Page 53 of Serial Killer Games

“We have to keep going. We have to get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it?” I echo.

“The money. We have to lose it.”

I stop in my tracks. She’s been gambling like a shark all night, one win after another. “You’ve been trying toloseit?”

It occurs to me I didn’t check to see how much the last win raked in. I fish around in her purse for the slip of paper the dealer gave us.

The number on it doesn’t make sense.

I glance behind me. There’s still a small crowd of people at the roulette table, watching us, pointing.

I call after her and she turns. “Did you…?” I hold the paper out to Dodi.

“Did I what?”

“Look.”

She barely looks at the paper.

“So? We have to keep going.”

“Did you actually look at how much—”

She’s been in a moody daze since Circus Circus, but now she snaps into focus. “Iknowhow much! Thirty-five to one!” It bursts out of her, her finger jabbing at the roulette table behind me. She pulls aside a dour-faced man in a vest and speaks into his ear. He nods and leads the way. I jog to catch up.

“Pitch blackjack,” she says to me without looking. “Cards down. Single deck. High stakes.”

We travel up a small flight of steps and over to where three men sit hunched at the edge of a table while a woman deals. The game moves slower than the blackjack tables we passed on the way here. These are larger sums of money, and the suspense from having the cards face down is something to be tasted and savored. The players flip their cards over as we watch, and one man chuckles, and another polishes off his drink, and the dealer settles the bets.

Dodi turns to face me, expression hard, and holds out her hand for the slip of paper. I don’t give it to her.

She snatches the paper from my hands, crumpling it in her palm, but I refuse to let go—I grab her hand with my own before she does something stupid with it. A few heads from the blackjack table turn our way, and I fire a big easygoing smile at them.

“You should keep the money,” I whisper through my teeth. This money doesn’t matter to me. Why would it? But it’s a life-changing amount for someone like Dodi, someone with her life ahead of her. “You should quit while you’re ahead.”

Her face hardens. “You think I’m ahead?”

I’ve accidentally raked a fingernail over a scab.

She takes a half step closer to me and speaks in a low voice. “ ‘If you want to win, you have to be willing to lose everything.’ That’s what my husband used to say. Smug, happy,healthy—he had everything he wanted in life,somuch he took for granted, and he actually used to say that, as if he was bravely riskingeverythingevery time he played one of his stupid fucking card games. Do you know what it’s like to actually lose everything?”

Now she’s the one who’s ripped off a scab.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

She blinks, realizing her misstep, and her hand goes slack in mine. She tries to wriggle out of my grasp, but I hold tight.

“I’ll give it to you, but this is your last game,” I say to her.

Her eyes are glittery and dark. Her body relaxes bit by bit.

“My last game,” she agrees.

I hand over the slip of paper. She curls her fist around it and lifts her chin.

“Do you know how to play?” she asks.

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