The Select

  Probably just a minor case of Timothy Brown-induced paranoia.

  Quinn held her own through the next few hands without his direct guidance, then she glanced his way and noticed his left hand was splayed in the Hawaiian hang-loose configuration he'd shown her.

  That was the signal to push her bets to the limit. A pulse of adrenalin shot through her. That meant the shoe was running out and Tim had calculated the remaining cards were heavily weighted one way or the other, predominantly high or predominantly low. She wondered which. Not that it mattered.

  Whichever way it was, Tim had decided the time was right to make their move.

  She watched him carefully now, her eyes darting repeatedly to his left hand, allowing him to direct her play.

  She glanced at the plastic sign before her on the table.

  MINIMUM BET: $10

  TABLE LIMIT: $500

  With an extreme effort she ignored the sick feeling that roiled through her stomach at the very thought of risking so much money on the turn of a card and pushed five one-hundred-dollar chips into the play area.

  A queen and a two landed in front of her. What did Tim want her to do with that? Especially since the dealer had a five showing.

  She glanced right and repressed a gasp as she saw that Tim had bet five hundred dollars too. Then she saw his left hand balled into a fist. She looked again to make sure, then took a deep breath. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

  Her palms were slick with perspiration by the time the dealer came back to her. Quinn waved her off.

  "I'll stick," she said, and her voice sounded hoarse. She knew it wasn't just from the smoke.

  Right. First I'll stick, then I'll get sick.

  The dealer flipped her down card—a jack. That gave her fifteen. She had to draw. Like a robot, Tim had said. Quinn held her breath...and watched her pull a king.

  Busted!

  The dealer placed a stack of five one-hundred-dollar chips next to Tim's bet, and another next to Quinn's.

  Quinn felt too weak to cheer. She looked down at her watch. How long had that taken? Thirty seconds? She'd just made five hundred dollars in thirty seconds. How many summer weeks had she waitressed back-breaking double shifts and not made that much?

  But then, as a waitress she'd never run the risk of losing money.

  "You're beyond the table limit, Miss."

  Quinn looked up, startled. "What?"

  "Five-hundred-dollar limit," the dealer said.

  "Oh, sure. Sorry." Quinn picked up the winnings and left the original stack out in the bet area.

  Then she stopped and turned around. That feeling of being watched was stronger than ever. But once again, no one but the dealer seemed to be paying any overt attention to her.

  She shrugged off the feeling and braced herself for another nerve-wracking hand.

  *

  They won three of the next four hands, then a yellow card popped out of the shoe and the play paused. Tim stood up and stretched.

  "Maybe we should have had dinner, hon," he said. "I'm starved. Want to get something to eat?"

  Hon? Quinn couldn't figure out what he was up to, then she glanced at the dealer and saw her shuffling a stack of cards.

  "Uh, sure, hon. I know I could sure go for a big fat juicy steak right now myself, hon."

  Tim laughed out loud and began gathering up his chips. Quinn began stacking hers. She thought the pit boss was watching them a little too closely. Did he suspect?

  "For a beginner, you're one lucky little lady," said the old fellow next to her.

  Quinn nodded toward Tim. "I have a great teacher."

  Her pile was about the same size as when she'd sat down, but Tim had accumulated a pile of his own. Her hands shook as she stuffed them into her pockets.

  She saw Tim take a chip and give it to the dealer. Quinn wondered why. The dealer hadn't been particularly friendly or helpful. She shrugged. Probably a custom. Like tipping a waitress.

  She pushed one of her own chips across the table.

  *

  Tim pocketed his chips and guided Quinn away from the table. He wanted to throw his arms around her and kiss her, but he settled for putting his arm across her shoulders. He felt a fine tremor running through her. He squeezed her upper arm.

  "Quinn," he whispered, "you were great."

  "I think I need a shower," she said.

  "Not bad for less than an hour's work," he said.

  "How much did we make?"

  "I figure we're almost two thousand ahead. And that's just the start."

