Читать книгу Count on Love - Melinda Curtis - Страница 8

ANNIE THRUST THIRTY-SIX dollars at Sam, who was still huddled over his beer with the cell phone glued to his ear. At the other end of the bar, the cashier who’d handled Annie’s chips whispered in Tiny’s ear.

“I need you,” he said, before hanging up and pushing her hand away with a frown. Obviously, she’d interrupted him making a hot date. “What did you think you were doing out there?”

“What did I…” For the love of Pete. “I thought I was helping you out.” What did he think she was doing? Annie tossed the bills he’d refused on the scarred, dark wood bar.

Sam leaned closer, as if sharing a secret. “He could have made you.”

It didn’t matter that Annie’s own imagination had tumbled in similar directions just moments ago. What had Sam done about his fears? Nothing. Never mind that he had broad shoulders made for defending others. He was only interested in protecting his tush, not hers. “Well, the least you could do is back me up if you thought he was such a threat.”

“I never left the room.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “Did you even notice he’s gone? What do I need to do to get your attention, bare my breasts?” She had been stripped of her prospects, classified as an unacceptable employee and given the heebie-jeebies by a professional gambler. Events had pushed her beyond the rules of propriety she’d conditioned herself to live by.

“Que pasa, Knight?” a deep voice boomed from the other side of the bar. Tiny filled the space behind the counter. “Was the guy a cheat or just lucky?” He cracked his knuckles just by squeezing his hands into fists.

“We can’t say for sure,” Sam said at the same time Annie declared, “Oh, yeah.”

The two of them exchanged frustrated glances.

Sam recovered first. “This is Annie Raye, my card-counting expert.”

She arched a brow at Sam before extending a hand across the bar, to be swallowed in Tiny’s giant one. “Nice to meet you.”

The man’s shadowy eyes looked her up and down, then up and down again with a glance meant to put her in her place. And then he scowled. “Wait a minute. Brett Raye’s daughter?”

The way Tiny said it, as if he’d heard of her before, made Annie queasy. By now her name should have meant nothing. Which could only mean one thing.

Dad.

Why couldn’t he let her reputation fade?

“You’ve heard of her?” Sam asked, looking slightly perplexed.

Annie started to sweat again.

“Brett Raye isn’t welcome here.” Staring in the area of Annie’s cleavage, Tiny rolled his tongue around in his mouth as if searching for some bit of food he’d missed at lunchtime, to make room for a bit of Annie. “And after today—”

“He’s a player,” Annie interrupted, fighting the urge to slump her shoulders and hide behind Sam. Instead, she buttoned her jacket up to her neck, even though the combination of pearls and material nearly choked her. She wasn’t a woman men stared at like that, or someone who got tossed out of casinos. At least not anymore. “Isn’t that what you wanted to know?”

“Is he better than you?” Tiny asked.

Sam’s laugh came out in a sharp burst of disbelief, unexpectedly refueling Annie’s temper.

“Mr. Tiny, I don’t gamble for a living,” she stated, refusing to look at Sam. What did he find so amusing? “Besides, it’s not a point of being better than anybody. Professional gamblers know which dealers they can beat and what days they work. They know which house managers will toss them out right away and which will let them get by. They may play thirty minutes one day and then not play for as many as five days. They stop playing before the amount they win attracts unwanted attention. They’re inconspicuously efficient.”

Tiny looked over at his blackjack dealer, who was leaning against the table and studying her nails. “Are you saying Yolanda ain’t doin’ her job?”

“No, no, no.” Of all the things she’d said, Tiny had to focus in on the one negative he could most easily deal with. Annie didn’t want to get the older dealer fired. This was just as much Tiny’s fault as Yolanda’s since he’d made the counter.

Tiny eyed the bills on the bar. “How much did you win?”

“Just sixteen dollars.”

He shook his head. “In less than ten minutes, betting the minimum. I’d fire her ass if she weren’t my old lady’s aunt.”

“Here,” Annie scooped up the pile of bills. “Take the sixteen back. It’ll cover Sam’s beer and a tip for you and Yolanda.” She handed Sam his twenty. “Thanks for spotting me.”

Tiny squinted at her. “Is she for real?”

“Down to her blond roots,” Sam said unhappily, pushing away his nearly untouched beer.

