26. Tink #2
“That’s different,” Pan says. “Come on, lighten up. The night is young and we’re making money.”
Still, I hesitate.
“Has anyone said anything?” I ask, my voice even lower.
“Huh?” Pan rips his gaze away from the table. “Gimme five hundred in chips,” he says, wiggling his fingers.
I do, counting them out for him in the different colored denominations, but I hover just before putting them in his hand. “Have they?” I say.
“About what? Oh,” he says, and reaches up to take the chips away from me. “You know what? I haven’t gotten around to asking but…” He points directly in my face. “Sitting in for a hand. Perfect time to strike up the convo, don’t you think?”
“I…” I begin. No, I think not really, but…
But it’s too late. Pan swipes the chips, saunters over to the empty seat, and settles in. I watch the dealer deal him in. Watch Ruby come over and plunk down another drink. And watch Pan make some crack that gets a few laughs out of the regulars.
“Going good?”
I almost jump at the voice, but it’s just Fox. “Oh, uh… Yeah, no, great night so far,” I say, distracted.
“No, I meant your uh…” He hooks his thumbs in his belt loops and rocks on his heels, nodding at my arm. “What’d you end up getting?”
“Oh,” I say. Somehow in the middle of everything else, I’d already forgotten I have a new tattoo. “Uh, it’s a design Wendy did, kind of,” I say. “Kit redrew it, but…” I rotate my arm a little so he can see.
Fox lifts his eyebrows and pulls down the corners of his mouth, surveying and approving. “Not bad,” he says. “I mean, not that I’d think any less of my brother, but… you never know.” He catches my eyes. “It looks good on you.”
“Thanks,” I say, my face getting hot for no particular reason. “She really seemed to want to give it to me,” I add, feeling like I need more explanation so.
“Hey, uh…” Someone behind Fox, asking for attention.
“Oh, sorry.” Fox jumps back into bouncer mode. “You uh, here to play?” He inclines his head a little at the newcomer, who nods.
“Yeah.”
Fox steps aside and I get a good look at him. And as soon as I do, my neck stiffens.
I know him. I don’t know who he is, but I know him.
I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him there. The casino, betting big.
The same black hair buzzed short because he’s balding.
The same sunglasses on, indoors. The same brown leather jacket that’s probably designer, and I’m sure he wears just so everyone knows he can afford it.
The same thin silver chain around his neck.
And when he smiles, the same gold tooth.
I know him. I’ve talked to him even. I—
I have to put my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking as he pulls out a billfold.
“I buy in with you?” he says.
“Uh, yeah.” I keep my eyes glued on the books.
It hasn’t happened before. Not like this, not so up close. London Valley’s not that big, and I’m sure I’ve had brushes where those guys, the guys who used to…
Who were the ones who…
I’m sure they’ve been near me since I’ve been Tink.
Even before then, maybe, when I was on the run.
But I used to hide better—from them, from everyone.
I didn’t hang around people, any people, so that I wouldn’t see people like this, people who might know me, recognize me, take me back, sell me out.
I clench my hands into fists under the desk.
But why is he here? I think. A high roller from the casino suddenly shows up at a game like this.
It can’t be worth his time. The house money’s not nearly as deep.
I glance up as he counts out bills, trying to think.
Remembering what Krye said. Hook is on a warpath.
If guys like this, guys I’ve seen losing tens of thousands of dollars at poker tables and winning back just enough to rent a girl for the night…
if they end up here, that can’t be good.
“…and there’s five,” he says, stacking the bills and handing them to me.
I jolt back to life. “Yeah, sure.” I take them, stuff them in the lockbox, lock it again.
I keep my fingers tight, achingly tense as I stack out the chips so that they don’t shake.
But when he leans over and the smell of his cologne washes over me, I break.
My hands stutter, dropping the chips in an avalanche onto the desk in front of me.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, hoarsely. “Just uh…klutzy.”
“It’s fine,” he says, but there is an edge of confusion in his voice. He scoops them up in short, hairy fingers. And as he does, he looks at me in the eyes.
I blink, frozen. I can’t react, can’t act like I know him.
But also can’t remember how to act in front of someone I don’t know, have never seen, and have nothing to do with beyond handing him his chips at this game.
My breathing feels both too deep and too shallow.
My blinks too fast and too slow. My pulse, a zigzag all over the place.
His thick brows nudge together. He tips his head just a fraction of an inch to the side. “You uh…” he starts, then shakes his head. “I know you, kid?”
