The Gambler(30)

     



 

He had a feeling he knew what was going to come out of her mouth next.

"And what's that?"

"Did you never hear her ‘code name'?" He braced himself and waited.

"She's The Gambler."





"Now young man, how did you say you came to know our Jenna?"

"She's mine." That's all he'd say even as her eyes widened and she looked perplexed.

"So they used her to do what? Cheat people at cards?"

He should've broken every bone in Alphonso Bonata's body. It was too  late for that now, the fuck was gone; but there might still be others  out there and he wanted their names. Since her lying fuck mother wasn't  talking, he figured this might be the only way to get the answers he  needed. He couldn't say that he was surprised by her little bombshell.  But he had the added worry of who else knew her as The Gambler and who  might have it out for her because she'd skinned them at the tables. No  wonder he'd never heard of her, that they'd taken her out of town.

He had thought this shit through and knew he wouldn't rest easy until  everyone who knew about her talents was done. The gambling thing was  new, he thought he only had to deal with the hacking and shit, but  whatever.

"Oh she doesn't cheat, far as I can tell she just knows what to do, some  call it card counting. But Hal has tested her a few times and he says  that it's a little more than that. It's like she knows what's been  played, but she also estimates what each player is holding in their hand  according to what they hold and what they throw away. I really don't  understand any of that; it's all very confusing for me. But I do know  she's made these men millions if not more."

"Okay so she was gambling, she wasn't cheating, it's not illegal. Why  the expose`?" There had to be more to it than that. For him it would be  the fact that out of all these millions she was being paid with  chocolate, not to mention the fact that she was being used in a way that  she wouldn't have been able to understand. That more than anything else  made his blood burn beneath his skin. He squeezed her as she sat there  quietly, not interjecting, but following every word.

"I think there was more going on, like I said before, they were using  some of the others as call girls, if you can believe that. Some of them  were even being sold from what I discovered. Jenna was their meal  ticket. Do you know that she's been financing the Bonatas for the better  part of five years? We're not talking small change here. She was  playing in the highest stakes games all around the world. Some of those  games went on for days.

Some of the biggest names in the world were sitting at those tables.  They had no idea that they were playing against someone with Jenna's  abilities. People lives were destroyed, some lost everything; when word  started getting around about her, there were threats made against her  life. But that's not why I did this, I did it because of what I found  when I started digging. Jenna unwittingly turned me on to some of the  things that were going on.

On one of the rare occasions her mother let her visit my home, she was  on the computer with Hal. Let's just say she scared the ‘you know what'  out of him when she cracked into the pentagon's database. He knew what  he was looking at because of my prior work with the defense commission.

He didn't let on to her that he knew what she was looking at, or that it  was wrong, but through a series of questions, he was able to get out of  her what she'd been doing. Up until then we thought it was just the  gambling thing, and like you said, it's not illegal per se, but it was  still wrong for her to be used in that way, and I was going to find a  way to put a stop to it. But when we found out what all they had her and  some of the others up to, we had to make a move. It would've been  unethical not to as a grandmother, and as a representative of our great  nation.





I don't know how much you know about the autistic community, but some of  these kids and some adults as well, have amazing talents. Some we  haven't even tapped into yet. This Bonata character somehow convinced  some very influential men and women to exploit these people. We're  talking children being ripped away from their families and being placed  with others that were handpicked by him, or whoever else was working  with him. He has families who were being paid by these unscrupulous men  to foster these poor kids.         

     



 

They would target them, in the beginning we didn't know how they knew  who was who, but I suspect that the operation was very sophisticated. We  found school officials, doctors, lawyers and the head of DHS. They were  all in bed together. You might wonder how they found each other, or how  they were able to convince these people to sell their souls, but in the  end it was all about the money.

They'd have someone bring a trumped up charge against the biological  parents so that they could remove the children from their homes and  place them. Can you imagine a child like Jenna, so unassuming and  innocent being taken advantage of like that? It broke our hearts; we had  to do something.

It started with my granddaughter yes, but I couldn't sit back and let  this go on after learning these things. The more we dug, the dirtier it  became. A sanctioned government organization that had been set up to  help children and families in need, was being used as a front for this … I  don't even know what you'd call it. So I got the idea for the expose`, I  knew the only way to flush the guilty parties out was to shine the  spotlight on the whole sordid affair."





"Did your daughter know about this?"

"I didn't want to believe it, not at first. But when I brought some of  it to her attention she seemed, I don't know. Either she didn't want to  believe me, or she just wanted it to go away. When I started getting  threats I didn't think anything of it. We always get threats when we're  working on a cause. And no one else knew what I was doing; I kept this  one close to the vest. I thought we were covering our tracks pretty  well, because of the sensitive nature and of course to protect the  innocents."

Jenna chose that moment to start her speed texting and Andros looked  down at her little fingers as they sped across the letters. No one else  had said anything once the senator started to talk, and the room was in  almost complete silence, except for the tapping of her fingers.

He took his phone out when it chimed and read the message she had there. "Do you know a Spencer Dewitt?"

"Why yes, he's my assistant, he's the one helping me with the expose`;  which I have to get back to by the way. The book's being launched in a  couple days with the documentary following after."

"This guy have your documents, whatever it was that you were gonna use?"

"Why yes, yes he does."

"He's the one they sent to kill you."

"What? That can't be, he's … what?"

Jenna started typing again and he waited. "Do you have backups for all this shit?"

"I don't know, I have my notes and stuff, but Spencer took care of all  that, I had other things that I've been working on. What are you saying?  The book's launch is coming up soon, wouldn't the publisher have  contacted me if there was a problem?"

"Not if your assistant used your name to squash it." She seemed  genuinely flustered and upset; her husband put his arm around her and  tried comforting her. Andros meanwhile was trying to work his mind  around all the shit he'd learned. He didn't doubt that the shit she'd  said was true. His only thoughts now were finding those who'd been  exploited, and seeing to their care. He wasn't interested in the expose`  and other bullshit.

People paid interest in those things only for as long as they were in  the spotlight, as soon as the news stopped running it, people copped the  attitude of, out of sight out of mind. Some of them even believed, that  as long as it was no longer a running stream on the six o'clock news  that the issue had been dealt with. Nothing could be farther from the  truth.

"Jenna." The grandfather had gotten up from his seat next to his wife  and gone to retrieve something from the bag he'd packed in a hurry. He  handed Jenna a laptop before going back to his seat. Andros was about to  ask him what the fuck, but the other man answered before he could open  his mouth." Cathy used that for her work, if the records, manuscripts  and all that are gone, Jenna can get them back."

"How?"

"You'll see." He smiled at his granddaughter with pride, much as gramps  did on occasion when Andros had pleased him. Usually when he'd burned  someone or fucked somebody's shit up for being stupid; but you had to  take your proud moments where you could get them. Not everyone was a  damn computer criminal.         

     



 





She started fiddling with the thing and he looked over at his boys.  "Find Spencer, add any names she gives you to the list." He was  sanctioning a hit in front of a United Stated senator, but he pretty  much didn't give a fuck. He was gonna eliminate every last motherfucker  that had anything to do with this scheme. One because of the part she'd  been forced to play in it; and two because of all the innocents they'd  no doubt fucked over.