Was it any wonder Sam annoyed Annie?

“Maybe I should hire me a blonde.” Tiny gazed out at his bored dealer.

“Yolanda is doing the best she can,” Annie said. “She just needs more training.”

“Tell me about this guy,” Sam said, ignoring Annie. “Have you seen him before?”

“I don’t know about him specifically. They look like everyone else who gambles down here—older, worn-out. Me and the other houses, we want these guys gone. We called Aldo for advice and he said you were the go-to guy.”

“We can deter them from frequenting your card tables by making sure they don’t feel welcome, making it harder to win against your dealers,” Annie suggested. “You don’t just want to end the current problem, but also protect yourself against future gamers.”

Sam’s frown was fleeting as he glanced sideways at Annie. “Can I get a copy of the security tape of the parking lot? I’ll run a search on his plates. We might get lucky and find out he has an outstanding warrant. If so, he’ll disappear.”

“My camera system’s on the blink. Shouldn’t you be following him?”

Sam went on to reassure Tiny of his skills in finding the card counter again. The casino owner didn’t seem impressed.

Able to recognize a brush-off when she was given one, Annie slipped from the bar stool with a sigh. “Thanks for helping, Annie,” she muttered as she walked out the door. “That job at Slotto is going to be yours. Don’t you worry.”

But it was hard not to when it seemed neither of the men noticed her leave.

“THAT WAS A GREAT ACT in there. You had Tiny eating out of your hand.” Sam took Annie by the arm when he caught up to her outside. The afternoon sun warmed his skin. “It would have helped if you didn’t overpromise on that training piece. I can’t deliver on that.”

“I’ve got somewhere I need to be.” She extricated her arm and flipped open her cell phone, then hesitated.

Hesitation. Most un-Annielike.

She closed her phone and made a beeline for her decrepit Toyota. Giving up wasn’t like her, either.

Sam walked alongside and still she said nothing. Normally, he let a woman in a snit stay that way as long as it didn’t interfere with his plans. His agenda for the rest of the day included trolling some of the other small casinos to see if the card counter was going to stretch his streak. If Annie wanted to stew about something, Sam didn’t care in the least. It was time to say goodbye.

“You all right?” he asked instead.

“Peachy.”

Translation? Take a hike.

Sam should be happy. Annie wasn’t going to follow him. So, this was it. He was almost disappointed. “Thanks for your help. As bluffs go, yours was first-class. You nearly had me believing you could spot a card counter.” He pulled forty dollars out of his wallet.

She spun on him, late-afternoon sunlight glinting off her curls. “You thought I was bluffing?”

She might have a shady past, but he’d met a lot of gamblers since he’d arrived in Vegas, and she didn’t fit the mold in the slightest. “Yeah, why do you think I didn’t follow the guy when he left?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Laziness? Incompetence? You spent more time on the phone than watching the game.” She snatched the twenties from his hand. “Your pity money is insulting. You know what I wanted.”

Sam made sure Annie knew he’d watched her tuck the bills into her purse. “Just the fact that you’re going off the deep end without much provocation tells me you couldn’t handle the stress of working at Slotto.”

“You have no idea what went on in there, do you? If you change your mind about that background check, let me know.” Annie slid into her seat and shut him out.

“GRANDPA’S PHONE.” Maddy answered with practiced ease, as if she were his receptionist. No doubt she’d heard her mother take several business calls. Maddy stretched her arm to hand Brett the now ice-cream-sticky phone from the backseat. “It’s for you.”

“They sent Sam Knight.” Ernie sounded rattled.

Brett had known the Vegas casino community would respond to their card-counting venture quickly. He slowed to a stop at a red light. “He’s good.”

“We haven’t gone into the Sicilian. Or any of the other major houses.”

“I thought we’d have more time.” And that they’d send someone less well connected. Sam Knight worked for Vince Patrizio. Brett and Vince shared a past that Brett preferred not to revisit.

“It gets worse.”

“Can I talk again?” Maddy waved her hand in the air at Brett’s shoulder, talking louder than the voice in the tiny speaker pressed to his ear.

“Not just yet, puddin’. Say again, Ernie.”

“Annie was with him.”

“My…” Brett’s voice cracked. “My Annie?”

“Police!” Maddy shrieked, turning her face away from the black-and-white cruiser that had stopped next to them. She kicked frantically against his seat.

