Weekend at Prism

by John Patrick Kavanagh

  Not appearing on the corporation’s annual statements but believed to also be controlled by him was a mélange of other activities which, as hard as he’d tried, Bernardini—much less anyone else—couldn’t verify. There was a discreet pharmaceutical firm that apparently didn’t even possess a name which allegedly produced an unconventional line of products including performance enhancers, hormone therapies and recreational drugs. Some of the latest were referred to as luciole, the French term for firefly. Supposedly a quartet of concoctions with individual qualities focused on the enhancement of mental, physical, psychological and sexual well-being, and customized based on the user’s DNA, they were said to be in great demand though only available on an invitation basis.

  In addition were the Auroras, a quintessential stable of ultra high-priced call girls rumored to be some of the most beautiful surgically enhanced women on earth who were also said to possess a satchel of sexual skills that could demand 40,000 euros for a two hour consultation up to in excess of 100,000 for a 16 hour sleepover.

  Finally was a bookmaking operation that covered virtually any wager a customer wished to place provided a minimum of 10,000 euros was brought to the table.

  Franklin Potcheck, despite his conservative leanings, apparently hadn’t noticed these footnotes on St. Honore’s resume or had chosen to ignore them, his unrelenting desire for Prism to be The most spectacular megaresort/casino ever to have existed evidently shading the decision process. The details of their agreement were unknown, though some industry gossip pointed to a contract locked in a vault of an offshore tax haven that granted St. Honore a piece of the action in return for his advice, expertise and execution abilities. Others speculated that the arrangement might be more complicated, a popular theory holding that a stock swap was involved, much as had been the case when Potcheck Enterprises Games had initially landed Standoff! on Pinkiefinger’s runway then seamlessly soon became its majority owner, folding the now ubiquitous internet/social media concern into PEG’s portfolio.

  “Charles!” St. Honore said, extending his arms for an embrace. “What a clair pleasure to finally meet you in person!”

  They hugged and exchanged cheek kisses, then held each other’s hands at arm’s-length, shaking them firmly.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Claude,” Bernardini smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to this for months.”

  “Please,” he said, gesturing to a pair of facing chairs on either side of a glass coffee table. “Let us sit and discuss our personal and professional interests.”

  The entrepreneur had contacted him the previous spring, proposing that he join the already assembled team of experts from all manner of disciplines brought aboard the Prism juggernaut to assure the launch came off without a hitch. Though St. Honore had been vague in their early conversations as to exactly what role he wanted Bernardini to play, The Traveler’s keen interest in Standoff! and the exceptionally lucrative retainer that had been proffered was more than enough of an incentive for him to clear his dance card for the rest of the year except for a trio of lesser projects in which he was already engaged. By mid-summer the assignment had begun to focus on a broad range of internal security subjects and in early October St. Honore first raised his nagging premonition that despite the WST’s overlappingly redundant and highly specialized counter-manipulation measures, somebody somewhere was going to attempt to game the game. Not so much for the $100 million winner-take-all pot one of the Final Four would earn; that was chump change compared to the tens of billions of dollars that were expected to be wagered on the eventual outcome and the multitude of proposition bets that would be available legally and otherwise across the planet. With a sophisticated scheme including teams of couriers, shrewd calculations, a substantial bankroll and most of all covert and controlling knowledge, the potential payoff was essentially unlimited.

  During a long video conference in late November between the two, the target was set in cement: stopping The Big Fix.

  “How was your flight this morning?”

  “I cannot recall ever traveling in so…such luxurious surroundings.”

  “Which craft were you on?”

  “L’Oscine.”

  “Ah. She is one of my favorites.” He paused. “Would you like some refreshment?”

  “Perhaps an espresso?”

  “Ellie?” he called. “Deux exprimees, s’il vous plais.”

  “Oui,” she called back.

  The two men spoke for a few moments about Prism until the café was delivered. Then St. Honore raised his in a toast. “To our mutual successes.”

  “Salute.”Bernardini made a noise. “So where shall we begin?”

  “In newspaper stories, the first paragraph always contains six ingredients, yes?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  “Who, what, where, when, why and how.”

  “Ah. I have had my learning moment for the day.”

  They both laughed.

  “All right,” Bernardini began. “Let’s take them in that order.”

  The Who—at least the first set—were the Final Four: Nicholas Kerensky, Ronnie Young Chang, Sarah Easton and Ceriac Lascaux, all of them having begun as one of the over 200,000 players that had started in the Local tournaments and now were the only ones left standing, which he stated was certainly no accident. Though the luck of the draw played a major part in Standoff! just as it did in many games, their skills were unquestionable. Bernardini had had every hand in every game they’d played analyzed, in addition to feeding the results into an algorithmic shadow program that had replayed them each over 10,000 times to see if any anomalies surfaced. Virtually none did. As they rose through the brackets, all of their play became incrementally more refined and except for Easton’s, more aggressive.

