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“I always pay my gambling debts!” She laughed, shuffling the cards expertly so that they seemed to flow through her long, be ringed fingers. “And I have never regretted losing that night. But tonight…” and her voice became light, teasing, “what shall be the stakes we play for tonight?”
“Why not… ourselves?” Jesus Montoya’s voice was deceptively soft; he shrugged as our eyes turned to him. “Why not?” he repeated, and leaned forward across the table as he looked at Monique. “You want us to play a game, si? And this is why we are all here tonight, to make plans for another kind of game, just as much of a gamble. So I suggest to you that the only reason for taking risks is if the stakes are high enough to make it—shall we say—interesting?” He gave his short, almost soundless laugh. “It is not as if we were strangers to each other—but if we are to be partners in an enterprise where both the risks and the rewards are great, what better way to find out how much we are prepared to risk—who are the daring, and who are the cowards? I propose that we play this game, each against the other, and for whatever we have on our persons, including our services, of course.”
I tried to keep all expression from my face as I looked around at the other faces in the short silence that followed.
Monique’s eyes gleamed with a strangely lambent fire, and she breathed more quickly. Her husband looked thoughtful, but in no way dismayed. Mark, his face more than usually flushed, drained his glass at a gulp, as if it had been water and not brandy he was drinking.
Lucas was frowning, and I thought for a moment that he was going to protest, but the next moment, catching Montoya’s slightly amused stare, his lips tightened and he kept silent.
It was Monique to whom Montoya had directed his suggestion, and Monique who answered for us all, her voice strangely breathless.
“Yes! I say yes! I may be a woman, but I have never been a coward. And if you lose, Jesus, you will work with us for nothing?”
“That would depend on how heavily I lose—if I lose—wouldn’t it?” His lips smiled thinly under his dark moustache. “And if I win—more than you have to offer as you sit there—then, of course, my fee would be doubled.” His hooded eyes looked around the table. “It is agreed? In this game, there are no husbands and wives, or friends. We play for ourselves, each one of us, and the winner names his or her price.”
Forty-Three
Perhaps it was the brandy I had consumed so recklessly that evening, but I remember having the oddest feeling that this had all happened before. The French call it déjà vu. Everything seemed familiar, and in some way foreordained.
The polished brass chandelier cast a bright glow over the green baize that covered the table, and the intent faces of the players seemed shadowed. I remembered that my father had killed a man over a game of poker, and that my reckless ancestor, the Black Earl, as they had called him, had shot himself later after realizing the extent of his losses. And did Lucas remember what had happened with Flo, or was his mind too occupied with Monique’s nearness?
I was surprisingly clear-headed as I studied my cards, and the faces of the others. It was one of the things my grandfather had taught me. I could almost hear his voice.
“Always watch their faces, granddaughter. Tell you everything. There isn’t a poker player in the world that doesn’t show some kind of sign, even a too-blank look.”
But in this case, there was nothing that I could read in any of the varying expressions around the table. Not yet…
With a little laugh that betrayed her barely suppressed excitement, Monique dropped one of her rings onto the table.
“There—” she said. “That’s for openers.”
The game that had seemed a kind of joke only a little while before had begun in earnest. Time passed, the atmosphere grew heavy with cigar smoke and tension. I was able, at last, to recognize a kind of pattern in the way each person played, although at first the cards seemed evenly divided.
Lucas was overly cautious, while Monique played recklessly. John Kingman never bluffed. Montoya was completely unpredictable. It was Mark, sitting next to me, who seemed nervous. A few times, I saw his hands actually shake. But it was Lucas I watched most closely, from behind the convenient screen of my lashes.
He had deliberately avoided glancing in my direction all evening, but now, as all talk of “business” had become more desultory and finally died away into the silence of concentration, I forced him to notice me at last.
When I saw that the cards were running in my favor I began to play with luck quite ruthlessly. Montoya saw what I was doing and knew why—once or twice I caught his black eyes on me, bright with a half-hidden gleam of mo
ckery. As for the others, I saw them begin to look at me with expressions that mirrored varying degrees of surprise and respect. The diamond stars I wore in my hair gave me an advantage over them all, and I wasn’t afraid to use it. As I began to win consistently I forced the bidding up higher, and even Monique began to frown over her cards.
“Your wife’s quite a poker player,” John Kingman said to Mark as he threw in his hand.
“So I have discovered.” Mark’s voice was deliberately expressionless, making me wonder whether he suspected what I was about. I said lightly, “It’s only beginner’s luck. I feel that I cannot lose tonight!” and he followed Mr. Kingman’s example, tossing his cards onto the center of the table with a shrug.
Monique was biting her lip, looking from my face to the cards she held. Her hand went up unconsciously to touch her one remaining eardrop. And then, saying petulantly, “You’re too lucky this evening!” she too threw in her hand. I looked at Montoya, who lifted his shoulder expressively. “As Monique says, you are too lucky. And me, I have always been a cautious man.” But I thought I saw a half-smile lift the corner of his mouth, as if he wished to convey to me silently that he knew very well what I planned.
For now, only Lucas and I remained in the game, and because he had played carefully and conservatively his pile of winnings almost equaled mine. But I had lost only one diamond star, and that to him—and there were nine more pinned among the coils of my hair.
“And you?”
This time he met my eyes, and I saw the green lights flicker in his.
“I think you’re bluffing.”
I laughed, and pushed everything I had won into the center.
“Then prove it—if you dare.”
