Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,90

anyway. I recommend you dispose of it as soon as possible, using an appropriate ritual.”

“I’ll kill you for this.”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose. But it won’t be tonight. You’re out, and the rest of us have a game to finish. If you have even the vaguest notion of proper decorum, you’ll shake our hands and join Queen and Timon at the rail.”

‘Yeah,” I said. “Take a hike.”

“Please,” Leticia said. “Unless you feel up to contending with all of us at once.”

Wotan shivered, raked us all with a final glare, spat on the floor, and stalked away to join the spectators.

Given the way I felt about him, it was a kind of a letdown that in the end, I hadn’t been the one to knock him out. But it was also a relief to see him go.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After Wotan left, I looked at the Pharaoh and asked, “How did you do that without him even knowing?”

The mummy smiled. “I told you, my friend, all my secrets are yours for the asking. But only if you meet my price.”

“Sorry.”

“I assumed as much, but it’s still a pity.”

Leticia smiled. “Not for me. The last thing I need is two big, strong men ganging up on helpless little me.”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “Even when I was alive, and people were smaller, I wasn’t considered especially large. And I daresay you were never considered ‘helpless.’”

She smiled that sultry movie-star smile. “Well, perhaps not completely helpless. Is it my deal?” She reached to gather in the cards.

As the game got rolling again, the friendly table talk died away. The Pharaoh went back to being a silent, rotten, withered thing. Leticia didn’t frown, squint, or hunch forward—except for that one moment in Rhonda’s store, when I’d forced her to set her love puppets free, I’d never seen her do anything that made her look less gorgeous in any way—but there was still something about her that let you know she was concentrating hard. I probably looked pretty serious myself.

After knocking Wotan out, the Pharaoh had more than half the chips on the table, and he tried to use them to push Leticia and me around. She played back at him aggressively. I didn’t, because I wasn’t catching any cards.

I flashed the Thunderbird to see if there was a magical reason for that. If anybody was cheating, I couldn’t spot it. I wondered if the others meant to finish out the game just playing normal poker. If so, great, just as long as I started getting some decent hands.

Finally I dealt myself the eight and nine of diamonds. I bet, and Leticia called. The Pharaoh sat and stared at us for a while. He was thinking of coming in, too. Since both Leticia and I were already in, there was a good chance he had the right odds. But in the end, he mucked.

I dealt the flop. It was the ace of hearts, the eight of clubs, and the eight of spades. That killed both my flush and straight draws, but gave me trips. Which were likely to win anyway.

Leticia bet. It looked like she had an ace to go with the one on the board. I didn’t want to scare her off, so I just called.

The turn was a brick. She checked, and I did, too.

As I started to deal the last card, she gave me a smile that made me feel warm and tingly from head to toe. “Whoever wins,” she said, “it’s been a delight. I’m grateful I had the chance to play with you.”

I swallowed. “You, too,” I said.

I burned a card and turned over the king of spades. Leticia sat and thought for a few seconds, then said, “All in.”

I figured she’d been playing ace-king, and now had top two pair. That’s a strong hand, and even with the eights on the board, you couldn’t blame her for taking a chance on it. Not this late in the tournament, and not when I’d been slow playing. I probably would have done the same, and I actually felt bad for her as I called. A part of me wanted to fold instead.

She turned over her cards. Ace-king, just like I figured. I reached for my hand. I guess my body language told her she was beat, because something came into those big green eyes.

Or maybe I should say that several things came into them. I could tell that she really did like me. That I could have her for the asking, and without needing to worry