Aces and Knaves

play blackjack and count the cards. If your dealer uses a single deck and plays to the last card I can swing the odds in my favor."
    "In theory, yes. But can you really carry out that program? If you'd been practicing for the last two years under live conditions, I would say that you probably could. But playing in your living room with nothing to lose is a completely different matter. The difference is like a baseball player going from Little League straight to the World Series."
    "Are you going to take me up on it?" I didn't want to talk all night.
    "I like you, Karl, and I don't want to see you lose. But if you really want to do it I won't stop you. We need a penalty if you lose." James sipped and I waited. "I've got it. You have to work for me for a year. Of course, I'll pay you a regular salary; I'll even give you stock options."
    If I lost I might be a dead man, in which case that would become irrelevant. "Agreed."
    "I'll give you an initial stake of $1,000. You have to increase it to $4,000 to win."
    I was expecting that and again I agreed.
    "When do you want to start?" James asked.
    "Right now."
    "Well, you look sober and alert. Why not?"
    ***
    There were two blackjack tables. The ideal situation would have been for me to play one-on-one against a dealer, but when I mentioned that to James he said he couldn't afford to tie up a dealer and a table just for me. Especially since my bet was puny compared to some of the other players. But it wasn't puny to me.
    I picked a table with two other players and sat in the left-hand seat so that I would have the maximum opportunity to see the cards of the other players before I decided whether to take a hit. The dealer did play with one deck and did play to the last card so the odds were already better than in any other casino I was aware of. I think James allowed that out of a sense of sportsmanship because the players were not professional gamblers. He wasn't all bad.
    The quick way to increase $1,000 to $4,000 was to bet the thousand on the first hand and then if I won bet $2,000 on the second hand. Unfortunately, I had less than a 25 percent probability of winning with this strategy and I needed a certainty.
    I waited until the dealer shuffled before I started to bet. He offered the deck to me to cut and welcomed me to the game with a nod. I bet only a dollar a hand to start, setting my mind to the discipline of counting the cards worth ten (ten, jack, queen, king) and the others and calculating the ratio between them in my head. A ten-rich deck swings the odds in the favor of the player.
    The first time the ratio reached 50-50 I bet $10 and felt a surge of adrenaline. I won the hand; my system was working.
    I played for an hour and was modestly ahead. I decided to take a break and review my strategy with the intent of increasing my bets when the odds were in my favor. If you varied your bets too much in Las Vegas you got thrown out on your ear. Here, James already knew what I was doing.
    I felt the presence of someone to my left. I looked up from my cards and saw Arrow's black curls. Startled, I said, "What are you doing here?"
    She said, "The question is, what are you doing here? Karl, I need to talk to you."
    "It's time for my break, anyway," I said, deciding to yield gracefully rather than risk a scene. I placed my loose chips in the rack I had been given and followed Arrow to a table, where we sat down. She didn't look happy.
    "What are you doing here?" I asked her again.
    "I tried to call you this morning," Arrow said. "I called Elma to discuss her finances and she told me she had met you and you regaled her with the story about Ned's desert blackjack game. You did that Thursday afternoon, right after you and I flew back from San Francisco. And yet you told me you weren't going to try to get Elma's proxy for James."
    "I wasn't trying to get her proxy." I felt myself growing hot.
    "Richard came back to work today and I told him about your bargain with James. He went ballistic. I thought he was going to have another stroke."
    "How could you do that?"
    "I had to, Karl. Things were getting out of hand."
    "Thanks a lot. With friends like you I might as well fall on my sword."
    "Don't give me that shit. I have to protect Dionysus. I also told Richard why we came here last week. He told me in no uncertain terms to stop working on Ned's murder. First, he doesn't want us to stick our necks out and, second, he doesn't believe James had any part in Ned's murder."
    "How did