by Alan Cook
Chapter 32
I arrived at James's place in my rental car just
before seven. Arrow pulled into the driveway
ahead of me. We walked up the steps together.
I had decided not to tell Arrow about Flora Sung
because doing that would be tantamount to
telling my father and the whole world.
I was feeling better about Arrow being there. I
said to her, "Are you going to solve the puzzle
tonight or am I going to have to do it?"
She said, "The Arrow approach is to bull your
way in."
"Like Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian
knot."
Stan answered our ring and I wondered whether
he would let us in at all. He did, without even
giving us the puzzle. Either Arrow had set a
precedent or you didn't need to solve the
puzzle when you were in the middle of a bet.
Stan met us at the bottom of the stairs. He
gave Arrow a hug and shook my hand. I didn't
detect any animosity toward me, but that didn't
mean it wasn't there.
He did say to me, "I understand you're going to
come to work for us."
"If he loses," Arrow said. "But he's not going to
lose."
Stan laughed and said, "If we had voted for the
most determined student in grad school you
would have won. But I'm afraid you can't
substitute determination for luck."
But my luck, or rather my skill, was working and
I increased my stake to $3,000 in a relatively
short time. Only $1,000 to go. At that point Arrow
made me take a break, even though I was hot.
"I don't know what you mean by hot," Arrow said
after we sat down. "I took statistics in grad
school and I know that each trial is independent
of all others. Each throw of the dice, each deal
of the cards, has no relationship to what
happened on the previous throw or deal. So
there's no such thing as hot."
I grinned sheepishly and said, "I guess you really
did learn something at Stanford."
"One thing I know that I didn't learn in school is
that the longer you play the harder it will be for
you to maintain concentration. Therefore, I
suggest the following: Bet small until the odds
swing in your favor. Then bet a thousand or
whatever you need to win."
"In other words, all or nothing."
"Not quite. If you lose you'll still be ahead of your
original stake."
The more we discussed this the better it sounded.
I went back to the table determined to try to win
quickly while Arrow kept an exact count of my
chips. The opportunity came three deals later.
Toward the end of the deck the odds swung
radically in my favor.
I nudged Arrow. We did a quick calculation and
pulled out the chips I needed to reach $4,000.
If the dealer was surprised at my bet he didn't
show it. He dealt two cards each to the other
two players, to me and to himself. His up-card
was a six.
This was the best of all possible worlds. I
cautiously looked at my cards. A king and a
jack. I mentally counted my money. The other
players didn't take any hits and neither did I.
The dealer flipped over his down card. It was a
five. He dealt himself a jack. Twenty-one. I had lost.
# # # #
"Are you ready for your comeback?" Arrow asked.
She had made me stop playing for a full half-hour
to regain my composure. She had taken the loss
much more lightly than I had, but of course she
had a lot less to lose. I still had about $2,000,
double my original stake, so I could have been
in worse shape.
"What do you think about me betting the whole
thing at the next good opportunity?" I asked.
"That would really be win or lose. No, I can't let
you do that. Based on the rules of capital
preservation, which you, yourself, taught me,
I think your maximum bet for the moment should
be $100, until you build up your capital again. Don't
worry; I'll stick with you as long as it takes."
I agreed to this strategy, went back to the
table and immediately started losing. I knew
there was no such thing as hot or cold, but if
there had been I was an iceberg. Soon I had
less than my original thousand. We took another
break.
"There's nothing wrong with your strategy," Arrow
said. "You're playing the same game you were
before. All I can think of is one of your own quotes:
If you play games of chance long enough you'll see
every combination that is statistically possible."
"It's very comforting that my own wisdom explains
why I'm dying," I said. "Well, we might as well get
it over with."
It didn't take long. I lost my last dollar as
someone sang about that old Bilbao moon. Bilbao,
Spain. I wished I were there instead of here.
Arrow patted me on the back like a mother
patting a child. She didn't say anything. There
was nothing to say.
The dealer must have pushed a button or
something because James immediately
appeared out of nowhere. He shook my hand
and said, "I'm told you played very well. The
fates just weren't with you tonight. Let's the
three of us sit down for a minute. I want to
ask you a question."
I was too stunned to do anything but obey. We
talked about the gods of chance until our drinks
appeared, including a margarita for Arrow who
had decided it was time to fall off the wagon.
"I have a question for you," I told James. "What
is it that you're always drinking? If I'm going to
work for you I have to know things like that."
"Of course you do," he said, smiling. "It's water."
"Perrier, or some other designer brand?"
James shook his head. "I reserve the Perrier for
my guests. I drink tap water. I learned in school
that water is water, H2O, and there's not much
you can do to it, and since the city of San
Francisco assures me that the tap water has
no dangerous levels of carcinogens in it, why
not? I drank it in Scotland and I can drink it
here."
If I was going to go to work for James I needed
to make arrangements with him. I was about to
mention that when he started talking again.
"What I want to know," he said, "is what question
you wanted to ask me that was so important
that you were willing to risk having to work for
me for a year to ask it. Although working for
me is not going to be as bad as you seem
to think."
"It doesn't matter now," I said. I was
formulating a vague plan about infiltrating
James' organization from the inside and
solving the murder.
"Ask me the question, Karl. Who knows, I might
even answer it."
Why not? What could he do, fire me? Or have me
killed sooner than he would, otherwise? Actually,
asking the question with Arrow there was a
relatively safe thing to do. I cleared my throat
and said, "What I want to know is...the
question is, did you have anything at all to do
with the murder of Ned?"
