“Be quiet. What if my wife hears you?” he whispered. Perfect. Even if he saw something suspicious, I had something on him.
Leaning Terry against the wall, I stepped in front of him and Shana, so the coupling pair couldn’t see them clearly. “Are you two going to get out of there tonight?” I demanded.
His head spun around. They hadn’t known we were there. He jumped away from her and out the door. “Wait, you bastard,” she yelled. “You owe me!”
He ran, she ran. We shoved Terry into the elevator, pushed the up button and ran too, reaching our room behind them before they reached his.
As we doubled over to catch our breath I was disturbed by how easy it had been to dispose of a dead body, but resolved not to analyze that until after this nightmare was over.
We’d cut up Terry’s shirt into tiny little pieces and flushed them down the toilet. The couch was another story. Fortunately, upon closer inspection, the blood in the cushion was almost invisible because of the color match. Though, even if we rented a steam cleaner, it wouldn’t fool any crime-scene team. I blotted up the worst of it with a wet towel, then sent that in pieces to join the shirt. Shana was running a hairdryer on the couch when the phone rang.
“Belinda,” said a familiar voice. “You wouldn’t know anything about a dead body in the elevator of your hotel, would you?”
“What?” I exclaimed, willing my voice to sound sleepy yet stunned. “Who died?”
“We don’t know yet. But it is such a coincidence to have found another body under a roof you share, also coincidentally in an elevator with a disabled security camera. And by the way, of all the floors in the hotel, the only one with a nonworking security camera is yours.”
“You’re making me feel very unsafe, Detective.”
“Belinda,” he said, “I don’t think you killed this guy. Just tell me what is going on so I can help before you end up dead somewhere.”
I thought about Joe’s theory. This fell right in with it. Yeah, right, Trankosky. Although, another part of me was tempted to spill the story by the invitation in his voice.
“Where is your boyfriend, Belinda?”
“Good question,” I answered, relieved I could finally be honest.
A red-eyed, red-nosed Ingrid opened the door and looked at the couch in shock. “Where did it go?”
By morning, Terry’s murder was all over the news, although they had yet to identify him. Although police didn’t speculate on the similarity of the MO’s of this murder and the one at the Image, reporters gleefully did. They did man-on-the-street interviews asking tourists if they were worried there was a Jack the Ripper on the loose in Vegas, which most hadn’t considered until it was suggested. By midmorning the mayor had to call a press conference to reassure The Strip that these were likely targeted gangland killings and not random acts of a psychotic serial murderer.
It just managed to up the ante. Between the World Series of Poker, the religious zealot pickets and now a bloodthirsty gang on the loose on The Strip, Vegas couldn’t get more exciting.
Or so I thought.
With each step I took on the way to my debate with Paul, I prayed Frank would call to say he’d saved Affie and I wouldn’t have to play in the final game of the WSOP after all. I had absolutely nothing but dread in the pit of my stomach—what if I busted out at number nine? Would they slash her throat as they did Terry’s?
Jack had gone MIA again—no one had seen him since he’d last caught me on the sidewalk—so Ingrid and Shana had left earlier to try to hunt him down. Joe, I sent to hunt down the two girls who’d waylaid me for money and then had shown up trapping johns in the newspaper. I had a plan for them. And, Ben, well, I almost couldn’t think about him, because when I did, I imagined him being tortured by the Medula who’d found him out. I really had no faith in Ben’s ability to pull off a gang infiltration. After all, look what happened the last time he tried to play at being an investigator.
I didn’t know if Joe had left one of Frank’s men on my tail or not, and frankly at this point, didn’t care.
So, of course, this was when I would be accosted. I felt the tug on my sleeve before the hand actually closed around my forearm and pulled me into the alley between two hotels.
I kicked out, pointy heels first, and made contact. He swore and I recognized the voice before I recognized anything else. “Sam? Sam Hyun?”
