Ashley kept up his smooth rhythm like the game was a conversation and their cards the words. They understood each other completely, and he had no need to pause.
Ashley’s hole card was a 6. With the queen, he had sixteen.
He drew another card and found a 2. But that was it. Balot won.
Ashley counted out her winnings and placed them beside her pot.
She took half of the chips and added them to her bet.
The next hand, Balot received a J-9 and stayed.
Ashley’s upcard was a king, his hole card an 8. Balot won.
In the next hand, Balot had a 9-4, drawing an 8. Ashley’s upcard was a 10 and his hole card, a king. Balot won.
Neither Balot nor Ashley made any comment about Balot’s sudden winning streak.
Beneath Balot’s arms, Oeufcoque crunched the numbers and adapted his display. His powers of calculation were now a part of her. And Balot’s senses passed through to Oeufcoque. Hit or stay. Split or double down. They reached the same decisions simultaneously, and each time the answer came from place. A place they had constructed over all the previous games, a wave just big enough to win on. She was entranced, but it was natural to her now, and she wouldn’t have known it unless she looked back. Balot did what she had to. That was the answer. And yet, it wasn’t enough.
The fifth hand ended. Balot had won them all.
The stack of chips in her pot grew ever larger.
At times, it supported her as she pushed through the game, and at other times, it was a burden.
The answers reached by Balot and Oeufcoque had leveled out.
Like her fifty-percent answers to Ashley’s carjack question.
After the seventh hand ended in Balot’s win, Ashley suddenly interjected.
“Do you remember our talk about the hitchhiker?”
Balot glanced up at him and nodded.
“There’s more to the story. Can I tell you?”
He placed her winnings beside her pot as if to say,
Balot nodded and added a third of her winnings to the pot.
“I don’t usually tell anyone this.”
The cards came.
“I had an older brother. My only brother. He was irreplaceable.”
His upcard, a king. Balot’s cards, A-8.
“One day, he saw a hitchhiker on the side of the road. He stopped his car and let the man in.”
She indicated a stay. Ashley turned over his hole card.
“And he killed my brother. The murderer was never found.”
An 8. Balot won. Ashley took in the cards.
“He was shut in the trunk. Left under the hot sun. For hours upon hours he suffered dehydration and suffocation, and then he died. In the darkness, alone.”
He distributed her winnings. She added them all to the pot. The cards came.
“After my brother’s funeral, I went with my father to the place his body was discovered. I got into the trunk and had my dad close the lid. I wanted to know how my brother had felt.”
His upcard, a 5.
“It was awful. It was terrifying.”
Balot’s cards, J-2.
“I thrust out my arms into the darkness. Then came my father’s voice. Pull on the hook, there’s a hook. I listened to him, found the hook, and opened the trunk.”
Balot signaled hit.
“I, in my brother’s place, escaped from the death trap.”
A 9. She signaled stay. The hole card was turned. A 9.
His next card, 6. Twenty-one and twenty. A narrow win.
“If only my brother had had knowledge of the car.”
The cards were taken and her winnings stacked.
“Or if only someone had come by to tell him about the hook.”
She added her winnings to the pot. The cards came.
“Or if only he had the luck to find it on his own… If any of those three things had happened to my brother then, he wouldn’t have died.”
His upcard, 8.
“Which of those three a person has—that’s what separates people from other people. People without any will lose in turn.”
Balot’s cards, 5-Q.
“I don’t know which of those three—knowledge, someone else’s assistance, or luck—you have, but because of it, you live. And you must never forget it.”
Balot nodded. Her finger tapped the table, requesting a card.
It was a 6. In a display of respect for his heartfelt talk, she held the tension of the game for a moment as she silently considered his words. Then she stayed.
Ashley revealed his hole card. A 9. With the 8, seventeen.
It was Balot’s ninth win. Her winnings were now virtually spilling forth from her pot. But it wasn’t yet certain. It wasn’t yet a one-hundred-percent answer. She had to find her hundred-percent answer to equal that of the dealer’s.
Winning made her far more nervous than losing had. To have a winning streak is to keep running at the same speed—or even accelerate—down a narrowing foothold.
If she lost her balance for a second, she’d fall.
For the first time, Balot realized that Mardock, the Stairway to Heaven, placed even more hardships on people as they climbed toward greatness than it did on those who fell.
She added a fourth of her winnings to the pot, enduring the strain of the weight of it as she climbed one step at a time. When the cards came, the weight only became harder to tolerate, and she was struck by the desire to look away. That was her biggest temptation. Just look away, just for a second. She knew it would make her feel better. She ground her teeth together, resisting. If there was only one moment in her life when she had endured for something worthwhile, this was that moment.
Ashley’s upcard, 3. Balot’s cards, K-6.
Balot hit. A 3.
Ashley showed his hole card: 2. Five. He drew another card: 8. And another: 6. Nineteen to nineteen. Ashley’s luck had shown itself again.
“Push.”
It was almost a whisper.
Balot left her bet as it was and called for the next hand.
Ashley’s upcard, a king. Balot’s cards, 8-9.
Ashley’s hole card, 2.Twelve. He drew another card and found a 5.
Another push. Worse still, if Balot had hit, she would have bust.
It was a critical back-and-forth match. And the next game was another tie. The chips in her pot remained unmoved. The center point pulled at by two opposing forces, motionless as the locus of their struggle.
Ashley had stopped talking. Balot was also silent. Only the game moved on. Dr. Easter and Bell Wing simply
