Amused, Jay laughed lightly. “So thatwasyour car I located last night. I had a look around, but I guess you know that. Someone came out of one of the houses to chase me away, I suppose. Was that Dudley?”
Ramsey had no intention of answering that. “If I give you the money you need, how do I know you won’t come back again? And again?”
“You give me the money, I give you my word.”
“My money is worth half a million dollars. You word is worth exactly nothing.”
“That’s harsh, Liz.”
“Do you have collateral?”
“If I did, do you think I’d be here?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. This is easy. Getting a legitimate loan to get you out of your difficulty is hard.”
“My future earnings are my collateral. My life is my collateral.”
“Your future earnings mean nothing if you continue to gamble.” She saw he was about to speak and she put up a finger to stop him. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re done gambling. I wouldn’t believe you. Tell me instead about how your life is collateral.”
He was quiet for several long seconds and he never looked away. His blue-eyed stare glinted, razor blade sharp. “You know.”
“No. I don’t.” Ramsey vowed she would not put words in his mouth. If his life was in danger, he had to say so without her suggesting as much. She would not put it past him to leap on the idea to gain her pity and her cooperation.
“My reputation,” he said, and it was as if the words were yanked from his throat. “It will be the end of me.”
Ramsey was not moved, though she suspected he thought she should be. “I appreciate that your reputation means everything to you, but I don’t understand how it becomes the end of you.”
“I’ll go to prison, Liz.”
A vertical crease appeared between her dark eyebrows. “I don’t get it. That high stakes poker game you were in, were the other players cops?”
Jay slapped the table. Hard.
It seemed to Ramsey that the force and suddenness of Jay’s blow lifted her right out of her chair, but as she was still holding onto the edge of her seat, she realized she’d only flinched. On the inside, every nerve was jangling and it was difficult to breathe. She managed a deep sip of air, held it, and then released it slowly. Jay was speaking and she tried to listen, but it was as if her head were underwater. His voice sounded thick, the words distorted. She only caught the end.
“Not funny,” Jay was saying. “Not funny at all.”
Because it was the wiser course, not because she meant it, Ramsey said, “I’m sorry.”
Jay grunted softly and took a long pull of beer. When he set the bottle down, he said, “So you’ll help me.”
“I didn’t say that, Jay.”
“Jesus, Liz. Is it some kind of new female empowerment that makes you want to bust my balls? I need the money.”
“So you can avoid prison,” she said carefully. “What if that’s exactly the consequence you need to give up gambling?”
“Are you serious? Did you really just say that? A little self-righteous, don’t you think? Maybe that’s a consequence of twenty-three million.”
Ramsey chose to ignore that. “Explain to me how giving you money keeps you from going to jail.”
“You want your pound of flesh? All right. I paid off that gambling debt I told you about. I had to. Some of the men I was playing with, well, you don’t screw them over. They play to win, to keep. They enforce their code of honor and even debt as small as mine is not forgiven. It’s a matter of pride with them. You understand?”
“I think so,” she said after a moment. “Though not the part about your debt being small. Half a million seems awfully large to me.”
Jay shrugged.
“Who do you owe now, Jay? You got the money from someone to pay off the gambling debt. You told me that when we had breakfast together. I want to know who owns you now?”
