The New Game Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  JOEY ran his fingers over the edge of the card, felt the slickness of its plastic coating, the sharp corners. He loved brand new playing cards: how they smelled, how clean they appeared, how crisp. He took a deep breath, careful to make sure the other players read it as a tell rather than the worry about the deception in which he was currently engaged. He felt a light tug on the card under the table. He let it go. Next to him, Connor talked to one of Rupert Sporich’s goons, Pete, another player in on the double-cross. Pride filled Joey. No one at the table would know that Connor had just taken a card from him. No one would be able to tell. They’d run this cheat so many times that it went off seamlessly. Still, he always felt nervous. Not necessarily over getting caught, but about what Connor would say or do if Joey was the reason they were exposed. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his partnership with Connor. He sent up a prayer to the Virgin Mary, thanking her for making things go so well so far.

  Why that was, Joey didn’t want to think about. Sure, he knew. He knew exactly why he stayed up late nights in the hotel room they shared, unable to sleep in his twin bed, staring at Connor across the small divide between them that seemed like a canyon. How many nights had he thought about crossing that divide, climbing into Connor’s bed, and confessing—no, showing—his feeling for the man? Too many to count. A band closed around his heart. He could never tell Connor how he really felt. The man would probably flatten him and leave him for dead. They certainly wouldn’t play cards together anymore.

  Stay sharp, Josef, he told himself. He couldn’t let his unrequited love get the better of him now. He had to focus on the game, on the intricacies of the graft. A trickle of sweat rolled down his back. The small industrial garage where the game took place didn’t have air conditioning, but Joey knew the sweat didn’t come entirely from the heat.

  Sporich had heard Joey and Connor knew how to play cards, but Joey figured he probably didn’t realize the entire truth. He’d brought them in to help take the big gull across the table for everything he was worth. Split it four ways, he’d said: Sporich, Pete, Connor, and Joey. Joey let his eyes move toward the two cowhide bags—Holstein hair on and everything—the dupe had thrown onto a couch. Supposedly they were full of unmarked fifties and hundreds. He didn’t doubt it, looking at the poser dressed all in white, like some kind of cliché comic-book cowboy. He’d come to Vegas on a private jet—he’d made sure everyone heard that—looking for a big game. A game bigger than could be found on the Strip.

  Joey threw a few chips in the pot and returned to his musing. He didn’t think big rollers like this Dallas guy actually existed, ones with enough money and stupid enough to take part in a game like this. That only happened in movies.

  He heard Connor spout off one of their cue phrases to Pete. Joey glanced at his watch. Thirteen seconds and he’d reach under the table, make some crass comment about scratching his balls, and take the card Connor would pass to him.

  Their process seemed cliché, almost too simple to work, but it did, probably because they were as good actors as card players.

  Joey reached under the table, found the card without fumbling, and then heard, “What are you guys doing? What’s go—Oh shit.”

  Cherrie Dubel. Joey couldn’t hide his surprise as he turned to see her entering the room, the bright sun from outside streaming in around her. She held bags of burgers and a tray of drinks. The willowy blonde’s eyes had gone wide, and their focus landed right on the card, both Connor’s and Joey’s fingers still grasping it. Joey’s heart leaped into his throat. She’d caught their cheat.

  “Oh shit,” Joey echoed quietly, and his gaze met Connor’s. Regret filled the big, ginger-haired ex-boxer’s eyes.

  This would ruin them. Connor glanced at Cherrie and shook his head.

  “Oh shit,” she said again, and dropped the drinks.

  Shakes and sodas splattered all over the gray concrete floor.

  Joey heard chairs scraping back, but he couldn’t look at the others at the table. His eyes remained glued to the mess on the floor, the trails that the spilled drinks formed on the concrete.

  “Ramirez!” Connor warned.

  Joey turned to face him. Everyone else was standing.

