Op File Sanction

by J. Clifton Slater

  Walden collapsed back onto the sofa and hung his head.

  “Alas gallant Knight, lady of all that is right, I am unable to leave this gilded cage tonight,” he informed her. “The denizens of this castle hath won my most valued possession. My solo quest is to recover the PID. To win it back, I must dance and play to their orchestra. Despite your best intentions, my time is not my own.”

  “Explain that in plain Realm, so a simple Marine can understand it,” suggested Warlock.

  Poet pushed off the cushions and began pacing.

  “You’re not here to kill me?” he asked.

  “Give with the explanation, before I do,” urged Diosa. “I know about the casino. But what happened to your PID?”

  Walden marched to the table, turned around a chair, and sat in it. Then, he braced his back, lowered his chin, and placed his hands on his knees. Diosa almost laughed. The posture resembled a student sent to the principal’s office for breaking the rules.

  “I grew bored at the casino. It was too easy. When they asked me to leave, I went in search of a challenge,” Walden described. “After strolling around the district, a nice lady told me about the north end.”

  “I met her,” Diosa said. “Speed this up, we have a sanctioned mission.”

  Waldon’s mouth clinched, his eyes popped open, and his arms shot into the air.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Later. Right now, you were telling me about looking for a challenge,” scolded Diosa. “Out with it.”

  “The buy-in was forty-five thousand pesetas. I cleaned out my savings and took a seat,” Walden explained. “I hit a streak and in twenty-four hours, I won three tournaments. After cashing out, they pay in currency not in credits, I walked away with bags stuffed with over six hundred thousand pesetas. I did start to leave. But a floor manager gave me this suite so I could rest. When I woke, I went back to the poker room.”

  “I have a feeling your luck didn’t hold up,” ventured Diosa.

  “Poker is a game of skill not luck,” Walden advised her. “Sure, a lucky card here and there but it’s the strategy and reading the other players that win poker games.”

  “Let me rephrase. Your tactics failed and you went stupid and blind,” ventured Diosa. “Am I wrong?”

  “No, you are exactly on point,” Walden confessed. “I figured it couldn’t last. In two days, I lost it all. But I was due for a turn around so I pawned my PID for another buy-in.”

  “Hold on. You sold an agency PID?” questioned Diosa in disbelief.

  “It’s locked and off,” he assured her. “They made me an offer. I play and win against other players and I get the PID back. They even gave me clothes so I look respectable when I play. All I need is a couple more tournaments and I’ll get it back. See, no problem.”

  “I see a number of problems,” Diosa informed him. “You losing an agency PID and holding up my mission are just the top two.”

  She didn’t tell him the pesetas were probably counterfeit. Or, mention that the floor manager wasn’t going to let Walden walk out with bags of fake currency traceable back to the entertainment district.

  “You’re going to kill me, now, aren’t you?” he asked with a quiver in his voice.

  “I’m tempted. I really am but I owe you my life,” Diosa said. “When is the next game?”

  “You’ll wait until I finish playing?” Walden asked. “I thought you might demolish this place, kill everybody, and retrieve the PID from the wreckage.”

  “I’m not going to do any of those,” Diosa corrected him. “I’m going to play poker with you. Tell me, do they allow smoking in the poker room?”

  Before Walden could answer, there was a rap on the door. Warlock spun to face the threat but Walden waved her away as he walked to the door.

  “It’s room service with my dinner,” he assured her. “I can share or would you rather I call down and order something specific for you?”

  Chapter 4 – Games Within Games

  Poet and Warlock strolled into the poker room. Most of the room was taken up by six poker tables with exits off the room to a convenience store, a lounge, a restaurant, and a guarded exit in the back. They were greeted by a floor manager.

  “Mister Geboren, good evening. I see you’ve brought company,” the man said as he eyed Diosa. “The lounge is open for your guest, of course.”

  “I’ll be playing,” Diosa informed him.

  “Then please see the cashier about securing your seat,” the manager advised her.

