A Town Called Malice

by Adam Abramowitz

  “No? You’re qualified to argue with”—she laser points to the screen behind her—“R*T/k=T/E/t=1*ut*(Qk)-ut(0t)? You don’t consider this real life?”

  “People are emotional,” I say. “I don’t need to understand the math to understand the play on a particular hand if I can play the person.”

  A small murmur ripples through the auditorium, bringing a frown to Fuji’s face. I’m assuming that when she plays poker, she manages to hide her annoyance better.

  “You’re saying that it’s easier to play the complexities of a person than absorb and utilize these formulas?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which have been run through more hands than you’re likely to play in a lifetime?” Fuji arches her well-defined eyebrows.

  “I’m saying—”

  “This formula, in case you didn’t catch this the first time I said it,” Fuji’s voice has risen to bully volume out of the speakers, jarring everyone whose attention was still on their computer screens like a flock of birds startled to the same danger, the graduate assistant’s eyes wide with glee, “has a very human component, which you’re so enamored with. Built into it. Its very name, regret minimization, addresses how your opponents at the table are playing and therefore addresses how you should approach your hand.”

  “It’s a great name,” I concede. “It doesn’t factor fear. Or history. Or greed. Or lust.”

  “Lust?” Fuji rears back like I’ve just thrown a fastball under her chin.

  “The mind wanders, is my point. Even with all that cash in the pot. You might already be spending the money in your head or formulating lies to explain where the money went, already making up bad beat excuses. What I’m saying is people carry baggage into games. Eventually it shows if you’re paying attention and you’re skilled enough to catch it.”

  “And you’re skilled enough to catch it, Zesty?” Fuji had regained her composure, maybe even lowered the volume on her microphone, her TA registering his disappointment at a lack of fireworks and moving on to the next slide, an unspoken signal passed between them to continue.

  “I’m one step ahead of that,” I respond. “I know better than to get into a game that I can’t afford to lose.”

  Fuji blinks as if I’ve struck her.

  THIRTY-ONE

  They surround me as soon as I’m out of the lecture hall. I’d noticed them perking up during my exchange with Fuji; four of them sat together, though there were plenty of empty seats in their row, and from the heat in their eyes it doesn’t look like they just want an autograph. Three days ago it was a Mexican gang tasked with protecting Karl Klaussen, who had ignored what makes a legend most—dying young or disappearing forever—and returned to Boston to find the girl whom he and my father had disposed of like garbage.

  According to Polishuk this makes my father either a murderer or an enabler, my dad acting in his own callous self-interest in a last-ditch effort to cash in on Mass making it big before the Zeppelin fiasco wiped it all away, the karmic bitch, sister to Lady Luck, child of Mother Nature, making sure she’s heard. He should have known better than to piss off a troika of such powerful and unpredictable women.

  Today’s threat comes from a more diverse group of Southeast Asians, but all they want is my money.

  The rec room in Ashdown House has a wide-open floor plan, plenty of light, and couches and tables spread throughout. In a smaller side room there’s a giant flat-screen TV mounted to the wall, tangles of gaming gear, and an octagonal poker table covered in MIT red felt in the center with chairs already set up around it. There’s only one small window. Next to it hangs a sign that reads NO GAMBLING, which like most stop signs in Boston seems to be thoroughly ignored.

  “This is where we do our homework.” Everybody chuckles like it’s the first time they’ve heard the joke. A friendly bunch. Sunil to my left, Bill to my right, Ameer and Sanjay, and I don’t bother trying to remember the rest, more focused, even before the cards are on the table, on the subtle communications they send each other, the limbering of fingers and necks like they’re about to enter a boxing ring or exert themselves in a sprint around the block.

  I don’t expect them to cheat, they’re too smart for that. And like most seasoned players, they enter with a certain amount of confidence, everybody in the game initially thinking they’re a shark, even if they’ve only got their baby teeth and a tiny dorsal fin. “As long as there’s no actual money on the table we are allowed to play.” Sunil winks playfully.

