by Beth Ciotta
“You need to sleep, Evie.”
He sounded bored. I twirled my ring and stared out the balcony door at the starry sky. “I can’t.”
“Do you know what a tell is?”
“I think so.” I glanced toward his silhouette, surprised by the question. “I’ve heard the term used by poker players. It’s an unconscious gesture, expression, like tugging at your ear or rocking in your chair, something that betrays a person’s mind-set. Something that screams, I’m bluffing.”
“Or nervous. Lamont would be sensitive to a tell.”
I realized then that I was twisting my ring round and round my finger. A new habit. Every time I needed encouragement or calm, I fingered the ring. “Oh.” Embarrassed, I pulled off Jayne’s mystical gift and laid it on the nightstand. It was a clunker, anyway. Better to rely on my inner strength and wisdom than a green stone.
“Do you want to talk aboot it?”
“What?”
“The phone call.”
Although he’d blatantly eavesdropped, he hadn’t commented on my conversation with Nicole. Until now. “I wasn’t thinking about the phone call.” Until now. I blocked feelings and images and focused on the sting. My part in the takedown was minimal. As soon as Lamont finished with his initial pitch, or as Arch called it, the come-on, ditzy, fun-loving Sugar was supposed to remark on Charles’s art collection and how the cost of owning a cabin suite on the Dragonfly paled in comparison to what he’d paid for his most recent acquisition. Then, after fawning over her skeptical hubby and begging pretty please, Sugar would skip off to hit the slot machines, leaving Charles to handle the financial details. “What if Lamont gets suspicious when I duck out of the meeting early?”
“He won’t. Because you’re a hell of an actress, yeah?”
“Flattery will get you, well, a thank-you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Maybe I should stay for the whole thing.” Whatever that was. Arch hadn’t shared the specifics of how he was going to entrap Lamont. All I knew was that the rat bastard was going to end up in prison where he’d hopefully rot.
“As I explained, I have people on the inside. Professionals.” He cut me off before I could take exception. “This isn’t aboot ability, but experience. I need you to trust me on this.”
“But you said—”
“I’m asking for a leap of faith.”
Something in his voice, that nuance that made me envision him as a deprived, hard-knock child, whittled away that wedge. Not completely. Just enough to expose my caring nature. In some ways, I felt that Arch was as lost as me.
“In return,” he said, “I’ll share a secret.”
My heart pounded, sensing this was a rare moment. I held my breath.
“You cannae tell—”
“I won’t. Not a soul.”
He blew out a breath, waited a beat. Two. “The man Lamont betrayed, a man who died because he dared to stand up to the bastard, was my grandfather.”
“Oh, Arch.” I wasn’t sure what I heard in his voice. Anger? Sadness? I only know that it tore at my heart.
“I grew up in Scotland. He lived in England. Although I saw him infrequently during my youth, he was always there for me—financially, emotionally. I never knew my father. He was, as it happens, a con man. Constantly on the move. I was a result of a long-running sporadic affair. Marriage was out of the question, as was settling in one place. Emotional attachments compromise a grifter’s judgment. When he learned my ma was pregnant, he cut ties completely.”
I shuddered. “How could he be so cold?”
“Not cold. Practical. Merciful, if you asked my ma. His coming and going mangled her heart. She didnae wish the same for me.”
“She must’ve been a very strong woman.”
He smiled. “Aye. Worldly, too. She knew what she was in for when she fell in love with a grifter. Her own da, my grandfather, was an artist, a painter, who lived his life in the gray.”
I scrunched my brow. “Meaning?”
“He had a miraculous gift for re-creating works of the masters.”
I still wasn’t following.
“He primarily made his living as an art forger.”
“Wow.” I tried to imagine Arch’s childhood, his influences. So different from my conventional upbringing. “So the smoke and mirrors thing. That’s pretty much in your blood.”
“Pretty much.”
“Wow.”
“You may not approve of how my grandfather utilized his talents, but I guarantee, you would have approved of the man, Evie. He was kind and funny, a true gentleman. He deserved a better fate, yeah?”