  “Right after Walden and I find some good cigars,” Diosa replied while taking Walden’s arm and guiding him to the small store.

  “Why the cigars?” Walden inquired.

  When Diosa had mentioned smoking in the poker room, he thought she was joking. Apparently, she wasn’t, as the retired Marine purchased seven panatelas.

  “Smokescreen, Poet,” Diosa replied as she handed one to him.

  “I don’t believe you’ll get much camouflage from even a room full of cigar smoke,” suggested Walden.

  “It’s not for hiding,” Diosa said. “I just need a thin haze.”

  Once armed with the cigars, they moved to the cashier’s cage. Diosa pulled up the title of vice president at a manufacturing firm on her PID and paid the buy-in. A stack of chips was shoved across the counter. Without having to speak, Walden received a second stack.

  “It must be nice to be a high roller,” Diosa teased as they walked towards a table.

  “My infatuation with competitive probability competitions has forsaken me,” Walden responded. “Is there a plan, strategy, approach to our tactics in tackling this sorrowful situation?”

  “Relax, Poet. All you have to do is play and try to win,” Warlock assured him.

  “Try to win?” he questioned. “I usually win at games of stratagem.”

  “I’m sure you do when the house isn’t cheating,” Diosa informed him as they neared the table. Just before choosing seats, she whispered. “Light your cigar when I light mine.”

  Warlock took the seat next to the dealer and Poet sat next to her. Shortly after, four men approached, placed stacks of chips on the table, and sat. No one said a word but they all took time to study their competition.

  “Players, I am Samantha and I have the pleasure of being your dealer this evening,” the woman next to Warlock announced. She began to shuffle a deck of cards. “If everyone is ready, we will begin.”

  “Spread the deck,” instructed a man on the other side of the table.

  Samantha placed the deck on the table and ran her hand across them until the back of every card was visible. The man pulled out a pair of thick eyeglasses, put them on, and scanned the pictures on the back of the playing cards. Warlock also eyed the pictures and like the man, she searched for UV markings. Unlike the man who used passive ultraviolet detectors, Diosa concentrated and aimed the UV beam from her bionic eye. Tiny groups of dots lit up as the beam passed over the pictures.

  “The deck is satisfactory,” declared the man.

  He didn’t see the faint ultraviolet markings. Diosa did, but she didn’t know the code for what card was represented by the formations of UV dots.

  “You have the button,” Samantha declared. She picked up what resembled a chip branded with the letter B. The dealer placed it on the table in front of Diosa. Then in two passes, Samantha peeled off cards moving in a clockwise direction. “You’ve received two down. That’s your hole cards. Button holder, you must play.”

  Diosa tossed in a chip after peeping at her cards. Walden and the others added chips and the dealer placed three cards face up on the table.

  “Button, your call,” Samantha said.

  “The name is Diosa,” Warlock informed the dealer as she added a chip to the pile.

  Walden called as did three of the other players. Then the last player raised with an extra chip.

  “I’m Rizal,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I raise you one.”

  Diosa added a chip but
Walden folded. The three remaining players matched the raise.

  Samantha turned over another card adding it to the three already facing upward.

  Diosa picked up two chips and placed them with the other bets.

  “You’re not buying this pot,” the man on the other side of Walden declared. “I am Tanager. I see you and raise you two.”

  It was four chips to the fourth man and he folded. The fifth man added his four and raised one more. Rizal glanced at his hole cards twice before folding. Diosa called the raise by dropping a single chip on the pot.

  Samantha added the final face-up card and nodded to Diosa.

  After a quick look at her hole cards, she added a chip. Tanager called and raised with two more chips. The fifth player called and raised by adding four chips. The play went back to Diosa.

  There was a commotion at the entrance to the poker room. Two large men with pistol bulges under their jackets shoved three people to the side. With them out of the way, five men walked in followed by two more big men. Four district guards stepped forward as if to stop the abuse. They were waved off by a floor manager who rushed to greet the party of five. Everything settled down as the five men sat at a poker table and the bodyguards assumed positions around the game.

