We started a new game and I got sixteen again with the first two cards. The dealer had a nine showing. I told him I didn't want any more cards. What the hell, it worked the first two times. Now he told me the book didn't like that decision. Well, God forbid I should go against the book. “Okeydokey,” I said. “I'll go with the book and take another card.”
I got dealt a king of hearts.
“Busts,” the dealer said, and he took my chips and my cards.
So much for the book.
I played another hand. Lost another chip. Everyone played their hands out and we started over. Connie was nowhere to be seen. The guy in black was behind me, watching me. I could feel him back there. The photo images of shattered skulls popped into my head. The memory of the heat and numbing blackness that followed the hit from the dart washed over me. I felt a panic attack trying to get a toehold.
The dealer wanted to know if I was going to play.
“What?” I asked.
“You need to put a chip in to play”
I shoved a red chip into my circle.
“Red chips are worth ten,” the dealer said. “This table has a twenty-?five-?dollar minimum.”
I pushed a different colored chip at him. The chips had numbers on them, but I was too flustered to make sense of it.
The dealer gave me a ten of spades and a two of hearts. This was easy to add. Twelve. A long way to go to twenty-?one, right? I asked for another card. This started a lot of arguing. Apparently the book wasn't clear on this one. The dealer gave me a ten of diamonds. Damn! Busted again.
I didn't know exactly how much I had because I was having a hard time adding up all the different colored chips, but I knew I didn't have a lot. One more hand, maybe.
When the new game started I pushed a couple chips into my ring. The dealer gave me a nine of spades and a three of clubs. I bit into my lower lip, unsure what to do, and I felt a hand settle on my shoulder. I turned and looked. It was the guy in black.
“I'm going to help you,” he said.
There was a lot of noise behind me. I heard Lula let out a shriek and the guy in black gasped in surprise, jerked away from me, and went over backward. Everyone at the table stood and gawked, including me.
Lula and the guy in black were on the floor. Lula was ass up, on top of the guy in black. You could hardly see him under the pink spandex. He was squashed spread eagle under Lula so that only his hands and feet stuck out. Connie was standing on one of his hands.
“Don't freakin' move,” Connie yelled at the poor smushed guy in black.
From what I could see there wasn't much chance of him moving. I wasn't even sure he was still breathing.
Uniformed and plainclothes security instantly appeared and wrestled Lula off the guy in black.
“He was going for a gun,” Lula said. “He's a killer.”
The guy in black didn't move. He was still on his back, gasping for air. “I have identification in my inside jacket pocket,” he said. “And I think I have a broken back.”
“Can you move your toes?” one of the security guards asked him.
“Yeah.”
“How about your fingers?”
He wiggled the fingers on one hand. Connie was still standing on the other hand.
“Ow,” the guy in black said to Connie.
Connie stepped off his hand. “Sorry,” she said.
One of the plainclothes men lifted the identification. “Erik Salvatora. Looks like he's a rent-?a-?cop.”
“I'm a licensed private investigator and a security specialist,” Salvatora said. “I'm employed by RangeMan LLC and I was asked to protect Ms. Plum while she's in town. God only knows why when she's got Big Bertha and the Bonecrusher with her.”