Cashed In Read online

  “Here,” Ingrid pushed a random wad of fabrics into my chest. “This is hot.”

  Beyond arguing, I went into the bathroom and donned a black satin and white lace camisole that I wore as a nightie, white satin pants and a short kimono-style jacket I also wore to bed.

  Ingrid knocked. I cracked open the door and she threw in some black and white Jimmy Choo stiletto sandals I’d planned to wear to make my legs look longer in my swimsuit along with a rope of black glass beads.

  Doubling the necklace around my neck three times so it hung unevenly just below my cleavage, I looked in the mirror as I stuck in earrings. Damn if I weren’t back in Vegas after all. At least no church ladies would be seen within miles of me.

  “This is Belinda ‘Bee Cool’ Cooley,” Kinkaid announced, gesturing toward me with her microphone. I waved from the corner of the Shuffle Lounge where I’d been trying to hide behind the six-foot sculpture of an Ace of Spades that reminded me of the live cards of Alice in Wonderland. “Bee Cool was the surprise winner of The Big Kahuna, the Lanai Pro-Am tournament in Las Vegas, last winter. She went in an ‘am’ and came out a pro.” Pause for Kinkaid to chuckle. “Since then, she’s been spending all those big bucks and keeping a low profile in the Hold ’Em world . . . until she came aboard the Sea Gambler. This is her first public appearance since her big win!”

  The crowd murmured, some staring and whispering behind hands as others clapped. I shifted uncomfortably on my Choos. I wished for the linen suit when somebody’s grandma raised her eyebrows at my too revealing camisole.

  I’d been the last of the dozen “stars” to be introduced, which had risen my hopes that I would be forgotten altogether. No such luck. Now instead of forgotten I would be the one most remembered as Kinkaid said: “Time to mix and mingle! Have a lemonade—soft from the punchbowls, hard from the bar. See if you can pry”—pause for Kinkaid to glare pointedly at me—“a secret or two out of our poker stars. One might help you win our tournament which begins tonight!”

  As Kinkaid handed off her mic to an underling, a quartet on stage struck up “Luck Be A Lady Tonight.” I’d planned to pivot off the six-foot King of spades to my left and hit the exit door four paces to my right but half a dozen mixer goers surrounded me with arms outstretched, tournament programs in their hands. I stared, aghast for a moment. I could never understand why someone would want any autograph, most especially mine.

  One woman whacked her husband across his shoulder. “She needs a pen, stupid.”

  Embarrassed, he produced one. I thanked him and began signing under my photo as the group began to fire off questions:

  “What was the key to your Big Kahuna win?”

  “Luck.”

  “Do you card count?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “When are those times?”

  “When I haven’t already folded.”

  “How would you characterize your play?”

  “Like one in a million.” Like a million people play a better game than I do.

  They all left to look for another, more satisfying, target, shaking their heads. I heard one woman stage whisper to her husband, “That one isn’t going to bust loose with one secret, is she? Keeping it all tucked into that silicone-enhanced push-up bra.”

  Aghast, I looked at my cleavage.

  “I don’t know. It looks one hundred percent real to me,” a voice to my right said.

  Blushing, I turned to see one of my fellow “stars.” He smiled and shrugged, holding out his left hand. “Rick Santobella.”

  I took his hand, which produced a surprisingly limp shake. He was a solid six foot two, probably two hundred seventy-five pounds. He wore his dark hair in a buzz cut, his thick neck had gone a little soft in the twenty years since he likely last held a football. He and an old cowboy named Rawhide were the only “poker stars” besides me who hadn’t worn sunglasses to the indoor mixer.

  “Nice to meet you. And thanks for your opinion.”

  “An easy one to give,” he admitted, still smiling without a hint of a leer. I relaxed as he said, “Impressive win there at the Lanai.”

  I waved the compliment off. “No, not really. I just lucked into it. You should’ve been there.”

  “I was there.”

  When I cocked my head in confusion, Rick explained: “I was in Vegas shooting an ad for Nytex playing cards and Stan was a friend of mine. I stopped by to see him play.”