  Quinn sagged against him. "I don't know how much of this I can take."

  "Hang in there, kid. That's about what I do alone. For the two of us it's just a start."

  "You mean to tell me you clear two thousand every time you come here?"

  "Not every time, but most times. Sometimes it takes longer than others. Sometimes you'll nurse a shoe all the way along and it stays even straight through, never swinging too far high or low. That's wasted time."

  "But..." Quinn seemed to be having some trouble grasping the numbers. "If you take home two thousand dollars every time, and if you came here just once a week, you could..."

  "Pull down six figures a year?" He shrugged. "Maybe. Don't think it hasn't occurred to me. Work one day, have the other six to spend the hundred thou you're taking home. Sounds great, doesn't it."

  They wandered from the casino to the hotel section and strolled past the windows of the shops.

  "I don't know," she said. "Does it?"

  He noticed her watching him closely. He got the feeling the answer was important to her. But he didn't have to ponder a reply. Over the past few years he'd given the matter a lot of thought.

  Still, he hesitated. He wasn't used to talking about himself—his real self. He'd spent his teen years cultivating an exterior that hid the sap inside. But this was Quinn and those big blue eyes were so close. Maybe he could risk it. Just a little.

  "On the surface, yeah. It sounds ideal. But what have you got by the time you're old enough for Medicare?"

  "I don't know," she said. "A pile of money?"

  "Yeah. If that. Certainly not much else. There's got to be more to life than that, don't you think? Just making money isn't...doing anything. You haven't enriched anything but your bank account with your work. Like being a currency trader or a gossip columnist, or something equally empty."

  "So you chose medicine—so you could do something with your life?"

  This was getting a bit too sticky and Tim felt himself instinctively pulling back.

  "Well, I figure medicine's a good thing to have to fall back on. And at least I'll have something noble-sounding to tell the kids—our kids—"

  "Bite your tongue!"

  "—when they ask me what I've been doing with my life."

  "Can't you be serious for two consecutive minutes?"

  "It's not entirely beyond the realm of possibility, Miss Cleary, but let's not fit me for a halo yet. As I've told you, mostly I'm at The Ingraham because it's free and it's a way to stave off adulthood a little longer."

  "Uh-huh." He sensed that she didn't buy that, especially since she was nodding slowly and smiling at him. A very big, very warm smile.

  "Let's go outside," Quinn said. "I could use some fresh air."

  Tim sighed. He'd been hoping she'd want to go up to the room.

  "Sure. This way."

  *

  "Aaaahhh!"

  Quinn breathed deeply as she ran up to the railing on the leading edge of the boardwalk and threw her arms wide to catch the cool onshore breeze from the Atlantic. She reveled in the clean briny smell.

  "Why can't they pump some of this into the casino?" she said.

  Tim leaned on the rail beside her. "Because half the folks in there would probably keel over from an overdose of oxygen. Some of them haven't had a whiff of fresh air in twenty years."

  She turned and looked at all the blinking lights, all the garish metallic colors on the cupolas
of the Taj Mahal.

  "Sort of adds new dimensions to the concept of gaudy, doesn't it," she said.

  Tim laughed. "It could give garish a bad name."

  They leaned and listened to the ocean rumbling beyond the darkened beach, watched the light from the gibbous moon fleck the water and glitter off the foamy waves. Quinn felt the tension of the blackjack table vent out through her pores. She noticed a stairway to their left.

  "Let's go down on the beach, just for a minute." She kicked off her shoes. "I want to get some sand between my toes."

  Tim followed her, grumbling. "I hate getting sand in my shoes."

  At the bottom of the steps Quinn worked her feet into the cold, dry granules, and again felt that prickle at the back of her neck, that feeling of being watched. She turned and saw two dark figures moving along the boardwalk above them, hugging the rail, watching them. Something furtive about them...

  She tapped Tim on the shoulder. "Maybe we should go back up."

  "We just got here."

