Wild Cards

“Kiss the pretty lady,” Timmy said.

Nighthawk was a little worried about this one. All he was able to discover about the young Asian woman with the long braided hair was her name, Kavitha Kandiah. Nighthawk had been observing her as she’d been moving about the room, getting a drink for Fortune, placing a dish of candies by Johnson’s elbow on the table. She moved with a fluid grace that spelled martial artist or dancer. As an unknown factor, Nighthawk thought, she’d bear watching. The problem was, so would almost everyone in the room.

The pigeon reached forward to peck at her cheek, and she leaned backwards in her seat.

“We call him Birdbrain,” Flowers chortled. “Because he can control the minds of birds—one at a time, that is.”

As a longtime baseball fan, Nighthawk had already detested Charlie Flowers. Now, interacting with him personally for the first time, he really loathed him.

The bird flew up from Kandiah’s shoulder, circled the table, and landed in front of Galante, where it proceeded to spread its wings and do sort of a bobbing and hopping dance in front of Galante’s pile of chips.

Galante had a look of intense dislike on his face. “Disgusting thing,” he said. “Rat with wings.”

Next to Nighthawk, Meek made a gesture with his right hand. A spectrum of light, like a rainbow, arced from his palm, striking the bird in mid-hop. The pigeon vanished.

Nighthawk looked at Meek with new interest in his eyes, as did everyone else in the room.

“I told you,” Meek said to him. “I make problems disappear.” He glanced at Timmy, who was looking at him with somewhat like horror. “Don’t worry, kid, he’s okay. I just sent him to a better place.”

Teleportation? Nighthawk thought. Interesting. An extremely potent power, and useful. There was more to Meek, he decided, than appearances would allow.

“All right,” Flowers said briskly, unconcerned by his nephew’s downcast expression. “Let’s get to business. Or sport, eh?” He elbowed Dagmar in the ribs, rubbing his meaty hands together briskly.

“Yeah.” Galante took his gaze from Meek and ostentatiously consulted the expensive Rolex on his wrist. “Well, we’re expecting one more player. He seems to be running late. It’s past nine. Let’s give him a couple more minutes—”

Even as Galante spoke there was a shimmering in the air, felt more by the brain than seen by the eye. Suddenly three newcomers stood in the room.

The woman in the center was the tallest. She was almost six feet and wore a robe of shining fabric that for some reason Nighthawk found difficult to focus his eyes on. Her skin was pale, her long black hair fell like a rippling cloak to her waist, but her silver eyes were her most arresting feature. Nighthawk felt that it might be unwise to look into them too deeply or for too long.

She embraced two others, one in the crook of each arm. The other woman was almost as tall as her, leggy, blond, with smoky-blue eyes and a bored expression on her exquisite face. She wore a black sheath dress that revealed the creamy skin of her upper breasts and displayed a lot of silky thigh. Around her long, graceful neck was a diamond choker with a single large sapphire shining like the tear of an angel.

Nighthawk was relieved—somewhat. The woman in the diamond choker was Margot Bellerose, internationally famous French actress. Nothing to worry about there. The ace who’d delivered her was another matter. Lilith. Teleporter and assassin. Mistress of the knife. The case that held the buy-in cash was slung around one of her shoulders.

As to the player himself—

“Siraj, Hashemite Prince of the Royal House of Jordan and President of the Caliphate of Greater Arabia,” Lilith announced in a voice that managed to be haughty and languid at the same time.

Siraj bowed a precise millimeter in the general direction of the poker table and put out his hand. Bellerose took it with an air of pouty boredom and they approached the table together. Siraj was short, handsome, and dark, if more than a little plump. He was reputed to have a sharp mind and an almost bottomless bank account.

Prince Siraj took the last empty seat at the table and snapped a finger to one of the two barmaids, who hustled up another chair. Bellerose slipped into it with the air of a queen about to expire from ennui, playing with her choker as she glanced disinterestedly around the table.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Flowers suggested.

“Agreed,” Galante said with a degree of oily unctuousness, “but first, the house rules. They are few, but important. Number one, gentlemen. The buy-in.”

Khan strolled around the table, collecting the various bags, valises, and briefcases offered by the players or their seconds.

