Hold ’Em Hostage (12 page)

“I
knew that had to be coming,” Frank muttered jokingly.
He grabbed my coffee cup, nabbed a sip and pulled a face. “Too strong.”

I always used double the grounds recommended to brew a pot—the more caffeine the better. “Don't change the subject. I want to know where you were. I thought you were dead.”

I waved toward the TV, which was showing the sheet-draped corpse being loaded into the medical examiner's van.

“Why did you think that was me?”

“It's a former LAPD detective.”

Frank ground his jaw and turned away, pointing to the note on the bar. “What's this?”

“Love note.”

“You didn't touch it, did you?” Frank demanded, fishing a plastic evidence bag out of his computer case and carefully slipping it in as he read it. “Weird,” he murmured.

“No kidding.” I said. “He called too, right after the news ran some coverage of Paul's protestors and me spouting off about the First Amendment. The creep told me to keep up the good work.”

Frank frowned. The phone rang. I jumped and he grabbed the receiver, barking into it, “Yes?”

With a brief greeting to Jack, he passed it to me. “I was worried, Jack, when I didn't hear from you last night.”

“Bee Cool, stay c-cool. It's hard to remain b-believably undercover if you're phoning home every other m-minute, issuing upd-dates.”

“Okay, okay, point taken.”

“This is the b-buzz: apparently there is some high-level c-collusion going on in the high-stakes ring games in the major p-poker rooms. Nobody I found knows any names, so I g-guess there aren't any faces involved—just d-day players. No one's been caught but everyone's talking about it. Two b-big-name guys I overheard said even if they found a c-colluder they were going to go protectionist.”

“What does that mean?”

“They'll d-deal with it privately because of that religious n-nut and his p-protestors. They don't want any bad press for the game right now, especially during the WSOP.”

“Since when do gamblers care about press?”

“The m-main answer to that is—since Hold 'Em became the world's favorite g-game. That means more money but also more s-scrutiny, and possibly more regulations. Most of the pros who really make a l-living at this would just rather have the old days back, I think. P-poker's a different world than it was even five years ago, Bee.”

“So I suppose the casinos have extra security in the poker rooms?”

“They d-did where I was, but that may j-just be because of the higher volume of players in t-town r-right now. Every p-poker room is expecting more offshoot action.”

“Now, what do you think this means to me?”

“No clue, b-baby,” Jack said. “Maybe n-nothing. We'll see. People bound to be talking about you today, what with your f-famous sound bite.”

I grimaced. “Ugh.”

“Hey, d-don't c-complain. Ingrid's already b-been on your website m-making the most of this. She's intent on f-finding a way for you to c-capitalize financially.”

“I don't want to do that,” I argued.

“Whatever. Ingrid usually g-gets what she w-wants.”

Understatement of the year. Ingrid also got ten percent of my poker income but I doubted that was her motivation. Making my life complicated was her juice.

“S-speaking of which,” Jack continued, “She wants b-brunch. You think you can h-hang with Shana until eleven or so?”

“No problem, she's intent on going back to this medium, and I want to be with her for that. Meet you outside the Fortune at eleven thirty, okay?”

“It's a p-plan.”

As he rang off, Frank came in from the bedroom. “I don't like the way this feels, but I don't know why.”

“Were you listening?” He cocked his head. Great investigator I was. I'd seen him disappear into the bedroom, but never listened for the click on the line. Humph.

“Are you going to tell me what you found out at the tattoo parlor or not?” Frank asked.

“Maybe not, unless you tell me about the murders in L.A. and your ex-wife.”

Frank turned his back to me, striding to the window. “My story won't help Aphrodite and it will only distract us from the search.”

“Damn you,” I whispered because, of course, he was right. I gave him the lowdown on the meaning of the gang's tattoo.

Frank turned around, his face transformed with tight intensity. “I have an informant who is in jail in Los Angeles. He'll know about this, but I'll have to fly to see him in person. I hate to leave you.” I could see in his eyes that he wasn't going to be missing my company as much as he was afraid I was going to get whacked.

“I'll be okay. Ben's here. Ingrid's here. Joe's here. My invisible cop bodyguard is somewhere around.”

Frank shook his head and pinned me with a hard look. “Remember, consider cops an enemy, although they will save you from bodily harm so they can prosecute you without public sympathy.”