  Sporich and Pete had guns drawn, one pointed at him, the other at Dallas. Connor had his hands up; Joey knew he didn’t carry a weapon to these games anyway. It would seem too suspicious.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Dallas sputtered. He held his hands up too.

  “What did you see, Cher?”

  “Uh… nothing.”

  Joey closed his eyes and shook his head. She couldn’t lie to save her life, let alone his. He needed to start saying his prayers.

  CONNOR watched Cherrie out of the corner of his eye; his focus stayed on Sporich. He’d liked the girl, and she wanted him despite the fact that Sporich claimed her. He didn’t have any feelings beyond wanting to protect her. He could have been her ticket away from the creep, but not now. God, I wish she were smarter than she looks. Too bad the dumb blonde stereotype was founded in reality.

  Connor took a deep breath, working to steady his nerves. Advantage one, he didn’t have a gun pointed at him.

  Advantage two, Dallas looked like he might throw up. That could serve as a good diversion. Advantage three… hey, he was Connor Fahy.

  “What is this shit?” he said, adopting the Boston tough-guy persona that everybody expected from him. Too bad he could only wear it like the black suit he had on, for show.

  “You tell me, Fahy,” Sporich spat. “What did you see, Cherrie?”

  Connor glanced back at Cherrie. She still held the paper bags in her white-knuckled fist. Soda and milkshake had splattered up her tanned legs and across the front of her red pencil skirt. She perched in her designer heels in the mess.

  Lie for me, dammit, Connor thought, but he knew she couldn’t. Sporich would see right through.

  “I didn’t see nothin’,” she said, but she could put no conviction behind it.

  Connor grimaced, and looked back to Sporich.

  They had a problem. Sporich had brought Connor and Joey in to work over Dallas, but now that Cherrie had outed them, Sporich would have to pretend like he didn’t know they had cheated. This little mishap would spoil his reputation as it was: cheaters could make it into his games.

  Either way, he was screwed, and either way, Connor and Joey would have to take the blame.

  “Listen, Ruppie—” Cherrie said.

  Connor looked back to her. She’d started toward the table, but slipped in the mess under her feet and hit the ground hard. Pete and Sporich lowered their weapons in shock, and Sporich ran to her aid. Got to admire the man’s chivalry. Connor saw it as his chance. He leveled a left hook across his body and hit Pete. A sickening crunch sounded as Pete’s head snapped back. The man hit the floor, his gun dropping, and then it slid against the wall.

  “Come on, Joey,” Connor said. He headed toward the couch with the two cowhide satchels. He snatched them up and ran for the far side of the garage.

  He heard footsteps behind him, and he prayed Joey followed.

  Dallas was screaming, but for some reason he didn’t follow. Connor pulled up to the door and glanced back.

  Dallas had recovered Pete’s gun from the ground and was holding it. The weapon shook so badly, though, that Connor didn’t worry. Sporich knelt next to Cherrie, but he had his cell phone out. Connor knew he was summoning backup.

  “
We got to get out of here,” he told Joey as Joey joined him at the door.

  A bullet hit the doorframe above their heads, pinging off the metal. Connor glanced back at Dallas. The man seemed to be crying.

  “Now,” Connor said and pushed out into the slanting sunlight of late afternoon. Connor glanced up at the sky; he’d totally lost track of time in the windowless warehouse and half expected it to be dark when he emerged.

  They ran across the parking lot to Joey’s car. Connor threw the bags through the open backseat window and jumped into the driver’s seat. Joey got into the passenger seat. Connor revved the car to life, jammed it into reverse, and peeled out of the parking lot. As they pulled away, he could see Sporich in the rearview mirror, raising his gun, but they had made it out of range.

  OVER his shoulder, Ramirez watched the small, ramshackle industrial park where everything had gone to shit fade away behind him. Twilight descended, putting a curtain between him and the badness.

  Then his gaze fell on the two bags on the backseat, and bile rose into his throat. Fear caused him to grit his teeth.

