Trouble (1)

The shop at the address was tucked into an alley on the west side of Orange Street. Its frontage was small, with an old sign reading "Ship Chandler" hanging outside.

Roy pushed open the door. Inside, there was only a dozing old man. He lifted his eyelids, glanced at the dark-red chip case in Roy's hand, and jerked his chin toward a curtain behind the counter.

Behind the curtain was a staircase leading downward. The steps were built from stone slabs, and oil lamps hung along the walls every few paces.

The farther down they went, the denser the lamps became, and the stronger the scents of tobacco and perfume grew.

At the bottom of the stairs stood a pair of double oak doors, with two doormen in black vests stationed outside.

One of them glanced at the case in Roy's hand, then stepped aside and pushed the door open.

The casino was even larger than a dockside warehouse. Its vaulted ceiling rose at least thirty feet overhead, with three glass chandeliers hanging down. Their amber shades soaked the entire hall in soft golden light. The walls were clad in dark cherry wood panels, with sconces set into them every few steps, while the floor was covered in dark-red patterned carpet.

More than twenty card tables were scattered throughout the hall, their surfaces covered in green felt the same color as the wall lamps. The felt was clean and smooth, its edges secured with brass studs.

Dealers in white shirts and black vests stood behind every table, dealing in neat, uniform motions. Roulette tables and dice stations lined both sides of the hall. The hum of ivory balls rolling through wooden tracks mingled with the sharp clatter of chips. Cigar smoke, the aroma of whiskey, and some cloyingly sweet incense filled the air, completely shutting out the fishy smell and salty sea breeze from outside.

A hostess in a qipao approached them, the slit of her dress cut high, a trained smile on her face.

"This way, please." She led them to a card table deep in the hall. Three gamblers were already seated there: a middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses with a jade thumb ring on his finger; a thin man in a silk shirt with his collar open; and an old man with slicked-back hair, a tall stack of chips piled before him.

The three men looked up at Mila and Roy at the same time, then lowered their heads again. Mila sat in an empty seat, while Roy stood behind her with one hand resting on the back of her chair.

The dealer was a woman in her early thirties. Her hair was pinned up without a strand out of place, her fingers long and slender. She shuffled swiftly and smoothly, the cards fluttering through her hands like a paper snake slithering between her fingers.

She began dealing. The first card slid face-down in front of Mila, spinning half a circle on the green felt before stopping. Mila lifted one corner and took a look.

She lost the first three rounds. Every time the cards were revealed, hers was one point lower than the dealer's. Once the chips were pushed out, they never came back.

The stack of chips in front of her had shrunk considerably, and the middle-aged man with the jade thumb ring wore the faintest curve of a smile.

In the fourth round, Mila pushed every chip before her into the center of the table. The motion was casual, the chips sliding across the green felt and colliding in a dense string of clicks beneath the chandeliers' glow. She turned over her card and won.

From the fourth round onward, she never lost again. Her chips went from a short pile to a high tower, then from a high tower into a small city.

At the start of the next round, the dealer shuffled the cards. Her fingers paused at the bottom of the deck.

The pause was so slight that no ordinary eye would have noticed it, but Mila did.

Through the membrane, the Sharingan saw the dealer's ring finger bend one extra joint beneath the deck, holding back the bottom card so it never entered the shuffle.

Mila pushed all her chips forward. All in.

The dealer dealt the next card. It slid in front of Mila, but Mila did not touch it. She lowered her hand from the edge of the table.

"Using little tricks takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?"

The dealer's fingers froze. Her mouth opened less than half an inch, and a faint, dry sound came from deep in her throat.

The air in this corner of the hall suddenly changed.

"Someone can't stand losing!" The thin man in the silk shirt shot to his feet, shoving his chair backward into the neighboring table with a dull thud. "They're here to wreck the place!"

Several gamblers rose with him. Some backed away, some crowded closer, and some began shouting.

The chandelier light swayed once amid the commotion. Then footsteps sounded from both sides of the hall at once. More than a dozen side doors were thrown open, and thugs poured out from behind them.

They wore matching dark short jackets and carried clubs, short blades, and iron pipes. They closed in from every direction. Their boots made no sound on the carpet, but the friction of weapons turning in their palms rose and fell all around them.

The gamblers quickly scattered toward both sides of the hall. Some swept their chips into their arms, while others abandoned their chips entirely and headed straight for the exit. In moments, a large open space had cleared in the center of the hall. Only the card table remained where it was, with the dealer still sitting blankly in her chair, her fingers held in the posture of dealing.

Roy stood behind Mila. Before they had come to the card table, their weapons had already been taken away.

He rolled his wrists and swept his gaze over the thugs closing in. There were seven men in the front row, all carrying short blades, while some in the second row held iron pipes. He counted them. Around twenty in total.

They looked like street punks without any formal training. He could slam into the first man's chest, seize his blade, strike back, and then—

His thoughts were interrupted by Mila's voice.

Mila did not turn around. She was still seated, a chip pinched in her right hand as it flipped between her fingertips.

"Has the manager arrived?"

The crowd of thugs parted down the middle, and a fat middle-aged man emerged through the gap.

He wore a dark-gray three-piece suit. The buttons of his vest were stretched tight, his belly pushing the fabric into a round arc. He held a white handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it every step. His face was round, and when he smiled, his eyes narrowed into two slits.

"My name is Melton." His handkerchief was still pressed to his forehead as he spoke. His voice was neither high nor low, carrying the warm tone of someone who valued harmony and profit.

Mila placed the chip in her hand on the table and rose.

She walked around the table to the dealer's seat, bent down, and felt beneath the edge of the tabletop. There was a tiny switch embedded in the seam between the tabletop and its leg, its surface polished to match the wood grain perfectly.

She flicked the switch. A faint sound of gears turning came from beneath the green felt at the center of the table, then stopped in less than a blink.

"Your casino has hidden mechanisms. How do you plan to settle this?"

Melton lowered the handkerchief from his forehead. He did not look at the mechanism in the table. Instead, he walked over to the dealer. She was still seated, all color drained from her face. Her lips parted. "Mr. Melton, I—"

Melton's slap landed across her face with a crisp smack, like a wet rag striking stone.

The dealer and her chair toppled to the floor. Her perfectly pinned hair came loose and covered half her face. She crawled up, kneeling on the carpet and looking up at Melton with trembling lips.

"Useless trash. You can't even handle something this simple. Tomorrow, you'll go with Zager and the others."

All expression vanished from the dealer's face in an instant. Her mouth fell open, and only after a moment did a whimper force its way from her throat. She shuffled forward on her knees, wrapped her arms around Melton's calf, and pressed her forehead to his shoe. "No, Mr. Melton, please. I don't want to go—"

Mila slapped her hand down on the card table, making the chips on the green felt jump.

The surrounding thugs drew their blades at once, the steel flashing white beneath the chandeliers.