Card Sharks Read online

  chapter four

  It was a typical lunchtime Friday at SportsClub L.A., Marianne thought as she looked around the carefully maintained workout space. Make that typical for the people who actually had legitimate memberships. Then there were the moonlighters, exhibit A being Bijoux and herself hunched over their handlebars at side-by-side bicycle machines in identical Juicy sweat-suits they’d pulled from the depths of Bijoux’s closet.

  With its marble lobby, plush towels, and vast menu of ultra-high-grade services (meaning you could probably ask them to import a moose complete with personalized pet collar before yoga class and they’d have it flown in from Vermont by the time you were coming down from your hot-stone therapy). SportsClub L.A. was the place for the rich and famous to get their workout on. A membership to one of the guilds might be the first thing the Hollywood hangers-on might buy when they started working, but a membership to SportsClub L.A. was the first thing they bought when they made it big. The high access fees essentially acted as a kind of prescreener for high-income dating, which was why Bijoux suggested they give it a go.

  Obviously crashing SportsClub L.A. on day passes was not something Bijoux was in the habit of doing herself, but luckily it was exactly the sort of thing Marianne got her kicks from. So there they were, grinding away on the old bicycles, trying to achieve the classic disinterested L.A. glaze of one who couldn’t be bothered. Of course, it was difficult to look disinterested when, in fact, one was keenly interested and having difficulty preventing oneself from blatantly gawking as known personages passed to and fro.

  Marianne had set her tension to something like a billion, which meant that while doing a loose interpretation of the Tour de France mountain-climb leg, her legs were hardly moving at all. Conversely, Bijoux had gone the opposite route, setting her tension to zero, which had her legs cycling practically out of control. Both methods allowed the girls to keep up pretenses while exerting as little physical activity as possible in lieu of focusing more on the mental activity of scoping out potential dates.

  “Don’t look right away,” Marianne hissed, “but I think that’s Jack Nicholson over there doing squats. About two o’clock.” Bijoux might be pretty much used to seeing A-list celebrities from her time on the benefit circuit, but Marianne was still a total fangirl.

  Bijoux took a casual peek. “That can’t be Jack Nicholson. If that’s really him . . . well, he’s so much . . . so much . . . wider than he used to be.” She shrugged and continued scoping the rest of the clientele.

  “This place is unbelievable,” Marianne said, trying not to look like she was staring at Jack Nicholson’s gut. “Where’d you score the passes?”

  “I swapped a favor with Mrs. Keegan. I promised—oh, I think that’s Brooke Shields in the doorway, there—I promised I’d pet her new Persian for forty-five minutes while she’s out of town tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “You heard correctly.” Bijoux rolled her eyes in a most world-weary way. “I’ve got to pet her cat. She says he’s skittish and needs a comforting human touch to help him acclimate.”

  “That’s so L.A. Why doesn’t she just hire someone to do it?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t plan to suggest it. I wouldn’t have anything to swap for the passes, would I? Do you realize a person could bask in a life of luxury in this place without ever having to go outside? I mean, they have it all here. Fine dining, hair-replacement therapy . . . I’m willing to bet we could get BOTOX shots at the smoothie bar—

  “Oooh-oooh, five thirty, olive skin,” Marianne hissed.

  Bijoux perked up and swiveled around, her body swaying precariously as she began to pedal with even greater vigor. Within a few seconds, however, her shoulders sagged as she came back around and she gave Marianne a look. “Totally gay.”

  Marianne reexamined the prospect. “Oh. Oh, yeah. I guess the singlet is kind of a giveaway.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Oh! Oh! Nine forty-five!”

  Bijoux swiveled . . . and slumped. “Wedding ring . . . cute tracksuit, though.”

  “Noon o’clock. Quick!”

  Bijoux snapped her head up, squinted, and gave Marianne a horrified look. “TAG Heuer, yes, but gender category uncertain.”

  “Just testing you.”

  “No more false alarms. My neck is killing me.”

  For the next fifteen minutes it was pedal, swivel, slump . . . pedal, swivel, slump . . .

