Death On the Flop (3 page)

“What about work? I thought you weren’t due time off until later in the year?” Ben was a pharmaceutical salesman. He’d been lucky to get the job when the medical supply company he had started four years ago went belly-up.

“I already met my quota. The deal is when I do that, I get an extra week off every six months.”

Whoa. Was it because he needed to impress his bosses or get that time off?

“You won’t be sorry, Bee. This will definitely make you forget your troubles.”

That was what I was afraid of. I would be trading worry over my troubles for worry over his. Swell. Sounded like a blast.

Ben scooted me out of the way long enough to sign out of the game. He was nearly vibrating with excitement as he made for the front door.

“So, you never finished explaining.” I pointed out, delaying making a decision. “What other talents do I have for this game besides my—disputable—poker face?”

In the hallway, Ben paused with a grin. “Innocent eyes, long legs, and . . . how do I put this delicately . . . size D’s.”

Who knew I was so talented? “Great, so as long as I wear mascara, a push up bra and a miniskirt, I’ve got it made at the Hold ’Em table, huh?”

I opened the front door and he winked as he walked out. “No, those are just to distract the other players and hide how smart you are. You’ve got to learn the game in order to act like you don’t know it.”

“Sounds dishonest.”

“It’s called bluffing, sis. A fun way to lie. And in Vegas it’s expected.” Ben reached in his back pocket and handed me a thick envelope with a travel agency logo on it.

Uh-oh. “You certainly were sure of yourself. You already bought the tickets?”

Ben flashed a dimpled grin and shrugged apologetically. Damn. After what he still owed business creditors, he couldn’t afford to go squandering airfare. I groaned. “I guess I
have
to go, don’t I?”

“Cool!” He kissed the top of my head again, then jogged down the walk to his parked car. “I’ll pick you up in two hours. You won’t be sorry.”

Too late, I already was. As he zipped off with a wave in his red Spyder, I opened the envelope and saw it held no plane tickets, just folded pieces of magazine paper. I pulled out the top one. Ben’s sprawling script read:
It worked, huh? We’ll get tickets at the airport. This is your first poker lesson, Sis. You’ve been bluffed.

Considering I was allergic to spontaneity, packing in
an hour to go to the sin capital of the world was akin to an out-of-body experience. I was so accustomed to dressing as an advertising exec during the week and, on weekends, as fiancée of an advertising head honcho with a strict girlfriend dress code that I had no clue what I should wear when I no longer had either of those roles to fill. Well, I reminded myself, I was going on this trip as my brother’s protector. What fashion challenges would that role require?

Immediately an image of a silvering haired spinster in sensible black shoes and loose, calf-length navy dress with a Peter Pan collar, possibly carrying a bag of knitting popped into my mind’s eye. I glanced at my row of short-skirted suits, lacy silk camisoles, low rise Calvins and the three-inch Steve Madden heels on the floor below them and decided I wasn’t fit for this job. My glance in the mirror at my chestnut hair, with some random gray strands at the roots, and chipped nail polish confirmed the suspicion. Tears threatened again. Was I good for nothing anymore?

The doorbell dinged. I stared at my neon Swatch. Way too early for Ben. On time was too early for Ben and he had another hour to be that. Perhaps it was Toby, here to beg me to come back to him and to work, thus saving me from this torture.

Banging began on my front door. Not knocking, banging. That’s when I knew it had to be either the cops on a raid or my best friend, Shana.

She pushed through the door before I even had it half-open. “Bee Cooley, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

Good question. I wasn’t sure how to answer it. “Um,” I began.

“You aren’t answering either one of your phones. I was worried. Don’t tell me you are going to become a recluse, just because you’re forty and your best years are behind you, you got dumped by the hottest man you’ll ever hope to marry and got canned from the best job you ever had?”

Leave it to Shana to tell it like it was. That was why I liked her so much, no artifice. What you saw with her was what you got. She’d never stab you in the back. She would prefer a frontal attack so you could watch.

