The French restaurant was so vacant that if the hostess hadn’t led them to their table personally, Sebastian would have assumed that it was closed.  Only one other table was occupied – a pair of bottle-aged middle blondes.  “I guess I probably didn’t need to call ahead for that reservation,” Rikki quipped as the two sat down.  A waiter appeared almost immediately and handed them a pair of menus, and with no other tasks to occupy his time, he remained several steps away until Sebastian looked up from the cocktail list.

“An old-fashioned,” Sebastian told him, followed by Rikki’s request for the restaurant’s signature martini, vodka with blue-cheese stuffed olives.

Sebastian looked the menu over carefully, ultimately deciding to keep it simple and order a steak. Their drinks arrived promptly, thanks to a bartender who was probably as starved for activity as the waiter.

“So finish what you were telling me about that Nightingale strategy,” Sebastian said, setting his menu down.

“Martingale strategy,” Rikki laughed. “It originated in eighteenth century France as a roulette strategy.  The basic principle is that you bet a certain amount of money – let’s say a dollar…”

“Shouldn’t it be francs?” Sebastian interrupted.

Rikki smirked at his pedantry and seized the opportunity to take a sip of his martini.

“Of course, let’s say francs.  You bet a franc on something with a fifty-fifty chance of winning – let’s say ‘red’ on a roulette spin…”

“Black.”

“What? Where?” Rikki looked around nervously, betraying his upbringing in suburban Connecticut.

“No, no, haven’t you heard? Always bet on Blax. I learned that at a tax avoision seminar.”

Rikki grinned.  “Oh, right, right.  Okay, so you bet the franc on black. If you win, you pocket the franc you’ve won, and bet a franc again.  If you lose, you double your bet.”

“And if you lose again, you just keep doubling your bet?”

“That’s right.  The theory is that the odds of hitting red five, six, or even seven times in a row are vanishingly slim.”

Sebastian frowned.  “And that it? You just keep doubling up until you win, at which point you’ve profited a single franc?”

“In principle, yeah. But there’s a problem.  Setting aside the fact that you’d need infinite capital to make it work over the long term, casinos employ what’s called a ‘table limit’ in terms of how large of a bet they’ll let you place.  You might have noticed it at the blackjack tables.” Rikki nodded in the direction of the casino.

“I only noticed that the minimum was $15.”

“Right.  But there’s also a maximum that they don’t display as prominently, that’s usually about ten times the minimum.  So if you’re constantly doubling, quadrupling, et cetera your bet, you’ll run into that fairly quickly.  And then you can’t get it all back with a single spin, which blows the whole thing up.”

“Doesn’t seem like something Jalen Ramsey would endorse.”

“No, it’s not a viable strategy. But there’s a way around the table limit.  Imagine if you could simply bet more money at a different roulette table, which would produce the same exact spin result as the first table, at the exact same time.”

“But you can’t.”

“But what if you could?”

“But you can’t.”

“But what if you could?”

“You can’t, Rikki, the results of spins at different roulette tables are entirely independent of each other.”

“But what if they weren’t? What if they were, like, connected so that the result of the spin at one table was exactly the same as the other tables, and all the other tables at all the other casinos in town?”

“ROULETTE TABLES ARE NOT FUCKING QUANTUM PAIRS RIKKI YOU CAN’T GUARANTEE THAT THE RESULT OF ONE ROULETTE SPIN IS GOING TO BE THE SAME AS THE RESULT FROM A DIFFERENT TABLE LET ALONE A DOZEN TABLES ALL OVER TOWN I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD IT’S LIKE I’M TALKING TO A GODDAMNED CHILD SOMEHOW.”

“Sir, is there a problem here?” The waiter had reappeared.  The other customers were looking over.

Sebastian was out of breath. “No, I’m sorry for raising my voice.  It’s just that he’s so stupid sometimes, I…”

“Sports gambling.” Rikki said, looking infinitely pleased with himself.

Sebastian waved the waiter away.  “What are you talking about?”

“There are no limits for sports gambling.”

“Huh?” Sebastian’s brow furrowed.

“You can place bets in as many sportsbooks as you want.  So in theory you could bet on something like…say the over/under for runs in a baseball game. And if you run into the limit at the first  sportsbook, you can just make up the difference at another sportsbook. And so on. ”

“Yeah but that way you only get to make a single bet every three hours!” Sebastian’s color rose, “I wanna make bets NOW.”

