The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

John Bond T-Bird

From Miami Noir

Before poker I was an insurance claims investigator, a corporate private eye with a short-sleeved white shirt and skinny tie, sometimes catching scumbags but mostly helping big gin’s screw little guys out of benefits they were entitled to. I put ten years’ experience to work on my own disability claim — a psych claim, though you can’t buy a decent psych policy anymore. Now I just open the mail for my check once a month and play poker. I’m never wearing a tie or watch again. The trick is to keep your head straight, not be sucked in, not to want too much.

I play at McKool’s, a sweet two-table poker room in a Miami River warehouse, minutes from the Dolphin Expressway. Across the bridge from the downtown ramps to I-95, it has easy access, drawing players from Boca to Homestead. McKool runs six nights a week, says if you don’t give players Saturdays with their wives, then the wives won’t let ’em play. I wouldn’t know from wives, and with any luck never will.

Texas Hold’em’s hot, and I play it, but I prefer Omaha 8-or-better high-low split, which McKool spreads on Fridays. There’s more to think about in high-low, and a lot of seductive starting hands, trap hands that suck people in. I scoop both sides in split-pot games more than anybody. That’s why McKool calls me Bobby Two-ways. Everybody has a nickname: Rebel, Bumper, Luckbucket, Goombah. Everybody except McKool.

McKool’s has a kitchen girl who knows how you take your coffee, what you want on your sandwich, what snacks you like. I catch two meals every play, and sometimes hit the fridge for a takeout bag at the end of the night. There’s a shower, for guys who play all night and then head straight to the office. McKool’s got a smoking room in back with its own vent system, and another room with two computers so people can play online poker while waiting for a seat. Both rooms have queen-size beds — some guys take a little nap then get up to play more, or snooze for an hour before heading to work.

I met McKool when he first came back to Miami after twenty years in the army, before he opened up his room. We were playing in the big game at Blackjack’s, down in Ocean Reef — $100-$200-limit Hold’em. We’d played all night and were down to the hard cores. Only four of us remained. Tommy Trash — he had the garbage contract for the Keys — had lost $20k-plus, and wanted to play a four-handed $25k freeze out, winner take all. McKool had gotten beat up pretty badly too, and didn’t have the buy-in. I’d been the big winner. So I bought McKool’s cherry red 1962 Ford Thunderbird Sports Roadster convertible with a 390 V-8 300-hp engine for twenty-five grand — a steal. The four of us played for the hundred thousand. It only took a couple of hours for McKool and me to bust out Tommy and Jack and get heads up. We played and played and played. And played some more. Fourteen hours later McKool busted me. His mental toughness and physical conditioning for the long sit made the difference. He won the hundred grand, and offered me $30k to buy back the T-bird. But I liked it and said no.

McKool used that win to bankroll opening his place. He’s offered me forty, then fifty, and recently sixty grand for the car. I’m not much into things, but I love that ragtop. Besides, it’s good when The Man wants something he can’t have from you.

I don’t really have friends, but McKool and I know we can rely on each other. I think I’m the only player in the game who has his private cell. I do a lot for McKool: recruit from the parimutuels; deal when somebody calls in sick; give up my seat when he needs to fit a live one in. Mostly I show up for the afternoon gin game before start time and stay through the last hand. Starters and finishers are key to running a profitable house game, getting games off early and keeping them going late.

My trouble started at McKool’s Thursday game. No Limit Hold’em night, five hundred minimum/a thousand maximum buy-in, five and ten blinds. Rebel — Rebecca Ellen O’Shaunessy — strolled in after her shift as bartender at a trendy South Beach club, as she did a couple of nights a week.

Rebel’s easy on the eyes, all natural. To see her is to want her. She’d sweetly turned me down more than once. Mid-twenties, about five-foot-six, maybe 115 pounds, green eyes, and auburn-almost-red hair, perfect spinner bod. The kind of girl men would leave their wives for in a heartbeat. McKool uses Rebel like he uses me, like he uses everybody — hustling here, cajoling there, pushing buttons, building up a stash of favors so butts are in seats and the cards are always in the air by seven o’clock, and the game goes on toward dawn and beyond. Knowing the hottie was coming kept early players hanging on late, and gave the late players reason to arrive early. We rarely broke before sunrise when Rebel played.

Poker’s not a game where you have to be the best player in the world — just the best at the table. Winning players aren’t welcome at most private games. We take cash from the game, use it to pay rent and buy groceries. A houseman wants action. Gambling fools. The suckers who look for any excuse to play a hand, who don’t understand that more often than not the right play is to pass, not get involved. Live ones attract players, working pros drive them away. I’ve been barred from the weekly games at the Coconut Grove Yacht Club and Lauderdale Country Club. I help McKool not because I’m a nice guy, but so he’ll let me play in his juicy lineup of fish.

