Tails You Lose

by Lisa Smedman

  She pulled one of Alma's I Ching coins out of her pocket. Her friend Miracle Worker had cast a nova-hot illusion spell on all three of them—a spell she'd promised would hold up to a camera's scrutiny. Night Owl was about to find out how hot her friend's mojo really was. She held the illusion-cloaked coin up so that the cell's minicam caught it full frame. "Is this what your master is looking for?"

  Blondie's indrawn hiss of breath told her it was. "How did you—"

  "Tonight I'm selling it to the highest bidder," Night Owl announced. "Either Mang, Chiao or Li—I don't care which. I'll call you in five for your opening bid." Before the ganger could reply, Night Owl cut the connection. She waited about ten minutes—long enough to let Blondie sweat about whether she really was going to call back—and then redialed. This time, the ganger answered on the first ring. She was no longer in the restaurant but in a moving car; outside the rear window, Night Owl could see the rain-blurred red W that topped the Woodwards Arcology receding into the background. Good. Blondie was on the move south.

  "Well?" Night Owl asked.

  Blondie looked guarded. "My master will pay fifteen thousand nuyen if it's the genuine article. But he insists on proof—"

  "You call that an opening bid?" Night Owl rolled her eyes. "That's pathetic. I guess your master's not serious. Forget it. I'll call—"

  Blondie's eyes spat venom at her. "Thirty thousand."

  "That's more like it," Night Owl said. "Give me another five while I find out if the competition wants to bid higher."

  "Muyil Wait while I—"

  Once again, Night Owl cut the connection. This time, she let fifteen minutes slide by. While she waited, she walked to the edge of the shelter and doublechecked the floor, nudging the cement in front of her with the toe of her Dayton. From somewhere below came a faint crunch-grind-crunch of rockworms munching away. The cement under her toe shifted slightly, and she took a step back.

  Night Owl redialed and spoke as soon as Blondie's face appeared on the monitor. "Your competition countered with offers of one hundred thousand nuyen, and between them they bid the price up to five hundred K," she said. "Your master is looking at six hundred K to stay in the game."

  Blondie gave her a sour smile. "Six hundred thousand nuyen will be his final offer. Take it, and I will guarantee your life. Refuse . . ." She let the rest of the sentence hang in the air unspoken.

  There was no need to fill in the blank.

  Night Owl kept her face carefully neutral, although inside she was grinning from ear to ear. She'd gambled that Blondie's master wasn't on speaking terms with his scaly rivals—checking in with the other dragons to see if they really were bidding on one of the Coins of Luck would be the last thing that Mang would do.

  Night Owl's bluff had worked. Blondie had bought it—pun intended.

  "Offer accepted," Night Owl said.

  "Good." Blondie smirked. "How soon can you deliver?"

  "That depends on how soon you can transfer the cred. We'll do this like a run, with fifty percent down, and fifty percent upon delivery. There's an internationally registered charity I use for this type of biz. called Cybercare for Kids. You make an anonymous donation of three hundred K in the account whose number I'm going to give you, to show me that you're serious about this buy. Then you ask the bank to set up a double-blind trust account and put the other three hundred K in that. As soon as you're satisfied that the coin is the real item, they authorize transfer of payment. Your client's confidentiality is assured, and the buy winds up looking like an anonymous charitable donation."

  Night Owl pretended to check a watch. "I'll give you five minutes to make the first payment. When I receive confirmation that it's been made, I'll call you back."

  She gave Blondie the bank name and the charity's account number and then broke the connection. Two minutes later, a representative of the bank called to say that the deposit had been made to the charity's account and that a trust account had also been set up. As soon as Blondie discovered the coin was a fake, of course, the cred in this second account would revert back to her master. But Cybercare for Kids would still have made three hundred K.

  When Night Owl called Blondie back, the monitor screen remained blanked. Blondie was trying to hide the fact that she was in a sky cab, but the faint chuff-chuff-chuff of the helicopter rotors gave her location away. Looking north toward the city lights of Vancouver, Night Owl saw the strobed running lights of a sky cab heading her way. Blondie would be over the Richmond Ruins in a few minutes, at most.

