The Player, The Thief and The Broken Heart - Chapter Seventy-Four - An Arrest Warrant

Steve decided to throw this round so he could focus on what was going on behind him in the giant window's reflection. His cards were shit anyway. The most he could make from the dealer flop at this point was a halfway-decent pair if the man turned over a ten. The two men in hotel manager uniforms were trotting past the bar again, back toward the red curtains. He wished he knew what was going on behind the scenes. He hadn't been told much in the way of details but plans must have gone awry.

"Fold," he said as he watched Yushenko pushing a stack forward out the corner of his eye. Whatever cards the man held, he wasn't bluffing. Steve moved his attention to his left, moving his eyes as far as he could to see what was going on in his periphery without turning his head. Two hotel employees had stopped in front of the curtains, a blurry pair of burgundy jackets against a red and brown background. A black figure emerged from the folds of heavy velvet. No Rebecca with them. While Yushenko straightened his stacks of chips, Steve stole a glance over his shoulder, and held his breath. The figure in black was a cop and not Frank or Robbie or Eddie in disguise.

His heart thudded in his chest. He could feel Yushenko's eyes boring into him. Slowly, he turned his head toward Lachlan, who'd managed to recover enough from whatever had intoxicated him to rejoin the game. The colour had drained from his overly-tanned face, but otherwise he appeared to be okay. Steve sized up the man's various stacks of chips. They came to almost twelve million, not including the fresh pile he was scraping closer to his end of the table. He'd just one the hand. So that's who Yushenko was glaring at. Another blue blood with a horseshoe up his ass. His toast probably always landed jam side up too.

"May I speak with a manager here?" a gruff voice barked somewhere behind him above the din of the lounge. Steve squinted at the window and, in the reflection, there were now two police officers barging into the lounge. He wasn't sure if these were two additional cops or another had joined the one he'd seen moments earlier. Steve's eyesight had never been that great and he was too vain to wear glasses. Contact lenses or surgery were out of the question.

Yushenko turned around and glared at them, which made Steve feel safer to gawk at them too. The taller one held up a badge while a much smaller, Asian officer reached into his breast pocket. He flashed an envelope. "We have a warrant for the arrest of one Rebecca Rubina Marks."

"She's around somewhere; go find her. She has red hair. Wearing red dress." Yushenko scowled, waving them off. "Continue," he told the dealer.

Steve watched the two officers swagger past the bar. A skittish hotel manager trailed after them. He turned around to face the game again just as the dealer finished doling cards out to everyone still in the game. Steve was big blind this round, which he took as an additional sign to start losing so he could get the fuck out of here. He picked up his hand, a pair of Kings. Of all the times for his luck to start turning around for the better again.

While everyone at the table made their bets, he strained his ears for any hint of Rebecca or Robbie's voice. With any luck he'd have lost it all and would be on his way down to the lobby by the time they came back out. Yushenko passed and the dealer turned up a King in the flop. Steve did a quick count of his stacks and he was still two million ahead of Lachlan. Plus he had a King in his hand. Fuck it, he thought, I can't leave without beating this asshole first.