“Belinda Cooley.” He nodded, still holding me, now with vise grips on either arm. This man had dangled me ten stories above the Gulf of Mexico once, but somehow I found it hard to work up the energy to be afraid of him now. Go figure.
“What are you doing here, Sam? I thought you were in jail.”
He shrugged. “My attorney is working on a deal. I’m out on bond.”
“Good for you, and now you’re going for your second offense?”
His eyebrows drew together below his cue-ball head. Boy, he was one guy who shouldn’t go bald on purpose. “What do you mean?”
“Sam.” I stared at his hands. “You’re holding me against my will. I think that is considered kidnapping, or at the very least, assault.”
“Oh.” He said, “But I want you to listen to what I have to say.”
“I won’t go anywhere, Sam.” For now. Until I see a weapon. Like a serrated knife.
He let go and stuck his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “I wanted you to know that that Paul guy is out for you.”
“No kidding.”
“No, Belinda, I really mean it. One of his henchmen, a guy named Drew Terry, approached me before the Main Event even started and first pumped me for info on you, then tried to talk me into drawing you into collusion. When I refused, they wanted to pay me to at least talk about you being a dirty player.”
So, Terry was a Paul man. Somehow I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been, perhaps because it confirmed a niggling suspicion that had been building in the back of my mind. “Well, Sam, did you do it? After all, you do that for free anyway.”
“Hey, I never said you were dirty. I said you were stupid.”
“Oh, right. I guess they didn’t pay for that.”
“No,” he sulked.
“Why are you telling me this, Sam?”
“Because playing in the Main Event this year, I’ve come to accept how much poker has changed. I realized, more than ever you deserve to win as much as I do. Maybe.”
Whoa. Now’s where he pulls out the knife.
He moved his left hand, yanking it out of his pocket and extending it, empty and open, waiting for mine. “Good luck, Bee Cool.”
So much for that theory. And I guess I wasn’t being tailed at all because no one had come to my rescue in the alleyway, even if I didn’t need to be rescued. Humph.
I guess it wasn’t my day to die. Yet.
Even before I turned toward the Fortune, I could feel the electricity. The media was out in force, the fans revved up, players hopped up. And I could barely force myself to walk up to the casino. Ugh, not to mention this debate I’d been invited—forced—to join. That was the icing on my cake of misery.
I’m certain I was a fly in the World Series of Poker executive committee’s ointment, if I was noticed at all. That Paul had asked me to appear as the spokeswoman for the game must have been hard to swallow, but to their credit, they didn’t tell me what to say. I assumed so they could best distance themselves from what I would say. I knew I could be easily sacrificed—as a woman, as an amateur, as a perceived fluffhead—much easier than the handful of household names at the final table.
As I entered the poker room, I saw they had set up a poker table with only two chairs in front of the WSOP’s final table. The TV-friendly one was rife with all the props of the game, even real cash scattered about the chips and cards. True infotainment. The pretty boy network announcer who’d probably never played a hand of Hold ’Em in his life stepped in front of the scene. “This year’s World Series of Poker is setting all kinds of records, for attendance at 11,202, for the winne
r’s purse of fourteen million dollars and for the first organized protest against the game. The Reverend Phineas Paul and members of his Church of the Believers have been picketing from the first day of the tournament. On this, the final day, with the field whittled to nine players, and the world watching, the Main Event organizers have invited Paul to make his case in a three-minute debate on live television prior to the first deal.”
The president of the 2008 WSOP took the mic. “To celebrate the free speech we value in America we invite Mr. Paul to have his say.” He paused as he motioned Paul out from the sidelines and into the chair on the left before continuing, “Paul asked that Miss Belinda Cooley, a relative, but extremely successful, newcomer to Texas Hold ’Em, speak for poker. We thank her for being such a lovely ambassador for the game.”
I resisted the impulse to gag as I nodded and followed his sweeping arm to my own chair. He made it clear I was window dressing. I took a deep breath and focused on getting through this so I could get on with freeing Affie.
