Max eyes Jesse at this point. Then keeps going.
“Something to give Piper enough time to set up a tiny camera in the closet where the safe is.”
Max holds up a small camera for the crew to see. Then he continues.
“Piper has some kind of emergency and has to leave the hotel. Before she leaves, she promises to meet Ladislav the next day. The next day, whenever Ladislav gets that day’s gambling cash out of the safe, we learn the digital password courtesy of the camera in the closet. Then that night, Piper and Ladislav go on their second date. While Ladislav and Piper are in the casino, Kim, you and Mars will sit down at the same blackjack table as Ladislav. You’ll begin overtly counting cards as a tandem. The casino mangers will come over, and when they do, you’ll make a huge scene. In the chaos that ensues, Rob, you’ll pick Ladislav’s pocket and get that day’s key card for his VIP suite.
“All that’s left is walking into the room, opening the safe, and walking out with twelve million dollars in jewels. My contact – the same guy who tipped me off to Ladislav coming to Vegas – can move the jewels for us.”
Max smiles. As if waiting for applause. Instead, silent skepticism follows. It’s not that we’re not impressed. The plan sounds brilliant, but this job’s no con. It’s a heist.
We spend the next hour arguing. Everyone voices their concerns.
I worry – if only slightly – about the extended dates with Ladislav.
Kim knows that if she causes a big ruckus in Caesars and gets caught counting cards, she’ll be barred from all the major casinos forever. And with the new firewalls on the facial recognition software, she won’t be able to hack in and erase her file. It would mean the end of her counting career.
Rob and Mars both bring up how illegal this is compared to what they normally do. Mars seems to be more concerned about the morality of it. He prides himself on taking pool players’ money by outplaying them and outsmarting them. Not by stealing from them. Rob, on the other hand, seems more concerned about the jail time we would do if we got caught stealing jewels, and he keeps using the term “grand larceny.”
After everyone finishes listing their concerns, I voice my final thought. “I’m in if you guys are.”
I have my reservations and concerns, but I trust Max. Plus, the big payoff would more than cover Sophie’s eventual college tuition.
However, I stand alone in my enthusiasm.
Jesse is the only one who’s stayed quiet. Not shocking. The job doesn’t cross over into anything he finds even remotely stimulating. Jesse finds his thrills through deception. This particular job revolves around stealing more than deceiving.
Max must have noticed Jesse’s silence, because he finally asks him, “What do you think, Jesse?”
“I think it’s too risky a job for Piper, so I don’t like it.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s no different from what I do every other day.”
I shoot him a quick death-glare. He doesn’t get to play the concerned boyfriend. Not after breaking it off with me a mere seven hours after kissing me.
An awkward tension forms when everyone catches the negative energy between the two of us.
I want to hate him, but I can read people. And that includes myself. What he just said struck a nerve with me because deep down, he does care about me. And that’s why it’s so hard.
Because he cares for me, but he won’t let us be together.
It would be easier if we got together and he cheated on me. Then I could hate him. And therefore get over him. It would have been easier if he told me he only wanted to be friends because he didn’t feel that way about me. But he does.
The argument over the jewel heist goes around a few more times as we discuss the pros and cons of the job. Max has addressed all of my concerns, so it’s starting to seem like a no brainer. “Guys, this could be amazing!”
Max smiles with relief to hear me mirror his enthusiasm, but everyone else remains hesitant. Rob shrugs. Mars won’t even look at me. Kim bites her lip.
In the end, it comes down to risk versus reward. For Max, the reward trumps the risks. But for the others, the reward doesn’t seem that enticing. We’re talking about kids. Teenagers who already have what they want.
Sensing his proposal on the brink of rejection, Max urges us to think about it overnight. “We don’t need to decide right this second. We can talk more about it in the morning,” he adds.
I’m hoping that a night’s rest will build excitement. Regardless, the proposal has come at a great time. It gives me something else to ponder other than Jesse.
***
A night’s rest sends each of us further in the direction we were leaning.
By morning, I’m all about it. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to pay for Sophie’s college with stolen jewels. I’m happy to pay for it with poker proceeds or money from slimy men who create a market for human trafficking and prostitution by their willingness to break the law and shell out large amounts of money for women in Las Vegas. But initially, I was a little hesitant to pay for her college with money from stolen jewels.
But but…
The money we steal in jewels might as well be money he’d otherwise spend on escorts.
However, it doesn’t matter that I’m on board, because Kim, Mars, and Rob all reject the proposal, citing reasons parallel to the concerns they mentioned the night before. Jesse remains on the fence, but his vote won’t matter at this point.
Max says he understands and excuses himself from the dining room.
“I think we’re making a mistake to pass this up.”
“Piper, I ain’t doing it,” says Rob.
“Kim, what if…” I stop when I see her shaking her head. “Mars?”
“Pi, I never signed up for this. The glim dropper was one thing. I’ll walk out before I become a straight-up thief.” I back off Mars at this point, connecting his resistance to the fact that his father is eight years into a ten-year prison sentence for armed robbery.
