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I knew it, it was just Vic Riordan, his whore, and me.
    I couldn’t stop watching. Something about the way he just kept going, never seemed frustrated, never lost his temper, just kept sinking, sinking.
    It wasn’t until he’d watched his last four chips disappear behind the croupier’s rake that he seemed to notice me. He looked over with a funny kind of smile. Not like a man who’d just won and lost Blackbeard’s booty.
    He looked at the wilting lily on his arm. Her head darting around, she was eyeing greener pockets. “Some lucky piece,” he said to her. “I need something shinier. All your shine’s rubbed off.” She shrugged. He shot a smirk my way. “There’s the metal I need in my pocket.”
    I took a sip from my glass and didn’t say anything.
    “Don’t you owe me a drink for the show?” he said. “They should name a church after me after that sacrifice.”
    “You’ll rise again,” I said, turning to leave. Already though, I didn’t want to go. His patter was nothing special but there was that kind of crazy bravado, a drowning man wondering what the water would do to his new suit. Still, I started walking.
    He didn’t follow. I thought he would. So I left the back tables, but I stuck around the joint. Which meant something. I watched some baccarat, sucked on some pretzels, asked around a little about the furrier, caught some gossip about a new carpet joint opening in the
    back of an appliance store downtown.
    He was at the bar when I saw him again.
    “Someone bought you that drink,” I said.
    “You can always find a few knee-bending Catholics in these places,” he said, raising his glass lightly. “They’ll always do a favor for a wayward soul.” He put a hand on the leather stool beside him and cocked his head.
    I didn’t move. I felt like something was turning.
    “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get drunk. I want to see you with a hair out of place.”
    His grin did me in.
    Before him, I’d never fallen for one. Never bothered to look up for one that wasn’t just a money clip to me. In all my girl years, I’d only rolled pro forma with high school boys, office boys, head knocking on Adam’s apples in backseats, mouth dry and raw. By their closing shudder, I was already snapping my garters back up and biding my time for the finer things. All the ones before Vic Riordan, I was just killing time. They never made me want more.
    I wasn’t drunk and neither was he. But we were standing by his car in the parking lot of Yin’s. We were leaning close to each other. It was coming on three A.M.
    “It’s too bad you’re such a kid. Otherwise, I’d take you home. Mess up that fancy girl posture. Bend you back a little, you know?”
    “Who says I’m a baby,” I said. “I’ve been in long pants for years.”
    “Are you kidding?” He put his hand on me, just above my chest. “I bet I could smell Mama’s milk on your breath.”
    “Come close. I’ll open wide and you can see. No milk teeth.”
    He moved closer and his smile reminded me of the wolf in bedtime stories. When I was a kid, whenever my sisters would tell me fairy tales, running their fingers up my arms and legs, I always felt it for the wolves. Narrow eyes, teeth glittering like a handsaw. The wolves were waiting, but you had to put yourself in a dangerous place first. You had to play your part. I would dream myself into the thicket, swinging a basket, whistling a tune, waiting for the growl, the flash of yellow eyes, the sudden pillage, the blood tear. The wolf got you where it counted.
    When Vic got close, that’s what it was like. I’d invited him in, with his sharp cologne, his darting eyes, his pockets empty of chips, all his spoils gone by night’s end as if he had holes in the lining, which, in a way, he did. He was a loser, straight up. A chalk jumper. A sucker bettor. But his hands. His hands tore me to ribbons and left me that way.
    I should be ashamed. I should be filled with shame. That night, right off, he