Rebel did her grand-entrance thing, giving this one a wink, tousling that one’s hair, stroking the other’s arm. Escort Randy — he owns a low-rent Internet escort agency, buck-fifty-an-hour girls, mostly but not all skanks — asked her for the zillionth time if she’d work for him, and for the zillionth time she smacked him on the arm, then gave him a hug. I like Randy — he gives me a twenty-dollar discount on calls.

McKool had his usual crew on hand: three dealers, Lilith the kitchen girl, and Cartouche, the half-Senegalese half-Moroccan from Montreal McKool had hooked up with in some little jungle war. Cartouche didn’t exactly have a job, though he sometimes dealt and even sometimes cooked. He just stood by McKool’s side, a silent giant.

Rebel sat down and set off on a chip fry like she hated her money. No Limit’s a dangerous game for people who play fast. In limit games, when you make a mistake, you lose a bet or maybe a pot. In No Limit, when you make a mistake, you lose everything. Rebel got herself stuck fifteen hundred in less than twenty minutes, and soon had McKool pinned in a corner, stroking his arm, giving him that damsel-in-distress look.

McKool sometimes gives regulars a nickel or dime’s credit juice-free, but only until the next play, up to a week max. Having players on the hook is a necessary evil of the business. Problem is, when they owe you money, the next time they have a few bucks they take that money someplace else to play, instead of paying you. McKool, after his twenty years in Special Forces, doesn’t have a lot of collection problems. Plus he has Cartouche. McKool’s rule is only lend to people who have money to pay you back right away. I knew Rebel wasn’t getting a penny more out of McKool.

She looked around the room, caught me eyeing her. She stuck out her lower lip in a pouty way, and mouthed “please.” I shook my head. She smiled and shrugged, then grabbed Skip Converse, one of Miami’s slimiest shysters, and pulled him away from the table. A minute later he plopped his big butt back in his seat — Skip’s a fish with no clue when to pass and hates to miss a hand. Reb sashayed over to the other table, draped her arms around Big Country’s shoulders, and whispered something in his car. He got up and they stepped into one of the back rooms.

“Chick already owes me five hundred,” Skip said. “I told her the next nickel would require sex. Can’t imagine why she passed.”

Five minutes later they came out of the back, Big Country laughing like a schoolboy. He bought two racks of reds from McKool and handed them to Rebel. She gave him a full-contact hug, something more than affectionate, and a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, Country, you’re a real gentleman,” she said. “I’ll crush these fuckers, but if for some reason they escape, I promise you’ll have it back Sunday.” Then she terrorized the game. One hand she came over the top on Big Country and moved him off a big pot. I knew from the way she stared him down she’d bluffed him off. Lending people money to play against you is a bad bet. If they lose, you won’t see it anytime soon. If they win, you lose. But I understand not being able to say no to a pretty girl. What man doesn’t? In a couple of hours Reb won back the fifteen hundred she’d lost, the dime she’d borrowed from Big Country, and seven hundred sugar. Then she did something she almost never does. She locked up her win.

While McKool counted her down, Rebel came over, rested her hand oh-so-lightly on my inside thigh, and blew gently on my neck, sending a shiver down my neck and making my dick hard. She whispered in my ear, “Two-ways, I need your help. Meet me upstairs at the Road in an hour?”

I hate being manipulated by anybody, especially women. “Make it an hour and a half,” I said.

As she headed to the door, Skip called out to her: “Hey. Rebel, what about my five bills?”

She smiled sweetly. “Next week, Skip.”

Cartouche gave Rebel a look; she understood that really meant next week.

Every eye in the room followed her as she walked out. If God had ever made a more perfect ass than Rebel’s, he kept it for himself.

I cashed out then headed down South River, the full moon behind me. Downtown and Little Havana meet here in Riverside, not far from the Orange Bowl. I often play dominoes with the old Cubanos at Marti Park before heading to afternoon gin at McKool’s.

Miami had been born along the river. South River Drive, with all its banyans, ficus, and palms, runs southeast-to-northwest by the riverbank, cul-de-sacs and dead ends off it on the river side. This once was a working river, but the fishing boats on the east end had given way to condos and office towers, though piles of lobster pots and crab traps lay stacked here and there along the banks. Scattered small freighter terminals serviced seedy tramps running back and forth to the Bahamas. Haiti, and other islands. Most of South Florida’s stolen bicycles and chopped-up car parts found their way into these cargo holds, and more than a little of the area’s dope came through here.