  "I've transferred the cred," Blondie said.

  "Good."

  "Now I want the coin. Where are you?"

  Night Owl frowned, as if she were having second thoughts. "I'll need some time to set up a transfer," she said. "We'll need a meeting place where we can both feel secure. Perhaps . . ." As she spoke, she "accidentally" allowed the cellphone's minicam to pick up the hotel's rooftop sign. Only the upper half of the words Relax Hotel showed above the lip of the building, but it would be enough. Blondie was intelligent enough to pick up on this clue—she'd assume that Night Owl had stupidly given her position away. She'd be cocky during the meet, and less cautious. Which was just what Night Owl wanted.

  "No. We do it tonight. Now. I know where you are: the rooftop of the Relax Hotel. Stay there. I'll come to you." Her voice sounded as if she was smirking.

  Night Owl widened her eyes, as if alarmed. "All right," she said. "But tell your cabbie to hover three meters above the helipad, and jump down to the roof. Don't let him land; I want to see that it's just you getting out. If anyone else shows, our deal is off. And don't try to trick me by cloaking someone with an invisibility spell; I'll see them wading through the puddles."

  The monitor screen sprang to life, showing Blondie inside the sky cab. The ganger rotated the cell she was holding so the vidcam picked up the otherwise empty passenger compartment of the cab. "Don't worry," she snarled. "I'm the only one coming."

  Night Owl thumbed the cell off and watched the cab approach over the Fraser River. The sky cab came in high over the darkened ruins—the cabbie was obviously wary of approaching too close to the tangle of wires and concrete that lay below—and then circled over the Relax Hotel.

  The landing spotlight on the belly of the machine sprang into hot white light, illuminating the pitted H that marked the landing pad, and then the cab sank slowly toward the rooftop, engines roaring and downdrafts rippling the puddles that covered the pitted concrete. The helicopter paused, and then the hatch opened. Blondie jumped down into the pool of light, landing with a splash on the rooftop. The sky cab withdrew, leaving her standing in the rain. It hovered a few dozen meters above, waiting for Blondie to conclude her biz. The ganger obviously didn't expect this transaction to take much time.

  Blondie wasn't taking any chances, however. She already had her right hand shaped into a wedge, ready to cast a magical attack. Her hair was slicked down against her scalp by the pouring rain, her jacket already soaked, but she ignored these discomforts. She walked toward Night Owl, menace clear in every step. Her eyes were fixed on the coin in Night Owl's hand.

  "That's close enough," Night Owl called out.

  Blondie stopped, not noticing the way the concrete sagged down beneath her right foot. "Let's see the coin," she gritted. "I need to make sure my master is getting what he's paid for."

  "All right." Night Owl slowly drew the coin from her pocket. The moment of untruth was at hand—this was when she'd find out whether Miracle Worker's illusion spell would pass muster. Even if it did fool Blondie, Night Owl knew what would follow. As soon as Blondie had the coin, Night Owl would be dead meat.

  Night Owl took a step forward—a short step. "Here!" She flipped the coin into the air. It glittered in a lazy arc, spinning head over tails toward the ganger—an arc that would end just in front of where Blondie stood. Realizing that it would fall short, the ganger leaped forward to snatch the coin out of the air. She lifted the coin for a better look, and a smile of triumph
spread across her face. She'd instinctively used her right hand to make the catch, but now she transferred the coin to her left and re-formed her fingers into a wedge shape, ready to launch a magical attack. Night Owl tensed, ready to hurl herself to the side . . .

  She didn't need to. Just as Blondie's hand came up, the weakened rooftop gave way beneath the ganger's feet. Eyes wide with surprise, she disappeared into the gaping hole. Night Owl heard a muffled shout, but the sound was all but lost in a thudding rumble as chunks of cement cascaded down into the hole. A moment later there was a second rumbling crash as the floor below also gave way.

