out. Furthermore Balot’s hand was bunched tight. Their conversation should have been utterly undetectable to the outside eye.
And yet, at that very moment, Balot felt that their conversation was being
Chapter 10
MANIFOLD
01
“I can’t tell,” remarked the man watching the screens, “which of them is the mark.” He slumped down into his fake leather chair.
The control room was bathed in the light of countless screens set into its walls. The room wasn’t made for a large number of staff—it was for this man alone.
Behind the man stood a floor manager trembling with anxiety and fear.
“Look at this,” said the man in the chair. “It’s like he’s being toyed with. You’re the floor manager—if you had to say which one of them appears to be getting roasted, who would you go with?”
“W-well, Chief, it seems to me that maybe it might be Marlowe?”
“Yes, I agree. With the incidents in the poker room and at the roulette tables, how many people are going to have to be fired today?”
The floor manager recoiled. Management of the dealers was his responsibility, and to him, there was nothing as chilling as a runaway dealer.
“Well, it’s no use,” sighed the chief, running his finger along a shiny black moustache. “Run a graphical search for any images we have of these guests.”
“S-so, you’re saying they’re cheats, Chief?”
“No, we can’t tell just from these screens. All I need to have is an excuse ready for the boss, if it comes down to it. Say they’re later found to be cheats, and we haven’t done anything about it. You and me and Marlowe, all three of us will get to be real swell pals, just three more dupes on the next bus to the employment agency.”
“R-right. So, how many people do you want on this?”
“Just you will be enough. Get twenty or so videos, send them to me, and go to sleep. But make it look like a few dozen others worked on it. Got it?”
“R-right. But, do you…when you say I can just sleep…”
“Once you’ve done what I’ve said, I’ll have my excuse, if it comes down to it. You, on the other hand…”
He made an exaggerated gesture of slashing his finger across his neck.
The floor manager gave a hurried bow and turned to leave, when a figure appeared before him. He took a misstep and froze in place.
A frantic voice came booming into the room. “Why are you calling for me when I’m in the middle of important business?”
The voice’s owner had swarthy skin and wore Chameleon Sunglasses the turquoise color of a robin’s egg.
“What’s going on? House Leader? Chief? Special Consultant?”
All of those titles belonged to the man seated in the fake leather chair—the question seemed to ask, “Which do you prefer being called?”
Not responding to the rapid-fire bluster, the chief turned to Shell-Septinos, slowly pushed two palms in the air, then looked at the floor manager and said, “You called for him?”
“Y-yes. Th-that’s what the regulations say to do.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said the chief, as if condescendingly praising a little child. “That’s the regulations.”
The floor manager, caught between the chief and the owner, scrunched down his shoulders, as if he were shrinking into himself.
Shell barged into the control room, glaring at the two men, and barked, “Some rich person is winning like crazy, and that’s got your spines all bent out of shape?”
“Some show-off prick with a girl along. Not that he’s a show-off prick because he has a girl with him. What I’m trying to say is, he’s a show-off prick. Word from the floor is they’re uncle and niece.”
“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
