Hold ’Em Hostage (14 page)

T
here was no telling how long the phone had been
ringing. Despite being exhausted, I'd slept only fleetingly overnight—thinking I was hearing Frank come in about twenty times, waiting for him to open the door to check on us, then going to check his bedroom when he didn't. Ben still slept in the room alone at last check. At daybreak, finally sleep hit me like a sledgehammer. It was now 10:11. The buzz I'd assumed was the alarm was coming from the living room phone.

I scrambled up, fell out the door and snatched the receiver to my ear. “Frank?”

“Your bodyguard boyfriend is busy,” the voice said flatly.

“Joe?”

“Today is your day off the tournament,” the voice continued. The kidnappers. I fought the chill that slid up my spine with the knowledge that these guys seemed to know everything. “After lunch, wait for the rear corner table in the Mellagio's high-stakes room. Collude with the player wearing a Redskins jersey. You two will wipe everyone else out. He will let you win the third or fourth hand after that—go all in and take it home. Wait for the cash. Don't accept a check or house credit even though they will try to squeeze you into it. You will bring the money to the corner of Feil and Rickshaw within thirty minutes of the cashout. Do this if you want your goddaughter to have another day.”

“I'm not doing this unless I know she's not hurt.” I surprised myself with my boldness, but the request made me cranky. I hate it when people ask me to lie, cheat or steal. As I've said, I have guilt issues.

I heard a click, then “Aunt Bee?”

Another click then, “So, you heard her.”

“Yeah, on a tape recorder.”

He swore under his breath. “Ask her any question this time. Then we are hanging up, and you do as you are told.”

Click. “Aunt Bee?”

“Aph, where are you?” Well, he said any question.

I could hear swearing in the background. Someone ordered her to answer. At least I knew it was the real thing, that Affie was okay for now. I allowed myself a measure of relief as I held my breath for her answer. I could get a miracle—like latitude and longitude of her location. I was due a bit of luck, wasn't I? She sniffed back a tear. “God only knows,” she said. Click.

Super. Maybe I could look up Reverend Paul and he could help me out with a landline to heaven. I was being set up and blackmailed while my goddaughter was kidnapped. My boyfriend had fallen off the wagon at exactly the worst time. I had to find out who Blackie was because she might just be the closest person I could find who might have an answer.

 

“I
t's not like Aphrodite to use God's name in vain. My
mother would kill her,” Shana mused after I woke her up to tell her Affie was alive. “She'd have to spend the rest of her life saying Hail Marys.”

“I know. It was like Aph was giving me another clue, but like the red and yellow thing, I'm not catching on as well as she probably hopes. I know it's the best she could do, with the bad guys breathing down her neck. They aren't catching on either, which is the only thing we have going for us right now. So maybe she can keep sending them until something clicks.”

Shana held my hands in hers and looked into my eyes with her liquid dark ones, still not ready to let herself believe. “You're sure it was her?”

I nodded.

She sagged against the wall in relief.

“What did Moon have to say last night?”

“She keeps insisting Affie is at a camp full of teenagers.” She rolled her eyes. “And, that they go to a circus tent every day. I think you might have been right, I might have wasted my money. But I had to try. At least she's nice.”

“To you, she is. Any more digs at Ben?” I asked, light-heartedly.

Shana turned away from me. “Listen, Bee, Ben's been a good strong shoulder these last couple of days.”

“Don't get used to it,” I muttered. “He doesn't want to be counted on. I know you've had off and on stud crushes on him through the years, but he's not good for you long-term.”

“I realize that. I go through periods where I think he's what I want, hot and fun and driven, but then I know he's probably impossible to live with. The older Affie gets the more I feel compelled to set a proper example for her.”

I didn't want to tell Shana that all her wild carrying on when Aph was a child had done the damage it was going to do. Fortunately Aph had been smarter and stronger than to let her mother's partying do anything but positively influence her—she was turning out to be the exact opposite. But I wasn't going to give Shana this lecture. Not now, when she was so vulnerable. Besides, I should be pleased that my wild, but good-hearted, friend was considering settling down. No matter what the reason and no matter how fleeting.

“Ben hasn't been too hot or fun this trip,” I observed drily.

“No, but he has been solid as a rock.” Shana batted away a tear. “And I've needed that.”

“Humph. Maybe he's trying a new strategy—strong and sensitive instead of hot to trot. He is over forty now, you know. Maybe that pace is wearing on that aging body.”