“The cash will be counted,” Galante said, “just for propriety’s sake, and be put in the suite’s safe for safekeeping. Your chips are already in place before you. Rule number two. The game is over when one player holds all of those chips. Rule number three. The play is table stakes, dealer’s choice, no limit. Is that all agreeable?”

Murmurs went around the table.

“Good. Play will be continuous, but if someone wants to take a break for a snack, or, whatever, heh-heh, there are private rooms in the suite to eh, freshen up in.”

Flowers, eyeing one of the barmaids, a lissome joker model with bunny ears and a cute fluffy tail, asked, “All part of the service?”

“All part of the service,” Galante agreed.

“Great.”

“Finally, no telepathy.” Galante’s voice turned low with more than a hint of danger. “We have ways of detecting it and identifying whoever may be using it. The offender will lose their stake.” He paused a moment. “And probably more.” He looked around the table, his gaze resting momentarily on each player. “Understood?”

He got six answers in the affirmative. The last player he looked at was Dutton, and his eyes lingered.

“I know the world we live in, but this is a friendly game.” Galante’s smile was almost sincere. “Masks are not allowed at the table, Mr. Dutton, because of the unfair advantage that they give.”

Dutton may have smiled under his mask. At least, it moved a little bit on his face. “Far be it for me to take unfair advantage, Mr. Galante,” he said in his sepulchre voice.

He removed the mask and let it drop on the table before him. There were several audible gasps. Even Galante blanched a little. Flowers murmured, “Eew.” Bellerose, seemingly entranced, whispered, “Magnifique.” Golden Boy looked on, unmoved.

“Shall we play?” Dutton asked, what might have been a smile twitching across his face.

Galante grinned in reply and broke open a pack of cards sitting near him on the table.

“Of course,” he said. “As host, I deal the first hand. The game starts, as always, with a hand of Low Chicago. Afterwards, winner deals and chooses the play. Ante up, gentlemen.”

Everyone took one of the red chips from the pile before him and tossed five thousand dollars into the pot.

There was, Nighthawk thought as the game began, an authentic rush of excitement in the air. He’d been involved in a few marathon poker games in his life, nothing approaching stakes like these, of course, and he knew that they had a rhythm, a kind of ebb and flow, depending largely on the personalities of those involved. And the seven players here, he realized, had about as wide a range of personalities as could be found. It didn’t take too long to sort them out.

Galante was a bold, impulsive player. He also wore his emotions openly on his face. He took chances—it was gambling, after all—but more often than not he succeeded when he did. He also drank steadily, but he seemed to hold his liquor well.

Jack Braun, to his left, was the most distracted player at the table. One and sometimes both of the twins were hanging on to him. He had a fair poker face—a reviewer had once said that as an actor his facial expressions ran the gamut from A to B—but was careless with the way he held his cards and in the way he played. He didn’t drink as much as Galante, but then he didn’t hold his drink as well, either.

Charlie Flowers was the most intense player at the table. He gripped his cards tightly, he stared around at everyone as the bets were made like he was trying to read their minds. Unfortunately, he was a bad reader.

Siraj’s play was as smooth and deft as his manners. He was probably, in Nighthawk’s judgment, one of the two best players at the table.

Dutton, with his ultimate poker face, was the other. He too was suave and mannered, but he had the advantage of looking like Death.

Will Monroe was affable and full of chitchat. Nighthawk couldn’t tell if he was just a little scatterbrained, or was cunningly trying to distract the other players as he explained, sometimes in excruciating detail, the fine points of the game to his attendant, Abigail, who didn’t seem all that interested. Nighthawk kept wondering why she was there. She seemed more bored than anyone else present, except possibly for Timmy, who soon lost interest in the proceedings, but thankfully didn’t call in any more birds to play with.

John Fortune was all business, as if this were work for him, not fun. He concentrated on the game, though as it started he acknowledged Nighthawk with a nod. Which Nighthawk returned. He wondered if his presence was conjuring bad memories for Fortune, since the last time he’d seen him he was being held by the Midnight Angel and sobbing over his father’s death. It hadn’t been a pleasant time for anyone.

Flowers got off to a bad start, Siraj to a fast one. Within the first hour Siraj had won three hands in a row, taking a lot of chips from Flowers.

“Motherfucking—” Flowers began after Siraj had called his bluff and raked in a big pot.

Prince Siraj looked at him, quirking an eyebrow. “What did you say?”