Eagle, Kathleen (19 page)

"The
money is in the slots. A lot of it goes in; sometimes a little comes back
out," Helen said quickly, demonstrating with her free hand. "Those
are the important ins and outs. All you need to know, really."

Reese
smiled. He liked the way she talked fast whenever she was trying to resist
something she really wanted. She wasn't one to jump at the chance to show off.
Why should she? She had such quiet beauty, such rich polish. He could watch
that elegant hand all night. With his thumb he caressed the back of the hand he
held beneath the table.

"Sometimes
a lot of it comes back out," Rick said. "Yeah, let's play. Better
yet, let's bet on the pro here. Us pros should stick together."

"I
don't play." She looked to Reese for support. "I deal forty hours a
week. It's not play. It's work."

"Helen's
really a teacher."

"Then
teach us, Helen." Rick was out of his chair, ready for some fun. "You
play, and we'll place the bets."

"It's
a simple game. If you can add, you can—"

"I
can add, but you can play cards," Reese countered. "It's fun to watch
you because you're somebody who knows her game. I know that confidence when I
see it." He drew Helen to her feet, following Rick's lead.

"Nah,
she's right, Blue." Rick slid him a devilish look. "There's no real
skill involved with blackjack."

"I
didn't say that." Helen bristled, taking the bait, tossing it back at
them. "I said it was a simple game, much like basketball." She
shrugged. "Well, you toss the ball through the hoop, right? But it's
possible to be very good at it."

"So
show us," Rick said. "Can you count cards? Now that's a real skill,
and there's real talent in being able to do it without anybody recognizing
it." He craned his neck like a pop-up toy, looked around the bar full of
cowboys and tourists, and lowered his voice. "Because if they catch you,
they'll show you the door. I mean, the pit boss will see that you don't have
lunch in this town again. But if you can do it, and you're shrewd about
it..." He tapped his temple, challenged Helen with a look, then a quick
shrug. "Not many people can do it, from what I've been told."

"It's
quite possible to..." She edged closer to Reese, hung onto his arm, as
though she wanted him to shield her from something. "Maybe if we set a
limit. Say five hands. No matter what, five hands is the limit."

"That's
just getting started," Rick said. "Let's see you do your stuff."

"A
limit," she insisted, and she was moving toward the blackjack pit, which was
a step down from the bar. "Because we have to get back to Bad River. A few
hands can't hurt, I guess, but no more than that."

She
looked up at Reese, something fragile and troublesome in her eyes. She was
scared. She was standing at the edge of the pit, and she was eager to jump in,
but she was also terrified. Her nails were digging into his palm.

He
squeezed her hand. "You don't want to do it, we won't do it."

"I
do."
She heard herself, startled herself, shuddered oddly, and
shook her head. "I do, but I can't, and that's, um..."

"It's
a long drive back, and you're tired," Reese murmured as he tucked her
under his arm. He felt her draw a deep breath and release it so heavily that it
deflated her completely and left her leaning against him for support.

"I
didn't mean to butt in," Rick said. Another table, another face, had
caught his interest. He signaled that he would be there in a minute. "But
let's speak about this again, Blue. You could really diversify with this."

"I've
got my hands full right now. My father left me with some
responsibilities."

Rick
questioned the last word with a comic mug.

"Responsibilities.
Things
I have to take care of, you know what I'm saying?"

"Cool."
Rick leaned in close to Helen. "Did you know this guy was the only
All-Star player in the history of the NBA to retire without a press
conference?"

She
looked for truth in the charming man's big blue eyes. Rick gave an umpire's
"Safe" signal. Done, clean, settled, no discussion. That part was
true.

"That's
gotta be bullshit. Who would keep track of how many guys retired
without..." Reese laughed. "You're so full of it, Marino. You're the
one for the record books. Me, I got better things to do."

"I
hear you, man. We'll talk."

"See
you on the road."

***

Helen
wanted to walk. It was a cool night, typical of the Black Hills, where there
were no mosquitoes to detract from the pleasures of pine-scented air, the
distant fiddles, and the throng of glittering stars that seemed almost close
enough to touch.

She'd
had a close call with temptation, and she'd warmed to it, tipped, leaned,
nearly reached out and touched it the way she wanted to touch the stars. But
she had pulled back, escaped, and now this big man made her feel cosseted and
cared for, safe enough to let him in on just this one secret.

"I
didn't mean to get you in trouble with that suggestion," Reese said as he
grabbed his denim jacket from the car he'd left parked on the street. The
parking meter required his change. "Is there some rule against you playing
blackjack in another establishment?"

"I
have my own rules."

"What's
counting cards? I mean, I've heard of it, but I don't know how it's done.
You've got four decks in the shoe, right? I don't see how anybody could keep
track of that many cards."

She
raised a coy eyebrow as he draped his voluminous jacket over her shoulders.

"They
can?" Towering over her, he sounded absurdly innocent.

"They
can. There are at least fifty different ways to do it. One system is called
High-Low."

He
was waiting.

She
was walking. Tinkling piano music escaped briefly through a door behind them.
Helen slipped her arm through Reese's as they strolled past Carry Nation's
Temperance Saloon and Gaming Hall. She thought maybe Carry would want to hear
her disclosure, too, but they turned the comer into a quieter street. A sign
advertised a tour of Old Deadwood's opium dens.

Walking
gave her the momentum for launching her answer.

