It took awhile to convince Halia that this was the best way, while trying not to scare her with the threat of Bubba Kinney. She didn’t want to go to Atlanta without Raymond. She definitely didn’t want him to stay in Chicago without her. She asked me lots of questions about my place in Vegas.
The presence of an octogenarian made her feel a little better. The presence of a showgirl did not.
We also knew that if anyone was looking closely, Raymond Joseph moving to Vegas and living with a professional poker player might raise some eyebrows. We were going to have to be low key, with him staying close to home while he stayed with us.
If anybody like the feds went looking for him, his name would be on a flight roster to Vegas, but I’d pay with cash or my credit card, so hopefully there’d be no red flags for a bit. None at all if the investigation were truly dead as it seemed to be. And we all were hoping this would be a short stay, that we’d all feel confident that Raymond could return to school, or at the very least, join his mother and sister in Atlanta and finish up his degree there.
All this was discussed while we packed up the Joseph family. The essentials went into luggage, which she and DeeDee could take with them on the bus. We boxed up some other things that we would ship to Halia’s sister in Atlanta. Halia went and spoke with a neighbor that she trusted and gave her the keys to the place. Then she called her boss and told him about her change in plans.
By late evening our plan was in place for the next day, and Jack and I left to go back to the hotel. He and I would head back to the Joseph household tomorrow morning. I’d drive Halia to pick up DeeDee while Jack and Raymond finished up stuff at the house. Then we’d take the women to the bus station and see them on their way.
I called Lorelei on the way to the hotel and she found some flights for all three of us for the next evening.
I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Chicago.
“Wanna do room service again?” Jack said to me as we pulled into the hotel valet area, his voice low and seductive. It reminded me of where room service had led to last night.
Maybe one more night in Chicago would be all right.
It had taken Halia two busses and the El to see her daughter at the rehab center. And she’d gone nearly every day. After working all day. In the dead of winter. My admiration for her – and all single parents hovering at the poverty line – grew even more.
DeeDee looked small and frail, and I wondered if she’d make the long bus ride, but she perked up in the car when Halia told her of their plans. I realized that the thought of going away with her mother was a welcome one to her.
She wore her hair in braids, and at fifteen years old, she had the eyes of someone who’d lived a lot longer.
Having been through several of Lor’s interventions, I knew that part of recovery was breaking habits and changing environments that could lead to relapse. Which is why Halia wanted to get DeeDee out of that neighborhood.
I wondered if I could ever not be around casinos? They were my place of business after all, and I needed to play poker to support my family.
Which was now expanding.
Then I remembered this was Day Thirteen without placing a bet. And the way today was planned out to the last minute, there was every hope that I’d easily get to Day Fourteen. Maybe I could change my patterns and habits too, but without leaving my neighborhood.
When we entered the house, Raymond was at the door in seconds, scooping his younger sister into his arms. DeeDee seemed to relax even more, and I thought for the first time that maybe this was all going to work out okay.
They clung together, and then Halia joined them both. The scene was so touching, and yet so private, that I had to look away. I sought out Jack, but he had turned his back to the reunion and stared out the living room window.
Was he thinking about his own family? His son? The biological parents he never knew? Would I, in a few short hours, be able to tell him about his natural father?
I moved to him. He must have heard me approach him because he raised an arm for me, which I moved under. He dropped it across my shoulder as I burrowed into his side. It was unusual for us, this posture, and yet with the outpouring of emotion behind us, it felt right.
Very right.
“What are you going to tell Vince when we get back?” he said quietly.
Suddenly, all was not right. I didn’t pull away, not physically, but there was a definite shift.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You’re not going to keep seeing him, are you?”
“Well, we – he and I – we weren’t, we hadn’t…” He didn’t move, but I felt a slight release of breath.
It was true, what I couldn’t seem to articulate. Vince and I weren’t exclusive, hadn’t even broached the subject. Hell, we’d only shared a few kisses. But juggling men had never been my style, and it didn’t feel real good right now. “But I’m not…I can’t…”
“End it,” Jack said.
I wanted to protest, to tell him he didn’t have any say in the matter, that he was the one who had dumped me. But, if I were honest, he’d just said exactly what I was thinking.
“But you can’t want to keep on with…” I stepped away from him, motioning between us. I took a quick glance over my shoulder, but the Josephs had moved into the kitchen area.
“Yes,” he said, taking his eyes from the window and looking at me. “Yes.”