Paul’s hate across the table was palpable as I eased into my seat. I marveled at the energy it took to abhor something this much; it had to be exhausting. I steeled myself to remain as calm as possible, for as irritating as he had been during this week from hell, he wasn’t what I needed to focus my energies on.
“I have the easy job,” he began. “God is on my side. The Bible is on my side. The devil is on yours. There is no divine defense for gambling. It is a sin, pure and simple.”
“I certainly wouldn’t pretend to know the Bible as well as you do, Mr. Paul.”
“REVEREND Paul,” he interrupted.
I nodded without verbally acknowledging his interruption, as I continued. “But I believe the good book allows for diversion and recreation alongside hard work. The interesting thing about life is, it is all about perspective. Someone’s blue sky will seem purple to another. One person’s job might seem like nothing but fun to another. Some people might consider your job as a preacher to be nothing but getting paid to talk—”
“Blasphemy!” Speaking of purple, that was now the color of his face. I was glad he didn’t have a weapon other than his tongue.
“—but others would consider yours the most difficult job, carrying such responsibility as it does for maintaining the faith of your followers.”
That mollified him for an instant. Throwing him off balance was the only way I could retain any kind of purchase in this debate. “Exactly. That faith is fragile. It is under attack daily with the crime and wanton secularity of the world today. Poker—built as it is on greed—erodes the foundation of faith that we, in the Church of the Believers, have taken on in order to rebuild the moral fiber of our people.”
“How does hypocrisy fit in to rebuilding the moral fiber? How do you justify paying your young picketers to hold signs they don’t believe in?”
“You are the tongue of the devil.”
Whoops, he was almost frothing at the mouth. I motioned to Joe, who brought the pair of girls forward. They were both shuddering in fear, looking at me in desperate question. I’d promised I’d keep them safe, now I wasn’t sure I’d been right to use them. “Did Mr. Paul pay you girls to hold these signs?”
They nodded. “And other things…” one of them said in a small voice.
“We are warriors!” Paul cut in. “We must make sacrifices to save the world. If these girls must sacrifice, then so be it. The means justify the right end. They were on the path to destruction anyway. I saved them, they are working toward heaven now, instead of hell.”
I supressed my own shiver. “So if every poker player in the world donated her winnings to your cause, would the means justify the end, then? Would the poker devils become your warriors as well?”
He stood violently.
Something struck me as he shoved his chair back and turned away from the camera: Paul’s tie was red and yellow. A coincidence? The WSOP president shook my hand, beaming as the camera swung back to the anchorman. I grabbed the sleeve of the WLVS cameraman who was following Paul’s departure from the ballroom. He switched off the camera and turned to me as I asked, “Do you have file footage of Paul relatively easy to access?”
“Of course, he’s the big newsmaker right now. We carry all the file footage we might need in the live truck outside.”
“Can I see it?” I had to temper my adrenaline. He told me he’d have to ask the producer and disappeared. I had exactly an hour before the tournament began. I hoped they were organized enough for us to find it in that time.
After a moment, the producer was produced. She considered my request, calculating, not ready to give something for nothing. “You can see the tape, if you grant us an exclusive interview after you’re finished playing today.”
“Deal,” I said. It was okay with me, because I hated owing anyone. This would make us even.
And I’d see proof of whether this was who Affie had been warning me about days and days ago. Proof that I’d been blind.
The film editor and I were reviewing the last piece of file footage when the door to the live truck opened and Jack stumbled in. “There you are!” he said.
“Look who’s talking,” I murmured over my shoulder as the editor named Gary and I nodded to each other. Paul’s tie was red and yellow on the first day of the World Series too. I spun in the chair to face Jack and my mouth dropped open. “What in the world happened to you?”
