FOUR

 

 

“The standard way of dealing with an addiction,” Gretchen said, “is to remove the addicted person from the environment causing the addiction.”

Stan nodded.

“How long can The Kid be away from poker?” Gretchen asked Stan. “Will he lose his powers if he is away too long?”

“He will,” Stan said, nodding. “But a few years won’t make any difference if he needs to be away. Usually takes a decade or more for a superhero’s powers to fade beyond rescue.”

Gretchen nodded. “Can we jump to where he is and not be seen?”

I was impressed. Gretchen clearly had some ideas and was taking control of all this. She seemed to have gone from a young, afraid kid to a professional woman in a matter of seconds.

Patty glanced at me and smiled.

“We can,” Stan said. “Might not be pretty, though.”

A moment later we were in a small casino on the east coast. The place smelled of mold and bad air-conditioning and had a few dozen people sitting at some older slots, all chain-smoking. The casino had a three-table poker nook off to one side with no one sitting at the tables.

The Kid, his clothes rumpled and his hair far longer than the last time I saw him, sat in the small sports book, watching an arena football game.

“Can he see us at all?” Gretchen asked her father. “Or sense us here?”

Stan shook his head. “I have us a half turn out of the normal world, like Poker Boy’s office. The Kid can’t see or hear us.”

“Wow, nifty skill,” I said to Stan. “That on the agenda to teach me at some point?”

“Got a hunch you already know how to do it,” Stan said while staring at The Kid.

I liked the sound of that.

As Gretchen moved around to get in front of The Kid, I watched Stan.

I could tell that The Kid failing like this was really hurting Stan more than he wanted to ever let on.

“He’s very handsome under all the dirty clothes and lack of a haircut,” Gretchen said.

“He is,” Patty said.

Stan and I both said nothing to that.

Gretchen kept staring at The Kid, at one point kneeling down in front of him to look up into his eyes.

“He is tortured,” she said, her voice sad.

Gretchen then looked up at her father. “Do you know of a tropical island somewhere where The Kid and I can go and be isolated, yet live comfortably. The island can’t have television or any kind of gambling and ideally no other people around.”

Stan nodded. “I am sure I can find a place.”

Gretchen nodded, standing and looking around the tired, small casino as she moved back over to stand beside her father.

She looked at me and Patty, then at her father. “He has no hope of even living if he stays in this environment.”

All three of us nodded to that. We knew that, had seen the signs of problem gambling more times than any of us wanted to admit. The Kid had them all.

Gretchen looked at me. “Can we go back to your office and plan this all out?”

I nodded and a moment later I had us all back in our spots in the booth.

Gretchen first looked at her father. “We need the island and we need it yesterday. By my reading on The Kid, if he loses whatever he is betting on tonight, he might not live to the morning. And he will never call for help.”

“Oh, shit,” Stan said. “I’ll be back as soon as I have something arranged.”

Stan vanished and Gretchen, now showing more power and control than anyone her age should have the right to show, said to us. “Patty, can you find him new clothes. Beach clothes and everything he is going to need to survive for a while on a warm island. Including bathroom gear and such.”

“I’ll have two suitcases packed and here waiting in one hour,” Patty said.

“Bring one set of clothes for The Kid to wear as well.

Patty nodded and vanished.

Gretchen turned to me. “I’m going to go talk to my boss, tell her what I am doing, get some check-in plans worked out, see if I am missing anything on this start.”

I nodded. “Sounds sensible. What can I do?”

“I need you to go get him before he either wins or loses that bet, take him to a major hotel suite, toss away his clothes and everything he has on him, and make him shower a few times before Patty gets there with clothes.”

I nodded. I didn’t much like my part in this, but I knew I could control The Kid if I had to. And with luck, I wouldn’t have to.

At that, Gretchen vanished, leaving me sitting alone in the booth.

I took a deep breath and then said to myself, “Let’s get this done.”

First I jumped to the MGM Grand and talked to Patty’s boss and got a suite paid for.

Then, with a deep breath, I jumped back to The Kid in the sad excuse for a casino. He hadn’t moved, and the game he must have had a bet on was still going on. His eyes were glassy.

I walked up to him and said, “Hi, Kid.”

He jumped. If he had been at full focus and power, I never would have been able to surprise him.

“Things not going well I see,” I said.

He shrugged. “I’ve been worse.”

“Actually,” I said, “I think you’ll look back on this, if you live, and call this your worst moment.”

At that I jumped the two of us to the MGM Grand suite I had rented.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“Trying to save your life,” I said.

I then jumped him, without his clothes, into the shower.

“Stay in there,” I shouted to him, “until you don’t smell like the inside of a sewer.”

I teleported his clothes to the city landfill as I heard the water turn on.

He had not learned how to teleport, so he was trapped by me and he knew it.

In his condition, it was unlikely he even cared.

And that just made me sad. He had been a great poker player, could have been one of the best in the world.

But the control he felt in poker didn’t give him the needed adrenaline feel he got from winning something out of his control.

And that need for the thrill and the real risk had driven him down to this place.

I was just glad Stan had been paying attention. It’s always the worst when someone dies from an addiction and not even their closest friends knew of the problem or had time to even try to help.

That happens more than I wanted to think about.