Hold 'Em Hostage Part 7

I smiled and waved as I made my way to my table, trying to ignore his dark gaze boring into me. Another player from a short table was moved to ours. Without introducing himself, the short, dark man who reminded me a bit of Joe Pesci shook my hand with a quick smile. He paused halfway into his seat, his eyes hung on something on the felt in front of me.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but where did you get that marker?" he asked with a studied calmness as he eased into the chair.

I fingered the worn wooden piece Frank had given me as a lucky charm before my first tournament. Made of rare Hawaiian koa wood, it had some faded marks on it that neither I, nor anyone I asked, could discern. Frank wouldn't tell me the story behind it. Maybe this guy had stayed at the same casino and remembered what it had looked like when new. Maybe it had been won in a underground tournament in some shady bar in Casablanca. Believe me, I'd spun those stories and more.

I tried to contain my excitement when I answered: "Why do you ask?"

"Because the man I lost that marker to ten years ago is the coldest killing son of a b.i.t.c.h our department has ever known."

Nine.

"How do you know it's the same marker?" I asked when I finally found my voice. Many questions had rolled through my mind along with my version of the answers, including deciding that the guy's department was with the SPCA-after all, Frank did have a hunting license. I'd found it when I pilfered his wallet one early morning. But, if it weren't the same marker, then all the questions and answers didn't matter because we weren't talking about the same guy, right?

The dealer had demanded we post blinds so conversation was suspended for the bets. With my mind reeling, I couldn't remember now what my pocket cards were so I just checked, while waiting for my neighbor's response. It didn't come immediately. He seemed terribly intent on the hand. Come on, guy, my boyfriend might be an infamous murderer. Who cared about poker at a time like this? I cleared my throat. He glared and slow played a little longer, until finally the dealer nudged him into a bet.

When two Aces fell on The Flop I remembered what was facedown in front of me-bullets. I had four of a kind and I couldn't even get excited about it. Normally, I would stay cool, draw everybody in to staying until The River, but I so wanted the hand to be over that after a check-raise, I went all in. A chorus of groans went up around the table. Blackie shook her head, her first show of any sort of normal communication, and I was almost distracted out of my intensity toward Marker Man. I don't know what skin it was off her nose, anyway. After all, I'd saved her several bets' worth of chips by being stupidly impatient. The whole table folded to me.

As I quickly raked the chips toward me, I accidentally flipped over a card. Two of diamonds? Huh? The table howled. "She bluffed us!"

I guess I did. Had I been so upset by Marker Man that I'd mistaken what was in my pocket? Sheesh. Good thing I hadn't known or my blood pressure would've been dangerously high. I really don't bluff, especially not in the first day of a tournament.

"Of course it's the same marker," my neighbor answered in an undertone as one of the WSOP officials came to see what the ruckus was about. She leaned down to whisper in the dealer's ear as Marker Man continued, "Look on the other side and find the tiny Y-shaped crack. It's filled with crimson paint."

I found it. d.a.m.n.

"I suppose you topped the man in a game to get it," he said. "That's the only way he'd give it up, unless of course, you killed him. And if you did, I won't tell."

I suppressed a s.h.i.+ver at his matter-of-fact tone. Still, I knew he had to be mistaken. Markers were a dime a dozen, thousands out there alike. Surely all old markers like this one wore in a similar pattern.

"So are you going to tell me his name?" I asked finally, three hands later, after I'd lost nearly two thousand in chips in my distraction.

"You tell me where you got it."

I shook my head. "No."

"He favors white T-s.h.i.+rts, Levi's and Luccheses."

The liquor made me swallow a gasp as I shrugged coolly. "That could be half the cowboys where I come from."

"You from L.A.?"

Uh-oh.

"Guess it's the same guy." My Italian seatmate nodded knowingly. "You sure got talkative eyes."

Averting the offenders, I dropped my Gargoyles back over them and spent the rest of the next hour just playing my hands, slowly regaining what I'd lost on the table, if not in my heart.