  As soon as they’d prevailed in the four semifinal Territorials, they’d all signed contracts with PEG essentially making them wards of the state, and extremely closely watched ones at that. Twenty-four hour security and minders, all telephone, computer and personal communications or interactions monitored along with those of the three assistants they were each allowed. They’d been subjected to interrogations, lie detector tests and invasive physicals. They’d all been flown to Las Vegas a week earlier, each set up in four bedroom suites and required to complete an agenda each evening covering their proposed schedule for the following day in 30 minute increments.

  If someone was going to get to them, it would have had to have happened before the Territs, which was highly unlikely.

  The other Who were the potential perpetrators out to rig the outcome of the World Tournament’s finale. While some domestic and international gambling syndicates, known experts in fraudulent transactions, organized crime syndicates and even a few Mom and Pop operations garnered attention, nothing obvious surfaced on the big screen. The most likely possibilities, Bernardini surmised, would be either outliers or insiders, but even those he dismissed, especially in light of the airtight, multiple barriers to malfeasance Potcheck and St. Honore had begun erecting months before.

  “I was hoping you would have found some roach I could have had exterminated,” St. Honore said with a grin.

  The What was obviously the Big Fix.

  The Where was 32 floors below in the Tournament Room.

  The When would begin that afternoon and end on New Year’s Day evening.

  The Why was the easiest—possibly billions of dollars in profits.

  The How was the most compelling of the facets in Bernardini’s opinion, and he outlined some of his theories. In order for it to work, there would have to be a fixer and an accomplice, though not necessarily a willing or even knowing accomplice. For instance, the shadow program had demonstrated that if three of the Final Four were—for whatever reason—thrown off their typical play by as small as five or six percent, the remaining contestant would have more than an 89% probability of emerging the Standoff! World Champion, with the percentages declining if, say, only two weren’t up to snuff. Like
wise, if one of the players acquired a new edge in their mental acuities for whatever reason, the likelihood of them prevailing would be substantially elevated.

  Cheating had been around since the first game or sport had been played however, and the tried and true method of beating the system was with a participant being in on the ruse. In games such as Standoff!, as with its inspiration poker, knowledge of the hands being held by opponents was the preferred key to winning, however that knowledge was acquired. The ways to manipulate a 52 card deck were almost too numerous to count, from marking them to changing their order to dealing from the bottom and beyond. With the 66 tiles employed in each hand of Standoff! and the elaborate, foolproof shuffling mechanisms that were already in place, it was doubtful that would produce a viable avenue.

  Therefore, the logical strategy would be a player receiving information about the other three from some unknown source via a method so discreet and devious that it couldn’t be detected. They explored some of the methodologies that could be brought to bear, St. Honore dismissing each of the possibilities proposed as not sufficient to overcome what he mordantly characterized as “pipe dreams of losers.”

  “Do I have the pleasure of meeting Monsieur Bernardini?” he heard a woman’s voice ask in a mild French accent. Looking up, he immediately recognized the knockout making the request. Quickly standing, he stepped across, accepted her hand and chivalrously kissed it.

  “Madame St. Honore. Enchante.”

  She regarded him playfully. “No, Monsieur. Madam-moiselle.”

  He made a noise, looked to the floor, then to St. Honore, then finally back to her. “I…please excuse me. I’ve seen your photograph. A number of them.” He hesitated. “I could not be mistaken. Your beauty is beyond compare.” He thought a beat. “You are maybe a… sister? A twin sister?”

  “This is my daughter Claudette, Charles,” St. Honore put in.

  He looked to the man, then back to her. He’d seen pictures of Claudette, some taken on her 15th birthday the year before. While she wasn’t an unattractive girl, her appearance couldn’t begin to rival that of her mother Gabrielle who, though now approaching 40, remained as glamorously fetching as she was when she’d married her father at age 21.

  “I meant no harm, Claudette,” he apologized. “You’ve…matured a great deal since your last birthday.”

  “None taken. I’m flattered.”

  An aide stepped into the room and leaned to whisper a short message to his employer. St. Honore nodded then stood. “Charles? A matter of importance demands my attention. Could we continue our conversation at another time?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you honor me…honor us by sharing dinner tonight then enjoy the concert in my box?”

  “I’d…your generosity and understanding of my foolishness is greatly appreciated.”

  “5:30?”

  “Of course.”

  “Claudette? Could you escort Charles to the door?”

  “Surement, father.”

  She extended her hand. “Monsieur?”

  Bernardini took it. “Mademoiselle.” He nodded respectfully. “Grazie.”

  Chapter Six

  Spotswood was almost to the elevators when he heard his trans give three alert tone beeps informing there was incoming WST news, so he checked it.

  LASCAUX MIGHT WALK OUT!

  Sources indicated to the Las Vegas Sun that Boo Lascaux was threatening to miss the call to the post if he wasn’t allowed to wear one of two arrowheads that had belonged to his mother.

  The tournament referees had earlier ruled that nothing made of metal would be allowed into the game room for the tournament, a provision to which all the players had previously agreed. The Final Four had even provided the clothes they planned to wear at all four rounds so that any metal—zippers, buttons, fasteners - could be replaced by the sponsors with plastic substitutes, along with securing eyewear for each of the contestants with no metals in the frames.

