America clicked her fake driver’s license with her nails and smiled. “The name’s Candy. Candy Crawford,” she said in her flawless southern accent.
I held out my hand. “Jessica James. Nice to meet you, Candy.”
We both slipped on our sunglasses and stood stone-faced as the elevator opened, revealing the neon lights and bustling of the casino floor. People moved in all directions from all walks of life. Vegas was heavenly hell, the one place you could find dancers in ostentatious feathers and stage makeup, prostitutes with insufficient yet acceptable attire, businessmen in luxurious suits, and wholesome families in the same building. We strutted down an aisle lined with red ropes and handed a man in a red jacket our IDs. He eyed me for a moment and I pulled down my glasses.
“Anytime today would be great,” I said, bored.
He returned our IDs and stood aside, letting us pass. We passed aisle after aisle of slot machines and the blackjack tables and then stopped at the roulette wheel. I scanned the room, watching the various poker tables, settling on the one with older gentlemen in the seats.
“That one,” I said, nodding across the way.
“Start off aggressive, Abby. They won’t know what hit ’em.”
“No. They’re old Vegas. I have to play it smart this time.”
I walked over to the table, using my most charming smile. Locals could smell a hustler from a mile away, but I had two things in my favor that covered the scent of any con: youth … and tits.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Mind if I join you?”
They didn’t look up. “Sure sweet cheeks. Grab a seat and look pretty. Just don’t talk.”
“I want in,” I said, handing America my sunglasses. “There’s not enough action at the blackjack tables.”
One of the men chewed on his cigar. “This is a poker table, Princess. Five-card draw. Try your luck on the slot machines.”
I sat in the only empty seat, making a show of crossing my legs. “I’ve always wanted to play poker in Vegas. And I have all these chips,” I said, setting my rack of chips on the table, “and I’m really good online.”
All five men looked at my chips and then at me. “There’s a minimum ante, Sugar,” the dealer said.
“How much?”
“Five hundred, Peach. Listen … I don’t want to make you cry. Do yourself a favor and pick out a shiny slot machine.”
I pushed forward my chips, shrugging my shoulders in the way a reckless and overly confident girl might before realizing she’d just lost her college fund. The men looked at each other. The dealer shrugged and tossed in his own.
“Jimmy,” one of the players said, offering his hand. When I took it, he pointed at the other men. “Mel, Pauli, Joe, and that’s Winks.” I looked over to the skinny man chewing on a toothpick, and as predicted, he winked at me.
I nodded and waited with fake anticipation as the first hand was dealt. I purposely lost the first two, but by the fourth hand, I was up. It didn’t take as long for the Vegas veterans to figure me out as it did Thomas.
“You said you played online?” Pauli asked.
“And with my dad.”
“You from here?” Jimmy asked.
“Wichita,” I said.
“She’s no online player, I’ll tell you that,” Mel grumbled.
An hour later, I had taken twenty-seven hundred dollars from my opponents, and they were beginning to sweat.
“Fold,” Jimmy said, throwing down his cards with a frown.
“If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would have never believed,” I heard behind me.
America and I turned at the same time, and my lips stretched across my face in a wide smile. “Jesse,” I shook my head. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my place you’re scamming, Cookie. What are you doing here?”