Lucky(12)

“You been playing long?”

“A while,” he said.

“Like, maybe since birth?”

He turned toward the exit. “Uh, yeah, something like that,” he said. “Anyway, thanks. And bye.”

He was speeding away from her, but she caught up. “I’m a writer,” she said. “A reporter for Gambling Insider.”

This made him stop walking. “Oh?”

“I’m writing an article about the new up-and-comers in the game. People like you. The young, exciting, fresh faces of this country’s gambling scene. I’d love to interview you, Mr.…?”

“Gibson,” he said. “Jeremy.”

“Yes, I was just going to say that! Of course I already know who you are. Everybody does. Am I ever glad I got to watch you play. The thing is, I’m on the red-eye out of here tonight. So if I’m going to interview you for the feature, it has to be now…”

“Okay. Sure,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets. “Why not?”

“Great. Do you want to get a coffee?”

“Nah. Let’s go up to my suite. I have a postgame routine and I always have to stick to it.” He veered off toward the elevator and she kept up, the feeling of being right about a mark ferrying her along in its triumphant current. From the moment she’d seen him the day before, she’d known what an easy mark he could be. It wasn’t money he wanted, not exactly. It was praise and recognition for being able to do something no one else could do. What he didn’t realize was that people did what he did all the time.

“Wow,” she said when they walked through the door—on the seventh floor, suite 717. It was the exact same type of suite she had vacated just that morning but she still said, “I mean, wow, wow, and holy moly.”

She grabbed the branded notebook and pen sitting on the little writing desk near the front door. “Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. How does everyone in your family feel about being related to a poker star?”

But he wasn’t paying attention to her. He had clicked on the television to CNN. It was a replay of Hillary Clinton standing on a stage, hands held high in victory after winning the Kentucky primary. “She’ll never be president,” Jeremy said. “No one wants a chick as president during a financial crisis. What do women know about money?”

“Well, it’s 2008. Women these days—”

He talked over her. “And look at that one. That woman DA, in Manhattan. She’s always on TV. The media freaking loves her, and why? Because she’s a chick?” Lucky caught a glimpse of the woman he was disparaging, saw red hair and an earnest expression. She looked familiar. Lucky must have seen her on TV before. Jeremy was still talking and she had to focus. “What did you ask me before? About my parents? They hate this, what I do. They don’t understand it. My father thinks I should be back home in New York, getting all set up to run the family business, but that’s not the life for me. You know?”

She swallowed and smiled sweetly. “My parents wanted me to be a nurse, but I always wanted to be a writer, so I went for it. You want something extraordinary, I get it. Because you are extraordinary. When you sit at a poker table, it’s like magic. I saw it. Everyone saw it.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, nodding along to the story she was weaving. He walked over to the bar and ran his hand along it. “Want anything? A cocktail? Anything at all?”

“You go ahead.”

He opened the bar fridge and took out a Coke, cracked the can open, and chugged half of it. Then he extended his arm as if he were a king displaying his domain. “You’re lucky you ran into me,” he said. He put the can down on the bar top. The newscasters had now started talking about the Multi Millions lottery jackpot, about how the winner hadn’t yet come forward, but he clicked it off. “I’m going to make this the most interesting article your magazine has ever published. Hey, you have to see this bathroom. Come on.” He walked ahead of her, still talking loudly, his words echoing off the marble walls of a bathroom she already knew well. As she followed him, she passed the bar, where he had emptied his pockets when they entered the room. There were a few bills, coins, errant poker chips—and his key card. In one fluid movement, she switched her suite key with his and continued into the next room.

“It really is incredible,” she said. “Look at this place. Wow! This bathroom alone is the size of my room! I’ve never seen anything like it.” They were standing in the middle of the bathroom; their faces were reflected in dozens of mirrors, an endless line of Bonnie Skinners and Jeremy Gibsons.

“There’s something familiar about you,” Jeremy said out of nowhere. He was watching her many reflections in the mirror, too. Her heart seemed to seize in her chest for a moment, but she kept smiling. Her cheeks were starting to hurt, she had been smiling so hard, but she kept doing it. “Your eyes…” he said, and she wished she’d been able to find somewhere to buy colored contacts to disguise her distinctive light green eyes. She’d do that as soon as she got out of here.

“Oh, I get that all the time,” she said. “I have one of those faces. Familiar like.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, and wandered out of the bathroom again while she stood and stared at her many reflections, waiting for her heart to start beating at a normal pace again.