Smythe nodded. "Of course," he added. "I could feel you more clearly after you got the dice, and later, while that scarecrow with you was handling your chips. You were building a stack. So I fingered you."
"Careful," I said sourly. "You're talking about the woman I love."
There was a strained moment of silence, and then they all laughed. She'd been a sight, all right.
Simonetti came back alive with that one. His husky voice cut in on the laughter. "Where does that bag fit?" he demanded.
"No idea," I said truthfully. "A random factor. I don't think she fits."
"Something has to fit!" he yelled in his oversized whisper. "How about the way our losses follow Curley Smythe around from table to table?"
This was something. "The table you watch is the one that gets hit?" I asked Smythe.
He blushed, clear to the top of his bald head. "A subtle, nasty operator," he said gruffly. "And he's had the gall to stick it in me pretty badly, Wally. What Sime says is true."
Well, this we wouldn't stand for. I didn't give a care if every gambling house in Nevada went broke. But Smythe was in the Lodge. And it finally made sense that the Lodge had sent me to bail him out. I gave old Maragon my mental apology. The Grand Master wouldn't stand still for anybody's making a fool out of the Lodge. Still: "Nobody that good is out of captivity," I snapped. "I don't believe it. It's not TK that's robbing you."
"Oh, ridiculous," Rose said, showing his teeth. "Gambling is our business, Lefty. Don't you think we could spot any of the ordinary kinds of cross-roading? This is TK, and it has real voltage. We can't spot it. We've got to have Psi power do it for us."