“What’s their winning percentage?”
Shrugging his shoulders as if it were nothing, the chief answered, “A little more than sixty percent.”
Shell took off his sunglasses, and his Emperor Green eyes shone with rage.
“Sixty percent? Over how many games?”
“Last time I checked, two hundred sixteen.”
“What’s their method?”
“We don’t have any theories. We don’t know. They use the basics, sometimes. They don’t seem like anything more than a couple of amateurs throwing their chips around.”
“I see. Like someone who, after throwing their chips around, turns one hundred dollars into more than seven.”
“Well, it can happen sometimes.”
“I suppose. I’ve seen it myself. But what are the chances someone can randomly throw chips around and win more than sixty percent of the time?”
The chief, as if the motion were more of a bother than it was worth, made a circle with his right pointer finger and thumb. The circle itself had no meaning, but the space between his two fingers carried his silent message.
Shell nodded. “Right. Not one in thousands.”
“But not zero, either.”
Shell bellowed, “Are you trying to be funny with me, Ashley?”
The floor manager trembled, but the chief, like a scolded child unrepentant, simply scratched his cheek.
“Take care of them,” Shell continued. “As if they were pros who came with clear plans. That’s an order.”
“Pros, you say… They don’t look like pros to me.”
“I’m the one who will decide that. Show him to me, that show-off prick.”
Shell leaned forward, looking over the chief ’s shoulder at the screens on the wall. With a shocked expression, he said, “I see. That is one show-off prick. Like some cream puff playing dress-up as a hustler. You’re right, a pro coming in here looking as stupid as that, that would be…”
His voice trailed off into silence.
For a moment, the low buzz of running electronics was the only sound in the room.
The floor manager, unable to withstand the silence, asked, “Boss?”
But just then, Shell exploded, “What the fuck is this?!”
The floor manager jumped. The chief, calm as ever, simply furrowed his brow as he gazed at Shell.
Shell was staring at the screen with a dumbstruck expression, his face pale.
“What the fuck! What the fuck are they doing here?”
“What, you know them?” the chief deadpanned.
Shell, his face tense, as if a loaded gun were pointed at his head and the safety had just flipped, stared down at the chief and said, “Ashley, kill them. Chop them up with your cards. Give them your usual.”
“What? You mean, kill them dead, kill them?”
The chief formed a gun with his fingers. He aimed his index finger at the screen and mimed the pulling of the trigger.
Shell shook his head condescendingly. “That isn’t your job. I’m talking legally. With cards. There’s no need to take their lives here.” He straightened his posture and took a deep breath to calm himself.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “They came here to completely waste my time. Time is vital. And I’m not talking about the regrettable wastefulness of the passage of time. Time is dreadful. Because time that’s passed affects the time that’s left.”
The chief lazily tilted his head.
“Don’t you understand?” Shell continued. “I’m running from time’s curse. That’s how I’ve been able to climb this far. But my method isn’t perfect. That’s how I end up in situations like this. Things I’m supposed to have forgotten flash back. Flashbacks—this world’s foulest curse. And I hire men like you to cast them away. Men like the card killer. Do you understand?”
“Yes, well, sort of,” the chief muttered. Then, remembering something, he said, “By the way, Boss, about the people we had to let go today—”
“You mean the mechanic in the poker room?”
“No, no, who gives a damn about a little twerp like that? But down in the roulette area, someone else was fired.”
Shell nodded curtly. “What about her?”
“For a casino around these parts to fire Bell Wing? That’s unbelievable.”
“Get to the point.”
“Couldn’t you let her stay? I’m asking as a representative for the employees here.”
Shell aimed a scornful smile at the chief. “And what kind of representative are you?”
“One who’s loyal to his boss, of course.”
“Good. I’ll consider it. But only once you’ve completed your work. Now, I have to greet the partners in my important business deal. Understand? While I’m gone, do your job. To the fullest of your abilities. That’s why I pay you so well.”
“Understood, Boss.”
The chief bowed respectfully. Without getting up from his chair, of course.
“That’s an order, Ashley. Don’t let them any closer to me.”
Shell put his sunglasses back on and stormed out of the room with such force that, had the door been closed, he would have kicked it right down.
The chief muttered, “Flashbacks, huh. I don’t want a job where the trigger’s being pulled on me.” He turned to the still-cowering floor manager. “Hey, you. I’m changing the plan.”
“H-how so?
“Split the files into two thousand pieces and mobilize all the dealers currently on break. Track all of their movements since the moment those two entered the casino, and report everything directly to my ears.”
In time with the last two words, the chief tapped his headset.
“I’ll be with you. Don’t let them leave here alive.”
The floor manager’s face tightened in an instant, like a soldier just given orders to launch the assault in a battle where victory is assured.
“Yes, sir!”
He swiftly did an about-face and left at full speed, not stopping to look over his shoulder.
“What’s with those two?” the chief grumbled. “One’s the dog wagging its tail, and the other’s the tail wagging its dog. How insipid.”
He leaned back into the chair and returned his attention to the monitors. Noticing something in the picture, he touched his finger to the screen. The ConsoleView, responding to his touch, froze the image. He slid his finger right, and the playback rewound.
“Ah, that’s too far back.”
This time he slid to the left, and the image moved forward frame by frame.
The chief stared at the screen. On the other displays were playbacks from other, random points in time. As he looked from screen to screen, he snorted like a dog on the scent.
“So she’s left-handed.”
But the girl on the monitor was taking in a chip with her right hand. Not just any chip, but one of the most valuable chips in the casino—in all of Mardock City, even.
“Hmmm… I see,” he said, nearly yawning. His eyes were affixed to her left hand.
“I don’t know what your trick is…” he muttered with indifference, “but those gloves are well made.”
The chief—Ashley Harvest—hauled himself up out of his chair and slid his feet out the door of the control room.
≡
Shell dashed into his office and, like the fleeing heroine of a horror movie hiding herself in a room, closed the door with the slightest of sounds.
With one hand he snatched a microphone and into it shouted orders to his staff to take over his hosting duties, and with the other hand he mashed the redial button on his cellular phone.
Finally the line connected, and a low voice came over the phone—the steadfast voice of a man charged with erasing Shell’s flashbacks.
–It’s me. Weren’t you supposed to be in the middle of a deal, Mr. Shell?