The Select (28 page)

He'd said they'd be a very unpopular
couple if the casino tumbled to what they were up to. That was
probably the reason she had this prickling at the back of her neck,
this feeling she was being watched. She'd glanced around a few
times when the feeling had been exceptionally strong but had found
no one staring at her.

Probably just a minor case of Timothy
Brown-induced paranoia.

Quinn held her own through the next
few hands without his direct guidance, then she glanced his way and
noticed his left hand was splayed in the Hawaiian hang-loose
configuration he'd shown her.

That was the signal to push her bets
to the limit. A pulse of adrenalin shot through her. That meant the
shoe was running out and Tim had calculated the remaining cards
were heavily weighted one way or the other, predominantly high or
predominantly low. She wondered which. Not that it
mattered.

Whichever way it was, Tim had decided
the time was right to make their move.

She watched him carefully now, her
eyes darting repeatedly to his left hand, allowing him to direct
her play.

She glanced at the plastic sign before
her on the table.

MINIMUM BET: $10

TABLE LIMIT: $500

With an extreme effort she ignored the
sick feeling that roiled through her stomach at the very thought of
risking so much money on the turn of a card and pushed five
one-hundred-dollar chips into the play area.

A queen and a two landed in front of
her. What did Tim want her to do with that? Especially since the
dealer had a five showing.

She glanced right and repressed a gasp
as she saw that Tim had bet five hundred dollars too. Then she saw
his left hand balled into a fist. She looked again to make sure,
then took a deep breath. She hoped he knew what he was
doing.

Her palms were slick with perspiration
by the time the dealer came back to her. Quinn waved her
off.

"I'll stick," she said, and her voice
sounded hoarse. She knew it wasn't just from the smoke.

Right. First I'll stick,
then I'll get sick.

The dealer flipped her
down card—a jack. That gave her fifteen. She had to draw.
Like a robot
, Tim had
said. Quinn held her breath...and watched her pull a
king.

Busted!

The dealer placed a stack of five
one-hundred-dollar chips next to Tim's bet, and another next to
Quinn's.

Quinn felt too weak to cheer. She
looked down at her watch. How long had that taken? Thirty seconds?
She'd just made five hundred dollars in thirty seconds. How many
summer weeks had she waitressed back-breaking double shifts and not
made that much?

But then, as a waitress
she'd never run the risk of
losing
money.

"You're beyond the table limit,
Miss."

Quinn looked up, startled.
"What?"

"Five-hundred-dollar limit," the
dealer said.

"Oh, sure. Sorry." Quinn picked up the
winnings and left the original stack out in the bet
area.

Then she stopped and turned around.
That feeling of being watched was stronger than ever. But once
again, no one but the dealer seemed to be paying any overt
attention to her.

She shrugged off the feeling and
braced herself for another nerve-wracking hand.

*

They won three of the next four hands,
then a yellow card popped out of the shoe and the play paused. Tim
stood up and stretched.

"Maybe we should have had dinner,
hon," he said. "I'm starved. Want to get something to
eat?"

Hon?
Quinn couldn't figure out what he was up to, then she glanced
at the dealer and saw her shuffling a stack of cards.

"Uh, sure,
hon
. I know I could sure
go for a big fat juicy steak right now myself,
hon
."

Tim laughed out loud and began
gathering up his chips. Quinn began stacking hers. She thought the
pit boss was watching them a little too closely. Did he
suspect?

"For a beginner, you're one lucky
little lady," said the old fellow next to her.

Quinn nodded toward Tim. "I have a
great teacher."

Her pile was about the same size as
when she'd sat down, but Tim had accumulated a pile of his own. Her
hands shook as she stuffed them into her pockets.

She saw Tim take a chip and give it to
the dealer. Quinn wondered why. The dealer hadn't been particularly
friendly or helpful. She shrugged. Probably a custom. Like tipping
a waitress.

She pushed one of her own chips across
the table.

*

Tim pocketed his chips and guided
Quinn away from the table. He wanted to throw his arms around her
and kiss her, but he settled for putting his arm across her
shoulders. He felt a fine tremor running through her. He squeezed
her upper arm.

"Quinn," he whispered,
"you were
great
."

"I think I need a shower," she
said.

"Not bad for less than an hour's
work," he said.

"How much
did
we make?"

"I figure we're almost two thousand
ahead. And that's just the start."

Quinn sagged against him. "I don't
know how much of this I can take."

"Hang in there, kid. That's about what
I do alone. For the two of us it's just a start."

"You mean to tell me you clear two
thousand every time you come here?"

"Not every time, but most times.
Sometimes it takes longer than others. Sometimes you'll nurse a
shoe all the way along and it stays even straight through, never
swinging too far high or low. That's wasted time."

"But..." Quinn seemed to be having
some trouble grasping the numbers. "If you take home two thousand
dollars every time, and if you came here just once a week, you
could..."

"Pull down six figures a year?" He
shrugged. "Maybe. Don't think it hasn't occurred to me. Work one
day, have the other six to spend the hundred thou you're taking
home. Sounds great, doesn't it."

They wandered from the casino to the
hotel section and strolled past the windows of the
shops.

"I don't know," she said. "Does
it?"

He noticed her watching him closely.
He got the feeling the answer was important to her. But he didn't
have to ponder a reply. Over the past few years he'd given the
matter a lot of thought.

