Here Comes Trouble Page 0,62
huh?”
“Something like that.”
“How did you meet her?”
“She…kind of fell right into my lap.”
“They have those kinda places in Pennydash, do they?”
“Very funny.”
When he didn’t add anything else, Dan sighed. “I want details and you’re not going to give them to me, are you? My closest buddy finally trips over his own heart…or some body part anyway, and I get nada.”
“When I figure things out, you’ll be the first to know. So, listen, how are things otherwise? Your dad good? Vanetta okay? Did you get the buy-in numbers for me on the Omaha series?”
“I’ll let you change the subject, but be forewarned, we’ll be circling back.”
Brett smiled briefly. He and Dan had always shared everything with each other. Dan was both best friend and brother. His father was the closest thing Brett had ever had to the real deal, with Vanetta there to keep him walking the straight and narrow. “Fine,” he said, “just give me the latest.”
Dan sighed. “No news is good news, right? Dad’s good, his golf game still sucks, and Vanetta is riding herd on a bunch of college students who have shacked up in her place looking to make their college tuition at the casinos this summer.”
Brett laughed. “Well, they picked the right place to stay then. If they win anything, she’ll be the one to see that it actually goes for classes and books.” Vanetta was pretty much single-handedly responsible for keeping him focused on the prize. Which was not a shiny diamond-studded bracelet. No, he owed a good chunk of his degrees to her riding herd on him to keep his studying up to par and learn to say no every once in a while to the promoters and marketers. Born and raised in Vegas, she’d seen it all in her seventy some years. Her boarders were all her babies, regardless of age, background, length of stay, or reason for coming to the gambling capital. If those students staying there now thought they’d come to Sin City for something other than college tuition, they didn’t stand a chance with Vanetta holding court. Might be the best education of their lives. “And the Omaha buy-in?” There was another silence and Brett snorted. “That good, huh? Dammit.”
“It was down over thirty percent from last year when you competed.”
“Who are they marketing? Who’s the new poster boy?”
“You mean whose soul are they sucking from?”
Brett didn’t rise to the bait. By not bailing out sooner, he’d essentially allowed them to do the sucking, while he quietly or not so quietly really, went about making a shit ton of money. So, he could hardly complain about that now, could he? “What about that Irish kid, Iain Summerfield?”
“You mean the kid with only two measly championships wrapped around his wrist? He’s like, what, twelve?”
“He’s twenty-five.”
“And you had, what, like nine of them by then? Now you could cover both arms with them, Brett. It’s going to take a very long time, if ever, before they stumble across anyone who is the dream machine you were. And are.” He paused. “No…urges?”
“Other than to mess up your prettier-than-average face right about now? No.”
“Good.”
“You that worried about me?”
“It was a surprise when you walked away like you did, you know that.”
“You’d been telling me to for years.”
“And you’d been ignoring me. And I sure as hell didn’t expect you to walk all the way to freaking Vermont. So sue me if I’m making sure you’re okay now that you’ve had some time away. What are your plans?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Me. Dad. Vanetta. Folks who care. There are a few that exist who want you back for reasons other than making dime off your pretty face and freakish ability to get good cards. Don’t forget that.”
“Trust me, I haven’t. It’s why I stopped. I needed to think.”
“If you’re waiting for them to latch on to somebody else who can do what you do, then you might as well set up camp in Vermont. I doubt they’ll come hounding you there.” He paused, then said, “But if you’re thinking you might want to come back to the place that is also your home, you know they’ll hound you for a while. Given what you’ve done for them, they’d be stupid not to try. But it’ll settle down; at some point, it has to.”
“Or they’ll burn your house down.”
“Goddammit, Brett, we told you, me, Dad, even Vanetta. We’re not buying that bullshit. Shit happens, sometimes bad shit. Believe in bad karma after so many years of good, whatever. But