  “We stole it,” was all he could force out through his clenched jaw.

  Connor chuckled and started to shrug out of his suit coat as he drove. Joey leaned over and helped him.

  “I mean, what the fuck, Con?” He pulled the jacket off Connor and tossed it over the bags in the backseat, so he didn’t have to look at them. He watched Connor. Connor’s focus stayed on the road.

  “We were going to take it anyway,” he told Joey.

  Joey shook his head. “Not like this. Cheating is… different. And not all of it either.” He didn’t want to think about what this would mean for them. Sporich would track them down, he felt certain, and most likely kill them. He’d never heard of Sporich killing someone directly, but there was a first time for everything, and they sure as hell just painted a couple of huge targets on their backs. “What are we going to do?”

  “I know a place,” Connor said, a slight smile on his face as if he’d planned all this and he just now got to finally tell Joey. “Friend of mine has a ski cabin in Colorado. Remember when I left town a few months back?”

  Joey nodded. He’d stewed in their rooms for the entire weekend, feeling sorry for himself that Connor hadn’t invited him along.

  “We’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Joey scoffed. “And then what?” What good would it do to hold up in a cabin with several thousand dollars? Joey thought about his abuelita’s ranch in the mountains north of Mexico City. If he called the shots, they’d head there.

  But he didn’t.

  Connor did, and Joey did whatever Connor told him to do.

  Because I love him, Joey admitted to himself, but he’d never be able to tell Connor. It would destroy their relationship.

  “We’ll lay low, hope Sporich ends up with bigger fish to fry. Besides,” he grinned big in the gathering gloom, “Cherrie will try to talk Sporich out of following us. She’s got a thing for me.”

  Joey huffed. He didn’t need to be reminded.

  “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ll switch drivers after a few hours.”

  Joey leaned his head against the side window and watched the darkening desert as they headed northwest.

  Joey had liked Vegas, had liked the few friends they’d made.

  Had even loved the suite they lived in and his few possessions. Sure, they would have had to pull up stakes after a few good scores anyway, but it felt too soon to him.

  He glanced sideways at Connor. At least they were still together.

  For now.

  Chapter Two

  “WAKE up.”

  Joey opened his eyes and straightened. He felt sore, probably from falling asleep in the car at an awkward angle, and probably due to the shock of the afternoon too. He reflected momentarily, then looked back at Connor’s jacket, still draped over the bags. He’d had a fleeting thought that the entire episode had been a dream, but the bulge of the bags in the dim backseat reaffirmed his horrendous reality.

  “I can’t believe we did this,” Joey murmured, then looked at Connor.

  “Too late for regrets now,” Connor said, his grim smile lit by the headlights of the oncoming cars.

  Joey shuddered. He didn’t see the Connor he loved right now. He saw something different, something nearly dreadful, and it ripped his heart out to witness it.

  He could accept that they’d done something bad; he could work it out with the Connor he knew, but that grin… it spoke volumes. Something had taken Connor over. Maybe it was the greed, maybe he’d gotten fed up with their entire gig, or maybe he’d come too close to the end of his life and he didn’t like what he saw on the other side. Joey didn’t know, but he needed to.

  Up ahead, a truck stop came into view, all glowing neon and a vast expanse of parking lot. They had a casino too, and that made Joey feel even worse. Connor sometimes had his moments of weakness. What if he decided to let it all ride on some game of chance? Then they wouldn’t have Dallas’s money and still have Sporich coming after them.

  “We should stop for something to eat,” Connor said.

  Joey did feel pangs of hunger. One of those burgers Cherrie had had would have been his dinner if everything hadn’t gone to shit.

  But it had.

  “Fine,” Joey said, but even though he wanted to eat, he doubted that he could. “How far have we come?”

  “I’ve been driving a couple of hours.” Connor pulled off the highway and into the lot filled with semis. “You slept a long time.” Connor parked in an empty spot in the sea of vehicles.

