[ Yes, Ray was James Bond. And just like James Bond, he was probably going to get fucked by the villain before the night was out. If you were an international man of mystery, picking people up in casinos was pretty bad for your health.
Armando tilted his head, catching the eye of one of the doormen and tilting his head up slightly. He'd make sure that the present population stayed sparse. If they had to disappear this guy, having a whole bunch of witnesses to his being there would be unhelpful.
But for now they were just playing. The stakes weren't very high; he figured the cop would have to tell him why he was there either way, if he wanted to get to the truth, but the game served a whole other purpose. Not only did it show him what sort of a risk taker Ray was (he knew he took risks, he needed to know how reckless he was, whether he'd told anyone he'd come here; and yes, he could learn that from a hand of blackjack), it'd also break some of the ice. And really, ice was hard to break in his - ha! his - profession. Okay.
He took a card off the deck and laid it down on Ray's, face up. ]
Nine. Twenty.
[ Moment of truth. Either everything was decided on this next card, or Vecchio would be playing his own hand warily, checking his own sense of danger against the man opposite him. Twenty was a good score; it couldn't be beaten by the dealer in one card, and the possibility of him losing the hand was higher by far than the chance of the house winning.
It all depended on just how crazy this guy was. Was it all for looks? Was there something sharper just under the surface? Or was he the kind of man who played it much closer to the other edge of the line?
How much like Fraser was he? How much like Ray himself? And did he have a death wish? It was amazing how much blackjack could communicate. ]
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Armando tilted his head, catching the eye of one of the doormen and tilting his head up slightly. He'd make sure that the present population stayed sparse. If they had to disappear this guy, having a whole bunch of witnesses to his being there would be unhelpful.
But for now they were just playing. The stakes weren't very high; he figured the cop would have to tell him why he was there either way, if he wanted to get to the truth, but the game served a whole other purpose. Not only did it show him what sort of a risk taker Ray was (he knew he took risks, he needed to know how reckless he was, whether he'd told anyone he'd come here; and yes, he could learn that from a hand of blackjack), it'd also break some of the ice. And really, ice was hard to break in his - ha! his - profession. Okay.
He took a card off the deck and laid it down on Ray's, face up. ]
Nine. Twenty.
[ Moment of truth. Either everything was decided on this next card, or Vecchio would be playing his own hand warily, checking his own sense of danger against the man opposite him. Twenty was a good score; it couldn't be beaten by the dealer in one card, and the possibility of him losing the hand was higher by far than the chance of the house winning.
It all depended on just how crazy this guy was. Was it all for looks? Was there something sharper just under the surface? Or was he the kind of man who played it much closer to the other edge of the line?
How much like Fraser was he? How much like Ray himself? And did he have a death wish? It was amazing how much blackjack could communicate. ]