Stephanie Doyle - Remembering That Night

He wouldn’t call it cheating. Poker was a game of skill after all. If a person could defeat Greg’s particular lie-detecting skills, then Greg would lose. So far that hadn’t happened.

What a freaking awesome life he had.

Greg put his head down and hunched his shoulders slightly to diminish his height as he made his way to his car. AC wasn’t a safe city but the casinos prided themselves on keeping the criminal element out of their rooms and garages. As long as you didn’t venture out onto the streets or to the dodgy end of the boardwalk you were as safe as you would be in any major city.

Still, a man with over ten thousand dollars in cash in his pocket couldn’t be too careful and anything he could do to keep from standing out was smart. Despite keeping his head down, though, he kept his ears open. It’s why he heard the clicking sound of shoes hitting cement and felt the hair on the back of his neck rise before someone called his name.

“Mr. Chalmers? A word with you please.”

Greg pulled out his keys and hit the lock button. Two rows up he could see his car lights flash on. He drove a black Porsche 911 because a man had to do something with all his winnings. Sadly he knew he wasn’t going to make it to the car. Two rows away was probably one row too far.

The clicking shoes sped up and in an instant two men were standing between him and his escape. Two very large men with thick necks and beefy hands. He’d met their type before. At the Bellagio and the Wynn in Vegas.

At the Borgata in AC and the Golden Nugget just last week.

“Guys, it’s been a long day. I just want to go home.”

Thick Neck number one stepped forward. He had a short forehead, buzzed hair and a nose that had been previously broken. He wore a black suit and a tie that looked as if it struggled to maintain its hold on his bulging neck.

“Sir, my name is Victor Lario, I run the security for this establishment. It’s come to my attention you had a pretty good night tonight.”

“Yep. Great night. Great service. Love the buffet. I’ll be back.” Greg tried to step around him, but both men repositioned themselves to block his path.

“Sir, it’s our understanding that you have a good night every night you are here. Never down. Always up.”

Greg sighed, falling back on a familiar answer to explain his success. “It’s poker, not blackjack. I play the people and I win.”

“Yeah. It’s poker. That’s what I thought, too. I thought maybe you were one of those World Tour guys, you know. So I looked you up.”

Ah yes, Greg thought. ’Twas the price of needing a casino complimentary card for the extra perks, like free access to the all-you-can-eat buffet. He’d been required to provide identification. When he’d handed over his ID he’d felt that moment of panic, but the girl issuing him the card hadn’t been inspired to do any kind of background check. Probably because Greg looked more like a psychologist in his sweater and jeans and less like a professional gambler.

When she’d handed him back his license a few days ago with the card and a wish for good luck, he told himself this time would be different. He’d promised himself this time he would keep his head low. This time he would spread out his visits to not attract attention.

He’d failed. Just like he had the last time. And the time before that.

“Seems Vegas kicked you out of every casino on the strip not even a year ago. Then I checked with a buddy of mine at the Borgata and you’re not wanted there, either.”

“I know. You can’t imagine the complex it’s giving me being so unwanted.”

The two men stepped forward in the ominous way thugs have of silently delivering the message that they didn’t appreciate sarcasm.

Greg held up his hands. “If I agree to go peacefully and never come back, can we end this now?”

Victor cracked his knuckles. So cliché, Greg wanted to tell him.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Mr. Chalmers. It’s important you understand how seriously we deal with the matter of cheating at our establishment.”

“It’s not cheating.”

It was the last thing he was capable of saying as Victor drove his beefy hand into his midsection.

This, Greg decided, was not going to end well.

CHAPTER ONE

“WE DIDN’T KNOW WHO ELSE to call. We’ve never seen anything like this before. We saw your name in the paper regarding a case you worked on with the Philadelphia P.D. We figured maybe you could help us, so we reached out to Ben Tyler.”

Greg was standing in the lobby of what was the Brigantine Police Department thinking he was less than fifteen minutes away from Atlantic City. So close he could smell the salt in the air from the ocean. A cold sweat broke out on his brow and he considered how lucky he was that no one would notice with almost 90 percent humidity in the air.

The Jersey Shore, even in the waning days of summer, was no joke.

“How do you know Ben Tyler?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Everyone in law enforcement around here knows Tyler. He has resources that can be helpful for any number of cases. Also we recently worked with a former colleague of his on a cold case, Mark Sharpe. You know him, too?”

“Sad to say I do.”

Ben Tyler was the head of the Tyler Group, a troubleshooting organization that pulled together some of the best minds in many different areas, including political strategy, criminal investigation, law, computer technology and well...him.

Tyler was Greg’s boss, for lack of a better word. Ben offered him various different jobs and Greg had the option of which ones he wanted to take. Which were all of them because they paid his bills. As for Mark, Ben’s former colleague in the CIA, Greg tried to avoid him as much as possible, which wasn’t easy because Mark and Ben seemed to be actual friends now.

Anytime the two of them were together, Mark would ask Greg to play poker with him because he wanted to see if he could bluff him. Nobody could bluff Greg. It was why the police had called him.

“Greg, are we doing this or what?”

Greg turned and found his roommate, Chuck, the man he credited with keeping him gambling sober for the past year, leaning over the lobby’s counter trying to flirt with the young woman seated behind it. He was pointing to things on her computer, no doubt trying to enlighten her on more efficient ways to use the equipment.

Greg had told him dumping computer knowledge on women wasn’t the best way to impress the ladies, but it was the only game Chuck had. Greg had to admit it actually worked sometimes. Lately, Chuck had had his fair share of female company.

Apparently computer nerd was the new hot.

Greg had asked his roommate to come along for the ride so that, in case his willpower faltered, someone would be there to back him up. He wasn’t sure if Chuck’s impatience had to do with the girl’s lack of interest or if he was concerned on Greg’s behalf.

Even Ben admitted he had hesitated before calling Greg for this particular job. He’d mentioned the case. Mentioned the location. Mentioned his concerns. Then asked, actually asked, if Greg thought he was up for it.

Up for it?

Screw that. He hadn’t gambled in over a year. He could freaking handle a trip to the beach even if it was one town over from AC. He’d snarled at Ben and told him yes he could handle it. Then he’d hung up the phone and told Chuck to put on some real pants. Chuck preferred spending his days in their waterfront loft that overlooked Penn’s Landing in clothes he referred to as his comfy-womfies. His assertion: a man who spent his life mostly on his ass in a chair in front of a computer needed to be comfortable. So pajamas, sweats and the occasional stretchy pants he referred to as men’s yoga pants, were the norm. Some of them actually had small animals on them.