"What?" Yolanda asked.
"Nothing."
"No, something. What's going on?"
"Just something that Marie mind-messaged me. You don't need to know."
This only made Yolanda need to know whatever she didn't know even more. "Why don't you share it with us, Winnie?"
Having now provoked the model of decorum to the point of ordering her to share, Winnie had to share. Not to do so would have been disobedient. Marie helped with the sharing. A Monty Python skit. Complete with funny voices from Marie.
"That was good," William said. "Marie, those voices were..."
"Really irritating," one Wilizy said.
Winnie and Marie shared a glance. Success! "We have another skit to show you."
"Oh dear God of Sanity," Granny implored. "For what we are about to receive, may you please grant us temporary deafness."
Unhappily, the God of Sanity was otherwise occupied. He was probably insanely jealous of Marie's voices.
"I'm trying to eat here," one Wilizy commented on the skit.
"We have one on eating."
When they were finished with the skit, Granny ordered a code of silence around the table. "Don't encourage them. They're trying to make you sick. Just pretend you're a mute. Don't say anything."
Speaking of mutes, Maddy arrived in Bismarck, North Dakota this afternoon. She was 330 miles away from her destination.
That evening, Betsy's underboss received an anonymous text offering to sell Betsy's family insurance that would protect them from damage to their liquor business. Everybody assumed that Annie's family was behind the threat so they were not invited to a face-to-face meeting of the three other sisters and their underbosses. The judge remained mute on the subject.
# # # # # # # #
April 18 was the night of the big dance in Penticton. With his mom back in Toronto, Reese didn't have to explain to anybody why he had dressed himself all in black and had slipped out of the compound without saying anything to anybody. He'd be invisible in a darkened gym. Zorro without the mask or sword.
Reese flew aimlessly above the large crowd in the gym during most of the dance. The dance had been for grade 6 students only. This had been by intent. The students in grades 7 and 8 had gotten past the inhibition about touching people of the opposite gender; the teachers didn't want to expose the 6s to such temptations yet.
Reese wondered what the big hype had been about this dance. The music was playing to a big crowd – all of them standing on the sidelines. There had been some balloons tied to different pieces of gym equipment but the boys had managed to burst all of those. Girls were flocked together in fillips of fragrant, frilly frocks of femininity.
The boys had tired of wrestling and cavorting. They were mostly sitting on the gym floor watching two pairs of teachers doing something very boring to the music. The girls weren't sitting on the gym floor because each of them was wearing a new dress. Moms had decreed that getting it dirty was not an option. Some were even wearing shoes with a heel on them; most were carrying the shoes in their hands. Getting their bare feet dirty was an option when their feet were killing them.
"This will be the last dance," a bored voice intoned on the PA system.
The girl assigned by her friends to take care of the lighting for the last dance was standing next to the switches. She flipped all of the switches off. The teacher assigned by the principal to make sure the gym was never completely dark, flipped two of them back on. The four teachers who had been dancing came off the floor. Everybody waited. Who would make the first move?
Some big football dude wandered across the gym. A water fountain was over there somewhere. He was only going for a drink. Perhaps he'd stop on the way to say Hello to one of the girls. He did. She agreed and he strolled nonchalantly onto the dance floor – the girl looking back at her friends and making faces to them. Why him of all people?
Water seeps gradually into grass. Boys move more slowly than seeping water when they have to ask a girl to dance. Reese timed it so that he'd be in the middle of the crowd seeping across the gym floor.
"I thought you weren't going to show up," Annika said.
"No, I said I'd be here," Reese replied. When the music started, they put their hands just so (Mac had been the one to show Reese how to start dancing), and began to dance together. Grade 6 boys know enough about what they're supposed to do to shuffle their feet minutely in one direction or the other. The girls tried to go in the same direction as the boys for a while but eventually gave up. Keeping time with the music was something else they had to give up on too.