I massaged an ache in my chest. “Why does all of this have to be secret?”
“The more people know about me, the more vulnerable I become.” He fell silent while I mulled that over. After a moment he said, “We good?”
I blew out a breath, replayed his explanation on the differences between scam-artists and scum-artists. I acknowledged the admiration and genuine grief when he spoke of his grandfather. I didn’t know how I felt about Arch as a whole, but Arch the man was an irresistible puzzle that I wanted to work out. “You can’t be comfortable on that couch.”
He didn’t answer.
I figured just now he needed me as badly as I needed him. My performance jitters and the lack of physical contact made me nuts. As crazy as it was, as much as I didn’t want to, I considered him a friend. “You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
Silence.
“You want me to ask.”
Nothing.
The gentleman con artist. The man was an infuriating enigma. I rolled my weary eyes. “All right. I’ll ask. Would you please sleep with me?”
He rolled off the couch and joined me in bed, naked except for his boxers.
“I don’t want sex.”
“Too bad for me.”
My stomach fluttered and a smile touched my lips. “Could you just, would you—”
“Absolutely.” He maneuvered me into his arms, my back nestled against his front, spooning-style.
An uneasy thought kept me from relaxing. “Arch?”
“Hmm?”
“The story you just told me. Was it solely to cement my help in roping Lamont? Or was it also your way of telling me you’re a chip off your father’s block? Is that why you don’t do relationships? Because it would compromise your professional judgment?”
He smoothed his palm down my arm. “When my ma realized I was destined to grift, she offered advice that I adopted as my personal code. Never attach yourself to anyone that you can’t walk away from in a split second.”
I bit my lip, not wanting to ponder what that said about us. He had, after all, been up-front on that score. What chafed more was the thought that he was capable of abandoning a child. “So, if you ever found yourself in your father’s shoes, you’d walk away?”
“I’d do what was best for the babe.”
“You sort of danced around the question.”
“I know.” He interlaced his fingers with mine, rested his brow against the back of my head and mumbled a graphic curse. “Evie?”
“Yes?”
“I am not my father’s son.”
Not a direct answer, but the sentiment I was hoping for. I swallowed an emotional lump and decided not to press further on the subject. The more people know about me, the more vulnerable I become. It had cost him to confide in me. It made me feel special. And though he was probably fighting it tooth and nail, hence the curse, it smacked of some sort of relationship. At the very least, we were friends.
Smiling, I relaxed in Arch’s embrace, reflected on tomorrow and beyond. I felt safe, yet anxious, as if primed for adventure. I closed my eyes, envisioned a scene from Titanic. Not the one where Jack and Rose dangled off the stern of a sinking ship, but the one where they balanced on the prow flying into their future with childlike optimism.
I felt myself drifting, and against my better judgment, falling just a little bit in l
ove. “Titanic,” I murmured.
He pulled me closer against him, spoke close to my ear. “We’re not going down, Sunshine.”
“The scene in steerage. Jack and Rose. Celtic music.”
“Ah.”
I quoted Rose. “I don’t know this dance.”
“Neither do I,” he answered in Jack’s American accent. “Just go with it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE AFTERNOON SUN set low in the sky. The first shore excursion of the day was complete. Milo stood on the promenade deck, leaning against the railing and admiring Catalina Island as the ship set sail for the Dominican Republic, specifically La Romana. In less than two hours, they’d be at the Coco Casino eating up Simon the Fish’s slippery bait. A once-in-a-liftetime opportunity, he’d told Herman Stokes, for which the old man had forked over a lifetime’s savings.
In turn, Arch would pitch a come-on of his own. Sugar would spill the beans about Charles’s art collection, in particular, a previously undiscovered painting by Vermeer. Something rare enough to lure Lamont back onto American soil for the sting.
Milo had spent the night reminding himself that today was about more than entrapping the man who’d killed a blood relative of his partner. He thought about Herman Stokes and the countless seniors like him. Unsuspecting pigeons.
