Jon spent the next morning nursing his hangover and kicking himself. He didn’t particularly care that he had lost the $400 to Martin, it was the way that he lost it. As the booze worked its way out of his system and his brain began functioning again, he realized that something did not quite add up.

It turned out that London’s day at the office turned into London’s day and night at the office. He had been working on a complicated case involving a Brazilian nun, a Georgian baby, a Canadian mother, a Siamese cat, and American greed. So he didn’t get home until almost midnight. Ronnie was waiting up for him. She was sitting on the couch.

After Martin left Jon at the bar, he and Marijke went back to his hotel room. They did not, however, have sex. They waited about half-an-hour for Famke to knock on the door. Martin let her in. He gave both girls fifty bucks and they went on their way. Martin sighed. He certainly would’ve liked to have had a little fun with them, but he never mixed business with pleasure. At least not with co-workers.  Not anymore anyway. That was a lesson he’d learned many times over during his time with the Company. Yes, that Company. Of course, whenever he told anyone that he used to work for the CIA, no one ever believed him. Unless they worked in the food industry. Then they just assumed he meant the Culinary Institute of America. They obviously had never tasted his cooking.

Veronica Bell woke up, as she usually did, without the help of an alarm clock. It was nice to get up whenever the hell she wanted, which in this case was just shy of one in the afternoon. She would have to meet with her editor at some point, but she could do that any time before five.

Jon Brody looked down at the two cards in his hand. One A next to a heart and another A next to a diamond. Normally he’d be quite excited about a hand like that, but considering that his luck had been running like a Californian on black ice during his first New England winter, he thought about laying it down. He looked at the stack of chips in front of him and then at the eight larger stacks of chips of the other men and women around the table. He really didn’t have a choice.