I parked by a sand yellow, two-story stucco building on the riverbank: Miami’s oldest bar. Tobacco Road. During Prohibition, rumrunners out of Bimini had unloaded their wares from the river behind the building, under the protection of the local sheriff. The day Prohibition ended, the bar opened fully stocked and has never closed since. Most Miami bars close at two A.M., but the Road has a grandfathered late-night license. I arrived twenty minutes late, figured if Rebel wanted something then keeping her waiting a bit would establish negotiating control. I climbed the narrow staircase to the tiny upstairs bar, but she hadn’t arrived. I sat at a cocktail table, ordered a mojito from Maidel, the-waitress-who-wrote-blues-lyrics-about-three-legged-dogs-and-lovelorn-artists, listened to a frumpy grad student reading incomprehensible poetry from the tiny stage, and wailed.

She arrived ten minutes later, on her arm a handsome blond guy. I stood as they approached. She kissed me on the lips, almost but not quite tonguing me. “Bobby, this is my boyfriend Dmitri. Dima, this is Bobby Two-ways, the poker player who used to do insurance investigations.”

Dmitri smiled, showing hillbilly teeth. “Rebecca tells me you are a man to be trusted,” he said with a thick Russian accent. “That you do the right thing.”

I shot a glance at Rebel. In an after-game bull session one night, I’d told her I could always be trusted to do the right thing. The right thing for me, that is. She’d laughed, and many times since had made sly comments about “the right thing” with a wink and a knowing smile. “What’s this about, Reb?”

“How’d you like to fuck me, Bobby?”

“Fuck you out of what?”

She licked her lips. “Really.”

“Really? Like in sex? How’s Dmitri here feel about that?”

“It’s his idea.”

“I’m not big on audiences.” I thought she was inviting me to do a three-way with them. “And he’s cute, but definitely not my type.”

Rebel shook her head. “No, no, nothing like that. I need money. Big money. Dima came up with a scam we can work. We need a third person. All you got to do is fuck me.”

“It would have to be after two o’clock. I don’t do mornings.”

“You’d fuck me on I-95 in the middle of morning rush hour with your mother watching.”

She was right, of course. I’d drag my dick through a mile of broken glass for a chance at her. Anyplace, anytime. “Why do you need money so bad?”

She laughed, not an amused laugh but a sharp one. “Why does anybody need money? And why do you care? We can score. Big money. Low risk. If this was a no-limit hand you’d shove your stack in. You get ten percent for a half hour’s work.” She pressed her breasts against my arm, rested her hand high on my thigh under the table, breathed on my neck, and said huskily, “If you call this work.”

Dmitri leaned toward me, whispered the details — a lawsuit scam, like those teams that stage car accidents to rip off insurance companies. I’d sent my share of those scumbags to jail, back when. He’d cased the target well, had the timing down. Litigation potential hit seven figures, easy. A quick settlement was worth a half mill, minimum.

Poker players make fast decisions, always on incomplete information — hundreds, thousands of dollars won or lost in a blink. Good players make quality reads of situations. We get into our opponent’s mind. What is he thinking? What does he think I’m thinking? What does he think I think he’s thinking? Anticipate what he’s going to do, what he wants you to do, make the play that uses his thoughts against him. Investigating this as a claim, what would I go after? As a scammer, how would I avoid what the investigator would look for? What would the investigator think a scammer would be thinking? How could I use those thoughts against him?

“It’s probably a winner,” I said. Solid poker players, like insurance companies, act on risk-reward ratio. But it’s more than just the odds. If ninety-nine percent of the time you get a good result, but one percent of the time the result is horrendous, then even a 99-1 favorite can be a bad bet. Dmitri’s scheme looked good, yet even a slim chance of winding up in the slam made this an easy fold for me. “But I like my life the way it is.” I laid a twenty on the table for my drink and Maidel’s tip, and stood up. “Sorry, I’m out.”

Rebel grabbed my wrist and yanked me back into my seat.

“Twenty-five percent,” Dmitri said.

I live well, but not fancy, in a nice one-bedroom a block from the beach in Surfside. I have my T-bird. I have $70k sitting in a box at Banque de Geneve in Nassau, $20k buried in coffee cans in the trees lining the seventh fairway at Doral, and my working bankroll of $10k stashed in a shoebox in my AC vent. If they hit for $1.5 mill, the lawyer took a third — $250k would make a gigantic difference in my life. Enough to bankroll me for a shot at the World Poker Tour, maybe the big one at Binion’s. Maybe even buy a little condo. “No,” I said.