“Heartwarming, but we will use what we can,” I chirped as I sipped my coffee. The caffeine was making me brave. “Besides, I'll ask Shana's psychic if I have anything to worry about.”

“Don't you dare.” Frank turned dead serious. “Her kind of vague predictions will only make you second-guess yourself, your judgment and the facts. Promise me you will not listen to anything she says about you, okay?”

I sighed. “Go on to the airport. Hurry back. I'll try to be alive when you get here.”

Frank shot me a warning glance, grabbed his computer and strode out the door.

 

B
rooding Ben accompanied Shana and me to the
psychic, despite my protestations. I hated to say it, but this earnest brother business was getting on my nerves. I wanted my narcissistic twin back. Moon the Medium operated out of an arch-shaped tent in a trailer park. It was already ninety-eight degrees in the shade at ten thirty in the morning and Moon's office was not air-conditioned.

We ducked under the edges of the tent, open sided and about the size of a tennis court. The interior—to use the term loosely—reflected a celestial theme, the night sky, planets, stars, moons (duh) painted on the underside of the tent that soared to at least twenty feet in the center.

“How did you find this goon?” Ben stage-whispered in Shana's ear.

She glared and batted him away.

“It's Moon, dear, not Goon,” corrected the woman sitting cross-legged on a pillow dead center under Mars.

Shana threw him a triumphant look. Ben refused to look abashed.

Moon continued to address only Ben, with a singular focus from her pale blue, almost tintless gray, eyes. It was entirely disconcerting, even for someone on the outside of the range. “It's good to open your mind to things metaphysical, especially when you have been entirely
too
physical your whole life.”

I snorted. I couldn't help it, because her meaning was clear. Ben was promiscuous. “I like to stay in shape,” Ben said, a little uncertainly.

I looked at him askance. He was naturally muscle tight with absolutely no effort and no regular exercise. Just another example of me being gypped at birth. “You know very well, Benjamin, Scorpio, that it is not what I was referring to. Your aura is one of a…tomcat.”

A giggle escaped. Shana almost smiled. Frowning, Ben leaned in to Shana. “Why did you tell her all this stuff about me?”

Shana shook her head in denial. “Maybe it was a good guess.”

“Maybe one of your conquests has already been here, those odds are better,” I put in.

Ben narrowed his eyes at me as Moon said, “Yes, one has.”

“Really? Who?” I asked.

Moon just smiled directly at me, serenely and very oddly, then looked up at the tent and closed her eyes.

“We brought something that was once Affie's. It was hers for a long time,” Shana said to Moon. “Like you asked.”

On the drive over, Shana had explained that Moon used psychometry—the use of solid objects—to try to feel her subjects. Impressions can't be erased over time, according to Moon. Something owned by someone will continue to radiate that person's aura. It made me think of a dime and how much aura it was exuding. Supposedly metal transmitted “impressions” the best. I considered handing over a dime—think of the headache that would give Moon—instead I passed Shana the talisman Affie had given me when I opened my own business—it was a copper disc that read: “Determination destroys all fear.”

I held my breath while she fingered the copper.

“Belinda, you are in crisis,” Moon informed me, still with her eyes closed, neck bent back. No duh. If stars didn't tell her that one, the line between my eyebrows that rivaled the Grand Canyon sure did.

“Blood, I see.”

I gasped. “No! Not Affie?!”

She shook her head gravely. “No, I have to get through your impressions on the coin before I get to hers. Water. A man.” She paused. I wasn't impressed. She probably saw the news, although none of the stations had connected me to the body in the Image lagoon that I knew of. Still, maybe she knew someone at the cop shop.

“No, three men and blood. Maybe even six now. I feel your love there—for which I don't know. Money? A wheelchair? A Bible?”

Her eyebrows were drawn together as she dropped her head and pinned me with a look through to my soul. I shivered. Whoa. Nobody around me knew this stuff but Frank himself and Serrano.

Who were the six men? Maybe the men Frank killed, the man in the lagoon, Frank—that left two unknowns.

I shook my head. I was buying into this, exactly what Frank warned me against. “I hope not. I hope there's no more death.” Enough about me, it was freaking me out. “What about Affie?” I asked again.

