Overturned Read online

  That, I couldn’t resist. “But why? Your dad said he knew my father back in the day. Then he shut down. Do you know anything at all?”

  He shook his head. “Above my pay grade. Everybody in town knows us, and half of them hate us.”

  “Is that something you get used to?”

  “Yeah. You learn to live with it, then use it. There’s a certain satisfaction in being better than the people who don’t like you. You know that, Little Miss Card Shark.”

  Truth. On the field, at the card table. There’s nothing like beating an enemy.

  “Speaking of”—Cedric leaned toward me, his words slicker than before, the always hustling pitchman—“I got a proposition for you. Poker. I want in on those famous skills of yours.”

  “In how?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Teach me. Teach some of my friends. You know I can pay whatever.”

  That was unexpected. Flattering. One problem. “I’m really close to being sentenced to solitary confinement. It’s going to hit the fan when my mom gets here.”

  He shook his head. “You won’t be locked down forever. I want to know how you think when you play, how you spot cheaters, all of it.”

  “Why me? You’re a Carlino. You could hire Phil Ivey if you wanted.”

  “Who?”

  He really did need lessons. “Don’t worry about it. I thought Big Bert didn’t want his boys in card games.”

  Quietly, with eyes on the stairs, he said, “Big Bert’s stubborn and short-sighted. Texas Hold’em is the most popular card game in any casino with a poker room. It’s the game to know.”

  Gongs sounded. Big Bert thundered down the stairs. Fee-fi-fo-fum. Cedric leaned away, whispered, “Think it over.”

  At the door, Big Bert smoothed imaginary wrinkles from his pants and suit coat before letting my mom in. A Nysos security guard followed her, clutching a walkie. “Anything else, Mr. Carlino?”

  “Not now. Thank you.”

  The guard stepped out, and Mom stood rooted in place, her neck craning; she seemed to forget she’d come with war in mind.

  On the staircase, Davis appeared, sulking. He came only halfway down before stopping. Maybe he knew what I knew, that we shouldn’t get near each other in this moment. The other Carlino-Tate meeting taking place in the room was going to be volatile enough.

  “Hi there, Gwen,” Big Bert said.

  “Bertram.”

  We knew each other before his incarceration. Vegas isn’t as big as you think.

  Moms eyes settled on me. Hardness resumed. “Get up!”

  I sprang from the couch. She crossed the room in quick strides, her hand clamping on to my arm, yanking like a violent dog owner snatching a scared pup’s leash.

  “Mom!”

  “Walk, Nikki.”

  I shuffled, my pace controlled by the maternal vise squeezing my soft underarm.

  “Ma’am,” the manservant Delano said, suddenly appearing. He held my bag. “Don’t forget this.”

  It must have fallen during the commotion from before. Mom allowed me a slight reprieve to reclaim my belongings.

  Safely across the threshold, Mom faced Big Bert. “I don’t know what’s going on here—”

  “It’s okay.” He was as gracious as the day of the funeral. “I’m sure Davis is just as responsible for all of this as Nikki.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t apologizing,” Mom said. “I’m telling you and your boy to keep away from my daughter. I don’t care what you’ve done or how much money you have or what you’re capable of, come near her again and I will kill you. Nikki, let’s go.”

  Another glimpse of Davis was all I wanted, because I believed my mother, believed she’d do anything to keep us apart, even murder. One last glimpse, just in case she succeeded.

  Big Bert closed the door, robbing me of even that.

  “Is that where you were all day? Lounging in the penthouse with that boy like some—” She stopped herself, kneaded three fingers into her temple while keeping her other hand on the steering wheel. “Just tell me where you were today. If you lie to me, I swear …”

  “I went to see Dan Harris.” All the James Bond spy stuff was wearing on me. Plus, admitting a little like that, I wouldn’t have to tell about Goose’s card game. Or the new bankroll in my pocket. A blaring horn to my right gave me an excuse to look away from her without seeming like I was trying to look away.

  “You … what?”

