LITMIR.BIZ

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Tom,’ Willy gave him a wry smile, once Candy was out of earshot. ‘You know what they say about women and poker …’

      Tom raised an eyebrow.

      ‘Call,’ he said in response, stacking his burgundy chips in a tall pile and carefully placing two blue gaming cheques on the top ‘… and I’ll raise you another million …’ he paused, ‘no, you know, what?’ he signalled to the dealer, ‘make it two.’

      The room fell silent but for the sound of the oscillating fan churning above them. Tom’s raise had just taken the game into new territory.

      ‘That should just about cover the girl’s agency fees for tonight, eh Tom?’ the sarcasm dripped from Willy Grey’s voice, his left eye twitching manically.

      Tom remained silent. True to his name, Willy Grey was always trying to get a rise out of people.

      ‘Your old man was the same, Tom,’ Willy surmised, as his left eye went into some kind of spasm. It was an affliction he’d had since his teenage years and it still drove him fucking nuts. ‘He was a good hustler, all flash suits and Cartier cufflinks, much like yourself, but it was the pussy that ruined him in the end.’ The corners of Grey’s thin little mouth turned outwards, like he was imparting the gospel of the Lord himself.

      Tom didn’t much care for the man’s overfamiliarity. He may have done the casinos with his old man once upon a time, but frankly who in Vegas hadn’t?

      ‘Yeah, pussy and bourbon eh, what a way to go?’ Tom replied tightly as he held his gaze, hoping it might throw the miserable, twitching prick off kilter.

      Candy returned from the restroom, refreshed from a little line of coke from the wrap Tom had given her earlier and immediately felt the palpable pressure in the room, her initial stride reduced to a tentative tiptoe.

      ‘Something to keep your energy levels up,’ he’d said earlier as he’d handed her the small wrap of powder. ‘But don’t go overboard eh?’ Tom hated to see women strung out on coke, and Candy, with her Barbie doll looks and high-pitched voice, was sailing dangerously close to the edge.

      ‘Gentlemen,’ the dealer cleared his throat, ‘your hands please.’

      Tom instinctively squeezed Candy’s thigh, convinced it would bring him extra luck. If the cards were on his side tonight all his worries would be over.

      Candy held her breath in anticipation, her heart pumping rapidly from adrenalin mixed with grade-A cocaine.

      As the Japanese businessman turned over his cards Tom took a silent intake of breath.

      ‘A flush,’ the dealer said, clinically, ‘two cards; king of spades and ten of spades.’

      Willy Grey’s eye was flicking like a faulty light bulb. This was in the bag, he thought smugly as he flipped his cards.

      ‘High full house,’ the dealer announced evenly as Grey continued to study Tom’s expression. Gotcha!

      Tom sat back into the comfort of the padded Louis antique gold chair and linked his fingers together, his knuckles cracking as he stretched them. He wanted Grey to see that he was worried. He wanted him to walk blindly into a false sense of security.

      ‘Your hand, sir,’ the dealer prompted Tom.

      Sighing, Tom looked over at the Japanese businessman and then at Grey; the two men, so utterly physically opposite from each other, were now wearing the same pensive expression and could’ve been mistaken for brothers.

      ‘Do the honours Candy, will you?’ Tom nodded at the pair of playing cards lying face down on the table.

      ‘Me?’ she squeaked.

      ‘Yeah you,’ Tom winked at her and so, shrugging, she did as she was told and turned the cards over.

      There were gasps and claps in the room. The Cowboy whistled.

      ‘The five of spades and seven of spades – that’s a straight flush my friend – highest cards.’

      Willy Grey felt all the air leave his body as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. He was fucked; royally, regally fucked. In that split second he realised his life was over; finished, finito. His new wife, the greediest of the lot so far, would leave him after this and his business would be dead in the water. He’d lost everything.

      ‘OH. MY. FUCKING. GAAAAD!’ Candy Wilson leapt into the air like a rocket had gone off underneath her and threw her slim arms and legs around Tom’s body, attaching herself to him like a limpet.

      ‘You did it, baby!’ her voice was high and tight with euphoria. ‘You just won over ten … million … dollars,’ she said the words slowly, over and over again, like a child learning to speak. Laughing, Tom twirled her to the ground before draining the dregs of his Courvoisier. He nodded at the Japanese man, who graciously returned the gesture. Grey, however, looked like he’d been dead for a week and someone had just dug him up.

      ‘Willy,’ Tom proffered his hand; he could feel the old man’s hatred coming off him in waves. The prick had always been a bad loser.

      Tipping the dealer twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of chips, Tom turned to Candy, her face lit up like a picture as she played with the Graff diamonds around her neck; her new necklace.

      ‘So then,’ Tom said, buzzing with adrenaline, a smile as wide as the Thames, ‘looks like the first round is on me.’

      CHAPTER 14

      Ellie Scott couldn’t sleep. She’d been tossing and turning for most of the night, drifting in and out of a shallow, fitful slumber.

      She still hadn’t heard from Tess and her concern had now, in the grip of a sleepless night, escalated into full-blown paranoia. Her maternal instincts were screaming that her daughter was in some kind of trouble.

      Slipping in and out of consciousness, Ellie restlessly rolled onto her side and wished that Vinnie were here and that she could shuffle into the familiar reassuring warmth of his body; her very own comfort blanket. But Vinnie was in the US on business and so once again she found herself alone with her thoughts, thoughts that had begun to coast towards the moribund.

      As a shallow sleep eventually threatened to claim her, Ellie’s subconscious mind took her back to the summer of 1989. It had been the hottest summer on US record for over fifty years and she could still recall the stickiness of her skin against the thin, cheap polyester bed sheets that she’d slept in. She had been about to turn sixteen years old …

      *

      ‘Stop it! You’re hurting me,’ Ellie yelped as Tom pulled her roughly down onto the bed and pinned her by her arms. ‘I told you,’ she said breathlessly, ‘not until my birthday, and that’s not until tomorrow in case you’ve forgotten.’

      ‘Bloody cock tease, that’s what you are.’ He pulled a face.

      ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Tom,’ she pleaded, rolling into his back as he turned away from her, spooning him. He was naked from the waist up and his skin felt soft and smooth against her chest. ‘It’s just that I want it to be right, you know, proper.’

      ‘Whatever,’ he sulked. ‘But I might’ve found a replacement by the time you make up your mind.’

      ‘Big head,’ she said, giving him a playful slap on the back. But she knew he was right. Tom Black could have anyone he wanted. With his dark Latino complexion, hypnotic eyes, and cocksure smile, he was as close to perfection as a man could get. Or at least Ellie O’Connor had thought so. And it would be fair to say she wasn’t alone.

      She stared at him, unblinking, and wondered what it was about him that made her love him so much. It wasn’t just his movie-star looks; she came alive whenever he was near her, but she knew him inside out. Tom Black had more front than Blackpool Pier, as her old Nan would’ve said.

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