Moon moved the copper disc to her forehead. After a minute or so, she spoke. “I see lots of teenage girls. Is she in camp?”

“No,” Shana said, obviously disappointed. “She's never been to camp. She's not the type.”

“Dormitory atmosphere, the great outdoors. I see her playing volleyball, kayaking. I see a snake?”

Shana, Ben and I shared a look and shrugged. Frank had warned me not to get our hopes up but I had regardless. Damn.

“Is that all?” I asked finally when Moon didn't elaborate.

“She's missing you, but not hurting. And…”

We all leaned forward as if we could draw more out with our bodies. “That's all.” Moon pivoted her head back forward and slowly opened her bizarre-colored eyes. Suddenly she started pouring with sweat, like a faucet had been opened. Now, I have to admit I'd been sweating too, after all it was a hundred blasted degrees, but while I might've felt like I'd just run a marathon, I don't think I looked like Moon. She held her arms out to her sides and the corners of her wrap dripped.

“Thank you,” Shana breathed. Ben was watching the sweat pool on the tent floor like it was going to come to life. And then it did, in a way. It began to flow like a tiny river, to form a tiny lake in a divet in the rug-covered sand.

“Time to settle down, Benjamin.” She smiled at my brother. “Time to become a penguin.”

“I don't like tuxes much,” he answered Moon. She smiled benignly and closed her eyes.

“Hey,” Ben mused a second later as we walked away, “don't penguin males take care of their young while the females go out on the hunt?”

“She probably sensed you'd gotten one of your latest dates pregnant. Now you have to go home and figure out who it is. That alone could take nine months.” I laughed and bumped Shana, who normally would enjoy digging Ben. Instead she looked away, tension wracking her body. Slightly suspicious, then immediately guilty for feeling suspicious, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. This emotional roller coaster was taking a toll on my best friend. I was going to have to find her daughter soon or she was going to lose her mind.

R
ingo waited inside the Fortune, in the hallway leading
to the WSOP ballroom, holding a big white FedEx box and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Ringo was my sunglass savior, BeeCoolHoldEm.com columnist of Ringo's Shadey Report. He was an accountant in Nova Scotia when he wasn't wasting his time trying to keep me properly shaded at poker tournaments. I was forever forgetting my sunglasses and, according to those who knew me, I would never have won a hand at Hold 'Em without hiding my tell-all orbs.

Ben had dropped us off with Ingrid across the street from the casino. Jack had a hot lead and ran off to follow it before we'd arrived. Since Paul's protestors were still mobbing the Fortune's entrance, I made the duo take off from there for a satellite at Poseidon's, anticipating Shana's sadness at seeing all the girls near her daughter's age at the picket line. They were painful reminders of Affie, somewhere out there.

As I wove my way through to the front door of the casino, I'd asked one of the girls, “Does your mother know you're here?” I wondered if the church was a family affair.

“Hell no,” the girl said, waving her sign that read:
Poker Sinners: REDEMPTION is the Only Holy Bet.
Cute. “And even if she did, she wouldn't care.”

Huh, maybe Paul had a really strong youth program. I hoped he didn't hear her using profanity, though, because I ventured to guess he wouldn't be too keen on it. A casino security guard who apparently thought I was in trouble reached into the throng and grabbed me out before I could ask her any more questions. Probably good thing, because Paul came around the corner about then and seemed intent on me. I slipped into the casino before he could open his mouth.

“Ringo.” I bent down to kiss him on the cheek. He blushed and fingered his four hairs over his bald spot. “You didn't have to come.”

“What? Are you crazy? And miss Bee Cool winning the biggest poker tournament in the history of the world?”

“Don't get your hopes up,” I put in. “The odds of that are less than getting struck by lightning.”

“Not quite. Richard says they are nine thousand one hundred and twenty-three to one. We just posted it on the website.” Richard was the unusual but irresistible mathematician I met on the poker cruise. Ingrid had talked him into a column on the website, “Odds Are Odd.”

Shaking my head, I sighed. I was really going to have to check the website more often. Apparently even more than I thought. I might not have wasted my time on the tournament if I thought my chances were that bad. “What are you wearing?” Ringo demanded.

