“Yes,” Rome replied. “An ace, a king, a four then another king.”
“The bastard,” Rei said. “He was going to sucker me into losing.”
“Hey,” Rei said out loud, pointing to the deck. “I saw you palming those cards. You just rigged the deck.”
“I did not,” the new dealer said with a straight face. “You’re crazy.”
“I saw you and I’ll prove it,” Rei said. He turned back to Rome. “Dump your chips on the table,” he commanded.
Rome shook her head and lifted her cloak, spreading its contents all over the table.
“Double or nothing,” Rei said. “I tell you what the next four cards are, the ones you were palming. If I’m right, you match my pot and I win. If I’m wrong, you can have them all.”
The dealer put his finger into his collar in a vain attempt to loosen it. He turned in his seat to look up at the tinted windows but got no indication. He turned back to Rei. “All right,” he said. “First card?”
“Ace,” Rei said. The dealer flipped the card over and an ace of diamonds appeared. The crowd applauded.
“Next card?”
“King,” Rei replied. The dealer flipped the card over and it was the king of spades. This time, the crowd shouted then applauded.
“Next card?” the dealer asked nervously.
“Four,” Rei said. “So I’d have nothing at this point.” The dealer flipped the next card over and it was the four of hearts. The crowd went wild, roaring its approval.
It looks like Rei is really going to do it. Surely the house has a Plan B.
Entry 5-240: August 28, 2017
Getting her attention
Yesterday, Rei had cheated his way to the point where he was going to break the house. The replacement dealer had palmed four cards specifically designed to sucker Rei into betting money that he would lose for sure. Luckily, Rome not only knew that the dealer had cheated, she even knew the cards that had been placed on the top of the deck. Rei bet all of his money that he could name the next four cards. He got the first three correct. Now it was time for the dealer to turn over the final card and for Rei to win a boatload of Deucats:
Rei reached into his sack of Deucats and dumped the rest on the table.
“Rei!” Rome suddenly interrupted. “He’s going to take two cards. It won’t be the king.”
“Right,” Rei answered. Then out loud, he said, “Stop right there and get your hands away from the deck. Get somebody else to turn the card.”
“No,” the dealer said. “That’s not the deal.” The crowd’s agitation was palpable.
“Yes it is,” Rei insisted. “I said the next four cards. You already palmed four cards and now you’re going to lift two. If you won’t get somebody else, I’m going to turn the last card over myself.”
“You can’t do that,” the dealer said. He reached down beneath the table and drew out a weapon. He placed the plasma blaster on the table. “House rules,” he said. “I say how this goes down.” The crowd murmured and quickly moved back, clearing out a wide buffer between themselves and Rei, Rome and Bonnie.
Rei touched his temple and suddenly, with a whoosh and a pop, MINIMCOM’s livetar appeared. But this livetar was much larger than normal. It was nearly eight feet tall and appropriately proportioned. Across one of the livetar’s arms was a hybrid rifle. The barrel and stock looked normal but the end looked more like a shower head. The business end, the one that resembled a shower head, was studded with little tips that glowed bright red.
“You think you can threaten me?” Rei said angrily, standing up. “You can shoot me. You can probably kill me. But you can’t kill him,” Rei said, jerking his thumb toward MINIMCOM. “He isn’t even alive. Tell him what you got there, buddy.”
“This is a PPT blunderbuss,” MINIMCOM said. “It will puncture you with thousands of tiny holes. You will not die right away but you will die as sure as there are stars in the sky. And I am told it is a very painful death.”
The dealer’s eyes grew wide. Rei took advantage of his frozen reactions and said, “King.” He reached forward and flipped the card over and it was, indeed, a king of clubs. From a distance, the crowd went crazy.
The dealer leaped up and in so doing, knocked his chair over backwards.
“Pay me,” Rei said, pointing to the pile of chips and money on the table. The dealer turned back and stared up at the tinted windows in the back helplessly. There was a discernible motion. The Essessoni dealer turned back and said, “The owner would like to see you, first, if you don’t mind.”
Ah! Mission accomplished. Now Rei was going to get a meeting with the owners and if he is really lucky, access to the security footage. But wait until you see how the owner fits into the whole picture.
Entry 5-241: August 29, 2017
How did you know?
Yesterday, Rei had pulled off a huge upset, winning so much money at hoker that the dealer had no choice but to send him up to visit management, presumably to work out a deal. This was Rei's only goal in the first place. Having a mind-reader for a wife is a great advantage at a casino.
So now was the time to go up the stairs and see who was behind the whole affair:
“That’s more like it,” Rei said, standing up. “My rather large and well-armed friend here…” he indicated MINIMCOM’s larger livetar. “…will make sure you count it correctly.” MINIMCOM took one step forward and lifted the rifle head slightly in response.
“Sh, sure,” the dealer said. “You go back through that door.” He pointed to the far right rear of the room. “Someone will meet you at the stairs.”
“OK,” Rei said. “Bonnie, can you stay here and watch him too? Make sure he doesn’t cheat us any more.”
“Of course, Rei,” Bonnie said, her eyes wide with amazement at what just transpired.
