The Tuxedo Team had cleaned up after Wotan’s tantrum. And though they were still manning their posts, the lobby was quiet. And still candlelit. Unlike in my room, not a ray of sunlight penetrated the black windows. Maybe some of the Old People couldn’t tolerate it.
“Good afternoon,” said a scratchy voice.
Startled, I jerked around and saw Gimble in a shadowy corner. He was standing completely still, like a creepy statue outside a carnival spook house. That was why I hadn’t noticed him before.
“Hi,” I said.
“I guess you want to make sure no one mistakes you for the Pharaoh.”
“Excuse me?”
“You got rid of your bandages.”
“Oh. Right.” I know: So far, I wasn’t exactly coming across like a rocket scientist. Chalk it up to being rattled. You might think I would have gotten used to Gimble last night. But while we were playing poker, I understood how to relate to him, no matter how strange he looked. It was different now.
He waved at a conversation pit made up of chairs and a couch Wotan had missed, or else replacements for ones he hadn’t. “Shall we sit? Get to know one another?”
“Okay.” I figured the more I learned about Gimble and, well, everything, the better off I’d be. As I flopped down, and he sat with a smooth, slow motion that reminded me of a cherry picker lowering a worker to the ground, I said, “The little squirrel guys. They’re not anything like you.”
“No,” he said. Now that he’d moved around a little, his head had started nodding and probably wouldn’t stop for quite a while. “I won them and their lands in 1936. Before that, I’d never set foot in Pittsburgh. Of course, even if I’d come into existence there, it might not reflect in my appearance. I’m unique. That’s what nice about being a higher mechanical. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“So, how are you taking to our society? Our world?”
I considered trying to bullshit him and decided it probably wasn’t worth the effort. “Is it that obvious I’m a newbie?”
“Surprisingly, no. Not from your demeanor. But given your talent for cards, I assume you would already have made a name for yourself if Timon hadn’t just brought you up from the human world.”
“I get it.”
“But you didn’t answer my question. How are you holding up?”
“Well, I don’t keep wondering if I’ve gone crazy, or keep pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. If there are people who really act like that, I guess I’m not one of them.”
No point adding that, while I had no doubt the lords and their world were real, that wasn’t the same as feeling like I belonged there, or not being scared shitless from time to time. Admitting that would show weakness, and even though we were making nice, I hadn’t forgotten Gimble was my opponent.
“But I’ve got to say,” I continued, “if anything was going to freak me out, it might be you. You call yourself a ‘mechanical.’ So somebody really did build you like a toaster or a car?” I smiled. “No offense.”
If I had offended him, I couldn’t tell it. Which was no surprise, since his painted face didn’t change, no matter what. “Essentially,” he said. “Although it required crafts and knowledge most humans couldn’t understand.”
“I’m a little surprised anybody would feel the need to build a lord. It seems like if there was an opening, you could always find a guy like Wotan or the Pharaoh eager to fill it.”
He laughed, which made him seem even more like a creepy decoration on a midway. “You’re right, but I was built to be a toy. I had to murder my maker and run to get my first taste of freedom.”
“But once you got out of his home fief, you were safe?”
“Not entirely. His family sent hunters after me. And in theory, anyone in authority could have arrested me. Fortunately, most of them didn’t know about my crime, and those who found out rarely cared what had happened in some faraway part of the world.”
“Still, it can’t have been easy to climb the ladder from killer on the run to lord.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t. The struggle for mastery is bitter and never-ending. And I hate to see a young man who tried to protect me tossed into the thick of it.”
As Victoria used to point out when she was urging me to find a career, or at least a real job, I was almost thirty. But that probably did look young to a guy who’d won the deed to Pittsburgh during the Depression.
I smiled. “For me, it’s just a poker game. At least as long as I stay in the hotel.”
“I think you’re shrewd enough to realize it’s more complicated than that.”
“Well, maybe. I have figured out that you people admire cheating if it’s done with style.”
“Have you also noticed we’re good at holding grudges? Have you thought about what will happen to you when the game is over?”
I shrugged. “I’ll take the cash Timon’s paying me, go back to the human world, and never see any of you guys again.” I didn’t know if that was true, or even if I wanted it to be. But so what? I just wanted to keep Gimble talking, not spill my guts to him.
“I imagine,” he said, “that any of us could find you if he really wanted to. Wotan certainly could. He’s many things-none of them pleasant-but a hunter most of all.”
Gimble was trying to scare me. I knew because it was working. I took a breath. “Timon said there are ways of protecting me.” Although he hadn’t. Except for me getting paid, we hadn’t talked about what would happen after the game much at all.
“Timon won’t care anything about you after his eyes grow back. He feels no loyalty or obligation to anyone. That’s why his vassals hate him.”
“But you,” I said, “you’re different.”
“I am,” he said. “And I swear that if you help me win, I’ll make you the steward of Timon’s holdings. You’ll run this place-this city-whenever I’m not here. If you throw in with me but I don’t win, I’ll still make you one of my deputies. I’ll protect you, provide for you, and train you to use your gifts.”
“That sounds pretty good. What do you want me to do, throw off all my chips to you?”
“No. Or rather, not until you and I are heads up. I want you to help me eliminate the others.”
“How?” I asked. Even though I had a good idea.
He took a cautious look around. It made his head bob more than it had been before. “You’ve picked up on the fact that all our opponents practice the shadow sciences in one form or another.”
“If by ‘shadow sciences’ you mean magic, then sure. It would be hard to miss.”
“It’s how they cheat. And how they expect others to cheat. So if we do it differently-”
“We can fly under their radar? Isn’t that what you were trying to do with the gadget inside your arm? It didn’t seem like it worked all that well.”
“No,” he said, “it didn’t. But there are other ways.”
“Like signaling,” I said. In other words, telling your partner what cards you hold. Which helps the cheaters in several different ways.
“Do I take it that you already know how?”
I shrugged. “There are lots of ways. One of the easiest is putting chips on the backs of your cards. Where you put them shows what you’ve got. Or, you can brush the spot with your finger. Your partner just has to make sure he doesn’t blink and miss it.”
“Excellent! If I don’t even have to teach you, so much the better. We just need to compare notes and make sure we’re both using precisely the same system.”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
He hesitated. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said I know it when I see it.” Maybe this kind of shit was cutting-edge in Fantasyland, but back on my turf, every serious poker player had to learn to spot it. “I didn’t say I’d ever used it, and I’m not going to start by teaming up with you.”
“Even though I’ve warned you what Timon is.”
“Even though I halfway believe you. I made a deal with him, and, well, that’s that. But I appreciate you letting me know you’re into signaling. I’ll watch for it, and if I spot it, I’ll say so. And if Wotan gets pissed off again, don’t expect me to hold him back.”
Gimble stared at me long enough that I started to wonder if he was going to take a swing at me, and