Rebel moved her hand up under the table and unsnapped my pants, pulled down the zip of my jeans, and slipped her hand into my boxers.

“All right,” Dmitri said. “Even split. One-third each.”

Rebel gently ran her nails up and down my rock-hard dick. She came close and whispered in my ear with hot breath, “Please, Two-ways?”

I shook my head no. “Okay. A third.”

Friday I got up early, around noon, and drove up the Palmetto to Alligator Alley and cruised across the Everglades to Fort Myers in my T-bird with the top down. I found a Super Wal-Mart and bought a black long-sleeved shirt, two pairs of black socks, a Yankees cap, wraparound shades, a pair of flared black jeans a couple of inches longer in the in-seam than usual, four dog leashes, a roll of duct tape, a box of flesh-colored latex gloves, a box of safety matches, a $12 Casio watch, a dark blue bandanna, a shower cap, a small plastic waste bin, a five-gallon gas can, a bottle of Astroglide, a package of three condoms, and a small backpack. Cash, of course. Then I went to Payless and purchased a pair of size-eleven shoes with four-inch cork platforms — told the nearly oblivious clerk they were a gift, to explain why a size-nine guy was buying elevens. I bought a roll of quarters at a beachfront arcade, then stopped into a Supercuts for a buzzcut.

I drove home across the Alley, the winter sun setting behind me. I headed to the never-ending traffic construction on Biscayne, found a job on a deserted side street, hopped out of the T-bird, grabbed two orange traffic cones and a barricade, threw them in my trunk, then drove across the bay. I cruised South Beach waiting for a suitable parking space to open up on Washington. One finally did right where I wanted, just south of Lincoln Road. I pulled up alongside it, set the cones and barricade in it, and headed home.

I filled the T-bird and the five-gallon gas can at the Mobil on Harding around the corner from my apartment, then put the gas can in the trunk. In my apartment-house parking lot I looked about, found a perfect pebble — about a quarter-inch, rounded, with no sharp edges — and pocketed it. I placed my purchases in the backpack in the order I’d need them, last items on the bottom, first on top, shoved in a big green trash bag, then set the radio alarm for 9:45 and settled in for a nap to catch up on my lost sleep.

Jimmy Buffett woke me singing “Margaritaville” on the classic rock station. I spent a half hour shaving every hair off my body from the eyes down. I trimmed my eyebrows, made sure I had no loose eyelashes, then showered, wiping every speck of hair off my body. I dressed in my usual blue jeans and tee, strapped on the Casio, grabbed the backpack, put the pebble, quarters, and a plastic hotel key card Dmitri had given me in my pocket, and headed out. In the parking lot I unscrewed the little light bulb over my license tag, put the trash can from Wal-Mart in the trunk with the gas, and threw the backpack on the passenger seat. I checked the Casio — an hour forty to go.

I drove past the Jackie Gleason across Lincoln Road to Washington Avenue, with all its spiffed-up deco buildings — pastel paint jobs and colored lights showing off the architectural accents. I pulled up to my space, threw the cones and barricade back in the trunk, and parallel parked. South Beach parking spaces on weekend nights are like gold. I filled the meter with four hours’ worth of quarters, then ambled down to the 11th Street Diner. The 11th is famous for the best meatloaf sandwiches this side of your mom’s kitchen and the best milkshakes anywhere. But it suited me this night because it’s 24/7 and bustles with clubgoers from around ten P.M. to six A.M.

I made my way past the crowded booths to the john in back, stepped into a stall, and hung the backpack on the hook on the door. I pulled out the Wal-Mart black jeans, socks, and black shirt and changed into them. I put on the shower cap, tied the bandanna around my head so that not a single hair showed, pulled the Yankees cap over it, and slipped on the wraparounds. I shoved the extra socks into the toes of the platforms and set the pebble carefully so it rested just under my arch, and put on the shoes. I pulled on a pair of the flesh-colored latex gloves, shoved my sneaks, jeans, and T-shirt into the backpack.

Then I sat on the pot for five minutes so nobody who’d been in the bathroom still lingered, stepped out of the stall, through the diner, and back onto Washington. The SoBe party crowd milled about, just starting to cook. Teenagers wanting to be older, boomers wanting to be younger, loads of twenty-somethings wanting to be seen. Glitz, glamour, and grunge, hip-hoppers in baggy shorts with legacy hoops jerseys and hooded sweatshirts, supermodel-wannabes in short, slinky dresses, random retros in Goth, buffed-up boys in muscle shirts, bikers and beachboys and babes. I blended right in.