"High
cards, ten and up, count as minus one," she said, choosing the
instructional approach to the hazard. "Low cards are plus one. Seven, eight,
and nine are neutral, so they're zero. As the cards are played, you keep a
tally using that point system. When the count is on the plus side, you figure
more high cards remain to be played, so it's a favorable deck for the player.
With a minus count, the house has the advantage. People watch the tables for
what's called a rich deck. You get into a rich deck game, and then the key is
careful betting."

They
were crossing the street now, she chattering away, he with his head bowed,
intent on every word. A car stopped and let them pass through the flood of its
headlights.

"That's
the key and the killer," Helen continued. "A gambler loves the risk.
It's hard to resist the urge to push your luck. That's how you get caught.
That's also how you lose, big-time. You have to be able to stay in the game for
a while to make it pay, so you have to be cool and manage your bankroll
intelligently. If you have two hundred dollars, you can't make
twenty-five-dollar bets. It's easy to lose eight hands in a matter of—"
She snapped her fingers, shook her head. "You blink and it's gone, which
is why you keep your eyes wide open and your head on straight. But sometimes,
when you feel like you're on top of the world and you can't lose, intelligence
doesn't figure in."

"You
can do this? This card counting?"

"Oh,
yeah."

"So
this is what dealers—"

"No."

"No,"
he echoed. "Then why would you waste your time as a dealer if you had that
kind of skill?"

They'd
put enough distance between Main Street and the kind of action they were discussing
that she was able to breathe easier. Because she was without her uniform,
without a job to do, the thought of sitting opposite a dealer who was
undoubtedly less skilled than she had made her heart pound a little harder. Now
it was back to a sane, steady pace.

They'd
reached a secluded side street that was lined with the cars of the latecomers,
those who had had to park and walk. A bench near the entrance of a dentist's
office was flanked by split whiskey casks overflowing with white petunias. They
stopped there, and he laid his hand over the arm she had linked through his.
When she looked up, he asked, "Who do you work for, Helen?"

Her
silence was her answer.

"I
keep trying, don't I?" He chuckled. "They say you can't blame a guy
just for trying. Tell me this, then. How did you get into it?"

She
sat down, and he took a seat beside her. She watched the cars glide past for a
moment. She'd gone over and over it during the treatment program she'd been
referred to, the one that had saved her life. Her counselor had taken her back
to the days when she and her sister had spent the school year with Mom, summers
and weekends with Dad.

"My
father taught me how to play cards. We'd play hearts or whist or even
blackjack—-twenty-one, he preferred to call it—and afterward, if I was his
partner and we lost, he'd say, 'You knew there was an ace still out,' or 'You
knew how many clubs had been played.' He expected me to know, and I felt stupid
if I didn't, so I worked at it. He was a good card player, and I wanted his respect.
I became a good card player."

"Was
he a gambler?"

"No,
he wasn't. He was a dreamer, but he always played it safe. Which is smart, I
think—playing it safe."

"What
about his dreams?"

"They
were just dreams. People don't do the kinds of things he talked about doing,
like building a boat, going to Africa, being a professional—" She looked
at him and smiled. Fill in the blank, she thought, but he only smiled a little
and waited on the edge of his seat. "Golfer. He's a golfer. Still pretty
good at it, too."

"Some
people do," he said, his smile broadening slightly, his dark eyes trapping
moonbeams. "Get to Africa."

"Some
people go off to the big city and become heroes of mythical proportion,
too," she said, "
if
they have the skill and the drive."

"And
a whole hell of a lot of luck. Some people thought it was a damn fool shot for
a kid from nowhere to be taking, going pro when I did."

"But
it was right for you."

"Maybe."
He slid back on the bench, dropped folded hands between spraddled legs.
"Who's to say what would have happened if I had stayed in school then?
Maybe I would have had a broader perspective. Maybe..." He shrugged.
"But college wasn't for me back then. I'd stuck it out in the army because
all they wanted me to do was play ball, which was all
I
wanted to do.
Not too many guys get noticed that way, but I did. I took my shot when I took
it, and I don't regret that. There's no such thing as what-might-have-been. It
didn't happen, doesn't exist."

He
looked at her suddenly and grinned. "We were talking about you. Damn,
you're good at getting turnovers. How'd you do that?"

"I
mentioned the word 'heroes,' " she said with a smile, "of 'mythical
proportion.' And you stepped right up to the line."

"Somebody
call my name?" he aped, then laughed. "So your dad taught you to play
cards. Now, my question was, how did you get into this?"

"Get
into what? Dealing blackjack? It's just a job." There were no streetlights
close by. Moonlight made the white petunias luminescent, and their perfume
sweetened her sigh. "Sort of like bartending for the recovering
alcoholic," she confessed. "I became compulsive."

"About
gambling?" he asked, and she nodded. A silent moment passed. "How
bad?"

"Bad.
When you can't walk away, it's bad."

They
sat there for what seemed an interminable length of time, side by side but
separate, and Helen thought,
He didn't need to know.
She should have
kept this from him or glossed over it. She could have said it was nothing. She
could have
said
nothing. He didn't need to know that part of her, and
now that he did, he would think, How wretched, how...

He
slipped his arm around her, firmly but gently, as though there might be some
fragility to her, and he kissed the close curve of her forehead. "I
thought you were like an angel with that woman who lost all her money on the
slots."

"Angels
don't hang out in casinos." She closed her eyes and let her head rest
against his lips. "A gambler might think there's an angel on her shoulder,
but it's an illusion."

His
lips moved again, another soft kiss. "I'm sorry about tonight."

"Don't
be." She swallowed hard. "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

"When?"
He leaned back, tipped her chin up with a gentle forefinger. "When did you
disappoint me?"