Mind Games

Chapter 2-2

Sloane knew it was time to cash out. More people had come along after “Tex” left, and she’d been careful to lose a couple of hands, but her daily winnings were now up to almost twelve hundred dollars, and the dealer was starting to give her the side-eye. Anyway, she’d been playing for almost three hours, and she never allowed herself to do more than that, figuring she was tempting fate if she hung around that long. Besides, they’d just finished a hand, and there was no point in sticking around for another one.

A little start, as if she’d felt her phone buzzing in her jeans pocket. She pulled it out and glanced down at the screen. “Oops — my friends are here,” she said. “Gotta go.”

Flashing a smile at the dealer, who seemed singularly unmoved, she scooped up her chips and then got down from the stool where she’d been sitting. Once again, the familiar tension knotted her neck and shoulders. Every time she went through this procedure, she expected to feel someone’s hand descend on her and yank her back, to hear a casino worker tell her they knew what she was doing and to hand over her chips.

So far, that had never happened.

Well, not exactly. There had been that one strange incident in California, when she’d been approached by a good-looking Hispanic man at the Morongo casino just outside Palm Springs. She hadn’t been playing for more than an hour when he came up to her and told her that she needed to leave, that she was infringing on another clan’s territory. What that was supposed to be about, she had absolutely no idea, but she hadn’t argued, had only taken her chips and left. He hadn’t stopped her from cashing out, at least, and yet she could tell he wasn’t going to put up with any loitering, either.

As odd as the encounter had been, it still hadn’t ended in disaster. She’d simply left and gotten in her car, then driven south to the Pechanga casino down in Temecula. No one had bothered her there, and she’d had a very profitable few days rebuilding her reserves before she decided it was time to move on.

That was the real trick, after all. Just keep moving.

And she needed to move on now. Most of the time, she spent around four or five days in a given place and she’d only been in the Flagstaff area for three, but she could somehow feel in her bones that it wouldn’t be smart to linger. She was almost four grand richer, and when she added those winnings to the cash she already had on hand, it would be enough to keep her alive for at least another two months, maybe more.

Because that was the other trick: don’t take more than you need to keep going. She lived out of inexpensive hotels and had won her car in a bar bet years before, so her expenses were minimal. Every once in a while, she’d replace one of her wigs when it started to look ratty, and she had to buy clothes and food, but she didn’t have rent or utilities or credit card bills. No bank accounts, just prepaid Visa cards for the places that didn’t accept cash.

The system had been working pretty well for her so far. The one thing she really hadn’t wanted to face was what she planned to do with herself once life on the road palled and she didn’t want to spend the rest of her days fleecing casinos — or their patrons — out of their money.

She pushed the unwelcome thought away as she waited for the cashier to count out her chips and exchange them for a bunch of twenty-dollar bills. Once that transaction was handled, Sloane headed for the exit. The sun was nearly to the horizon, but she was used to driving in the dark.

And she wanted to get out of Flagstaff.

When she’d come to town, she’d thought she would head east and hit one of the casinos just over the New Mexico border, but then realized that was a risky proposition, if only because the largest one near Gallup — Fire Rock — was also run by the Navajo. The last thing she wanted was them comparing notes on who’d won big at their casinos recently.

Instead, she decided it would be better to double back and go to Laughlin. She’d stayed out of Nevada for nearly half a year, figuring a cooling-off period was probably a good idea, but enough time had elapsed that it should be safe. During the intervening months, she’d replaced most of her wigs and would have an entirely new set of personas to use to cover up her identity. Every once in a while, she thought about what it would be like to live life as herself, and not as an endlessly changing lineup of women who didn’t truly exist. Problem was, she didn’t even know if she could pull off being just Sloane Kennedy and no one else.

Anyway, Laughlin would be a test run of sorts. If no one recognized her, and if everything went well, then she’d feel better about going on to Las Vegas. And once she was in Vegas…well, the sheer number of casinos in the city guaranteed that she’d be able to work for at least a couple of weeks before it was time to move on.

After that? Maybe Tahoe. Or maybe she’d just take a break for a while. A good run in Vegas would allow her to go pretty much anywhere she wanted. She’d always wanted to visit San Francisco as an adult; a childhood trip to San Jose really didn’t count. A week or so in wine country sounded like fun, too.

Anything to maintain the illusion that she was doing all this on her own terms, that her desperate quest for freedom from a restrictive past hadn’t turned into a prison of her own making.

Mouth tight, she guided her CR-V out of the Twin Arrows parking lot and onto the westbound I-40.

Always moving.