  “It’s Li Wei and Niles Arvid,” Tanager exclaimed.

  “Are they famous?” inquired Diosa.

  “Two of them are. Niles Arvid is a reputed criminal. Although he’s been charged, he has never been convicted,” Walden replied. “All of the witnesses disappeared or refused to testify.”

  “And the handsome guy is Li Wei,” added Rizal. “Everybody watches his evening newscasts.”

  “This place is the real deal,” the man in the fourth position at the table gushed. “Hard-hitting news people and gangsters.”

  “Don’t say that too loud,” warned Tanager. “I hear bad things happen to people who talk about Niles Arvid in public.”

  While the players gawked at the famous and infamous celebrities, Warlock wondered how the bodyguards circumvented the no weapons rule in the district.

  “Diosa. The play is to you,” commented Samantha.

  “I call,” Warlock responded by shoving four chips forward. Then she flipped over her hole cards, reached into her pouch, and pulled out a cigar.

  Walden plucked his from a jacket pocket and they lit up at the same time. Tanager and the man in the fifth position also revealed their hands.

  “Two pairs,” announced Tanager as he raked in the pot. He slid a chip to the dealer. “For you.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha acknowledged the tip as she waved the chip in the air to show the floor managers she wasn’t stealing. Then she dropped it in a pocket and collected the cards.

  Diosa pulled out a handful of cigars and offered them to the other players.

  “I’m Zelman and I’d love a stick,” the man in the fourth position said.

  Warlock handed him a cigar and a book of matches. While he lit up, she held out a panatela to Tanager. After he declined with a wave of his hand, Diosa reached across to the fifth player.

  “Sure,” the man said as he took the cigar. “Anatoly thanks you.”

  “You are welcome, Anatoly,” Diosa stated. Shifting to the sixth player, she inquired. “Won’t you join us, Rizal?”

  “As a matter of fact, I will,” Rizal responded by reaching out and taking one.

  With five of the six players puffing on cigars, a light fog of smoke rose over the table. Diosa leaned back as if enjoying the smoke while Samantha shifted the button to Walden.

  Warlock closed her left eye and scanned the smoke. Two of the features in Diosa’s bionic eye searched the smoke as the hole cards were dealt. At first nothing appeared in the haze. Then the scattered bioimaging detected a presence in the smoke and her UV beam crossed a beam shooting from the ceiling. Glancing down, Warlock watched as the ceiling beam traced paths over her face down cards.

  “Walden. The button must play,” Samantha stated.

  Diosa gave a cursory glance at her cards before following the beam. Poet’s cards were searched then the beam moved to Tanager’s hand. Once his invisible dots were highlighted and read, the beam skipped Zelman and moved to Anatoly’s cards. Now Warlock knew Zelman was the house’s player. Rizal’s hole cards were scanned and the beam vanished.

  “One chip,” declared Walden.

  Tanager, Zelman, Anatoly, and Rizal called the one chip opening. Diosa dropped a single chip followed by three more.

  “Raise three,” she announced.

  Rather than watching the play of Walden or Tanager, Diosa absentmindedly brushed her left eyebrow. Behind the hand she closed the eye. Focusing on Zelman with the bionic eye, she let the soundwave sensor ‘listen’ to him.

  ‘Two and four, unmatched,’ she heard a low voice. Glancing at her hole cards, she admired the two of hearts and the four of spades.

  The game was about to get interesting.

  ***

  Forty minutes later, Samantha collected the cards, thanked the players, and relinquished her duties to a new dealer. She walked away from the table and circled around another poker table. At the rear of the room, an armed guard punched in a code on a wall pad and the dealer passed through the doorway.

  Along with the change of dealers, there was a new deck of cards.

  “Spread them,” ordered Anatoly as he pulled out his thick UV glasses.

  Carlos, the new dealer, accommodated the request giving Warlock the opportunity to study the fresh deck.

  “The deck is satisfactory,” Anatoly declared seeing no marks on the pictures.