Rikki sat back in surprise.

“Sorry,” Sebastian said, “those new FanDuel ads are really effective.  But this Martingale thing, doubling your bet each time, does that have something do with that Murphy’s Law thing you were telling me about?”

“The Squeeze Play? No, that’s entirely unrelated.  That’s more of a hedge. It’s based on the idea that the universe is out to screw you at all times.  So you use that intention and leverage it to force something to occur that you actually want.  The classic example is that if you want it to rain, just start washing your car.”

“How does that relate to sports gambling?”

“Well,” Rikki said, setting his hands on the table, “Allow me to explain…”

—

The Augusta AW 151 luxury helicopter banked gently as it completed its final approach over the aquamarine waters of the northwest Caribbean towards the massive superyacht.  Sebastian stifled a laugh as he noticed the name that had been painted prominently on the bow, in letters that were easily fifteen feet high:

[PORT FLIES OPEN]

Sebastian was seated in the copilot’s seat of the craft.  The pilot glanced over as Sebastian gawked at the massive watercraft and said “first time on the PFO?”

Sebastian started to answer, and then remembered to click the transmit button of the headset he’d been given when they had taken off from Grand Cayman.  “It’s bigger than his last one.”

“Yeah, it’s quite the upgrade. Twice the size, I’m told.” the pilot agreed.

As they got closer, Sebastian was able to discern a bevy of nubile young women wearing French Maid outfits milling about on the deck. “I take harems are legal in international waters?”

“Oh, those women aren’t…that.  I mean…they think that’s why they’re here.  But as soon as they sign their non-disclosure agreements Rikki is going to make them mop the floors and stuff.  It’s this practical joke he’s been pulling for the past few years.  Looks like he’s got…sixteen of them this year.”

“And he thinks that’s funny.”

“Who can say?”

“He’s gotten pretty eccentric these days, hasn’t he?”

The pilot nodded.  “He sure has.”

Several pieces of lace went flying as the helicopter descended towards the deck, and Sebastian’s eyes widened at what was exposed. The pilot noticed.

“I mean, if you’re interested, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind…”

“No, no, it’s fine.  I’m married.”

The aircraft settled gently onto the helipad, and Sebastian stepped out onto the deck.  To his right was a palisade of eight orange trees, their root structure held in what Sebastian assumed were giant pots beneath the surface of the deck.  On his left were eight more; these held lemons.  At the end of the palisade, a bartender stood waiting behind a massive slab of mahogany wood.  Sebastian approached.

“A drink, sir?”

“That would be splendid.” Recognition struck Sebastian, and he smiled. “Hey! I remember you from…what was it, five years ago?  Glad to see you’re still here.  I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Quite all right.  It’s Alistair.”

“Given the setting, I feel like I should have something tropical.”

“Seems appropriate.  Would a mai tai suit you?” Alistair inquired.

“It certainly would. Thanks.”

Sebastian watched in silence as Alistair began measuring out rum.  The bartender paused for a moment and looked up at him.

“The staff here…we really appreciate you coming.”

Sebastian looked around at the resplendence of the yacht.  “It’s hardly an ordeal.”

“It’s a very difficult time of year for him. And for us. We worry.”

“I do too. That’s why I’m here.”

“It’s particularly bad this year.”

“Let me guess…twice as bad as the year before?”

“It would seem so. If he could just…let it go.”

“He can’t.  He won’t.”

“There can’t be anything more he could possibly want.  Or need.”

Sebastian sighed.  “Where is he now?”

“Below deck.”  Sebastian noticed that the bartender was preparing a second mai tai.  “He’ll join us in time for the coin toss.”

—

Below deck, at the end of a hallway that featured enough cabins to accommodate sixty-four guests, Rikki stood in front of a frame that held a series of slips of paper, looking at the bottom right.  His fists were clenched.  “This year,” he muttered to himself, “this is finally the year.  I can feel it.  I’ve finally put enough on the line.  No holding back this year.  I’ve bet every single penny on you ghouls.  Every single one.”

Rikki’s gaze drifted to the left.  It crossed back to the right and up a row, and the pattern repeated itself twice more, as though he were reading a page of text in reverse.  His eyes finally reached the top left of the frame, where it all began.

“Please,” Rikki implored, “for the love of all that is holy…let this end.”