Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) Read online

  I took my eyes from the screens and looked up at him. “It would be wrong,” I explained.

  He looked at me hard, as if trying to figure me out. After nearly a full minute he tipped his head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s rich, Anna.” He walked away from me, chuckling. “Because it would be wrong,” I heard him say in a soft, feminine voice; which sounded not at all like mine.

  Not a great mimic, Paulie. A good enforcer, though.

  This I knew first hand.

  Chapter Two

  The adrenaline rush from watching the game—making sure I’d done my job; that I’d be around to watch more games—left my body and I was suddenly exhausted.

  I got up from my seat at the book. I didn’t have money on any of the games today. I’d been too distracted with my Minnesota trip to do my homework. I didn’t make any sports bet without doing my homework.

  Even that’s not enough some times.

  I waved to the guys seated at the counter where people made bets. They all waved back, a few, “see you tomorrow, Anna”s, thrown in.

  These guys knew odds, and odds were good they’d see me again soon, if not tomorrow.

  Yeah, probably tomorrow, now that I didn’t have the debt to Vince hanging over my head.

  I walked slowly past the poker room, scanning the few men standing in suits, looking to see if my friend Jeffrey was working.

  Friend. Lover. Booty call. I’m not really sure what Jeffrey was to me. We slept together occasionally, but not enough that I knew his schedule. I caught Glenda’s eye. She was one of the other poker room supervisors. I knew them all.

  Jeffrey’s the only one I sleep with.

  Glenda’s a tall, statuesque brunette who wears incredible suits and styles her hair in very intricate buns and twists. I think I even glimpsed a snood once. Very put together.

  She’s actually much more Jeffrey’s type—he’s a bit of a clotheshorse and a little high maintenance when it comes to his looks—but he swears they’ve never messed around.

  It should matter to me, but it doesn’t.

  The only thing that matters is going home and sleeping for twelve hours.

  Eight hours later I sat in the Sourdough Café at Arizona Charlie’s. I was the only woman at a table of six. And the only one under the age of sixty. I looked around the table at my male companions.

  Make that under seventy.

  The waitress, Grace, came over. Grace waited on us every morning. At the same table, near the back of the restaurant. She took each of the men’s orders then turned to me. “You eatin’ this morning, hon?” she asked. The men, previously talking amongst themselves, grew silent and looked toward me.

  “I’ll have the ham and eggs. Toast. And a side of pancakes.”

  She wrote it down and started to leave. The men let out collective groans. “And biscuits,” I added. Grace waved that she’d heard me as she walked away.

  “Oy,” said one of the men, most likely Saul.

  No, they weren’t commenting on the size of my breakfast, though I’m sure I would be when I’d have to unbutton my jeans on the drive home.

  “And,” Ben said, like he was right in the middle of a sentence. “I had to wake her up this morning. And it looked like she’d been sleeping a while.”

  Not long enough.

  Two of the men, Saul and Danny, looked at me with compassion. Jimmy snorted. With glee or disgust, I’m not sure. Gus shrugged with a “whadda ya expect” attitude and sipped from his coffee. Only Ben, my Ben, had a look of concern on his kind, wrinkled face.

  “How much?” Gus asked as he set his cup down, added more sugar. Gus adds nearly a packet of sugar with every sip he takes. By the end of breakfast he must be drinking coffeeade.

  The other men looked amongst themselves. If I didn’t answer soon, they’d start throwing out guesses, betting each other.

  Just as Jimmy opened with “Ten thou—” I said, “I didn’t play last night.”

  This isn’t totally unheard of, but it is out of the norm. The men all looked at Ben, who studied me, then nodded. I guess if he believed me, they all did.

  I could see why they were confused. When I play poker at night, I play late. I usually get something to eat after I’m done, or even sometimes while I’m playing. If I’m doing well, I get home just in time to take Ben to breakfast and am usually not hungry.

  If I lose early, I’m home asleep when Ben comes looking for me, and usually famished when I wake up.