“Come on, Rome,” Rei said, reaching down to take Rome’s hand. “Let’s go find out what’s going on.”
He led Rome through a winding path around the rest of the tables until they got to the hallway at the rear. “How did you know this would make the owner agree to see you?” she asked.
“Because casino owners hate to lose,” he said. “It isn’t anything you could understand but this whole place is about separating people from their money. What happened back there is like their worst nightmare.”
At the base of the stairwell, an Ibbrassati appeared but this one was dressed in Essessoni-style clothing. The man did not speak while he escorted them up the stairway. He ushered Rei and Rome into a hardwood-paneled office that would have been right at home anywhere on Earth. It looked odd, here on Deucado. At the desk was a woman with dark hair and bangs. She stood up.
The Ibbrassati closed the door but remained in the room, standing at attention.
“You two don’t need any introduction,” she said. “But I do. I’m Andrea Grenmuller.” She leaned over the desk and held out her hand.
Rei reached forward and shook her hand. “Sit down,” Andrea said, indicating the two chairs in front of her desk. “Very impressive display,” she mused admiringly. “I had no idea you were so good at cards.”
“I’m not,” Rei said, sitting down. Rome sat down next to him. “I cheated,” he answered proudly.
“And you’re admitting it?”
“Yeah, sure,” Rei said. “I don’t want your money. You can have it back.”
“You don’t want it?” Andrea asked incredulously. “Then what do you want?”
“Information,” Rei said, leaning forward. “About David Troutman and Dan Steele.”
Ah. There it is. Rei kind of has her over a barrel because if he wanted to, Rei could leave with that barrel-full of money. But as he said, he didn't want it. Time for Andrea to spill what she knows.
Entry 5-242: August 30, 2017
The Origin of the Deucat
Yesterday, Rei finally got his audience before the casino's management. It turns out the owner is an Essessoni named Andrea Granmuller. How and why she was running th
e place was anybody's guess. It was time for Rome and Rei to dig a little deeper. They need to ascertain whether she knew anything about Troutman and Steele, the would-be assassins. Rei just came out and asked her. Here is her response:
Andrea narrowed her eyes. “What if I said I didn’t know anything about them?”
Rei turned to Rome who nodded. She stood up and walked around the desk. Andrea watched her skeptically while Rome gently rested her hand on Andrea’s shoulder.
“She’s lying,” Rome said. “She knows Troutman very well.”
Andrea looked at Rome’s hand then up at Rei. “So that’s how you cheat? You read people’s minds?”
“I can’t,” Rei said. “But she can. You might want to rethink the games you offer by acknowledging that the people here aren’t all like us.”
“OK. Point taken. What do you want to know?” Andrea asked.
“Anything. Everything,” Rei said. “Troutman and Steele tried to kill us with a bomb. I want to find them before they take another shot at it.”
Andrea leaned back in her chair. She sighed. “I heard that, but David’s not a bad person,” she said.
“He’s bad enough to try and blow me up,” Rei shot back with an edge.
“That was Steele’s influence,” she said. “David just wanted to…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“How do you know Troutman?” Rei asked.
“He and I, well, we’ve slept together a few times. He used to bring me the silver ingots I needed to make the coins.”
“You’re minting the money?” Rei inquired. “Why? On this world, we get everything we need for free. Why bother?”
“When you mix four races,” Andrea said, “not everybody values things the same way. By implementing a simple standard of exchange, the people down there…” Andrea pointed toward the tinted window mounted on the far wall. “…they can agree on what’s what. It levels the playing field. The market down below sets its value. We just use them as a way to get people in here.”
“Why?” Rome asked, still standing over Andrea. “Why all of this?”
Andrea looked up at her. “I’m a mathematician by trade. When we got here, nobody needed me for anything. I had to find something to do with my life. On Earth, we had to work just to survive. Here, we don’t. So I decided to do what I’ve always wanted. And I’ve always wanted to own a casino.” She waved her hand outward in a general gesture. “So I built this one. And that’s why we make the money. You can’t gamble if you don’t have anything to gamble with.”
Well, we finally have an explanation for why there is money on Deucado. To Andrea, they were really just another form of chips. To the people below, the Deucat had come to mean something more. I'm not sure this was really a contribution to the betterment of Deucado's society.
Tomorrow, we get to look at the tapes.
Entry 5-243: August 31, 2017
The Surveillance Tapes, Part 1
Yesterday, Andre Grenmuller dumped a lot of information on us. She was responsible for the creation of the Deucat, the first money on the planet of Deucado. She designed and built the casino at the top of The Hand. She also revealed that she knew David Troutman, one of the would-be assassins, intimately. Rei encouraged her to tell them everything they know but Rome had something to say first:
Rome lifted her hand from Andrea’s shoulder. “Money is stupid,” she said. “I have only been exposed to it for a short time but I can tell you it brings out the bad in people.”
Andrea looked up at her. “You’re probably right,” she said. “But I don’t make anybody come in here.”