I watched James' face closely. He looked
flabbergasted at first. Then, slowly, a smile
spread across his face and he started to
chuckle. Finally, he turned sober and said, "I'm
glad we got this out in the open. What kind of
an animal do you think I am? Okay, it's true that
I prey on people, on their dreams and hopes and
fears. On their abiding faith that they can beat
the odds. But I don't kill them. That wouldn't be
sporting."
He sounded so sincere that he had me convinced,
at least for the moment.
Arrow said, "Karl isn't the only one who has
considered that possibility. I have, too. Can you
prove you didn't kill Ned?"
James became irritated. "Do you mean, do I have
an alibi? As Karl can tell you, I was here with him
around the time it happened. But that doesn't
mean I couldn't have ordered it done. If I had
I probably wouldn't have told people that the
drugs found in Ned's car looked like a setup. Why
would I help to refute my own misleading evidence?
"But more than that, I had no reason to kill Ned.
As you two know, we grew up together, worked
together, played together, even shared Elma."
He smiled. "I might have had a better motive to
kill him then than I do now. It's true that Ned and
I were talking about Dionysus. We had our
differences and might not have reached an
agreement. But that's business.
"If I killed people because of business
disagreements I'd be the leading serial killer of
all time. Besides, Ned started acting a little crazy
before he died and I wasn't sure I even wanted
to do business with him."
"So you won't have me killed if I don't deliver
Elma's proxy," I said.
James smiled again and said, "No. But I might
ask you to work for me for an additional year.
I suspect that you and I can make a lot more
money together than that baseball card is worth.
You have good instincts and you're not afraid to
take chances. All I have to do is train you to take
chances when the odds are in your favor."
# # # #
"I completely screwed everything up." I didn't say
this directly to Arrow, although she was the only
person within earshot. It was a general statement
to the universe. We were standing next to Arrow's
rental car, after having left the casino.
"Talk to your father, Karl. Tell him that you
didn't try to get Elma to change her proxy. You
didn't undermine him. He'll respect that."
"Even if he believes me, how can I explain why
I'm working for James when I won't work for him?"
"Lots of kids don't want to work for their fathers.
You haven't done anything to hurt Dionysus, that's
the main thing. In fact, you have been trying to
solve Ned's murder. And you and I gathered the
evidence that swung Elma's proxy over to Richard."
My behavior had been Jekyll-and-Hyde toward my
father, toward Dionysus. I wasn't proud of it. In
addition, I had ethical questions about working for
James, even though I knew I would learn a lot. I
needed time alone. My head was a swirling mass
of confusion.
I said goodnight to Arrow. She patted me on
the shoulder again. She had become my mother.
After she drove away I checked my rental car
to make sure it wasn't blocking anybody. I didn't
feel like driving; I needed to walk.
The route to my hotel went steeply uphill at first.
That was good. It would get my heart pumping,
help me exhale the poisons from my body. Soon
I was panting in fine style.
My mind went back to what James had said. Could
I believe him? If he wasn't Ned's murderer, who was?
Maybe I could find out more by working for him. If
there was anything to find out. But it would give
me a purpose in working for James.
I went over the top of the hill and down the other
side. After a while the road became less steep. A car
drove slowly past me and stopped some distance
ahead, in a driveway, since the legal parking places
were filled. The driver got out and came up on the
sidewalk. He stood there in the dark. I would have
to walk past him.
I thought about Ned. Was this man a mugger?
No, Ned was killed by the gangbangers. Still,
mugging was always a possibility. Did muggers drive
late-model German cars? Only if they had stolen
them.
I had to make a decision about turning around or
crossing the street. Then I recognized Stan. Or
thought I did. He moved and a ray from a
streetlight shone on his face. It was definitely
Stan.
As I approached he said, "Why are you walking?
Let me give you a ride."
"Did you follow me?" I asked.
"I saw your car at the house after you left. I figured
maybe you had car trouble and decided to walk
rather than bother us. I knew your approximate
route because I drove you back to your hotel
before. So I took a chance. At first I didn't
recognize you because the parked cars blocked
my view. Then I got a good look at you in the
rear-view mirror."
"I'm walking on purpose," I said. "There's nothing
wrong with my car."
"But how will you get your car?"
"I'll pick it up in the morning."
"Well, I've come this far so let me take you
to your hotel. It's dangerous to walk this late
at night."
He had a point. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I got
in the car when he opened the door. As he
started it I said, "Nice car. Is it yours?"
"Of course. Whose did you think it was?"
"When you drove me back to the hotel before,
I guess I somehow assumed it belonged to James."
"Why should I drive his car when I can afford
my own? With Tartan stock doing so well I've
made a ton of money on my options. You will
too. Didn't James talk to you about stock
options?"
"He mentioned them." It hadn't occurred to me
that working for James might actually make me
rich. Or that all the young men who worked for
him were rolling in money. But it made sense. I
looked at Stan with new eyes. "Why are you
living in his house, then?"
"It's a nice place to live. Better than an apartment.
Cheaper, too, since I don't pay rent. But I could
afford to pay rent if I wanted. Or even buy
a house."
Stupid question. My suspicions about Stan and
James must be correct.
"Did James invite you to the team-building exercise
over the weekend?" Stan asked.
"He mentioned it and said I was invited. I'm going
to talk to him tomorrow to get more details about
my job, but perhaps you can tell me what that's
all about. Team-building. It sounds like spring
football practice."
"It's definitely along the same lines. James believes
in teamwork. We all have to trust each other, work
together, fit together like cogs so that the company
runs like a well-oiled machine. That sort of thing.
We climb cliffs and belay each other with ropes.
Stuff like that. You're an outdoor person, anyway,
so you'll enjoy it."
Aces and Knaves copyright ©2002 Alan L. Cook
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