As a result, he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Arch was right. He should’ve dug deeper. But Chameleon was inundated with cases. A.I.A. had been pushing high-profile scams. Ponzi schemes. Boiler room scams. Managed earning scams. Scams that targeted the rich or pointed to corporate and political corruption. Meanwhile scum-artists, as Arch called them, preyed on the old, the weak and the needy. People like Mr. Stokes, who, knowing he’d been bilked, had died a humiliated and broken man.
I should’ve dug deeper.
“You look pissed, mate.”
Milo tongued his unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth, glanced sideways at Arch and raised a brow.
Decked out as Charles Dupont, the grifter angled toward the sea, toward Milo, averting his face from any CCTV cameras. “More pissed than usual, that is.”
“Thinking about the future.”
“Whose?”
“Chameleon’s.”
Arch adjusted his tinted glasses. “I know I’ve put the team at risk—”
“Forget it. Where’s Evie?”
“In our cabin with her head in the toilet.”
Hell. “Nerves?”
Arch shook his head. “Seasick. The tender boat.”
Since the ship didn’t dock at Catalina Island, anyone wanting to go ashore needed to shuttle back and forth in a small tender boat. In order to keep up the ruse of the happy cruise enthusiasts, the Duponts and Parkers had booked passage, albeit separate excursions. Seas were choppy.
“Will she be able to perform?”
“I asked her the same thing before she ordered me oot. Afraid I insulted her. She’s never missed a day of work in her life, or so she bellowed, just before she hurled.”
“Glad I’m not a superstitious man,” Milo said in a low voice. “This sting has clusterfuck written all over it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Something smells.”
“Fishy?” Arch tugged down the brim of his straw hat, rolled back his shoulders. “Relax. After King reported our names, Lamont would’ve done a background check, looked into our financial standings. I made sure my bogus records were in place before I left Atlantic City. I was meticulous.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“The Kid wouldn’t screw up on your end.”
“No, he wouldn’t. Still, we’re leaving too much to fate.”
“I’m working with what I know, yeah?” Arch said calmly. “I cannae anticipate Lamont’s actions like most marks. He may offer a trade—the Vermeer for a cabin. He may attempt a Big Con—sucker me oot of the painting or replace it with a fake.”
“Replacing a fake with a fake.” Milo’s lip twitched. “Talk about poetic justice.”
“It willnae get that far. I don’t know how he’ll respond to today’s come-on. But I know he’ll make a move. No matter how this goes down, the result will be the same, yeah? Simon the Fish will travel to the U.S. to pinch that painting. You’ll arrest him once he’s on home soil and earn points with A.I.A. I’ll celebrate his incarceration. Countless pigeons will remain unplucked.” He smiled though his tone held no humor. “And they all lived happily ever after.”
Milo’s gut kicked. “Clusterfuck.”
“Don’t borrow trouble, Jazzman.”
He repositioned his Stetson, pushed his aviator sunglasses up his nose. “Try to get some crackers and ginger ale into Evie. Better yet, mix a couple of tablespoons of bitters into a glass of club soda.” He pushed off the rail, trying like hell not to borrow trouble. “See you on the dance floor.”
I WANTED TO DIE. No amount of ginger ale or antacid had been able to cure my nausea. Too late for Dramamine or any other motion-sickness medication to do any good. I was weak from throwing up. The bump on my noggin throbbed from banging my forehead against the toilet seat in my haste to hug the porcelain princess. I was embarrassed. I know Arch had been trying to help, and I guess it was sweet, but his holding my hair back as I puked up my guts had been mortifying. Okay. I’m exaggerating. I still had my guts, but everything else was true.
Glamming up for a night at the casino had been difficult. A, because I looked like crap. B, because I felt like crap. But I managed to perform miracles. Because C, I wanted to come through for Arch. When I’d told Nicole that he was complicated, I hadn’t been lying. Last night he’d confided in me. He’d schooled me. He’d comforted me and held me through the wee morning hours. Even if I never saw him again after this gig, I was convinced we’d been brought together for some cosmic reason. My life would never be the same, and I’m thinking that’s a good thing. I figured I owed him big-time.
