Taking her cue, Balot reluctantly left the table. She was playing out a common scene at the high stakes tables. The punter gets drawn in completely, and he throws the woman on his arm a few chips in order to get her out of his hair, telling her to go and kill some time elsewhere.
Balot watched the game from farther back for a while, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun. She felt like a left-out child, and before long she wandered off aimlessly. This was the act that she was meant to play—although she did genuinely feel it too. In spite of the barely concealed enthusiasm of the players at the table, she hardly felt interested in the game at all—and it was this more than anything else that made her feel the most disappointed.
It may well have been a deliberate ploy of the casino to make her feel like this, of course. No one liked to feel left out, and she’d be back before long.
Balot walked past the tables and into another room. Before she knew it she was in more plush surroundings with the games around her more expensive. No expense seemed to be spared on the furnishings or the dealers’ outfits, and Balot had the distinct feeling that she was now moving closer to the heart of the casino.
She was aiming for the area where the roulette tables were. Men and women of all ages were milling about, the balls chasing the numbers as they spun around. Balot realized that this was it—her first opportunity to fly solo.
The Doctor believed that with Balot’s and Oeufcoque’s abilities combined, roulette would be the best way to win a large sum of money directly from the casino; it was a game of chance, and no one could dispute the result.
Balot ran through the rules again in her head and started looking for a table when a message appeared in her left hand:
It looked like Oeufcoque was onto something. Balot proceeded to the table and took a seat near the dealer. The Doctor had advised her that the closer she was to the roulette wheel, the more likely it was she could use her abilities effectively.
The previous writing on her hand had disappeared to be replaced by a declaration of victory.
Balot passed her chips over to a dealer, who exchanged them for roulette chips.
Balot would be betting with red hundred-dollar chips.
There were three dealers in all. One in charge of the wheel, the other two responsible for exchanging chips, cashing them in, and paying out winnings.
The crowd around this particular table was much sparser than the others, and Balot was the only one at the table. The dealer who exchanged Balot’s chips did so solely for Balot.
There had probably just been a big match here, and the crowd must have dispersed the moment the high rollers left the table. Or perhaps the table had been reserved for an entire party who had recently left
Such was Oeufcoque’s reply.
Balot glanced at the dealer. The dealer in charge of the ball.
Balot was surprised to see that she was an older woman. An elegant, beautiful lady. She must have been at least sixty years old, but she stood tall, back straight, and her eyes were a keen blue. She wore a strong, calm expression. The casino had its fair share of female dealers, but she must have been the oldest.
Balot was looking down at the roulette layout now but couldn’t help herself from sharing her feelings with Oeufcoque.
The green felt in front of her had printed on it the numbers 0, 00, and 1 to 36 in alternating black and red squares, in addition to a number of squares to denote the outside bets.
To one side of the wheel was an electronic scoreboard showing all the numbers that had come up during the last twenty minutes. A form guide. One of the enjoyments in roulette was to try and work out any biases that emerged either in the wheel or due to the way the croupier threw in the ball.
Balot looked at the scoreboard. The last five spins were 14 red, 0 red, 17 black, 30 red, and 23 red. Having glanced at it, she placed a chip on the layout in the space for 2 black. She then threw another one into the mix, which she placed on 14 red.
The old lady, the croupier, took a look at Balot’s chips.
