“Good, because I’m planning on winning my money back,” Dolan said.
“Is that so,” Mags said.
“That’s right, little lady. You can’t win every hand. It’s not mathematically possible.”
Dolan was already starting to make excuses, a sure sign of a sore loser. In the beginning he’d been charming, but that had worn off once Mags had started beating him.
“What if I was going to leave?” Mags asked.
“You can’t. We’ve got rules around here.”
“What rules are those?”
“The rule that says you have to give me a chance to win my money back.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Don’t get cute with me. It’s part of the game.”
Mags rose and grabbed her purse. She had no intention of leaving but wanted to rattle Dolan’s cage. “Nice playing with you.”
Dolan spun around in his chair. “Tell her to sit down.”
Slyde stood at the bar sipping a Bloody Mary while looking resplendent in an Ermenegildo Zegna silk suit with a cashmere vest. They were playing in the soon-to-be-demolished Riviera in a suite with cheap furnishings and threadbare carpeting.
Slyde shrugged as if to say, What do you want, man?
“That’s bad action,” Dolan said. “If she leaves, I’ll tell the concierge.”
Slyde twirled the celery in his drink. The Riviera’s concierge was taking a cut off the game and Slyde didn’t want Dolan talking bad to him about Mags.
“Mags, why don’t you give this gentleman a chance to win his money back?”
“Why should I?” Mags said.
“Because it’s the sporting thing to do,” Slyde said.
Men were all the same; gracious when they won, assholes when they didn’t. Dolan was cheating yet had the nerve to cry foul. Mags decided to go straight for the jugular.
“Double the stakes, and I’ll stay,” she said.
“You serious?” Dolan said.
“I’m always serious about money.”
“You’re on.” To the hired dealer, Dolan said, “Shuffle up and deal.”
Mags returned to her seat and assumed the position. Elbows on the table, chin resting on her hands, eyes locked on her opponent’s face. Dolan’s breathing became accelerated when he was dealt a strong hand, and it was enough of a tell to beat the banker out of every cent he had. She told herself her mystery caller could wait.
Forty-five minutes later, she had all of Dolan’s bankroll. As she raked in the final pot, the banker leaned over the table and forcefully grabbed her wrist.
“You cheated me.”
“Get your hands off of me, or I’ll call hotel security,” Mags said.
Dolan released her. “I’m going to search you, find out how you won.”
“You’d like putting your grubby hands on me, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re wearing something.”
“You really think I cheated you?”
“Damn straight. Nobody’s that good.”
“I’ll tell you how I won. You broke your nose once, didn’t you?”
Dolan was stunned. “Playing football. How’d you know?”
“You have a deviated septum. Every time you have strong cards, you shut your mouth and breathe through your nose. It sounds like a train whistle. That’s how I knew.”
Dolan’s cheeks turned bright red. Mags couldn’t help it and started laughing. It was out of line to laugh at someone you’d just taken to the cleaners, but she couldn’t control herself when she was flying high on Jimmy’s magic pills.
Dolan slapped her across the face.
“Fuck you,” the banker said.
Dolan’s entourage sat on a couch getting wasted on champagne and blow. Two friends from back home and a pair of black call girls. Their heads collectively snapped.
Mags had grown up with five brothers and could hold her own in a fight. Her fist caught the tip of Dolan’s chin and the banker’s eyes rolled up into his head like hurricane shutters. His head bounced on the table during his journey to the floor. His entourage surrounded him, the hookers trying to wake him up. The last thing the hookers wanted was to get caught in a suite with a corpse.
Dolan’s eyelids fluttered. Mags rubbed the spot where he’d slapped her.
“Asshole,” she said.
Slyde had seen enough. He grabbed the money off the table, threw the dealer a tip, and hustled Mags out of the suite to an elevator.
“Goddamn it. Didn’t I tell you never hit a sucker?” Slyde said.
“He slapped me,” Mags said.
“I don’t care if he squeezed your titties. You can’t touch ’im.”
“Well, I did. Fuck it. I need some coffee. I’m crashing.”
Coming down off Slyde’s little white pills was becoming harder, and they retreated to a dumpy coffee shop off the hotel lobby where Mags drank a carafe of coffee before she began to feel normal again. Slyde had lost his patience and lectured her.
“You can’t keep this bullshit up. If Dolan tells the concierge how badly you trimmed him, the concierge will stop setting up games for us. Worse, he’ll tell the other concierges in town, and they’ll stop calling us, too.”
“What did I do? Besides beat his sorry ass?”
“You gave him bad action. That’s the kiss of death in this town. The casinos grind the suckers down and take their money real slow. The suckers go along with it because they think they have a chance. That’s the illusion that everybody sells. Even guys like me.”
“So what should I do? Let the suckers win a few hands? Stretch it out?”
“That will work. Think you’re up to it?”
“Sure. But you’re going to have to give me extra pills to take. They’re not lasting as long. I don’t want to lose my edge during a game.”
“I’ve got plenty of pills. But you’ve got to promise, no more bad action.”
“You’ve got my word.”
They got up to leave. Mags made a detour to the lady’s room and splashed cold water on her face at the sink. The pills were messing up her head, but she wasn’t about to stop taking them. The allure of winning tens of thousands of dollars, night after night, was far too great. Her cell phone beeped in her purse. She’d forgotten about her mystery caller and retrieved a lone voice message. The sound of Billy Cunningham’s voice cut her like a knife.
“I need to talk to you. Call me,” Billy said.
Mags leaned against the hand dryer and swallowed hard. No “I’m sorry about Venice” or “Hey, Mags, I should have called.” Had Billy forgotten that he’d dumped her like a sack of garbage after promising her a job running with his crew? Mags hadn’t forgotten, and she’d been waiting for the opportunity to return the favor. She pulled up his number and called him back.
“Hello, stranger.”
“How you been?” Billy asked, as if nothing had happened.
“I’m doing great. What’s up?”
“Sorry to bother you, but I need your help. Can I buy you breakfast?”
“Sounds urgent.”
“It is.”
Billy was in trouble; Mags could hear it in the timbre of his voice. And in his desperate state he’d decided that dear old Mags could fix his problem. And maybe Mags could fix it, or maybe she could make Billy’s situation get a whole lot worse.
“I’m game,” she said.
“Great.”
Billy gave her the address of a local breakfast spot and said he’d meet her there in an hour. Mags said okay and hung up. She left the restroom to find Slyde waiting for her.
“What were you doing, taking a shower?” he asked.
“I didn’t know we were in a rush,” Mags said.
“We are now. We got trouble.”
Slyde jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Standing by the elevators was a three-man EMR team pushing a gurney. One of the medics held a flesh-colored cervical collar. The elevator doors parted and the team pushed the gurney into the car.