Authors: Stephanie Bond
folded early, not yet ready to bluff. But when Chance
threw him a look of exasperation, Wesley decided if he
was going to lose, he would do it with style.
In the next round he was dealt the two of clubs and the
eight of diamonds for his pocket cards—a truly shitty
hand. He bet high, hoping to scare the others into thinking
he had something. Two folded, leaving him and two other
guys playing the hand—a fat, squishy character with moles
on his eyelids, and a clean-cut fel ow who chewed gum like
a girl. But Wesley liked gum chewers. They had more tel s
than a four-year-old. He put Squishy-Moley with at least
one face card, and Chewy with a low pair.
The first three community cards, the flop, were dealt
faceup: the three of clubs, the four of clubs, and the eight
of spades. The next two community cards, the turn card
and the river card, were dealt facedown. With a possible
straight flush going and now a pair with the flop cards,
Wesley slow-bid the hand until everyone had raised twice.
The dealer flipped the turn card, a six of diamonds. Chewy
folded. Squishy-Moley raised. Stil working a straight,
Wesley cal ed the bet. The river card was the eight of
hearts, giving Wesley three of a kind. Not bad, but the
other guy could have the straight. Squishy-Moley
hesitated, then raised. Wesley cal ed and raised. Squishy
called, then revealed his pocket cards—a pair of fours.
With the community cards, he had three fours. Wesley
won the hand with his three eights, and set the tone for
the next two hours of play. One by one, the players fel ,
leaving Wesley and Squishy-Moley to square off.
Chance was so excited he could barely watch. Wesley’s leg
was jumping badly now, so he asked for a bathroom break
and chewed another pil . By the time he emerged, his leg
was stil and he was feeling good again. This was the kind
of local exposure he needed to build his reputation as a
solid card player and make his way to a big regional game,
leading up to a tournament sanctioned by the World
Series of Poker.
He lowered himself into the chair and nodded at Squishy-
Moley, whose real name, he discovered, was Andy. Andy
had that hangdog jowly look that was hard to read—his
eyes were hooded and he rarely glanced up from his cards.
But that was a tel , too, because it meant he usually bet on
the basis of his own hand rather than trying to figure out
what the other guy was holding.
They played a few rounds, passing chips back and forth
across the table. Then slowly, Wesley began to get the
upper hand. And at last, he got gorgeous pocket cards: a
pair of aces, clubs and hearts. Stil , he bet conservatively,
because he’d seen plenty of ace pairs beaten with a low
three of a kind. Andy didn’t seem overly excited about his
pocket cards, either.
The flop was the queen of hearts, the seven of hearts and
the four of clubs. The best Andy could have at this point
was three of a kind, but Andy was probably thinking the
same thing about Wesley’s hand, and he was wrong.
Wesley raised twice. The turn card was another queen,
which stung. If Andy held queens, he was looking at four of
a kind, and three of a kind was stil a winner over Wesley’s
pair of aces. The river card was a ten of hearts, which
didn’t help. Wesley kept raising, though, and just when he
thought Andy would fold, the guy pushed his chips to the
center of the table.
“Al in.”
Wesley hesitated. He didn’t want to be one of those
chumps who bet the farm and lost it on a pair of aces—
that was a beginner’s mistake. If he folded, he stil had
time to make it up, and he’d been getting good cards all
night.
On the other hand, this could be the end of his streak, the
last decent pocket cards he’d get all night. And he didn’t
want to be the chump who folded with a pair of aces to a
guy who held squat. Thirty seconds went by, then a
minute. Under the table his knee started jumping again,
and to his embarrassment, sweat dripped off the end of
his nose onto the table.
The dealer cleared his throat, a warning to place a bet or
fold by default.
“Call,” Wesley said, pushing the better portion of his chips
in to match the other man’s bet. “What d’ya have?”
His opponent rol ed his eyes upward and Wesley felt a
flash of panic. Then Andy sighed and tossed down his
cards. A three and a nine—garbage.
Chance came off his chair, whooping with joy. Applause
broke out and players pumped Wesley’s hand in
congratulations. His arm hurt like hel , but he didn’t mind.
Grimes carried the til to Wesley’s table and started
counting out the twenty grand in bundles of hundreds.
Between the Oxy and the win, Wesley felt as if he were
floating. With his half of the pot he could get The Carver
and Father Thom off his back for a while, and give Carlotta
some money for bil s. This time he wasn’t going to blow
the cash like he had before.
For once, he’d be a hero.
A commotion sounded at the door. “Everybody, hands in
the air!”
Wesley jerked his head around to see three hooded men
standing in a semicircle, handguns extended. One guy shot
into the ceiling, sending drywall raining down. “I said
hands in the air!”
Wesley obeyed, as did everyone else in the room. While
two of the men kept their guns trained on everyone, the
third guy walked up to Wes’s table and stuffed the cash
into a duffel bag. Twenty guys had paid five grand
apiece—not a bad take for a few minutes’ work. Wesley
set his jaw to keep from crying at the sight of his prize
money disappearing. He’d been so damn close.
While the masked man crammed the money in the bag, he
looked up at Wesley with mockery in his eyes, then zipped
the duffel closed and backed out of the room.
The other two gunmen waited a few seconds, then backed
out, too. Their pounding footsteps echoed in the empty
building, then the front door slammed.
Nobody moved for a few seconds. And nobody dared call
the police because the impromptu card house was
completely il egal. It was exactly what the gunmen had
been counting on. Grimes threw a few chairs and cursed a
blue streak, but they’d all been had. It wasn’t the first time
a card club had been robbed. They were lucky everyone’s
wallets hadn’t been stolen, as wel .