“Well?” she demanded, looking around at the stack of plates, bowls and utensils in the sink.

“No, I’m not becoming a recluse,” I retorted definitively, although AC/DC might argue.

Shana jammed her hands on her hips. “Prove it.”

Ha. I’d show her. “I’m going to Las Vegas.”

Her big brown eyes widened so far I thought they’d pop out and roll across the floor. Her mouth moved but no sound came out for at least thirty seconds. I was slightly insulted. I mean, I wasn’t
that
boring, was I?

“Vegas? You? No way!” she finally sputtered.

Humph. “Why not Vegas? Why not me?”

“Because.” Shana pursed her lips and drew her eyebrows together. She jerked her hands off her hips and gestured something indecipherable before she clasped them together. “Because you like everything in its place and nothing is in its place in Vegas. Or, better said, everything is so ‘far out’ there, that there is no ‘proper place’ for anything. It’ll blow your mind.”

“Huh?”

Shana rolled her eyes to the ceiling then said on her exhale, “I mean, you give new meaning to the word anal-retentive and Vegas is the exact opposite. Vegas is wild, loose, unexpected.” She drew in a breath, held it a moment, then blew it out in a rush. “You’ll hate it.”

“Maybe not. Maybe since my ‘best years are behind me’ I want to turn over a new leaf. Maybe I want to be wild, loose and unexpected.”

“Sure you do.” Shana wasn’t buying it. “You’ve never even had sex anywhere but in a bed. Have you?”

I frowned and looked away. Ugh. I guess I
was
that big a stick in the mud. Where did most people have sex anyway?

Shana was still chortling. “Wild, loose, unexpected, yada yada.”

“Okay, maybe my brother is making me go to Vegas with him to some poker tournament.”

Shana burst out laughing. No it was more like guffawing. Belly busting. Finally, she choked out: “You? Ben? Vegas? Poker? The tightest tight ass I know is going to Sin City to gamble with a lunatic.” She snorted once more, then sobered and bored me with a look. “You aren’t on antidepressants are you?”

“No!”

“Are you sure, because they can cause, you know, hallucinations.”

I turned away and marched back to my bedroom. Shana followed, still chuckling. I began yanking clothes out of my closet and throwing them into the suitcase with angry abandon—silver lace camisole, black leather mini skirt, fire red silk jacket, a bunch of suede this and satin that.

Shana gasped, pointing. “You are separating suits, mixing labels. I’ve never seen you do that before.”

“You’re going to be seeing me do a lot that I’ve never done before. Just wait,” I promised with a bravado fed by fury. “I’m going to start French-kissing life, beginning today!”

Lips curling in a skeptical smile, Shana asked: “Goody. Can I come watch you do all this French-kissing of life?”

“No.” Normally, I’d welcome Shana. She had a wild streak that I probably needed to follow through with this promise in Vegas. But Ben was going, so she couldn’t. I’d been trying to keep Ben and Shana away from each other for years. Shana had a huge crush on my brother and he, unbeknownst to her, had the hots for her. Of course, Ben had the hots for any semiattractive woman between the ages of sixteen and sixty. No kidding, he just got through dating Ruby, a fifty-nine-year-old bartender who Ben claimed was the most fun he’d ever had. Anyway, I didn’t want Ben using and abusing my best friend only to discard her the moment he got bored. I thought it might strain our friendship. And a quickie for either of them wasn’t worth that, I decided.

Shana shoved her lower lip out, crossed her arms over her chest and watched as I flipped more mix-matched separates onto the pile. “What accessories are you going to wear with those?”

I tried to hide my panic. I never wore anything but the same accessories with the same outfits. I just didn’t have a knack for throwing earrings and bracelets and necklaces and scarves and belts together without a diagram. I was famous for buying what the mannequins or models in catalogs wore from head to toe and wearing that ensemble without changing a piece several times. I had been given complete ensembles as thank-yous for my ad campaigns and never wore them except exactly as the models had. But now I narrowed my eyes at Shana, marched to my dresser, reached for my jewelry box and overturned it into the pocket of the suitcase, shrugging for effect. “I’ll just figure out what to wear when I get there.”