I looked down at my Donna Karan black linen knee-length sheath. Ignoring Ingrid's selection and ensuing pleas, I chose to go low-key today. I thought the one shoulder added a bit of style, the clunky jewelry a bit of hip, the braided zebra heels a bit of vogue. I thought wrong, apparently.

“That's not on your list of WSOP outfits,” he chided.

“What list?”

He opened his mouth and I put up a hand to stop him. I was going to kill Ingrid. No wonder she'd been so insistent about what she called the “fresh green” layered dress with pointy, open-toed half heels. That must have been on the list. “Don't tell me, ‘it's on the website.'”

Ringo nodded apologetically and ducked his head. Oops, I'd pissed off the help. “Well, Ringo, it's too late for me to change, so I guess we'll have to just pick out shades that rock so my fans forgive me. Should I go with the classic Gargoyles, the new age Dark Hots…” I paused as I reached into my purse to pull out the choices I'd actually remembered to pack.

“Wait!” He patted his box. “You have a bigger job than that. Chanel saw your sound bite on CNN this morning and was so pleased you had theirs on, they same-dayed more over to the hotel!” He paused.

“Shades for a sinner, huh?” I flipped open the box top and began rifling through my choices.

“But, you have those to consider as well.” Ringo motioned to the nearby bench that held no less than a half dozen boxes.

I shook my head. “Ringo, time to do your job. Pick a pair for me to wear tonight.”

He fidgeted. He played with his four hairs again. “That's a lot of pressure, Bee.”

“Some of the best decisions in the world were made under pressure, Ringo. Go for it,” I said over my shoulder as I marched to the registration desk. It was amazing how quickly the numbers could dwindle…Ten thousand had become around a thousand players in just a day. Masses of WSOP hopefuls were on the loose in Vegas doing who knew what. If I'd gone into the game knowing this, I would have never played. I am a glass-half-empty person, to be sure. Backing into liking the cards, chips and felt, and then having life-and-death stakes on winning in my first experience were the only ways I ever would have kept on playing.

Fate was a strange force.

“Bee Cool.” I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned to see Thelma, wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing the day before. I wanted to get her a bath. I wanted to get her a hair-brush. Then I remembered I'd sent her on a mission. I'd forgotten because Richard might have given her a ten percent chance of showing up again with any information and I would have hoped for five. “I found out some stuff,” she whispered, furtively glancing over her shoulder. Suddenly I felt like I was in an old Alfred Hitchcock movie.

“Okay,” I said, nodding encouragingly, only realizing, after an awkward moment, that she was expecting me to show her the money. Frank would have throttled me for passing her the C-note before she started talking but I did it anyway. I was rather impatient. Something Frank was
occasionally
grateful for.

“That preacher man who's hassling you?”

I nodded again. This wasn't the tree I'd really wanted her to bark up, but maybe there was more.

“The girls he has out there holding those ugly signs?”

I nodded, feeling like a bobblehead doll. Perhaps this was all I was going to get out of her—a series of rhetorical questions.

“Those girls are off the street, a lot of them. They runaways. He pays them to hold the signs.”

Interesting. I guess that was something I could throw at him if he irritated me again. “So he picks them up off Vegas street corners, gives them a twenty and tells them to walk around singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' all day?” I couldn't remember if I'd seen the same faces every day or if the faces changed.

“No, they not Vegas girls. They all say they live in the woods up northwest.”

“The woods?” That was weird.

She nodded, certain of that.

I didn't know what any of this meant or how it was going to help me, besides perhaps a way to blackmail Paul to shut up if I had the time and energy.

“Thanks, Thelma,” I said. “You hear anything else, let me know.”

“You know I will,” she said, shoving the cash into her bra and melting back into the crowd. Talk about the perfect surveillance operative. I doubted 90 percent of the public even noticed Thelma existed. I made a mental note to mention her to Frank. Maybe I could make an honest woman of her.

“So,” a voice said to my right. “I finally get to meet the woman with the buzz.”

It was one of the famous Phils, a real player, a true poker pro. Wow. I was a bit starstruck. He gathered my hand in his to give it a shake. Thank goodness because I wasn't sure I could function. “Nice to meet you,” I began.

“I've never gotten the opportunity to thank you for edging Steely Stan out of the game. Thanks from all of us pros,” he said. “He was scum.”