Guys – in case you don't know this – girls learn how to dance by dancing with each other first. They are good at it. You don't practice. You're not good at it.
When the first minute of the dance was ending, the couples dancing on the floor were far enough apart that Bubba Franklin (remember him?) could have walked between them and not touched either. In the second minute, the gap closed.
The music for the last dance had been carefully chosen. The girl making the choice opted for the song that lasted seven minutes. The principal had a different idea. Three minutes, no more.
Reese noticed that Annika was now dancing closer to him. He looked around. Other couples had given up on the dance where you hold each other's hands. All the other dancers were now attached together differently. The girls had their arms around the guys' waists; the guys had their arms around the girls' shoulders. Annika pulled her hands out of Reese's hands and put her arms around his waist. Reese had very little choice about this. Should he just let his arms dangle? He put his arms around Annika's shoulders instead. She moved even closer to him.
Reese could feel the little wisps of hair from Annika's curls touching his ears. Then more of her hair was touching his ears. With thirty seconds to go, face-to-face contact had been won. Annika's temple and cheek were touching Reese's temple and check. They swayed together. Reese felt the warmth of her face next to his. Annika felt the warmth of his face next to hers. Both were wondering if the other had noticed that little droplets of sweat had emerged on their temples. Both noticed. Neither cared.
The last stanza of the music was accompanied by a sudden eruption of light in the gym and dancing bodies split apart as though they had been spring-loaded. Girls started to clutter together so that they could share their last dance experiences on their way home. Guys remembered that they had forgotten to walk the dog and beat a hasty retreat out of embarrassment over such a slip-up. Annika and Reese were momentarily alone in the center of the gym. Neither knew what was supposed to happen next. All of their attention in the dance instruction lessons each had received at home had been on learning the mechanics of dancing. Who knew all you had to do was sway?
"Would you walk me home, Reese?" Annika resolved the dilemma with a direct request. Reese wanted to but he was still locked into remembering the touch of her face against his.
"OK, I guess," he said, not wanting to be too anxious lest she think of him as a pervert for letting their faces touch. On the way out of the gym, Annika's hand brushed against his and Reese found himself holding her hand all the way to her locker.
On the way home, it was just natural for Reese to sneak his hand next to hers and then snatch it. After all, they had been holding hands during the dance. Annika didn't seem to mind. They didn't have much to say on the walk. Both were wondering what would happen at the door. At least, that's what Annika was wondering. Reese was thinking that he didn't want the walk to end.
When they reached Annika's house, they found a darkened front door. The light must have burnt out.
"Thank you for dancing with me," Annika said. And because the word dance had been uttered, it was perfectly natural for her to put her arms around his waist, just like they had been in the dance.
Once again, Reese had a dilemma. He couldn't just let his arms dangle. But what if her mom were looking out the front window? (Annika's mom wasn't looking out the window; but she was in the
living room and had seen the two figures merging into one.) Reese decided that it would be OK to put his arms around Annika's shoulders. He had done this at the dance and she hadn't stopped him.
Then, because they had done this at the dance, both heads moved inwards and cheek touched cheek. They hung together while Annika's mom became increasingly perturbed and started to consider turning on the porch light. But if she did, Annika wouldn't speak to her for a week. She was the one who had turned it off.
There's a certain male instinct that kicks in when a male cheek is pressed against a female cheek. The male's instinct is to turn his face inwards. Reese didn't know that this instinct existed, nor did he know what he was doing. He turned his face inwards and his lips brushed against Annika's cheek. She stepped back at that point. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yah."
Annika turned and went into her house. Reese turned around and walked away. He didn't hear Annika's mom say "Well?" to her daughter. He also didn't hear Annika tell her mom that she didn't want to talk about it.
