The lady noticed and looked at her. So did the dealer. Balot was riding the crest of the wave. The small cards had drawn the wave out, and now the surfing conditions were ideal for the player.
The cards were dealt. Balot received a 9—and another 9. Her attention immediately turned to the upcard: 7. It was a close call, but she had to go for it.
The lady hit on fifteen and bust. The Doctor had thirteen and also hit, and also bust.
Balot touched the cards with her hands for the first time since she sat had down at the table.
–Split, please.
She used her index fingers on either hand to draw the two cards apart, left and right. Then she placed another pile of chips, equal to her original pile, next to one of the cards. She wasn’t so much concerned about what individual cards would come next as what the pattern was.
The dealer drew her new cards. A jack for the card on her right.
–Stay.
Then, in perfect timing with her breathing, an ace for her left hand. Now she had a total of nineteen for her right hand, twenty for her left. Everyone at the table now expected Balot to win.
–Stay.
Balot watched carefully as the dealer turned his hidden card over. She felt the wave ebbing and flowing. Her head grew hazy, her muscles rigid.
The dealer revealed an 8. Total fifteen. This too was part of the overall pattern—and, as the dealer was now obliged to draw another card, the wave wasn’t over yet.
Balot closed her eyes. What’s the most important thing now? she thought.
She wondered whether she should ask Oeufcoque for advice, but that thought was abruptly checked. The answer had been revealed to her as she opened her eyes.
The dealer had drawn a 6. Total twenty-one—Balot’s hands had both snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Her chips disappeared, her cards disappeared. But Balot wasn’t even watching anymore. It wasn’t as if she had anything to learn from this hand. Yet all had become clear. That was all that mattered. She felt the pattern coming together in intricate detail. It was as if the individual hands were miniatures, microcosms for the game as a whole.
And it wasn’t possible to ignore the miniatures, to skip over the hands as if they somehow obliterated the hands that came before them. They were all interconnected.
The losses—and the winnings—would always remain, after all…
The dealer said something to Balot. Consoling her, perhaps. Then he carried on dealing the cards. No more inducements necessary here, his manner said. My work on this one is well and truly done.
The point tally moved from plus six to plus ten, up to plus fourteen, then back down to plus twelve.
Then Balot felt it again. Like a shadow in the distance, she could just sense its contours taking shape.
Balot checked what the maximum amount was she was allowed to bet, according to Oeufcoque’s bankroll management system. Then she bet the maximum amount. The basic unit was three hundred dollars, so the upper limit was ten times that, three thousand dollars. She piled a number of chips together so that she held this total in her hand, then laid it on the table.
The lady flinched visibly. The dealer, by contrast, showed no outward sign of interest—as was only appropriate for a dealer of his rank and training.
The Doctor whistled appreciatively, and Balot awaited her next hand from behind her three thousand dollar fortress.
The lady and the Doctor were each dealt a 10. The point tally moved from plus twelve to plus ten.
Balot was dealt a 5. This added two points to the tally, bringing it back up to plus twelve.
The point tally continued to rise as she waited for her second card.
Balot’s second card was finally dealt: another 5.
The point tally stood at plus seventeen, and the dealer’s upcard was a 2.
The lady hit, drew an 8, bust.
The Doctor hit. He had a sixteen, drew a 2, and chose to stay.
The point tally was now plus nineteen—the highest it had been since Balot had started counting the cards. Balot’s cards were 5 and 5, a total of ten.
The dealer turned to Balot. Balot called.
–Double down.
The dealer’s eyes narrowed. The lady was stunned. Balot was in fact playing by the book—it was the only sensible move, given her hand and that of the dealer’s. Still, the amount at stake was far above her previous hands… Balot struggled for a moment and had to force herself to physically pile the chips up.
The dealer stared at the pile now on the table in front of Balot—six thousand dollars’ worth of chips. Staked it out, like a hunter his quarry. Mouth watering at the prospect of the sweet, sweet flesh that was being served up to him on a plate. His hand slid over to the card shoe. No sign of foul play—he didn’t appear to be dishing out a pre-prepared dud card from the bottom of the deck.
The card came. For the first time since the game began, Balot actually noticed the suit of the card. It was the queen of clubs. It took her total up to twenty. This was the razor blade hidden inside the sweet flesh of the fruit…
–Stay.
Without further ado the dealer flipped his own card over. Ace of clubs. With his existing 2, the dealer’s total was now thirteen.
He hit again, as prescribed by the rules. It was a 10. The ace in his hand would now be counted as a soft card, its value falling from eleven to one in order to prevent the dealer from going bust. His total now changed to a soft thirteen.
The dealer’s fourth card would prove decisive.
The one-eyed jack. Balot sighed a deep sigh of relief, looking at the profile of the face on the card—the black jack, who pushed the dealer over the edge and caused him to bust.
Balot had gone with the flow. It was the only choice she could have made, really. And yet all it would have taken was for the cards to have shifted slightly, one way or another, and she would have been beaten.
As it was, she’d won.
“Wow! What a hand! Is my little niece secretly a magician or something?” The Doctor made a great fuss over Balot’s victory—the perfect smokescreen.
Balot lifted her head toward him.
–I just thought that my luck was about to turn, Uncle. Just like the nice lady over there said. I was a little scared, though!
Balot did everything she could to imitate the mannerisms of the lady, and indeed this served perfectly to throw the dealer off the scent. After all, hadn’t he just influenced the lady to play recklessly? The lady was even more impressed when the dealer pushed over the two piles of six thousand dollars toward Balot: the original stake and the winnings. The lady was caught up in the moment completely now and practically threw her next lot of chips at the table. She was betting in increments of a thousand dollars at a time. And if she truly thought that her moment had come, that victory was just around the corner—well, who knew how much she would start betting? One thing was for sure, though: the dealer was on his way to find out. He had her wrapped around his little finger and insinuated himself further and further into her mind, consoling her when she lost, praising her on the increasingly rare occasions that she won, all the while dishing out his advice.
The dealer said, “Lady Luck seems to be playing a fickle game tonight, madam. I have a feeling that the person who invests the most in their cards is likely to come out on top in the end.”
The dealer said, “Everyone wants to be in a good position to take advantage of their lucky streak when it comes. Be sure not to let yours slip from your fingers.”