Rap, industrial, and hip-hop boomed from a parade of tricked-out cars circling through the Deco District, bass throbbing from overpowered woofers. Lines formed outside the most popular clubs. I ambled amid the throng up and across to Collins Avenue, the platforms making me a six-foot-one guy, not five-nine, with a marked limp from the pebble in my shoe. Poker players not only observe body language as part of the art of reading tells, but notice what their opponents observe, and then try to use that knowledge to deceive them. Real winners make this observation a habit of their lives. I’d discovered over years of watching what people see that you always notice, at least subconsciously, how people walk. The limp disguised me as much as the shades and the platform shoes.

Two blocks up Collins stood the former Hotel Roosevelt, a streamlined, thirty-five-story art deco masterpiece, restored beyond its former glory, renamed the Delano and now owned by an over-the-hill rock diva struggling to stay cool. Right that moment I found myself in my own struggle to stay cool. My palms were sweating in the latex gloves, a sharp ache throbbed in my shoulders. I took a deep breath. Focus, I told myself. Think, don’t react. Adjust as each card comes off the deck. I breathed deeply, put myself in game mode, all focus, focus, focus. Just keep on reading the situation and make the right play. One card after another, one hand then the next, one step after another, then the next, until I found myself walking past the valets and doormen into the Delano’s ornate lobby. I checked the Casio — still running good.

Bodies ebbed and flowed through the lobby from the adjoining coffee shop and nightclub. Dmitri stood at the concierge’s desk. As I made my way through the bustle to the elevators at the back, the concierge handed him a slip of paper and made some motions with his hands as if giving directions. Dmitri tipped the concierge and headed out the grand entrance I had just come through.

I rode the elevator alone to the fourth floor. Dmitri had scouted two cameras on every floor, each pointing toward the center, showing half the hallway to the elevator. If he’d done his job, the camera at the east end would be tilted upward, leaving a blind spot so that the doors to the last four rooms or so were out of view.

I turned west and stopped at the end of the hall, in clear camera view, and tried a random door with the Holiday Inn key card Dmitri had given me at the Road. It wouldn’t open the door, of course, but I wanted the cameras to see. Then I tried another door. I slapped my forehead as if I’d screwed up and walked to the east end, and now out of camera view went through the fire-escape door and took the stairs down to the third floor.

The camera here should be tilted too, but ever so slightly, so just the last room was unwatched. I opened the fire-escape door a crack and pecked down the hall. A lone couple entangled in an embrace stood waiting for the elevator. I checked the room numbers on both sides of the fire escape door. On my left, 327, just as Dmitri had said. I pushed on the door and it gave way. The small piece of matchbook that Dmitri had stuck in the latch so it wouldn’t catch fell to the floor. I shut the door quietly behind me, picked up the bit of matchbook, put it in my pocket, and slipped into the room.

Rebel didn’t look up as the door latch clicked. She sat on the edge of the canopied, king-size bed wearing only her panties — pink bikini bottoms — sucking on a cigarette, clinking ice cubes in a cocktail glass. A half-empty bottle of Jack stood on the nightstand. The bedcovers had been tossed on the floor. She caressed the bed. “Never in my life have I slept on sheets this soft, Two-ways,” she said. “But at five hundred a night, you should get nice sheets.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded.

She stood and faced me. Near-naked she was as perfect as I’d imagined.

Rebel handed me a buck knife. “Dima said you should cut the panties off with this, then before you go, hold it against my throat hard enough to make a mark. And leave the knife when you’re done. It leads someplace a million miles from any of us.”

I took the knife from her, opened it, slipped the blade between the skin of her hip and the panties, and cut. They fell to the floor. Her pubes were shaved. Above her pussy, DIMA was tattooed in script, inside a heart. “You look nice.”

“I don’t look ‘nice.’ I’m fucking hot. So fucking hot that you lose all control and just fucking take me. So hot you can’t think straight.” She grabbed my crotch. “Jesus Christ. Here I am, the hottest woman you’ll ever fuck as long as you live, standing buck-naked for you to take, and you don’t even have a hard-on.”

I’d wanted to bed Rebel since the first time I saw her. Here she stood naked in all her glory for me to have. I couldn’t remember a less erotic moment with a beautiful girl in my life.

“Two-ways, let’s do this. We’re on a schedule.”

I took the leashes, Astroglide, duct tape, and condoms from the backpack and set them on the bed.

