. “It’s technical and requires your input. It’s been almost a week since you were there. I think it’s important for you to go to the office whenever you can.”

  “You think the mice are playing?”

  She smiled. “No, because they know I would tattle on anyone slacking off.” She hesitated, then said, “I think it’s important to you that you go.”

  “Oh, so you think that I’m slacking off.”

  She placed her hands on her hips in feigned exasperation. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

  “Okay, no more teasing. But you do understand, don’t you, that just because I’m not physically at the office doesn’t mean I’m not working.”

  “I know that your mind is always busy, but there’s an energizing quality about actually being in the office.”

  He considered her for a moment. “You’re doing your job as well as covering for me. Have the dual responsibilities become too much for you?”

  He’d touched a sensitive spot, and she reacted. “Do you think they have?”

  “Not at all. I’ve just noticed that you seem tired.”

  She let that go for the moment. “I’m concerned for you, not me. You love SunSouth. It’s your lifeblood. You need that airline as much as it needs you. And when was the last time we went out to dinner?”

  His head went back a fraction. “Sorry. I must have missed the segue. When did we switch subjects?”

  “We didn’t. It’s the same subject.”

  “It is?”

  “We rarely see our friends anymore. I can’t remember when we last went out or had a couple over for cards or Sunday brunch. You stay here most days. All I do is work. I love it, and I’m not complaining, but…” She stopped, droppe
d her chin, and let the sentence trail off.

  “You got your period.”

  She raised her head, met his gaze, and as her shoulders gradually sank, she nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  He frowned with regret. “I knew it.”

  “By my whining?”

  “No. This was the first morning that I didn’t ask about your period.”

  “Foster.” She’d been mistaken. It wasn’t regret behind his expression but self-reproach. He’d been tracking her cycle diligently, asking about it every day, sometimes several times a day.

  “I jinxed it this morning by not getting up in time to see you off before you left for your breakfast meeting. I always ask you about your period first thing in the morning. This morning, I didn’t ask.”

  “Foster, believe it or not, my menstrual cycle doesn’t depend on your asking about it.”

  “You were late.”

  “Only two days.”

  “Why were you late?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve never been late before.”

  “Not usually, no.”

  “Then why now?”

  “I don’t know, Foster,” she said, trying to contain her impatience. “Stress, maybe.”

  “Dammit!” He struck the arms of his wheelchair three times. “When you didn’t start two days ago, I let myself begin to hope. I should have asked. If I’d have asked—”

  “I would have menstruated anyway.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  “I know. My temperature had dropped, indicating I wasn’t pregnant. I’ve felt premenstrual for days. That’s why I’ve been draggy and tired. I hoped I was wrong but…” She shook her head wistfully. “I dreaded telling you.”

  “It’s not your fault. Come here.”

  His soft tone compelled her to set aside the paperwork. When she reached him, he guided her onto his lap. She sat down gingerly. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

  “If only you could.” They smiled at each other but left unsaid the many things they always left unsaid about the accident and its residual effect on their lives. He squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “This is a letdown, but it’s not a defeat. You did everything you could.”

  “Which obviously wasn’t enough.”

  “Success has been delayed. That doesn’t equate to failure.”

  She ducked her head, murmuring, “You know me so well.”

  “I know how your overachiever’s mind works. Sometimes to a disadvantage.”

  Both being type A personalities, they had compared their childhoods and discovered that, despite the sizable financial gap between the two families, they had been reared similarly. Her parents, like his, had expected much from their only child.

  Both their fathers had been dominant but not unloving. The pressure to succeed that they had placed on their children was more implied than overt, but that didn’t make it any less effective.

  Her father had been career Air Force, a bomber pilot who’d served two tours of duty in Vietnam. After the war, he was a test pilot and trainer. A natural daredevil and risk taker, he rode his motorcycle without a helmet, slalomed on both water and snow, went skydiving and bungee jumping.

  He died in his sleep. A cerebral aneurysm burst. He never knew what hit him.

  Laura had adored him and took his death hard, not only because of the bizarre unfairness of it but because he hadn’t lived to see her achieve all the goals she’d set for herself.

  Her mother had considered her dashing husband an unparalleled hero. She worshiped him and never recovered from the shock of finding him lying dead beside her. Grief deteriorated into depression. Laura was helpless to stop its inexorable pull until eventually it claimed her mother’s life.

  Laura had been a straight-A student, valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa. She had achieved every goal she’d ever set for herself. Her parents had openly showed their pride. They’d called her their crowning achievement. But their deaths, both tragic and premature, had left her feeling that she had failed them miserably.

  Foster knew this. She pointed her finger at him now, saying, “Don’t start with that psychobabble about me not wanting to disappoint my parents.”

  “Okay.”

  “But that’s what you’re thinking,” she accused. “Just like you’re thinking that this is your fault because you didn’t ask me about my period this morning.”

  He laughed. “Who knows whom well?”

