The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas Read Online Free Page B

practically have to play poker here. I think it’s the law.’
    Victoria pursed her lips around her drinking straw and slurped her milkshake. ‘But you don’t know how.’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Since when?’
    ‘Since I began playing online.’
    Victoria gagged and spluttered, and I feared a stream of milkshake might spurt from her nose.
    ‘I’ll have you know I’ve made fifty-eight dollars since I first started out.’
    ‘And when was that?’ she croaked.
    ‘Six months ago.’
    She dabbed her lips with a paper napkin and cleared her throat. ‘How peculiar that your writing seems to have stalled during that time.’
    ‘Pure coincidence.’
    I pushed the remains of my hamburger aside, reached for the bill and scrawled my room details in the appropriate spot.
    Victoria rested her fingers on my good hand and gave me a searching look, seemingly unaware of the gob of milkshake on her chin. ‘You know I don’t agree with gambling, Charlie.’
    ‘That’s why I’m not asking you to take part.’
    She frowned and contemplated the depths of her milkshake, as though she might find a more compelling argument somewhere beneath the vanilla froth. Just as she went to speak again, the mock window to our side bloomed with a flickering white light and our table began to tremble and shake. I wasn’t alarmed. An information sign beside the entrance had promised a simulated atomic explosion every half-hour. Sure enough, a thunderous rumble played over the stereo system, interrupting the early rock ’n’ roll we’d been listening to, and our waitress shrieked and trundled beneath a nearby table in a truly woeful piece of acting.
    In time, the noise and the shaking faded away, and our waitress re-emerged and dusted herself down, leaving Victoria to continue as if nothing had happened.
    ‘Has it occurred to you that you could be exploited? There is such a thing as professional gamblers. They come to places like this and they prey on novices.’
    ‘It’s a reputable casino, Vic. There’s a staff dealer on every table.’
    ‘You still need to be careful.’
    ‘Point taken.’
    ‘Know how much you’re prepared to risk before you sit down. And don’t even consider exceeding your limit.’
    ‘Okay, Mum.’
    Ah, the narrow-eyed assassin’s glare. I’d been waiting for that one to make an appearance.
    ‘I’m only looking out for your best interests, Charlie.’
    ‘I know that, and I appreciate it,’ I told her. ‘But what do you take me for? A complete idiot?’

FOUR
    I was a complete idiot.
    No, the poker didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. In fact, the poker went very badly indeed. I still had my shirt and my complimentary Budweiser, but I didn’t have a great deal else, and one thing I positively didn’t have was any of the money I’d made in New York. Every last cent that my Brooklyn contact had paid me was gone, and while some of it had already been spent on our trip to Vegas and Victoria’s ticket home to London, the rest had been scooped into the arms of a mirthless cowboy with a Buffalo Stetson, a bolo tie and a handlebar moustache. Seriously. It was one thing to lose, but losing to a cliché was really tough to swallow.
    It’s hard to pinpoint where it all went wrong, short of my sitting down in the first place. I suppose I didn’t play tight to begin with – for which I blame the Meltdown Milkshakes – and my opening stake was gone so quickly that I felt compelled to buy back in. Some dumb part of my psyche figured it would be embarrassing to stand up and walk away early in the game, without considering how daft I’d feel leaving with nothing a half-hour later. In my defence, I had some bad luck, and it’s not often you see a straight flush (as held by the cowboy) and a full house (as held by yours truly) in a game of Texas Hold ’Em. I had the guy figured for Trips at best, which is why I went all-in after he raised me on the River. Hell, I don’t know, maybe my errors had something to do with