Hold ’Em Hostage

by Jackie Chance

Neither of us said anything for a full minute, then he added quietly, “You know Belinda, if you tell me what you’re not telling me, or even part of what you’re not telling me, maybe I could help you, maybe I could help keep the brass from pushing this investigation so hard.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Except get involved with a bad ex-cop.” Trankosky wasn’t joking anymore. His voice was now as merciless as his face. His ironic mouth just looked disappointed.

  I held my breath, hoping he would say more about Frank without my asking. Finally I said, “Joaquin is an ex-cop? Wow. Who knew.”

  “Who’s Joaquin?”

  “The tattoo artist.”

  His eyebrows flew up as he exclaimed, “You’re involved with the tattoo guy?”

  “No, not involved that way, he’s an aquaintance.”

  Trankosky hit the heel of his hand to his head. “I feel like I am in a Cary Grant/Doris Day flick.”

  “Flattering yourself, aren’t you?”

  He shook his head, fighting down the corners of his mouth. At least I’d distracted him from Frank. I really wasn’t ready to hear how bad Frank was. Not yet.

  “One day, Miss Cooley, your cheekiness is going to get you into trouble.”

  “You are way too late with that warning.”

  Trankosky smiled. “You know, you are one of the most likable criminals I’ve ever encountered in twenty years on the force.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m not a criminal. You don’t have any proof I am, or you’d have arrested me already.”

  “That’s not always the way it works, sometimes we hope you’ll lead us to a bigger jackpot.”

  “You might still hit a jackpot following me around, but it’s not because I’m doing anything wrong.”

  “You’re going to have to be incredibly lucky or incredibly smart to get yourself out of the mess you’re in now,” Trankosky said, throwing the Crown Vic into park. “You’d better hope all you lose is your freedom, and not your life.” His fingers opened my fisted hand, slid in his card with a cell phone number scribbled on the face and closed my fingers back around it.

  “Thank you for not dipping,” I said, nodding to the snuff box in the console he’d been toying with distractedly since I’d gotten in the car.

  “Oh, that.” He sighed. “It’s nasty, isn’t it? I quit smoking last month and a friend suggested I dip tobacco to smooth the transition. Bad advice because now I’ve got that to quit. I’m at twelve hours and counting. Maybe you’ll live to see me hit twenty-four.”

  Every time he said something approaching likable he ruined it. I opened my door. He got out to hold it for me, but I’d already slammed it and made it six feet down the sidewalk before he reached the passenger side of the sedan. “When you get ready to tell me what you aren’t telling me, call.” I could feel him watching me walk away. For some odd reason, it gave me a sense of security. Maybe he was right. Maybe jail was the safest place for me right now.

  Shana and Ingrid weren’t back when I let myself into our suite. They’d gone to take Moon another item for her psychometry. I didn’t know how a bra of Affie’s that ended up in Shana’s luggage would help, but I wasn’t about to tell Shana not to try it. Besides, it made her feel useful. She was nearing an emotional breakdown; I could feel it. That was one thing about people so charismatic, so electric—sometimes they faded fast. My pet name for Shana when we used to go clubbing was Firefly because that’s as bright as she was, how drawn others were to her.

  I didn’t know if Ben going off half-cocked was going to help or hurt her ability to maintain. He’d been hovering so, it would have driven me crazy a long time ago.

  The phone rang, and again, stupidly I assumed it was one of my friends.

  “Miss Cooley, you didn’t do as we asked. Your goddaughter’s time is running out.”

  “Excuse me, but I did do as you asked. I delivered you actually more than you asked for. If you didn’t get it, well, I’d call the cops and report it stolen.”

  “Very amusing. We have the cash. But you failed to collude to get it.”

  “Why would that matter to you?” Where was Frank when I needed him? He’d be able to make sense of this puzzle.

  I could hear the receiver being covered. A muffled, unintelligible conversation taking place. “You can’t always rely on luck to win. If we want you to win, you’d better or your Aphrodite is dead. You’re not going to be able to keep that up every day. No one can.”