I force a dry swallow down my throat, put a small frown on my lips. “No,” I say, my voice low and gravelly. “Don’t think so.”
“Hmm.” He scoops the rest of his chips. “You don’t got like, family around here or…?”
“Nah,” I say.
“Lost Boys don’t have family.” Fox, Fox, his voice big, booming, and happy, cuts in like this is the most casual conversation in the world. “Well, I’ve got my brother, but you know, that’s kind of how we roll. Twins will be boys, as they say.”
He flashes a grin, and the guy returns it after a moment. “Yeah, yeah. No, he just uh…” The guy rubs his chin. “…looked familiar. I don’t know.”
“Good luck,” I say, casual, but hopefully ushering him toward the table.
And it works. He steps off, takes an empty seat.
As he settles in, my heartbeat loud in my neck and ears, I look at Pan, the anchor in the room, the one who’s always sure of himself, of everything, even if he maybe shouldn’t be.
And he’s relaxed. One arm flung over the back of his seat, cards in his other hand, smiling. Somehow he must know I’m looking ‘cause he glances up, catches my eyes, gives me a subtle thumbs-up with his free hand over the chair. He leans in, flattens his cards on the table, and stacks in a bet.
“Hey, where are those other guys?” he says, looking around the table. “The ones who beat me that one time. When I literally lost my shirt, or jacket.” He laughs, and so do some of the other players. He frowns, like he’s thinking. “What were their names again?”
There’s a beat of silence. Just music and the click of chips.
“You mean the brothers?” one of the whales says, a nerdy-looking guy in a baby blue polo. “Mike and JD.”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Pan says, grinning and nodding. Too much. I can already tell he’s overselling it, sounding too casual. Fuck, I think. Fuck, don’t do this. Pull back.
But Pan doesn’t get my brainwaves. He just casts a theatrical sweep around the room.
“Yeah, them. Where are those bastards? They don’t want to come clean me out again?
” He lifts his hands at the table. “The getting’s good, is it not?
I mean, I’d think if I was such a sitting duck that they’d come here and get their fish in a barrel. You know what I’m saying?”
He laughs again at his own joke. From the kitchen door, Ruby steps back out, another identical drink on her tray.
But she happens to look at me first, and I magnetize my gaze to her, give a small shake of the head.
Don’t encourage him, I think. Don’t give him any more.
And to her credit, Ruby blinks, nods, and slips back into the kitchen.
“Bad shit,” I hear someone else rumble. “Bad, bad shit.”
Pan cocks his head the other direction now, his hair flopping. “Really?” he says, propping his hand on his chin. “How so?”
Stop, I mentally beg him. This is not about you getting attention. This is about you finding something out subtly.
God. If he ever had to do what I had to do, as Tink…
“They’re fucking dead, is how,” says a third voice. “You didn’t hear about this? Your head must be further up your ass than I thought.”
Pan laughs again, louder this time, even though it’s at Pan’s expense, maybe because it’s at Pan’s expense, and he glowers a little. “Maybe I have better things to do than gossip,” he says. “Ever consider that?”
No one answers. And for a moment, I think the topic has been dropped.
“But, so, dead like what? Parasailing accident? Autoerotic asphyxiation?” Pan smirks at his own joke, draining whatever watery booze is left at the bottom of his glass. “No one’s going to fill me in?” he says.
“Fuckin’ house burned down,” someone says. The hand ends. Pan loses, his chips swept away into the pot. He sucks his teeth.
“Jesus,” he says. “They cooking meth or something or…?”
Again, silence. Just the flip of cards being dealt across felt.
“Think it was uh…” someone puts in. The newcomer. Gold tooth. The guy I recognize.
Hook’s guy.
“…more personal than that,” he finishes.
“Oh ho ho,” Pan says, rubbing his chin. “You don’t say.”
“I don’t,” the guy says a bit bluntly. “I don’t know more than that, just that uh…” He blows out a breath. “I don’t know. Good riddance, I think. Someone trying to get their kid.”
“Kid?” Pan says it so quickly that I can tell he’s genuinely surprised. He darts a glance at me, and I widen my eyes as much as I can. Don’t, I think. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, just let it fade away. This is a bad line of questioning.
“Apparently. That was the whole problem. Custody shit? I’m not really sure.”
“What do you mean?” Pan says again, too fast, too curious.
“I can’t say, man,” Gold Tooth says again. “It’s not the kind of thing I want to be involved in, and I would think you too. Especially if you owed them money.”