AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She gives me a helpless look, her atomic green eyes full of indecision.
When we were little, if we went for ice cream, or out to eat, she always waited for me to order, then said, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“Please, Brigid,” Dad begs, using prayer hands and bent knees, looking more like he needs the bathroom than he needs the forty-grand. “It’ll be over before you know it. And you might even have a good time!”
“It’ll be over before you know it and you might have a good time…” I repeat in a mocking tone, adding, “Sounds like what everyone says about losing your virginity.”
Greg’s the only one that reacts, with a nod and a snort.
“What do you think?” Brigid turns her pleading eyes my way. “With forty-grand we could get our own place, a car…some more dogs…”
Right on cue my blind and deaf seventeen-year-old Pomeranian, Oscar, wakes from his place under the chair, stretches, then bumps into my dad’s leg. He pulls back his lips, baring his four remaining teeth on a growl. He hates men. Especially my dad.
“Wait!” Dad hops on one foot with his attention now more on Oscar than pity-guilting Brigid into the acting job. “No more dogsand—” Oscar nips at the back of his sandal as he hops away, lowering his voice, flicking his eyes back at the dog who is now wagging his tail at the wall. “Baby,Ineed that money.”
“I was joking,” Brigid says, rolling her wide, Bo Derek eyes.
“He could be here inside of an hour for a little audition,” Greg chimes in, heading the ship into shore, flashing a cripplingly white smile that shows off his new veneers.
Even if Brigid says no, the rest of the day will be filled with Dad brow-beating her until she gives in. Because with me, he knows that won’t work, but with her?
She’s got soft spots where mine have calloused over when it comes to our father.
A yes right now will just save time.
“Okay.” She sighs, throwing up her hands as I do the same on a huff.
“Thank you,thank you,” Dad says, then fist bumps Greg. “This is going to begreat, just trust me, girls. Have I ever let you down?”
chaptertwo
Dietrich
One last deal,then I’m out.
If I live that long.
The concrete landing pad below wavers in the soul crushing Vegas heat. The rhythmicthump thump thumpof the helicopter blades matches the pounding in my temples.
The chopper reeks of stale cigarette smoke and vomit. Sort of like most casino floors at four AM.
This month’s home base for me is the Presidential Suite at The Venetian with a high rollers pass to use the private elevators and back hallways that keep me from the incessant press of tourists that pack the massive hotel and casino every day of the year.
Hotel life suits me. My possessions fit into three large trunks along with a few suitcases and I’m comfortable in the orderly environment of a high-end hotel. Room service and a private concierge can bring you anything.
For a price.
A gambler’s life has treated me well, thanks in most part to my superhuman ability to read people.
Or, otherwise called, The Art and Science of Body Language.
It’s a horrible title for the book about my life I’ve been writing on and off for the last four years. One I’ll finish as soon as I secure this last deal and who knows? Maybe there’s a Hemingway inside me waiting to be set free.
Less the suicide. And the drinking. And the divorces.
Okay, never mind Hemingway.
I open and close my left hand as the helicopter shakes around me. The aching in my knuckles is from a little lesson I delivered in the basement of an abandoned warehouse a few days ago. The blood washes off but as the years pile on, the pain takes longer to subside. My morals may be painted in shades of gray, but there are things I do not tolerate.