  “The magic of poker chips,” I say. “Buy-in’s what?”

  “Normally, house rules, five hundred dollars. We also take cards.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “PayPal. Western Union.”

  “Cash?” I smile.

  They all laugh heartily. Where are these guys when I’m bombing behind a microphone? Everybody has cash. I make sure they see I’m loaded, plenty more where that came from. Smiles all around.

  “We do a couple of hours of pot-limit Omaha Hi-Lo and then switch to no-limit Hold ’Em tournament style, blinds rising on the half hour,” Sunil informs me. “You can buy back in at any time for the full five hundred. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great. Be even better if Professor Fuji were here.”

  They like that one. “I wouldn’t mess with her, dude. She’s a player.”

  The chips are heavy clay, value numbered, the MIT logo emblazoned in the center. Not Paulson chips, but still high grade. The deal rotates among the players. I choose to play loose-aggressive, betting often and in most pots, but not allowing myself to be pushed around. I lose more than I win, the winning pots smaller than the losses, a steady decline.

  “Take that, regret minimization formula!” Sanjay says with a small grin as I rake a small pot into my well. Supportive.

  “True, true. Take a picture and send it to Professor Fuji,” Sunil says in a singsong voice. “The true reason we sought you out, Zesty. Not many people challenge the Queen. Though your grades will suffer, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m just auditing,” I tell him. “No worries. Actually, I’ve been looking for this game for a while. Rambir invited me a month ago and then…” I open my hands in resignation, purposely flashing the cards I hold. Careless. And sad.

  “Terrible,” Sanjay says, pretending not to have seen my pocket spades ace and eight. Dead man’s hand.

  “Awful,” Veejay chimes in and lays his cards down. “Scary. Where is safe anymore?”

  Everybody folds and I rake another small pot.

  “Teacher’s pet.” Bill smirks. “He never would have done what you did in class.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, for one, being her graduate assistant. You might as well slit your own throat if you challenge your dissertation mentor.”

  “She was Rambir’s mentor?”

  “Dude, she was more than that. He was boning her.”

  “No fucking way,” I say. “I think I saw that movie.”

  “Why aren’t you dealing?” Sunil complains.

  “It’s your deal.” I point out the cards in his hands. His face flushes. “You guys knew Rambir that well he’d tell you he was sleeping with his professor? Couldn’t that get them both in trouble?”

  “Not Ramb—”

  “Sure,” Bill says. “Rambir basically founded this game. The only time he wasn’t playing is when he’d go to Vegas and Foxwoods with Fuji.”

  “No shit? But you guys would play without him? Or did he take you to that Russian/Ukrainian place in Allston?”

  “There are many games around campus,” Veejay says nonchalantly, dealing the cards deftly around the table. “Last hand before no-limit Hold ’Em.”

  “Small-time,” Bill says. “This is the big money game.” The other players start to cut their eyes at one another.

  “He win or lose?” I say.

  “What, here or in the casinos?” Bill asks.

  “With the Russians.”

  “How did you know him again?” Sunil
stares hard at Bill, who’s too immersed in his cards to notice.

  “I actually owed him money.” I frown.

  “You, too?” Bill mucks his cards.

  “Shut up, Bill.”

  “What, don’t pretend I was the only one. It’s not like we’ll have to pay him now anyway.”

  “I got interviewed by a homicide detective from Boston.” I mix in a little truth with the bigger lie forthcoming, which is the secret to all good lying. “I don’t even know how he got my name. He ever find you guys?”

  “He was very thorough,” Veejay says admiringly. “But of course, how could we help?”

  “Did you tell him that you owed Rambir money?”

  “Did you?” Bill shoots back, showing some teeth now after catching Sunil’s vibe.

  “No.” I laugh. “Because I sure as hell didn’t kill him, but the last thing I needed was to be a suspect in a homicide investigation, I got enough worries as it is.”

