Page 54 of Serial Killer Games

I actually do know how to play this one. The goal is to get as close to twenty-one as possible. Face cards are worth ten, everything else its actual value, and aces can be a one or an eleven.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then you know this game isn’t like the others. I can choose to lose. I don’t have to win if I don’t want to.” Her eyes are dark. “Youalwayslose everything eventually, anyway, if you play long enough. The only luck is bad luck, right? So what’s the point?”

“Then cash out now before you lose it all.”

“I’m not talking about the fucking gambling.”

She takes the empty seat at the far right. She places her piece of paper on the table, and the man nearest her looks her over with interest, taking in her dress, shoes, jewelry. These men know wealth and its indicators. Dodi is an impostor in their midst.

The dealer’s eyes linger for a split second on the slip of paper, and then she inserts a black plastic card into the deck and deals. One card face down for each player, and then Dodi, and finally herself. And again, until everyone has a second card, and the second card she deals herself is placed face up.

Everyone consults their cards, and in front of me, Dodi peels up the ends closest to her. I watch her spine stiffen, her fingers freeze. I peer over her shoulder, and a metronome in my chest starts up.

Queen of diamonds and an ace of hearts. A natural. She’s won.

The dealer deals out one more round of cards.

“Stand.”

“Hit.”

“Hit.”

The dealer turns to Dodi, who says nothing. She spreads her palm on the table and scratches one pointed red nail on the green felt.Hit.She’s going to fulfill her threat. She’s going to intentionally lose, after being dealt a winning hand. I want to reach out and squash her hand flat against the green, but I’m too late.

The dealer sends a card her way, which Dodi doesn’t bother to look at, then deals another card face up for herself, flips the original reversed card face up, does the math, and deals herself one more card. Five of clubs, three of hearts, seven of hearts, five of diamonds. Her total comes to twenty. The other players huff and toss back their drinks and flip their own cards over. The dealer takes care of their wagers—every last one of them has lost, of course—and turns to Dodi, who sits there, staring at me, luxuriating in her moment of triumph.

See? I reject the mythology of good luck, kismet, and happy endings.

She flips her cards over, one by one.

Queen of diamonds.

Ace of hearts.

The other players fall silent in confusion. They all stare at the remaining card still face down on the green.

Dodi presses her fingertips to the final card, savoring the moment. I can’t look. I can’t not look. She slides her thumbnail under the edge of the card, and flips it over.

25

Death Wish

Jake

Las Vegas glitters at ourfeet. We’re on the top floor terrace of a hotel, an exclusive little space for people who can afford two-hundred-dollar cocktails served by contortionists who slink around in gold leotards, while a trapeze artist twirls lazily above our heads on a hoop and a tiger prowls moodily on a lead below. The spectacle never ends.

An updraft lifts Dodi’s hair as she leans over the wall and peers down, and the bloom of light from the street below catches her beautiful face in strange, underwater colors. Her bag rests on the ledge between us, lumpy and heavy, and next to it, the urn. Another server approaches—liquidly crab-walking and then rising up onto his feet without losing balance of a tray of drinks. He sparks a lighter above them, and they burn blue, and Dodi fishes a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of her purse for him. It’s Monopoly money, all of it. It doesn’t seem real.

A queen of diamonds, an ace of hearts, and a jack of spades. Twenty-one. She made blackjack twice in one hand. She’dstared long and hard at her cards, like she was reading a Tarot spread, and then she’d wordlessly taken her winnings and led us out onto the Strip again. We’d walked a long time in silence, the palms and lights and tourists all on the other side of a pane of glass, and I’d looked up at the tall buildings brightly lit against the black sky, taken her by the hand, and brought her here.

“What’s next for you?” she asks. Her voice is quiet and serious. I don’t misunderstand her question.

“Right now it’s just my hands. They go numb and I get clumsy. Now that it’s started, it’ll get worse, quickly.”

“Like your dad. What happened to your mom?”

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