Hold ’Em Hostage Read online

  “It’s understandable. You’re still in it, though.”

  “Yep,” I answered neutrally. “Ben isn’t.”

  “Really? Surprising. So, he’s just hanging out around there?”

  “Uh, no, he left.”

  “What?!” Frank hollered into the phone. I held mine away from my ear in case there was more. “He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on you.”

  I heard him yell at Joe to pull over, then I heard street noise, the slamming of the car door and running feet. “Sit tight. I’ll be right there.”

  “Frank, don’t kill yourself. I’m in the middle of the game in a ballroom filled with thousands of people.”

  “Yeah? And that’s the same kind of place someone tried to kill you the first time!”

  Oops, forgot that little detail. “Okay, see you soon.”

  I pocketed my phone and headed back to my table. I’d missed another hand, in which one of the college big mouths had been eliminated. Darn, hated to miss that fun. It looked like Blackie had done the deed. I’d probably been dealt a Big Slick on a Royal Flop, with my luck. Oh well, no use crying over cards already in the shuffle box.

  My next pocket was a spade-suited Baskin Robbins (Ace/ three, get it?). Not something I would usually stick around for, but since I was in the late position and everybody folded but the blinds, I decided to check to see The Flop. Staying was worth it for a deuce of spades, 4 of spades and 7 of hearts. If it didn’t get too expensive, I could hang around for The River. Blackie and the jockey checked. I noticed no twitch. Maybe I should go for it. I’d sure like to lower her stack. A seven of spades fell on Fourth Street. Blackie raised half her pot, which was all in for me. Damn and double damn. The jockey folded. No twitch. What had she gotten, trips? Flush like me? Straight? I counted cards, and decided to go with my gut and push. “All in.”

  I saw her fingers go tense and suppressed a thrill. The lack of twitch meant she was bluffing!

  Fifth Street brought a 5 of spades. Of course, overkill when I had no chips left to force her to fold. Despite the dealer’s warning glare, I slow rolled my cards in the hopes she would show hers, but she just shook her head, and hid behind her Diors. Frank showed up at the rail and located me like I was wearing a homing beacon. Hmm. I checked my purse quickly. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  I maintained pretty well for the next three hands. The fourth was a killer, though. I lost about a quarter of what I’d earned from Blackie. One of the railbirds hollered, “That’s not like you, Bee Cool. You’d better play better than that for a happy ending.”

  What I’d have usually taken as harmless jibe took on a whole new meaning under my current circumstances. I spun in my seat to look behind me and to the left, and saw a clean-cut twentysomething man in a pressed plaid button-down shirt and starched khakis retreating through the crowd. Frank was making a beeline to him from the opposite side of the rail. The dealer called my attention back to the next hand. I peeked at the two cards on the felt in front of me: a beer hand (two/seven off-suit). I folded.

  At the next break, Frank pulled me into the hallway where Carey stood with Joe aka the Marlboro Man. Joe was Frank’s assistant in his mystery job and I desperately wanted to fall in love with him. He was drop-dead gorgeous in a rugged “I can carry you across the desert with one hand tied behind my back” kinda way, really nice, humble and, although I didn’t know him well, seemed to come with a lot less baggage than Frank. Love’s a bitch, though. My heart just couldn’t do it. I sighed.

  “Honey Bee,” Frank whispered in my ear as we approached the pair. Patience strained his tone. “I wish you’d told me you sent Carey off after the bad guy.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather me be worried than angry?”

  “Hmm…” I paused to think about that. Frank’s glare deepened the longer the seconds ticked by. “No, not really,” I finally decided.

  “Girlfrien’!” Carey grabbed me in a bear hug, putting an end to what was warming up to be a bit of a lover’s spat.

  I’d met Carey Beckwith on my first trip to Vegas. We had shared a brush with death and been fast friends ever since. We text messaged all the time, but I hadn’t seen her in a long time. She was a star of Wall Street Women, one of the most popular transvestite shows on The Strip. Carey was a he but thought of herself as a she and, therefore, so did I.