  “This is so lame,” Bijoux said after they’d been pedaling for nearly forty-five minutes without a legitimate sighting.

  “Okay, seriously. There you go. Four sixteen. Rolex, no wedding ring. Clearly male.”

  Bijoux looked. Her eyes widened, telegraphing an unspoken “go” signal to Marianne. Immediately the two girls doubled their efforts on the machine, hair flying, legs pumping, doing the whole making-a-thing-out-of-gulping-a-lot-of-water-for-their-efforts thing. The object of their admiration began to walk down the row of machines between them, and the girls immediately acted as if they’d been working out forever and were just now cooling down.

  They’d timed it perfectly. The object was close enough to start a conversation with either one of them. He raised his head and smiled broadly—at a girl riding a bike a few feet down. Her muscles gleamed with perspiration and her skimpy black workout shorts didn’t even begin to contain what there was to be contained.

  Marianne looked over at the girl and snorted. “Ass implants. I’m sure of it,” she whispered.

  Bijoux exhaled deeply, still trying to catch her breath. “You should have said something. He would have stopped.”

  “I thought he was more your type,” Marianne said. “You should have said something.”

  “That’s what you’re for,” Bijoux wheezed out. “If he’s for me, then you, as wingman, need to start the conversation.”

  Marianne just gave her look.

  “Oh, God. This is so not going well for me,” Bijoux said. “I’m going to throw up or pass out. Take your pick.” She hunched over the handlebars of the workout bicycle, pedaling sloppily. “I don’t even want to meet someone anymore. I’m all gross. I can’t believe Susan Saunders met her husband this way.”

  “Well, stop working out so hard. This isn’t supposed to be about the exercise.”

  “I know,” Bijoux muttered. “How can it be about the exercise when we drive over a hill in an SUV and let valets wearing head-to-toe white park us?”

  “Let’s try one of the classes. It won’t be so exhausting. You think?”

  “Sure,” Bijoux said, eagerly stepping off the machine. She staggered forward as her apparently jellylike knees buckled under her on unfamiliar firm ground. Steadying herself with one hand on the handlebars, she picked up the perfectly snowy white towel and dabbed at her face, working to avoid smearing her full faceload of makeup.

  The girls walked over to the schedule of classes and had a look. “Prenatal yoga or candlelight stretching. I think that pretty much decides things for us,” Marianne said.

  Bijoux nodded, and they headed for the candlelight stretching class.

  The wood flooring alone was gorgeous. Honey colored and shiny, it picked up a nice glow from the candles arranged around the room. Low, vaguely Middle Eastern music floated through the air entwined with a mild sandalwood incense. The participants sat perfectly spaced apart on mats, already in lotus position. Marianne and Bijoux adjusted mats in the back of the room and quickly took their spots.

  “Now try to imagine the energy flowing through your body . . . feel your arms elongate, let your limbs stretch out nice and limber and strong and long . . . Now imagine the energy flowing and cycling and circling through your body until all that energy is just shooting out your fingertips into the collective spirit of everyone present as we create one massive energy ball. . . .”

  “This woman is beginning to frighten me,” Marianne muttered under her breath, raising both arms up above her head. They felt extremely short for some reason, and not particu
larly flexible. The only thing shooting was a shooting pain in her right bicep, which seemed to have taken on a twitch. Next to her, Bijoux’s eyes bugged open as she concentrated on manifesting an energy ball from her fingertips.

  “Look at these people. They’re all perfect,” Marianne whispered. “You know what I heard today getting my coffee? This gorgeous girl says to her friend, ‘In most cities, people think I’m totally hot; in L.A. I’m, like, totally ugly.’ ”

  A guy on the mat in front of her turned around and sent them a very non-Zen shushing look.

  “Yeah, it’s crazy,” Bijoux whispered back. “The other day I got an e-mail from a benefit-circuit friend of mine. She offered to split a set of BOTOX shots that she was getting on discount from some celebrity plastic surgeon. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.” She dropped an arm and pressed her fingers into the theoretically wrinkly spot between her eyes. “Is it that bad?”

