Calculated Risk. Stephanie Doyle

felt the customer next to her turn and stare. She stared back. “Problem?”

      He nodded to the TV with his chin. “You found that stuff out about the girl?”

      “The information was there to be found.”

      The old man looked skeptical. “The producers of that show couldn’t find it. Heck, they thought she was only twenty-four.”

      “Yeah, well, I aim to serve the public by providing the truth.”

      She’d used the line before, but tonight it tasted particularly sour in her mouth. What she did was hack allegedly unhackable systems to find information on celebrities that she could then sell to the tabloids. Certainly, not a noble profession. But at least she didn’t contaminate that system with a virus that would shut down the entire network. She was head and shoulders more honorable than Ploxm in that regard. After all, trashy newspaper stories would come and go, but hard drives and data…those were lost forever.

      Still Bubba praised her contributions to society much like a father would, if only her father knew where she was or what she did for a living. “Oh, that’s our Sabrina all right. A smart one, I tell you. She was the first to find out about that one Academy Award-winning actor who was gay. And the first to figure out that the big-time cable newscaster was a drug addict. There’s no secret she can’t find. I keep telling her she should go to work for the government, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

      “They couldn’t afford me.” Sabrina said. Another old line. She wondered when she had gotten so tired of it. “Speaking of affording me…how bad is the tab for this month?”

      Bubba checked the book he kept under the counter and winced a little.

      That bad. Sabrina thought about the state of her checking account and winced herself. She’d sold a few stories to the Star Watcher last month, but was still waiting on her check. She hadn’t been completely joking to Krueger when she said finding a job, the right job for her anyway, was tough. A steady income would be nice for a change.

      Sabrina shook her head. Yeah right, that’s why you got back in the game, so you could pay off your bar tab.

      “Bubba, if you could just give me a few more days—”

      “Oh sure, girlie, sure. You know, if you’re interested… Well, it’s not legal or anything, but those fellas in the back behind the partition, if I didn’t know better I would say they were playing cards. Now, I can’t be held responsible for what I don’t know. “

      Instantly, she straightened on the stool and saw the chips on the table. Her mouth watered.

      “Travelers?”

      “They’re here for some convention at the college, but the hotels were all booked up so they’re staying at the Stop and Sleep just outside of town. Came here looking for some food and beer and a chance to unwind.”

      “Bubba, are you telling me there is a group of men back there playing poker with real money and not one of them knows who I am?”

      Bubba merely smiled. “Like I said, I don’t know about any gambling or anything like that. Just looks like they’re having a nice conversation to me.”

      Sabrina leaned over the bar and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Spot me a twenty?”

      The man pulled the money from the register and slid the single bill across the bar top.

      Sabrina pocketed it and pushed her hands into her jeans. She flicked her curls off her face and strove for an innocent dupe expression.

      It had been so long since she’d played cards. She could almost feel her hands sweating. When they found out about her in Vegas, she’d been banned from every casino on the Strip. It had taken less than two days for Atlantic City to catch on to her. She’d made the trip to Monte Carlo once, but she reserved that spot as her fallback for emergencies only.

      Naturally, she’d played out her welcome with everyone in town. For the most part she didn’t think about it unless times got really tough and she was forced to seek out an Indian Reservation. But with a bar tab looming over her head and a cell phone bill due that she simply had to pay—especially now—she was willing to take the opportunity that had presented itself.

      “Gentlemen. Hello.”

      The group of five lifted their heads and checked her out from her boots, up her long, jean-clad legs to the bulky, gray wool sweater she wore. Maybe some thought she was an overdressed hooker looking for a customer. Maybe others thought she was a cop about to bust up their game, it was hard to tell. They would find out soon enough who she was.

      “I’m bored and I’ve got twenty bucks to blow. Mind if I sit in on the next hand?”

      The group looked at each other, then one man with a mustache shrugged. “I’m out. Let her sit in.”

      A portly fellow in the corner chortled. “I don’t have a problem taking a woman’s money,” he warned her.

      “That’s good. I don’t have trouble taking anyone’s money either,” she fired back as she took mustache man’s chair. “I’m Sabrina.”

      “Chuck.”

      “Paul.”

      “Bill.”

      “Mike.”

      “Jim.” The one with the mustache, who was now only a spectator, finally introduced himself.

      “So what’s the game?”

      “Texas Hold’em,” Chuck, the portly one, announced dramatically. “We’re playing all or nothing. Last man standing wins. Or woman.” He laughed again.

      Sabrina furrowed her brow. “Texas…that’s a poker game?”

      Mike was kind enough to explain the rules to her and Bill took the deck and shuffled it fresh, tossing her the first card.

      When she looked at her two cards, her face remained expressionless. Pocket eights, a spade and a club. Instantly, Sabrina calculated the odds of winning with such a hand and began to do her thing. She watched the flop and memorized the cards that had been turned over. Then she studied each of the players in turn looking for tells that would clue her into what they were holding.

      Going with the dumb blonde approach, she stumbled over the betting. “I want to raise. Raise, that’s the right word, isn’t it?”

      “You got it, honey,” Mike told her.

      She beamed at him. “Then I want to raise five dollars.”

      Paul would be the only one to call her bet. And Paul would lose with a jack and ten off suit and nothing in the flop, turn or river that would help. Bill had tossed his cards over in frustration when he folded, or possibly as a ploy to gauge the table’s reaction. But because of that, she now knew that at least two of the diamonds were on the bottom of the stack.

      When Mike started betting heavily against the three diamonds in the flop, she knew that he was looking for the flush. But with only a twenty-nine percent chance of having one of the remaining nine possible diamonds in the deck turn up, she was a lock with her triple threes and she went all in. Sabrina took the pot and eliminated Mike.

      Then next to go down was Bill. His shuffling was getting looser with each beer he consumed, which made it ridiculously easy for her to determine what cards were left in the deck and what would be coming out on top.

      Glancing down at the ace and seven suited she had in her hand, all Sabrina had to do was keep raising and wait for it. On the flop? No. On the turn? No. There it was…the other ace on the river. Bill had gone all in with the pocket kings. She beat him soundly, and smiled sweetly as she gathered up his chips.

      It was like taking candy from a baby. Her next target was Chuck.

      A little less than three hours later and three hundred and eighty dollars richer, Sabrina beamed at the table. “Can you believe that?