Mardock Scramble

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.

The cowboy to the left of him was the blind better for this hand. The blind was like the ante in normal poker and was more like a participation fee than an actual bet at this stage, as no one had anything to go on other than their hole, the first two cards.

The first blind bet was called the small blind, where the player could bet anything up to half the minimum bet. The cowboy threw in ten dollars.

Then it was the Doctor’s turn to respond with the big blind.

The purpose of the big blind was not just to call the small blind, but also to force a raise.

The Doctor raised the cowboy by twenty dollars.

From then on, the other players had to start off by throwing in the sum of the two bets—thirty dollars—in order to call and thereby stay in the hand. Or they could raise the stakes further, in thirty-dollar increments, or fold and drop out of the hand completely, losing any stake they had placed up to that point.

Balot’s two cards that she had been dealt—in the hole—were the ten of clubs, 10

, and the seven of spades, 7

. At this point in the game, twelve cards had been dealt to the players out of a total of fifty-two in the deck. She was third along from the dealer’s button.

It was a nothing hand, the sort of hand you should fold on immediately. Even Balot knew this. Hold’em was one of the games that Balot had beaten into her last night in the Humpty.

But Oeufcoque signaled differently.

–You should call.

Balot felt the instructions float up on her left hand. She picked up a thirty-dollar chip.

–Thirty dollars—I’d like to call.

She placed the chip on the table.

The old gentleman called too, and the potbelly quickly folded.

Last to go was the suit who held the dealer’s button. He called, then raised by another thirty.

The cowboy and the Doctor called.

Balot followed Oeufcoque’s instructions and called.

The old gentleman called.

There were no more raises. There was now $280 in the pot on the table.

The first round of betting was over, and the dealer discarded the first card in the card shoe. The burn card, an anti-cheating measure. A standard step taken to eliminate the possibility of any player gaining an unfair advantage by marking the cards.

Then the dealer placed three cards facedown in the center of the table. Community cards, called the flop. It was now time for the second round of betting.

The dealer turned each of the flop cards over.

K