Balot realized why the Doctor had been grinning in the general direction of his PDA. He’d been eavesdropping on the conversations of the most suspicious people and what games they were playing.
“Now then, my pretty little niece, let Uncle show you just what a dab hand he is at the gaming table.” The Doctor was suddenly speaking in a loud voice, humming away, conspicuously checking out the different games in progress. He looked every bit the cocky country squire, here in the big city determined to prove to the world that he was no bumpkin, and probably ready to lose the shirt off his back to feed his gambling habit. Truth be told, he played the act so convincingly that Balot was a little embarrassed to be seen with him.
All the while Balot was playing the part of a girl who had no interest in the actual games but rather was overwhelmed by the glamour and the sophistication of her surroundings. This was her assigned role—and again she felt more or less this way in reality too.
“Right, let’s try this spot here. Looks like there might be some nice pokers rolling around,” the Doctor boomed, arriving at a table that was in between games.
–Pokers?
The Doctor indicated to Balot to sit down, and she did.
The Doctor had an extremely self-satisfied look on his face. “Yeah, pokers for prodding each other with. That’s the sort of game poker is.” So saying, he laid his chips on the table.
The dealer looked at Balot. “Is the young lady with you, sir?” he asked. He was a young man, whose blond hair went well with his clear blue eyes.
“Indeed. Though once she’s at the table beside me, she’s as good as a rival,” the Doctor said, and then nodded without delay. “You have a go too, young lady. You’ve played in your game room at home, right? If you don’t spend your pocket money here you’ll only squander it on clothes anyway—why not use it for something a bit more thrilling for a change?”
–How many chips will I need, Uncle?
As she spoke, Balot grabbed a handful of hundred-dollar coins from her basket. The dealer and the other punters at the table were momentarily taken aback. Those must be quite some clothes for her to squander that much money on them…
In reality, all the clothes she had ever bought in her life up to this point—with the money that she had struggled so hard to earn—could have easily been bought twice over with less than the amount she was now holding in one hand.
–Is this enough? Balot asked. The dealer seemed troubled for half a second as he watched Balot speak through the device on her neck, without moving her lips, but then he nodded.
The dealer exchanged the coins for chips and gratefully accepted the tip that the Doctor thrust out.
Then the dealer made a broad gesture for the floor manager—to show that he had received this tip legitimately—and placed it in the middle of the table on the designated spot for tips, for all to see. Balot had thought he might put the chip away in his pocket, but then she realized that all his pockets were neatly sewn up. This joint ran a tight ship. Indeed, it seemed a point of pride for the dealer to conspicuously show off how upright and cleanhanded he was. Back straight, he looked at the customers around the table.
There were four other punters at the table besides Balot and the Doctor. One wore a cowboy hat and was chomping on a cigar, and to his right was a quiet-looking man dressed in an unobtrusive business suit.
These two sat to the right of Balot and the Doctor. To Balot’s left was an elderly gentleman with neat, close-cropped hair, and to his left a middle-aged man with a potbelly.
According to the Doctor, one of these four was a mechanic.
“Oh, by the way, do you mind if we use sign language?” the Doctor asked the dealer. The dealer looked a little worried and shook his head. Negative.
“But she’s disabled; her larynx doesn’t work. Surely you can see that just by looking at her? I’m not asking you to overlook it if she mispronounces something, I’m just asking if it’s okay for me to interpret and speak on her behalf if anything goes wrong with her machine.”
The dealer touched the earphone close to his ear to clear the request with his manager.
“That should be fine, sir,” he said. By all rights we should say no, but we’ll make an exception just this once as you’re here to enjoy yourselves, his face seemed to say. If ever the Doctor’s demeanor were going to be useful, it would be here. From the dealer’s point of view, the two punters in front of him were sitting ducks, ready to be plucked, and he was prepared to bend the rules to accommodate them however inappropriate the request.
The same went for the other players around the table. “What about you gentlemen—any objections?” asked the Doctor.
The cowboy hat shrugged his shoulders, while the suit next to him answered courteously that he had none.
Neither did the potbelly or the old gentleman have too many worries, it seemed. Indeed, they were only too happy to have a young lady join them at the table, they said. The cowboy hat suddenly chimed in to suggest that someone should make special chips for the disabled. Everyone else pretended not to hear him. Balot immediately hoped that he was the mechanic.
Without warning her left hand rose to touch her earring. “Pay him no attention,” she heard Oeufcoque say, as her fingers twiddled with her earring.
Within her heart, Balot nodded. That was all it took to communicate her feelings to Oeufcoque.
“From now on, we do everything by the book, okay? Listen to your left hand. Don’t deviate from the script,” said Oeufcoque.
Balot’s face tightened.
–Don’t worry. I won’t make any mistakes.
And then the betting commenced.
≡
The game was Hold’em.
Each player was dealt two cards facedown, and the idea was to try and combine these with the five community cards—that were dealt face up on the table—in order to make the best hand, with four rounds of betting to each hand.
The minimum bet at this table was thirty dollars at a time, the maximum sixty dollars.
It was a spread-limit game with up to three raises, meaning that the stakes could quickly rise to a large sum of money.
The dealer signaled that the game had begun, stopping any new entrant from attempting to join in.
With slick hand movements the dealer placed the cards into a machine and pressed a number of buttons.
After confirming to all at the table that the deck of cards had been officially cut, he gathered up the cards and slipped them into the card shoe and began the first hand.
First to be dealt a card was the suit, then counterclockwise to the cowboy, the Doctor, Balot, the old gentleman, and the potbelly, then repeating, so that they all ended up with two cards each.
The dealer’s button was in front of the suit, indicating that he would have been in the dealing position if there hadn’t already been a house dealer.