stacks of chips and cash exchange hands as we make our way to the far side of the room. There’s another set of doors here, and a single door on one of the side walls. I only notice because I see Chris taking it in, like he’s mapping the space.
Somewhere in the last hundred feet, my heart starts to pound. A small part of it holds out the naïve hope that Alex will appear, fresh martini in hand and not dead at all, just secretly gambling for the past three years. But the larger part, the broken part, knows that’s not what I’m about to find at all.
There’s a poker game in progress at a table near the double doors, but after a quick word with the dealer and some extra chips added to the stacks, the game and its players move to a nearby station. Servers in tiny dresses arrive with trays full of complimentary champagne. No one seems to care that it’s not even noon.
“Have a seat,” Angela says, nodding at the recently vacated chairs. She stands in the dealer’s spot, looking at home.
I sit and Chris sits, and I have no idea what to expect. I don’t like gambling. I didn’t before the scandal, and nothing has changed. It takes too long and it’s boring. The odds are stacked against you. I don’t see the point.
“That was Alex’s favorite chair,” Angela says. She cuts open a new deck of cards and starts to shuffle. Her fingers fly across the shiny rectangles, and the whisper of paper cuts the air. “I was his favorite dealer.”
“Was he your favorite player?”
She watches the cards. “They’re all my favorite.”
I hope this isn’t Chris’s idea of proof. “Great.”
She places a card in front of Chris, face up. King of diamonds. “That was your father’s seat.”
My father didn’t gamble, either. He’d play a few games here and there to be sociable. But Alex. Together? That’s impossible.
I think about those late night phone calls, him shuffling out the door in khakis and a polo shirt, not bothering with his standard suit and tie. “I’m going to get your brother,” he would say. I never asked from where. Alex was a club kid—there were lots of options. But when I pictured him in a club, it was the one on the other side of the kitchen. The one where drugs and men and women were the lure, not money. We had lots. Too much.
Chris runs his finger over the edge of the wood. It’s a thick table, varnished to a shine where it’s exposed beneath the felt, and in front of me is a carving. A + C, one on top of the other, joined by a plus sign, similar to the Carlisle Gale logo. I’d seen Alex write this before—he used it as his signature at the theater.
My father didn’t leave his initials, but I can picture him here. I can see him accepting a drink—just one, Reese, we have to keep our heads when we’re dealing with money—one eye on my brother.
“How is Kimball?” Angela asks, flipping over the jack of diamonds next to the king. She gets no points for subtlety.
I open my mouth to respond, but Chris beats me to it. “He’s fine,” he answers. “It’s prison.”
“I should write more,” Angela says, rolling her lips. “But I don’t.”
I try not to gape. This woman writes my father? In prison? Apart from his lawyer’s sporadic and handsomely paid drop-ins, I was under the impression that I was the only person in touch with him. He’s certainly the only person who’s spoken to me over the past three years. But Angela writes him letters. Chris pays him visits. He collected my brother from this gambling room when he wasn’t joining him. What the fuck was going on? I know I was self-centered, but I thought I knew what was happening in their lives, too. The embezzlement was supposed to be a secret, but this? Everything?
“Hey.” Chris rubs my back. “Just listen.” To Angela he says, “Tell her about Johan and—”
“Davor?” Angela rolls her eyes. “Dumb and angry,” she says. “More money than sense.” She glances at me. “No offense.”
I straighten in my seat. Chris’s palm settles more heavily between my shoulder blades, but I don’t know if it’s meant to be reassuring or to hold me in place. I had money and sense, if not a whopping amount of awareness.
“They’re sharks,” she continues absently. “Loan sharks and other things. That’s how Alex started