Wasn't that a diplomatic way of putting it? “Well…”

“Now, you can learn to play the game so you don't embarrass the rest of us.”

“I have an intuitive technique,” I defended myself, finally finding my brain. “It might be different from yours, but still valid.”

Laughing, he shook his head. “You are a PR queen for sure. Maybe you truly are the future of the game. Scary.”

With that, Phil walked off. “Hey, what do you call your tantrums if not PR?” I hollered after him.

Ringo reappeared, proudly squiring a pair of Africa Golds. Giving him a thumbs up, I donned them and walked into the ballroom for day two. But truth be told, I was anticipating my interrogation of Serrano more than the cards leading me to a twelve-million-dollar jackpot.

 

S
errano didn't show. And once again Blackie was
there well before I was, seated and composed. Organized, show-offy bitch.

With a bit of a fuss all around the table about me being late, the first hand was dealt and Serrano's seat remained empty. I leaned over to the man next to me. “What happened to the ex-cop?”

He shrugged. “Maybe he tied one on last night and couldn't get up this early.”

Most people didn't consider noon early, but we were in Vegas, so I guess he had a point. No one else at the table seemed to know what happened to Serrano either. The disappointment I felt at losing the info train to Frank's past was surprisingly sharp.

The cards fell my way, though. The first deal gave me a pair of Kings with a Flop of a pair of Kings and a Queen, two of which were spades. That was good, because it might give someone with a queen in the hole enough gumption to stay in to see The River and those with a flush draw a glimmer of hope. A rope-a-dope strategy would earn me the most chips. I raised conservatively and promised myself not to show I had the nuts.

Sure enough everyone but Blackie and the small blind folded before Fourth Street. The third spade, an eight, fell on The Turn, which conveniently kept the small blind in the game, apparently having made his flush draw. I called, waiting to raise on Blackie's reraise. The pot had grown considerably. I was tempted to push, but thought I should scare them off less dramatically. I wouldn't play aggressively tonight, it was way too early in the tournament for that. I wanted to milk the funds out of the table gradually. Aph's captors just told me to stay in it—not to win.

I don't know what Blackie had in her pocket because she finally folded on The River reraise when I made the all in decision.

Two breaks later, a WSOP official came around and motioned across the room for a player to take Serrano's place.

“What?” the dealer asked. “The guy just didn't show?”

“You could say that. Rudolph Serrano is dead.”

I gasped. “A heart attack? Stroke?”

“Nope, he was offed. Found in an alley this morning. Knifed overnight. Cops are working the room right now.” He pointed to a couple of plainclothes detectives under close watch of a phalanx of plainclothes casino security. “Why? Anyone at this table have a special interest in the guy?”

The dealer paused in middeal. Everyone turned and looked at me.

 

D
etective Trankosky wasn't happy to see me when
the WSOP official dragged me over to their impromptu interrogation room at the next break. The tournament wanted the cops to go away and they apparently were willing to sacrifice me in order to accomplish that goal.

“You again,” he growled, hitting himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand.

“What are the odds that of all the hundreds of detectives in this county, I would encounter you twice in forty-eight hours, Detective?” I smiled sweetly.

“What are the odds that I would have two poker players slashed to death in two days and you were around both of them within hours of their deaths, Belinda?” he returned.

Mexican standoff. Though naturally impatient, I waited silently because I knew he'd hate it. I expected him to arrest me this time, and I wanted to make sure he had to work for it.

Finally, he said: “How long had you known Serrano?”

“About three hours. He sat down at my tournament table. We met.”

Trankosky waited again. I bit my tongue again. “But I hear you chatted him up all night.”

I shrugged my left shoulder. There was no way I was going to tell him about the Frank connection even though suspicion had sprung directly into my mind. Where had Frank been all night? I hated this operating half in the dark.

“Well, what about it?”

“It was no big deal; I like to make conversation.”

“With everyone but me, apparently,” Trankosky said out of the side of his mouth. I thought he might be ready to get rid of one of his wads of tobacco but there wasn't one there. “What did you talk about?”

“Nothing in particular…good shows, the best restaurants…”

“So you didn't know he was from the same hometown as your boyfriend?”

I blinked, taken aback by the fact that the cops knew I had a boyfriend. Did I have no secrets from either side of the law? “I think he mentioned it. It's a pretty big hometown.”