  I thought about Affie in the clutches of these money-hungry gangbangers, Ben off to commit suicide by joining the selfsame killers, Frank missing and/or drunk and/or a hunted murderer. I thought about mathematician Richard’s theory on luck and love. Everything I loved was pretty much having bad luck right now. It was worth a gamble. “Wanna bet?”

  “You shouldn’t be betting with your Aphrodite’s life. We’ll be in touch.”

  I jumped at the knock at the door. That was certainly quick. The wimp in me was tempted to not answer it. The rest of me went straight to the knob and yanked it open violently without looking through the peephole.

  I’d scared Ringo out of his wits. As he hesitated, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. The hallway was empty, but I wasn’t taking any chances with my friends.

  “What’s wrong, Bee?”

  Everything. “Nothing, Ringo.” I couldn’t tell one of the sweetest people I’d ever had the pleasure to call a friend even a tenth of what was happening. For one, I hated to mar the innocent, naive soul I so often envied. Furthermore, he was so devoted to me that I was afraid he would storm Medula gangland with a burning torch to bring Affie back. Ringo had the street smarts of a domestic rabbit.

  “I’ve got it! You’re just tired from all that winning at the Main Event.” He high-fived me. “Great play. Lucky cards.”

  “No kidding. About the luck, that is.”

  “Once again, you’re way too modest. There’s really something bothering you.” He peered at me. “Is it that crazy preacher, eh?”

  “Phineas Paul is a bit distracting.”

  “Well, I’ve got something to cheer you up.”

  I could think of a half dozen things that would cheer me up, none of which Ringo would be privy to. “What?” I asked anyway.

  “Chanel is ecstatic about your exposure on all the news stations. They want you to be their model.”

  “Obviously I am, every time I wear a pair of their sunglasses.”

  “No, Bee, they want to make it official. It’s kind of sudden, but they want to do a shoot tomorrow morning at the hotel, before the next round.”

  “What? No!” I was used to being on the other end of ad campaigns, behind the camera not in front of it.

  Ringo looked like I shot his favorite dog. He hung his head. “I thought you’d be excited.”

  “Excited?” I let out a breath. “I am excited. Thrilled in fact. It’s just unexpected. A shock.”

  “Just like Christmas!” Ringo rubbed his hands together. “Or a surprise birthday party!”

  Look at that face, how was I going to say no?

  “What time are we supposed to be there?” I asked Ringo as Joe let himself into the suite. “Where’s the party?” he asked Ringo, shaking his hand.

  “Not a party. An ad shoot.”

  Joe looked in question at me. “I didn’t know you were working here.”

  “I’m not the agent. I’m the model for this one.”

  “Huh,” Joe said. “Sorry Frank’s not here to see this.”

  “Maybe he will be.”

  “It doesn’t look like it, does it?”

  When I didn’t answer, he passed over a fax. “That’s the report on Affie’s note. Her handwriting. Common Crayola pens. Common generic copy paper, used in about three hundred million copiers, faxes and printers throughout the world. No fingerprints we could match through the database. But there was one thing…”

  I looked at the sheet. It was gobbledygook to me.
“What?” I demanded.

  “There were some microscopic traces on the paper—usually this is what we are going for when we test. We don’t know what they mean, but—”

  “Joe, get on with it.”

  “There was pollen from a certain spring flower indigenous to the northern Rockies and snake skin.”

  Snake? Before Joe could add any more, I picked up the landline and dialed home.

  I withstood five minutes of small talk about a scourge of white flies on her tomatoes and before I finally broke down I asked, “Mom, how’s my snake?”

  “Pookie, you know I hate that thing.”

  “I know, Mom. That’s why I asked Dad to take care of him.”

  Pause. Sound of Mom pulling weeds in her garden. Sound of Dad starting up lawnmower so I couldn’t even hope for him to save me.

  “So has Dad been taking care of him?” I prayed for patience.

  Sound of huge guilt-inducing sigh.

  “No, I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you’d be upset.”

