The Player (The Game Maker 3)

If I was going back in on this con, I'd do it my way. I typed two letters.

Karin said, "What the hell?"

"What did she do?" Mom cried. "What did she do???"

"Vice told him . . . no."

I glanced up, shrinking from their horrified expressions. "I'm playing a hunch."

Dad said, "Ballsy, sweet pea. Let's hope he likes the chase."

Al took one of Gram's rooks. "Vee Russian men do like chase."

Another chime. DSevastyan: Other plans?

Mom clasped her hands. "Please, just be . . . nice."

Again, I was typing.

Karin translated for everyone: "She wrote that she and her friends might go clubbing. She punctuated her text with emoticons of a martini glass, a prescription pill, and a dripping syringe."

Al glowered. "Vee raised you better than thees."

Mom looked like she was about to faint, so I said, "Elusiveness. If I'm going to milk-cow him, I should be elusive, right?"

Gram said, "Elusive, yes. Impulsive, no. Long cons are long because we spend time plotting, my dear."

I caught my parents sharing a glance. They were . . . scared. As if I'd just taken a dive and shanked our game-winning shot.

Come on, Sevastyan, please text back.

No one spoke. Gram's sherry bottle clinked against her little glass as Al refilled her.

Please, Dmitri, please, please, please.

Another chime. Relief made me sag.

DSevastyan: Are you busy now?

Karin read the text aloud while I answered. Vice: Not really.

I jumped when my phone rang a second later. "It's him."

Karin snapped her fingers. "Paper! Pen!"

Mom scrambled past canvases and sewing materials to toss Karin a notepad and pen. "Put it on speakerphone, Vice."

What if he mentioned what we'd done? But he was a mark, and we worked these cons by committee. As Mom always said, "It takes a village to play a mark."

Karin said, "Sound like you're smiling when you pick up."

I scowled at her, was scowling as I pushed the speaker button and answered, "Yo." All around me, my family went mum, not a peep to give them away. Even Cash seemed to be holding his breath.

"What did you think of the gift I sent you?" Dmitri asked.

The sound of his deep, rich voice filled the room, sending an unwelcome thrill through me. "I'm not at home." I made my tone bored as I said, "What'd you get me?"

"A car. The deliveryman took a picture of it. Would you like to see?"

A freaking car?? I sighed, "I s'pose."

A photo popped up in my text-message queue--a cherry-red Porsche convertible parked in front of my dusty apartment building, standing out like a diamond in coal.

I texted the pic to the conference line Benji had set up for our consultations and confabs.

Phones all around vibrated. Silent checking of screens; soaring eyebrows. Karin wrote a dollar sign with a question mark and flashed her note to Al. He held up five fingers.

The car was worth five hundred thousand dollars? Then my face fell. "Dmitri, what made you decide to lease a car for me?"

"No lease. The title is in the glove compartment. It is yours regardless of whether you ever see me again."

I mouthed, Holy shit!

"Though I do hope you will have dinner with me."

"I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not looking for an affair. And you obviously are."

Another bout of silence from his end of the line, which anyone on earth would be tempted to fill with babble. I used the move often. I patiently cut and flipped cards. I can sit here all day, Russki.

He finally asked, "Am I, then?"

"I'm not having sex with anyone outside of a committed relationship."

Karin scribbled: Too soon!

"Understood. I still want to see you."

"I'll have to check my plans. And I might be called in to work."

"Then I will tell Peter not to call you in."

Sevastyan was assisting in his own grift! "If not an affair, what do you want from me?"

"More, Vika. I will always want more from you."

Jaws dropped. Gram fanned herself. I saw Mom squeeze Dad's hand, as if she was too scared to hope.

Dmitri was either the best player we'd ever heard or he was really, actually taken with me.

"Okay. Pick me up at seven."

"Where would you like to go?"

The prospect of free food awakened any grifter's appetite. "I like Italian."

"Then we should go to Italy."

Mom and Karin shared an awww look, until I said, "I want to stay local--in case I need to bail."

At that, Gram swayed like she might fall off her chair. Mom glanced heavenward.

"Then I will be on my best behavior, moy angel. Until then. . . ." He ended the call.

I exhaled a long breath.

Pete ran his hand over his face. "So that just happened." Then he turned

to Benji. "You owe me ten large, partner."

Al leaned back in his chair, his hands over his belly. "Russian man ees smeeten to our girl. Called you my angel."

Reminded of something else Dmitri had said, I asked, "What does prosto rai mean?" He'd repeatedly rasped that when we'd gotten off together.

Al chuckled. "Prosto rai means . . . sheer heaven."

CHAPTER 13

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"Should I stay or should I go now?!" Karin and I belted out the song along with the stereo. Top down in our new convertible. The Clash playing. Hair blowing. Sun shining. Singing at the top of our lungs.

"So you gotta let me know . . . SHOULD I COOL IT OR SHOULD I BLOW?!"

I was happy, truly happy, for the first time in forever. We'd just cruised the Red Rock Canyon loop, the Porsche dazzling against the sandstone and red washes.

When Karin and I had driven it by the folks', everyone had looked at me with new respect. The car wasn't a seven-figure score, but I had another date with a billionaire, another iron in the fire.

When the song wound down, Karin turned off the stereo. "Now that we're alone, you want to tell me what he did in the club? Must've been pretty bad for him to send you this ride as an olive branch."

I'd known this question was coming. "It's one for the sister vault, okay? He . . . he got me off. In front of other people."

She blinked at me. "And then?"

"And then? That's not enough? I wasn't prepared for it!"

Karin looked confused. "Was it good with him?"

"That was part of what freaked me out so bad. I got off harder than I ever have. Harder than I knew was possible." So help me, if a crazy Russian was my key . . .

Karin waved that away. "So you have a fetish. It's perfectly normal."

I did a double take. "I don't have a fetish. Are you high?"

"You're an exhibitionist. You always have been, you know."

"What are you talking about?"

"When you were little, I'd dress you up really cute to use as my shill, and the second I turned around, you'd be stripping. I was lucky if I could keep you in a diaper." She chuckled. "You've never noticed all of your baby pics are of you running around parties naked?"

"Yeah, but by all accounts I was a hard-partying, rule-breaking kid. And what does that have to do with me as an adult?"

"Not the same thing, of course, but you've always been a little nudie."

"This isn't funny."

"Vice, for God's sake, I do badger games. Talk about exhibitionism. Benji watches me do stripteases and dance around in lingerie. I'd be lying if I said it didn't get us worked up."