  Shocked, I stepped back and into the metal Queen of Hearts sculpture behind me. Unbalanced, I teetered on the Choos until Rick reached out to steady me, which startled me so I grabbed the sculpture at an odd angle instead. “Uh, I’m sorry. About Stan. About beating him and everything . . .”

  “Belinda, never apologize for winning. Poker Star Rule Number One. Unfortunately Stan brought on the ‘everything’ else that happened to him. Greed can do ugly things to a person.” Rick paused introspectively. I gave him his moment, releasing the breath I’d held waiting for his answer. Whew.

  “Thanks for the advice. I need all I can get. I just came on a vacation and got roped into masquerading as a star.”

  Rick shook a beefy finger at me. “Don’t underestimate yourself. There are a lot of variables in the game and if you balance just right, you can win enough times to come out on top eighty percent of the time.”

  “Easy for you to say, winner of dozens of tournaments, millions of dollars. You have your own home page, your own poker blog. You make a living at this.”

  “You could have all that too. You have to want to do it, then get organized about it.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want it, even if I could pull it off.”

  “Well, that’s the most important thing to decide. But it is a pretty cool way to make a living.”

  “It sure is,” put in a petite blonde with a youthful olive complexion, offering a shy smile as she slid her arm around Rick’s waist and he leaned down for a quick peck. Rick introduced his wife, Delia. “Except for loss of privacy. You learn to live with that, though.”

  “Okay, so what if I decide I want your kind of life. How do I get organized?”

  “You already have the image. That’s usually the hardest part.”

  “Image?” I asked timidly. I didn’t especially want the answer. Bumbling, fumbling goofball who wears nightgowns in public?

  Rick swept his arm from my feet to my head. “You’ve got a distinctive one-of-a-kind look—fashion, attitude. The same one you had at the Lanai, except even braver. People recognize, remember and want to emulate you.”

  “But this,” I gestured at my outfit, “was a mistake.”

  Delia smiled gently. “Then keep making it. It’s what makes you Bee Cool.”

  So if I wanted to do the World Series of Poker tour, I was going to have to close my eyes and throw things out of my closet willy-nilly as I did when I packed for Vegas or take a human s’more and her sidekick along as my fashion consultants? Scary.

  “One more thing,” Rick said. “You need to start getting sponsorships. Telegenic as you are, I can’t believe you haven’t already been contacted.”

  “Uh, I have, actually.”

  Rick and Delia both cocked their heads.

  “It’s nothing really. Right after the Big Kahuna, Maui Jim wanted me to wear their sunglasses in my next tournament.”

  “And where are they?” They both asked, looking at my head, hands, purse.

  “I didn’t accept.” The couple sighed and shook their heads. I rushed to explain. “I wasn’t sure when I would be doing another tournament and I have this pair of Gargoyles that my friend gave me that are kind of a lucky talisman.”

  Poker players respect nothing if not luck and talismans. Still, Rick was a businessman. “So find a new talisman, a card marker, a rabbit’s foot, copy of the Maui Jim check.”

  “I couldn’t hurt Ringo’s feelings.”

  I know I didn’t imagine the flash of respect in Rick’s eyes when he said, “Get over it. You are going to hurt feelings beating
people at cards. As long as you do the right thing and—”

  “The right thing is to keep Ringo’s glasses.”

  Rick sighed as he and Delia shared a raised-eyebrow look. “Guess we have to find her a playing card company endorsement then, don’t we, dear?” Delia said.

  “Are you handing out endorsements now, Ricky?” An intense, whip thin man who couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds jumped into our conversation. While most men at the mixer were dressed in cotton button-down, guayabera or Hawaiian shirts and light slacks appropriate for a summertime cruise in the tropics, this guy had on a black turtleneck sweater and wool trousers. Sweat pebbled his forehead and upper lip. “Got one too many and doing some charity work, are you?” he said, eyeballing me over his mirrored Dragons.

  Rick sighed. “Bee, would you like to meet our colleague, Denton Ferris?” It obviously pained him to call him a colleague. In making an introduction a question, he was obviously hoping I would say no, I would prefer not to meet him.