Worse, Wesley thought there was something familiar
about the hooded gunman who’d handled the money. The
way he stood, the bulk of his shoulders…the mockery in his
eyes as he’d singled out Wesley.
It was Leonard, he was almost positive. E.’s boyfriend,
Chance’s drug runner. The man had been listening when
Chance had told Wesley about the card game. And Wesley
wouldn’t put anything past the guy.
Anger burned a hole in Wesley’s stomach. Leonard had
everything that Wesley wanted—including E.—for now.
But Wesley would find a way to even the score.
24
“Hannah, hi, it’s Carlotta. I just called to check in.” She
laughed gaily into the receiver. “Oh, I’ve got the funniest
thing to tel you. Did you know that when Detective Jack
Terry was here, I caught him watching the Gilmore Girls? I
kid you not. The man isn’t nearly as macho as he likes to
pretend. Call me on my cel when you want to catch up.”
Carlotta put down the phone and sighed. Or make up. She
knew Hannah was upset over her taking the road trip with
Coop, but Carlotta hadn’t thought her friend would hold it
against her for this long. She’d always assumed Hannah’s
comments about Coop were just indiscriminate flirting.
But maybe Hannah really cared about him.
Carlotta picked herself up from the bedroom floor. If her
friend was in love with Coop, all the more reason for
Carlotta not to get involved with him. He deserved
someone who could give her entire heart.
In Hannah’s case, if she really loved a man, she’d probably
be wil ing to cut out and hand over any body part he
wanted.
Carlotta left her bedroom, conscious of the quiet hush in
the house. It was nice for Wesley to have someplace to be
every morning, she conceded, and he seemed content
with his community service job. Every day he brought
home a stack of manuals about things that would make
her head explode. But without him bustling around the
kitchen and playing his music at deafening levels, she felt
restless in the house alone, bored and claustrophobic.
And since Kiki Deerling’s memorial service the previous
day, she’d been nursing a feeling of discontent. Granted,
her disappointment was probably rooted in the “lifting of
the veil” on the fantasy of celebritydom that the whole
experience had produced. But this lingering sense of grief
seemed more…pervasive.
She glanced down the hall to the closed door of her
parents’ room and sighed. And then, of course, there were
her parents.
Always, her parents.
Giving in to the pul , she went to the door and twisted the
knob. The door had swol en in the heat, so she had to give
it a shove with her good shoulder. When it creaked open
she slid back in time ten years—as she always did.
Their bedroom was much the same as Randolph and
Valerie had left it, only without some of the photographs
and other personal items the police had taken after the
pair had gone missing. The matching furniture—bed,
dresser, wardrobe and two chests—that had sat in one
corner of their enormous bedroom in the house they’d
lost, overwhelmed this modest-size master bedroom. The
oversize pieces made it feel as if the wal s were closing in.
Her mother had hated living here. She’d hated the small
rooms in the cramped town house on the unimpressive
street in the inconsequential neighborhood. She’d missed
lunch at the club and afternoons at the spa, personal
shoppers and domestic help. Valerie had rarely talked
about her childhood, because her parents had died when
she was young, but Carlotta had the impression that her
mother had grown up very poor. Perhaps that was the
reason she’d affixed herself to Randolph Wren and the
luxurious lifestyle he had provided, why she had chosen to
go with him on the lam rather than stay behind with her
children and struggle to make ends meet.
Carlotta couldn’t say her parents had been in love. What
they’d had was so much more unhealthy. It was an
obsession for each other that was almost immature in its
intensity, a possessive, jealous bond that left no room for
anything or anyone else…at least not to her mother’s
knowledge.
The air in the room was stale, but stil reeked of them
both, if that was possible. The box of cigars on her father’s
nightstand had long since dried out, but the scent of
tobacco lingered. Her mother’s perfumes had turned to
mostly alcohol, yel owing the glass of the fancy bottles.
Her father’s ties stil hung over his valet stand. Her
mother’s flowered silk robe was draped over the back of
the chair in front of her dressing table. A layer of dust
made everything fuzzy and slightly out of focus, like an old
photo. Wesley had come in occasionally over the years
and dusted, but Carlotta had always refused. She’d spent
less than twenty minutes in this room since her parents
had left.
Now she went to their bathroom and removed a folded
washcloth from the closet, wetting it with water from the
faucet that ran rusty before it ran clear. Then she
backtracked and began cleaning everything. One by one,
she picked up items and careful y removed the dust and
built-up grime. The job somehow seemed more purposeful
now that she knew they were both stil alive. She picked
up a photo of her parents that had been taken at some
gala event. Her father was in a tux, her mother in a long
white, sequined gown. They looked glorious together,
tanned and fit, smiling.
But her mother’s eyes looked glassy, the telltale sign of a
wel -functioning alcoholic. Valerie had always been fond of
happy hour. But after they’d lost the Buckhead house, her
Bloody Mary breakfast extended to a two-martini lunch,
which stretched into an afternoon nip that morphed into
the cocktail hour which held her over until after-dinner
drinks and wrapped up with a nightcap.
Randolph had indicated that her mother was stil drinking
“on and off.” Had Valerie tried rehab? Entered a twelve-
step program? If so, she hadn’t yet gotten to the part
about seeking forgiveness from those you’ve wronged.
Carlotta lifted her mother’s robe to her face and inhaled
the scent of dust and age and the merest hint of ylang-
ylang. Tears fil ed her eyes, but as always, she was hard-
pressed to attach any one emotion to her parents—anger,
fear, frustration, love, hate, betrayal. She stil felt al those
things.
But she was so profoundly grateful that they were stil