“I was beginning to worry because I hadn’t heard from you. I’ve called your house twice.”

“Everything’s fine. I’m in Vegas and will be back tomorrow.”

“How do I know you’re not under duress? You know, being held and forced to say that.”

“You got caller ID?”

“Oh, that’s right. I saw it was a seven-oh-two number. All right, Harry. Don’t forget, call me tomorrow. And don’t lose too much money over there.”

“I won’t.”

When I got back to the table Eleanor wasn’t there. I sat down and was anxious about it but she came back from the rest room in a few minutes. As I watched her approach I felt she was different but I couldn’t place how. It was more than the hair and the deeper tan. It was like she carried more confidence than I remembered. Maybe she had found what she needed on the blue-felt poker tables on the strip.

I gave her back the phone and she dropped it into her purse.

“So how has it been here?” I asked. “We’ve been talking about my case. Let’s talk about your case for a while.”

“I don’t have a case.”

“You know what I mean.”

She shrugged.

“Things are going well this year. I won a satellite and took a button. I get to play in the series.”

I knew she was talking about winning a qualifying tournament for the World Series of poker. The last time we talked about poker she had told me that her secret goal was to be the first woman to ever win the series. The winner of a qualifying tournament can take the cash prize or a so-called button, which is an entry into the series.

“This will be your first time in the series, right?”

She nodded and smiled and I could tell she was proud and excited.

“It starts pretty soon.”

“Well, good luck. Maybe I’ll come over and watch.”

“Bring me luck.”

“It still must be hard, Eleanor, making a living on the turn of the cards.”

“I’m good at it, Harry. Besides, I’ve got backers now. It spreads the risks.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s how it works these days. I have backers. I use their money when I play. They get seventy-five percent of what I win. If I lose, they take the loss. But I don’t lose too often, Harry.”

I nodded.

“Who are these people? Are they… you know?”

“Legitimate? Yes, Harry, very. They’re businessmen. Microsoft men. From Seattle. I met them when they were out here playing. So far I’ve made them money. With the way the stock market’s been, they’d rather invest in me. They’re happy and so am I.”

“Good.”

I thought about the money Alex Taylor had offered me. And then there was the reward offered on the heist case. If I solved it, got back some of the money and somehow qualified for the reward, I could be her backer. It was a pipe dream. I wondered if she would even take my money.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. “You look so concerned.”

“Nothing. I was just thinking about the case for a second. Something I want to ask the insurance investigator tomorrow.”

The waiter brought the check and I paid after getting my AmEx card back from Eleanor. We left and got the car and I checked to make sure the suitcase was still in the back. We drove over to the Bellagio, a short distance that took a long time because of the traffic. I grew nervous as we got closer because I didn’t know what was going to happen when we got there. I checked my watch. It was almost ten.

“What time do you play?”

“I like to start around midnight.”

“Why do you like to play through the night? What’s wrong with the day?”

“The real players come out at night. The tourists go to bed. There’s more money on the table.”

We rode in silence for a little bit and she eventually continued as though there had been no pause.

“Plus, I like coming out at the end of the night and seeing the sun coming up. Something about it, like you’re just happy you survived another day or something.”

Inside the Bellagio we went to the VIP desk and picked up a card key that had been left under Eleanor’s name. It was that simple. She led me to the elevator like she had been in it a hundred times and we went up to a suite on the twelfth floor. It was the nicest hotel room I had ever seen, with a living room and a bedroom and a view that looked down on the signature lighted fountains in the front pond.

“This is nice. You must know some people.”

“I’m getting a rep. I play here three or four nights a week and it’s starting to draw people. High rollers who want to play me. They know that here, and they don’t want me to play anywhere else.”

I nodded and turned to her.

“I guess things are really going well for you.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“I guess…”

I didn’t finish. She walked over to me and stood in front of me.

“You guess what?”

“I don’t know what I was going to ask. I guess I wanted to know what was missing. Are you with somebody now, Eleanor?”

She drew closer. I could feel her breath.

“You mean am I in love with somebody? No, Harry, I’m not.”

I nodded and she spoke again before I could.

“Do you still believe in that thing you told me? About the single-bullet theory.”

I nodded without hesitation and looked into her eyes. She leaned forward, her head against my chin.

“What about you?” I asked. “Do you still believe what that poet said, that there is no end of things in the heart?”

“Yes, I believe it. Always.”

I raised her chin with my hand and kissed her. Soon our arms were around each other and her hand was on the back of my neck pulling me toward her. I knew we were going to make love. And I knew for a moment what it meant to be the luckiest man in Las Vegas. I pulled away from her lips and just hugged her to my chest.

“All I want in this world is you,” I whispered.

“I know,” she whispered back.

On the flight back to Los Angeles I tried to refocus on the case. But it was a fruitless effort. I had spent a good part of the night watching Eleanor win several thousand dollars from five men at a table down in the Bellagio poker room. I had never watched her play at any length before. It is fair to say she embarrassed the other players, cleaning out all but one of them, and even he was left with only a single stack of chips by the time she cashed out five racks of her own. She was a cold, hard player who was as impressive as she was mysterious and beautiful. I spent my life learning to read people. But I never read anything off of her while she was playing. There was not a tell anywhere in her game as far as I could see.

But when she was finished with those men she was also finished with me. Outside the poker room she told me she was tired and had to go. She said I couldn’t go with her. She didn’t even offer me a ride to the airport. It was a short good-bye. We parted with a kiss as lacking in passion as our moments in the suite above had seemingly been full of it. We parted without promises of rejoining or of even calling each other again. We just said good-bye and I watched her walk away through the casino.

I got to the airport on my own. But once on the plane I couldn’t let it go. I tried opening the murder book but it did me no good. I kept thinking about the mysteries. Not the good moments, the smiles and the memories and the making love. I thought about our abrupt departure and how she had skillfully avoided the question when I’d asked if she was with somebody. She’d said she wasn’t in love but that didn’t really answer the question. I thought about why she had wanted me to stay in a hotel room and why she wouldn’t open her car’s trunk. On the front page of the murder book I wrote down her license plate number from memory. After doing it I felt like I had in some way betrayed her and I then crossed it out. But even as I did this I knew I could not cross it out in my memory.