  Night Owl listened a moment more, wondering if the ganger had bought it, and then heard a muffled cursing. Finally relaxing, she allowed herself a smile. Her plan had worked beautifully. Blondie was alive. With luck, she'd dropped the coin in the rubble and would spend the rest of the night searching for it. Even if Blondie had managed to hang on to the coin when she fell, it would take her a while to find her way out of the ruined hotel. She'd have to pick her way across the rockworm-weakened floors as carefully as a soldier in a minefield. By that time, Night Owl would be long gone.

  Night Owl smiled and pulled her lucky SkyTrain token out of her pocket. Before she faded into the night, she needed to decide who the next sucker would be. Heads, it would be the Red Lotus; tails, Strange Eyes.

  She flipped the coin and smacked it against the back of her right hand. Heads it was.

  * * *

  The Triple Eight Club was an enormous block of concrete, glass and neon, located a few steps away from the Stadium SkyTrain station. Built before the turn of the millennium as a combination theater and shopping arcade, it had been transformed into a casino when simsense made motion-picture technology obsolete. Now it catered to those who hungered for the thrill of old-fashioned games of chance: blackjack played with cardboard playing cards instead of the virtual cards that appeared on flatscreen tables; roulette wheels spun by human hands; slot machines with mechanical gears that clanked and rattled; and craps played with actual plastic dice. The only nods to modern technology were the gigantic, two-story-tall monitor screens that broadcast thoroughbred and greyhound racing in real time from racetracks in Tokyo, Shanghai and the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone.

  Night Owl jandered into the enormous building, trying to lose herself in the crowd. Fortunately, she wasn't the only one in the crowd who had painted her face with a Beijing Opera mask. Even some of the Red Lotus gangers who were lounging at tables, sipping drinks and clicking mahjong tiles, had painted their faces. None of them paid any more attention to Night Owl than they did to any of the other "sheep" who bleated their way into the casino, begging for a chance to be fleeced. Her hunch had been correct: the gangers weren't expecting her to show up on their home turf. They'd be looking for her everywhere else in the city—but not here.

  Night Owl stepped onto the escalator leading up to the balcony that ringed the second floor and approached one of the long lines of slot machines. She'd already purchased a bulging pocketful of "lucky eight" tokens at the exchange window below, and now she began moving randomly between the slots, feeding one token into each machine. She didn't even bother to watch the wheels as they spun and stayed only as long as it took to collect whenever she heard the ringing clamor that announced a payoff. She didn't care if she won or lost, but she knew she'd look suspicious if she didn't pick up the tokens that tumbled into the tray. She scooped each win up as quickly as she could and moved on to the next machine.

  An hour later, she had slotted coins into three-quarters of the machines in the casino. She'd observed which of the slots were most heavily used: those near the entrance and closest to the escalators—slots that the casino had rigged to make small, frequent payouts to help spur the hopes—and empty the pockets—of those just arriving.

  Choosing one of these machines, Night Owl pulled one of the two remaining I Ching coins from her pocket. It was roughly the same size and weight as the tokens used in the Triple Eight—close enough to fool the archaic, mechanical measuring devices that were built into the slot machine. Careful to hide the hole at the coin's center with her thumb and forefinger—every centimeter of the casino was constantly monitored by security cameras—Night Owl popped it into the slot and pulled the heavy handle of the machine. She watched the symbols spin, and when three cherries came up, she had to cup her hands quickly to catch the shower of tokens that spilled out over the slot machine's tray. She shoved them into her pocket, suddenly aware of the hot jealousy in the eyes of the gamblers next to her. The win had attracted some attention. She'd lose herself in the crowd, play a few more slots, and then get out of here.

  She began walking to another machine but was forced to deke around a couple who were arguing about whether to leave the casino. Without warning, the woman stepped back to slap the man, and Night Owl was jostled to the side. She collided with a massive troll who was standing in front of a nearby slot. Although his back was to her, she recognized him in a heartbeat by his V-shaped, spiral horns: the shaman Wu—the one Red Lotus member who would recognize her instantly. After his run-in with Strange Eyes, the shaman was in bad shape: one of his arms was in a sling, and blood was still seeping through a bandage on his face. But he still looked perfectly capable of slinging spells. If he glanced back to see who had just jostled him. Night Owl was going to catch some serious mojo.

