Double Blind (3 page)

It wasn’t money, but once it had borne great, great value to Ethan. Once this little silver circle had been his everything, and now it was just detritus in his pocket. The thought turned dark and bilious in Ethan’s wounded soul.

So stupid. I was so stupid, because it never really was anything, not if I could end up like this.

Ethan swallowed hard, pulled the object out, and laid it on the table.

“You can have this,” he said, feeling he had a victory at last in that his voice did not shake nor break as he spoke the words. “It’s all I have.”

The dealer leaned over and inspected it. “A ring?” His nose wrinkled. “Is it real silver, or what?”

Ethan stared down at the plain gray circle with the simple engravings that had once brought him such comfort. Now they just made him feel like a fool. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s yours.”

He turned away.

A hand came down on his arm, startling him, and as he turned he saw another hand, weathered and stained with dark streaks closing over the discarded ring. A man stood there, dark and almost shaggy with his head of wild hair and thick eyebrows. He looked up at Ethan with sharp, dancing eyes, and he winked.

The dealer, who had been still making a face at Ethan’s offering, startled, then glared at the newcomer.

“Hey!” he said, then looked at the stranger’s face and flushed. “Jansen, you prick, that’s my tip!”

“It isn’t customary to give tips to a dealer when you do nothing but lose.” The stranger scooped up the ring, held it by the bottom of the circle, and shook it once at the dealer. “Unless you’re a
prick
.”

The dealer’s face turned stormy. “He gave it to me, you ass!”

“First prick, now ass.” The stranger lifted an eyebrow. “You coming on to me, Tyler?”

As the dealer scowled, Ethan decided the situation had gone far enough. “I don’t mind if he takes it,” he said, then realized he’d said the wrong thing when the stranger turned toward him.

Those dark eyes pierced him, and Ethan felt as if he were being stripped right there in the middle of the casino floor, laid more completely bare than he had ever been in his life. As if he were being measured, parceled out, and judged. And found, he suspected, very wanting.

The stranger turned back to the dealer.

“Tell you what, Tyler,” the man said, his voice as smooth as velvet, but even Ethan could hear the knife inside. “Let’s play for it.”

The dealer swore under his breath. Ethan turned to the stranger, frowning.

The stranger ignored him and leaned over the roulette table, his palms resting on the padded edge. “I’ll let you pick the game.”

The dealer stopped scowling. “Seriously?”

Ethan’s shock was wearing off, and he was beginning to be annoyed at being ignored. “Excuse me,” he said, a little tartly. “But who are you, exactly?”

“Randy Jansen. So. Tyler. You feeling lucky?”

“Any game,” Tyler said, in the tones of a man who did not believe what was before him could be as easy as it seemed. “You’ll bet against me in any game on the floor?”

“Anywhere in the casino,” Randy said, smoothly. He nodded at the back of the main floor and smiled a wicked smile. “
Any
game.”

Tyler drew back, looking horrified. “The fuck I’m playing poker against you!”

“Then name something else,” Randy said.

Ethan decided enough was enough. “This is hardly necessary. I gave the man my ring of my own free will.”

“And now he’s going to bet against it,” Randy said, still not looking at Ethan, “of his own free will.”

“
Any
game,” Tyler said, clearly trying to find a loophole.

Randy stood straight and held out his hands, indicating his complete compliance.

Tyler’s smile turned feral, and he pointed to the wheel. “Roulette.”

Randy shrugged. “Fine.”

But he didn’t look happy, Ethan noticed, and Tyler was beaming. “Put it down and make your call. Red or black.”

“That hardly works,” Randy said. “What about the zeroes?”

“We re-spin if they fall there,” Tyler said. “Or we spilt. I get single, you get double.”

Randy shook his head. “No. Even or Odd. And the zeroes are even.” He smiled at the dealer, then slid Ethan’s ring onto the felt.

“You can’t pick Even!” Tyler shouted, pointing at the table. He looked and sounded, Ethan thought, like a child. “Not when you just gave it a two-number advantage!”

Ethan frowned. “But zero
is
even. And so is double zero.”

Tyler aimed a finger at him. “You stay out of this.” He turned back to Randy. “Zeroes are out. They’re nobody’s.”

“They have to go somewhere,” Randy said, “because I’m only making one bet with you.”

Tyler glared at Randy for a few minutes, then flicked a glance at Ethan. “Him. He gets both zeroes. If it lands on one of them, it goes back to him.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Randy said, and indicated the wheel. “Spin.”

Tyler hesitated, looking as if he suspected anything Randy readily agreed to would be an arrangement against himself. Then Ethan saw a tall man in a tuxedo and an earpiece watching them carefully from a few tables over.

