Death Plays Poker (38 page)
Authors: Robin Spano
CLARE
“What do you have? Aces?” Clare couldn’t beat aces. She couldn’t even beat a bluff.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “Plus the ace on the board makes three.”
“You’ll show me, right? If I fold?” They were playing strip poker in Clare’s bedroom. Nobody cared who won.
“I’ll show you anything you want.” Noah spread his palms in front of him.
Clare frowned. “Except inside your brain.”
“It’s gross in there. All that gray matter, and blood vessels snaking through it.”
“Fine.” Clare looked at her fingernails. The polish was chipped in a few places. She hadn’t decided whether to reapply it or let it fade away. “I’ll settle for the outside of you.”
“I’ll show you
all
of that.”
“You already have.” Clare folded her cards and let her eyes rest on the uneven hardwood floor that was scattered with clothes and suitcases. She would miss this apartment. “I’m just not sure it’s enough.”
“Can it be enough for now?”
“Yeah,” Clare said. “It can be enough for now.”
“You know when I first met you?” Noah picked up his hole cards and looked at Clare over their rim.
Clare nodded. The lights from the restaurant sign across the street flickered off, darkening the window.
“Bert told me not to fall for you. He told me I should be prepared to see you as my enemy.”
“Why?” Clare laughed, though a shiver moved through her fairly quickly.
“Because everyone you meet is supposed to be a potential criminal. It’s what I hate about this job. You sure you want it?”
“Of course I want this job.” Clare shoved the rest of her chips into the middle of her messy futon. “I’m all in.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This was a fun book to write. I had help from a lot of cool places:
My husband, Keith Whybrow, pushes me to follow my dream and pulls me back to reality when I’m following that dream too intensely. He helped with the mechanics of the cheating scam in this book, and he’s the guy who dared me to put real money on a poker game years ago when I was too chicken.
My sister, Erin Kawalecki, pores over each and every word of my manuscripts, sometimes multiple versions, making change suggestions on a word level and on a big picture level. Several of the zinger lines are hers. I feel like she’s my secret writing weapon.
My friend, Scott Hicks, much prefers to read short literary stories or anything by Alice Munro. Still, he reads my pages-in-progress and offers really helpful commentary. Things like, “This character is boring. Get rid of him or make him more exciting.” And “Have you ever noticed that all your lines of dialogue have the same structure? It’s annoying as hell. You need to change that.”
My friend, Christine Cheng, is another master of brutal honesty. “No, no, no,” she says when something doesn’t work. She’s equally amazing at suggesting ways to change what she doesn’t like, and her advice helped me around several hurdles with this book.
My cousin, Chloe Dirksen, put a smile on my face with her quirky enjoyment of the characters and her awesome ability to show me specific lines and areas that didn’t work for her. She reads like a writer — the helpful kind!
My cousin, Christie Nash, showed me a lot of places that left her wanting more. She helped me see what areas and characters needed clarification and expansion. And she read the
MS
on her honeymoon — that’s huge family devotion.
My aunt, Shelley Peterson — a published
YA
writer whose books I highly recommend — helps me a lot with the emotional side of Clare. She’s a master at highlighting when a reaction isn’t logical, or when I’m not writing true to a character. She’s also great with plot logistics.
My mom, Dona Matthews, read this manuscript the fastest out of anyone. Her constant emails over the course of two days telling me she was tired because she couldn’t put the book down the night before — or here she was, reading in the garden with a Scotch when she should be cooking dinner — were incredibly encouraging in that early maybe-this-whole-novel-sucks-and-I-should-throw-it-out stage.
On the intel front: my friends Deb Ferguson and Lorna Boyle gave me expert tips about how to cross the B.C./Washington border undetected, as well as a geography lesson about Mount Baker.
Emily Schultz is the best editor I could imagine. She gave several specific suggestions (my favorite is the line about “goat fucks”) and she taught me how to breathe life into a scene with visuals. She’s an excellent writer in her own right as well.
Sally Harding and her colleagues at the Cooke Agency are editorial geniuses. They helped me restructure the story to challenge Clare and make her show her stuff. They also give extremely wise industry advice. With them on my side, I feel armed to navigate this tricky writing business with confidence.
My friend Dave Scott is my poker mentor. He gave me a reading list of poker books when I started playing for real money, which turned the game into the hobby that spawned this novel.
The cover artists, Scott and Sarah Barrie from Cyanotype, designed this kick-ass cover and have shared lots of other art clips that adorn my website and brand the series. Great people to work with, too.
Finally, the people who put this all together: ECW Press is a match made in publisher heaven for me. They indulge my weird promotional ideas, they loop me into each stage of the production process, and they make me feel cool by association. These people are: Jack David, Sarah Dunn, David Caron, Crissy Boylan, Erin Creasey, Jen Knoch, Troy Cunningham, Simon Ware, and copyeditor Cat London.
Robin Spano
grew up in downtown Toronto and now lives with her husband in Lions Bay, B.C., a tiny mountain village just outside Vancouver. She enjoys being outside and active, exploring local roads on her motorcycle and waterways in her clunker of a boat, Little Trollop. She is also the author of
Dead Politician Society
(2010).