“I told you, I just have a knack.”
“I’ve been doing this for years and no one’s ever caught me. How does some two-bit tourist figure it out?”
He was never going to be able to explain this. Even
if he came right out and said, I’m a werewolf, Faber would never believe it. Ben shrugged. “Really, I can’t explain it.” Which wasn’t even a lie.
“You psychic?” Faber was grasping, now. Ben smiled, like it was a joke. The gangster turned to his pretty dealer. “Keep going. It’s just a fluke, I’m sure of it.”
The other players settled in, their well-practiced, bored poker faces firmly in place, but Ben smelled their sweat, their anxiety. They didn’t want to be doing this, when they could be playing a real game, or spending time with the women—or not sitting in the line of fire of Faber’s bad mood. Ben just kept thinking about Kitty. He had a little bit of hope: If he could just convince Faber he was for real, that he really could spot the fix and there wasn’t a big conspiracy, maybe the gangster would just let him go.
Ben called it the next time Faber palmed a card. The guy grumbled at the dealer, “Again.”
This wasn’t playing a game, this was a death march.
At one point, after another dozen hands, Vince left the room and came back looking nervous. Even more nervous. A little later, he left again, came back again. This time, he didn’t bother leaning in to keep the conference secret. In front of them all, in the middle of a hand—they were waiting for the redhead to deal out the river—he launched in with a tone that was almost reprimanding.
“The casino reported him missing and the cops got tape of the two of us,” Vince said. “They got descriptions of me and Mikey, police band has APBs out, Faber.”
The room went quiet, like it always did when anyone confronted Faber, like they expected him to explode. A couple people even leaned forward, just a little, like they were waiting for a fight to break out. Ben wondered what the guy had been like in his younger days, to warrant that kind of reputation. More temper than brains, he was betting. Guys like him were a dime a dozen, building up their little ponds so they could be the only big fish around.
Kinda fun, watching the medium-sized fish thrash around in that kind of environment.
“I told him he was being sloppy,” Ben muttered at his cards.
“You stay out of this,” Vince said. He was still glaring at Faber.
Faber looked at Vince, bored-like. “What is it you expect me to do? Hand him a lollipop and let him go?”
“Jesus, Faber. At least let us dump him. He doesn’t know where the place is—he won’t talk if we threaten him good enough. Do it before the cops trail him here!”
“You have too much faith in the cops,” Faber said. “You scare too easy.”
Might as well have told him his dick was small. Vince seethed, but uselessly. He couldn’t do anything.
“Maybe not scared,” Ben said, wondering how far he could push. “Careful. Or worried. Perfectly understandable.”
Vince said, “Stay out of it.”
“Sorry,” Ben said, in a tone that wasn’t sorry at all. Wolf had settled because this was a game those instincts understood: Teasing. Distracting. Keep cool, and they’d get out of this.
Vince was seething. Not playing it cool. “We have to do something, if we want to go back to the game.”
“The game’s over,” Faber explained carefully, as if to a small child. “The casinos talk to each other, the security guys take each other out for beers. By the end of the weekend, they’ll all know, and the con’s finished. Got it? Now, you going to let me satisfy my curiosity?” “And what are you going to do with him? You just going to dump him somewhere?”
Ben closed his eyes, took a breath, steadied his heart.
“What I oughta do is lay it all on you and hang you out to dry,” Faber said.
Ben expected a fight by now. Faber would have to pound this guy in or lose face. But he saw what was happening: Faber was sending a message that Vince wasn’t worth the effort. And Vince knew it. The guy was sweating buckets.
Ben pushed. A tiny little shove, just to see what would happen. “Can I offer you a little legal advice? There’s no way you’re getting out of this on your own—”
“I said stay out of it!” Vince drew his gun and aimed square at Ben.
Well, he’d been trying to get a reaction.
Another long, stony silence, but this time Ben could hear his heart thudding in his ears. Wolf was thrashing; he kept his breathing steady.