  It’s not a hard rule. Sometimes I lose on my last hand of the card game and walk in the door to a waiting Ben. But typically, if I order a big breakfast it’s because I lost.

  And when I lose, I lose big.

  “We missed you at breakfast yesterday, Hannah, darling,” Saul said with a question in his voice.

  I looked at Ben. “Lorelei got you here okay, didn’t she?” I asked, concerned that Lorelei had dropped the ball where Ben’s ride was concerned. That wasn’t like her, she ran our house like a top.

  He put his hand on mine, squeezed, then took a sip of coffee. “Yes, dear, Lorelei was waiting in the kitchen for me, right on time.”

  I looked at the men as they all gave each other sheepish grins. Ben looked a little embarrassed.

  I sighed. “You still didn’t let her sit with you?” It wasn’t really a question.

  Ben looked more embarrassed. Saul and Danny evaded my gaze. Jimmy shrugged. Gus just gave an impish grin.

  Gus was a looker in his day, and, according to Ben, a real ladies’ man. He was still very handsome, a full head of thick wavy hair, turned a beautiful white. He still wore a suit every day, with a handkerchief in his front pocket. Most days the hankie matched his tie. His shoes were always immaculately shined. Ben told me once that Gus spread his shining business out, stopped at a different casino everyday, and tipped very well.

  Ladies and shoe-shine men loved Gus. And I suspected everyone else who depended on tips for a living.

  Which was pretty much everyone in Vegas.

  “I would have thought you’d like a beautiful showgirl at your table,” I said to them all.

  “She don’t fit in. She has no right at this table,” Jimmy said.

  “And I do?” I pointed out.

  There seemed to be a silent agreement amongst the men that indeed I did. A rush of emotion washed over me. A sense of belonging. I tried very hard not to blush.

  “You made your bones,” Danny murmured.

  I raised my brows at him. Making your bones in the old days meant you’d killed someone.

  “Your gambling bones,” Saul clarified.

  If that meant winning—and losing—several fortunes, then I had indeed made my bones.

  “So what did Lorelei do while you ate? Play slots?” Lorelei loved the nickel slot machines. Pennies if she could find them.

  I never touched slot machines. The boys had told me early on to stay away from them. “For chumps,” they’d said. And I’d listened.

  They also said know when to walk away. I didn’t always listen so well to that one.

  “She ate, too. Man that girl can put away food.”

  Seeing as I paid for her grocery bill, I was just about to agree when Grace came with our food, needing another waitress to help her carry my order.

  “How could you see what she ate?” I asked as I cleared enough space in front of me for all my food. There was plenty of space around me as Jimmy was the only one of the guys who ate a full breakfast each morning, the others got toast, or fruit, or oatmeal.

  Most days, Ben and Saul shared a breakfast plate like an old married couple.

  In some ways, they were. They’d grown up together in New York, came west together at eighteen. Their claim to fame was personally knowing Meyer Lansky.

  Jimmy motioned to the next table. “She was right there. We could see every morsel. Damn, that woman must burn some calories dancing, the way she eats.”

  “You mean you made her sit at the table next to you all alone while you all sat here
?”

  They all looked at me and just shrugged. I tried not to laugh, to not even smile, so as not to encourage them. But then I looked at Ben, with his warm, mischievous, brown eyes and I started to laugh. “Very nice, gentlemen,” I said when I’d regained my composure. “Very chivalrous. I thought you were old school.”

  “Old school meant women knew their place,” Jimmy said with nonchalance as he buttered his biscuit. Jimmy was the only one of the group with no gray or white in his hair. It was still pitch black. I’ve stared at it for hours trying to tell if it was a dye job or a toupee, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the man was just blessed with a great head of hair. Too bad it was wasted on Jimmy, who couldn’t have cared less.

  All Jimmy cared about was the betting line and food.

  If he weren’t such a prick sometimes, he’d be my idol.

  “I’m a woman,” I said. “And you’ve just pointed out that this is my ‘place’.”

  “Aw, honey, we don’t think of you as a woman,” Danny sweetly said, like it was a compliment.