In baseball, everybody knows that the pitcher will be throwing the ball towards home plate. Sometimes the batter swings and hits the ball solidly through the infield and trots down to first base. Sometimes the batter swings and misses. And sometimes, the batter swings and connects with the ball, but only partially. In these situations, the batter may go a few feet down the line to first base, watching the ball as it flies through the air. Will it stay fair? Or will it go foul?
Reese had been half way down the line to first base when the umpire had called, Foul Ball! Reese didn't mind. He thought about that cheek-to-cheek touch all the way home. Reese didn't realize that he had almost made it to first base. Annika was disappointed, but as far as she was concerned, Reese was still at bat.
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Chapter 32
Melissa's second attack on the four families started on Sunday, April 21 and ended the same day. The target was the centerpiece of Christy's operations – the big casino. All of Toronto's elite frequented this lavishly decorated two-storey building. The first floor contained all the gambling tables and machines; the second floor held Christy's staff who were charged with watching everything happening below, finding the cheaters, photographing them, and escorting them out of the building. The basement held the vault. Fully 75% of Christy's revenue came from profits from the rich and powerful. The non-rich and non-powerful gambled in Christy's small dens or placed bets with her bookies.
Christy had installed a wide variety of gambling attractions in the casino, all of them capable of pulling money out of the pockets of the wealthy. Every gaming table required the guest to buy chips and use those instead of real money. The smallest chip you could buy cost $5; the largest cost $5,000. Whether it was the roulette wheel, or the black jack table, or the poker tables – every table was rigged to be in favour of the house, that is, in favour of Christy. In other words, Christy cheated. Big time.
The most lucrative of all of the tables was the high stakes poker table where only five patrons were allowed to sit at a time. This table had no limit on the size of the bet that patrons could make. A player with a lot of chips in front of him might be able to buy the win simply by raising the bid beyond what his opponent could cover. However nobody at the table was dumb enough to show how much money he actually had. Players came to the game with large briefcases and they would hide their briefcases under the table when they had to dip into them. They didn't know that Christy had cameras built into the undersides of the table specifically so that they could see inside those suitcases.
The wealthy saw this table as an opportunity to satisfy their bloodlust without actually killing anybody. It was a very popular table and spectators crowded around when somebody was winning big. Christy liked that table too. It brought in 25% of her casino's revenue. My readers might ask how a table where wealthy patrons played against each other could bring the house so much money. This table was different. The five patrons sitting around the table didn't play against each other. They'd take turns playing a hand against the casino itself, in the form of the person sitting behind the sign that said: Warning: I am a professional poker player. The wealthy took that as a challenge. They had a chance to beat a pro. They didn't know that they also had to beat Christy's sensors that were reading the vital signs of the five schmucks sitting nervously around that table waiting to be fleeced. When the stakes got high, the pro player merely looked at a certain bank of lights that only he could see. Various flashing lights would tell him if his opponent was nervous, excited, or despondent. Within that combination of lights, he'd also be able to tell how strong that emotion was.
High stakes games started at 2:00 in the afternoon and the table closed at 2:00 in the morning. The casino's pros would work four-hour shifts. Few amateurs lasted through a shift. On this day, five non-Torontonians would play poker against Christy; a sixth foreigner would be an interested spectator. The six non-Torontonians were professionals too, of a sort. Since Christy was cheating at the game, so would these six. It would come down to who was best at cheating.
Doc would start at 2:00 p.m., Stu at about 4:00, Momaka at about 6:00, TG at about 8:00, and a very pregnant Mac at 10:00. Wizard had used the pause in the battles to go back to Alberta and bring back a large chunk of the Wilizy's available wealth. He also brought back a lot of nervousness. Wizard knew enough about poker to realize that it was a game of chance. Get the right cards and you might have a chance to win. Get the wrong cards, and you could lose big. Wizard's business investments were not based on random chance. He and Mac had a long talk. She explained the strategy behind betting and how it was possible to recover from a poor hand. Wiz wasn't buying it. "Far too risky!" he exclaimed. "Why don't you and I play a couple of hands," Mac replied.
