Death Plays Poker Read Online Free PDF Page B

“How good are you?”
    “Good enough.” Noah knew he wasn’t as good as Joe and the other pros, but he had cash to throw around. His instructions were to infiltrate this scene, and he could afford to lose a bit up front, because soon he was only going to win. “You know how to get on the waiting list?”
    “Yeah,” Joe said. “You give your name to Loni.”
    Noah glanced toward the bar where Joe was indicating. “Big blond with the rack?”
    Joe nodded. “Looks good from a distance, huh? You can only tell her age when you get up close.”
    “How old is she?” Noah’s mom would be off in a rant about women like Loni — fake breasts, probably fake lips, too — making women who didn’t artificially enhance their appearance feel inferior. His father would defend a woman’s right to plastic surgery. His mother would get insecure, and the conversation — if there had been a conversation — would degenerate.
    Joe shrugged. “Late forties? Why, you want to hit that?”
    Noah struggled to keep the slice of pizza he’d just eaten in his stomach. “No.”
    “Don’t knock the powers of a woman with experience. Never had her myself, but I’ve heard good things.”
    Noah studied Joe, whose eyes seemed to be on both poker tables at once. The tables were half a level below them on the other side of the rail, like a boxing ring for everyone to gawk at. Did Joe know that his game — his careful hand-reading, his assessment of odds, his strategic bullying — was being compromised by a ring of cheaters?
    But hang on — here came someone interesting. Noah’s gaze shifted toward the entrance to the private room, where a young woman was walking in with Mickey Mills. All right, so she was wearing a bright blue dress that was a bit fashioned-up for this crowd — Noah didn’t have time for high-maintenance bullshit. But this girl had intelligent eyes which, unlike the rest of the players he’d met, looked like they could see beyond her own selfish interests.
    “You know that girl?” he asked Joe.
    Joe stopped watching the game and followed Noah’s gaze. “The brunette with Mickey? Why? You like her?”
    Noah shrugged.
    “That’s Tiffany. She’s the bane of my girlfriend’s existence.”
    Noah felt a corner of his mouth lift in amusement. “Why do they hate each other?”
    “It’s one-sided,” Joe said. “Liz hates Tiffany. She donked out and cost Liz her tournament.”
    “What’s Tiffany doing with Mickey Mills?” Noah asked. “Are they dating? He looks like he’s twice her age and then some.”
    “More likely he’s coaching her.” Joe turned his gaze back toward the poker tables. “She’s hot. I can see why you like her.”
    “She’s not that good-looking.” Noah set down his beer and leaned into the bar rail. The rail wobbled a bit, so Noah stopped leaning — he didn’t think the players at the poker tables on the other side would like him to come crashing into their game. “But when you compare her to the rest of the women here, she stands out by a mile. You know what her story is?”
    “She’s a trust fund kid,” Joe said. “She’s read a few poker books and she thinks this poker tour is a better investment than the stock market.”
    Noah laughed. “She any good?”
    “At poker? No. But she’s smart. I saw a couple of moves that would make Sklansky proud. Too bad her eyes give her game away. Still, with Mickey coaching her — and maybe a pair of dark glasses — she might pick it up in time to do okay in Vancouver.”
    “Is she going to Vancouver?” Noah was surprised to feel his hopes rise.
    “I think so.”
    Noah took a smoke from his pack. The nice thing about an illegal side game was the bar bent the idiotic bylaws about smoking. The nice thing about hanging with white trash was that most of them smoked. “You don’t think she’ll cash in Niagara?”
    “Not a chance,” Joe said. “She might get a few more flukes, but the odds are she’ll give her chips away as