Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [84]
And poker I did. His aggressive play dug him deeper and deeper holes. He did win a few hands, getting me to fold when I had bupkus. But he folded nothing himself, and I just kept adding plastic trays. By 2:30, I had nearly a thousand bucks in front of me. Karen had been buzzing my cell phone since midnight, and at one point left me a text message saying, Don’t fuck this meeting up, Nick … Even she couldn’t argue with a thousand-dollar haul.
I stood up, taking my trays with me, sliding the dealer, another anonymous, semi-attractive Filipina, a ten-dollar chip.
“Where you going, Dodger?” said the Russian.
“I’ve got a big meeting tomorrow.”
“So when do I get my money back?”
“Ain’t your money anymore,” I said, and the table exploded with laughter.
As I turned away, I didn’t see the Russian seethe, and I was too busy making a joke to the cashier about unmarked bills to notice him picking up the phone. Maybe if I’d skipped going to the can, I would have made it home that night.
I was making my way past the plaster sphinxes when a 310-pound side of Slavic beef slid into my purview.
“You took boss’s money tonight,” he said. “And boss doesn’t like to lose at poker.”
Somehow I guessed the identity of his boss, and tried to pull together an instant plan of escape in my mind. I mumbled, “Sorry,” and turned on my heels, angling toward where I thought a security guard might be seated. Instead, I whirled into another side of beef. Briefly, I felt my arms getting pinned behind me, and then something heavy on my head. A vague sensation of green digital numbers, blinking in random succession, passed before my eyes, and then I said goodbye to consciousness.
I woke with John Henry pounding rocks inside my head and the impression of dusty sunlight on my eyelids. A tentative opening revealed that I was in a hotel room, and a whiff indicated that smoking was allowed. Instinctively, I felt for my wallet. It was there, but pretty thin. My cell phone was also still with me, in my front jeans pocket. I removed it to find it out of juice. I turned my head. The clock beside the bed read 10:45 a.m. Less than five hours away from my meeting.
I sat up, and then stood, and found that the pounding wasn’t bad enough to prevent me from walking, or from taking a piss. In fact, the mirror showed me not looking any worse than usual, even a little better. Eight hours of sleep was eight hours, even if it was artificially induced. The sound of bad hotel porn was coming from beyond the attaching door. I opened it.
The Russian sat with six other guys, placidly watching some girl-on-girl action. Cigar smoke suffused the room like toxic waste. A poker table sat by the window, silently waiting to play its part. He turned to regard me.
“Our princess has awoken,” he said.
“Can I leave now?” I asked. “My wife is worried about me. You’ve proven your point, whatever that is.”
“We’ve got some poker to play,” he said.
“Haven’t we played enough?” I asked.
“Let me explain something to you,” he said. “I don’t lose. Ever. And especially not to guys like you.”
“But you did lose.”
One of his cronies stood, walked over to me, and smacked me across the mouth, drawing a little bit of blood from my lower lip. Goddamnit, I thought, I could actually fucking miss my meeting here.
“The game isn’t over yet,” said the Russian. “You took $1,000 from me, and I intend to win it back.”
He explained the rules to me. We’d each get $500 worth of chips, though my chips were, essentially, air. He got to keep the money, which was rightfully his. If I won his chips, I got to go home. If he won mine, he got to shoot me in the face. Those were higher stakes than usual, and I started to sweat.
A knock came at the door. It was a Filipina, not surprisingly, pushing a cart stacked with orange juice, eggs, and smoked salmon. If these guys were thugs, at least they were generous with the buffet. The Filipina would also, the Russian informed me, serve as our dealer for the day.
“But first,” he said, “we eat.”
I figured it wouldn’t help me to say that