I’m tempted to argue more with the others, but when it boils down to it, none of them are in the same position as me. The main reason I want to do the job is for security. To get money to take care of Sophie. But none of them are responsible for anyone else. None of them have to take care of another human being.
They all disperse. To their rooms. To their days. I’m left looking out the window.
And just like that, Max’s plan for a twelve million dollar jewel heist is dead.
--How is this happening? One minute, I’m living this dream in Las Vegas, caught in a hyperreal, fantastic version of reality. The next, I’m facing down my worst fear. I hear about people feeling numb when they get tragic news, but numb is not what I feel; I envy numb. The thought of my poor sister in a duffel bag makes me sick to my stomach. Guilt, sorrow, fear, shame, misery, horror, and desperation collide in some awful game of emotional bumper cars. My soul feels crushed. And the only thing that keeps my heart from stopping and my body from crumbling into the dirt and dust that blows through this desert is the voice in my head that vows, “I will get you back, Sophie.”--
CHAPTER EIGHT – Imaginable
Max’s potential heist had been a timely interruption. With that distraction no longer active, the next couple days drag like months.
Zero appetite. Zero energy.
Max makes a few comments about my weight, encouraging me to put back on the few pounds I’ve lost.
“Your skin-n-bones state will make you look like you’re a cokehead,” he says.
Beyond-skinny prostitutes are often stereotyped as drug addicts. A reasonable stereotype, really. The majority of cheap escorts first turn to prostitution to support their drug habits.
But since my career requires that I masquerade as a high-class prostitute, I can’t be appearing like I’m doing it for a couple lines of white powder.
On Wednesday, pretty much the only reason I leave my room is to help Sophie with her geometry homework, which proves difficult. In addition to knowing
absolutely jack-shit about geometry (my weakness when it comes to math), I have a headache from my lack of eating or sleep or both.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Sophie.
“Where you going?”
“I have a fun alternative to the text book.”
I head down the hall and knock on Mars’s door.
“S’up?”
“You’re always claiming pool is all about the angles, right?”
“Why do I feel like you’re gonna ask for a favor?”
“Sophie’s having trouble focusing on the text book. Think you could help her with her geometry?”
Sophie’s attention span is fine at the moment, but I’m willing to tell a white lie if it means I get to lie down.
“No problem.”
Good ol’ Uncle Mars.
I stay in my room until the evening when a job scheduled for 11PM finally gets me out of the penthouse.
I’m disappointed when my client isn’t there waiting at the west entrance of Harrah’s.
Normally, I only give clients a 15-minute grace period, but this evening I wait over half an hour. Probably anxious to do a job just to pass the time. At 11:40, I accept there remains little chance of the mark showing up, so I trudge back to Treasure Island.
I pass by the famous fountains in front of the Bellagio. A Frank Sinatra song blares on the speakers, and dozens of couples watch the water shoot up into the sky. Holding hands. Kissing. Taking selfies. I’m tempted to ruin their bliss. I want to walk up to them and tell them that the water is “grey water” – it’s recycled from the sinks and showers of bathrooms of the hotel. I want to remind them that their “romantic” Bellagio is a commercial super-hotel with more hotel rooms than there are residents in the quaint Italian town it’s named for.
Blah. If Jesse hadn’t broken it off, I’d probably have stopped and stared at the water with the rest of these fools.
***
I might have stayed in bed well past noon, but it’s Thursday. Every Thursday at 10:00 AM, there’s a private poker game downstairs. There are over 100 people invited to play in this game, but on any given week, only about 10 are in Vegas and available to play.
I’m the ninth to sit down at the table. I recognize most of the faces. I get a hug from an old man named Davis and warm hellos from several others.
The players keep the game private because of some of the celebrities who play. One is a former NBA player who gambles to reach those competitive highs from his days as a professional athlete. Another is a Hollywood actor whose first Academy Award was for a screenplay he wrote with his childhood best friend. Neither of those two is here this morning, but across from me sits maybe the most decorated Olympian of all time.
If I can help it, I never miss the game. It’s not about the celebrities. The first reason is the competition. You don’t win six NBA titles, an Academy Award, or Olympic gold unless you’re competitive. The second reason is a consequence of the game being private. No one bothers me for being underage.
In this weekly game, the buy-in is $200 but you can re-up as many times as you want. Many of these guys are millionaires who won’t hesitate to buy back in three or four times so it’s not unusual to see several thousand dollars on the table. Rather than a tournament, the game goes on as long as people want to play. Leaving right after winning a big pot is frowned upon, but otherwise people can cash out their chips and leave anytime they want.
Early on, I find myself in a big hand against a 40-year old who’s built like an ox. I don’t recognize him, but I suspect he’s some famous bodybuilder or professional wrestler. He goes all in, and I call him immediately. My triple sevens beat his two pair as my stack of chips doubles in size. Everyone gives the bodybuilder a hard time for losing the hand to me as I rake in my winnings.