Still, he hesitated. He wasn't used to
talking about himself—his real self. He'd spent his teen years
cultivating an exterior that hid the sap inside. But this was Quinn
and those big blue eyes were so close. Maybe he could risk it. Just
a little.

"On the surface, yeah. It sounds
ideal. But what have you got by the time you're old enough for
Medicare?"

"I don't know," she said. "A pile of
money?"

"Yeah. If that. Certainly
not much else. There's got to be more to life than that, don't you
think? Just making money isn't...
doing
anything. You haven't enriched
anything but your bank account with your work. Like being a
currency trader or a gossip columnist, or something equally
empty."

"So you chose medicine—so you could do
something with your life?"

This was getting a bit too sticky and
Tim felt himself instinctively pulling back.

"Well, I figure medicine's
a good thing to have to fall back on. And at least I'll have
something noble-sounding to tell the kids—
our
kids—"

"Bite your tongue!"

"—when they ask me what I've been
doing with my life."

"Can't you be serious for two
consecutive minutes?"

"It's not entirely beyond the realm of
possibility, Miss Cleary, but let's not fit me for a halo yet. As
I've told you, mostly I'm at The Ingraham because it's free and
it's a way to stave off adulthood a little longer."

"Uh-huh." He sensed that she didn't
buy that, especially since she was nodding slowly and smiling at
him. A very big, very warm smile.

"Let's go outside," Quinn said. "I
could use some fresh air."

Tim sighed. He'd been hoping she'd
want to go up to the room.

"Sure. This way."

*

"Aaaahhh!"

Quinn breathed deeply as she ran up to
the railing on the leading edge of the boardwalk and threw her arms
wide to catch the cool onshore breeze from the Atlantic. She
reveled in the clean briny smell.

"Why can't they pump some of this into
the casino?" she said.

Tim leaned on the rail beside her.
"Because half the folks in there would probably keel over from an
overdose of oxygen. Some of them haven't had a whiff of fresh air
in twenty years."

She turned and looked at all the
blinking lights, all the garish metallic colors on the cupolas of
the Taj Mahal.

"Sort of adds new dimensions to the
concept of gaudy, doesn't it," she said.

Tim laughed. "It could give garish a
bad name."

They leaned and listened to the ocean
rumbling beyond the darkened beach, watched the light from the
gibbous moon fleck the water and glitter off the foamy waves. Quinn
felt the tension of the blackjack table vent out through her pores.
She noticed a stairway to their left.

"Let's go down on the beach, just for
a minute." She kicked off her shoes. "I want to get some sand
between my toes."

Tim followed her, grumbling. "I hate
getting sand in my shoes."

At the bottom of the steps Quinn
worked her feet into the cold, dry granules, and again felt that
prickle at the back of her neck, that feeling of being watched. She
turned and saw two dark figures moving along the boardwalk above
them, hugging the rail, watching them. Something furtive about
them...

She tapped Tim on the shoulder. "Maybe
we should go back up."

"We just got here."

As Tim bent to empty the sand from his
shoes, Quinn glanced up again. The two figures were at the top of
the steps now, staring down at them, both definitely male, wearing
knit watch caps. The lights were behind them so their faces were
shadowed. They could have been sailors, but as she watched they
pulled their caps down over their heads—ski masks!—and began
sprinting down the steps.

"Tim!" she cried.

She saw him turn at the sound of their
pounding feet but he had no time to react before they were upon
him. They knocked him onto his back in the sand, punched his face,
then began tearing at his coat pockets, ripping them open. For a
few heartbeats Quinn stood paralyzed with shock and terror—she'd
never witnessed anything like this, had always thought it happened
to other people—before she began screaming for help and beating on
the backs of the assailants. One of them turned and shoved her
back. The blow was almost casual, but it over-balanced her and her
feet slipped in the sand and she went down. In the cold moonlight
she saw chips falling and scattering on the sand next to Tim as she
continued to cry for help. The smaller of the attackers began to
scoop up the chips while the bigger one kept battering Tim and
tearing at his coat. Finally, after rocking Tim's head with a
particularly vicious blow, the bigger one got to his feet at about
the same time Quinn regained hers. He lunged toward her but she
leaped for the stairs, shouting non stop for help, praying someone
would hear, or maybe see her. She was half way up when he caught
her, grabbing the waistband of her slacks and trying to pull them
off her. With his other hand he began pawing between her legs. She
jabbed back at him with her elbow but it glanced off his shoulder.
She was losing her balance.

Suddenly Tim loomed up beside them,
bloody nose, bloody mouth, and he was yanking the big one around
and slamming his fist into the bump of the nose behind the mask.
Quinn heard a crunch, heard a cry of pain, and then the smaller one
was there, pulling his partner away, pointing toward the underside
of the boardwalk.

Quinn kept up her shouting. She craned
her neck above the level of the boards and saw security guards
rushing toward them from the casino entrance. When she turned back
the two muggers were already disappearing into the darkness under
the boardwalk. Then she saw Tim slump against the hand rail,
gasping, retching. Quinn darted to his side and hung there, not
knowing what to do, where to touch him, where not to touch him, but
knowing too well that her control was tearing loose and that all
she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and cry.

So that was what she did.

MONITORING

Louis Verran snatched up the phone on
the first ring.

"Yeah?"

"Chief—it's Elliot."

Tell me something good,
Elliot!