  If I had more balls I would have, because the guy gave me the creeps. Elva brainwashed me too well, however, so before I could even consider the negative, I was nodding in the positive, extending my hand. “Mr. Ferris.”

  “This is Bee Cool, Ferris,” Rick informed him, as if it were obvious. As if I were someone. I wondered what I had done to deserve this treatment. Even though Rick and I had gotten along well from the start, this still seemed odd.

  “Really?” Ferris smiled mirthlessly, revealing an unusually white set of teeth at least one mouth size too small. He ignored my hand, thank goodness, so I could drop it to my side without touching him in good conscience.

  Elva’s good manners reared their ugly head again, as I couldn’t let the silence stretch on uncomfortably long. “That’s the nickname the media gave me in my last tournament,” I explained. “What’s yours?”

  Rick took a half turn to hide a grin as Ferris fidgeted on the balls of his feet. He muttered something.

  Cocking my head, I said: “Excuse me?”

  “Some of the blogs call me Ferris the Ferret,” he muttered slightly louder. Rick’s grin bloomed.

  Ack. He did look like a ferret come to think of it, but if he were an Internet champion, how would they know that? “It must be because you are such a cunning player.” I filled the silence again.

  “Exactly,” he snapped. “Now if we are finished with show and tell, then I want to know what you two plan on doing to protect yourselves?”

  Rick, Delia and I passed around a perplexed look. “What do you mean, Ferris?” Rick finally demanded.

  Ferris snorted in disdain. “I figured you would be too thick to figure it out, Santobella. One too many headlocks as a professional wrestler, no doubt.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Ah, that’s where his thick build came from.

  Rick didn’t rise to the bait, although Delia looked like she wanted to rearrange Ferris’s pointy little teeth.

  He turned to me, grimacing at my head like I’d become Medusa. He sniffed. “And I guess you have a little too much blond in that red hair of yours.”

  “Uh, it’s really auburn with copper highlights.” I pointed out.

  Rick hid a grin again, as Ferris fought to regain control of the subject. “Indeed. The point is, you two will probably be next.”

  “Next to win a tournament?” Rick asked lightly.

  “Next to disappear without a trace.”

  Five

  While we stood in stunned silence, trying to make some sense out of the bizarre statement, Ferris looked furtively over his shoulder, spun around and scurried out the nearby door.

  “Ferris, wait!” Rick finally called too late.

  We shared a look and a shrug. “Do you have any idea what he was talking about?” I asked.

  The Santobellas shook their heads. I glanced once more at the empty doorway and shrugged again.

  A handsome, swarthy kid shyly sidled up to us. “How are you, sir?” he asked Rick as he bowed to Delia, pushing his Killer Loop sunglasses to the top of his head and revealing huge liquid dark eyes. Rick introduced me to Mahdu Singh, the teenage Hold ’Em wunderkind from New Delhi. I’d seen some magazine articles on his amazing rise to fame. He shook my hand with the awkwardness of youth.

  “Have you seen Sam Hyun?” Mahdu asked Rick after a moment.

  “Sam the Man is here?” Rick blurted in surprise. “Are you sure?”

  Mahdu nodded.

  “But why would the man who made Texas Hold ’Em a household name be on this ship and not paraded around with the rest of us?” Rick asked, clearly aghast. “I heard he wasn’t playing anymore. No one has seen him in Vegas for years.” Shaking his head, he turned to me to explain. “Sam won the WSOP main event back six years ago when only a couple thousand entered versus the eight thousand who entered this year. Anyhow, he won two million dollars and proceeded to lose it all the next day, along with another half million he didn’t have. He tried to play his way back into the money for a while in high-profile tournaments and never could do it, breaking one of the cardinal rules of the game—he was bent on chasing the cards.”

  Madhu nodded thoughtfully. “When you’re down, you just have to forget what you lost and consider each deal a fresh one, otherwise, the losses pull your luck down and the chase makes you too impatient to wait for the right cards that can win for you.”