“Look who's talking,” Ben said through a huge yawn as he came out of the bedroom in just his boxers. His black hair was tousled by the pillow more expertly than Johnny Depp's was by the movie hairstylist. His green eyes sparkled like he'd already had a pot of coffee, and his abs were tight enough to have endured a million sit-ups I knew they'd never suffered. Shana watched him, despite her lip service, a bit dreamy eyed. Well, I guess it didn't hurt a girl to fantasize. But this was a bit different. This almost looked like…love?

“Hey, I have a lot less miles on my speedometer,” I told Ben, still watching Shana. Only other time I'd seen her look like this was when she talked about a boy she'd had a one-night stand with at a college party—Aph's dad. Shana only told me once. And from what I understood, she'd never seen him again. She didn't even know his name.

“And you're proud to be like Grandma's Buick that never gets out of the garage—faded and old but ready to be ridden by the next generation?” Ben retorted.

Shana giggled. Even at my expense, I was glad to hear it. Maybe both brother and friend were getting back to a semblance of normalcy. “Leave it to you to degrade what could only be viewed as a positive.”

“Leave it to you to walk straight into the opportunity,” Ben shot back with a quick grin.

There was no winning barb trading with the king of the quick tongue. I hated to give up, though, so it was fortunate for me that a knock sounded at the door.

The door opened before I could reach it. Joe walked in. “Sorry,” he said when he saw our shocked faces. “Frank gave me his key so I wouldn't have to wake you to check on you.”

Hmm. A plausible explanation but it didn't feel right. Joe got right down to business, accepting the cup of coffee Shana brought to him. Ben ambled over, grabbed her by the elbow and whispered in her ear. They wandered off to the far corner of the living area.

“Frank confirmed with our source yesterday that it is the Medula gang that you apparently are tangled up with. They run a myriad of criminal organizations—from drugs to prostitution to a variety of urban extortionist activities and apparently are trying to break into gambling—although we can't figure out how they intend to make money in mainstream poker tournaments or why they've targeted you. They do have history of kidnappings and murders. They are active in Vegas right now.”

“Why wouldn't they target me?”

“Well, usually it's easier and safer for crooks to blackmail someone into crime with a monetary motive. Like if you were deeply in debt, your family was in financial trouble, that kind of thing. Violent personal crimes carry higher penalties, not to mention tend to be messier. Of course, from what we hear, if properly motivated by money, Medulas don't mind messy.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered, remembering all too clearly the gaping wound in Tasser's neck magnified underwater.

I told Joe about the kidnappers' demand this morning. He listened intently, unhappily, tensely. I could sense him wishing for Frank. He dialed him on his cell phone and left a message when Frank didn't answer. “I don't know, Bee, it might be a trap.”

“Why would they trap me? I'm the one doing their bidding. Maybe they are finally going to show why they are using me—I'm expected to make them money. I refuse to collude, but I will try to win. I will take them what they want. All that would be legal.”

“What will you do if you can't win without collusion?”

To save Affie? Good question. I think I knew the answer but I hoped I wouldn't have to find out for sure. “I guess I'll have to make that call when the time comes.”

“Anyway, our source has a couple pals inside of Medula who might be able to find out more. He'll let Frank know if he gets another lead.”

“Joe, where is he?”

Joe swallowed. Marlboro-Man-meets-Rambo suddenly looked much smaller, and lost. “I don't know.”

“Joe, this isn't about protecting him, this is about helping him. He's drunk, isn't he?”

“Maybe.” He admitted woodenly.

I waited. He didn't speak.

I waited.

Finally, Joe muttered to the floor, “He's done this before—fallen out of an investigation like this.”

Joe wouldn't meet my eyes. I bit my tongue and waited. Finally, he said, “Once before.”

“When?”

“When we went after Trucek.”

“You knew him then?”

“Frank and I have been friends since we were kids.”

Bingo. I knew it! A treasure chest of information about Frank Gilbert stood in the room with me. The problem would be opening it. I watched him pace the room. I might have to hypnotize Joe to get it but I'd vowed to find out every detail.

“He drinks, almost never now, but even before, he was careful never to compromise an investigation. He's a real pro.”

“Except Trucek's. And now this one. Why did this one become so personal, then?”

“Besides the fact that you're in the middle of it?” Joe asked softly but very pointedly.