  Ten-nine-eight-seven…“Tell me what, Mom?”

  “The wretched reptile disappeared. The same night Affie did.”

  Huh. I didn’t know what that meant. Why would some kidnappers have let Affie lug along a ten-foot-long pet? Joe was asking me something but my mind was too full of possibilities to listen.

  “Bee?” Joe asked after a pause.

  I glanced from the carpet that I wished held all the answers back up to his face. “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “I asked if your pet is a rattlesnake?”

  “No, Grog is a python.”

  “Then it’s not your snake’s skin traces on the note. This snake was a rattler.”

  Twenty

  Reverend Phineas Paul stood on a riser in the middle of a crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of the Fortune. It was pretty easy to tell his followers from the Vegas tourists by their dress. In fact, I’d looked a little like a follower yesterday. Not today, though, not in the getup Ingrid had messengered over for me to wear for the shoot.

  “Do you good people know there is a bunch of sinners, many of them here in this city for this godforsaken tournament, who say they pray to the ‘Church of Texas Hold ’Em’? This is a sacrilege. This is the work of the devil. The game might seem an innocent diversion at first, for your youth, your brothers, your sisters, your wives, your husbands, but soon instead of holding a Bible, they will be holding cards. Instead of giving to a collection plate for God’s work, they’ll be giving to a felt table, paying for the devil to drag them straight down to the depths of hell!”

  Okay. Paul was pretty worked up today. He was fascinating to watch. Even though I despised the man and disagreed with everything that came out of his mouth, I couldn’t tear my gaze away. He had charisma plus.

  “They tempt you by saying ‘come worship’—in their altar of sin? Why would someone succumb to that, I ask.”

  I was rethinking my brave thought of taking him on and had decided to quietly skirt the group when he caught sight of me.

  “I ask that of you, Bee Cool.” He spat my name like I was Mary Magdalene before she was forgiven. Perfect day to take on the holy roller, since I looked like a modern version of what Mary had been, in the clingy silk shortie dress in a rainbow of colors. I don’t know what I’d been thinking when I’d expected to sneak by when I was impossible to miss. “I ask you, oh you queen of gamblers, what you say about a secular—nay, a sinful—organization calling innocents to pray in a temple of money and greed?”

  “Uh, I don’t belong to the Church of Texas Hold ’Em, Mr. Paul, but if you ask me, I think it’s just a bit of a light take on poker, an irony. Like, a joke?”

  “God is a…” Gasp. Grab throat. “…joke, Miss Cooley?”

  “That’s not what I said, Mr. Paul.”

  “That is Reverend Paul to you.”

  Okay, time to take the gloves off. Time to show some teeth. The cameras, which had been busy with the interview of the current chip leader, Rahn Vinoy, at the other end of the sidewalk, moved in on the two of us now, like sharks smelling blood in the water.

  “Reverend Paul, what would you call what you do? Seducing young girls with the selfsame money you criticize?”

  A gasp rose from the gathered crowd. Paul went apoplectic, his mouth opening and closing, his face glowing red.

  I couldn’t get away with the illusion that he was a pimp for much longer, so I continued. “Paying them to walk your picket line when they don’t believe the messages they hold?”

  “Who doesn’t BEE-LIEVE the messages they hold?” he boomed at the teenage picketers. A couple of them looked curiously at the signs they held. I tried not to laugh out loud. No one, however, volunteered to answer his question.

  “If so, you may bring me your sign. Turn it in. I will find someone else to carry on your holy work. There is no reason for you to walk down the road to salvation if you do not BEE-LIEVE.”

  No takers. The girls just kept walking. Bunch of zombies.

  Paul had carefully not denied my claim.

  Time to push. “Can you deny that you pay these girls to protest for you?”

  “Not for me, for our community. For the world,” he said, his voice rising in a crescendo, his hand on his heart, his eyes heavenward. “Other valuable members of my congregation are occupied with blessed duties that these girls are not yet able to perform. The means always justify the ends when the end is a holy work of the Lord. It will all make sense when we come to judgment.

