Chapter 67

Marc stood for a moment, stretching his legs as he took off his suit jacket in between hands. The game had been going on for over an hour and the room was starting to get a little warm. Other than some glances to double-check that the Detective was alright, he’d been focused on the game. With nine players around the table there was a lot of information to try and take in.

So far no one had gotten knocked out - the blinds had raised three times and had hit $100 for the Big and $50 for the small, which also meant the minimum bets were now $100. The first half-dozen hands had been exploratory as everyone at the table settled in and started to get a read of those around them. Several knew each other already. The Italians started out bickering, shooting little playful verbal jabs across the table at each other. The Jamaican to Marc’s right seemed to be cold towards the Vietnamese man, shooting him looks every once in a while, but was very respectful of the older woman to Marc’s left.

The businessman, who introduced himself as Paul Crane, was enamoured with the fact that he was playing with the retired Hockey Player - the questions seemed to help the athlete settle in at first but had gotten a little annoying over time.

“Allow me, Mr Fornier,” Rachel said as Marc took off his suit jacket, appearing beside and behind him as if from the ether.

“Merci, Miss Rachel,” Marc said with a smile and a nod, handing over the jacket.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Rachel asked. “A drink, perhaps?”

“If you could just mention to my companion that I would like to speak to her for a moment,” Marc said.

“Of course,” Rachel nodded, carefully flattening his jacket before whisking it away to be hung up.

“She likes you,” the older woman said as Marc sat back down.

“I don’t know about that,” Marc said with a little smile.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a card with her number on it when you get that coat back,” she said, then offered Marc her hand to shake. “Susan Steinmeyer.”

“Marc Fornier,” Marc replied, shaking her hand. Her grip was strong despite her age, which had to be in the seventies. “It’s lovely to play with you, Madame Steinmeyer. You are a very shrewd statistician, I think.”

The older woman smirked a little. “I helped my husband run his jewellery store for forty years, and now my sons for ten. If I couldn’t spot a tell, or do the math in my head, we would have been done for.”

“A very impressive feat, Madame,” Marc grinned. He wasn’t actually sure what he thought about her - most jewellery businesses were legitimate enterprises, but some were fronts for laundering cash or other organisations. Not to mention the fact that there was a legitimate diamond cartel to deal with.

Marc got his cards for the next hand and quickly checked them. Four of Diamonds, Ace of Diamonds. On his turn, he called the minimum bet of $100, then felt Sinead’s hand touch his shoulder. He glanced back at her. “Un moment, ma petite rebelle, ” he murmured. She nodded and withdrew her hand.

The betting finished and the dealer burned a card and laid out the flop. King of Hearts, King of Diamonds, Six of Spades. Paul Crane folded first, but the native man beside him raised three hundred - he likely had something to interact with the Kings. The hockey player folded, and the Italian next to him had folded after his first glance at his cards, so it came to the Jamaican. The dark-skinned man seemed to think carefully for a moment, looking across the table at the Native man, before raising another three hundred, spiking the bet to $600 total.

That brought things to Marc, who had a decision to make. He didn’t have anything to interact with the Kings in the river other than the King of Diamonds making a potential flush. That left another flush, a full house, four of a kind or a straight flush on the table if he could get there with two more diamonds on the turn and river. A $600 bet was a good chunk of his chips to risk - he hadn’t won a hand yet, so the little bets here and there had been nibbling at his holdings.