So I twisted my hair into a funky chignon, swept my long bangs over my forehead to hide the yellowish bump and spackled on foundation and blush to cover my greenish tint. I accented my eyes with smoky shadows and my lips with my signature red lipstick. I squeezed my curves into a little black dress, a sexy number that I’d worn when emceeing a few high-roller craps tournaments, and slid into my bone-crusher stilettos. More showy than classy, but hey, I was Sugar, not me. Even though I felt like hell, I looked like heaven. Or so Arch said. Okay, he’d said bollocks, but to me it was the same.
I barely registered the trek from cabin to gangway. My mind raced a million miles a minute, psyching myself up, mentally reviewing the plan.
Luckily, the ship docked at La Romana, so I was spared the nightmare of the small craft bouncing over rough seas—gag. A taxi was waiting to take us to the Coco Casino. The Parkers shared the ride. Arch had told me Gavin had included Vic in his come-on. It occurred to me that the Parkers were the insiders, the professionals, Arch had mentioned. Where they were concerned, I could never get a straight answer. So instead of asking again, I gave up and played along.
I fed off my nervous energy to channel Sugar’s bubbly personality. I assured everyone that the nausea had passed. Even Carol surprised me by voicing concern. I played my part. I focused. Arch, or, rather, Charles, nuzzled and kissed me on the ride. He was playing a part, too. The besotted husband. But there was genuine respect and affection in his gaze. Maybe that’s what energized me most, distracted me from my upset stomach, throbbing head and shaky legs.
By the time we arrived at the Coco Casino, I felt like I was on drugs. Like I’d crossed over to an alternate plane. It had to be a combination of my weakened state and a heady burst of adrenaline. I was completely at ease as Arch ushered me into the casino. Though far smaller and less high-tech than any Atlantic City casino, the atmosphere and objective were the same. To seduce hardworking people out of their hard-earned money. The flashing lights, green-felt tables, spinning wheels. Ka-ching! Games of chance.
Listen to the come-on. Check. Voice my excitem
ent. Check. Mention the painting and then split for the slots, leaving the finances to Charlie-baby. Check, check.
I was fine. Perfect. In the zone. Then I saw Gavin coming toward us with…Martha.
“What’s she doing here?” I asked in a ragged whisper.
Arch squeezed my hand, and did that thing where he talks without hardly moving his lips. “Easy, love.”
She waved excitedly. “Sugar! Charles!”
I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt.
Charles kissed her hand. “Martha, dear. What a pleasant surprise. What brings you here?”
“Same as you.” She winked, swooped in on the other side of me and looped her arm through mine. “Isn’t this exciting? When Gavin told me about, well, you know, I just had to look into the possibility of living on a—” she looked around, lowered her voice “—you know. This past week I’ve had the time of my life!”
“You, too?” I said, responding for both Sugar and me.
“I’ve decided when I go, I’m going on a…” She bopped her curly head in lieu of a you know. “I’m so grateful to Gavin for letting me in on this deal.” She gave the cruise director’s shoulder a playful rap. He looked so at ease, I wanted to slug him. “Such a sweetie, this boy,” Martha said.
Yeah, I thought, blood burning. A real prince of a man who wants to cheat you out of seventy thousand dollars. “Martha, don’t you think—”
“What do you say we get this show on the road, King?” Vic interrupted. “Me and the missus want to get some gamblin’ in tonight.”
“I understand,” Gavin said. “Right this way.”
We walked toward the rear of the gaudy casino floor, past blackjack tables and roulette wheels. I swear some of the players barely looked sixteen. Didn’t they card anyone in this joint? Joint, I decided on keener inspection, was more appropriate than casino. It had a distinctly smarmy feel.
Gavin opened a door, led us down a hall and through another door into an office. Spacious. Clean. Much like any ordinary corporate office. Desk. Chairs. Couch. Bar. Tasteful art on the walls. A model of a cruise ship and what looked like rolled-up blueprints on a conference table.