  She ran her fingers through his hair. “I know that you don’t like changing your routine, because if you do, terrible things will happen. Isn’t that the principle by which you live, Foster Speakman?”

  “And now here’s proof of how sound that principle is.”

  “The laws of nature are also sound.” She shrugged. “An egg wasn’t fertilized. It’s as simple as that.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “Nothing’s that simple.”

  “Foster—”

  “It’s indisputable, Laura. Unwritten laws govern our lives.”

  “To some extent, possibly, but—”

  “No but. There are cosmic patterns in place that one should not violate. If one does, the consequences can be severe.”

  Lowering her head, she said softly, “Like switching drivers at the last minute.”

  “Oh, Christ. Now I’ve made you even more unhappy.” He pulled her head down onto his chest and stroked her back.

  She couldn’t argue this with him. To try to do so would be futile. Shortly after they were married, in an effort to better understand his OCD, she had talked with his psychiatrist. He had explained Foster’s conviction that disorder predestined disaster. Patterns could not be broken. Series could not be interrupted. Foster believed this with his heart, mind, and soul, and the doctor had told her that trying to convince him otherwise was a waste of breath. “He copes with it extremely well,” he’d told her. “But you would do well to remember that what to you is a hitch, is chaos to him.”

  Tacitly agreeing to let the matter drop, they sat quietly. After a time, Foster said, “Griff Burkett will be disappointed, too.”

  “Yes. He’ll have to wait at least another month for his half million.”

  He hadn’t asked her anything specific about her first meeting with Burkett. When she came home that evening, she’d given him a detailed account of everything that had taken place in the office, but she’d told him nothing about that until he asked. “How was your appointment with Burkett?”

  “Brief. He did what he needed to do and left.”

  She hadn’t elaborated, and he hadn’t asked for more information, perhaps sensing that going into detail would make her uncomfortable.

  “So you’ll be calling him again in a couple of weeks?” he asked now.

  She sat up and looked deeply into his eyes. “Do you want me to, Foster?”

  “Yes. Unless it was unbearable to you.”

  She shook her head but looked away. “If you can bear it, I can.”

  “Isn’t this what we agreed?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s what we want.”

  “I know. I just hope it happens soon.”

  “It’s what we want.”

  “I love you, Foster.”

  “And I love you.” Then he drew her head to his chest again, saying, “It’s what we want.”

  A week after the beating, Griff began to think he would live. For the previous six days, he hadn’t been so sure.

  The sons of bitches hadn’t even been kind enough to beat him unconscious. And that had been deliberate. They’d wanted him awake to feel every punch, grind, and gouge. They’d wanted him conscious so that when they lifted up his head by his hair and pointed out to him a car parked nearby, he would recognize it as Rodarte’s olive drab sedan and see the cute flashing of its headlights. They didn’t want him muzzy or confused. They wanted him to remember the beating and who was behind it.

  They’d given him a concussion. He’d suffered a couple in football, so he recognized the symptoms.
Even though he didn’t experience the amnesia that sometimes accompanies a concussion, the nausea, dizziness, and blurred vision had plagued him for twenty-four hours.

  By rights, he shouldn’t have moved, except to use his cell phone to call 911, summoning an ambulance to the parking lot. But a trip to the emergency room would have involved paperwork, the police. God only knew what else.

  Somehow he’d managed to climb into his car and drive himself home before his eyes swelled shut. Since then, he’d been popping ibuprofen tablets every couple hours and trying to find one position in which to lie that didn’t cause throbbing pain. He didn’t worry about internal injuries. The pros knew how to damage him so he would feel it, but they didn’t want a murder on their hands. If they did, he’d be dead. They’d only wanted him praying for death so he’d feel better.

  He got up solely to pee, and not until his bladder was full to bursting. When he did leave the bed, he walked like an old man, bent at the waist, shuffling because every time he tried to lift his feet, a knifing pain in his lower back brought tears to his eyes.

  Yesterday his mobility had improved a bit. This morning, he’d worked up enough courage to get in the shower. The hot water had actually felt good, easing some of the aches and pains.

  The bedroom stank of him because he hadn’t been up to the task of changing the sheets. Sick of looking at the same four walls, he left the room for the first time in a week. Coffee sounded good. He realized he was ravenously hungry. Things were looking up.

  He was scooping scrambled eggs straight from the skillet into his mouth when his doorbell rang. “Who the hell?” He couldn’t think of anyone who would come calling.

  He made it to his front door and looked through the peephole. “You gotta be kidding,” he muttered. Then, “Shit!”

  “Griff?”

  Griff hung his head, shaking it in wonderment at his fuck-all rotten luck. “Yeah. Just a minute.” He fumbled with the locks, which he’d had the wherewithal to secure when he returned home the night of the beating, fearing that Rodarte’s thugs might show up for round two.

  He pulled the door open. “Hi.”

  His probation officer gaped at him. “Holy shit. What happened to you?”