  As Tim bent to empty the sand from his shoes, Quinn glanced up again. The two figures were at the top of the steps now, staring down at them, both definitely male, wearing knit watch caps. The lights were behind them so their faces were shadowed. They could have been sailors, but as she watched they pulled their caps down over their heads—ski masks!—and began sprinting down the steps.

  "Tim!" she cried.

  She saw him turn at the sound of their pounding feet but he had no time to react before they were upon him. They knocked him onto his back in the sand, punched his face, then began tearing at his coat pockets, ripping them open. For a few heartbeats Quinn stood paralyzed with shock and terror—she'd never witnessed anything like this, had always thought it happened to other people—before she began screaming for help and beating on the backs of the assailants. One of them turned and shoved her back. The blow was almost casual, but it over-balanced her and her feet slipped in the sand and she went down. In the cold moonlight she saw chips falling and scattering on the sand next to Tim as she continued to cry for help. The smaller of the attackers began to scoop up the chips while the bigger one kept battering Tim and tearing at his coat. Finally, after rocking Tim's head with a particularly vicious blow, the bigger one got to his feet at about the same time Quinn regained hers. He lunged toward her but she leaped for the stairs, shouting non stop for help, praying someone would hear, or maybe see her. She was half way up when he caught her, grabbing the waistband of her slacks and trying to pull them off her. With his other hand he began pawing between her legs. She jabbed back at him with her elbow but it glanced off his shoulder. She was losing her balance.

  Suddenly Tim loomed up beside them, bloody nose, bloody mouth, and he was yanking the big one around and slamming his fist into the bump of the nose behind the mask. Quinn heard a crunch, heard a cry of pain, and then the smaller one was there, pulling his partner away, pointing toward the underside of the boardwalk.

  Quinn kept up her shouting. She craned her neck above the level of the boards and saw security guards rushing toward them from the casino entrance. When she turned back the two muggers were already disappearing into the darkness under the boardwalk. Then she saw Tim slump against the hand rail, gasping, retching. Quinn darted to his side and hung there, not knowing what to do, where to touch him, where not to touch him, but knowing too well that her control was tearing loose and that all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and cry.

  So that was what she did.

  MONITORING

  Louis Verran snatched up the phone on the first ring.

  "Yeah?"

  "Chief—it's Elliot."

  Tell me something good, Elliot!

  "We got it."

  Verran let out a long, slow sigh. At last. All this grief over a lousy bug.

  "Where are you now? You made it out of town okay?"

  "No problem." He sounded pumped, half delirious with relief that he'd come through without getting pinched. "We're at a rest stop on the Delaware pike. We took him outside on the beach. It was too perfect to pass up. He put up a fight but we nailed him good. Then we ducked under the boardwalk, ditched the ski masks, and reversed the jackets. Kurt ran north to his car and I went south to mine, just like we planned. Nobody gave us a bit of trouble. Very smooth, Chief. Very smooth."

  Of course it was smooth, Verran thought. You plan out all your moves ahead of time, it always goes smooth. Even if the AC cops could have got out an APB in time, they'd have been looking for two guys of unknown race wearing black or dark blue windbreakers. A lone white male driving out of town in a red jacket wouldn't get a second look.

  "And the cops? You give them a call?"

  "Didn't have to. The hotel fuzz was coming to the rescue just as we were leaving."

  Perfect.

  "Where's Kurt now?"

  "He's in his car not ten feet from me, waiting to get home."

  "Good. Both of you come straight here. I'm proud of you guys."

  And besides, Verran wanted to see and feel that rotten lousy defective bug in his very own hand. Tonight.

  SIXTEEN

  "At least I didn't lose any teeth."

  Tim sat on the bed with an ice pack against his right cheek. Quinn knelt beside him, her hands clasped between her thighs, still shaking inside. The room was warm but her hands felt cold; she felt cold all over.

  "You could have lost your life."