“Troutman,” Rei said, drawing her attention again. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Andrea replied. Rome put her hand back on Andrea’s shoulder. “Speculate. Where do you think he is?” Rome asked.
“Every time we were together, we went back to my place,” Andrea replied. “If I had to guess, I’d say he lives to the west. He always told me his place was way too sloppy to let me see where he lived.”
Rome looked at Rei and nodded.
“What about Steele?” Rei asked. “Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Andrea replied. “I was told he came in here one night a while back but I wasn’t even around. David said I was lucky.”
Looking around the room, Rei spotted a tiny video camera mounted in the far corner, where the walls met the ceiling. “I saw you had cameras downstairs,” Rei said, pointing. “Do you keep video records?”
“Yes,” Andrea replied. “We tape everything.”
“Can I see the videos?” Rei asked. “Maybe we’ll spot something.”
“You’d have to go through several month’s worth,” she said. “I don’t really think that’s practical.”
“Maybe for you and me,” Rei said. He leaned back in his chair. There was a whoosh and a pop and a more normal-sized MINIMCOM livetar appeared.
“Buddy, can you watch some video for me at high speed and see if you spot something. You know who we’re looking for.”
“Of course,” the livetar replied.
“OK,” Andrea said. She stood up and walked around her desk and over to the far side of the room. She pressed a button and a large flat screen display lit up, segmented into four quadrants of video. She tapped a few keys on a keyboard and the display changed. MINIMCOM’s livetar walked over and stood in front of the display.
“Begin,” he said.
We've all seen enough TV shows to know that working your way through months worth of surveillance tapes would be a herculean task. But when you have an intelligent starship computer that can do it at high speed, it makes the task doable. Let's see what MINIMCOM comes up with tomorrow.
Entry 5-244: September 1, 2017
The Surveillance Tapes, Part 2
Yesterday, Andrea Grenmuller, the owner and manager of the casino at the top of The Hand of Decado, revealed that she had an intimate relationship with David Troutman, one of the would-be assassins who tried to kill Rei. However, even though she had slept with Troutman several times, it had always been at her place and she did not know where he lived. She also told Rome and Rei that she was informed that Dan Steele, the other would-be assassin, had been to the casino earlier in the year but she didn't know exactly when. The only way to find out was to have MINIMCOM review all the surveillance tapes at high speed:
Andrea pressed a single button and the images started flying by at super-speed. MINIMCOM remained motionless. Rei didn’t even know how the livetar transmitted what came in through the eye slits but however he accomplished it, MINIMCOM seemed to know what he was doing.
After few minutes, MINIMCOM raised his hand and said, “Stop.”
Andrea typed on the keyboard and the images froze. MINIMCOM bent his bullet-shaped head forward and pressed a few keys. When he rewound back to where he wanted, he expanded the image in the upper-left-hand quadrant so that it occupied the full screen.
“This is what you seek,” he said. Rei and Rome came over to join Andrea in front of the monitor. MINIMCOM pressed a key and the video began playing back at normal speed.
MINIMCOM pointed to a figure dressed in dark clothes, entering the field of vision from the left-hand side. “That is Steele,” the livetar said. “Although he has his face obscured, I was able to get a sufficient match using biometrics.”
They watched as the furtive figure sat down at one of the hoker tables. He tossed a few coins down and received chips. For a short while, he played the game like a regular person, winning some hands, losing others.
“Look!” Rome shouted, pointing at the screen. A very short woman, Vuduri most likely judging from the white jumpsuit, sat down next to Steele. “Can you zoom in on her face?” Rome asked.
MINIMCOM tapped on a few keys and the interaction between Steele and the woman took up the entire screen. However, the woman was wearing a cap and a visor that looked like a wraparound frameless pair of sunglasses.
“Why would a Vuduri woman be wearing s
unglasses?” Rei addressed toward Rome. “Your internal iris would make it unnecessary.”
“Either she is mandasurte, dressed like a Vuduri, or she did not want anyone to see her face,” Rome answered. “I suspect the latter.”
In the video, the woman leaned over and whispered in Steele’s ear. He snapped his head back and looked at her intently. She pointed toward the front door. Immediately, Steele grabbed his chips and followed her out of the camera’s field of view.
Ah-hah! The mysterious Vuduri woman who they knew to be helping Troutman and Steele. But why? Who was she and why did she want Rei dead? The mystery deepens.
Entry 5-245: September 2, 2017
Got her!
Yesterday, Rome, Rei and MINIMCOM watched surveillance tapes showing one of the would-be assassins, Dan Steele, meeting with a woman who appeared to be Vuduri. This was important information because their reconstruction of the robbery of the Library showed a woman with a Vuduri accent helping them. Now to put all the pieces back together and figure out their next move:
“Any audio?” Rei asked. “I need to know what she said to him.”
“No,” Andrea replied. “Only video. Sorry.”
Rei stroked his chin. He stared at the image on the screen. “I know it seems like we found something but I don’t think we did. Maybe that he met our mystery woman here.” He turned to Andrea. “Can you tell me who the dealer was? Maybe he or she heard something.”
Tales of the Vuduri_Year Five Page 38