My prime match fills every space he enters. He's in a suit, dark, no tie. His sleeves are rolled to his forearms. I resist the urge to take in a deep breath to get as much of that glorious scent as I can.
"Working already," he says.
I don’t pretend to lie as to my reasons. “I want out of here. This is my ticket.”
"I need to ask you some questions."
"About the network?"
"About you."
My hands go still on the keyboard. I look at him. His face is calm, neutral, giving me nothing. This isn't the man from the penthouse kitchen who smirked and made eggs. This is the man from the security room.
"Why?"
“Why do you think?”
I look away. That’s when I notice the bartender has gone from behind the bar and there is no one else in the lounge. There’s a sign at the entrance saying ‘Closed’. He’s cleared the space for us and I was so deep in the data that I didn’t even notice.
“You’re still not sure that I’m not in on it. I'm not connected. I told you.”
"Then you won't mind telling me where you've been for the last eight years. All of it. Every city, every casino, every name you used. Just so we can check your story."
I mind. I mind very much. Eight years of careful invisibility and he wants me to hand over the map.
But I'm sitting in his building wearing his ankle monitor. I am not negotiating from a position of strength.
"Where do you want me to start?"
"The beginning. You left the city. Where did you go?"
I tell him.
The first year I was a mess. I had no plan, no skills, no money beyond what was left from the Bureau registration payment. All I could think of was ‘away’. I worked cash-in-hand jobs. I washed dishes in a diner for three weeks until the owner grabbed my ass and I walked out. My next job was cleaning motel rooms for less than minimum wage. I slept rough when I couldn't afford a room, which was most of the time.
I found the counting by accident. I was in a bar in Atlantic City, twenty dollars to my name, watching a blackjack table because there was nothing else to do. I’d always been good at math, even as a kid.
The count was running in my head before I realized what I was doing. I sat down and turned twenty into three hundred and the world changed. I didn’t even realize that what I was doing was against the rules until I got thrown out of my first casino.
I tell Novikov this. He listens. He doesn't interrupt and he doesn't write anything down.
I tell him about the years after that. The system I built. The rules. Never more than two thousand in a session. Ninety minutes maximum. Never the same casino twice in six months. Rotate the disguises. Pay for everything in cash.
I give him the cities. Scranton, Harrisburg, Atlantic City, then south. Virginia, the Carolinas, Mississippi.
The riverboats were good. They have high traffic and staff who turned over too fast to remember faces. Then west. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Nevada. Reno was steady money for almost a year. Vegas I hit twice and then stayed away because the surveillance there is too good and the databases are too connected.
He asks about contacts. I tell him there aren't any. He asks about friends. Same answer. He asks whether I've ever workedwith another counter, or a spotter, or any kind of team. The answer is never.
I tell him the truth because the truth is the only thing I have that's consistent. I've been completely alone for eight years. I've spoken to motel clerks and dealers and cashiers and bartenders and none of them ever know my real name.
"The IDs," he says. "Where did you get them?"
"A guy in Reno. Cash deal, no names. He does them for half the working girls on Fourth Street. He doesn't know me and wouldn't remember me if he did."
"And no one in eight years has found you. Not the Bureau, not anyone else."
"That was the point."
