“A little hurt only makes you stronger.”
“Woman, you playin’ or what?” The intruder wore a death metal sweatshirt. They both ignored him.
“Tell me what to do here?” Fin said.
He didn’t understand what she was asking. He picked up the middle cup and showed her the marble. “Win or lose, you walk away.” It was better, safer for her that way because he was con artist and always would be.
She laughed. “That’s not how I want to win.”
“I don’t play fair.”
“Yes, Cal. You do. It just took me a while to understand that.” She took a wad of cash from her pocket and placed a handful of bills on the table over his stake. “Double or nothing.”
“Watch carefully. It’s not always what it seems.” Using both hands, he swapped the middle cup with the cup on the right and then back again, making it impossible for her to lose.
She put her finger on the cup on the left and grinned at him.
She was trying to lose.
“Nah, nah, not that one,” said Death Metal. “It’s the middle one. Pick the fucken middle one, dumbass.”
On another day, Cal would take Death Metal’s rent money for the rest of his life. On this day, he wasn’t losing focus on Fin. He used a second identical marble to the one in play to slip under the cup Fin chose as he lifted it. “You win.”
“Motherfuck,” said Death Metal and then proceeded to explain to other gawkers what he thought happened.
Fin shook her head. “I’m not walking away. I don’t do that anymore.” She put another handful of notes down over the first lot. “Again.”
Cal recovered the second marble, made a show of where the primary one was, and then changed the position of the cups so slowly it would be impossible to slip up. Again, Fin pointed to the wrong cup. Again, he slipped the replacement marble under it before he revealed it. “You win. You’re on a hot streak.”
She waved a hand at him to go on. “Everyone is a sucker sometimes.”
They played hand after hand, the pile of cash on the table growing so tall, he had to set a pebble on it. He barely moved the cups. Fin always picked the wrong one, so he had to work hard at the sleight of hand that turned her loss into a victory. Around them, the crowd got bigger and louder.
She won, again and again and again. She would always win, no matter how badly she played, because he’d make sure of it.
A dozen hands later, when the crowd had gotten so big the shopkeeper came out to see what was going on, Fin said, “You don’t seem to know how to play this game.”
“Maybe I want you to win.” He shuffled the cups. She’d stopped watching them altogether and picked at random.
She shoved a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “I don’t mind if the rules are bent. I just want to know what they are.”
He lowered his eyes to the table because looking at her made him want to bend logic, time, and chance to his will, but Fin was a prize outside the grifter’s game.
“Tell her the rules, man,” said Death Metal. “No one likes a fucken cheat.”
“There aren’t any rules here.” He snapped his head up and someone bumped against the table. He had to steady it to stop the money toppling off. “Nothing is fair. It’s all an illusion.”
Fin put her hand over his as it rested on the table. “Zeke told me there was a rule about outsiders. I understand better now.”
Damn, Zeke. He pulled his hand from under Fin’s. “Everyone is an outsider.”
“What happens when an outsider wants to become an insider?”
He reset the cups. “Never happens.”
“But it could happen for the right person.”
He moved the three cups in a random pattern. When you knew how to warp the world, anything was possible. That didn’t make it right.