Las Vegas, March
Bethany James, a twenty-eight-year-old Vegas poker phenom, stared at her quarry with a hunterâs gaze as he riffled his chips, little columns neatly folding between his fingers. The tempo grew faster. It was one of his âtells.â
âSo you want to gamble,â he said when she pushed her bet in. âDid you hit the river?â
âJump in and find out.â
She ignored the familiar buzz on her PDA for the fourth or fifth time as she studied her opponentâs face, her unflinching stare boring into him like a surgeonâs scalpel, cutting away the outer layer, seeing the tightened muscles beneath his expression of calm.
He was bluffing all the way and she was going to take him down.
âOne way to find out.â
When he was weak, he had the habit of putting his card protector, a small gold skeleton, down on his cards with authority, and heâd done that.
Iâve got you now, she thought. To needle him a little more, she said, âI should put the clock on you.â
âI think you have fours with an over card.â
âYou wish.â
The other three men, all under thirty years of age, had already been small-stacked and eliminated one at a time.
Truth, as her gambler father once saidâquoting his hero, the great billionaire gambler Kerry Packerâis what is left when all the lies and secrets, those little âtells,â have been revealed and your lie is the last lie standing. That is the moment when you take control of the game.
She waited for her opponent to play his mind games, knowing he was already looking to come over the top, maybe even go âall inâ after sheâd set him up by limping in with a small bet to look weak, enticing him into believing he could buy the pot with a bluff.
Through the window to the right of the dealerâs head, over the empty flower box, beyond the patio of this estate on Sunrise Mountain, Beth stared for a moment to rest her tired eyes, her gaze lingering on the shimmering sea of orange that was the neon metropolis of Las Vegas.
Someone once said of her that she was just like the city she grew up in. A chameleon, a changeling, an impostor.
Yes, true. Survival demanded it.
âYou checked on the opening bet. Played slow. What do you have?â he said in a low whisper.
He was searching, hoping to see something. All night sheâd been building the fake tell for him to see. Three times sheâd bluffed and when she did, sheâd pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and chewed lightly on it. If he picked that up, he would jump all over her.
She pulled her lip in and gnawed away.
Beth could see nearly all the casinos from where she sat and she was outlawed from just about every one of them. Because of her card counting days, she was forced to use disguises when she did attempt entry. Now she mostly played in high-stakes private games like this one.