  Something in her voice. I sensed a misstep but couldn’t change direction quick enough. “I talked to him about Dad’s murder.”

  “You’re a detective now? Are you crazy? God, I let you watch too much TV.”

  We’re doing this? Fine. “The cops are useless. You don’t care. Somebody has to.”

  “Did he tell you anything helpful so you can solve your mystery?”

  “You don’t have to patronize me.”

  “Dan Harris is a parasite. I told you he doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Did you learn anything that contradicts that?”

  No. I didn’t. But I’d never admit it. “Do you care?”

  She clucked her tongue. Her breaths gained weight until they were the heavy exhales of a bull. “You don’t know what you think you know.”

  “Obviously! How did you and Dad know Mr. Carlino? Let’s start there.”

  “Let’s start with you skipping school, disobeying me—disrespecting me—over and over again. We’ll start there, and stay there for, say, the next six months. All this running around, doing any and everything you want … over. School and home. That’s all. Don’t even think about playing the soccer card—I know you quit.”

  “But—”

  “Accept it. That’s your best move right now.”

  “Like the way you accepted Dad was going to die in jail, and when he didn’t, it messed up your plans to move on.”

  “Don’t get slapped, Nikalosa.”

  “You want it to be easy and neat. Nothing for you and Tomás to be guilty about. Right.”

  “Nothing about Tomás and me concerns you today. You’re the one in trouble. Sneaking around with a boy you’ve got no business being with.”

  What a hypocrite. “Learned it by watching you.”

  Traffic kept us still, trapped together. Her upper lip curled and her brow furrowed as if attempting to switch places. She squeezed her eyes shut. The expression was familiar, burned in my memory from the time I smeared the carpet with chocolate pudding or got caught smoking cigarettes under the middle school bleachers. The peak frustration look. Good.

  She said, “Nikki, I will always love your father. Always. He’s gone, though.”

  “For like a”—my voice cracked—“a week.”

  “No. For five years. He’s been gone a very long time.”

  Hadn’t I considered how normal it seemed with Dad no longer around, too? Didn’t I treat him like an overbearing nuisance when he was still here? But my gut said keep fighting. Our bickering felt as natural as corner kicks and raising bets.

  “I’m right here, Mom. Say what you have to say.”

  “When they locked him in a cell, they put us in one, too. A bigger one. You’re making yourself not understand because, I don’t know, you’re grieving and that’s what you need. I need things, too. If you don’t want to be coddled, then you’ll hear this straight. I wanted to do this differently, but I can’t see this getting easier between us anytime soon. I’m selling Andromeda’s Palace.”

  The shock flung me forward like a collision, with so much force my safety belt bit into my neck and collarbone. I wrestled the harness for some slack, then twisted in my seat, facing her. “Did Tomás talk you into it?”

  “No.”

  “You’re like the worst business person ever. Now you’re wheeling and dealing prime Vegas real estate? All on your own. Hardly.”

  “What I’ve done to inspire such a lack of faith from you, I’ll never know. Rest assured, this decision is all me. If I hadn’t been concerned with being the loyal wife who s
upported her husband’s dreams no matter what, I’d have put Andromeda’s on the auction block years ago.”

  “Without talking to me first, of course.”

  “About what? You’re leaving. That’s your plan. Play in those god-awful card games, win four years of tuition, and leave Vegas in the dust because you feel all alone in the big bad world.”

  Stunned, I stared.

  “I used to think my mother didn’t know what I was up to, either,” Mom said. “Surprise. Here’s something that’ll really shake your bratty woe-is-me routine: The right price and buyer means your tuition’s covered for any school you want on the planet. It means I can go to school and learn something other than how to clean vomit off craps tables, if I want. That sale means all the things you ever complained about are—poof!—gone. We both get to have the life we want. So who you mad at now, little girl?”

  The words rattled around my head like the dice at those tables she hated so much. Who, indeed?

  We didn’t speak again in the car, or in the elevator. Mom selected the floor while I stared at her shoes. The doors opened on Dad’s floor, not ours.