In the end, Wizard agreed to fund the game for the first three Wilizy players. If they had won some money, they could use that money to play further. If they had lost badly, Melissa would stop the operation.
The poker played at this table went like this. When it was his turn to face the pro, the player would receive one card face down and another card face up. The pro would be dealt cards in similar fashion. After that, the player and the pro would bet on whether they thought that they'd win the hand or not based on what the first two cards told them. Then a third card would be dealt – face up. Then more betting. A fourth card would follow – face up. By this time, both players would have a reasonable idea how good (or bad) the hands could be. Betting could become intense at this point. Three cards would be up, one card would be down. The last card, the fifth card, was dealt down. At that point, the betting could become bloodthirsty.
Mac and TG had been teaching Doc, Stu, and Momaka how to play this variation of poker on and off for several days. They now knew which was the best hand, which was the next best and so on. That order was: straight flush was best, four of a kind next, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card. If the reader is not familiar with the game of poker, you don't need to know what these names mean. I mention them only to emphasize that poker is a very complicated game. None of these three Wilizy had ever played it before. TG had played poker and he knew math very well too. Mac had played it most of her life. It's what Saskatchewan soldiers did when they had free time. Mac had started playing the game when she was 8 years old. If they had allowed her to bet anything other than match sticks, she would have owned half of Saskatchewan's army by now.
Winnie was the interested spectator that I had mentioned. She'd be hovering invisibly above the table, reading what was in the pro's head and describing the pro's hand to every Wilizy listening in, including Mac. Winnie would also tell the Wilizy followers what their own player's cards were. It would be like listening to a real baseball game, but without the boredom. Mac would be back in the ship, relaxing as much as a very pregnant woman could relax. Through Winnie's observations, she could mind-message Doc, Stu, and Momaka how much to bet and when to fold. T
hey were there to pretend to be a certain kind of player. Mac was actually playing the hand from a distance. She'd personally take the last shift of games if necessary.
# # # # # # # #
Doc played for an hour and a half. He pretended to be a very nervous player. The sensors told the pro that he was very nervous. Doc didn't have to act – he was very nervous because of the amount of money involved. Doc was even nervous when, near the end of his shift, he was holding a straight – a 10, 9, 8, 7, and 6 of mixed hearts and clubs. This is a reasonably strong hand. When Mac saw the straight developing, she kept Doc raising the bet by a small amount when he could. The pro saw three queens in his own hand. This was a fairly good hand, but he also had a chance to add a pair, making it a full house. This would be a winning hand against a straight. The three queens were also a bettable hand. The pro bet aggressively. When all five cards had been dealt, Doc had a guaranteed win but only the Wilizy knew that. Meanwhile, the sensors were informing the pro that his opponent was very nervous. The pro interpreted this nervousness as a sign that Doc was bluffing. (Bluffing is pretending to have a good hand when you don't have one.) The pro kept building the pot higher and higher, adding thousands at a time. Doc nervously increased the bid a little bit too. The higher the pile of chips on the table, the more nervous he became. "He's bluffing, he's bluffing," the spy in the sky messaged the pro. Eventually the bidding stopped. Doc walked away from the table with $50,000. Security guards from the casino offered to accompany Doc to his hotel room. Doc wisely declined the offer and disappeared.
# # # # # # # #
Stu had reluctantly agreed to be part of the operation. Stu didn't understand the game at all, so his most evident emotion in the sensory data being collected was one of confusion. He deliberately emphasized that emotion and his ignorance by asking the pro questions like – Is a straight better than a flush? Stu was winning, but the sensory data that he was projecting told the spy in the sky that he didn't know why he was winning. And truly, Stu didn't know why he was winning. He didn't pay any attention to the cards in front of him, he just did what Mac told him to do. At a rest break, the pro reassured his bosses that the guy was just lucky. If they kept him betting, he'd run out of luck.