  “You look fabulous,” I told her, waggling my eyebrows at her silver spandex minidress and some Christine LoPresti open-toed boots I’d die for. It was seriously wrong that a man could have legs better than mine, by the way.

  “You know, girlfrien’, I just get so sick of wearing that suit for the show that I go a little overboard when I’m out of costume.”

  “Not all your costume is a suit,” Joe blurted out. We all stopped to look at him. He shrugged. “I’ve seen the show. It was good.”

  “Thanks, Big Boy.” Carey winked at Joe, who nodded and shrugged at Frank. “Well, it was. You should see it.”

  Their interaction was cute, but I thought Frank was going to be sick. Have I mentioned, he is rather macho and very old-fashioned?

  “What did you find out?” I asked, putting my pointer finger over Frank’s lips as he opened his mouth to say something likely to be inappropriate.

  “I was just telling Big Boy here that I followed the dude just south of the Aladdin where he met a woman and traded off an envelope for another. Then he went on to an office building on West Crandall, the only twenty story on the street. I got into the elevator with him—”

  “Carey!” I interrupted. “That guy is scary. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I didn’t.” She did a little pirouette. “Thing is, dressed like this I can act like a whore and get away with it.” She giggled.

  “He knew I’d been following him, obviously, and the best thing to do was to confirm who he thought I was, or he might have gotten suspicious.”

  Frank nodded, impressed despite himself. “You’ve got a knack for surveillance, Carey.”

  “Anyhow, I told him he looked like the best money on The Strip, so I was after him. That part definitely flattered him, but he said he was working and maybe we could get together later.”

  “What would you have done if he’d taken you up on it?”

  “That’s the best part, girlfrien’, when they really think you are a whore and you turn out to be a man, you’re off the hook immediately—in more ways than one!”

  “Ingenious,” Joe murmured.

  “That’s not the best part,” Carey continued. “He got off on the fifteenth floor and gave me his card.”

  “What?” Frank blurted out.

  “Wow,” Joe said, looking suddenly insecure about his job. I couldn’t suppress the smile at the image of Carey as Frank’s right-hand woman.

  “What are you smiling about?” Frank muttered in my ear as he snatched the card out of Carey’s hand. It was fancy—gold with black lettering—but didn’t say much. J. Nunez. A toll-free phone number. No address. No profession.

  “Colleague of yours?” I asked snidely of Frank. His card was almost as cryptic, with only the word “security” to narrow things down for the ignorant.

  “Very funny,” he snapped. Frank seemed a little out of sorts. “Can I keep this?” he asked Carey.

  “And what am I going to do with it? I don’t think this dude was my type.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  Frank opened his wallet and slipped the card inside. “I’m not sure yet. I don’t want to put him on the defensive so maybe Joe and I will head over to Crandall and see if we can find out more about where he was going. The only problem with that plan is…I don’t want to leave you alone now that Ben took a powder.” Frank told his phone to dial Ben.

  The bell rang to bring us back to the tournament. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Frank shook his head ruefully. “Sometimes I really wish I could do that.”

  Humph.

&nbs
p; I could hear Ben’s message from Frank’s phone. “Ben Hot Cooley here, chill and I will get back to you.” Frank ordered him to call asap. Ha, Ben only did by accident what he was told to do. Usually he did the opposite. Frank walked over to one of the casino security stiffs and apparently asked him to keep an eye on me, because the suit edged over our way and stared at me through his Ray-Bans.

  “For your information, you have a stalker.”

  “I see that.”

  “Not him,” Frank snorted. “He’s our protection.”

  “I already have protection, remember? I am being followed by an undercover cop.”

  “That’s no protection, even if they did follow through. He’s probably following you to frame you anyway. I can trust the casino cop to try to prevent any crime from occurring in his property—that’s part of his job description—minimize bad PR. So, FYI, he is watching you because you are receiving some threats from a stalker.”

  “What did you find out that makes you think the cops want to frame me?” I asked, suddenly dry mouthed as I inched my way toward the ballroom door. By my estimate, I had about a minute to make it for the next deal.