I was happy, believe me, and I certainly didn’t want to talk Jack out of continuing on with this line of thinking, but it had stung – badly – when he’d ended it before, and I didn’t want to set myself up for that again.
That’s what we in the biz called a sucker bet.
“Jack, you couldn’t handle all of this before. What makes you think you can now?”
He looked behind us, saw that the Josephs were indeed out of earshot, then turned back to me. “That’s when I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I could only imagine what you were doing, what kind of trouble you were getting yourself into.”
“And knowing for sure is so much better?”
“Oh, yeah. My imagination, with what I’ve seen? Yeah, reality is much easier to handle.”
“But – ”
“Besides, you said you were done. That JoJo is dead and buried, right? Or was that just to keep me from calling the feds?”
“No, I meant it. Mean it.”
“Then, we should have smooth sailing.” He grinned. “Except for my two ex-wives, son I barely know, your poker playing, and living with a houseful of codgers.”
“Oh yeah, except for all that.”
“Right. Smooth sailing.” He smiled. It took years off his face.
“And you love those codgers,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I do,” he admitted. The smile faded from his face. He looked out the window, took a deep breath and looked at me. “And, I love – ”
“Anna?” Halia said behind us.
I held my hand up to her. Rude, but I wasn’t about to interrupt Jack.
He swallowed his words, and an actual gulp, most likely of relief, and turned to Halia. “Are we ready?” he asked her.
She looked at me with curiosity as she nodded to Jack. I can only imagine what she saw on my face, still frozen at Jack’s almost words. Shock? Hope? Fear? All of the above?
Most definitely all of the above.
“We’re ready. DeeDee’s gone through her room to make sure there wasn’t something she absolutely needed that we’d forgotten.”
Jack brought his and my bags in from the car to allow more trunk space for Halia and DeeDee’s luggage, then he and Raymond started loading up the car.
Halia and I stepped into her bedroom, and I helped her put on the money belts for safe traveling. There weren’t the restrictions on bus travel about cash declarations that there was on airplanes, but the cash would still be safer tucked under Halia’s clothes than in her purse or luggage.
As she pulled down her sweater, I started to step out of the room, but she put a hand on my arm. “Like I said before, I don’t know whether to thank you or curse you.”
I nodded. “I know. It’s all – ”
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing my arm. I looked into her eyes and saw, for the first time in the past three days, hope.
I just nodded again, not able to speak. JoJo had been a total fuck up, but at the very least, she was ending her reign by helping out a worthy family.
We all crammed into the rental car, and Halia directed us to the bus station. Jack and Raymond dealt with the luggage while Halia and I took DeeDee with us to the ticket counter. We waited for the bus and tried to give them some time for goodbyes, but just before the women got on, Halia called me over, took my hand and whispered, “Take care of my baby boy.”
“I will,” I promised. I didn’t have a lot of faith in my maternal instincts, but I figured I couldn’t do much worse than if Raymond was left to L’il Roy’s gang.
We watched the bus pull away, Jack on one side of Raymond, me on the other. I put my hand lightly on his shoulder, not knowing if he’d brush it away, or start crying, but he did neither, just stood and followed the bus out of the station with his eyes. Neither Jack nor I made a move, waiting for Raymond.
Long after the bus had disappeared, he turned, and the three of us walked back to the parking lot, got in the car and drove back to Raymond’s house.
We had plenty of time before our flight, but I wanted to get Jack, mine and Raymond’s stuff and head to the airport right away. I don’t know why, I just didn’t like the idea of sitting around Halia’s house, empty of her personal belongings.
We entered the house, stamping the snow off our shoes, pulling jackets off. Raymond froze first, and I bumped into his back. Jack, on my side, slowly slid his hand to his belt, only to realize that his gun was back in Vegas.
A young, black man, still wearing a parka sat on Halia’s couch, his eyes moving from Raymond, to Jack, to me, then back to Raymond.
“Where you been, Raymond?” the man asked. His tone was light, but there was menace in his eyes.
“I been looking after my momma, L’il Roy,” Raymond said.
L’il Roy rose from the couch and walked toward us. Jack took my arm and started to pull me behind him.
“You know we had a deal,” L’il Roy said to Raymond, coming closer. He didn’t have any weapon in his hands, but who knew what was hidden in that huge parka or under the baggy sweatshirt he wore over droopy jeans.
“Situation’s changed.”
