First Page of "Two Bullets Left"

What does a novel look like when I first set pen to paper? If Arisugawa Park is any indication, far from what ultimately arrives on the editor's desk. Still, I put this little bit of spontaneity out to the world in the hopes it engages readers & gives a taste of what is to come. This is what I had to say about it in an email to my agent:

Spending a month or two in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, starting the next book. 

"Two Bullets Left" will begin with a washed up poker pro semi-retired in Mayan Mexico, Honduras, or Belize. His old partner is killed at night on one of those transparent pedestrian overpasses on the Las Vegas Strip. His estranged (or never met) daughter has recently taken residence in Sin City and found a girlfriend. A high stakes poker team is formed that takes on a corrupt/ruthless poker conglomerate. Meanwhile, father-daughter relations are complex, to say the least. Action shifts to Macau after a big fizzle in the Vegas games. A billion dollar game is set up on a crocodile infested island in the Philippines. X––– (from Ari Park) shows up representing the anonymous, highly guarded Asian high rollers. He appears evil, but is he? 

About the provisional title of the book, Two Bullets Left: bullets are buy-ins in poker lingo - the inference being that our protagonist is running perilously short on life - money - mojo. (Not unlike a certain somebody).

Dagmar had arranged the game as usual at his property by the sea, a small neglected corner of Playa not far from the master-planned all inclusives, several worlds removed. The players were a “check your identity at the door” bunch; a retired mid-tier government official who still did consulting––an unofficial pension addendum for years of profits laundered unimpeded through a Mexicali construction firm. Souvenir shop entrepreneurs who were actually, so rumor had it, high-level narco trafficantes. They had worked their way through the ranks and taken bullets so that they could retire on the beach in unmistakable luxury by age 50. There were a few expats who had been in the community for years and become fixtures. Gutted businessmen with such a mixture of accents that it was not immediately clear from which country, or planet, they came.  

The participants of the weekly $50,000 minimum buy-in gathering enjoyed the camaraderie as much as anything, trusting that Dagmar would keep everything running in a dependable manner. Collusion was not tolerated among the regulars, who had instinct honed over long years  when things were not exactly right––naturally, all gentleman's agreements were off in the feeding frenzy that ensued when the whales arrived, seasonal Playa residents with money to splurge on the "chic and cheap" Mayan Riviera ––the French import/exporter who wore wraparound sunglasses and smoked Gitanes with nervous fingers; the Argentinian fashion magnate with a predilection (so the bartender at El DIablo said) for college boys who exuded machismo—-

Dagmar set the whisky in the rolling glass tumbler on the weathered porch and looked out to sea as the fan spun lazy circles, just enough with the aid of coastal breezes to keep the skin cool. Just warm enough to feel at moments––caught off guard––that you were  in paradise. The sound of chips clacking brought him to the here and now. He glanced inside at the high roller who had just been taken down from $100,000 to $25,000 in 30 minutes. The regulars' voices amiable and pleasant, with the surgical precision of trained killers who had accomplished their hit and agreed––by unspoken signal––to give a little back.