Balot already had chips in her hand even as she
She sensed that Oeufcoque was perplexed, but it didn’t stop her from placing another chip on the layout.
She went for a straight bet again, a single number: 14 red.
Balot thought she saw the old lady take in the bet with her eyes.
The more Balot looked at her, the more noble she seemed in appearance and stature. Not some act put on for the job or for the crowds. There was a certain
Balot was reminded of the manager at her old place of work—the one who gave Balot her name—and also of Queen Bee.
It wasn’t that Balot particularly respected these women, and neither looked much like the croupier. She just associated them with each other somehow. That led to another train of thought, and Balot recalled something that a female movie star had once said in a television interview.
The journalist who was interviewing the star had asked her a question: “Would you ever consider plastic surgery to remove your wrinkles, just like so many other stars seem to be doing these days?”
The actress just smiled and said, “I worked hard for these wrinkles.”
The words had made a great impression on Balot.
The actress in question had started out in porn before moving into regular acting work, eventually becoming a great star of screen and stage. Balot did of course, given their similar backgrounds, empathize with the actress and respected her too. But there was more than that. The actress exuded a certain mute confidence when she answered the question.
The lady that stood before Balot now seemed to exude the same aura of quiet certainty. Bell Wing. Balot said the name to herself once more. She felt lucky that she had been able to sit down at this table. Nothing to do with whether she was going to win or lose, but a different sort of luck. Just as she felt lucky that it was none other than Oeufcoque and the Doctor who had brought her back from the brink of death after Shell-Septinos nearly killed her.
While Balot was thinking this to herself, the distinguished croupier had spun the wheel in the opposite direction to the previous spin, and likewise the ball.
The two rotated like twin stars, and
Just before the ball was about to fall into place, Balot sensed something—it was as if the ball were moving according to someone’s will.
The wheel slowly came to a halt and the winning number was revealed.
“Fourteen red,” Bell Wing called out in a steady voice.
The table exploded. It was her second straight up in a row. Another small mountain of chips moved toward her, and her pile of chips looked for a moment like a mound of rose petals.
A hundred-dollar chip, thirty-five to one, twice in a row. The pile didn’t include the chips she’d bet or the 5 percent commission that the house took, so that meant a total of $6,600 in front of her.
The other punters seemed to be encouraged by this—
It just seemed too much, as if the money couldn’t possibly be hers.
She wasn’t there for money in the first place, of course. Money was just the means to the end, a step on the stairway that led up to the real target, and all that the money in front of her really meant was that Balot was one step closer to her goal. Thinking about it this way helped keep Balot calm.
Oeufcoque’s words rang true, and she saw the sense in them. But Balot wasn’t ready to leave the table, not yet. She started to feel that if she was meant to climb the stairway to the top, step by step, then she might as well enjoy the journey and value each step for what it was.
Oeufcoque seemed to think deeply on this, and he paused before he replied.
He made no further attempt to make Balot leave.
Balot thanked him and took the next chips in her hand.