Shana’s eyebrows went skyward. “You
must
be on something.”

We heard the front door swing open. I guess I didn’t shut it properly in the wake of Shana’s onslaught. A familiar male voice rang out. “Knock. Knock. Ding. Dong. Your prince has come!”

Reflexively, Shana’s gaze flew to the mirror. She ran a fingertip along the edge of her lip gloss, shook her thick straight black hair artfully around her heart-shaped face and grinned at herself coquettishly. Ugh. “We’re back here, Ben,” she called in a frilly voice that made me nauseous.

Ben walked in with a paper sack full of clothes and gave Shana an appreciative once-over. She blushed. Double ugh. He gave my overflowing suitcase an even more appreciative once-over. He dumped his clothes on top and smashed the pile down. It was going to be so much fun to travel with my brother. I just hoped the hotel had an iron.

“I’m impressed,” Ben said, pulling my Burberry case upright. “I thought I’d have to pack for you, sis.”

“Bee’s decided to French-kiss life.” Shana put in.

Ben whistled. “Sounds like fun.” He winked at Shana. “The French-kissing part.” She blushed a deeper crimson. Triple ugh.

“The poker part sounds fun to me,” Shana said coyly.

“
You
play poker?” Ben and I responded in unison, but with completely different inflections. My “you” made her sound like a leper, his “you” made her sound like she’d revealed her secret occupation as a stripper.

“I play some Hold ’Em on the Net,” she admitted.

“Limit, No Limit or Pot Limit?” he asked.

“I like No Limit.”

Ben whistled. “That’s my game. I bet you are a bit of a Maniac at the table.”

I thought she’d be offended, but instead, Shana giggled. “I’d like to learn to play like a Rock but I just can’t help going for it sometimes.”
Huh?

They were speaking a foreign language. “My brother and best friend are strangers to me,” I muttered to myself.

“You ought to go to Vegas with us sometime to play in a live tourney,” Ben offered.

My turn to bluff. “Shana can go in my place,” I suggested with a bright smile.

She bit down on her lower lip, doe eyes hopeful. With a glance at Shana, he looked like he might be tempted but, after a beat, Ben shook his head at me. “Not this time. This is brother-sister bonding time. I’m going to teach you how to check and raise, how to pray for a boat on the river and for quads on the flop, Bee Bee.”

Okay. Sounded like we were going sailing or to the gym.

“And,” Ben continued, “I’m going to teach you how to bluff better than your sad attempt just now.”

“You do have to be careful with that, Bee, especially playing in person,” Shana nodded. “I love bluffing and lost my pants in a tournament.”

Ben’s eyebrows waggled. I wanted to gag. I shook my head instead. “When have you been doing all this poker playing? And why didn’t you tell me about it? It’s not like it’s a closet drug habit or something.”

Shana and Ben both looked at me with the same expression. It said “duh.” Finally, Shana answered, “You have to admit, Bee, this wouldn’t be your first choice of hobby for either of us.”

I cocked my head in question.

Ben snorted. “Come on, admit it, you’d prefer we were skydiving or bull riding rather than poker playing.”

I stretched the beaded bracelets on my wrist, snapping one a little too hard. Ouch. “I’m just not a fan of gambling. I think it can be dangerous.”

They looked at each other with smug little grins.

“Medical bills from being gored by a bull couldn’t add up to as much as you could lose one night at the poker table, right?”

Their grins just got wider.

“Okay, okay,” I interjected loudly. “Maybe I’m fatalistic about poker because I don’t know enough about it. Fear of the unknown and all that.”

“How open-minded of you,” Shana offered, her gaze following Ben as he enveloped me in a bear hug. I stuck my tongue out at her over his shoulder and she winked at me.