Hold 'Em Hostage Part 12

"But I didn't do anything, and you just admitted you know that!"

"-just to get you out of the way!"

"Oh," I said, my anger suddenly deflated.

"I know you know something but I just don't know if it's worth all this pain and suffering and the time of my guy-"

"That's easy, pull him off, then."

"Are you kidding? He's having way too much fun. He loved the Harley s.h.i.+rt and miniskirt."

I glared.

"By the way, he wants to know where you got your tattoo and if you could get his horoscope the next time you visit your psychic."

Enough was enough. With that I stood, and huffed off as Trankosky laughed at my back. I decided being a joke was worse than being a suspect. I was determined to lose the police tail, no matter if I knew which guy he was or not.

In the first deal back after my rendezvous with Trankosky, I held two off-suit midlevel cards. c.r.a.p.

I hated to play these. A 9 of diamonds and a 5 of clubs do not engender much confidence, especially early in a tournament at a table that had dropped all but me and Blackie of the original players. I'd been so distracted that I hadn't gotten much of a read on the other five currently sitting there. The only saving grace was I was the last seat on this hand and all but Blackie and a dolphin trainer from Florida folded.

Surely they had better odds than I did. Blackie was impossible to figure. She could have my hand or she could have the total nuts. The other girl looked like a fish (no pun intended), but a rock of one. If I bet on anything, it was that she had a crown or two in front of her. I called, hoping for luck.

The Flop came an Ace of diamonds, a 3 of diamonds and-a gift-9 of clubs. Either one of them could have a flush draw now. Or a pair or trips. Calculating the outs, I put my win odds somewhere below 20 percent. Usually a place to fold. Blackie wasn't even breathing, I think. A good sign. She was probably bluffing. Flipper's friend, on the other hand, was eyeballing her chips. She had a pair of Aces. I was going to have to play aggressive near the end to scare her off or not play at all.

So I drew her out, limping in with soft calls through Fourth Street that was a 4 of diamonds. Darn it. Someone could have made the flush. Still, Blackie wasn't breathing, but was still calling. Good, it wasn't her-she was just after stealing the pot. When the 9 of hearts fell on The River, it made me be brave doing what I had decided to do no matter what card came-I pushed. Blackie was tempted. She had to have the flush. Dolphin Girl studied her chips, counted mine and hyperventilated for a few moments.

We must have looked dramatic, three women about to go heads-up, because the ESPN cameraman swooped in and stuck his lens in the middle of our table. The dealer gave the girl a little extra time, no doubt to let the commentators blab on, building the suspense if they chose this clip to run later.

Finally, she blew out her breath, shoved all her chips forward and waited. The dealer reached over and selected two stacks of my chips to return to me-so I wouldn't be eliminated no matter what was on the other side of her cards, just seriously handicapped. Then, with a flourish, he turned over our cards simultaneously. She had an Ace and King spade suited. She started crying as one of the commentators came over to interview her about her bad decision when it really hadn't been a bad decision at all. If I'd folded and Blackie had folded as we should have, she would have raked in the blinds. Instead we'd made it a game and luck fell my way. I smiled and gathered my chips. Richard wouldn't be proud of me-that was no way to play the odds-going from seventeen and a half percent to a hundred with pure luck, but I was proud of myself. Finally maybe I was learning to calculate odds, read the players and intuit the fall of the cards in proper measure.

Either that or I was just lucky today.

I slow played the next hand, just to keep everyone guessing. Most of them thought I had nothing as I had before, and figured I wouldn't get lucky twice. Truth was, I'd been dealt American Airlines (a pair of Aces) so I waited until four other players were deeply committed to the pot to raise when another Ace fell on The Turn. Now they all thought I had a mere pair when my Rockies were the nuts according to the mishmash on the board. I won a big pot and made everyone mad.

"How can she be so lucky!?" the banker from Nebraska whined.

"Something fishy is going on here, and I'm getting to the bottom of it," a pro from Council Bluffs threatened.

Blackie smiled and that's when I knew something was wrong.

Fifteen.

I'd found Blackie's hands hovering near my chip stack when I returned from my cop shop session and hadn't thought much of it. I didn't think she was wholesale stealing my chips or anything. More likely, freaky as she was, she was putting a curse on my seat. I'd been in such a hurry when I'd sat down I'd knocked a couple of hundred-dollar discs that were on the edge of the felt off onto the floor; I figured I'd wait until an all in or a break to pick them up. It hadn't mattered, since I was chip leader and frankly, I'd forgotten about them.

