Part 20 (1/2)
CHAPTER 61.
”DEALER, WHERE would I find the ladies' room?” asked Valerie, calmly raking in the pot.
The question wasn't exactly the prototypical reaction after winning a big hand. In fact, a few of the pros around the table even let go with wry smiles. All in a day's work, right, lady?
If they only knew. Poker pros were awfully good at reading people. Not that good, though.
Valerie knew exactly where to find the ladies' room. She simply wanted to make sure the Saudi knew where he was going. After stacking her chips, she stood up from the table and walked away, not once looking back at Al Dossari to make sure he was watching. h.e.l.l, that would've been redundant.
Right on cue, he was waiting for Valerie when she stepped out of the ladies' room a couple of minutes later. He was pretending to be finis.h.i.+ng a call on his cell. She was pretending to be surprised to see him.
”Well played,” he said.
”The right card fell for me, that's all,” she answered. ”But thank you.”
He took a step toward her, extending his hand. ”My name's Shahid, by the way.”
Valerie extended her hand in return, smiling when he held on to it for a split second longer after she let go. ”I'm Beverly.”
His black suit was clearly custom-made. The white s.h.i.+rt was silk, and the open collar showcased a gold chain that was gaudy but not quite rap staresque. Some men will never learn that outside of a wedding band, jewelry is best left to the women.
”Where are you from, Beverly? I'm a.s.suming not from here.”
”Back east,” she said. ”DC.”
”I know the town well. I actually do a little business there.”
More than a little, Valerie was thinking. None of it legal, either. This charade, the entire operation, was all about proving it.
”And what about here?” she asked. ”Is Vegas business, too?”
”Sometimes it is, yes,” he said. ”This particular trip, though, is simply for pleasure.”
”I hope I didn't just ruin it for you.”
He smiled. ”That depends.”
”On what?”
”On whether or not I can buy you a drink.”
”If I'm not mistaken, we're in a casino, Shahid,” she said. ”The drinks are free.”
His smile widened. ”In that case, I'll buy you two.”
Valerie inched closer to him. It was subtle but unmistakable. ”You're quite the charmer, aren't you?”
”Is that bad?” he asked, playing along.
”It may not be good.”
”According to Oscar Wilde, it doesn't matter,” said Al Dossari, flas.h.i.+ng his Ivy League education. ”It is absurd to divide people into good or bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
Valerie tried to bite her tongue. The trickiest part of any undercover operation was forgetting who you were in light of who you were supposed to be.
She knew the quote. She even knew the Oscar Wilde play it came from, Lady Windermere's Fan. But between her and Beverly Sands, only one of them had been a drama major at Northwestern.
Still, she couldn't help herself. Besides, the goal was to beguile Al Dossari, wasn't it?
Valerie took another step toward him, this one far less subtle. They were close now, very close. Had it been a Catholic school dance, the nuns would've surely separated them. ”We are all in the gutter,” she whispered. ”But some of us are looking at the stars.”
Immediately, Al Dossari took a step back. He was genuinely surprised. ”You're familiar with the play?”
Considering she'd just quoted another line from it, it was a rhetorical question. But Valerie wasn't about to point that out. Neither was Beverly Sands.
”The girl can do more than just play poker,” she quipped.
He stepped toward her again, his crocodile loafers barely touching the ground. ”I'd like to learn more about you, Beverly.”
Valerie smiled, the kind of smile that suggested the feeling was mutual. She'd practiced it many times in front of a mirror.
I want to learn more about you, too, Shahid. And I intend to. Far more than you could ever imagine, far more than you ever thought possible....
CHAPTER 62.
IT WAS more like a pit in the brain, as opposed to the stomach. I'm going to miss Claire's funeral.
The thought had been lodged in the back of my head, if only because the rest of me was still grappling with the fact that there was going to be a funeral in the first place.
Maybe, just maybe, I'd thought, the fact that I couldn't be there-or even, for the time being, explain why to her sister-would get easier to bear as the days pressed on. Instead, it was only getting more difficult. Especially after Owen and I left the city.
Every man has his price. For the driver of the livery cab who took Owen and me all the way from Manhattan to Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, it was nine hundred dollars. The guy made a big stink about having to get it all in cash. Little did he know that was the only way we could pay him.
Our credit cards, each and every one, had been canceled before we even crossed the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge into Jersey. A few attempts at some online purchases in an open Wi-Fi hot spot were all it took to find out. Presumably, our ATM cards were shut down, too.
So that was the game now. They-whoever ”they” were-knew there was no point trying to find us courtesy of Amex, Visa, or MasterCard, or any bank withdrawal. That left the flip side, cutting off our funding and hoping it would limit our options travel-wise. It's always harder to hit a moving target.
All the more reason why Owen and I were on the move.