  Night Owl was already flashing for her pistol when she realized that the shaman hadn't even noticed her. His attention remained riveted on the machine in front of him. She could hear him muttering in Cantonese and saw him stroking the side of the machine with his fingertips. She realized that he must have been using a telekinetic spell to slow the spinning gears inside the machine. Then three symbols clunked home: a seven, another seven, and yet another. Coins fountained into the tray in front of Wu, and a feral grin lit his face.

  When at last he glanced around—probably checking to see if the casino's security mages had picked up on the spell he'd just used—Night Owl had already done a quick fade. Although she was keeping her back to the shaman, her eye still twitched with the strain of having come so close to being spotted.

  Ten slot machines later, she slipped out of the casino. She dumped the Triple Eight tokens she still had in her pocket into the grimy paper cup a Streeter was using to beg with and then jandered quickly down an alley toward the loading bay where she'd hidden her bike.

  Sheltering from the rain under the loading bay's overhang, she dialed the Triple Eight Club and demanded to speak to Wu. As soon as his face appeared on the monitor screen, he began shouting.

  "You!" he roared over the rattle of slots and the clatter of roulette wheels. "You cheated Eldest Brother a second time. The statue wasn't—"

  "Never mind that," Night Owl said. "I found the coin your master is looking for. I just delivered it." That shut the troll up. "What do you mean?"

  "It's in the casino—I fed it into one of the slots. For five hundred thousand nuyen, I'll tell you which one. Otherwise . . . well, the coin's likely to wind up in someone else's pocket and disappear out the door any minute."

  Wu's eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing."

  "No, I'm not. I was inside the club just a few minutes ago. I saw you coax a slot with your magic into coughing up triple sevens. If you don't believe that I was inside, check the casino's security camera recordings. Look for a woman with a gold face mask."

  She watched a gleam creep into Wu's eyes and guessed what he was thinking. "If you're thinking about scanning the recordings to see which machine I played, don't bother," she added. "I slotted tokens into sixty-plus machines. You'll never figure out which play was the Fu Coin in time. Unless you want to piss off Elder Brother by letting the thing he's seeking slip through your fingers, you'd better get him to pay up. You've got five minutes to convince him. If I don't hear from the bank by then, the deal's off."

  She repeated the bank account number she'd given Blondie earlier and hung up. Now she just had to keep her fing
ers crossed that the Red Lotus didn't get heavy-handed. The gang was a constant, visible presence at the casino, bleeding "protection" credit from it on a daily basis, but they didn't own the place. To search the nearly one hundred slot machines in the building, they'd have to cordon off the entire second floor and smash them open one by one—something that would bring the tribal police, with sirens wailing, pretty fraggin' quick. Night Owl was gambling that the gangers wouldn't want to attract that much attention to themselves. It would be easier—and much more discreet—to simply get their master to transfer the cred she'd demanded and then feed coins into the slot she identified until it paid off its magical prize.

  This time, it took just over four minutes for the bank to call, confirming the anonymous donation of five hundred K to the Cybercare for Kids account. Night Owl disconnected with a grin and called Wu back.

  "Payment accepted," she said. "The coin is in slot machine thirty-two."

  As she hung up, her grin grew larger. Even if Wu used his magic to nudge that slot into a series of large payouts, it would take some time for the Fu Coin to work its way through the machine. The coin would be near the top of the pile; he'd be at it most of the night.

  Night Owl straddled her Harley and gunned the engine. She wheeled the bike out into the street and headed back to her apartment for a change of clothes.

  Just one more fake coin sale to pull off—but it would be the most difficult of all.

  * * *

  Strange Eyes had been the toughest of the three buyers to track down. Night Owl had caught a glimpse of the license plate of the limo that he'd bundled her into, two nights ago, and had traced the limo to a Seattle-based rental company. Strange Eyes obviously liked to travel in comfort and style, complete with a hired chauffeur, despite the fact that this made him stick out like a chromed thumb. Night Owl had assumed he'd rent another limo, this time from a company in Vancouver, and had called the handful of limo companies to find out if anyone matching his description had jandered in to rent a car.