“You’re going to wear a condom? Rapists don’t wear fucking condoms.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Reb. Rapists worry about STDs as much as the next guy. And smart rapists don’t leave a load of DNA inside you for some crime-lab geek to analyze. If I’m going to be a rapist, I’m going to be as smart a rapist as I can be.”

“Dima won’t like it.”

“Screw Dima.”

“No — screw me. Right fucking now! Get naked already.”

I stripped clumsily, sure I looked foolish in the bandanna, platforms, and latex gloves.

“Jesus Christ, Bobby, you’re still not hard.” She grabbed my dick and squeezed. “Doesn’t this thing work?” She pushed me onto the bed, deftly manipulated my dick until it finally stood at attention, then tore open a condom and slipped it on. She crawled on the bed and threw her arms and legs wide, spread-eagled.

I looped a dog leash around each of her wrists and ankles, then tied them to the feet of the bed, snapped the D-ring at the end of each into place.

She strained at the leashes. “Left arm’s not tight enough,” she said.

I adjusted the leash securing her left arm, then crawled atop her — and realized I had gone soft.

She laughed. “Do you have this problem often?”

“N-n-never.”

“Jesus Christ, untie me.”

I did as she said.

“You should have taken some Vitamin V.” She pressed against me, kissed my neck while holding my dick, wrapped her legs around me, massaged my thigh with her pussy. My dick grew, this time with conviction. She went down on me, playing with my balls while she moved her mouth up and down my shaft, until I was about to come. She climbed up my body, whispered in my ear, “Hold that thought for five minutes.”

I tied her again to the bed, opened another condom, pulled it on, climbed back atop her, and tried to slip myself into her. She was completely dry. I rolled off her and, rubbing my dick against her leg to keep my hard-on, began to massage her clit.

“That won’t work,” she said. “Use the Astroglide.”

I squirted the lube on her pussy, massaged her insides with my fingers, filling her with wetness. I climbed on top again — but again I had gone soft.

“Listen, Two-ways, you don’t have to come, but you do have to get it inside me. I know from experience the police rape kit will show whether or not you penetrated.”

I untied her and she repeated her oral magic, bringing me once more to the edge of orgasm. This time I didn’t tie her but let the animal in me take over — I threw her back on the bed and mounted her quickly, shoving and humping and grunting until I exploded. I rolled off her onto the bed and began to laugh, a little nervously — at myself.

“We’re behind schedule,” she said matter-of-factly. “Get me tied down.”

I tied her to the bed for the third time, pulled the leashes tight as I could.

“Now hit me in the face. Hard.”

I hesitated. “I’ve never hit a girl and I’m not going to start now.”

“Goddamn it, Two-ways. The more I’m hurt, the more we can win. Hit me.”

I shook my head no. “Sorry, Reb. I won’t. Can’t.”

“Dima’s going to be pissed.”

“Screw Dima.”

“You said that already. Don’t ever say it to him. He’s not one to be fucked with.”

I dressed in my Wal-Mart outfit, shoved the used condoms and wrappers into the pockets of the jeans, and put the Astroglide in the backpack. I picked up the knife.

“At least hold the knife against my throat,” Rebel said. “Cut me some.”

I did as she said, leaning over her with the blade held tight against her throat, but away from her jugular.

“Harder,” she said.

“Shit, Rebel, how the hell do I know how much is hard enough?”

“Just do it, Bobby. Harder!”

I pressed down harder, afraid that I might hurt her. I managed to break the skin without doing any more damage. A rivulet of blood trickled down her neck.

“Good,” she said. “Now hit me, goddamn it, Bobby. Leave bruises.”

“No, Reb.”

“Don’t be such a fucking wimp. There’s big fucking money at stake here.”

I cut a length of duct tape off the roll with the knife and slapped it across her mouth, perhaps the most satisfactory moment of the night so far. I stepped back and looked at her spread wide on the bed, helpless, her beauty almost perfect, her pussy glistening with the Astroglide. To see her was to want her.

Wanting is good. Even better than having.

I looked at the Casio. My bout of erectile dysfunction had put us behind schedule, even with the extra time Dmitri had built in for margin of error. He’d be coming up the elevator to discover his raped girlfriend any minute. I shoved the duct tape in the backpack, threw the knife on the bed. Fibers from generic Wal-Mart clothes, no prints or hairs, size-eleven footprints impressed on the lush carpet. I looked around the room to make sure I hadn’t left anything incriminating behind. I’d done what I could to minimize risk.