  The arrowheads weren’t metal, but had silver bezels attached to the silver necklaces Lascaux refused to alter. Hearing of this complaint, Kerensky stated he wished to wear his award from “the Generous Russian People,” then Easton chimed in with her desire to sport a piece-of-eight talisman taken from the Cervantes. Chang was just anxious to begin play and the refs were examining possible options to avoid any hiccups.

  Spotswood and Denny had to take the elevator down to the lobby to get back up to the 29th floor, the one on 27 only going a floor higher before it ran out of buttons. In the lobby he was questioned by a guard who asked him to explain his interest in going to one of the 4B floors and wasn’t allowed to continue until he flashed his AAA All Access ID. When the door opened at the destination, he was met by another guard, this one wearing a pistol, and a buxom, suspicious looking woman with a mahogany complexion, both dressed in Prism black.

  “Good morning,” she greeted them. “Hidden. Good morning and what can we do for you today, Mr. Spotswood?”

  “I’m expected…by Miss Cramer and Mr. Stanton?” He showed them the AAA. Denny chuckled and took a seat, grabbing a magazine.

  “One moment,” she replied, punching four numbers into her phone and whispering unintelligible words. Hanging up, she raised an index finger.

  Another woman soon appeared and escorted him down the long, high-arched hallway, passing doors marked 1,1,2,2, stopping at 3. The woman knocked twice and a voice sounding like Christie’s called, “Come in.” The escort opened the door and was dismissed as another familiar voice yelled: “Thank you, Melissa. We’re in here, Jipster.”

  He felt a floating feeling, the headiness of the fact he was about to walk into the lair of two of the most popular entertainers in the world, yet to him now also old friends. He stepped through a large sitting area that opened onto an extensive living room. Seated on a couch near the floor-to-ceiling windows were the three monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. They held their poses for five seconds, then burst into laughter, Hear No Evil dropping from her position to one knee on the floor.

  “Come on, Cam,” See No Evil said, pulling her back onto the couch. “On the eight.” He lowered his head and began to snap fingers across his body, the accomplices also bowing theirs, swaying slightly with the rhythm.

  On the beat after the eighth, they stood in unison and looked at Spotswood, each holding up the palm of their right hands.

  “Stop! In the name of smell,” they sang in a shaky three-part harmony, then snapped their fingers as they finished, “or you might go to hell.”

  The two women collapsed to the couch in more laughter, the leader of the prank running to the other side of the room to pick up a four foot long, Plexiglas reproduction of a Boom Stick Deodorant tube. He held it against his crotch, pointing it back and forth at his confederates, then their guest, samba-ing back toward them while making Ah-ooo-Ga noises. Five feet in front of Spotswood he stopped, handing him the phallus and remarking in a bad Bronx accent: “Take my wienerwurst... Please.”

  The two other monkeys howled again, Spotswood examining the weapon and advising its owner, “Not in your wildest dreams, Boomer.”

  Stanton ran to a corner to gather a gallon jug of Germ-X and some towels then returning, pumped a few dollops onto his fingers, rubbed them vigorously and finally wiped off the excess.

  “I’ve gotten over that,” Spotswood chuckled.

  “No kiddin’? How?”

  “Therapy.”

  Stanton stretched out his hand and he grabbed it, giving it a strong, up-and-down, back-and forth stage shake. “How you doin’, Jipster?”

  “Okay, Mick. How about you?”

  “Back in the saddle.”

  Hear No Evil jumped from the couch, ran to the end of the room then ran back, stopping just a few feet away, offering open arms and growling: “Come to me, you little devil.”

  He embraced her. “How are you, Cammy McStanton?”

  “Oh, it’s so good to see you, Jip,” she replied, hugging
him harder, then stepping back. “And you don’t look like you’ve aged more than a minute or so!”

  Stanton put his hand on top of her head and rotated her, admonishing his wife to be nice to the company. Spotswood turned as the oldest friend of the three approached barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans and a powder blue sweatshirt, her hair pulled up in a high, messy ponytail.

  “Hello, Jonathan,” she said, placing her hands on the back of his neck and pulling him forward, her cheek resting against his. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too. I’m always glad to be with you.”

  “Now let’s not get sooooo romantic!” Stanton warned, picking up the prop and presenting it again. “Here. You want romance? You got romance.” He set the tube down, holding up a hand. “Wait a second, Jip. Check this out for the next campaign.” He turned away, cleared his throat then turned back, staring at him as if into a camera, saying in a measured pitchman’s voice, “Have you ever wondered what that odd, musky aroma is after you’ve spent a few hours making love to a friend on a 90 degree day in a mobile home trailer parked in the Nevada desert?”

  “No, no, no!” Cam screamed as she dropped to the floor, laughing as she pounded both fists on the thick carpet. “Don’t do this one again!”

  Stanton smiled down at her and shook his head.

  “So, anyway,” he continued, returning his eyes to Spotswood’s. “Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever walked into a room occupied by your ex-girlfriend and an Australian Aborigine who goes by the name of Carlos, who owns a pair of 737s, three professional sports teams and an autographed picture of The Beatles, not to mention the note on your house, and smelt that same fragrance, and wondered what was going on?”