I love to play here, but I am also an investor, so I have an interest in the house winning. There is a much bigger, much more elaborate, much more proletarian and nerdier version of Cardboard Struggle in Vegas that Raj and I both also have a stake in. We take junkets there sometimes, but it has been a while. We both prefer the skill level and professionalism of New York—a city of strategists, financiers, and secret geniuses.
My two very pleasant and conscientious bodyguards insist on checking out Cardboard Struggle before I go inside.
“Somebody could be monitoring your calls,” says Ed. “In which case, now they would know exactly where you’re headed. You’re telegraphing your moves.”
I let them go up first and do a quick pass while I wait downstairs, pondering this warning. Am I really telegraphing my moves? I think about who in my family would be the most capable of monitoring my phone calls and movements. Alistair, definitely. But it’s also entirely conceivable that Angelo Marino could have hired someone to do the same thing. His resourcefulness is undeniable and unbounded, and I have certainly benefited from it over the years.
Ed and Mel come back to me bemused and a little rattled. “It’s all clear,” Ed reports, holding the elevator door open so I can join them for the return trip up.
“Well, well, well,” says Raj Pandat, greeting us as the elevator doors slide open. “Thinking pretty highly of yourself these days, eh? Who in god’s name would ever want to do you harm?”
“Did you clear a space at a table for me or not?” I push past him and enter the first game room. “I’m here to play, and these two are here to lay bets.”
Ed and Mel nod uncertainly.
“Sorry about your father and your little brother, by the way,” says Raj. “I took a lot of money from Henley over the years, and your father was a legend, a true hero of games, though he wasn’t as good of a player as you. Too generous—too much heart.”
“Thanks for saying that,” I say, shocked. I have never known Raj to be sentimental, and I have never heard him say anything nice about anyone, ever. His sudden praise of both me and my father is almost heartbreaking. I find myself tearing up and have to look away.
“Everyone is waiting,” says Raj. “We’ll all let you stake your hundred grand if you really want to play Teeth of Steel. You haven’t won yet.”
“I don’t think I’ll lose today,” I say. “Do we draw for armies?”
“We’ve decided to let you pick first, on account of the tragedies and all.”
“Nothing gets my rage, skill, and dander up like sudden tragedy,” I say. “You’re all going to lose a lot of money if you keep being nice to me.”
“Honestly, getting to choose your army is a liability in Teeth of Steel,” says Raj. “You’ll always feel a little bit of regret no matter which army you choose, and the regret will cripple you, as the rest of us make do with what we have, feeling no remorse, glad not to have your decision fatigue. I assume you’ll pick the Army of the West?”
He’s trying to psych me out, to get me not to pick the Union by somehow implying that it is the obvious choice for me, that I am predictable in wanting Grant’s army—a conglomeration of magical mechs—and taking Grant’s mobility bonus in exchange for his terrible position. But I won’t let him chisel me into picking Forrest’s Blood Demon Cavalry or the Army of Northern Virginia.
“Give me the Army of the West,” I say. “My mechs are going to crush your demons, you son of a bitch.”
“How do you know I’m going to choose Forrest?” asks Raj.
“You always do,” I say. Now he is the one who is rattled, squinting at me, sizing me up. Maybe this really will be the time I finally win this game.
He leads us into the back room, where the table has already been set up. It’s a rogues’ gallery of players, but there isn’t anyone here I don’t know.
There are two finance dudes who are friends of Raj, and I only know them as Shaheed and Wallace. They look exactly alike and I have a hard time telling them apart. They vape cannabis oil constantly and are so laid back that it is hard to take them seriously, even though they are both formidable strategists. They have a tendency to team up in ways that are usually felicitous, but that sometimes lock them into a homosocial death spiral that keeps them together even when it is in their interests to turn on each other. Additionally, it is such common knowledge that they will always get each other’s backs that their alliance is often more of a liability when everybody else gangs up on them, especially in a six-player game.
Isabel Wu is here as well. We don’t have much of a relationship, but I know that she is an M&A lawyer at one of the Magic Circle English firms and that she is cheating on her husband with Raj. I also know that Raj won’t commit to her, even though she wants him very deeply.
She is hard for me to read and she doesn’t let her feelings for and against Raj (they oscillate wildly) influence the way she plays. She is short and her black hair is short and her otherwise pretty face is pocked with acne scars. She dresses flawlessly in a way that I find annoying, especially since we are all just playing games here. Isabel comes from