Guilt shot through me. “Besides that,” I answered, remembering a third time he'd gotten lost in the bottle since I'd known him—during our last deadly trip to Vegas. I guess Joe didn't know about that one. I'd guess no one but I knew about that one.

“I guess it was Serrano.”

“But what does Serrano have to do with all this?” Frank was allergic to coincidence, so I assumed Joe was too.

“I haven't got a clue, but it seems weird for him to just show up like this, at your table out of the thousands of others.”

“Does he know Serrano's murder was on the news?”

Joe nodded. “I talked to him when he was on his way to the prison.”

I asked the hard question: “Does he know he's a suspect?”

Joe's head snapped up. “I didn't know that.”

“Trankosky dropped a hint or two tonight. Joe, Frank didn't come back until after dawn yesterday.”

“I know,” was all Joe had to say.

Was that “I know, he offed the dude” or “I know, because I know what kept him out all night” or “I know, he informed me about the fact and said no more”? I opened my palms up. Joe shook his head in refusal. Joe had saved my life a couple of times, so I felt like I couldn't get too cranky with him right now. Maybe later.

“So if he doesn't show up in the next couple of hours, where can we assume he is? Caught by the kidnappers?”

“No way. Frank would be dead before he'd ever let himself get captured.” He paused when he saw how his comment struck me. “Oh, sorry, Bee, I didn't mean to upset you. It should make you feel better. In other words, odds are, he's alive and free.”

“Okay, so if that's the case, where do we look for him?”

“If he's bad drunk, only one person will know.”

I saw the answer in his face.

“Monica,” I whispered to myself.

Frank either went underground to avoid the cops or was curled up with a bottle of V.O. Wow. What a pair of options. Of course I wasn't as convinced as Joe was that Frank was immune to capture, so in my mind Frank could be three places, none of them where I needed him to be.

I
got ready for the day as Joe went off in search of information
about Serrano. I'd decided that it might not have been a coincidence that he ended up at my table at the WSOP, and if it wasn't a coincidence, what had been his purpose? Maybe it had been simply a vendetta against Frank. If so, he had terrible timing.

And he'd paid for it. But who'd made him pay—and why? In my heart I knew it couldn't be Frank.

But my heart also would've argued Frank wouldn't've tortured three men.

The bloody puzzle around me was becoming disconcerting. If I could see how I was tied to the events, it might not be acceptable but it would be at least logical—as our last disaster in Vegas had. I'd heard a death threat, my brother had been snatched up because of what he knew. We were obvious targets. I still didn't know what I was the target of here—besides Reverend Phineas Paul's moral judgment and bad karma.

Speaking of Paul, I hadn't decided what to do with Thelma's revelation. Maybe nothing. It depended on how seriously he pissed me off. Under normal circumstances I would've enjoyed challenging him to a real debate but I was distracted by more important things like kidnappings and murders.

Someone
(read: tall, blonde Amazonian goddess) had invaded the bedroom while I showered and laid out my day-off outfit—a grass green and eggplant, diagonal-striped body-hugging wraparound raison minidress with some coordinated acrylic clunky jewelry. Every unintentional bulge on my body was going to be magnified by the clingy, striped fabric. Shaking my head, I went to the closet to see it completely emptied out save my shoe collection (there was a God!). My Burberry was gone.

Flinging open the door, I hollered: “Ingrid! Bring back my suitcase! Now!”

Shana, on the couch, going through more personal knickknacks to take to Moon for her psychometry, blinked at me innocently. Ben spoke into his cell phone, “I know. I'll tell her.” He covered the phone with his hand. “Ma says if you were nicer to your friends, you'd have more of them.” He looked down at Shana. “She says you're a saint for putting up with such a prima donna.”

“Now Ma's talking about you,” I shot back.

“I don't think so,” he sang, going back to his conversation.

I slammed the door and looked at the outfit again. Ugh. Why me? This would be one I wouldn't mind going straight to eBay. At least I wouldn't be facing any TV reporters today. I couldn't bear to see the camera add ten pounds to me in this atrocity.

I tied myself into it and mulled over which shoes would minimize the damage. I chose the gold, pointy-toed ballerina flats, sucked in a breath, threw open the door, and Jack fell into the bedroom.

“Jack!” I watched him flail on the floor, then scramble to his oversize feet. “What were you doing there?”

