Midnight Empire by Andrew Croome Page A

Daniel thought that was a good enough way to describe it.
    Her room faced north, a view of the Caesars towers. They lay in the dark and talked about many things, politics, Las Vegas, America’s good manners, its small insanities and larger ones. They spoke about Warsaw, finally, and it turned out that the reason Ania had left Poland was her father.
    Sometimes they met at Bill’s Burgers, sometimes at a piano bar called Beethoven’s and sometimes at Tom’s Irish Pub. Sometimes, if Ania had won a lot at the tables while he’d been at Creech, they ordered champagne to the room.
    When she was in the shower (she always washed after the game) he carefully checked her passport, and it was true, she was an American.
    â€˜Let’s eat strawberries,’ she said. ‘I want to eat strawberries and cream with you.’
    If his history was nothing, hers was everything: her great-grandfather had fought against the Red Army at the battle of Warsaw; her grandfather was a founder of the Polish Communist Party but had later become a right-wing nationalist, fighting at first the Nazi occupation then the Soviet one; her great-uncle had created an underground university called the Intellectual Hand-Grenade of the Resistance, before he was gunned down in the street by a sixteen-year-old boy.
    Ania never came to the Nexus. Didn’t want to. When they lay in bed, she liked to lock her fingers in his, to do this tightly and not let go. She said they shouldn’t get too involved. ‘This town doesn’t allow for feelings,’ she said. ‘It’s the shallowest place on earth.’
    On this theme, she said that her favourite book was Madame Bovary . ‘Look for a book about Las Vegas,’ she dared him. ‘You won’t even find a bookstore here. I have tried!’
    It seemed he was always asleep before her. In the mornings he was able to wake and dress himself without disturbing her.
    They never talked about poker. She kept her bankroll with the Bellagio’s cashier, accessed via a swipe card and PIN. He didn’t ask how much she had won but a good session was a thousand dollars or more.
    â€˜We haven’t talked about the future,’ he observed after they’d known each other for a few weeks.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Well, don’t you have plans?’ he asked. ‘Things you want to do?’
    She thought about this. ‘Maybe I want to return to Poland, do you mean? Maybe I want to live in Paris or in New York or Istanbul?’
    â€˜Yes. I mean, how long are you here for?’
    â€˜I don’t think I have decided,’ she said.
    They were in a piano bar. The pianist was playing a soft American-sounding song they didn’t know.
    â€˜What will make you decide?’ he asked.
    Ania took a while to respond. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘When I have enough money, I suppose.’
    â€˜Enough for what?’
    â€˜For the plan I don’t yet have, wise guy.’
    â€˜Sorry.’
    â€˜It’s alright. It’s a good question that you are going to ask. You should ask it.’
    He said, ‘Alright. What are you doing with your life?’
    â€˜I am playing cards,’ she said. ‘I am a card player.’
    â€˜A professional.’
    â€˜This I don’t know about. I would just say that I win.’
    â€˜You are winning at cards.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜A lot of money?’ He knew this was breaking the rules.
    She sipped at her drink, thinking. ‘Maybe for other people it would be a lot of money,’ she said. ‘But I am playing cards.’
    He looked at her.
    â€˜Let me explain,’ she said. ‘When I stop playing, which I will one day, then what I have accumulated, that will be a lot of money. It will be my money, in a bank. But until I stop playing I am not playing with money. What I mean is that I cannot afford to think that I am. Do you see? If you