With a curse, Brett closed the phone and tossed it onto the empty passenger seat. The officer looked over and Brett tried to smile, while watching Maddy out of the corner of his eye. She was still screaming as if the devil himself had pulled up beside them.

“What’s wrong, puddin’?”

“He’s got a gun,” she wailed, chocolate-ice-cream-spotted hands over her eyes. “Don’t shoot!”

Brett spun in his seat and bit back a curse. His no-account former son-in-law had been arrested while driving Maddy somewhere. When Annie had casually mentioned that detail, Brett had had no idea what effect the incident had had on his granddaughter.

The light turned green and the police car took off.

“He’s gone, puddin’.”

A symphony of honking arose behind them.

Maddy cracked open her eyes, releasing a large tear. Her lower lip trembled as she let out a ragged gasp.

“Police are here to protect us,” Brett said. Unable to ignore all the honking, he turned around and drove. There would be time to wonder about Annie later. Right now his granddaughter needed him.

“No guns. No guns,” Maddy chanted, hiccuping.

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BUY groceries,” Annie’s dad said when he opened the door to her that afternoon.

“I bought meat and vegetables.” She avoided looking Brett in the eye in case he could tell just by glancing at her that she’d played again after all these years. Annie hurried to set the bags down on the counter. “And milk.”

Her father laughed self-consciously. “I guess you’re right. Can’t raise a child on peanut butter and crackers, can you?”

Instead of pointing out that that was exactly how she’d been raised, Annie swept Maddy into her arms. “I hope you didn’t eat too much ice cream.”

Her daughter hugged her tightly. “We—”

“We had one scoop,” Brett interrupted.

With one arm around Annie’s shoulders, Maddy looked at her grandfather and grinned. “The music was loud. I had to dance.”

“Sometimes you’ve gotta dance,” he crooned, doing a little jig.

Sliding to the floor, Maddy giggled and then grabbed her plastic princess dress-up shoes. She swayed and clacked the heels together like a tambourine, creating an uneven beat.

“Are you feeling all right?” Annie asked. Her father didn’t dance.

“Right as rain.” He reached for Maddy, who came willingly into his arms. “I’m a grandpa, you know.”

The sight of the two of them, so happy and at ease, only made Annie feel more alone. She’d been that girl once. Annie sidled around the dancing pair into the small kitchenette. The day had been full of too many ups and downs. She’d done well at the casino and had been irrationally disappointed that Sam hadn’t offered to call Carl Nunes on the spot…or to offer Annie the card-counting-expert job. At this point, even temporary employment had its allure.

Who was she kidding? She’d be a fool to want to get tied up with Sam.

“How did the job go, Annie?”

Oh, it went, all right. Annie froze in the middle of putting milk in the refrigerator, staring inside as if searching for something. The light was burned out and the top shelf was cracked and covered with duct tape. She’d come full circle.

“I’m not sure the job is going to work out,” she said, as casually as she could manage through her tight throat. She’d graduated early from high school and breezed through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on an academic scholarship. How had she become such a failure?

“That’s too bad.” Her dad deposited a giggling Maddy on the boxy brown burlap couch. “You’ll find something you like in no time, though. You always did manage to get yourself out of a bind quicker than most.”

Not knowing what to say, Annie just stared at her father, noting a funny-colored smudge near his nose. Ice cream? He twitched under her scrutiny and turned away.

“Well, quicker than me, anyway,” he said sheepishly.

There was too much water under the bridge for Annie to correct him. Still, guilt had a way of loosening lips. “I thought it might be nice to have spaghetti.”

“Just like old times.” He grinned over his shoulder and the smudge fell from his left cheek.

Maddy laughed and bounced on the couch. “Grandpa didn’t get all the Play-Doh off his face.”

There were two open canisters of Play-Doh and several doughy strings of pearls on the scarred coffee table. Annie shouldn’t have worried about Brett. He was throwing himself into the role of grandpa without any of the ulterior motives she’d expected.

“Come on, Grandpa.” Maddy held out a small hand. “Let’s make an elephant.”

