Never Play Another Man's Game Read Free Page B

immediately and I shoved the old grifter inside. Her purse stayed with me in the hallway. I put the bag on the concrete floor and stepped into the elevator car with Ruby.
    â€œWhat the hell? Give me my purse, Wilson.”
    I shook my head and kept my body between her and the door. Most women keep their wallet in their purse, along with their keys and a little makeup. Ruby wasn’t most women; she was dangerous when I met her and I doubted she’d got soft in her old age. The bag stayed on the ground. Ruby’s little fists balled in frustration, but she stayed where she was. I hit the button with a faded number one in the centre and heard the doors close. When the elevator started moving to the first floor, I said, “How have you been, Ruby?”
    â€œYou know how I’ve been. You broke into my house.”
    â€œI’m sorry about the cancer,” I said. I had no feelings about it, but it seemed like the thing to say.
    â€œToo many years sitting in that damn bingo hall.”
    I nodded. I remembered Ruby as an addict. Her disease was worse than being hooked on pills or the bottle. At least with substance abuse you get drunk or high and you get a break from the gnawing inside. With gambling there was no relief. Ruby gambled more when she was winning because she had to take advantage of the hot streak, and she kept on gambling when she was losing because she always thought she could make the money back. She’d play any game of chance that gave her the opportunity to win. I remembered going with my uncle to find her for a job. He drove us to a bingo hall, Ruby’s drug of choice. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the blue smoke hanging from the ceiling. If those conditions existed on a job site, Ruby would have had grounds for a lawsuit, but they didn’t happen on the job — they happened in a place Ruby chose to visit every night of the week. She sat there for hours with more cards than anyone should have been able to keep track of until the poison around the ceiling found a way into her cells.
    â€œYou turned out just like him, you know.”
    â€œWho?” I said.
    â€œYour uncle. He would have searched the house too, but he wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like this. He knew who his friends were.”
    â€œAnd look where that got him,” I said.
    â€œI did what you told me. I met you at the mall, then at the pet store. I don’t deserve to be dragged around like this.”
    â€œWho’d you text, Ruby?”
    â€œWhat?”
    I pointed at her pocket. “When you were walking through the mall. On the phone in your pocket. Who did you text?”
    Ruby Chu laughed at me. It wasn’t the laugh of an enemy; it was a genuine sound. “My God, you are just like him. I texted my son, all right? That’s who I texted.”
    â€œI saw his picture. Seems a bit old to still be needing calls from his mommy.”
    The elevator door opened and Ruby reached around me and pressed the button for the second floor. I took a step back and stood in between the doors. I felt them touch me and then retract into their housing.
    â€œFirst of all,” Ruby said, “you’re never too old to get a call from your mother. And second, I had to let him know we were meeting.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI wanted him to know that everything is going to be alright.”
    The doors tried to close again and for the second time, they bounced off my shoulders.
    â€œYou have thirty seconds to get my attention. If you don’t, I’m gone and we never see each other again.”
    â€œI need a man for a job.”
    â€œPut an ad in the paper.”
    â€œI need a planner to set it up and oversee it. What your uncle used to do.”
    â€œHe’s dead,” I said.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œSo he doesn’t do that anymore.”
    â€œYou’re just like him. You could do it.”
    â€œI haven’t done that kind of work in a