  “I’ll tell you later, when I take you to dinner.”

  “Oh?” I asked archly. “What if I have plans?”

  “Change them. You’re going with me.” With that, he spun on the heel of his black lizard Luccheses pushed Joe in front of him, and they disappeared into the sea of people in the hallway.

  Carey sighed. “That’s one stud man.”

  “Hmm, the ‘rough around the edges’ is a little sharp this evening.”

  “Stop talking like that, you’re turning me on and I don’t have anyone to spend it on. Unless I can convert that Joe. He’s got some nice pecs.”

  Laughing, I shook my head and gave her a hug. “Thanks, Carey, for the detective work. If you ever want a part-time job, you might want to look Frank up.”

  “I think I’ll just keep my amateur status. Less pressure. You call me, girlfrien’, if you need any more help with your stalker. And I’m taking you to dinner on my night off.”

  “Deal.” I waved and hurried back to the table.

  The first hand was a killer—the other college smart-ass and the man sitting next to me were eliminated on the royal flush draw on the board that got two too many excited. I hung around with a straight draw, hit it and won. The rest of the cards weren’t fabulous but they were decent enough to play for the next couple of hours. It wasn’t long before I’d tripled my stack.

  The dinner break came. Frank didn’t. My phone vibrated with a text message. Meet me at the Neptune Show at Poseidon’s.

  A bit out of the way, but there was a good restaurant in the hotel that I wouldn’t mind trying. A couple dozen people milled in the circle around where the animated statue of King Neptune rose from the rock formation and the show began. I looked around for Frank, but only found Dragsnashark lingering in the shadows.

  It suddenly, and obviously belatedly, occurred to me that Frank had not signed his text message to me and that in fact it may not have been Frank after all. Damn and double damn. Dragsnashark was approaching through the throng that was so entranced with the high-wattage spectacle before us that no one noticed I was suddenly panicked. I wove through a family of five to make it to the front row of onlookers so I could skirt the stage and get out the other side. “Hey!” the red-faced mother yelled above King Neptune, who was now stomping his triton on the fake rock to a thundering boom out of the speakers. “You pushy bitch! My kids want to see and you’re in their way. We were here first!” Whoops. She might be more dangerous than Dragsnashark. I threw her an apologetic grin but still headed for the stage. I felt someone grab my arm and I turned to plead with Mommy Dearest and saw the hand instead attached to the man who told me I wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

  Instinct told me this was not good.

  “Help me!” I yelled to Mommy Dearest.

  That Dragsnashark yelled “Get her” was especially not good.

  “Right,” she mouthed as she reached for her hairy husband in muscle shirt and pointed at me accusingly.

  Seeing no other option, I jumped onstage. The collective gasp that arose from the crowd was that of awe unfortunately, not surprise, which meant they thought I was part of the show. Only in Vegas. King Neptune’s daughter then arose from behind another fake rock and began waving her arms around and bellowing at her dad. I dove behind her at the exact wrong time and nearly got backhanded off the stage by her swinging arm that I was forced to grab. She waved me around in the air, back and forth. Her computer-generated voice was screaming like a banshee and I was worried this might go on for longer than I could hang on. Not for the first time in Vegas I lamented the fact that I didn’t frequent the gym. Weird, I know, but welcome to my life. The audience started clapping wildly. I was an accidental hit; I just hoped I lived through it. I saw Dragsnashark waiting with a creepy anticipation for me to fly off Despina’s right arm. My good friend the king stamped his triton with a bang and put an end to her tantrum. Her arm whipped down to her side, flinging me onto the plastic that was harder than it looked.