  “Thank you!” Bill pounds the table and looks at the players, who nod in grudging agreement. Obviously this was something that had already been discussed among them. “Did that reporter track you down?” Bill looks at me with what must be his truth serum stare, already thinking he’s pushed me around the table all afternoon, he’s got my number for everything.

  “No,” I lie easily. “No reporter.”

  “Yeah, well, this lady reporter came next with some of the same questions the Homicide guy asked. Only she was cut short by campus police.”

  Sanjay buries his face in his hands and rubs hard. “Play. The. Fucking. Game,” he says through gritted teeth.

  “It’s upsetting,” Veejay says. “Don’t pretend it’s not. He was a friend.”

  “Friend? He fucking fleeced us and then—” Sunil stops himself short.

  “Why wouldn’t campus police let you talk to a reporter?” Or more important, how could they stop them from talking? “You think they knew about the affair and were covering up?”

  “Well, not on campus, they wouldn’t allow. She gave out her card, but if campus police say not to talk, I’m not about to put my scholarship in jeopardy. None of us can afford to do that. Except for Bill. I don’t know if you noticed, but every time he gets good cards, the silver spoon stuck up his ass begins to vibrate.”

  “Fuck you,” Bill says, but he’s smiling. That was the beauty of playing poker with people on a regular basis: You get to abuse each other, tell bold-faced lies in an attempt to take each other’s money, and then come back and do it all over again.

  In the majority of house games, the winning generally gets spread around, creating its own little microeconomy of debits and credits, the injury usually more to the ego than the wallet. And at most house games you don’t wager more than you can afford to lose. There’s a spirit of we’re all in this together and you can dust yourself off after a beating, tell yourself all the lies you need to hear to make yourself whole again, knowing that there’ll be another game tomorrow, or next week, or whatever the cycle may be. Only I was getting the vibe that Rambir was the only big winner here, maybe mastering Yuki Fuji’s formulas to the max.

  “Anyhow, we all talked to the police. We’ve done our duties as citizens, but if the university doesn’t want us talking to a reporter, it’s not for me to wonder why.”

  “I hear you. Listen, one last question only because I’m curious and then I won’t ask you anything else. I owed Rambir, like, five thousand dollars. Did you guys owe him less or more than that?”

  “Oh no, much less than that. Up until Rambir’s death we had a strict table rule that there was no credit allowed. Five hundred dollars to buy in, rebuy if you had the money, but nothing owed.”

  “And you had that kind of money?”

  Again, everybody starts looking at each other, an electrical current of warning flowing among them.

  “I thought you said that was your last question,” Sunil says. “Are we going to play or not?”

  We play in silence, which suits me. The friendly mask has fallen off; there’s no point in pretending anymore. Rambir Roshan was the big shark on the MIT poker circuit, founder of the biggest cash game in this insular academic world. Probably enough brain power in this room to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, but not enough to master the table when emotions and the personal history I’d challenged Yuki Fuji with come into play.

  Except, it seems with the exception of Bill, all these guys had some form of scholarship that allowed them to afford what was one of the most expensive universities on the planet in one of the most expensive cities in the world. By all rights, they should be on a meal-plan diet and stuffing their pockets with hors d’oeuvres from faculty receptions, and yet they could consistently lose thousands of dollars to Rambir. So how did they pay him? Where did this flow of money come from?

  I keep losing, but my losses are smaller, my forays into pots less frequent. Sunil is sweating even as he wins. Nervous. It has nothing to do with cards. Sanjay is losing, his fingers drumming on his chest, and after a while he places them under his thighs to quiet them.

  Does Wells know that Rambir was a poker shark? Does it matter? Does it matter that most if not all these geniuses owed Rambir money he’d never be able to collect and they’d never have to pay? Could they have owed Rambir enough money to kill him? Regret minimization theory: not a fucking chance in the world. So why were they all so wary of talking about him? What were they holding back?

  I was down to my last four hundred dollars, having already dropped six, the blinds alone threatening to drain me in just a few hands; it was now or never to make a play. Only I didn’t control the cards and the hands I was getting deserved the mucking they received.

