Lucy shook her head. “Gambling is not a job. It’s an addiction.”
“It will be fine, little sis.” Joey had been born forty-five minutes before Lucy, and he liked to refer to it when he was being patronizing.
“It will never be fine, as long as you keep taking these chances.” Lucy took a determined swallow of her tea. It was bitter.
“Remember when ‘Number Three’ moved us to Bonanza Street?” Joey gave her a level look, waiting for her to join him in the memories of their desolate childhood.
Lucy’s stomach clenched. “Number Three” was her mother’s third live-in boyfriend, a drinker, but he had a steady job as a mechanic. She inhaled the peppermint aroma from her tea to displace the remembered scent of diesel grease, and frowned when she couldn’t recall the man’s face.
“I remember the apartment on the bad side of Bonanza,” Lucy swallowed the sudden dryness in her mouth. “The bathroom had pink tile.”
She had been delighted with the working air-conditioning and hopeful for about a week, until Number Three had started getting handsy with her in the apartment’s narrow hallway. She and Joey had only been thirteen, but Joey, all one hundred scrawny pounds of him, had gone after the guy with a kitchen knife and told him to keep his hands to himself.
Number Three had kicked them out the next day, and their mother had gone on a six-month bender.
“It’s you and me first.” Joey recited their familiar mantra, causing a flood of emotions to swell in Lucy’s chest. “No one messes with us. The bastards can all fuck off.”
“Right.” The problem was they weren’t kids anymore, and most adults didn’t respond with youthful theatrics. She had run away from anything with the whiff of underbelly to it, but Joey seemed to relish the under-ness of the belly. Lucy tried for the millionth time to find a way out for both of them.
“I thought maybe we could leave Vegas,” she said. “Start over somewhere fresh. Maybe San Francisco?”
“San Fran ain’t got no flash.” Joey gave her a cocky smile but then narrowed his eyes at her somber expression. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“What about your house, and your career, and your yadda, yadda?” He raised his arms to the ceiling.
“I can start over. So can you.”
“I like it here. So do you.”
“I just…I’ve got a bad feeling about this casino thing. Alec Gerald is expecting me in the morning to appraise his exhibit.”
“So do it.” Joey shrugged. “The guy is in a big hurry to get it open. Betcha you can get some good juice off him.”
Juice, as in extra-money juice, not the juicy, tingly things Alec Gerald made her feel. “I just gotta bad feeling.”
“I’m really sorry that I had to bring you into this one.” Joey’s apology was sincere.
“I know.”
Joey’s phone rang out the Flight of the Valkyries. He looked at the phone. “It’s Gino. He must have gotten the keycard from the drop.”
He walked to her dining room window and answered. “Hello…Yes, sir…I know, she is just that damn good…What?” The single word question was a sucking black hole for Lucy’s apprehension. “I can’t speak for her, but I can arrange a meet…tonight? Okay.” Joey disconnected and walked back into the kitchen.
“What?” Lucy clutched her mug like a shield. “What now?”
“There’s a small glitch.”
“What?”
“The keycard only opens the exterior door. Alec Gerald’s thumb opens the jewel cases.”
Lucy nodded.
“You knew?” Joey looked incredulous. “How could you not tell me? I could have called him first with the information. Then he would’ve owed me.”
“I did what you asked. I don’t care about getting in the black with the mob.”
“Well that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” Joey marched toward her side of the bar. “You think with our Dad, sly Joe-the-Cheat, that we were ever going to get out of the bed with these guys? This is our bed. Our house. Our everything.”
“We. Are. Not. Crooks.”
“I’m not a crook.” Joey smiled and stepped back. “I’m a…what do you call it…an adventure capitalist.”
“Venture capitalist,” she corrected. “Big difference.”
“Whatever, you with all your high-falutin’ degrees. You’re still my sister, but you’re a big stick in the ass sometimes.”
“It’s stick in the mud, Joey.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “You know the right phrase, you just like to pretend you’re dumb. Either that or you’re just too damn lazy to get the words right.”
Joey smiled, not at all offended. “Hey, if I can get something with no effort, that does not make me lazy. That makes me smart. Smarter than you, college girl. How many years did it take for you to get a piece of paper anyway? I could have gotten one forged for you in two weeks.”
“Eight years. And it’s more than a piece of paper.” Lucy shook her head and set aside her tea unfinished and cold. “It’s the knowledge. No one can take that away from me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Joey smiled, all charming, central-casting, adventure capitalist. “You know you love me.”
“I do, but…” Lucy’s internal alarm chimed at Joey’s use of the “L” word. Bad. Bad. Bad. “I heard you say ‘I can’t speak for her.’ I’m guessing the her is me?”
“He wants you to go back in. Get the thumbprint from Gerald.”
“No.” Lucy shook her head. “I’m on a plane out of here in the morning—with you.”
“I’m not leaving,” Joey said with his real-Joey voice. “Get it through your over-educated head.”
Lucy chewed on her trembling lower lip. She was used to the abrupt changes in Joey’s personality when he was up to something, but his real-Joey voice meant he was serious.
“Gino’s spies said you spent a little alone time with Alec Gerald?” Joey asked, lifting a questioning brow.
“I didn’t do anything. We just talked about appraising the exhibit.”
“Gino said he would cut us in for 10% each—”
“I’m not going back to that casino. Ever.”
“When a guy like Gino offers to cut you in on his juice, you can’t say no.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t take the easy deal, he moves on to the hard deal.”
“Quit talking gangster and just spit it out.”
“He can make you help him.”
“How?”
Joey smiled. “Because he knows you love me too much to let me swim with the fishes.”
Again with the “L” word. Lucy gripped the edge of the counter behind her. It was ice cold and as unbending as Joey’s heart.
She was in trouble.
…
Lucy followed her brother through the dimly lit Crazy Stallion bingo parlor. Although they were only a little north of the Strip, it felt like they had stepped back in time to their childhood: Sunday bingo games, interchangeable trailer parks, and apartments with occasional electricity.
She was cold down to her bones, but her hand sweated on a plastic bag holding the expensive loaner red dress and designer shoes she had worn to Alec’s casino. She tightened her wrap sweater over her white tank top and stepped across the entrance, being careful where she placed her flip-flops. The shoes were a deliberate message; she was dressed for laundry, not larceny.
Inside, cigarette smoke billowed like a ghost around crowded banquet tables. People hunched over bingo cards, and at thirty-second intervals they lifted expectant eyes to hear the next number. The metronome of misery had not changed in fifteen years.
“Be nice, Luce.” Joey peered at her, a spring of excitement in his step. “Just hear what he has to say. He may have a regular gig for me.”