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“Looks like you’ve soaked up all the good luck this table’s dishing out tonight,” he said to me.
I’d won my fifth straight hand and he’d dropped his third.
“There’s more luck to be had,” I replied.
Now Grover was the sort of fellow you didn’t easily forget and I knew that I’d seen him earlier in the day at the symposium registration booth. He had a grizzly-bear frame, a thick Santa Claus head of snow-white hair, and a matching snowy goatee. I was pretty confident he didn’t recognize me.
“So what sort of doc are you?” he asked.
Guess I was wrong.
“GP,” I said. “You?”
“Orthopedist. Name’s Grover Theodore Marshall. Friends just call me Grove.”
Grove had a vise for a handshake and a deep Southern accent. I never bothered asking where he was from, or what hospital he worked at, and he never bothered to tell me.
“Look at that,” Grove said.
“What?”
“That woman over there.”
My eyes followed his finger until I spotted an attractive thirtysome-thing brunette at the craps table.
“What about her?” I asked.
“She keeps touching her hair with her left hand. Hundred bucks says the next time she does it, it’ll be with her right.”
“You serious?”
I let my attention wander and the dealer had to ask if I wanted to set down a bet. I hated passing on a deal when I was so hot, but there was something compelling about Grove. We left the table together.
On closer inspection, the woman was well into her forties, and wore too much makeup.
I reasoned that either Grove was lying to me and she had been touching her hair with her right hand all along, which made it a sucker bet, or he was thinking that I was thinking he was lying, in which case he’d expect me to double the stakes, but only if I got to bet the right hand-a wager he’d politely decline. Trusting my gut, I went with the left-hand touch. Three seconds later I was a hundred richer.
“Goddamit!” Grove said, slapping my back hard enough to rattle my lungs. “I was so sure she was going to go right.”
He slid a hundred from a thick wad and pressed the crisp bill into my palm.
“Just dumb luck,” I said.
“No way,” he said. “Hell, I got you pegged. You’re a player. I’ve gotta hang with you, man. You think you can teach this old dog a few Vegas tricks so I don’t get my clock cleaned all week?”