  But I catch a pair of deuces and push half my chips in the middle, not because it’s the statistical play, but because it’s the only play I have, and all the others except for Bill are in the hand to see the flop, nobody scared of me at this point. The turn brings my third two, a deuce of spades. We all check. The river brings a second seven and a full house. Sunil raises. Rajeev calls. Everybody else folds. I don’t hesitate and re-raise all in. Rajeev folds out of turn. Sunil takes his time to run the mathematical equations through the computer in his head. One day soon he’ll make Google another trillion dollars for their war chest.

  I can see in his eyes that he realizes that I have him beat. He even says it aloud. “Turn trips. River boat on pairing the seven.” He flicks his cards loudly with his index finger, shakes his head, and then does something that would get him a failing grade in Yuki Fuji’s class.

  “Call.” He pushes his chips into the pot.

  I turn my cards over to show him the hand he knew was coming but couldn’t control his emotions enough to take the practical loss as opposed to the crippling one. His two-pairs, kings over sevens, are losers. The chips make a satisfying clatter as I drag them into my well. The handcuffs make a more metallic snick as they’re removed from the campus policeman’s belt.

  “Stand up and put your hands behind your back.” The MIT cop points at me only. The MIT uniforms are almost identical to those worn by the Massachusetts State Police, from the blue hard-cloth caps and low visors to the shiny high-gloss riding boots outside the flared blue pants.

  I do as I’m told. The cuffs have a familiar feel to them, but I forget the girl’s name, only that she was super-freaky. The officer tightens them too much, forcing me to my tiptoes. Now it has a totally different but still familiar feel to it. He turns me around and marches me to the door.

  “Continue with your homework, gentlemen,” he says over his shoulder with a smirk.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The MIT chief of police has a large light-filled corner office on the second floor of the two-story police headquarters, a small building with a small waiting area on the first floor, where five cops sit behind a wall of glass in ergonomic chairs monitoring live video feeds from around the campus.

  There’s only one computer monitor in the chief’s office and it’s not so large.
But then again neither is the chief, who for some inexplicable reason, when I see her, makes me think she’d be happier living on a farm, taking care of animals and growing vegetables. She’s also got a military bearing about her, shoulders back, and a wry welcoming smile that tells me she doesn’t need to impress anyone, not even FBI Agent Wellington Lee, who’s seated in one of two hard chairs arranged in front of her desk.

  “Why is it you don’t look surprised to see me, Zesty?” Lee flashes me a quick finger before I can respond. “And don’t tell me poker face.” He approximates a smile, but there’s nothing in it. He might even be following some new departmental playbook, now that he’s climbed the ladder on the back of our shared ordeal with Devlin McKenna. Step one: Smile. Step two: Nod with chief to remove handcuffs. Step three: Let suspect know you can read his mind.

  I have my own playbook. It starts like this: “Oleg Katyana,” I say.

  “Who’s Oleg Katyana?” the MIT chief asks, scribbling something on a pad of legal paper. She doesn’t introduce herself and Lee doesn’t do the honors, but it’s on a couple of shiny plaques hung on the walls. Rosalinda Worth. “That’s not the guy we busted breaking into Ashdown House?”

  “Actually, it is,” Lee says. “Which is why I’d asked to meet with you again.”

  “He also goes by the name of Mikhail Sergachev,” I volunteer with a smile, and the chief again scribbles something on the pad and addresses Lee.

  “So you’re telling me that Doc Martens, Levi’s, navy sweater, long hair, big eye shiner knows more about what’s happening on my campus than I do?”

  Before Lee can respond, Rosalinda Worth swivels to me sharply and says, “No offense, you look great, in a beat-up kind of way. It’s just I’ve developed this mental block with names.…” She waves the pad and then points at me.

  “Zesty,” I say.

  “Zesty.” Worth winces, snaps her fingers. “So I play this little mental details game with myself; for some reason they stick. I’m seeing a shrink for it, of course. Want to know what she says?”