  “Why would Sam be on this boat, of all the boats in the world?” Rick muttered to himself.

  “Here’s the man I loath to see,” said a stylish brunette I guessed to be in her late twenties as she came up between Rick and Delia, pushing her Lancaster Diamond Butterflys to the top of her head. Now, I definitely felt like I was missing an accessory.

  “Now, why would you say that?” Rick asked, leaning down to give her a hug.

  “Because you always beat me!”

  Smiling indulgently, Rick motioned to me. “Belinda Cooley, please meet Rhonda the Ruler Sanchez.” Rhonda and Singh had already nodded familiarly at each other.

  “A pleasure.” Rhonda reached out in the space between the two of us and took my hand in a shake firmer than one expected to come from her petite, well manicured hand. But the longer she stood talking to the Santobellas, the more the confident shake seemed appropriate. I thought I might have pegged her age wrong because she came across as being more mature than a twentysomething should be. I immediately thought she was someone Ian ought to meet.

  Rick turned to me. “Rhonda and our daughter graduated together a couple of years ago from medical school.”

  “A doctor, how impressive. What is your specialty?”

  “Neurology. I’m not going into practice. I am focusing on research at the UT Health Science Center.”

  I nodded, impressed. “Why do they call you The Ruler?”

  Rick and Delia both chuckled. “Because when she sits at the table, she is in total control in about ten seconds, all the players under her spell. If she could harness Lady Luck too, she would have it made.”

  She shot an odd look at Rick. “But you are the one who seems to have figured out the secret of Lady Luck.”

  “Hardly,” Rick answered breezily.

  I changed the subject before the chink in the conversation could expand. “So, maybe we should ask Rhonda if she knows anything about Ferris’s comment?”

  Rhonda tensed, her glossed lips drawing into a fine line. Delia shifted from flowered sandal to flowered sandal. Rick shook his head. “Ferris is a crackpot.”

  “Psycho freak is more like it,” Rhonda put in acidly.

  “Are they talking bad about you again, sis?” Ben sidled up on my left, slid an arm around my waist and kissed my cheek, breaking the tension and setting fire to female fantasies. Rhonda’s eyes lit up. Delia melted. I wanted to back-hand him, but instead I smiled and introduced him around the group. Ben always knew the best ways to wriggle out of trouble. Approaching me in public when I wanted to kill him was of course perfectly plotted. Then we would have to sit together at dinner in fro
nt of Mom and Dad where, again, I would have to bite my tongue. Grr.

  “So who’s the psycho freak if not you, Bee Bee?” Ben asked, winking at Rhonda.

  “One of our fellow poker stars,” I answered. “He seemed to think that Rick and I were about to disappear . . .”

  “I just heard about that and came to make sure you’d packed your pepper spray to ward off bad guys.”

  “What are you talking about?” The four of us asked at once.

  “One of the passengers apparently is an insurance investigator and has found a link between a rash of unexplained disappearances at sea. Another passenger overheard him quizzing some of the cruise staff about it.”

  “What’s the link?”

  “All those who disappeared played poker.”

  “Since eighty-five percent of America plays poker now, that is as much of a link as they all had blue eyes.” Rick pointed out.

  Ben shook his head. “They all won at poker. Even if they weren’t all considered famous, like you all, they each had lifetime poker winnings totaling more than a quarter million dollars.”

  “Maybe the motive was robbery, then.” Rick said. “And that wouldn’t be a problem here, because Kinkaid just explained to me before the reception that they will be keeping track of our winnings at the casino and in cash games on a plastic key card like the Vegas casinos use. The difference is, it’s going to work like a credit card. We get the balance at the end of the cruise, with the cruise line hoping the balance is in their favor, I’m sure. The only cash anyone should have on this cruise is just for shopping at port.”

  Ben shrugged. “From what I heard, there’s no proof any of the passengers who disappeared were robbed. One lady’s purse disappeared but it could have gone over the side with her. Some wallets were missing, apparently, but they could have been lifted by the cruise staff after the fact. Some wallets were found sitting where the missing person was last seen.”