Poker is about power. The reality is that men play men differently than they play women. When men play against a woman, particularly a young woman like myself, they often find themselves overeager to win, afraid of losing to a girl. Or they find themselves taking it easy, afraid of beating a girl.
I’ve learned to use both fears to my advantage.
Cyndy Violette, perhaps the best female poker player out there, won the World Series of Poker in 2004. She’s won a bunch of professional tournaments, and although she has entered many, she has never won an all-girls tournament. Cyndy Violette prefers playing poker against men.
And so do I.
My only complaint with the game is the pace. Strangers playing in a casino or online aren’t going to make a ton of conversation. But these guys are pals, and they spend half the time running their mouths. This older gentleman named Murray gabs for a good ten minutes, complaining about this rare bone disorder he has. At the end of his rant, he says, “but those are the cards I was dealt.”
It’s a cliché analogy anywhere. At a card table inside a casino in Vegas? It’s a ridiculously cliché analogy. But one I can’t seem to escape contemplating. How much of life is the cards we’re dealt versus how we play those cards? Serious poker players pride themselves on poker being a game of skill, not a game of luck. Blackjack really does boil down to the cards you’re dealt. There are decisions to make, but there are statistics behind those decisions. A computer can play blackjack as well as a person.
Is life more like blackjack or is it more like poker? I’d like to think it’s more like poker. I don’t think I was dealt a great hand, being an orphan and all, and it’d be nice to believe the cards are in my hands.
Aside from everyone’s run of the mill side conversations about the weather, today’s topic keeps circling back to Dennis Cane. His biannual million-dollar poker tournament is coming up next week, and a few of the guys are considering entering it.
If I weren’t already in a sour mood, hearing the name Dennis Cane would have taken me there. It’s been months since I lost to Dennis at his own tournament, and I still haven’t gotten over it. And that was a ten thousand dollar buy-in. I try to imagine what it would be like to sit down at a table where the buy-in was seven figures.
On the eighth hand, the Olympian puts me all in, and I can’t help calling him. I just hit a flush on the river, and I suspect he’s representing his two pair as a full house.
But when he flips over his cards, it is a full house. My two hundred dollars vanish after only 45 minutes. Rare for me. I usually don’t make many risky plays, particularly early on.
I pull out another pair of Benjamins from my purse.
“She’s buying back in,” says Murray, surprised.
“If I lose this, then I’m walking away,” I respond.
“That’s what I’ve been saying for 40 years,” says Murray. Everyone laughs at that.
I won’t have to buy back in. I play the remaining two hours fairly well. I end up at $560, which is only $160 up since I put in $400 today. But like I said, this is one of the toughest games in town.
On days like this, when I play well, I start to daydream about being a professional card player. And I have to remind myself of Dennis Cane. Losing all my savings. Losing our chance at normal. Poker, as much as I want it to be more, must remain a hobby and nothing more. Just like Jesse.
***
My best friend turned boyfriend turned best friend Jesse plops down next to me. “Hey.”
I’m at the kitchen table grading Sophie’s work for the day while she plays Guitar Hero with Rob.
“You’re not going to talk to me?” Jesse whispers.
“What do you want me to say, Jesse?” So much for my silent treatment.
“Are you angry at me?”
“No!”
“Well you sound angry.”
“If I’m angry, it’s because we feel the same about each other, and you won’t let us be together.”
“So then, you are angry.”
“Yeah.”
After a deliberate sigh, Jesse stands up. “There’s something I need to tell you. Before, I told you about my brother. That I… well… that he died. And it was
my fault. Truth is, I don’t even have a brother. All the stuff… I made it up.”
“I wondered if you did.”
Jesse’s right eyebrow arches. That wasn’t what he expected me to say.
“I mean, I knew it wasn’t 100% true. I didn’t know how much you’d exaggerated.”
“You knew? How?” He wipes his palm against his flushed face. Jesse looks more uncomfortable learning that I knew than he did confessing that he had lied.
“Just like you’re good at pretending, I’m good at reading when people are pretending.”
“I don’t know why I lied. I just…”
“I know why you did. Well, I have two theories. One is because you’re a pathological liar and you can’t help but lie.”
I probably could have sugarcoated that first theory.
“And the second is because you felt guilty. Sophie and I ran out because our mom was a crack whore. Rob had something messed up with his stepfather. You didn’t feel like you could just say you ran away because you were jaded. Because your parents cared more about their Mercedes than they did you. Because you were bored in school. And because you got more of a thrill out of pretending to be someone else than you did out of being yourself.”
“They didn’t have a Mercedes. It was a Lexus. And an Audi. But yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
I sense there’s more to it than that. Something buried deep below that Jesse will never reveal.
“So why are you telling me this now, Jesse? You’re telling me that’s why we can’t be together. That’s bullshit.”
“I just wanted to show you that you can’t trust me. Not a word I say. I’ll hurt you. I will. Maybe not right away. Maybe not in a month. But eventually I’ll mislead you and I’ll hurt you, and then you’ll hate me and I’ll hate myself and–”
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