She turned over her cards. Ace-king, just like I figured. I reached for my hand. I guess my body language told her she was beat, because something came into those big green eyes.
Or maybe I should say that several things came into them. I could tell that she really did like me. That I could have her for the asking, and without needing to worry about her brainwashing me. We were past that. I also saw how sad she was going to be to lose the hand.
But she didn’t have to lose it. I could throw my cards away without turning them over, and that would keep her at the table. I could knock out the Pharaoh first, and then beat her heads up.
Even as I was thinking it, I knew it was all crazy, and a lie. She was taking one last shot at brainwashing me right now, and really giving it her all. Maybe somehow she’d gotten hold of another drop of my blood, or something else that boosted her signal.
But it might not matter what I knew, only what I felt. My hand was frozen in mid-air.
“If you aren’t going to show,” the Pharaoh murmured, “the lady has the right to claim the pot.”
I set the Thunderbird between Leticia and me. It helped. It still didn’t let me turn over my cards, but at least I was able to tear my eyes away from her face. Instinct made me look for A’marie among the railbirds like a drowning man looking for a life preserver.
She was there, looking all worried, and the sight of her shoved some more of the crazy out of my head. I gasped in a breath and turned over my hand.
“Sorry,” I said. “Even after everything you’ve tried to do to me, it was close.”
Leticia laughed. “Well, I suppose that’s something, anyway. I counted, and you have me covered, so…” She pushed her remaining chips to the center of the table, stood up, and offered the Pharaoh her hand. “Good game, you wise old thing. I’ll get you next time.”
“My dear. Always a delight.” He took the cheroot out of his mouth and lifted her fingers to what was left of his lips.
I stood up to shake with her, but she hugged me instead. “Kick his ass,” she whispered into my ear, and followed it up with a flick of tongue.
Then she went to join the spectators. I took one more stab at disliking her as much as she deserved, but it just wasn’t in me. If you’re a guy, you couldn’t have done it, either.
The expression on A’marie’s face changed. Now she was giving me that half annoyed, half-amused I-can’t-believe-what-a-pig-you-are look women give you when you’re drooling over someone they think is a skank. I tried to look innocent and sat back down.
The Pharaoh washed the cards, spreading them around on the felt, then picked them up and did a one-handed weave shuffle. He hadn’t shuffled that way before, or passed the time doing chip tricks, either, and I assumed it was intended to distract me.
“Believe it or not,” he murmured, “I felt early on that it would come down to you and me in the end. I wonder, are you interested in making a deal? Four fiefs for the winner, and two for the runner-up.”
“That doesn’t work for me,” I said, keeping my voice just as low.
“Are you certain? That way, Timon would remain a lord. In fact, he and I would both come out ahead, no matter what.”
“I’m a winner-take-all kind of guy.”
“You could consult with him. I’ll wait.”
“I don’t need to. While I’m sitting here, I am him. Isn’t that the way it works?” I hoped so. I didn’t really know how far I could push it.
“If you say so.” His little smile gave me the feeling that somehow, he knew everything I had planned. If so, it was creepy. But if he wasn’t going to interfere, I guessed it didn’t matter.
A couple minutes later, I flopped quads, two nines in my hand and two more on the board. The Pharaoh looked at me for a little while, then made a big bet.
It was a perfect situation. After busting Leticia, I had a stack that was almost as big as his. And if I went all in, he’d probably call. I could cripple him right here and now.
In fact, everything was so perfect that I flashed the Thunderbird to see if the Pharaoh was using magic to set me up. He didn’t appear to be. Then, hating it, I folded.
Because the situation wasn’t quite perfect. The timing was wrong. I couldn’t put him away just yet.
Not long after, the clock struck three. It was time for a break, and I stood up and stretched. “Are you going to stay close by?”
The mummy shrugged. “I certainly can. As I imagine you’ve realized, I don’t have any biological requirements to address.”
“Thanks.” I headed for Timon, who was waiting for me impatiently as usual, but without Gaspar playing seeing-eye dog. It was a relief to get out of the stinging haze of the Pharaoh’s smoke, but only until I stepped into my boss’s stink zone.
“I have some pointers for you,” he said.
“That’s great,” I answered. “But I may not need them.”
Timon frowned. “Don’t get cocky.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I’m thinking of throwing the game.”
The frown changed to a scowl. “Joke when you’ve won.”
“I’m not joking. All your subjects want to get rid of you. And even though I’ve only had a couple little tastes of the way you torture them, I see their point.”
“Why do you care how I treat them?”
“Considering everything they’ve tried to do to me, that’s a good question. But I just do. Anyway, here’s the deal. When I win, you give me Tampa, just like you were going to give the underwater part of it to Murk. That’ll still leave you with the five other fiefs I’m going to win for you.”
“Otherwise, you’ll make sure you lose.”
“That’s it.”
He sneered. “You’re bluffing. You’re a born gamester. It would damage your sense of self to do less than your best.”
“You’re right. But it would also hurt it to leave you in charge. So this is the compromise. We renegotiate our deal, or screw you.”
“Are you so stupid that you don’t understand what you’re risking? That night with the skull. That can be every night from now on. It can be your whole reality.”
I remembered Rufino, felt cold inside, but made myself smile anyway. “But I’m betting it won’t. Not if the Pharaoh tells you to get off his lawn, which I think he will. Because when you and I were flying together, I noticed what the permanent part of your version of dreamland looked like. And it wasn’t the whole earth. It was just Tampa. That makes me think you can’t mess with people from a long way off.”
“Then I’ll have to mess with you right now.” He rattled off a string of words in that jaw-breaking magical language I’d heard him use before. Naturally, I couldn’t understand it, but I heard him say “Billy Fox” a couple times in the middle. When he was done, he looked at me and waited. For me to apologize or drop to my knees or something.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I guess you needed my real name to make that work. And way back when we were first making our deal, I had a feeling I shouldn’t give it to you.”
In case you’re wondering, the “Billy” part was right. And I was “Billy Fox” to a lot of people, including the guys I gambled with. But “Fox” was actually short for “Foxcroft.”
“Very clever,” Timon snarled. “But sometimes clever people are so busy being clever that they miss the obvious. Like the fact that I can see again. Not perfectly, but well enough to take on the Pharaoh if I need to.”
I stiffened my index and middle fingers and stabbed them into his eyes. Moe himself couldn’t have done it any better. Timon yelped, staggered backward, and clapped his hands to his face.
“How about now?” I asked. It was the only sound in the room. He and I had been talking too softly for most people to realize we were arguing, but everybody was staring now.
Timon lowered his shaking hands. His eyes were a raw, seeping mess again. It made me hopeful and sick to my stomach at the same time.