  Joey felt a little better. If the place was this crowded, there would be less of a chance of someone remembering them if Sporich came along later.

  On the other hand, more people meant a better chance to run into someone who knew them.

  Connor left the bags in the backseat as if he carried a few grand around all the time, and led Joey toward the café.

  The waitress showed them to a booth, and Joey quickly checked the menu. He realized with a jolt that this could be his last meal. He didn’t know if Sporich followed a few miles or a few hundred miles behind; in reality, Colorado wasn’t that far from Vegas.

  “Relax,” Connor said, as if he could read Joey’s mind.

  Joey thought maybe he could, since they’d been together for so long.

  They ordered coffee—still a few more hours to drive tonight—and Joey went all out on his order: shrimp cocktail, chicken fried steak, apple pie, and ice cream. Connor ordered a club sandwich.

  “What’s the point of it if we don’t enjoy it?” Joey asked nervously after the waitress had left the table. “I mean, we’ve got all that”—he lowered his voice—”money. We should use it.” He wanted Connor to reassure him, to indulge with him in an attempt to cover up his uneasiness with hedonism.

  But Connor only shook his head. “This is our last big score, bro. We’re ruined in that world now. Unless we find a new game… it’s live off what we got or go square.”

  Joey knew “going square” to Connor was the worst thing imaginable.

  And then Joey realized what Connor had really said: they’d ruined the game. They couldn’t play anymore. All Joey had done for the last… hell, how long had he hustled cards with Connor? A decade? More? Joey couldn’t remember, but he did know that he couldn’t live another life.

  He sighed, but the act did nothing to disperse the lead feeling in his gut.

  “I can’t believe we did this,” Joey said, knowing he’d repeated himself. He couldn’t help it.

  The waitress brought his shrimp cocktail and set it down. Joey looked at the tiny pink things swimming in red sauce. The shrimp fork the server had left had a bent tine.

  Joey had gotten too used to the big shrimp on ice the casinos served, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

  “God, I miss Vegas,” he said then took his first bite.

  “Well you ain’t going back there.” Conno
r drank his coffee, set down the mug, and then picked up a fork. He gestured across the table at Joey with it. “There ain’t no going back for either of us. You know that.”

  Joey ate his cocktail slowly, knowing the truth of the statement. He also knew that, if they weren’t hustling cards, Connor had little reason to keep him around. He’d said they’d stick together as far as the ski lodge, but what about after that?

  “I don’t know that I can handle this,” Joey said, pushing his plate away with the shrimp still mostly full.

  Connor finished off the cocktail. “No problem,” he said.

  “I meant this situation.”

  Connor set down his fork and leaned away, draping his arms across the back of the booth. “It’s harder for them to track two of us if we split up. Is that what you want?”

  Joey could see the cut of Connor’s muscles through his shirt, the way he filled it out through the chest. He took in Connor’s face—including the scars and crooked nose—and knew that he could never leave Connor. It hurt to hear Connor even suggest it, but he couldn’t deny that it was a logical option. And with the way Connor had acted today, Joey did feel a glimmer of temptation at the idea of running off on his own. But in the end he couldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t leave the man he loved.

  “No,” he said, looking down at the table. “We should stick together.”

  “Then don’t wuss out on me, you hear?”

  The waitress removed the cocktail plate.

  “I need you strong, Ramirez.”

  Joey nodded, but he couldn’t look up. What would Connor say if he knew the real reason Joey didn’t want to leave was because he loved the ex-boxer? Joey could be strong when it suited the situation, or when Connor needed him to be. He just needed to find that teenage thug within himself who had first fallen in with Connor, back when Connor still boxed.

  After the match that night, years ago, when Joey had been loitering around outside the club where it had happened trying to pick pockets, he’d seen Connor get the crap beat out of him by the rival boxer’s entourage.