He hadn’t shaved, was pale and shaky, wearing the clothes he’d had on the day before, except they were filthy, and black half moons underscored his eyes. I asked the editor for water, and Jack gulped it gratefully when it was produced. Finally, he began, “I m-m-m-managed…”
He sucked in a breath. I willed myself to patience. Rushing him would only make matters worse. Once he got going it would be fine. “…to sneak into the Church of the Believers office in that building Carey found when he followed D-D-Dragsnashark. Problem was, while I was poking around, some people came in and I was stuck behind a bunch of boxes. It turned out to be great in the end, though, because I heard everything. He’s b-behind it all, Bee.”
“What are you talking about?”
He took another swallow of water and I felt guilty for pushing him so hard. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Sit down and relax.”
“We don’t have t-time for that. I have a lot of it recorded, enough to put Paul away for g-good, I think. Enough to get Affie freed, even without Frank and his men in b-black. Enough to bring in the authorities.”
I didn’t have the faith in authorities that Jack had, but I wouldn’t burst his bubble right now. “Jack, what does Affie have to do with Paul?”
“It’s not the Medula who kidnapped Affie—it’s Paul.”
“What? But—”
“Let me f-finish, and it will all make s-sense.” Jack paused. “S-sick sense, but sense nonetheless.”
I nodded. He continued. “The Medula are extorting money from you that they get to keep, as their part of the arrangement with Paul. His goal is to put poker down across the world, run it back to the backrooms where he thinks it belongs. It’s his mission. He’s smart, though. He knew he couldn’t attack the nameless, faceless game in this media-driven age. He had to chose a scapegoat and no better one than you. To reveal a woman who seems to be the antithesis of rotten as truly bad would be doing the same to a game that seems like harmless entertainment. And, what’s more, it would be dramatic. He and his chief deacon likened it to a child opening a beautifully wrapped Christmas gift to find a rotting, dead puppy inside.”
“That man is not right,” I said, pulling a face.
“He started long ago, sending church members into play in poker rooms, planting seeds of rumors of collusion and your dirty play, trying to bribe other players to spread the word too. But the deeper his spies got into it, the more they came to realize simple bad talking would not be enough to scare you into doing something wrong. That’s when he joined up with the Medula, who were to use whatever means they could to sque
eze you. They killed Tasser in order to frame you for the crime eventually—after the WSOP—after you’d made them the money. They kidnapped Affie, but didn’t want to have the hassle of keeping her, so they sent her to Paul’s compound.”
“Like David Koresh’s,” I murmured, so sorry now I hadn’t listened more seriously to Thelma. Then finally, realization dawned. “In southeastern Oregon. With a circus tent where they have services, with lots of other teenage girls like the ones picketing…”
Jack nodded.
“It’s been right in front of us.”
“C-come on, Bee. Don’t be so hard on yourself. If you t-told me what I’m telling you I still might not b-believe it. But I heard them.”
“I just don’t understand about this Terry guy…”
“Some guy named D-drew came in last night, furious, frustrated, s-spouting off that he was going to b-bring you down no matter what. Paul told him the best soldiers were the bravest, told a story about the samurai’s hari-kiri, and it was major creepy. It was almost like he was talking him into committing suicide.”
“Suicide?” I whispered with a shudder. “I found his body, throat slashed with a serrated knife in our suite last night.” I didn’t look very hard for the knife, though, did I?
“Whoa. Who could actually do that? S-s-scary. Is Ingrid okay?”
“What about Serrano?” I mused, as I nodded in answer.
“Wrong place, wrong time. He apparently was killed by Dragsnashark because Serrano hassled him when he was following you.”
That made me sad.
Jack wrapped my shoulders in a hug. “I already called Frank and left him a message with the address for the compound. We need to tell him the rest.”
Jack and I left the live truck to get a cell phone signal to call Frank, when we saw Trankosky leaning against his Crown Victoria. He pushed off when he saw us, nodding to Jack as I introduced him. They shook hands. “I follow your work. You’re a good poker dick,” he said. Jack blushed. Pushover.
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