  They'd been to the hotel infirmary once, in and out of the hotel security office twice—she had to say the Taj Mahal had been genuinely solicitous, even though the mugging had occurred off their premises—and to the Atlantic City Police department and back. They had filled out forms, given descriptions, and recounted the events leading up to and during the attack until they were both sick of talking about it.

  The consensus was that it had been a random mugging, but Quinn remembered that feeling of being watched. She hadn't said anything to the police about it, though. But she suspected the two attackers had watched them win heavily, seen them go outside to the deserted boardwalk, and made their move.

  Tim fingered the tears in his sport coat with his free hand.

  "Look at this. Torn to shreds." He looked at her, reached out and rubbed her arm. His warm touch felt good. "You okay?"

  She nodded. "I only got shoved around a little. But I feel completely worn out." She felt as if she'd been inflated to twice her size, and then had her plug pulled. A dull, throbbing headache topped it off.

  "I know what you mean. But you got more than just shoved around. That goddamn creep!"

  She didn't want to talk about it, even think about it. She put her hand over his. "You were very brave."

  He snorted. "Brave? They had me down on my back and were punching my lights out."

  "No. I mean after, when the big guy was attacking me. I know they hurt you, but still you got up and...came to help."

  "I couldn't very well lie there and let him maul you, could I?"

  "But you were hurt."

  "Yeah, but I've seen all those John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies. They sort of make you feel there are things you should do even though you know you're going to get hurt."

  Quinn slid closer and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

  "Does this hurt?"

  "I'd say that's just what the doctor ordered."

  Quinn felt oddly warm, with rushes of heat coursing through her. Short of breath too. All the good feelings she had for Tim crowded close around her, pressing her to him, and all the doubts and reservations she'd had, all the irritations he caused were gone, blown away. They didn't matter any longer. Tonight they'd walked together through a fire. She felt joined to this man.

  She lifted her head and kissed him on the lips, gently.

  "Sorry," she said. "I don't know why I did that." And that was true. She hadn't planned it, or even thought about it. She'd just...done it.

  "Do it again," he said softly. "But easy on the lower lip. It's killing me."


  And what followed came very naturally, very slowly, with their clothes being shed bit by bit, like old skin, and the heat building incrementally but irresistibly till it pulsed and throbbed with an incendiary life of it own as they joined like longtime lovers who'd known each other forever.

  *

  Quinn lay face down on the sheets and shivered in the dark as Tim's fingers traveled lightly up and down her spine. On one trip they continued further down and he ran his hands gently over her rear.

  "I always knew you had a—"

  "Don't say it."

  "—nice butt."

  "You said it."

  "It's true."

  "I have a caboose butt on an Olive Oyl body."

  "No, you've got a Bluto brain. You need therapy for your distorted body image."

  She lay quiet, her thoughts in turmoil, as he continued his feather-light caresses.

  "What have we done, Tim?" she said finally.

  "What comes naturally."

  "I'm serious."

  "You mean, have we ruined a beautiful friendship?"

  "Exactly."

  He moved closer, sliding against her right side, crossing his knee over the backs of her thighs. His lips brushed her ear.

  "I hope not. I desperately hope not. But we can't pretend this didn't happen."

  "I know."

  "Do you want to stop and never do this again?"

  "No. God, no. But every time you stop by the room, are you going to want to be like this? Am I? I didn't want to be involved, Tim. I really didn't."

  "Are you involved?"

  Quinn turned toward him and felt his chest hair brush her nipples as their legs entwined. She couldn't remember feeling this way about anyone else. Ever. This had to be love.

  "Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Are you?"

  "Have been since I first saw you at orientation last December. From that moment I knew it was going to be you and me. I didn't know how long it would take or how many different roads we would travel, but some part of me seemed to sense that we'd wind up together. You must have sensed something like that too."

  Quinn laughed and hugged him closer—but gently. "No way! I thought you were an obnoxious brat, one of the last people on earth I wanted to have anything to do with. Just slightly ahead of Saddam Hussein."