  After learning from the first deck, Warlock’s bionic eye detected the dots immediately. Her issue was, she didn’t know if the marks were consistent between decks. She’d have to be cautious for a few hands until she was able to identify the cards. Playing reserved wasn’t an issue as she had stacks of chips piled in front of her. Only Zelman and Walden were close to her winnings.

  One of the results of her being the lead player was regular visits from the floor managers. They hovered and scrutinized her play from every side of the table seeking her secret or if she was, somehow, cheating. Zelman’s antics went beyond subtle watching. He became agitated and verbally aggressive with each losing hand. Nothing chaffed a cheater as much as being checked and beaten out of big pots.

  Four hands later, Diosa had added chips to her pile as had Zelman and Walden. Tanager, Anatoly, and Rizal were close to going bust.

  “You have the button,” Carlos announced as he placed the designated B chip in front of Anatoly. Then he dealt the first hole cards around the table. While Carlos distributed the second hole cards, Zelman squirmed in his seat as if impatient to get on with the game. “Button, you must play.”

  Anatoly opened with four chips followed by Rizal who called and raised four more. Both men were far behind and looking to claim a big pot. Diosa called with eight chips. The play went to Walden.

  “I’ll see the eight and raise four,” Walden declared.

  Tanager studied his two cards and pondered the twelve chips it would cost him to stay. Like Anatoly and Rizal, his stack of chips had dwindled. Rather than stay with his low hole cards, he folded. The play went to Zelman.

  “It’s twelve to you,” Carlos informed him.

  Zelman cranked his neck until it popped, shifted his shoulders as if he was uncomfortable, and coughed. Every action exaggerated and elongated. Diosa realized he was stalling because the voice in his ear was silent. Finally, he threw twelve chips into the pot.

  Carlos flipped over three cards face up.

  Anatoly dropped five chips on the pot. Rizal folded and Diosa added five more making it ten to Walden. Of all the players, Walden knew Diosa the best. While he had been able to pick up tells from the other players, the retired Marine offered a unique challenge. Her mannerisms and facial expressions gave no hints to her true feelings about the cards she held. With no clue to her hand’s strength, Walden folded.

 
Only Diosa, Zelman, and Anatoly remained. Zelman matched the bet and Anatoly called with five chips. Carlos flipped over another card.

  ‘A pair of twos,’ the voice in Zelman’s ear whispered. ‘Ten and four of hearts.”

  After hearing the cards held by Anatoly, Diosa looked at her ten and four of hearts. The voice was back and, all of a sudden, Zelman settled down with a faint grin on his face. It seemed he could beat a pair of twos and wasn’t worried about Diosa filling out a flush.

  A quick scan revealed that Zelman’s hole cards were a seven and a Jack.

  Face up were a King of spades, a Jack of diamonds, a six of hearts and a Queen of hearts. Zelman had Anatoly beat. He only called to keep Anatoly in the game so he could clean the player out.

  On the next round Anatoly went all in, Diosa filled her flush, and the man, who carried UV glasses to keep from being cheated, left the table. The button moved to Rizal and Carlos dealt the hole cards.

  Three hands later, Tanager shoved his meager stack forward, missed an inside straight, and left the table. During the next hand, Rizal went head to head with Walden, lost, and grumbled as he left the game. Three hands later, Diosa took Walden’s chips leaving only her and Zelman at the poker table.

  “I need a break,” announced Diosa. “A half hour, if it meets your approval.”

  “Go ahead,” Zelman said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  The man looked exhausted. It was obvious he expected to win and have the game over quickly. But the play from the young woman surprised him. Warlock wondered what the voice in Zelman’s earpiece was saying as she left the table.

  ***

  “Walden. Let’s go to the lounge,” Diosa said taking his arm and guiding them off the poker floor. In the lounge, they took a table away from the bar.

  “I don’t feel as if we’ve made a vast improvement in re-acquiring my PID,” her pilot complained as he dropped into a chair. “Can you beat Zelman?”

  “No. The best I can do is hold him to a draw,” admitted Diosa. “I’m going to the ladies’ restroom. Order me a lemonade.”