L’il Roy was just about to answer Raymond, and it didn’t look like a “Really? Okay, then!” type of answer, when he looked at me again, more closely. His eyes narrowed then flashed with some sort of recognition.
“Holy shit,” he said, “you’re the Black Widow. Bitch, I love you.”
It wasn’t the declaration of love I thought I’d hear today, but I’d take it.
“The who?” Raymond asked.
“The Black Widow. Damn, man, don’t you know who’s in your own house?”
Raymond looked over his shoulder at me. I stepped past Jack, even though he tried to pull me back, and brushed past Raymond, holding my hand out to L’il Roy, using all my poker bravado I’d learned over the years to simply not shake like a leaf in front of him. A man who’d killed his own brother.
“Anna Dawson,” I said. No sense trying to hide anything. If he knew I was the Black Widow, he knew my real name. The only time I was called by that nickname was for televised poker tournaments.
Lots of pros played in made-for-television tournaments, and had lots of sponsors that they did advertising spots for. And I’d been offered them. A lot. But I’d never done them. For one thing, the specter of JoJo always loomed over me. I couldn’t take a sponsor’s money knowing I could very well be unmasked one day.
And I didn’t do the extra TV tournaments because I just didn’t want to be recognized more than necessary. That wouldn’t help when JoJo made an apperance.
But, I have had a few televised final tables. And when I make a final table in a big tourney, I wear my black suit – though it’s been getting much more use at funerals these past few weeks than poker tournaments. At my first final table I dominated, and one of the announcers said I was like a black widow, chomping the heads off of my competitors.
The name stuck. And in a small – but growing – circle, I was a celebrity. A novelty, really.
And apparently that small circle included L’il Roy.
“L’il Roy,” he said, taking my hand. His hand was cool and smooth, but what did I expect? Blood to be dripping off of it? “Holy shit,” he said, “what are you doing here? Do you live in Chicago?”
“No. We’re just here…my friend, Jack and I,” I pointed to Jack behind me. L’il Roy looked past me, sized Jack up, and looked back to me. He did seem to realize that Jack was not someone to just dismiss out of hand. “We’re here for Raymond. He’s going to come and stay with me for a bit.”
“Izzat right?” L’il Roy said, looking at Raymond.
I stepped in front of Raymond. “I know you and he have made…arrangements…but we all think it might be better if Raymond gets out of Chicago for awhile.” L’il Roy didn’t say a word, but I could tell he wasn’t happy about losing his newest recruit.
I played my ace. “Surely it would be in your best interest not to have someone so…high-profile…as Raymond is right now in your midst. Who needs the scrutiny?”
His brown eyes narrowed on me. I don’t know if he took it as a helpful hint or a threat, and I’m not really sure how I meant it. His eyes left me and went behind me to Jack. I turned slightly and saw that Jack had put his badge back on his belt loop, and was holding his coat open for L’il Roy to see.
“I’m not looking for any trouble,” L’il Roy said. But he didn’t back away, either.
“Neither are we. We just have a couple of bags to pick up and then we’ll all be on our way.”
“But Raymond, he came to me. I didn’t go looking for him. He came to me for protection.”
“And I’m sure he appreciates all you did for him.” I couldn’t keep all the sarcasm out of my voice. Raymond’s face was still all kinds of ugly from the bruises.
“That ain’t even a Chicago badge,” he said past me and to Jack.
“You that familiar with a Chicago badge?” Jack asked.
L’il Roy grinned, but it wasn’t the happy, joyful grin of Raymond Joseph. It was the smile of a man who was looking for a fight.
And I didn’t want to give him one.
“L’il Roy, you’re obviously a poker player. Let’s lay our cards on the table. What’s it going to take for the three of us to walk out that door, take Raymond with us, and keep you from…pursuing the situation?”
“I don’t know, I’ve made an investment in Raymond. I had big plans for his future.”
“Are we talking money?” I had a chunk of cash left that Halia didn’t feel she’d need at this point, but not the kind of money L’il Roy was probably talking about.
“Hard to estimate future earnings and all…”
“Then what?”
“I’ll play you for him.”
“What?”
“Head’s up poker. You and I. Winner takes Raymond home with him.” He had a cocksure smile that rubbed me the wrong way. Like every punk I saw at cash games that wanted to take down a pro.
“That’s crazy, we need to – ” Jack was saying, but I cut him off.
“Shuffle up and deal.”