I slipped into the hall and ran down the stairwell to the first floor, moseyed out into the lobby. The Delano’s nightclub in full swing, even more people milled about the lobby than earlier. I saw Dmitri at the elevator. Then he saw me. He checked his watch, scowled. If looks could kill, I’d have been dead on the floor. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and he stepped on. We’d cut it mighty close.

I walked briskly back to the 11th, changed back into my own clothes and sneaks, shoved the platforms and Wal-Mart clothes into the backpack, then again waited a few minutes before stepping out of the stall, through the diner, and onto the street. Less than ten minutes after leaving Rebel, I was driving west on Seventeenth Street, feeling empty but relieved, glad that it was over. I drove across the MacArthur past the parade of cruise ships waiting at dock to sail off for temporary island fantasies, and got on I-95 north. I exited at State Road 84 twenty minutes later, turned down a small street, then into an alley between two warehouses.

I poured some gas into the Wal-Mart waste bin and dumped in everything I’d used and worn — only the knife, a piece of duct tape across Rebel’s mouth, and the four leashes that tied her to the bed remained. In life, as in poker, you can’t control all the variables, but you do what you can. I poured in some more gas, struck a safety match against the box, and flicked it in, then dropped in the rest of the box. Flame whooshed upward. I watched it burn and visualized Rebel spread-eagle on the canopied bed. My dick hardened at the vision. I had to laugh at myself; oh well, what can you do?

The blaze left a goo of plastic slag. After the fire died, I shoved the mess into the green garbage bag, tied it off tight, and drove to a complex I’d once lived in on Marina Mile, where they had Saturday-morning trash pickup. I threw the bag into a dumpster; in a few hours it would be lost in the daily refuse of a million people, with only the vultures circling overhead and the never-ending parade of garbage trucks for company. I set the cones and barricade at a construction site, then took I-95 to the Kennedy Causeway, home across the bay into the pink dawn.

I slept later than usual Saturday. I went to Miami Jai-Alai, yakked with the $2 poker players, ate a breakfast of hot dogs and beer, then headed to Gulfstream, where I relaxed in the cheap seats, basking in the afternoon sun with the racing form. The hard work was now on Rebel — Monday she’d retain a lawyer. He’d file the suit for inadequate security resulting in Rebel’s rape, and the settlement dance would begin. Most cases like this never went to trial, but rarely settled before the eve of trial. All I had to do now was live my life and wait for my payday.

I cashed a $220 ticket in the last race, then went to the Porterhouse up in Sunny Isles to have a nice steak and flirt with the waitresses. As I ate, my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the number, and didn’t answer. A few seconds later it rang again, from the same number. The third time, curious about who would be so persistent, I picked up.

“Bobby, thank God you answered. It’s Rebel.” She sounded as if she were crying. “I need your help.” She started to babble — Dima had gone crazy, beaten her. She was afraid. Could I meet her someplace private? No, not my place in Surfside, he’d check there. Freighter terminal #9 on the river, a few blocks from McKool’s. Just get there and we could decide together what to do. An hour, please hurry. She abruptly disconnected.

I didn’t like it a bit, but I didn’t see how I couldn’t go. I took 163rd Street to the Spaghetti Bowl, then I-95 to downtown and across the river. As I drove under the halogen-tinted sky, I slammed my fist on the wheel, telling myself this was wrong, that I was an idiot. Whatever Rebel wanted from me, I wasn’t going to want to do it. Why couldn’t my mother have raised a less chivalrous son?

Just past the Miami River Inn, I turned onto the street that dead-ended at terminal #9. The gate to the pier was open, the streetlight next to it burned out. I edged the T-bird past pallets loaded with construction materials waiting for the next freighter out, turned the corner along the warehouse, and saw Rebel’s car parked by the gantry crane. Lights from across the river cast oblong shadows. Rebel leaned on her car, smoking a cigarette. I climbed out of the T-bird and saw in the glow of the burning ash that her face was all mangled, bruised yellow and purple, one eye bandaged. “Holy shit. Rebel.”

“It pissed Dima off that you didn’t beat me,” she said. “The rape didn’t look real enough. So he added that touch himself.” She sobbed. “He likes hurting me too much. I’m scared, Bobby. I can’t go to the police. I don’t know what to do.” She stared into my eyes.

I stepped forward to take her in my arms. Something about that look.

“I’m sorry, Bobby,” Rebel whispered softly. “If it makes you feel any better…”

It was the same way she stared when she was trying to run a bluff

“… Dima’s next.”

From behind me I heard the double click of a revolver’s hammer pulling back.

