The Disciple of Las Vegas by Ian Hamilton Page B

truth is, all the purse strings are held tightly by Uncle Tommy. He decides how much money they need and then doles it out as he sees fit.”
    â€œYou’ve obviously done a lot of thinking about this,” Ava said.
    Maggie laid down her chopsticks. “It’s all I’ve thought about for the past week. My father has committed two cardinal sins. He’s stolen from my uncle’s precious money hoard and in the process he’s betrayed the family. I’d be surprised if Uncle Tommy didn’t want him dead.”
    â€œDo you know how much money your father appears to have taken?”
    â€œHe said it was more than fifty million dollars.”
    â€œYou say that so calmly.”
    â€œIt’s so big a number it hardly seems real.”
    â€œWhere is it?”
    â€œIt’s gone.”
    â€œHow can more than fifty million dollars just disappear?”
    Maggie picked up her chopsticks and plucked a chicken foot from the bamboo steamer. Then just as quickly she put it back. “I really don’t think I can eat.”
    â€œMe neither,” Ava said. A lump the size of a grapefruit was lodged in her chest. Any hope of a giant fee had been quickly dashed. “Tell me what happened.”
    Maggie closed her eyes again. “My mother told me last week that my father had been acting strangely for months. I was so busy at school that I hardly saw them. She told me she would nag at him about what was wrong but he wouldn’t talk to her. He’d just retreat into his office at the house and spend hours on the computer playing online poker.”
    â€œIt’s popular these days.”
    â€œThat’s hardly the word for it,” Maggie said. “It’s become a life-sucking addiction. That’s how he lost the money.”
    â€œOh no, please don’t tell me that,” Ava said, struggling to believe it.
    Maggie opened her eyes. The tears welling in their corners were threatening to spill over. “I know it sounds absurd. I know it sounds absolutely insane and improbable,” she said.
    â€œYou’re saying he lost fifty million dollars playing online poker? How is that even possible?”
    â€œHe was playing no-limit Texas hold’em at a table where the minimum blinds were $1,000 and $2,000. You can’t sit at a table like that without a starting stack of at least $100,000, and according to my father he normally started with $200,000.”
    â€œStill —”
    â€œAnd then multiply that by five, because that’s how many tables he would play at one time.”
    â€œA million dollars in one sitting?”
    â€œSometimes more. If he lost he would just reload,” Maggie said, wiping her eyes. “It started, I think, slowly. He began with his own cash but he quickly ran through that. When it was gone, he dipped into company money — always, he swears, with the intention of winning the money back. Of course, he never did, and it just got worse and worse. Some weeks he lost close to ten million dollars.”
    â€œHe didn’t always lose, did he?”
    â€œNo, just most of the time. Enough of the time.”
    â€œThen why didn’t he stop?” Ava asked, realizing the second she did that it was a stupid question.
    â€œHe was addicted.”
    â€œOf course,” Ava said softly.
    Maggie Chew sensed doubt in the reply. “No, really, he was. He became completely irrational.”
    â€œThen what was all this nonsense with Costa Rica?” Ava asked.
    â€œThe Costa Rica thing is, I think, part of a bigger puzzle. Ava, would you believe me if I told you that my father was cheated?”
    In her own life Ava had heard more than enough of the lies and rationalizations that helped the Chinese gambler sleep at night. “I would like to,” she said.
    â€œI think he was.”
    Ava sat quietly. The lump in her chest stopped throbbing. Money that was gotten illegally is money that needs to find its way