  In a way it was.

  These five men had taught me everything I knew about gambling, and most probably about life itself.

  Being considered an old man by them meant I’d arrived.

  When the plates had been cleared, the men started pulling out newspapers, magazines, betting lines from various casinos, even notes on napkins.

  This was my favorite part of the morning. I enjoyed their banter over breakfast, but by now I’d heard all their stories. It was their time. Time to reminisce, time to tell private jokes about people long since gone.

  But when the papers came out, I perked up. I pulled out my own homework; this morning’s paper, and the line for today’s games I’d picked up at the Bellagio last night.

  “Whoa. Whoa. Hold on everybody. I got show and tell today,” Jimmy said. He reached under his chair and pulled out a brown envelope. He dumped it upside down and several copies of Sports Illustrated fell out.

  The men all grabbed a copy as did I, and quickly flipped through it. “Is this the edition with the article about you guys?” I asked even though I knew it had to be, with Jimmy smiling like he was. He nodded.

  “I thought it wasn’t due out for a few days?” Ben said.

  Jimmy shrugged. “I know a guy.”

  Yeah, Jimmy knew lots of guys. It was better not to ask any questions. No one did, they all just nodded and started flipping through the magazine.

  “Page eighty-five,” Jimmy said and the flipping continued.

  I turned my copy to the correct page, and there were my boys. A group shot taken right here in the Sourdough Café. I’d been there. Had brought Ben and then disappeared while the writer interviewed them all. I’d watched from a corner booth as the photographer had snapped away. I’d been bursting with pride.

  It was a three-page article about The Corporation. The five men who throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties had been the sports betting odds makers at five of the largest casinos in Vegas.

  Back then there’d been a healthy competition between them all. When one would set odds that were way off, they’d give him shit. When one would be dead on, well, they’d still give him shit.

  These men were responsible for making millionaires. And breaking them.

  And all for modest salaries plus benefits.

  I quickly read the article. The writer had really gotten the boys. Their pride in what they did. Their camaraderie. Their love for the old ways. His commentary on how odds are set now was written with a “the new way isn’t always better” attitude.

  Eighty percent of the casinos in Vegas get their odds from one company. The days when each casino had a man like Ben, or Saul heading a team of twenty that worked round the clock were over.

  The article captured the sense of nostalgia that first appealed to me about the boys.

  “Look, he even mentioned Black Sunday,” Gus pointed out.

  It was a famous story in odds maker history. Superbowl Thirteen; Steelers vs. Cowboys. The Steelers opened at 2 1/2 point favorites. People bet it. Heavy. Pushing the odds to 4 1/2 points. That looked good to the Dallas fans (their Cowboys could lose, but by less than 4 1/2 points) and the money came in from the other side.

  Then some really big money came in and bet Pittsburgh (it was rumored to be a big CEO at some steel company) at the last moment and almost turned the odds again, but it was too late to matter.

  Pittsuburgh won by 4 points and everybody won.

  “Except the poor schmuck from Pittsburgh that took the Steelers at four and a half,” Saul was quoted in the article.

  “And the odds makers,” Gus had added.

  The journalist wrote about the fall-out for the casinos after taking such a huge loss. Lots of odds makers lost their jobs. But the five men who would become known as The Corporation had survived.

  By then, of course they were all aware of each other, but only Ben and Saul could be considered friends. And they were best friends. It wasn’t until after they retired, some fifteen or twenty years ago, that they’d all begun meeting for breakfast each morning.

  “This is a great article,” I said, as I looked up. The men were all still reading except Gus, who had already finished and had flipped back to the first page, studying the group photo. I did as well, and then laughed as I read the caption. “They’ve got your nicknames in the caption. Did you guys tell him?”

