Cold Deck: A Novel

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||| 101 ||| zucchini, took a deep breath, picked up the paring knife, and drove the blade down. It broke off as it slammed into the wood. Nothing is bad luck or good; it’s bad life or good life. That’s what I’d learned from the fire. Resign yourself to it, I thought. “I’ll be going now,” she said. “Go ahead. You’re good at that.” I picked up a potato and began scraping at the peel. She said good-bye and walked to the door. It closed. After a few seconds it opened and shut again. Her footsteps padded across the carpet, then clicked against the tile in the hallway. Her purse landed with a thud on the kitchen counter. She bent forward, lifted her skirt, and slipped out of her panties. She tossed those on the counter. We stared at each other for a moment. I looked down at the lavender thong. She came around the counter, placed a hand behind my neck, pressed her groin against my thigh, and pulled my face to hers. I slid my hands down her waist, resting my palms on the contour of her hips. Then I lifted her skirt slowly until it was bunched at her hips, reached down, and ran my hand over her pubic mound and between her legs. She was warm and already wet, and she moaned at my touch. Later that night, after we’d eaten, we lay on the bed talking around the subject of us instead of talking about us. I was on my back. She rolled atop me and straddled my chest, ran her fingers over my throat, and then circled my nipple with a finger. I cupped her breasts. She pushed my hand away and bent forward as if to kiss my nipple. Instead of kissing it, she bit so hard that I thrust upward in pain and tossed her off the bed. She rolled onto the floor and sat, her porcelain skin glowing in the window-framed moonlight. “What the hell was that about?” She didn’t answer, just crawled back onto the bed, took my shaft in hand, and began stroking. When I was erect, she worked her way down, kissing me until her mouth brushed my penis. She looked up at me and said, “The question now is, can you trust me?” 20 At the time I gave no thought to what Audie might have meant, nor did I consider the varied meaning of the words, when she’d said she hadn’t come to the house to fuck me. Instead, I let myself believe that serendipity had brought her and all that was ||| 102 ||| ahead to me. I convinced myself that soon the hard times would be behind me, and despite my sore nipple or any reservations I still held, I returned to Ben’s, contrite and ready to do whatever was asked of me. For his part, he welcomed me in and said that the past was just that and we had to focus now on the work. My skills improved rapidly under Ben’s demanding eye, but whatever his real purpose in teaching me he kept it to himself. He was relentless in his demands for perfection. “Excellence isn’t good enough,” he’d say and push me harder. The three- and sometimes four-hour sessions left me exhausted. A month passed, and we began a fresh regimen of moves, working up a deck from outside the layout, reading the bend, and hand switches. I became increasingly leery. What I was learning was far beyond the scope of what any dealer should know about cheating and more than enough to land me on the casinos’ blacklist and in the Gaming Commission’s Black Book alongside the likes of Lefty Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro. Whenever Ben brought out a fresh deck and shuffled it, the sound stirred apprehension in me, a worry that someday I’d be asked to put these skills to the test. How and when exactly I had no idea, but it seemed inevitable. I took that dread home with me as Audie and I drove away each afternoon. Each day Ben handed over an envelope containing two hundred in cash, money that paid the bills, but did nothing to ease the constant rumbling in my stomach. The only respite from my worries was nights in the bedroom with Audie. Even then I was on guard, never sure what she might decide to bite...