It was only when Oeufcoque spelled it out in so many words that Balot realized that aggression was, indeed, the emotion that she was feeling.
She
What Balot needed now was not aggression but
Oeufcoque seemed bewildered.
The words rose up in Balot’s hands. Balot smiled.
Bell Wing turned the wheel of fortune and sent the ball forth like an arrow.
Balot felt like she had become some sort of a gun. Picking out the fateful numbers with her chips would be just like honing in on her target in shooting practice. If her aim was off, she could adjust, take stock, recalibrate, fire again, realigning from left to right until she finally found her target.
Balot placed her bets on North West: 13-1-00-27-10. Five hundred dollars on each number.
On top of that she placed another five hundred dollars on black.
The bowl swallowed the ball: 29 black.
Two places off.
Balot received her winnings on the five hundred she had on black and plowed this straight back into the next hand.
For the next hand she bet on the North Side: 25-29-12-8, another five hundred dollars each. She also placed five hundred each on two-way splits on 25-26, 29-30, and 11-12. And five hundred on red.
“Thirty red,” called Bell Wing.
A 17:1 payout on the split, and doubles on the red—Balot was looking at a total return of nine thousand dollars. She was now up by over $2,200. She’d guessed the ball would be sent the other way and had bet accordingly.
Balot watched the wheel as it spun around. She felt the difference in speed and angle with her skin.
Balot watched Bell Wing’s every move, chips gripped tightly in her hand.
The wheel was spun in the opposite direction to the previous spin and likewise the ball.
Balot’s hands moved.
Five hundred dollars each, speedily, on the South Side: 26-30-11-7.
Then another five hundred each on 28, 9, 20, and 32.
At this point the ball was on its fifth lap of the wheel. There was still over a minute before the game would be over.
The ball went around another ten times, then fell into the bowl when the wheel slowed down.
Bell Wing’s eyes narrowed in an instant.
“Seventeen black.”
Four thousand dollars’ worth of Balot’s chips were swallowed whole by the table.
The crowd around the table was now starting to heat up. Any table would have done the same in the face of such high stakes flying back and forth.
Bell Wing remained cool amid the excitement. She looked at the number Balot had bet on, and then back at the roulette wheel.
Seventeen black was right next to 32 red—the last number that Balot had bet on.
Balot felt that she had just experienced Bell Wing’s skill at yet another level. Bell Wing had taken into account the bias on the wheel and caused the ball to land right outside Balot’s chosen numbers.
Balot had no proof of this, of course, but she felt it—with
The ball was released. It was poetry in motion, sheer beauty, all of it: the form of the wheel, its build, the angles, the elegant curvature of Bell Wing’s fingers, the rotating ball, the numbers spinning on the wheel.
Balot lined her chips up with her fingers.
She placed five hundred dollars each on 14-2-0.
She didn’t feel the need to place any more.
The ball spun round, smooth, violent.
Bell Wing’s gaze followed Balot’s every movement, daggers in her eyes.
The ball bounced off against a pin and fell.
The wheel spun around, and by and by it showed the fateful number.
“Zero.”
The table erupted. Balot was the only person to have bet on 0. Everyone else either lost their stakes or found them
Balot’s winnings, at 35:1, were stacked in front of her. Over fifteen thousand dollars’ worth.
“Your chips look like a giant pile of wood shavings, don’t they?” Bell Wing asked quietly.
Balot was worried that Bell Wing might be angry, but when she realized that Bell Wing was no such thing she smiled at her.
“So, think you’ve got the measure of the wheel?”
Balot nodded.
“Yes. Yes, it is. Too level, in fact. Its only bias is luck.”
“To put it in terms of probability, it’s unlikely in the extreme that the ball will continue to fall in any sort of predictable way, over time. Rather, you’ll be looking at an average distribution. It’s a struggle. Fighting against Fortuna herself.” Bell Wing seemed to exercise her jaw, moving her chin from left to right. “To a greater or lesser extent, all croupiers enjoy watching their customers crash and burn. Whether they’re old or young, male or female, all people have this desire to dominate others. With croupiers, it’s a particularly cunning sort of desire.” Bell Wing continued in a disinterested tone, yet her words seemed to affect Balot deeply.
Balot hadn’t meant to vocalize this, but the words had come out anyway.
“What do you know about this casino?”
Balot was silent. She wasn’t ready to pour her heart out and explain what she and Oeufcoque and the Doctor were all doing at the casino, and she certainly didn’t want to talk about Shell and OctoberCorp.
“I see… You have a grudge against the boss.” Bell Wing’s eyes creased at the corners as she spoke. Balot’s eyes, on the other hand, flew open.
“The manager of this casino doesn’t concern me. I needed money, so I took a job. My husband was ill, you see. He wasn’t of our world—he was an honest man. Not that he wasn’t like me in many respects; he had a cunning and greedy streak. Even so, all his children were left with when he died were his teachings—and each other. He did well on that point, at least, taught them well. But it was left to me to bring the money in.”
Bell Wing seemed as if she were about to bring the conversation to an end. But then, whether she changed her mind or whether she was simply waiting for the two dealers to finish distributing the chips, she continued. “After my husband died, I felt that everything was taking a turn for the sinister. So I did what I had to in order to
