1 - All In

"A woman at the table can alter the chemistry of the game." - David Spanier

My wife didn't say goodbye to me this morning when I left.
She didn't say goodnight the evening before, and she didn't even sleep in our bed.
There's a long expanse of desert stretching out below me, barren and unforgiving, and it's just an extra scolding reminding me I shouldn't have left under such inauspicious circumstances.
My wife is eight months pregnant and furious at me.
And I am about to put my life on the line in a game of cards.

The Nevada heat is like being hit with a bat, striking me across the face with a dry lonely smack; tumbling into another cab, I can barely remember the name of my hotel, and the facades spouting games, goods, cars and women women women that sparkle in the late afternoon sun hardly register.
I didn't sleep well last night. I generally don't sleep well alone, and that was the first night in a very long time that Sango hasn't been with me.
I guess she must have slept on the couch. I didn't bother to check; I wouldn't have been welcome.
Sometimes she goes down there anyway, if our baby is keeping her up, or if her back hurts, and those times she either tells me or I go join her the moment I realize she's gone. The couch is a special place for us, and being on it together is a special thing. It's most likely the baby was conceived on that couch.
Or she might have gone to Kagome's. Maybe she couldn't even stand to be in the same house with me.
That thought makes me feel sick, and angry at her, and it's with a bad taste in my mouth and a scowl on my face that I slide up to the receptionist at the Spiderweb Hotel, Las Vegas, and tell "Kanna" behind the desk that I'm here and I want my room.
"The name, sir?" Her voice is dull and flat, her hair sun-bleached white and her eyes stone-cold black. A demon, of course. Sin City got its first taste of demons when this hotel opened over fifty years ago, and the town has never looked back. It only makes sense, I guess.
"McHoushi, Miroku."
Her face doesn't even register the name, and I'm not sure if I should be flattered that I'm still under the radar in the poker world, or insulted that she doesn't remember Miyatsu McHoushi, only the man who-
"Room 1312. Here are your keys. The pool is on the top floor, and the restaurant-bar opens at-"
"Thanks." I grab my keys off the counter and walk away before she's finished, lifting my sunglasses slightly with one finger to rub at my tired eyes, not even bothering to stop at the board that lists when the first satellites for my division begin.
How is McHoushi not a mysterious whispered name of legend at Spiderwebs?
How did she know that 13 and 12 are the numerical values of the King and Queen, my two favorite cards every day but today?
If she saw my wedding ring, why didn't she ask me where my wife was?
Where's Sango McHoushi, someone will inquire later. Why is her husband here alone?
He's not cheating on her, is he?
She didn't leave him, did she?
Sango, where are you?