Ian Hamilton - The disciple of Las Vegas

“You’ll have my email in half an hour,” she said.

“I’ll make a phone call. You’ll have the names by then as well,” Martin said.

Francis and Martin stood, and each in turn extended a hand. Harold was still slumped in the chair, holding his arm. Ava realized she might have jabbed him a little more forcefully than she intended.

“I have to say, I didn’t expect this to happen when you walked through the door,” Francis said.

“Sometimes meetings take on a life of their own,” Ava said, nodding at all three men.

Ava left the mezzanine, went to the concierge to retrieve her bags, and checked into a room. Her cellphone had been off during the meeting, and when she turned it on, her mother’s number was at the top of the missed calls list. The bamboo telegraph has been working overtime, Ava thought. Philip Chew’s attempted suicide would be the talk of countless mah-jong tables. She just hoped her mother didn’t think that they or Aunt Lily had pushed him over the edge.

When Ava got to her suite, she went to work on the memorandum of agreement for Francis. It took longer than she thought to get the wording right. She couldn’t help slipping in phrases that created loopholes; in the end she took them all out. There was no point in risking his alienation by trying to act the amateur lawyer.

When the email had been sent, she waited twenty minutes and then went downstairs to the mezzanine level. Martin stood outside the boardroom, talking on his mobile phone. She saw a copy of her email in his hand. This is good, he mouthed, and passed her the piece of paper.

She held it against the wall and signed it, then kept her distance until he had closed the phone. “Here,” she said, handing the paper to him.

He took the email from her and disappeared into the boardroom. He was back in less than five minutes. “These are the names you want, and here’s my card. The Chief asked that you call me if you need anything else. Or if you think there’s anything we need to be warned about.”

As she handed him her card, Ava noted that Martin’s family name was Littlefeather. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight.”

“So young.”

“We’re the first generation to benefit from the Chief’s work. He has faith in us.”

“I’m impressed.”

“But I can’t take Harold out and I can’t control the Chief the way you did,” he said.

“I’m older than you are.”

“Bull,” he said.

She leaned forward and offered her hand. “I’d like to stay in touch with you.”

“Me too,” he said, taking her hand and holding it. She smiled, then turned and walked towards the elevator.

She opened the slip of paper when she was alone in the elevator. There were four names on it. Philip Chew. Felix Hunter. Jack Maynard. David Douglas. Where was the fifth? Then she saw that Douglas’s name was written next to both Buckshot and Kaybar. She needed to talk to Jack Maynard.

“David Douglas,” Ava said, when she got to her room. She sat down at the desk and opened her notebook.

“What about him?” Maynard asked.

“Who is he?”

“The Disciple.”

“Who?”

“David ‘the Disciple’ Douglas, one of the greatest poker players in the world. A fucking master.”

“I think he’s also Buckshot and Kaybar.”

“Impossible,” Maynard said, dragging the word out.

“Why?”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know. Maybe unthinkable is a better word.”

“Did you play online with him?”

“A couple of times.”

“Did he win?”

“Yeah, but he’s the Disciple. Him winning isn’t exactly a surprise.”

“Check all your records and see if he ever played against you at the same time as either Buckshot or Kaybar, and then call me back.”

“Wait,” he said. “I can correlate that in a few seconds.”

She waited, her head already halfway to Las Vegas.

“Son of a bitch,” he said finally.

“Jack, you can’t discuss this with anyone, not even Felix.”

“I can’t believe this shit. Douglas beat me, Philip, and Felix for maybe five or six million combined, but we never thought twice about it. It was Buckshot and Kaybar who made us freak out. Now I’m looking at my records and kicking myself for not seeing the obvious. None of them ever played together. Ever. And I’m telling you, when you factor Douglas’s play into the numbers we ran on Buckshot and Kaybar, that ninety percent certainty we had that we were screwed jumps to one hundred. And do you know what hurts most?”

“I can guess.”

“We were fucked over big time by the very guy Felix and I almost model ourselves after.”

Ava was beginning to regret the phone call. “Jack, for the last time, please don’t discuss this with anyone.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going after him.”

“For Philip?”

“For my client.”

“Well, fuck that,” Maynard said. “Get our money back at the same time. Then we can all bury that son of a bitch so deep he won’t be able to show his face anywhere in the poker world.”

She knew she had lost him. Douglas’s name had set off a firestorm in Maynard’s head. “Listen to me, Jack. Maybe I can get some money back for you and Felix, but — and please hear me — I made a commitment to the Mohneida that I would keep this quiet. In exchange, they’ve made it possible for us to go after Douglas. Without them we would be nowhere. And I don’t go back on my word.”

“Okay, then don’t. Just get our money.”

“And you’ll stay quiet about Douglas?”

“If I have to.”

“You do.”

“And you’ll take my word for it?”

“Yes, I will. With one caveat.”

“I’m listening.”

“If you cause me to lose trust with the Mohneida, I’ll take it very personally. And my people don’t do car bombs. They do face to face.”

“Shit. I won’t do or say anything, I promise,” he said.

Ava wasn’t sure she believed him but she had no other choice but to go along. “Okay, then I’ll do what I can to get your money back as well.”

“Thank you.”

“Send me an accounting of how much they took from you and Felix.”

“Will do.”

“And then send me your take on David Douglas. Pretend he didn’t screw you. Pretend it’s two weeks ago and you were asked for an objective assessment of him.”

“Can do.”

“I can see from the information the Mohneida gave me that he lives in Vegas. Where does he play?”

“When he’s there, he plays the cash game at Wynn’s. I played with him there myself. They told me he shows up just about every day.”

“Do the people at Wynn’s know who you are?”

“Yeah.”

“Then do me a favour. Call Wynn’s right now and ask if Douglas has been playing there, and then call me back.”

“Okay.”

It took less than ten minutes for Maynard to call Ava back. “He’s been there every day for the past month or so. In fact he’s sitting at one of the tables now.”

“Well, I guess I’m going to Las Vegas,” Ava said.

It was almost five o’clock. She doubted that there would be any direct flights from Victoria to Vegas, and she had no idea if she could get back to Vancouver and catch one from there. She went online and, to her surprise, saw there was a nine-o’clock flight from Vancouver to Seattle that connected with an eleven-o’clock flight that got into Vegas just past midnight. Ava phoned her travel agent in Toronto, but when she couldn’t reach her, she went back online and booked the flights herself.

She was packing her bags when her cellphone rang. The 613 area code again — eastern Ontario. “Ava Lee,” she said.