Free Queenpin by Megan Abbott Page A

the cigarette fall to the ground.
    Back at his place, his hand on my hip bone, my hip fast on the mattress—fuck me, who knew I was so easy? Who knew I’d pull a Judas the first chance I got?
    ∞◊∞
    If I’d waited it out, if I’d been patient, bided my time, looking for just the right chance, then I could have done it right. I could have used all the lessons she taught me to plan it perfectly, like she would have. But that wasn’t what this was. It wasn’t about outsmarting her or about protecting myself. I had to do it fast because there was no time. I had to do it fast before I lost my nerve.
    “You can’t throw any money down on horses, Vic,” I said. “If they find out I got heisted, missed making my bets, and someone scored on the same races, then it’s all over for me,Vic. Do you see? They can connect the dots and it’s over. Tire iron to the head.”
    “Sure, I see, baby, sure,” he said, practically rubbing his hands. The wolf. The wolf but not like before. His eyes not yellow flares trained on me. No, in his head, he was standing at that roulette table, letting his chips roll across his fingers, watching the wheel whirring, everything in his body vibrating with its purr, with the clicking of the spinning ball, the other bettors holding their breath, leaning in, pressing on the polished wood at the table’s edge, the wood groaning as they squeezed it with their anxious fingers, nothing moving but the wheel, the ball, and a comet trail of cigarette smoke twisting up to the low, low ceiling.
    “There’s this rhythm,” he once told me. “Each dealer has his own, like a signature, no two alike. Every time they pick up the ball from the pocket, they do it the same way. Every time they spin it, it’s the same way, with the same go behind it. If you know the dealer, if you know him well enough, watch him close enough, well, the ball will always spin the same number of times and will land the same number of pockets away from the last spin. It becomes a song you know and you can sing along with it. You see, there’s ways to make it all work for you, babycakes. There are. You play like I do long enough, it’s going to pay off, the big gold dream.”
    He was every pit boss’s, every racetrack owner’s, every shark’s deepest dream come to life. He was going to talk himself into losing for the rest of his days. He was a fish, a pigeon. Might as well walk into the carpet joint with his pockets hanging out of his pants.
    Funny how it almost made me cry, it was so beautiful. Who could keep on believing like that? I’d never believed anything like that.
    “You have to promise me,Vic,” I said, and my hands were shaking. I knew I would be seeing her in an hour, taking her to the train station, and how could she not see it all over me? “You have to promise you’ll only bet on the football game. Nothing else. I hear you place bets at those tracks—”
    “Don’t worry, honey,” he said. “I’m playing by your rules. Cross my heart.”
    He was so calm, so pleased, so distracted, thinking not of me but of that big gold dream of his. Suddenly I wanted to smack him. I almost did. Instead, I blurted out, “She’ll never buy it. Don’t you see? My boss, she won’t believe it. I wouldn’t.”
    He smiled and took my arms in his hands, focused his eyes on me. “She will. She will. You just gotta make it look real for her. You gotta look like you were taken.”
    I looked at him and then I said it. I knew it fast and said it. “You’re going to have to put me in the hospital.”
    Before I picked her up, I had a vodka neat, then, in the same glass, a slug of Micrin mouthwash, neat. By the time I was driving her to the train station, my hands were still, my voice was steady. I matched her mask for mask. In my head, I’d talked myself into forgetting everything but doing my job. Pleasing her. Seeing her off.
    Just as we pulled into the station, she said, “What’s going on?”
    I felt something