  “You look fine. Not that you believe me. All I can say is that if you’re going to buy botulism for the sole purpose of injecting it into your body, don’t get it on discount. For God’s sake get the best damn botulism you can get.” A girl Marianne recognized as a runner-up from one of the The Bachelor seasons turned around and shushed them. Marianne just rolled her eyes. “She’s not that famous,” she said not quite under her breath, and was rewarded in turn by frowns from some of the other participants.

  “We are one with the spirit as we geeeeeennnnnttttttlllly flow up and around to the other side. Let your negative energy simply leach from your body . . . that’s right. . . .”

  “Bijoux.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think this fancy stretching is for me. And we can’t even talk, much less flirt with anybody.”

  “Now find a flame and focus on it. Parse the colors of the flame and find your center. . . .”

  “What the hell?” Marianne asked.

  Bijoux shushed her, her head turning to the right as she focused on a row of candles along the wall. “I’m beginning to feel it. Look into the light, Marianne. Follow the light.”

  “Now follow my lead. We’ll remain silent for this sequence as we focus ourselves in the eye of the flame,” the leader said. She was clearly one of those people who’d taken dance lessons at the age of three and had been stretching for the last three decades, for her “lead” consisted of lifting her leg up and around and sticking her foot behind her neck.

  Bijoux dutifully tried to arrange her limbs in the appropriate position.

  “Don’t do it. You’ll hurt something,” Marianne hissed.

  Bijoux shushed her and continued trying to lift her leg up. She lost her balance and keened wildly to the side, rolling into a wooden trencher filled with candles. The Zen-like display wavered, then toppled.

  Bijoux squealed; Marianne shrieked, “She’s on fire!” and tackled her friend, smothering her head with an exercise mat, which was probably not flame-retardant but which managed to have the appropriate effect this time. Things suddenly went very quiet.

  “Get it off me, Marianne,” came Bijoux’s very indignant voice. “It’s gross and sweaty.”

  Marianne peeled the mat off her friend’s face and the two girls examined the singed piece of hair smoldering on the side of Bijoux’s head.

  “Maybe you should make that hair-replacement therapy appointment now,” Marianne said, her mouth twitching dangerously as she tried not to laugh.

  Bijoux fingered the damage. “It’s just one of my hair extensions. Are you ready to go?”

  “I’m ready to go.” The two girls stood up, making a flailing attempt at replacing the fallen candles and the capsized trencher. It didn’t work. Sort of bowing and apologizing all at once, they backed out of the room as twelve pairs of eyes stared at them.

  “Let’s try to regain our focus. . . . Imagine a stream . . . and some willows . . . and a pretty fawn. . . .”

  Bijoux and Marianne just barely got out the door and into the changing room before bursting into peals of laughter.

  “I . . . can’t . . . breathe! Too . . . funny.”

  The changing room attendant took a call on the house line watching them as she spoke. She hung up and started toward them.

  “Uh-oh,” Marianne said.

  “I second that. You want me to drop you at home or do you want to go for a walk?”

  “A walk? I thought you said you were exhausted.”

  “I just had this idea I haven’t tried yet. When I go over to pet the cat, I’ll borrow the Keegans’ dog and walk it around in some really upscale neighborhoods. You know what people are always saying about dog people attracting other dog people. And this way it will be dog people attracting other wealthy dog people.”

  Marianne arched an eyebrow. “Well, you’ll have to let me know how that works out for you.”

  Bijoux looked both ways and then hobbled across the street, which wasn’t a very long hobble, and then up the arched driveway, which was.

  She rang the doorbell and waited. Rosa answered the door.

  “Hola, Rosa. ¿Cómo estas?”

  “Bien. Muy bien, Señorita Sterling.”

  “Um, ¿Señora Keegan está?”

  “Noooo. Señora Keegan no está.” Rosa waited, a bright smile on her face that probably hid what she was really thinking; that Bijoux’s Spanish was a total embarrassment.

  Bijoux peeked behind Rosa into the house. “El perro está?”

  “El perro? No. El perro no está. El gato está.” She thought Bijoux had mixed up the animal word.

