“And by the time the house is wise to it,” Roarke finished, “you’ve taken your winnings and gone. We’ll eat,” he added, “then work on it. I think it’s a night for red meat.”

She sat down to steak, tiny gold potatoes, tender spears of asparagus. After the first bite, she thought Roarke had been right again. It was a night for red meat.

“When you were still on my board,” she began, “you roped me into having dinner with you here. Steak.”

“I remember, yes.”

“That was the second time I’d ever had real steak. The cow deal.”

He broke a roll in two, handed her half. “You never said. When was the first?”

“When I made LT, Feeney took me out for a steak dinner. You get so used to the fake stuff, you think what’s the big deal.” She cut off a bite, studied it, ate it. “Then you find out. First steak,” she asked him.

“I was eight, or about, and stole one when I was rummaging about in a big house in a fancy part of Dublin. People will hide valuables in their cold boxes, as if any thief worthy of the name won’t look there.”

“Freezers,” she agreed, “underwear drawers. Usually the top two. So, the steak.”

“Mick and Brian and I fried it up on a hot plate in our hideaway, and surely bolloxed that up altogether. And still, I’ve never had better, before or after.”

When she smiled, he topped off her glass. “When Summerset took me in, we managed steak a time or two, and I learned how it was meant to taste. And still, that hunk of burned meat in our little hole was ambrosia.”

“They won’t be like us. Those two,” she said with a gesture back at the board. “When you grow up hard, like we did, it can turn you mean, violent, vicious. It can warp you. Or it can make you remember the taste of something wonderful. Either way, that’s not them.”

“Mean, violent, vicious? They don’t qualify?”

“Sure, but it’s thought out, it’s calculated, it’s carefully orchestrated. Not striking out, not payback, not survival or some fucked-up version of it. They don’t have to remember. They’re going to have advantages, most likely come from decent backgrounds. I’m betting a solid education and/or training.”

Studying her, fascinated as always by her mind, its processes, he sliced a bite of steak. “Why?”

“Okay, you gamble for a trio of basic reasons. For the hell of it, which includes entertainment factor—and that means you can afford to lose, at least what you put in. Out of desperation or addiction, which usually means you lose even if you win because you’ll end up feeding it back. Or because you want more, you just want more. I lean toward the want more. At least with what I’ve got now.”

She speared a tiny potato. “I also bet you’d know about some high-stake games right here in the city.”

He cocked a brow, sipped his wine. “I may.”

“It might be a thread to tug. You own some casinos,” she continued, “but you don’t really gamble. Cards, dice, like that.”

 

; “The house always wins, so better to be the house than a guest in it. I’ve gambled here and there. It’s a good way to while away some time, and make a bit of profit. But it was always as much for the entertainment as anything else for me, or for the insight into the other players, all of whom might serve as a mark down the line.”

“Every heist was a gamble,” she pointed out.

“True enough, but that was also a vocation.” He smiled again. “A passion. Survival at first, then a way of life, then another kind of entertainment.”

“Richard Troy gambled,” she said, referring to her father. “I can look back from this distance and realize, for him, it was as much a sickness as the drinking, as the abuse. Patrick Roarke gambled.”

Roarke nodded. “He did, and it was much the same. Our bloody-minded fathers were much the same.”

“These two aren’t like that, either. Not the types to lash out, to get shit-faced and pound on a kid. The more I think about it . . . This went so damn smooth for them. Sure it took time, some investment, involved some risk, but it was clear profit in a matter of hours once it rolled. They’re going to do it again. People just don’t quit while they’re ahead.”

“And so the house always wins,” Roarke agreed.

“Do you know of any other big mergers, major shifts in the works, something that could be used to manipulate the market?”

“There’s always something cooking somewhere.”

“I think it has to be here in New York, almost has to be. Otherwise, you have travel, more time to pull it off. You have to know a target to hit it. Would they try the same thing again? Would they risk that? Shit. I have to think.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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