Hyperventilating, he stuttered for a few moments incoherently, blushing madly, sweating profusely. Mostly his social anxiety disorder stayed in remission when he was around me, but every now and then I was reminded of what Jack was like when I first met him—under a table, hiding from the world. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Take a deep breath. Another. Another.”

Finally, Jack hung his head and mumbled, “I-Ingrid w-wanted me to be sure you wore what you were s-s-supposed to.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I see. You're the one doing her dirty work.”

“Bee! She asked m-me.”

Shaking my head, I immediately forgave him. Ingrid'd better stay true to him or she'd have me to contend with. Over time I'd come to like her and even trust her but she remained an enigma. “I won't ask how
hearing
me dress was going to help you keep me on the straight and narrow.”

After I'd gotten over my mad, we decided to lunch at The Refuge—a quiet restaurant a block off The Strip where we could compare notes.

Jack spoke first: “At first I thought I was getting somewhere with the talk of collusion but that was pretty much a dead end. Every time I turned a corner I got shut down. But, by accident, I started finding out about this Paul character, like where his church is based, what version of Christianity he preaches.”

My gosh, he had the Thelma disease. I shook my head. “Jack, I think you might just be wasting your time.”

“Nah, Bee, don't worry about it. I already got the go-ahead from my editor to work on a piece about the protest for the next issue, and Diane called.”

“Whoo-hoo,” I whistled as I high-fived him. Jack blushed again. Ingrid kissed him on the cheek.

“Anyhow, they want a spot on
GMA
to run in conjunction with the last day of the WSOP. They are planning a live broadcast from The Strip that day.”

“Really? Poker's going major network. Huh. That will make Paul's week,” I muttered, glad for my friend but hating that the creepy preacher was getting any attention to justify his cause. I blew out a breath. “Go for it, then, Jack. Dig up the dirt. You might become Diane's right-hand man. Watch out, Chris Cuomo.”

Ingrid arched an eyebrow, looking like she might have an issue with that.

 

T
he poker room at the Mellagio is usually a full
house—the managers do a good job of keeping things moving. Personally, I like the atmosphere, businesslike—productive, quiet and generally respectful. Most who sit down there want a solid game. For that reason, sometimes it is hard to win there if you aren't getting cards, because there aren't usually a lot of jackals. Even the fish tend to bail if they aren't drawing well. Each poker room on The Strip has its own unique character, drawing its own unique type of clientele. It's a chicken and the egg deal—I don't know if that is the type of client the casino seeks or whether that is the kind that has gravitated to the room and therefore the atmosphere follows. There are some poker rooms I won't play unless I'm trying to make a point, because they disrespect women. There are some poker rooms I won't play because it's a bunch of pro hard timers who live next to Moon and are out to make the rent by the end of the business day. There are some I won't play because they are full of young guns, there on Daddy's dime, dripping money. They want to win wild and big and loud and lose the same way. Some capable poker players like that kind of room, because it's an easy win for a patient Rock who likes to squish a table of cocky fish. I play poker—usually—for fun and that isn't part of the fun for me, so I avoid those situations.

Having said that, I'd never played in the high-stakes room at the Mellagio. The general poker room was set up in the corner of the casino, along an open hallway. Unlike many casino poker rooms, which were sequestered by solid or glass walls, this one had no solid barriers, so passersby could watch and hear as they walked by. It was probably a good way to draw in the crowd as well as keep players on their best behavior. I'm sure it was an intentional psychological effect that the high-stakes room was placed just off center within the main room, the floor raised five feet higher and cordoned off by half walls of frosted glass. I wasn't sure I was going to like this at all.

I knew I had to prove my ability to play with the big boys. I'd withdrawn fifty thousand dollars from my savings account on the way. I'd almost thrown up my swordfish dinner.

“Welcome to our high-stakes room, Bee Cool.” The poker room manager came by as I checked in at the desk and shook my hand. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here.”

Forever
would have been the answer if it weren't for gangs and kidnappers and missing goddaughters. I was a natural chicken when it came to big cash games. I'd much rather invest small and win big in a tournament than the opposite, which is how I interpreted most ring games. I told him I wanted to wait for the far corner table. Rabbit's foot and all that. He nodded, apparently used to this kind of request. “It might be a few minutes. We have a Saudi Arabian prince who's about blown his wad.”