  “Come on.” Mom let us into Dad’s room with her manager’s key. It was clean. The pristine arrangement of a housekeeping visit. Bed made. Bathroom scrubbed. Dad’s closet empty. His—my—photos gone.

  I rushed ahead of Mom, ran my fingers over the wallpaper … not even remnants of tape.

  “What did you do?” I said, my voice rising. “Where is it all?”

  “Those photos have been shredded. Your father’s clothes are on their way to the Goodwill.”

  “No.” I stepped fully into his closest. Was there clothing the housekeepers missed? “You should’ve asked me.”

  The tears came. I shouldn’t have been so weak over clothes and photos. They weren’t him.

  “The next guest that checks in is getting this room,” Mom said.

  I blinked through a wet prism. “You’re so glad he’s gone!”

  “You didn’t get enough of this in the car?”

  “You don’t cry for him. You throw his stuff away.” I ripped the comforter off the bed, just because. “You said things were better when he wasn’t here.”

  A head tilt, the posture of a curious cat. “I never said that to him. Nikki”—panic usurped the frustration in her tone—“I did not. Who told you that?”

  No one told me she said those things. I wasn’t talking about her at all.

  I skirted past her, up the stairs to my room, sealed myself inside. Or tried to. My locks were gone.

  Adjoining hotel suites have two interior doors that face each other like the bread in a sandwich. Each room can close and lock their respective door to prevent the neighbor from crossing into the other suite. Usually. Where there used to be a knob and a dead bolt on my side, there were now empty holes. I poked my fingers through and wiggled them.

  All this running around, doing any and everything you want … over.

  No. It wasn’t. Because as bad as that fight was, Mom forgot to take Dad’s phone.

  With my door permanently ajar, I sat in the floor, my back pressed against my bed, and texted Davis. No response at all. Big Bert might still be yelling at him.

  On a whim, I dialed Freddy Spliff. A desperate, futile act.

  He answered.

  “Hello?”

  I rocked forward on my knees, whispering in case Mom had made her way upstairs. “Freddy?”

  “Hi, Nikki.”

  I checked the display, ensuring I’d dialed the right contact. It was Freddy Spliff’s number, but the coherent gentleman on the line sounded like an impostor.

  “I’m glad you called,” he said. “I may not have been brave enough to call you myself.”

  “Are you all right? I saw men take you. Who were they?”

  “The Helpers.”

  “Like elves?”

  He laughed, a kind sound. Better than any sound he made drunk. “They work at Help House. It’s a halfway house. Where I live right now.”

  A halfway house? I knew what they were, vaguely. Housing for people fresh from jail who didn’t have a permanent residence. I always understood them as way stations for ex-cons trying to get back on their feet. Not employers of goon squads to snatch people into dark vans.

  “Why would people from a halfway house grab you like that?”

  Stuttering, flustered, he answered, “Because I asked them to. I know my weaknesses, and I made it clear to them what those were, and how they might help me.”

  “Weaknesses?”

  “Drinking,” he said. “Lying.”

  My throat constricted. “You weren’t lying to me. Not about my dad.”

  “I was so drunk, I barely remember what I told you.”

  “It was about scams my dad was looking into and the people who were onto him. You said—”

  “When I’m like that, Nikki, not much of what I say can be relied upon. That’s some of what Nathan and I did talk about. The way I messed up with my family, how my drinking and ending up in jail made it so I can’t go talk to my own daughter. When I heard about your dad’s death, I fell off the wagon. Hard.”

  “But—”

  In the background, a muffled voice spoke and the line went mute. Someone’s in the room with Freddy. Who? Why?

  Background sound broke the silence as Freddy unmuted the line. “I have to go. I’m sorry if I upset you. Remember Nathan was a good man. That’s what he would’ve wanted you to know.”

  “He would’ve wanted his killer brought to justice. He would’ve wanted to not be beaten to death in an alley. He would’ve wanted to be home for five years instead of rotting in a cell for something he didn’t do. Don’t tell me what my dad wanted. He’s dead, and he doesn’t want anything anymore.”

