With a nod I answered her, “Yup.” With that reminder of the other new players, I realized that I hadn’t even tried to study them. I was drawn into conversation with Bella way to easily. I searched the faces and noticed that Patrick wasn’t among them. While I hadn’t played against Patrick, I had the feeling that he and Tyson were the two best players here. Between the two, it was a coin toss. Still searching the other players I asked Bella, “Where’s Patrick? I thought I saw him join your starting table.”
She sat there frozen, and unmoving. I gently pushed her shoulder and repeated the question. This time she heard me and after clearing her throat she responded, “Patrick was at my starting table but fortunately enough the rest were chumps. So we kind of fell into an unspoken alliance, we wouldn’t go after each other while we had such easy pickings. After about an hour or so when we dropped to four players, our table was scrapped and we were plugged into other tables as seats became available.
“So once you two separated, you didn’t meet back up?” I kept looking into her eyes and saw that she was still distracted by our table. “That’s good.” I folded my arms across my chest and whispered in her ear. “What about our solitary existence bothers you, Bella?”
“Everything.” She stated without a trace of emotions.
Only when I thought she fell back into herself did I prompt her with a question. “This is only your second time here, do you really think that it is that unusual?” I tried to keep my tone conversational, attempting not to spook her further down a rabbit hole she plainly didn’t want to go down.
Shrugging her shoulders she looked over at me and I could tell a million thoughts were running through her mind. “Even though this is only my second tournament, I’ve never heard of a table going without new blood for… How long have we been playing?”
I instinctively glanced down at my watch. “Oh, we’ve been playing for a little more than five hours, and we were here at least an hour or two before that.”
With a shake of her head she replied, “I’m surprised that your table went five hours without getting people to replenish your empty seats.”
I simply sat there for a moment and began to chew the inside of my lip. I raked my left hand through my hair as I slowly let out my pent-up breath. “Well it would seem that we have a little mystery, for another time.” I needed to change topics, the last thing I needed to be thinking about was how Dempsey might be trying to isolate either my table as a whole or someone at it. The worst thought was that he might be trying to isolate me. I looked around the room, again taking in its extravagance before blurting out another question. “Is the room just as grand as it was last year?”
“It’s a different room,” she began indifferently, “but it’s definitely just as nice.”
“Different room? Did he reorganize the space or something?”
Turing back around Bella gave me her full attention. “I keep forgetting just how little you know. You remember how I told you that my uncle lets whoever take whatever after the game?” I nodded and she continued. “Even though my uncle owns just about everyone everywhere, he’s just as careful.
“So after the authorities have raided the, by then old warehouse, my uncle scratches them off of his list. He would rather find another place than reuse one. He figures that some overenthusiastic rookie or cop might try something by staking out the old locations, waiting for him to press his luck. No, as far as my uncle believes every year deserves its own home, wherever or whatever,” Bella spread her arms to encompass the warehouse they were in at the moment, “it is.”
“Your uncle is a very meticulous man.”
“You have no idea.”
Looking at the dealer’s idle hands I asked Bella, “Did we miss something?
“I think we were talking all the way through the new seat draw. And it looks like we’re set to be the first blind bets.” She lifted her required small blind and carefully moved it forward just a little, a move that did require the dealer to collect her blind.
I restrained myself from pointing out that the dealer should have attempted to get our attention, I simply extracted the required big blind from my stacks and tossed it into the center of the table. Once both blinds were given the dealer proceeded to deal out the round. Leaving me time to think about what Bella had just told me. She had confirmed that her uncle used a different building every year, and the reasons “why” that she gave made perfect sense.
With my first card firmly under my right hand I turned my attention up to the stadium seating and saw Allison having what appeared to be a civilized conversation with another of the former players. The pair quickly called over one of the waiters, no not a waiter they called over a bookie. In addition to everything else Dempsey was doing in this tournament he was even able to generate some side income through extracurricular gambling. I had to admit that this was quite the elaborate scheme concocted by Dempsey, and it was one that had to have made him a ridiculous amount of money.
Chapter 10
Tyson won again, that was certainly original. Did the man ever lose? Was he even capable of losing? I shook the questions out of my head, they were pointless and I was only depressing myself. Turning around in my seat just so as to look away from those lifeless eyes, I caught sight of Dempsey walking into the center of the room. Once there, he stood and waited until he had the silent attention of the room. Then he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our final ten players. We will now take a short break while we get things ready for the last table. While we do so, please feel free to help yourselves to refreshments.” With that he turned around and started to walk towards the nearest stairwell that lead to the seating above. After taking only a couple of steps he stopped, turned back around, and added a few more words. “For the duration of the break the bar will be open. Please enjoy yourselves.”