Oh shit, I thought. I grabbed Rebel by the shoulders, ducked, and twirled around, holding her in front of me. Then came the explosion of a shot, the acrid smell of cordite, the blinding muzzle flash. The bullet that had been intended for me took her square in the chest, knocked her into me, came out her back, and hit me in the belly, but its momentum spent, didn’t penetrate. The slug clattered to the ground. Blood seeped out Rebel’s back all over my clothes. Dmitri stood in front of me, not ten feet away, a shocked look on his face that quickly turned to rage. It happened in seconds, but took forever.

He lunged toward me, screaming in Russian, pointing the pistol at my head. I pushed Rebel’s limp body at him, dropped, and threw my weight at his knees; the three of us rolled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. The gun went off again, near my ear, the explosion deafening me. I grabbed Dmitri’s hair, wrapping my fingers in tight, and smashed his head into the parking lot pavement with all my strength, and again and again and again and again, until he stopped moving.

I lay there covered in blood, entangled in two bodies, with no clue what to do next, where to turn. My head throbbed. How would I explain this to the cops? How did I know these people who had just reported a brutal rape? Any investigator worth a damn would toast me. Focus, I told myself. Think, don’t react. Breathe deep. What are your options? What’s the best play here?

I called McKool on his private cell. “McKool. Two-ways,” I said. “What’s that Explorer you drive worth?”

McKool started to say something, then started over. “Maybe 25, 30k. Why?”

“The Explorer and 25 for the T-bird,” I said.

McKool hesitated a second. “Twenty.”

“Deal. But I need your help with something right now…”

Less than ten minutes later he was there, with Cartouche. They quickly surveyed the scene. “Fine mess, Bobby,” McKool said, as he tossed me his keys.

I pulled the keys to the T-bird from my pocket, pulled off my apartment key, then handed them to McKool. “She set us both up.”

“Chicks can be that way,” McKool said.

Cartouche bent over, felt Rebel’s neck for a pulse. “Mart,” he said. Then he checked Dmitri and shook his head. “Il n ’est pas tout à fait mort.”

“She’s dead. He’s not quite dead,” McKool translated for me. “This costs me. Rebel filled some seats.” He thought a moment, then made a small flick of his finger across his throat.

Cartouche took a handkerchief from his pocket and picked up the pistol, stuck the barrel in Dmitri’s ear, and pulled the trigger, then handed McKool the gun.

“He was near dead anyway, and now he can’t mention your name before he goes,” McKool said. He stuffed the gun in his pocket. “We’ll dispose of the bodies. Go home and get rid of those clothes.”

“Thanks.”

“Come before gin tomorrow,” McKool said. “We’ll do the car titles and talk.”

I got the gas from the T-bird’s trunk, then drove the Explorer home. I disconnected my apartment’s smoke detector, threw my clothes in the bathtub, poured in the last of the gas, and burned my bloody clothes to ash. After making sure not a speck of fabric remained, I washed the ash down the drain, then stood under the shower until the hot water ran out, and fell into bed without even bothering to dry. I missed my T-bird.

Sunday afternoon, after a fitful sleep, I knocked on McKool’s door. The peephole darkened, and Cartouche let me in. Lilith stood at the stove making dinner for the crowd to come, and one of the dealers. Lefty Louie, sat at a poker table making up decks.

“Step into my office,” McKool said, and we went into one of the back rooms. He handed me the local section of Sunday’s Herald, opened to page five. A story halfway down the page read:

“They won’t find any family,” McKool said. “She had nobody.” There was a gentle lapping on the door. “Come.”

Lilith stuck her head in. “Luckbucket and Bumper are here.”

“We’ll be right out,” McKool said. He handed me a manila envelope full of hundreds rolled in rubber bands. I didn’t need to count it, knew the twenty grand was there. “You understand you owe me,” he said. “And last night never happened.” He signed the title to the Explorer and handed it to me with the pen.

“Never happened.”

“Make it out to Jean-Luc Cartouche.”

I looked at him, puzzled. “Cartouche? Why?”

“He wants it. I’d rather he have it and me want it. Ready for gin?”

I signed the title over to Cartouche. “Yeah.” Who knew wanting and having were so complicated?

We stepped into the main room, where Bumper and Luckbucket sat leafing through back issues of Card Player. Luckbucket’s was opened to an article by Roy Cooke headlined: “Some Hands You Just Don’t Play!”

Life is like the game, I thought. It’s supposed to be the fish who play the trap hands.

“Let’s gamble,” Bumper said.

McKool turned to Lefty and said, “Shuffle up and deal.”

And that’s exactly what happened.