  My words weren’t spoken. They were shouted. The kind no one really listened to. Freddy was no different. He’d hung up.

  Along with Dad’s phone were all those photos. When Mom was in the deepest part of her sleep, I snuck downstairs to the offices. Printed select pictures, stole a tape dispenser. I spent the rest of the night redecorating.

  “Get up. Time for school.” Mom didn’t bother knocking as she unlatched her still-functioning lock and granted herself entrance into my space. “What have you done?”

  Pushing up from my sprawled state, the position I’d collapsed in sometime around 3:00 a.m., tape strips stuck to my fingers, I joined her in admiring the collage I’d pieced together over my windows. A sampling of Dad’s pictures. Nowhere near as numerous as those she’d disposed of. Equally obsessive, though.

  I waited.

  “Get dressed,” she said, and left.

  My tiny protest was a victory.

  Radio and road noise were the only sounds between us until we hit the crowded Vista Rojo lot. My agitated classmates milled about in familiar droves. Cardinal Graham had struck back.

  “Is this a fire drill?” Mom asked, inching the car forward. Chants of “GRIF-FIN BLOOD! GRIF-FIN BLOOD!” ringing, Mom’s face clouded. This was supposed to be my return to order.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “This is just your public-education dollars at work. See you this afternoon.”

  I waded into the crowd, wedging between shoulders. A maintenance man balanced precariously at the top of an extension ladder, unmooring something like a charred corpse from above the main entrance.

  “It’s the mascot,” Molly announced, appearing by my shoulder like my good angel. “The costume, anyway.”

  Gavin was at my other side. “Minus the head.”

  He held his phone for me. There was a picture of the VR Lions mascot Leonard’s head on a pike, Game of Thrones–style.

  “You okay? Did you get what you needed yesterday?” Molly asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  She didn’t push for details. I didn’t offer them. I just wanted a normal school day.

  We made our locker rounds. When I spun the combination on mine, a flurry of loose projectiles fell to the
floor.

  Playing cards. Five of them. Two were faceup with a word scribbled on each in silver Sharpie ink. The ace of clubs scrawled with the word OR, and the eight of spades featuring the word OFF. The other three showed their customized backs, deep dark space and misty cosmos. Cards from Andromeda’s Palace.

  “Nikki?” Molly said.

  Kneeling, I flipped over the facedown cards. All except one. I turned it three times before realizing it wasn’t a playing card but a cut card. No suit, face, or number. Just the starry background design repeated on both sides, meant to cover the card on the bottom of the deck so no one got a glimpse when the dealer unloaded. The remaining two cards were playing cards, each scrawled with a single word: the eight of clubs (BACK) and the ace of spades (ELSE).

  Gavin leaned over me, eclipsing the overhead light. “What’s it mean?”

  I arranged the five cards in the only order that made sense.

  BACK OFF OR ELSE.

  The phrase was clear. There was an additional message, though. The cards—their suits and denominations—were not random. The hand was specific. Some cardplayers would call it mythic. Legend.

  It was the same five-card draw hand held by the lawman/gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered way back in the day. A single shot to the back of his head. It’s most common name …

  The dead man’s hand.

  “Is this the way you run your school?” Mom fanned the cards across Principal Flagstaff’s desk in their proper order, then tapped her index finger on the cut card, hard.

  “Mrs. Tate, as I’ve explained—”

  “You had an incident. Misguided football pranks. But football players didn’t do this.” Another poke at the cards for emphasis.

  I didn’t call Mom. Molly did. Big bad team captain said this had gone too far. Gavin backed her up. Traitors.

  Principal Flagstaff made another attempt to rationalize. “Typically, our campus is a model of safety and discipline. The week of the Cardinal Graham game is one of heightened emotion.”

  “Do you know what happened to my husband?” Mom asked, acidic.

  He tugged at his tie. “I’m aware.”

  “Then you’ll understand why I’m pulling Nikki out of this school. Today.”