Ace Visconti Warning: Alcohol, use of tobacco, and gambling
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No one could have known how deathly quiet a casino could get. Granted, the place wasn't exactly bustling at a ripe 5pm, but still, the turnout was unexpected. A table of six, sitting in a neat crescent around the dealer. Most players were men. Men with dazzling rings too tight for their fingers and hair too grey for their heads. Ace wasn't an exception. Like most men in a casino, he had a good looking partner strewn over him. That was me.
I sat across his lap, legs crossed, one hand loosely tangled in his hair, his other beneath the side of his suit jacket. My fingers slid into a pocket and flicked through cards. I took a quick peek and slid a king from the mans pocket. I brought his hands close, Ace swiftly dropping a card to the ground and covering it with his dress shoe. He took the King into his deck a small smile resting on his lips. We'd been running this scam for years. It raked in cash. His arm rested around me, hand holding his hand of cards, which I peered at. Ah, he would win again. His other hand was ringed, swirling an index around a perspiring glass of whiskey.
One of the men beside him stood, "Aye! Cheat, I saw it!"
Ace glanced over, as cool as ever, sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose, "Who? Me?"
"Yeah, you!"
Ace shrugged and lay his cards out, "I suppose... But I don't see why I'd cheat for such a bad hand." Bad hand? Had I mistaken the card game? I looked down and other men lay their cards down. No, I was right! He won! His hand wasn't the best... but he won. The dealer huffed, "Sit down, Angus." The man sat with a grunt. Ace and I collected our chips and abandoned the suspicious table. I hummed as he passed them in, cigarette between my lips, "That was close."
"Was it?"
"He caught us."
"Does it matter? We got our cash anyways." He exchanged chips for cash and we soon abandoned one casino for another, bouncing from one place to another, running the same scam tenfold before calling it a night. I lay back in our cheap motel, flipping dollar bills through my fingers, counting and binding them by the hundreds and tucking them into our suitcase. Who would have thought traveling across the states could prove so fortuitous? Ace sat at my side doing the same in silence, thick cigar pinched between his lips. Soon, we separated all of the loose cash out, and he glanced over, "How much?"
"$11,000, roughly. You?"
"$13,000."
I scoffed, "Damn pimp." We split it evenly and I carded through a thick stack, "A shame we can't put it all on card."
"Best to keep those banker boys from being suspicious."
"You know, you could pay off your debts at any time, Mr Hot Shot."
It was Ace's turn to scoff, "Why do that when I could buy 500 bathrobes?" I chuckled and leaned over, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips, "Whatever. We're gonna get robbed one day, lugging around so much cash. Our bags might mysteriously go missing. Or maybe I'll take all the cash and run. Who knows? I'm flighty."
Ace rolled his eyes, arm settling around my shoulder, "You wouldn't. You're nothing without me, and I'm nothing without you. You're a bird eating out of the mouth of an alligator."
