Sharon shrugged, her dress hanging on precariously. Her enhanced boobs dwarfed my 32Cs; she could legit carry drinks without a tray.
I always pictured her balancing martinis on her mammaries with circus music teed up. “No, not for him. I had a high roller on the line.” Wardrobe was critical in cons, and this look played to rich guys. My mark, Nigel, had approved. Until he’d inexplicably abandoned me in the Caly lobby a little while ago. “My con went south, so Pete invited me here.” To dig. These days, I wasn’t good for much else.
This honey trap might be stingerless.
“Looks like you’re having a shit week,” Sharon said. “I saw an eviction notice on your door.”
I lowered my voice to say, “I forgot my neck brace one freaking time.”
Pete’s blond brows rose. I hadn’t told him about my eviction, not with all my other recent failures.
“Happens to the best of us.” Sharon finished her champagne. “Two tears in a bucket; motherfuck it.”
I grinned. “I will never stop saying that saying.”
“How’d you hear about this party?” Pete asked her.
“Some crazy chick named Alicia or Jessica or something invited the entire Strip, telling everyone about a whale she’s trying to hook up. I came here to harpoon said whale. No dice. He actually told me, ‘I have a woman in mind for myself, and you are not her.’ Russians suck.”
Pete and I shared a look. We had a Russian KA, a known associate, who was like our grandfather.
“I’m gonna go find some real action. Ciao, babies.” Sharon blew air kisses as she rejoined her friends. Just before they headed inside, she yelled over her shoulder to Dmitri, “Go fuck yourself, Russki!”
When a tirade of Russian boomed out from above, I raised my brows at Pete. “Maybe he’s not interested in women. If Karin bombed with this guy . . .” Last night, he’d ignored my breathtaking sister as if she were invisible. “Maybe Dmitri’s gay.”
“I should be so lucky,” Pete said, a wistful note to his voice. “For a guy like that, I would turn honey trap in a heartbeat.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks, chief.” I would know. I was supposed to have run my first badger game tonight. In a badger, a honey trap would maneuver a married mark into a compromising position while an accomplice snapped photos and took video. Voilà, blackmail.
Nigel had been my ideal man—a hitched skirt-chaser with a cheating clause in his prenup, wandering hands, and a tan line on his ring finger. Tonight the older man’s watery gaze had beamed at the sight of me—right up until the moment he’d checked his phone, sputtered at whatever he’d read, then all but fled the casino.
My fifth busted con in a row. I was as superstitious as the next grifter and knew what this streak meant. “Pete, I’m pretty sure I’m jinxed.” And yet I would drag myself back to the VIP lounge tomorrow to troll for yet another sleazebag. It’d taken me three double-backs—sixteen-hour stints in stilettos—to scare up Nigel.
Pete said, “It could be the badger that’s giving you trouble, since it’s your first and all.”
“You’re making me sound like a noob.” Sure, every grifter had a specialty—mine had been those pump-and-dump stock cons—but a skilled confidence artist was versatile.
“Until you get your footing, you should help out with Karin’s kid another night or two a week, so she can close more. Just till we settle the debt.”
I blinked in disbelief. “We’re in the middle of a crisis, and you want me to babysit?” Not to mention that Mom and Dad would cage-fight me if I tried to limit their grandbaby time.
Pete scrubbed a palm over his handsome face. “Nigel should’ve been . . . well, he should’ve been low-hanging fruit.” In a grudging tone, he broke it to me straight: “Karin could’ve run him in her sleep.”
Ouch. Though one could definitely tell we were sisters, I was like a short, less-endowed indie version of her. At twenty-eight, she was all long-legged grace, confidence, and effortless sex-appeal; around men, if I didn’t concentrate, I could come across as standoffish—a kiss of death for a honey trap.
Pete rushed to say, “You’re an ace at cards, and your grift sense is the most honed of anybody I know. Your instincts in those stock schemes kept the lights on for the entire family. But stocks are out forever.”
We’d conned the wrong people, and they wanted their money back—plus interest. “Our deadline is only twenty days away, and you’re benching me?” No wonder everyone had texted me encouragement tonight! Yet I’d failed to pluck the low-hanging fruit.
“It’s because the deadline’s on us.” He exhaled. “You’re wasting marks that Karin could close.” Over the last several weeks, she’d run a ton of lechers. She even had a two-timing congressman in the pipeline for tomorrow.
I hadn’t gotten a mark anywhere near our hidden-camera prop house.
Karin was my best friend, but sometimes I felt like screaming, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”
In a softer tone, Pete said, “All you need is a little brushing up on your, you know, sexual manipulation skills, but we don’t have time right now.”
Sexual manipulation skills? Really? How did he think I got all those lowlifes to invest in our bogus stock deals?
By making sure they read my cleavage instead of the writing on the wall!