Obedient as a love-struck puppy, he sat on the couch and pulled the five-year-old close to him. Unexpectedly, Annie blinked back tears. How she’d loved to do things with him as a child. He’d been her best friend. Losing that closeness had been the hardest part about refusing to play cards for him. And much as she’d wanted to find that with Frank, Annie realized now that her marriage had been lacking many things, most importantly, trust.

“HOW IS SHE?” Vince asked, without greeting Aldo as he entered the bedroom. The maids who scrubbed toilets had better manners than this cafone.

“The same.” Always the same. In a coma. He walked out of the room, giving Vince some time alone with his grandmother.

“Of course.” Vince always sounded as if Rosalie’s condition was Aldo’s fault.

The day nurse came only as far as the doorway.

“Is that a Picasso?” Vince asked when he joined Aldo scant minutes later.

“Come in. Sit down.” Aldo shuffled the deck. Keeping his hands busy made the shaking less noticeable. He did not like to appear weak in front of Vince.

His grandson didn’t sit until Paulo pulled out a chair at the table. Aldo spoke three languages fluently—English, French and his native Italian. Vince only understood the language of a bully. He was becoming more like his father every day.

Once he was seated, Aldo nodded to the painting on the wall. “Le Rêve by Picasso.”

“The portrait of his mistress?” Vince angled around for a better look. He and Rosalie shared a passion for art that Aldo never completely understood.

“Of his love,” Aldo corrected. He’d gotten the painting for Rosalie. She would enjoy it once she awoke.

“How much did that set us back?”

It was on loan from Steve Wynn, the Bellagio owner, in exchange for a large charitable donation, but Aldo wasn’t going to admit he didn’t have deep enough pockets to purchase such a prize. “Not nearly as much as it’s worth.”

His grandson laughed, the sound grating along Aldo’s bent spine. “You’ve still got it, old man.”

Part of Aldo preened at the compliment. It was rare since his grandson had returned from the war that the two of them exchanged anything other than sharp words. Sometimes Aldo wished for a better relationship with him, and sometimes—

“I don’t feel like playing tonight,” Vince said. “I’ve got places to be.”

Sometimes Aldo thought he’d be better off alone with Rosalie. “I don’t ask for much from you, Vince, except these games.”

“You ask more than that.”

“I suppose the beauty pageant rehearsal downstairs has something to do with this.”

A grin unfurled on Vince’s dark face. “I’d hate to disappoint the ladies.”

“So, you’ll play at being a celebrity. Only you’ll end up like your father, living in a trailer park in Florida with a gold-digging former showgirl. Hard work pays off, not gambling and skirt chasing.” Aldo didn’t care if Vince’s wife had left him. A married man honored his vows.

“Regretting sending that P.I. after me when I ran away as a kid?”

Aldo slapped the cards onto the table. “I may have been the only one in the family who did not. Your father was glad to see you go.” It was the blackjack game all those years ago that had led to his family’s unraveling. Aldo’s son, Nick, had overreacted to the situation. They’d all paid a price back then, but he and Vince had found common ground. Or so he’d thought. Now they’d come to this—trading insults like schoolboys.

“And now Dad’s in Florida, waiting to come back.”

“Waiting for me to die, you mean,” Aldo growled. “I won’t give what I’ve built to anyone who’s not willing to work for it.” Nick would benefit very little from Aldo’s passing. And Vince—

“You won’t be able to control us from the grave.”

“Che brutta.” How ugly Vince was. Disappointment froze Aldo in his chair. How had two generations of Patrizios become such schmucks? Three, if you counted how coarse Aldo himself had become.

Vince laughed off the insult, but his parting smile wasn’t happy and didn’t reassure Aldo that things would turn out well for any of them.

“I think I’ll retire, Paulo.” Aldo shuffled toward his bedroom, where he could face his bleak future alone with Rosalie.

STUPID. THAT’S WHAT SAM WAS.

Stupid for following Annie after she’d left him at Tiny’s. Stupid for lurking in the produce aisle while she selected zucchini and grapes. Stupid for tailing her to this run-down apartment complex where someone had let her in to the second-story apartment. And the stupidest mistake of all was him driving all the way home, only to come back, climb the shaky stairs, stand on the stoop and contemplate knocking on her door.

Sam was used to following hunches, but this was crazy. Annie wasn’t the answer to his problems on this case. She pretended to be a staid financial analyst from the tips of her heels to the curve of the pearls around her neck.