  “Right. I was getting to the cat part. I just thought . . .” And then it hit her. The cat would work. She’d promised to spend time with the cat anyway. “Right. El gato.” Bijoux chewed her lower lip. “Okay. Estoy toma el gato a mi casa para . . . para . . . pet it. Estoy pet el gato.”

  Rosa frowned, put her hands on her hips, and slipped right out of her Spanish. “You’re going to take the cat and pet it? Is that really what you meant to say?”

  Bijoux nodded. “Señora Keegan asked me to, and I just figured I might as well do it over at my house to, you know, help it acclimate to other areas of the neighborhood better.”

  Rosa’s eyebrow went up, but she swallowed the smile that was forming and stepped away from the door to reveal an enormous gray Persian cat clouded by more cat hair than seemed possible for just one animal to have all on its own. It sat in the middle of a formerly pristine white shag carpet, which had taken on a dingy gray quality in the section where the cat was sitting.

  Bijoux bent over and stuck her hand out. “Here, sweetie. Here, precious. Here, gorgeous . . . here—”

  “Skippy,” Rosa said matter-of-factly.

  Bijoux stood upright and looked over her shoulder. “Skippy?”

  Rosa shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I think Peter may have had something to do with it. It was supposed to be a joke, but it stuck.”

  “Okay.” She turned back to the cat. “Here, Skippy. I’m Bijoux.”

  The cat stared at Bijoux with clear blue eyes. Eyes that said, You’re an imbecile and we both know it.

  But Bijoux was too quick. In a flash she was stuffing the cat into her tote bag, giving Rosa a more confident adiós smile than she actually felt, and then hightailing it back down the driveway.

  Though displeased, Skippy took the jostling fairly well.

  She’d intended to take the dog, but with his unexpected absence, she’d figured the cat would suffice. What was more, walking a cat would attract more attention than walking a common dog. People would look. More important, men would look.

  Unfortunately, it was a hot July, the rope she was using as a leash looked unnervingly like a noose, and people were crossing the street to avoid her. Skippy finally balked, and Bijoux had to pick him up and put him in her purse. He was clearly not happy, Bijoux was not happy, and within fifteen minutes of walking up the canyon road, sirens began to wail from somewhere on a street below.

  Bijoux pulled out her cell phone.


  “Hello?”

  “Mare, it’s me.”

  “You’re breathing funny.”

  “I’m panicked.”

  “What’s wrong?” Marianne asked.

  “Is it legal for Animal Control to make a citizen’s arrest?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Calm down and tell me exactly what’s happening.”

  Bijoux looked behind her in the direction of the sirens. “I think I’m being tailed by some sort of law enforcement vehicle.”

  “Have you done anything wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. But I’m sure I look guilty. I’m speed-racing in high heels down a canyon road, talking into my cell phone with a dehydrated Persian cat in my purse.”

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  “Marianne, are you still there?” Bijoux asked.

  “Yes, sorry. I was processing. So this is what it’s come to. Is there anything I can actually do for you?”

  “No, I was just calling to tell you—”

  “That this has got to stop,” Marianne said, punctuating her statement with a massive sigh.

  “Exactly. Hold on.” Bijoux glanced behind her again. The van was parked, and some sort of uniformed officer was striding in her direction. Sweat was already running in rivulets down her back, but she picked up the pace, stumbled in her heels, then paused long enough to take them off and carry them in one hand.

  Bijoux peeked into the purse, where Skippy stared up at her, looking most displeased. “Almost home, Skippy. Almost there,” she said breathlessly as she headed to her house. Peter was just driving up to the curb. She waved him over and then keyed into the Sterling mansion. She put Skippy down in the sink and turned the water on just as a knock came at the door. “I’ve gotta go, Mare, but let’s get together tonight.”

  “Come over whenever.”

  “Bye.” Bijoux hung up and opened the door. Peter and the officer stood on the doorstep.

  “Hi,” Bijoux said, attempting to cover her nervousness and hoping to cause a distraction by tossing her hair around a little. “Skippy’s having a drink. I was just taking care of their cat, you see. Everything’s fine.”