Now, a couple of tournament officials marched over to see what the ruckus was all about. Of course, the TV cameras followed. Good thing, since I'd forgotten all about the kidnappers' demand that I talk to reporters. Maybe I could think of something stimulating to say that they would put on TV tonight to keep the cretins happy.

Keeping only half on ear open to the whiner and the complainer, I checked my text messages. Just one from Mom, reporting no word from Affie and the impending botox injection of the lips of the president of the garden club. That's when all h.e.l.l broke loose.

"What's this, then?" Whiner demanded, pointing under the table. Down dove Moaner, who hollered, "There're chips down here."

One of the WSOP officials ordered him back out and he crawled under the table, reemerging with two hundred-dollar chips. I looked up from my phone and opened my mouth just as he flipped them over and said, "Look, they're marked!"

The WSOP officials huddled, shooed away the TV cameras and called in reinforcements. Blackie's attention was on me through her black lenses. Creepy. The TV guys came over and hung out with me. We chatted awhile, then one of them was paged. "Mike says he overheard one of the WSOP dudes calling this collusion."

I raised my eyebrows. My heart pounded, guilty about something I hadn't even done. "Really?"

"Will you give us a sound bite on that, Miss Cooley, before they run us out of here?"

"Sure."

One of them held the mic and both started up their cameras-CNN and a local news station. I remembered my shades and that I better slide them down over my eyes to give my sponsors a boost. "How do you feel about collusion?" one of the cameramen asked.

"First of all, I have so much trouble keeping track of pot odds and counting cards that I don't know how anyone would have room in their head for one more thing to keep straight. Secondly, why would you think you could cheat Lady Luck? It seems like one way or another she'll get even."

"That was awesome." They disappeared as the WSOP officials reappeared and asked Moaner if he'd touched the chips.

"No, they were there, right in the middle under the table."

"They could be anyone's. Who's going to claim them?" the official asked, obviously not expecting an answer.

A staff member walking by pointed at me and said, "They're hers."

Everyone looked at me again. I dug deep for two cells' worth of dishonest genes, remembering Grandpa bragging that one of our Confederate relatives was a bootlegger during the Civil War. I'd have to rely on that to give me confidence to get me through this. Thank goodness I was wearing my shades when I said, "I apologize, gentlemen, I can't enlighten you."

"Miss, you sit next to her," he addressed Blackie, who was wringing her hands under the oversize sleeves of her black swaddling clothes. "Perhaps you can tell us if you know these are Miss Cooley's chips?"

She went mute. The officials looked at the dealer, who shrugged. "I didn't notice anything and this gal lost a big pot to Bee Cool just a couple of hands ago. So if anyone would have a grudge it would be her."

Blackie spun on him and shot him her lens-s.h.i.+elded glare. It still hit home. He recoiled. I felt sorry for him.

About a half dozen more WSOP officials had descended on the table and were checking all the chips. "What I don't understand is why a marked chip would be a big deal anyway? A marked card, I get, not a chip," remarked the TV commentator.

"Any way that you can communicate with another player that can't be understood by the rest of the table is against the rules. It's cheating." With that they gathered for an official powwow. All us players at the table stood awkwardly, trying to ignore the curious stares of the rest of the players pus.h.i.+ng chips across the felt. Blackie was back to sending bad vibes my way. I made a mental note to ask Moon how to deflect a witch's power.

The powwow broke up after a few minutes. "We'll be monitoring this table carefully," the head honcho said as he and all but two of his ducklings departed. They stationed themselves at opposite ends of the table.

"Good," I said, and meant it. Someone had to keep an eye on Blackie and I didn't want to be the only one.

Everyone was tight when the dealer resumed play. I tried to use this to my advantage and did on the first hand when all but two of us folded at the pocket peek. Unsuited King/ten usually isn't playable with a nine-player round, but heads-up it could go. I read body language relatively well one-on-one. I guessed by the flexing of the biceps through the too tight polo s.h.i.+rt and the c.o.c.ked eyebrow that the small-town high school football coach had just stayed in to show everyone else men were superior and he couldn't be taken by a mere female. I drew him out-I wasn't so intent on winning chips as winning a psychological advantage over the rest of the table, aka audience. The Flop didn't help with a pair of fives and an unsuited nine. Still, I had a straight draw to his likely midlevel pair, even odds. When he didn't go for the jugular at the pair of fives on The Flop, I knew I might get lucky. The Turn brought a Queen for me. He raised, but only to scare me off. I called and a Jack fell on The River. When I called, he thought he was in. He raised. I called. He reraised. I called.

