THREE

 

 

After about ten minutes of Stan and me trying to give Gretchen a primer on professional poker players, I realized we were going to need help.

As Madge came in with the milkshakes and fries, I said, “Be right back. Going to see if Patty can take a break.”

Stan nodded and actually looked a little relieved. It had become clear that we were not communicating with Gretchen in a language she seemed to understand. She was clearly brilliant, but all the terms were just off to her.

I jumped to the front of the MGM Grand Hotel front desk and froze time for everyone but me and Patty. “Got a situation we need a little help on.”

“Team situation?” she asked, looking worried.

“Well, not really, but a team is forming to help the problem,” I said. I quickly summarized what we were dealing with and why I thought it would be a good idea for her to help Stan’s daughter, Gretchen, get a sense of what The Kid was facing as a professional poker player with a leak.

When I told her The Kid had a leak, she just looked sad and shook her head.

“You don’t give him much chance, do you?” I asked.

She shook her head no. “Glad to help do what we can do. I’ll talk to my boss and be there in five minutes.”

I nodded and jumped back to my office, releasing the time bubble formed around us.

For the next five minutes, Stan and I and Gretchen talked about other things, such as building this office and some of the other team members who had helped save the world a few times. When Laverne’s name came up, I thought Gretchen was going to faint dead away.

I remembered that feeling myself early on. Just the mention of Lady Luck’s name often had me shaking.

Patty arrived looking great. She had changed out of her uniform into a tan blouse, jeans, and tennis shoes and she had her wonderful brown hair combed out. She was the most beautiful woman in the world as far as I was concerned.

“Told my boss a snippet of the problem and she let me take the rest of the night off to help,” Patty said.

I stood and Patty scooted into the booth beside Gretchen. Instantly the two of them hit it off. Patty was good. She was really that good and one of her superpowers was that others just liked her. She had promised she had never used that on me. She said she hadn’t needed to, since I fell head-over-heels for her the first time I met her.

Literally.

I tripped over some ropes in front of the desk she was working at.

She thought it cute. I had thought it mortally embarrassing.

With Patty’s help, we slowly got Gretchen to understand The Kid’s job as a professional poker player and how poker was not gambling.

“The Kid is a mathematician, a professional liar, a professional actor, and has a memory for cards next to none,” I said. “He has the ability to read a person and almost know what they are thinking at a poker table, and those are his normal poker skills, not his superhero skills.”

Gretchen was nodding. “So poker is a sport. I think I am starting to understand that.”

“It is,” Stan said. “A skill that takes years to learn and many do not learn it as well as The Kid has.”

“Is he any good as a superhero?” Gretchen asked.

“He was before he ran into this gambling problem,” Stan said. “He saved a bunch of lives, helped countless people and seemed to be enjoying what he was doing until the money issues overwhelmed him from his leak. Now he pays little attention to the superhero side of things.”

“That’s because he can’t even help himself,” I said, “so he feels I’m sure that he can’t help others.”

Everyone around the booth nodded.

“So what exactly is his leak, as you call it?” Gretchen said. “His addiction?”

“Sports book,” Stan said.

I sighed and Patty just shook her head.

“Why is that bad?” Gretchen asked. “To be honest, I don’t even know what a sports book is.”

“Someone can place a wager on the outcome of some sporting event in a sports book in a casino,” Stan said. “From horse racing to soccer games, you name it, it is bet on.”

“It is a common leak for professional poker players,” I said. “Because when you are sitting in a poker room, there are dozens of televisions around the room and all of them are tuned to various sports events going on.”

“Oh,” Gretchen said. “So The Kid, as you call him, has a gambling addiction where he is losing all his money, and he has to sit in his job, his sport, while the very things he is betting on play out around him.”

“No wonder he’s homeless and living in his car,” I said.

Stan nodded. “He has lost all focus.”

If this wasn’t hopeless, I didn’t know what was. But I didn’t say that.