"Can I buy you a drink?" I asked my seatmate when the chimes indicated our next break.

As we meandered our way to the nearest bar in the Fortune, I found out his name was Rudy Serrano. He didn't drink anything but Mountain Dew by the truckload, he said, when he was playing cards. He'd lost two hundred thousand dollars, his entire life savings, one night two years ago in a cash game in a dark corner of San Luis Obispo drinking ouzo. From then on, he didn't swear off alcohol, just alcohol when he was playing Texas Hold 'Em, which was his great white hope for earning back a retirement fund.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, detective, first grade, but have to work as a rent-a-cop for an apartment complex to supplement my pension until I win enough playing poker."

I wanted to tell him not to give up the day job but concentrated on information instead of self help. "You said some pretty strong things about Frank. I want to know the story."

"I guess you didn't beat Gilbert at a game of poker to get that marker, then, huh? And I'd say from the look on your face when you say his name, you didn't off him to get it either."

"No. I'm, uh, a friend of his. He taught me how to play."

"You were taught by one of the best, I have to say that. To play Hold 'Em, that is."

I ignored his implication, and he finally continued when I didn't elaborate on our relations.h.i.+p. "I'd say Gilbert was one of the most successful Texas Hold 'Em cash players there ever was-before the game was a household name, that is."

"Why did he quit?"

He shrugged. "He quit playing when he quit his marriage and started drinking. Who knows why. Maybe he was just turning his back on everything in his life except the job. Most men have to have a job to breathe. He's no exception."

"Turned his back. Even on his kids?"

"No." He took a swallow of his Mountain Dew. "He sees them on a regular basis."

"His wife, he sees her too?"

"No. Not at all, except by accident."

That would be tough. See young kids, not wife. Hmm. Weird. How did he manage that? Maybe they were transferred by nanny. And how did this guy know so much? I sucked in a deep breath as my companion watched a couple arguing in the corner of the bar. I knew I had to be careful. This guy was smart and just telling me as much as he wanted to. His motivation concerned me, but not as much as my desire to know answers to all my questions. I had to ask them in order of importance before he decided to clam up.

"So, who did he kill?"

"Sheesh. You finally got around to asking what a man would ask first. Gilbert was in the middle of an international investigation when his wife was tortured and almost killed on orders from the princ.i.p.al in the case. It was supposed to be a warning to Frank to back off. It was a death sentence for themselves instead. Ronald Trucek and two of his a.s.sociates were tortured and killed not twelve hours later. An eye for an eye. Frank works for-or used to work for-a government law enforcement organization. I can't tell you if it's the CIA, or something deeper, something none of us has ever heard of. The murder was personal, I can promise you that, but whoever signed his paychecks made sure he got a free ride. We were told to look the other way. It p.i.s.sed me off, because it plays h.e.l.l with your stats, wrecks promotion possibilities. I got a h.e.l.luva lot of grief from the media for not solving the case. I never really got my mojo back. My boss told me to lie, make up a story about the a.s.sociates turning on Trucek and him killing them before he died himself. I couldn't do it. Couldn't ask the detectives working for me to do that. Instead, we still have an open case in the LAPD books, one of the most notorious killings in our history is unsolved."

"If the incidents were similar, n.o.body put two and two together?"

"The details of Monica Gilbert's attack were kept under wraps. The same with the Trucek murders. Most of what you think you know about some cases actually comes out at trial. Neither of these went there. So you, the public, will end up knowing little."

I almost didn't want to ask, but knew I had to. "What happened to Monica?"

"She was hospitalized for a month, touch and go for nearly three weeks, in rehab six months. Frank was a stay-at-home dad during that time-the kids being only two and five. It was easier than being home after she returned, though. From what I hear, she never blamed him, but he blamed himself every time he saw her limp, struggle to stand, every time her eyes filled with tears of frustration when she couldn't lift one of the kids up when they begged her, 'Mommy, carry me.' Gilbert couldn't see her every day and live with his own guilt."

