Chapter 7: Back Stairs

Andre's POV

She read the note twice, sitting up in my bed with my sheet around her, and then she looked at me.

"While I deal his game Saturday," she said, "you go upstairs and get her."

"And if this is the con?"

"Then you'll have kidnapped my mother for nothing."

I'd bonded out a lot of liars in twenty-two years.

None of them had ever looked at me like that while they did it.

"Okay," I said.

On Saturday night at nine I walked into Russ Ladner's net room for the last time.

The Houston man was already in the big chair with his white hat on the felt.

The car dealer from Mobile was back too, the one who'd lost ninety thousand last November.

Laurent sat at the far end with his back to the window, sipping club soda, saying nothing.

And Aimee stood behind the dealer's spot in a plain black dress with her hair in a tight bun.

Russ looked at her and stopped smiling.

"Where's my dress, sugar?"

"Andre didn't like it," she said.

The Houston man laughed and looked at me with new respect.

Russ looked at me too, and I let him.

Then he took a blue deck out of his shirt pocket, soft at the corners, and handed it to her.

"My deck," he said. "My game. Deal."

She dealt.

I'd never watched her work before.

Her hands were small and quick and never wasted a motion.

She slid cards across the felt to five men without once looking at her own fingers.

All I could see was those fingers wrapped around my cock four days ago.

Russ started on her before the first hour was out.

"Smile for Houston, sugar. He came all this way."

She didn't smile.

"Lean over and get those chips for the gentleman."

She reached across the felt for the Houston man's chips, and Russ watched him watch her.

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