He didn’t buy for a minute that she hadn’t at least known her husband was a crook. And then there was the slick way she’d handled the situation at Tiny’s. Obviously, some of her father’s habits had rubbed off…. In the span of less than eight hours she’d tried to confuse Sam about who she really was, but he’d seen through the facade.

He hadn’t heard a word from Sabatinni. Sam was in a bind. And from the looks of the shabby apartment block, so was Annie. Maybe she did have skills he could use, and since she wasn’t Suzy Homemaker, he had no qualms about using them.

Sam rapped on the door.

“Can I help you?” The older man who opened it looked like he’d seen too many late nights in smoky bars. He had to be Brett Raye.

The furniture was dated, and the television was bolted to a stand as if this was a cheap hotel, but something smelled wonderful. Fast food was not being served for dinner. “I’m looking for Annie Raye.”

Wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, Annie, barefoot and wearing only that little lace blouse over her skirt, appeared behind the old geezer. “Sam?” Her face brightened. “You called Carl Nunes?”

Much as he hated to clear that smile off her face, Sam had to shake his head.

That quick, he became unwelcome. “How did you find me? And what do you want?”

Sam stepped into the apartment with a grin. “A funny thing happened to me in the parking lot of Tiny’s after you left.”

The old man’s mouth dropped open dramatically and he turned to Annie. “You were at a casino today?”

“Not now, Dad.”

“But—”

“Dad.”

“I left enough messages in Sabatinni’s voice mail that his box was full. And as I watched you pull out, I couldn’t help but think—”

Annie raised her brows.

“—that you were just the expert I needed on this case.” Sam waited.

She didn’t disappoint. “Go on.”

“Maybe we could work something out. You help me for a couple of days and then I help you with Carl.” He didn’t even care if she was bluffing about how much she understood card counting. As long as they found the group of cardsharps, Mr. Patrizio would be happy. And Vince? Sam would have to admit he’d taken the job, and hope his friend understood.

“This sounds an awful lot like blackmail,” Brett said with an assessing look. “I don’t think I like you.”

“Let me handle this.” Annie twirled the towel, as if about to swat someone with it. The woman had fire beneath her conservative exterior. “This is not an even exchange. My services are worth more than the price of a background check.”

He bet they were. “I can offer you a cut if we identify this card counter and any accomplices. Enough to help you out.”

Brett was making incomprehensible noises and working his mouth like a fish.

“How much are we talking here?” Annie cocked one eyebrow.

Damn, she was sharp.

A toilet flushed. A door opened. A little blond kid skipped into the room. “Is it dinner yet?”

Sam stepped back. His hands felt clammy and something unpleasant climbed up his throat. A jet roared alarmingly close overhead.

“Are you all right?” Annie had him by the arm in an instant. “Dad, help me get him to the couch.”

“Who is he?” Brett demanded.

Sam didn’t hear her answer. The little girl was floating in and out of his vision, blending and separating from images of a war-ravaged street. Shouting voices, dark robes and the barrel of a gun propped between the legs of a screaming toddler….

His feet dragged across the worn carpet until hands guided him to a sitting position. He chopped his head between his knees and gulped for air, fighting back images of a desert town and Iraqi insurgents, of bullets and…Someone pressed a glass into his hand and, keeping his eyes closed tight, Sam sucked the water down.

“She took me by surprise, is all.” He waved in the direction of the kid, without opening his eyes. “Can she go somewhere else?”

“No.” Annie’s voice. Close. The smell of strawberries reached him, stimulating and calming at the same time. “She’s my daughter. Maddy.”

Deep breaths sent much-needed oxygen to Sam’s numb limbs. Mucus dripped from his nose. His ears rang as the room spun at carpet level, which was all Sam dared look at. A kid? He had to get out of here.

“Are you all right? You’re dripping buckets of sweat. Maddy, go soak this towel for me. Hurry.”

“It’s all right…” Sam slurred the words. “I’m outta here.” But hands held him firmly in place.

“You’re not going anywhere, buster. At this rate, you’ll tumble down the stairs and break your neck. Then where would I be?” She ran something cool across his forehead and behind his neck, sending shivers down his spine, almost making him lose that hot dog he’d had for lunch.

Annie Raye kept touching him, and Sam couldn’t have moved if he tried.