  “When we come to judgment, Miss Cooley, wouldn’t you rather BEE-lieve than BEE Cool? Repent and live forever! Repent and save the millions you are corrupting. Repent and save the world from the evil legacy of poker.”

  I suppressed the shiver. And was saved by the sunglasses, as the Chanel reps surrounded me and led me into the hotel.

  The shoot went relatively smoothly and painlessly, so much so that it tempted me to change careers. Modeling gigs might be the way to go. Of course, at forty-one, what was I a potential candidate for besides poker-appropriate eyewear? Antiaging creams? Cellulite busters? Eighteen-hour support bras?

  I managed to depress myself by the time I got to my table, a whole half hour early. Blackie was already there, as she always was. I wondered what time she got there.

  “Do you sleep under the table or something?” I grumped.

  She shook her head perhaps a centimeter back and forth, that was all, but I could tell she was making fun of me. How could someone with no sound and no facial expression mock someone else? What an art form.

  What self-control.

  I think she was my new hero.

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  No answer.

  “Are you so unfriendly because you’re in your zone, or because you don’t like anyone else?

  “You know, I want to beat you just to see if you stand up and swear at me in Vietnamese or something.”

  She clearly wasn’t Vietnamese but I thought that might get her talking.

  “Watch out. If you cuss at me in Filipino, I’ll know what you’re saying because my best friend’s mom is from Manila.”

  Nothing. No response. She could be dead.

  If so, she might really be my hero, because I’d be put out of my current misery.

  “Good talk,” I told Blackie.

  The dealer looked between the two of us and raised his eyebrows. At tournaments, the dealers are rotated every twenty minutes or so to prevent any kind of cheating. This year, the WSOP was doing random rotations, different amounts of time, unpredictable tables. We’d had this particular dealer, Ronnie, several times and he seemed to have a sense of humor. Some of them don’t, and, trust me, it’s a drag.

  “Ladies.” He nodded to us as he sat down.

  “What’s new?” I asked, feeling particularly punchy. I hadn’t slept well two nights in a row, my mind full of clues, my body startling at every sound that could be Frank. If
he didn’t show by the end of tonight, I knew what I had to do and didn’t want to think about it.

  “The talk this morning’s been that big bust of some Hold ’Em players at the Toucan.”

  “What bust?”

  “Didn’t you see the paper? It’s the on front page.” Ronnie took the Las Vegas Tribune out from under his arm and handed it to me. A photo of some middle-aged men and some young-looking teens being herded into paddy wagons by police. “This was an in-house tournament of some pros that play pretty low-level games but are household names around Vegas, old-timers. They were caught with underage girls—the girls are claiming consensual sex but that’s still jail time, right?”

  “Hold ’Em’s really getting a black eye this Main Event, isn’t it?” I observed, peering closer at the photo. One of the girls was wearing an Abercrombie shirt like the little brunette who’d hit me up for an autograph and bus fare. She was standing next to a blonde with a Juicy shirt on and a side ponytail…

  “Hey, I know these two,” I blurted.

  Ronnie raised his eyebrows. “What kind of crowd do you hang with?”

  “These girls hit me up for bus fare home a couple of days ago.” I sighed. “Guess they didn’t go home, huh?”

  “Where was home?”

  “Oregon, they said.”

  Ronnie shrugged. “No good deed goes unpunished. See, now you can feel guilty.”

  “Too late, I already did.”

  I guess it was fortunate that my life was falling apart around me, because it certainly made playing cards easier. When the lives of most people I loved hung in the balance, suddenly the cards, chips and bets seemed trivial. Knowing I wouldn’t be sitting there unless one of those lives depended on it made the game just another job. It’s how I managed the Big Kahuna, my entrée into Hold ’Em. It was how I would manage getting through the biggest poker tournament in the history of the world.

  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I don’t play, aka do leisure time, well. I do work well. Or rather, more precisely, I work better than I play. So I was going to work at this Main Event. Deciding that took a huge and sudden load off my shoulders.