This was worse than my wildest imaginings. "He left her because she was crippled?"

He shook his head. "He left because he was emotionally crippled. He couldn't see her and not blame himself 24/7 that his job had almost killed her and left her almost worse than that for the rest of her life."

I'd become accustomed to the image of a model-beautiful woman who wasted her days shopping Rodeo Drive, playing tennis at a Hollywood country club and toting mini-Frank and mini-her to overdone birthday parties where every child got a Chihuahua a la Legally Blonde as a party favor. Of course exMrs. Gilbert was gorgeous but cold, a decent mother (because Frank let her have the kids), but never a decent wife. Perhaps she cheated on him in my mind once or twice. Perhaps she'd remarried the plastic surgeon who'd done her fifth needless cosmetic surgery in as many years. Perhaps she'd been a heartless workaholic who never had time for him.

But in my mind, she'd never been a good-hearted woman, crippled by a maniac set upon her by Frank himself, whom he'd loved, who loved him. Who'd been a hapless martyr. Never.

"You're retired now." I interrupted the negative direction my imagination was taking me. "Why don't you turn Frank in and solve the case?"

"Frank and I were friends once. Law enforcement compadres of a sort. He doesn't have much of a life left, but I can't take away what little is left-even if I can't ever look him in the eye again after seeing what he did to another human being."

I s.h.i.+vered at the stark reality in his voice. I couldn't ask the details of the murders. My mind's eye was doing more than his words could anyway. Instead, I asked something that would prove infinitely more painful.

"Do you think he still loves her-Monica?"

Rudy Serrano paused thoughtfully-considering more my feelings than the truth, I was certain. "Yes. Yes, I'm sure he does love Monica, in his own way."

"And she loves him?"

"Yes, I've talked to Monica. There's no doubt about that."

Great. I was in love with a vicious killer who still loved his wife.

Could it get any worse?

I knew better than to ask that question.

"Any idea where Gilbert is right now?" Serrano asked.

There were lots of answers to that one, but I decided that the most precise would be the safest. "No." I shook my head, took a sip of pinot grigio and shook my head again. "I sure don't."

Ten.

Because Ben, morose and brooding, had arrived at the Main Event to escort me back to the Mellagio, I'd missed the opportunity to see Frank's reaction to his supposed old friend Rudy Serrano. I cursed fate or perhaps Frank's sixth sense that seemed to alert him to potential dangers. I'd needed that reaction to know how to proceed-whether to interrogate him, avoid him or to continue to trust him until I found out more. I loved him, but more importantly right now, I felt like I knew who he was, under his skin. Or I thought I had. The man in Frank's skin might well have killed someone to avenge a loved one, but wouldn't have tortured him on top of it. The man in Frank's skin wouldn't have left his crippled wife to raise two babies on her own.

Maybe who Frank was now wasn't who he used to be. And if that was true, how did I feel about that?

My head was beginning to hurt with my self psychoa.n.a.lysis. "What's your problem?" I snapped at Ben. Maybe I could a.n.a.lyze him instead. "Pouting because you're not going to win the Main Event this year?"

He slid me a slitty-eyed look. "No."

A pair of women walking past us paused in midstep to stare at Ben. One grabbed the other's arm and stage-whispered, "Do you really think it's Colin Farrell? I think he plays poker. No, he looks more like Ben Affleck. He played one time in a cash game with my best friend's sister's brother's niece's uncle's mother."

It was Ben's usual invitation to flirt with a wink and a grin. He didn't even look their way.

"How'd you do that anyway?" I continued to taunt him, hoping for anything, even an explosion. "It's hard to bust out of a tournament that early, especially one with ten thousand people playing."

With a grunt, Ben strode on ahead. His phone sang a strain from "Lord of the Thighs" by Aerosmith. I never had the stomach to ask him where he found that as a ring tone but now it reminded me Ben was still Ben. He hadn't yet changed his ring tone to the theme song of The Wonder Years, so maybe I didn't have to worry. He answered, striding so fast he was almost running to keep me from hearing him. Stilettos or no, I still caught up with him. Ha! He ducked into a men's room. d.a.m.n, I was tempted. Sorely tempted...

