Mardock Scramble

hands. He looked as if he could murder the dealer, but in the end stormed off in the opposite direction of the potbelly.

“Well, well—didn’t that game turn out all fine and dandy?” the Doctor roared.

The dealer just about managed a smile, though it took his every last remaining drop of self-restraint to do so. When the Doctor rose and turned his back to leave, the dealer’s eyes went black immediately.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone who looks as if they could bite another person’s head off, thought Balot.

For, at that precise moment, this was indeed how the dealer looked.

04

“Truly marvelous!” bellowed the Doctor.

They were at the baccarat table. The high rollers’ corner. Men puffing on cigars, women sporting jewels and low-cut dresses, all in thrall to the mountainous piles of high-value chips.

–Why did we win? The other side had a higher hand than ours.

The Doctor answered Balot’s question as he was raking in the pile of his winnings. “The side whose hand adds up to the number closest to nine wins. The player side only had a four so was obliged to draw another card, which turned out to be a six.”

–But four and six make ten—that’s closer to nine than you were!

“A hand that adds up to ten is called baccarat and equals zero in this game—it’s the worst hand possible.”

Balot nodded vaguely. Baccarat wasn’t one of her designated games, and the rules were now only a faint memory. She was standing right behind the Doctor now, left hand on his shoulder. Her knavish left hand. Oeufcoque could read almost any game in progress and pass the message on through Balot’s left hand to the Doctor—this was the setup.

Baccarat was supposed to be a game of pure chance; participants would bet on the player or banker side, trying to guess which one would draw closer to nine. But, of course, once Oeufcoque entered the game the rules went out the window.

He was able to sniff out the people who drew on the player side or the banker side, and use this to work out roughly what cards they had drawn, what numbers they had seen, and what sort of plan they were hatching.

The Doctor had completely grasped every little habit and tell of every player at the table, and said to Balot, “Here you go—some of the winnings. Go have some fun.” He passed a whole basket of chips over to Balot.

This was a cue to say that he no longer needed Oeufcoque’s help and could manage perfectly on his own now. Balot was impressed as ever by the Doctor’s superhuman memory and observational skills, but she couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed that she would be walking away from this game without really getting it, without understanding why it was supposed to be so absorbing.

–I’ll be at the place you told me, so come and find me if you start losing.

She tapped the Doctor’s shoulder as she left. What she really meant, of course, was that he should come and find her if he needed Oeufcoque’s help again, but the Doctor just smiled back at her to show that he was invincible.

–We’ve already reached the figure we need for now. We need to consider the casino as a whole when we make our next move. If we throw one particular game too far out of kilter we’ll attract suspicion. So let’s not get carried away—you’re not here to enjoy yourself.

Oeufcoque seemed to be able to read Balot’s thoughts as perceptively as ever, and he communicated this lecture through her left hand again.

Taking her cue, Balot reluctantly left the table. She was playing out a common scene at the high stakes tables. The punter gets drawn in completely, and he throws the woman on his arm a few chips in order to get her out of his hair, telling her to go and kill some time elsewhere.

Balot watched the game from farther back for a while, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun. She felt like a left-out child, and before long she wandered off aimlessly. This was the act that she was meant to play—although she did genuinely feel it too. In spite of the barely concealed enthusiasm of the players at the table, she hardly felt interested in the game at all—and it was this more than anything else that made her feel the most disappointed.

It may well have been a deliberate ploy of the casino to make her feel like this, of course. No one liked to feel left out, and she’d be back before long.

Balot walked past the tables and into another room. Before she knew it she was in more plush surroundings with the games around her more expensive. No expense seemed to be spared on the furnishings or the dealers’ outfits, and Balot had the distinct feeling that she was now moving closer to the heart of the casino.

She was aiming for the area where the roulette tables were. Men and women of all ages were milling about, the balls chasing the numbers as they spun around. Balot realized that this was it—her first opportunity to fly solo.

The Doctor believed that with Balot’s and Oeufcoque’s abilities combined, roulette would be the best way to win a large sum of money directly from the casino; it was a game of chance, and no one could dispute the result.

Balot ran through the rules again in her head and started looking for a table when a message appeared in her left hand:

–Sit at table number seven.

It looked like Oeufcoque was onto something. Balot proceeded to the table and took a seat near the dealer. The Doctor had advised her that the closer she was to the roulette wheel, the more likely it was she could use her abilities effectively.

–We’re going to win the first spin. They’ll make sure of that.

The previous writing on her hand had disappeared to be replaced by a declaration of victory.

Balot passed her chips over to a dealer, who exchanged them for roulette chips.

Balot would be betting with red hundred-dollar chips.

There were three dealers in all. One in charge of the wheel, the other two responsible for exchanging chips, cashing them in, and paying out winnings.

The crowd around this particular table was much sparser than the others, and Balot was the only one at the table. The dealer who exchanged Balot’s chips did so solely for Balot.

There had probably just been a big match here, and the crowd must have dispersed the moment the high rollers left the table. Or perhaps the table had been reserved for an entire party who had recently left en masse. Either way, Oeufcoque had managed to sniff out a situation that was potentially very much to their advantage.

–Where should I place my bet?

–Wherever you like.

Such was Oeufcoque’s reply.

Balot glanced at the dealer. The dealer in charge of the ball.

Balot was surprised to see that she was an older woman. An elegant, beautiful lady. She must have been at least sixty years old, but she stood tall, back straight, and her eyes were a keen blue. She wore a strong, calm expression. The casino had its fair share of female dealers, but she must have been the oldest.

–She’s so cool.

Balot was looking down at the roulette layout now but couldn’t help herself from sharing her feelings with Oeufcoque.

–According to our data her name is Bell Wing. One of the leading croupiers in the casino world.

–Croupiers?

–It’s what they call dealers whose job it is to place the ball into the roulette wheel as it turns.

Even cooler, Balot thought, still looking over the layout.