  They all shook their heads no as they turned back to the picture page. I watched as each man’s face took on a different smile as they read their olden day’s monikers. Jimmy the Wop’s was a proud grin. Saul the Jew shook his head with a rueful smile. Gorgeous Gus ran his fingers through his beautiful hair, straightened his already straight tie. Danny the Mick broke out in an easy laugh. And Hyman Roth—Ben—sighed deeply. I figured he was secretly proud. His nickname, after the shrewd Jewish businessman, based on gangster Meyer Lansky, who brought casinos to Cuba in the second Godfather movie, was certainly the most creative.

  The only one with a little imagination. I wouldn’t have put it past Ben to have somehow started it himself.

  “I wonder where that kid got all this?” Saul asked.

  That “kid” journalist was about my age. “I give him credit for putting that in the caption,” Gus said. “Not very politically correct.”

  “Fuck politically correct,” Jimmy said what all the men were probably thinking.

  And so was I. These men had worn those names with great pride back in the day. Just by watching their faces I could see how much being in the magazine meant to them. They’d all worked close to fifty years in the back rooms, breathing in smoke, taking calls from snitches all over the country that had hot tips about players, teams or coaches.

  It was wonderful to see them out from the shadows, basking in a little limelight.

  We never got around to today’s games. I’d have to wing it on my own if I was going to place any bets this afternoon.

  Not the first time, but I did like getting the boys’ feedback. At least I had the ride home with Ben, I could pick his brain.

  We left Arizona Charlie’s. I walked slowly beside Ben, making sure the way was clear for his walker, but knowing better than to help him. I looked around at the clientele. Charlie’s was well off the strip and as such catered more to locals than tourists. And much, much older.

  You were more likely to see someone wheeling an oxygen tank than a baby stroller.

  Old school. And that’s how The Corporation liked it.

  Ben was so engrossed in the magazine that I drove in silence. I made my way to Summerlin, into our swanky subdivision. When we got to the house, I was surprised to see several cars parked at the curb.

  “You expecting people?” Ben asked when he noticed the cars.

  “Nope. You?”

  He shrugged. “Hannah, darling, anybody I would want to see, we just left.”

  I laughed. “Me too,” I admitted. Ben just shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.


  I got the walker from the backseat, helped Ben out of the car—the one allowance to his infirmity that he’d allow; getting out of my low sports car wasn’t easy, even for me.

  I put both Ben’s and my copies of the magazine in my backpack with my betting materials, and walked slowly to the front door, wondering if Lorelei had decided to have an impromptu party.

  At nine in the morning? Well, there were no clocks in Vegas.

  I opened the door, waited for Ben to wheel his way in, then entered. We followed voices and walked to the living room. Lorelei was standing in the middle of the room, facing us, like she’d been waiting for our arrival.

  Behind her, two men and one woman, none of whom I’d met before, sat on the couch and in chairs. They were all young, incredibly good looking with fantastic bodies.

  Lorelei shook her flaming-red hair, squared her shoulders and delivered her line like only a frustrated actress-slash-model-slash-dancer-slash-waitress could.

  “Anna, this is an intervention.”

  Ben sighed. I put my hands in my jeans pockets, tried to show nonchalance rather than my burgeoning anger as I addressed Lorelei.

  “What? Again?”

  Chapter Three

  I’m thirty-four years old. That’s a hundred and ninety in gambler years.

  And right now I felt every one of them.

  “Come on Lorelei, I thought we were done with these things. Where’d you find this crew?” I asked, pointing to the threesome in my living room eating my good bagels that I have shipped special for Ben from New York. There were coffee cups, juices. Lorelei had even made her famous egg casserole.

  Darn, and I’d already had such a big breakfast.

  “That’s Mark, and Kenny and Tabby,” she said pointing to the group. “They’re in love.”

  I looked closely at the threesome as they continued to chow down. “Which ones?” I asked.

  “Which ones what?”

  “Which ones are in love?” Although knowing Lorelei, and Vegas for that matter, I guess it could have been all three. Or four counting Lorelei.

  “All of them,” she confirmed. She watched me as I again studied the dancers, then she burst out laughing. “The show Love, Jo.” Ah, Love, the show at the Mirage. That made more sense. Although…