Stacked Deck. Terry Watkins
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Diamonds…the only thing in the world you can’t resist. Then tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Even in this light, I can tell where your eyes are looking.’”
Randolph, a short, plump, bald stylist, chuckled. “Believe me, honey, as wonderful as your assets are, they’re not in my portfolio of thrills.”
Beth laughed as she sat in Randolph’s boutique in a trendy Washington D.C. neighborhood getting a makeover.
While he did his magic, she watched clips of Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief on her PDA, mimicking the heroine’s classy intonation. Grace was a woman’s woman. Someone to emulate, to watch, to impersonate. Beth wondered just how much of it was an act. Was Grace Kelly the consummate actress on the silver screen and in real life?
“‘Ever had a better offer in your whole life? One with everything?’”
Randolph stopped fussing with her hair and looked at Beth in the mirror. “You’re good. You sound just like her. She was a princess, wasn’t she? Such class. And that hair, like spun platinum.”
Randolph fitted yet another wig on Beth’s head, this one honey-colored and shoulder-length. “How do you like this, darlin’? Hot and sexy? I think the color looks fab with your hazel eyes.”
Beth twisted from side to side to get a better look in the mirror. “It’s close, but I want it a little shorter.”
Randolph slipped the honey wig off and replaced it with a blond, jaw-length bob.
“You’re in a play, right?”
Beth decided to go with his guess. “Yes. Off, off Broadway. It’s a spoof on Grace Kelly movies.”
Beth had always loved morphing into an imaginary “other” ever since she was a child living a desperate life with her gambler father, bouncing from losing streak to losing streak. They were flotsam in the rapids of Las Vegas gaming, caught, injured, then tossed back into the current.
Her father, who had predicted he would end up buried in the desert, ended up dead in a Dumpster.
Her mother was only a figment of Beth’s imagination, having fled before Beth could know her. So Beth created and recreated her life, her image, her history, shedding skin like a rattlesnake in August. It made her an accomplished actress on the world stage.
Beth tugged at the wig, getting it straight on her head. She liked this one. It gave off the right look—wealthy, without being too brash. Plus, it had just the right amount of retro to give her that elegant Grace Kelly look.
“Perfect,” she said. “I want my hair lightened this exact shade of blond and cut in this style.”
“Wish I could see you perform. I bet you’re good.”
“I’m a method actor, dahlin’,” Beth purred. “I scare ’em and excite ’em at the same time.”
Randolph laughed. “Ooh, you play rough.”
“Sometimes, but I’m worth it.”
He stepped back from the chair and gave her the once-over. “Yeah, I can see it. You’ve got that edge to you. Like you’re hiding a tiger under a pink dress.”
They both laughed.
As Randolph worked his magic on her, she thought about how crazy her life had been growing up in Vegas. As a kid, she never felt anger or hatred or even animosity toward her father. She had seen too much of his struggle, his love for her, his ambition—even in hopeless failure—to give her a better life. It was his purpose, his goal. And though he’d died when she was only twelve, without accomplishing that goal in the end, above all else, his love for her was the source of her great inner strength. Because he believed in her, she never doubted who she was beneath the disguises. She merely used them as a means to an end, not as an attempt to erase her true self.
The following day, wearing several thousand dollars’ worth of designer clothes, shoes and obscenely expensive jewelry, carrying Louis Vuitton luggage filled with more of the same, Beth, aka Anne Hurley, rich widow, poker player, businesswoman and passionate lover of open wheel Formula One racing—and the tango—left Dulles International for the four-thousand-mile flight to Nice, France, followed by a seven-minute hop to Monaco by helicopter.
She’d changed her voice, her walk and her attitude to fit her new persona. The next part of the metamorphosis was done at a fabulous villa Delphi had rented for her on a Monaco hillside above the Monte Carlo casino.
She spent much of the next forty-eight hours out on the patio working on her laptop, stopping once in a while to take in the breathtaking view of the French Riviera, while a soft breeze rising from the Mediterranean washed over her.
Periodically she’d look down at the yachts settled like a great flock of white birds on the deep blue sea, the steep hillside covered with pastel villas bathed in the golden sunlight and the endless blue sky above. What could be better, she wondered, than to be filthy rich in Monaco, playground for the rich and the royal?
With her near photographic memory and a capacity to focus for long periods of time, Beth could inculcate volumes of information quickly. To fake a background with success she needed the fine details, the particulars people in the profession paid attention to, the latest jargon.
She listened to dozens of CDs, watched DVDs, read bios of drivers and memorized the complete history of Formula One.
Through a tiny pair of binoculars she carried in her purse, she could see the Sapphire Star Casino on an adjacent hill. It had the look of old Europe to it. Understated. The home of her target: Salvatore Giambi.
We will meet soon, Mister Giambi, she thought. He’d been made aware of her arrival, and had been given advance notice that she was interested in investing in his racing team.
And she knew he was desperate for investors. Not just because of financial problems, but, according to the files she’d been reading, his marquee driver, JD Hawke, had a bad boy history that scared off would be investors. JD’s on-track fights, off-track mouth, and daredevil driving had made him a pariah. Only his great talent, and Giambi’s willingness to gamble, made a comeback possible.
On the fifteenth floor of the Sapphire Star Casino, Salvatore Giambi stormed into his office. He was in a sour mood.
His race driver, JD Hawke, was seated at Giambi’s desk playing a video game on an open laptop.
“To hell with the prince! To hell with Monaco!” Giambi bellowed.
JD nodded without looking up. “What’s going on?”
Giambi stared at him. “JD, when the hell is this Anne Hurley supposed to show up?”
As JD obviously crushed his cyber opponent, he held up his arms in complete victory and looked up, beaming. “I thought you said tonight.”
Giambi stared at JD for a moment, wondering what the hell was so exciting about those damn games. “Can you do that somewhere else, I have work to do.”
“Sure,” JD said as he closed out and stood up.
“Let me know when she gets here.” He walked toward his desk just as JD was leaving it. “How much did I say was transferred to her account with us? I forgot.”
“An even million. If you took that Ginkgo biloba I bought you, your memory would improve.”
“I hate pills.”
“It’s a vitamin.”
“I don’t care what you call it, it’s still a pill.”
“It’s your choice, but I—”
“I don’t have time for this.” He waved JD’s statement away. “She didn’t want a comped room. What, my five-star hotel isn’t good enough for her?”
“Apparently she’s got friends to stay with,” JD said, as he tried to leave.
“Don’t