“Are we going to get into some sort of trouble for this?” Ethan asked nervously. “Because that man over there is looking like he’d like to cause some.”

Tyler followed Ethan’s gaze and winced. “Shit. Pit boss. Hold on, Jansen. We’re clearing this with Herod first.”

“Trust me,” Randy drawled, “Herod is watching our every move.” He sat down in the chair Ethan had vacated and nodded at the wheel. “Let the ball fly, and get this over with.”

Tyler hesitated just a beat more and then, while still watching Randy, spun the ball into the rotating wheel. They all watched it travel around and around, moving in opposition to the swirl of colors.

Randy leaned closer to Ethan. He still wasn’t looking at him, but Ethan knew he wasn’t speaking to anyone else when he said, “If I win, you’re having a drink with me at the bar.”

Ethan wanted to tell him what he could do with his drink, but something about the spinning ball stayed him. “And if the dealer wins?”

“Oh, then you're having two.”

Ethan glared at him. “And what if
I
win?”

Randy glanced at him, amused. “Then I’ll let you decide how many.”

“What if I don’t want to have a drink with you at all?” Ethan snapped.

On the wheel, the ball was beginning to bounce. Randy had been watching it, eagle-eyed, but at Ethan’s question his lips quirked, and those sharp, dark eyes were on his again.

“Then I suggest you think of what else you have to bargain with to win your way out of a trip to the bar.”

Ethan felt his face and then his whole body heat. Randy had already looked away, focused once again on the wheel, but Ethan stared, rattled, at the man’s dark, arrogant head. There had been a
knowing
in that look on Randy Jansen’s face that went beyond arrogance. And as Ethan huffed, trying to convince himself he’d imagined it, he felt a warm, brief touch on the back of his thigh. Startled, he jumped back and looked down in time to see Randy’s hand falling casually back to his side.

“You—!” Ethan hissed, but Randy wasn’t looking at him and had never looked away from the table. There was a soft click as the ball fell into place. Randy smiled at the same moment that Tyler swore.

“18,” Randy called. He turned to Ethan, his smile tilting to rueful as he added, “Red.”

“You son of a bitch,” Tyler swore, glaring at Randy. “You rigged this, I know you did!”

Randy gave him a withering look. “And how, Tyler, did I rig your wheel?”

“I don’t know!” Tyler shouted. “I don’t know how, but I know you did!”

The pit boss, who had been watching the entire game now from just a table away, stepped forward. “Is there a problem?”

“He’s cheating!” Tyler declared, and pointed at Randy.

Randy leaned an elbow on the rail and rested his chin in his hand, looking innocently at the pit boss. “I think your dealer could use a break,” he said. “But ask him to place the dolly first, please.”

“He’s cheating!” Tyler repeated, loud enough that now several other patrons were watching to see how the show ended.

The pit boss frowned at Ethan’s ring lying on the table, but as he opened his mouth to speak, he paused, then froze as he lifted a hand and pressed it against his earpiece. “Hold on,” he said to the table, then fixed his gaze on a random point as he listened, nodding occasionally. He glanced at the ring, at Randy, and finally at Ethan.

Ethan took a step backward.

The pit boss nodded again. “Yes, Mr. Crabtree.” He lifted his head and turned to Tyler. “The play is fair. Place the dolly, dealer.”

Tyler’s face was red. “He’s
cheating
—”

“—and then report directly to the office. Mr. Crabtree’s assistant would like a word with you,” the pit boss finished.

The color drained from Tyler’s face.

The pit boss nodded again at the table. “Place the dolly, please.”

Tyler, his hand shaking, lifted the gold marker from the rail edge in front of him and placed it on the number 18.

Randy smiled, swiped the ring from the felt, and stood. “Thank you, Mr. Heinz,” he said to the pit boss. He reached into his pocket, pulled out two blue-edged chips, passed one to the pit boss, and flicked the other casually onto the table. “Have a good night, Tyler,” he called, then turned to Ethan, and in front of the now considerable crowd watching them, slipped his arm through the crook of Ethan’s own.

Ethan was too shocked to resist, especially when Tyler started shouting and the pit boss spoke sharply to him. He let Randy maneuver him through the crowd, herding him down the line of tables toward a series of archways beneath a glittering chandelier. But as the crowd thinned out and they passed beneath a dark curve into a room lined with slot machines, the spell that Randy had cast at the table broke, and Ethan pulled away.

“I’m not having a drink with you,” he said, brushing his hand over the wrinkled spot on his shirt where Randy’s hand had been. “I don’t know who you are, but I do know that I don’t have to have a drink with you.” But even as he said this, he was uncertain. Something about this man hinted that he knew things, possibly people, too. Something about him hinted that Randy Jansen could pretty much do whatever it was in life that he wanted.