"Excuse me, Bee Cool," a young female voice asked as a finger tapped me on the shoulder.

"Yes?" Ingrained politeness answered. I turned around, even as I realized I probably should be jumping away in case it was another Dragsnashark a.s.sociate in drag. Before me stood two teenage girls, dressed in jeans and logo tees, one of them reminding me so much of Aphrodite that my heart ached.

"Can we have your autograph?" They shoved WSOP programs forward. They were both stuffed with some extra paper behind the page with my photo and I moved to slide it out of the way. One of the girls stopped me, tapping on my photo. "Sign here."

I did, a bit of an awkward signature because of the bulkiness underneath, but oh well. "We are big fans of yours, Bee Cool. It's awesome the way you dress so model, act so hot, play so cool and beat all those stuck-up ugly old pros who think they're so smart.

"We want to be like you one day. Like, wear Marc Jacobs and Derek Lam and Manolos and Choos, come to Vegas and play poker all day."

"Is that right? Let me tell you, first you need to have a real job too, you know. And go to college. I couldn't have money to put on the table if I didn't work as an ad executive."

"That's not true," the pet.i.te blonde said. "You won half a million dollars last year. The Internet said so."

"Don't believe everything you read, especially on the Internet." I warned. "Playing poker is entertainment, so when you're old enough you can set aside what you want to spend on that and only spend that much. No borrowing to win money, understand?"

Neither girl looked convinced. "Speaking of money," the brunette put in. "We caught the bus here from Oregon just to see you, our idol, but now we don't have enough to go home."

I sighed. I hated this. I didn't want to encourage this kind of behavior, but if Affie were somewhere now needing bus money home I hoped some kind soul would give it to her. I reached into my purse, found my wallet and extracted two hundred-dollar bills.

I dangled the money out to them but held fast as I ordered, "Now, your parents are missing you, I'm sure. Go straight to the bus station and-"

"So you see, my good people," a voice behind me boomed. "How your children are being corrupted by the evil poker players of the world. This gambling game, this Texas Hold 'Em, it is poison, and its players are akin to the devil. Plying our youth with money, money, money, addicting them to the game so young. It is to be scorned. It is to be STOPPED!"

The girls s.n.a.t.c.hed the cash out of my hand and ran. I spun around to see Phineas Paul with a gawking bunch of tourists who were pointing at me and shaking their heads. Then I noticed the cameraman and reporter. I turned and looked at where the girls had disappeared, narrowing my eyes in thought. It couldn't have been staged, could it? They really had seemed inordinately thrilled with my fas.h.i.+on sense.

Ben emerged from the restroom just then, took in the scene in a split second, grabbed my arm and hauled me in the opposite direction and around the corner. "Wait. Wait! Miss Cooley. We'd like a comment," the reporter yelled.

"Do you think Paul's been following me around waiting for me to do something to play into his twisted, sick hand?"

Ben's mouth twisted into a tight grin, making him look a little more like himself than he had since last night. "Even you have to admit, Bee Bee, it wouldn't have been a bad bet. Considering all the messes you get yourself into on a regular basis."

We could hear feet running behind us. Ben dove into the next open doorway and we found ourselves in the Harley Davidson shop. Not pausing, he wound us through the clothes racks and shoved me headfirst into a dressing room. He followed and slammed the door.

"How long do you think this is going to take?" I asked after a minute.

Ben opened his mouth but before he could speak a knock at the door silenced him. "Hey! Hey! We don't allow that kind of thing in here," a heavily accented Eastern European female voice warned. I knew from my last visit to Vegas that those with a bossy foreign accent probably were in employ at the hotel or casino.

"What kind of thing is banned?" Ben asked. "Talking?"

"Nein," she barked. "I mean, no. Hokay, if you try on, then you can stay in there. Hokay?"