The look on his face was priceless when I flipped over my straight to his dealer-turned two pair. "I think she is cheating," he muttered.

I'd earned the respect of the audience, which I would need the next hand.

I got a ballerina (deuce pair) in my pocket. Ouch. Smiling to hide the pain, I tried to envision how I could justify a non-committed bet with 20 percent odds on a 2 of hearts, 2 of spades. It might be time to fold, but I didn't. Blackie did. She was shook. Good. It looked like she might sacrifice her blinds the rest of the night. I rode out the pair conservatively and chose to fold before The River. Right decision, since a bicycle (Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5) would have beat me in the end. I would've hated that-beat by the lowest possible straight. Ugh. Luck was with the Whiner that hand.

At the next break, I visited the registration desk. "I wanted to check on the name of a player."

"We can't give out that information. The ident.i.ties of our players are protected." The brush pursed her lips disapprovingly.

Maybe I should ask the kidnappers. They seemed to know everything about everyone.

"Bee!" I turned and saw Carey waving wildly and jumping up and down behind the barrier. To save the rest of the gallery, I rushed to stop her. A six foot three inch man in a bodacious miniskirt and triple-D halter top is not necessarily something you want to bouncing around three feet from you. "I'm taking you to dinner, girlfrien'."

Women in "poker babes" s.h.i.+rts behind the rail waved and displayed a sign or two debunking Paul and praising me as I returned to the tournament. I gave them a thumbs up as Ben eased up beside me. "Where've you been?" I asked as I searched the crowd milling behind me for my police tail.

"Around."

"I wish you would quit sulking about busting out of the tournament. Everybody has a bad game sometimes, although I don't know how you went from chip leader to nada so fast."

Ben ignored my unspoken question. "Shana's psychic wants to talk to her. I'm going to go with her."

"Why would you want to, after the character flogging she gave you earlier?"

Ben shrugged. It wasn't like him to be a martyr. This stranger in my twin's body was continuing to get on my nerves.

"What about Ingrid?"

"I'm leaving her here with you."

"Frank's not going to like that," I said.

"Frank's not here," Ben said.

I studied him as he walked off, through the casino, collecting Shana from a blackjack table. Ingrid drifted in my direction until she caught sight of me, then she freight-trained over. I was in trouble.

She shook her finger at me. "What happened to your day-two fas.h.i.+on?"

"I decided to wear this instead."

"You have no solitary say. You are part of a whole, like the arm of the body. The rest of the body that is Bee Cool decided you wear the hot green number, not this black sack." Oh, Ingrid of the odd a.n.a.logy. Sometimes I think she was too smart for everyone's own good. She shook her head. "I am going to have to fix this."

"Whatever, as long as I don't have to wear that algae-looking outfit."

Still disgusted, but distracted by the possible fas.h.i.+on damage control options knocking around in her head, she handed me a money envelope. "What's this?" I asked.

"I sold your day-one fas.h.i.+on on eBay with PayPal."

"What?"

"Look, Bee, someone has to have some business sense around here. You are a hot property today and you might be dog meat tomorrow. You need to save for your retirement and this is the way."

"It's kind of creepy, that someone would want it."

"It's called commerce. Somebody wanted it. They paid for it. You provided it."

"No, technically, you provided it. Without my permission."

She glared and s.n.a.t.c.hed the money out of my hand.

Arguing with Ingrid was like fighting with a brick wall. I'm hardheaded, however. "What if I wanted to wear that particular fas.h.i.+on again?"

She waved the money. "Buy another one."

Argh. I gave up and walked back into the ballroom to finish up the night's play. Before I got to the table, my phone vibrated. "Honey Bee Bee," Frank purred over the wireless. "No matter whaaaat. I luuuuv you."

The line went dead.

The call had come from an unidentified number. The only thing I could identify was Frank was drunk.

Sixteen.

There 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 a.s.sumed was the alarm was coming from the living room phone.

I scrambled up, fell out the door and s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 G.o.ddaughter 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."