Smoke and Mirrors

69

Alexa was headed to the far edge of the casino parking lot when she heard someone yelling her name.

“Alexa! Alexa!”

She turned to see a panting Jason Parr running toward her, waving frantically. Alexa stopped and waited for him to catch up, breathless.

“Jason.”

“You…you…left before…you got…your cut.”

“Don’t be silly. I had a blast. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Man, I ain’t had a run like that since my second wife caught me with my secretary and got her hands on my forty-four Bulldog.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“Well, my wife got me good.”

“She shot you?”

“Be better if she had. She gave me a divorce so I could marry my secretary. Talk about revenge.” Jason took an envelope from his coat pocket and offered it to her. “This is roughly ten points. I didn’t have time to do a count because you run off on me. They’re counting it up now.”

“I have to go,” Alexa said. “And I can’t take that.”

She saw Brad’s truck heading toward her.

“Sure you can,” Jason said. “We had a deal and I always honor my word.”

Brad pulled up. Winter was in the rear passenger seat.

“Good luck,” Alexa said to Jason.

“You come back anytime I’m here and gamble with me. Same deal. I’ll be here till Sunday.”

“I think this is my last time,” she said.

Alexa didn’t know Jason Parr was going to hug her, but he lifted her off her feet and turned them both three hundred and sixty degrees before putting her down.

“Now I’ll be lucky all day. I can feel it.”

Alexa said good-bye, opened the truck door and climbed inside, closing the door behind her. Jason was already running back to the casino.

“I think your new pal really likes you,” Winter said.

“He only likes my luck,” she said. “Who was the VIP in the limo?”

“That was Klein, the owner,” Winter said.

Alexa asked, “Mulvane was the carrottop fancy pants with fat Albert?”

“By the way, Winter changed your plan,” Brad told her.

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I wasn’t in love with it.”