The Scam by Janet Evanovich

restroom were also behind her.
    “This is really extravagant,” Kate said. “Couldn’t you have chartered something smaller and cheaper?”
    “Sure, but we would have had to stop somewhere on the way for refueling,” he said. “This baby will take us straight to Hong Kong without stopping and makes a bold statement.”
    “What does a bold statement cost?”
    “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
    Kate squelched a grimace. “Jessup is going to pop a hemorrhoid.”
    —
    They were an hour into the flight, Kate was halfway through her third bowl of heated nuts, and Nick reached for his messenger bag. “I’m going to teach you how to play baccarat,” he said. “I packed three decks of cards and a big bag of M&M’s for the trip.”
    “What are the M&M’s for?”
    “Gambling chips. I wanted them to have some value to you.” He handed Kate the bag of candy. “Separate these by color. Yellow M&M’s will be a hundred thousand, red will be fifty thousand, blue will be twenty-five thousand, and brown will be five thousand.”
    “What about the orange and green M&M’s?”
    “Those are for you to snack on so you won’t be tempted to devour your chips.”
    “My kind of game. I’m liking it already.”
    “Baccarat is a lot like betting on a sporting event,” Nick said, shuffling the cards. “There are two teams, the dealer and the player. You’re going to place a bet on who you think will be dealt the cards that come closest to adding up to nine.”
    “What’s the strategy?”
    “There is none,” Nick said. “It’s pure luck. Unlike blackjack or poker, you don’t get to make any choices. You’re dealt your cards and that’s that.”
    “You mean you just sit there and do nothing?”
    “Yep,” he said.
    “There’s no bluffing?”
    “Nope,” he said.
    “So why is baccarat the game that James Bond always plays against the bad guys to prove how clever he is?”
    “Because that’s not what he’s doing. He’s showing them that he’s willing to take huge risks and that he has unwavering confidence in his own good luck.”
    “And that he looks great in a tuxedo,” Kate added.
    “That’s the part that takes true finesse. Here’s how the game works. To start, you and the dealer are each dealt two cards, facedown.” He dealt out the cards to Kate and himself. “An ace counts as one, the ten and face cards count as zero. You subtract ten from any combination of cards that adds up to more than nine. For example, an eight and a three would add up to one. Two tens would equal zero. The player looks at her cards first.”
    Kate turned over her cards. She had a nine and a three. “So am I stuck with this lousy two?”
    “Nope. If the player draws two cards that total zero to five, she automatically gets a third card. You never get more than three cards.”
    He dealt her a four, giving her a total of six.
    “That’s better,” she said. “How does it work for the dealer?”
    “That’s more complicated.” Nick turned over his cards, revealing a queen and a three. “The dealer isn’t allowed another card unless the player has drawn three cards, and it depends on what that third card was. The rules vary from casino to casino, but usually the dealer must stand if he has a seven, eight, or nine and must draw a card if he has a zero, one, or two. If the dealer has a three, like I do, he’ll draw if the player’s third card is any number but eight.”
    “Why eight?”
    “I have absolutely no idea. But none of it really matters since you’re already finished with your part of the game. You just have to go along with it, knowing that the rules are designed to give the house a statistical advantage.” Nick drew a card, a five, giving him a total of eight to win the game.
    Kate tossed her cards back to Nick. “I’ll bet with the house every time.”
    “If you do that, the house takes a five percent commission on each bet you win.”
    They played for a couple hours, and Kate eventually