  The three automated figures continued their disagreement, including some distracting special effects that allowed me time to crawl around the stage and see it was circular. Dragsnashark’s friend was following me and I had no avenue for escape. I could jump off now, break a bone or two and hope the audience would stop my stalkers from abducting me. Since the collective group thought I, in my magenta walking shorts and silver stilettos, was part of a legendary show, I didn’t put much stock in that option. Then I remembered how the motorized beings arrived on the scene—they arose from holes in the fake scenery. Hmm. Suddenly, Despina screamed and dissolved in a mass of steam into the hole, way too quickly for me to reach her even if I had considered sustaining a whole body sauna to get free. I was closest to the king at this point, so edged over and grabbed him just as a bolt of fire came out of his triton and felt like it was singeing every hair on my body. The audience gasped and stepped back. Man, it was hot. I almost gave up and went for the broken-bone option but just then I felt the stage move. The king and I sank into the hole under the stage, where it was dark, and blessedly cool.

  My phone rang. “Hello?” I whispered.

  “Where the hell are you, Honey Bee?”

  Eight

  Getting out from under the stage at Poseidon’s might have been a bit tricky if Frank hadn’t shown up. Apparently it was controlled by a remote computer. Humans only ventured under the stage for routine maintenance, conducted by my savior—Eminem’s mini-me.

  “Wow, like, people were talking about how totally rad the Neptune show was there in the casino and we were like, what? It’s totally lame, except for the fire at the end that feels like it’s burning your face it’s so hot.”

  “Hmm, try being in Neptune’s lap,” I muttered.

  “Anyhow, then somebody asked one of the dealers how they came up with the idea to put a real person with the, like, fake figures and then, whoa, we were totally, like, blown. I’m sure we would’ve come to check on the place in a couple of days to see what everybody was talking about.”

  “Great, how comforting,” I said.

  Frank, who’d come with Junior Pranksta to set me free, wasn’t talking. Not a good sign.

  Fortunately, Frank had somehow fixed it with the casino so I wasn’t in big trouble for messing with their stuff. He passed the kid a fifty-dollar bill. Damn. I hated owing anyone, especially Frank when he was mad at me.

  We paused in the walkway. Frank grabbed a tendril of hair off my cheek and examined it. “Hmm. You might want to consider getting a trim.”

  “Why?” I stepped just out of his reach.

  Frank leaned in to examine my face. “And maybe some fake eyelashes.”

  “What?” I trotted over to the Prada store, ducked in and looked in the first mirror I encountered. Ack. It hadn’t just felt like I was getting singed. I had been! Super.


  “The good news is, though, you won’t have to pluck your eyebrows for a while.”

  I glared at him. “It’s not that bad.” He raised his eyebrows. “Is it?” I demanded, looking back at the mirror and leaning in for a closer inspection.

  Putting his arm around my shoulders, he led us out of the store. “What’s bad is your behavior. Why did you ditch me at the tournament and decide to come ride on King Neptune’s lap for fun? You knew I was coming to get you for dinner.”

  I explained about the text message and the misunderstanding, about seeing Dragsnashark and his colleague in the audience. Frank’s mouth narrowed to a thin line. “Bee, this is serious. We don’t know what these guys want. We don’t know what they’ll do. We have to be more careful. Maybe I should get you out of Vegas right now.”

  “Frank, I can’t! What about Affie?”

  “All you can do might not make a difference for Affie.”

  My imagination spelled out what that meant in the silence. I swallowed hard. “Well, I can’t live with myself if I don’t at least try. I refuse to run away and hide.”

  Frank shook his head. “Let’s come up with a code word no one else can figure out, but if it’s not used in a message, it isn’t me, it isn’t you. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Rediwhip,” he said.

  “Why that?”

  “Remember that first long weekend we shared after the Big Kahuna…”

  Aw. Maybe the man was a romantic after all. Either that or he was a sex fiend.

  Frank glanced at his Rolex, grabbed my elbow and led me down the Forum. “We barely have time to grab a bite.”

  Las Vegas, once the prince of cheap all-you-can-eat buffets (keep them full, keep their wallets full for the casinos) now boasts some of the finest restaurants with the most sought-after chefs in the world. In fact, I could easily eat my way across The Strip without stopping. The last trip I gained five pounds even with all the running from bad guys I’d had to do. Odds were, grabbing a bite here would be a culinary sensation.