“What would be the size of a prince's wad?” I whispered to Shana. Her awesome eyebrow wiggle told me she might try to find out. I was glad to see my friend showing glimmers of her hedonistic self. Because, while I might want to remake her the way I thought she should be, I still loved her for who she was.

We ambled up the far ramp and peeked behind the frosted glass at the handful of tables in the high-stakes room. There was a rail here, making us true railbirds until one of us played. I wished it would be Shana instead of me.

 

A
fter watching the only table that the logistics allowed
us to see for thirty minutes, I was called to play. We'd seen some big names—mostly the young geniuses who wore athletic shoes with no socks and sports jerseys, and ate their meals out of boxes at the table so as to not miss a hand—make some money. In one hand, twenty-two-year-old Jerrod Nealy had shoved in all his chips and had to grapple for forty thousand dollars in bills in the pocket of his Suns shorts to go all in. Ack. I didn't know if I could hang with these guys. That was some people's entire net worth. I think the other guy ended up winning 150 thousand dollars but I couldn't count that fast.

It was heady if you were watching. Scary if you had to play.

“Good thing you have the thirty thousand Ben passed you,” Shana commented in my ear at the time.

I hadn't wanted to take the cash Ben gave me on my way to purgatory. But I had taken it. For Affie.

Now, signaled by the room manager, I sidled over to the far table. Everybody stared at the striped atrocity I had on and the lumps under it, no doubt. I had noticed the player in the Redskins jersey first, when we'd come to the rail. If he hadn't been there, trust me, I would have bailed. I sat down in the open seat across from him. The rest of the table (aside from Redskin) was—from what I could gather—a collection of middle-aged, extremely well-heeled American amateurs, a millionaire from Hong Kong, a South African diamond heir who passed me his card with his room number and another hard-nosed pro out of Rincon. There were only two women in the entire room. One of them was me. The other was Cyndy Violette. I was grateful she wasn't at my table.

The sound of the chips clinking seemed magnified here, where talk was limited to a few exchanged words spaced between long silences. A sheen of sweat filmed Redskin's face. He didn't look too mentally stable. That probably would be bad if I'd planned to collude, but since I'd decided I was going to blow him off, it meant I could psyche him out. I hoped so anyway. I was the big blind, which wasn't as terrible as it might have seemed. I might lose this thousand but I would get the next seven hands to read the table. The dealer finished the shuffle and dished out the hole cards. An unsuited Queen/8 was a perfect fold but I rode out my big blind through the calls of the first round. Redskin was tapping on his cards. He wore an MP3 player so I assumed in the back of my mind that he was jamming to his tunes. The Flop came an 8 of diamonds and blanks—an Ace and 3 of spades. Then I did fold—too cheap and unsure to go in for Hong Kong's ten-thousand raise. Hong Kong had two pair, Redskin had pocket rockets.

The next three hands I folded straight away. Redskin was still tapping. Somehow that tapping looked familiar. After a royal flush draw Flop and King on The Turn, he folded too, but accidentally flipped over his cards at the end of the hand—once more, he had a pair. Hmm. He accidentally fumbled over his cards again on hands six and nine—one a flush draw and another a straight draw. He was chastised by the dealer and made an excuse about having some sort of neurological condition that made his hands go numb.

Sure.

It had taken ten hands for me to figure out that Redskin was actually tapping out a morse code of his cards—the way we were supposed to collude.

 

T
wo hours later, I was finding it difficult to ignore his
tapping, so I struck up a conversation with the South African who had the hots for me. It was going to be difficult to extricate myself from some extracurricular plans he'd have for later tonight, ones he kept alluding to, but I had to worry about one pain in the ass at a time. Right now, I just had to win a bucket full of money. This was a tough table in one sense while being an unusually cool one in another sense, because the only one at it who saw me as a woman (and therefore handicapped) was South Africa. The rest just took me as a player. I wasn't used to that.

It made playing a bit more straightforward even though I got less gimme opportunities from being underestimated. The pots made me extremely nervous, though. I'd held my own, even was ahead a bit, but only by betting when I had the nuts. I had yet to take a single chance.

“I never pegged you for a Mouse, Bee Cool,” the Chicago hotelier commented. “I always marveled in the Big Kahuna, then when they broadcast the Gambler tournament, how predictably unpredictable you play and still consistently win.”

I smiled. “Maybe this room intimidates me. And the stakes. Tournaments seem so much safer—just lose chips and your entry fee, not real greenbacks.”