BXBX NOVEL Chapter 61: Making The Bet
I blinked, shaking off the distraction. "Cash," I replied, slipping my wallet out and handing over the payment.
Once everything was settled, I thanked her and walked out into the chill Las Vegas evening.
The cool air did little to clear my mind, as I slowly carried myself back to the hotel, my mind went into fifth gear.
Was the strange change in the galaxy's name the only difference I had noticed so far, or had I simply overlooked other changes?
"Chinese influence... Asian influence..." I started muttering to myself, " Shit..." I froze in place on the wide Las Vegas sidewalk, watching the people passing by me in both directions.
It wasn't that I didn't pay attention to people around me the first time around.
There was never an Asian girl playing basketball...
There was never an Asian girl with purple hair...
No wonder I didn't remember ever seeing them...
And now this restaurant...
But if the Chinese influence had been altered so much that even the galaxy was called differently, then those changes must have occurred thousands of years ago.
There should have been significant historical and cultural changes by now.
I should be seeing shifts in Chinese stock prices, Change in Chinese appreciation, or even a noticeable rise in the Chinese population in the USA.
Yet, none of these broader changes seemed to have occurred; it was just these small things around me that had shifted.
And then there was the restaurant. It only started business at the exact time I came back in time.
'How could this be explained?' I asked myself. 'Maybe I should assume that somehow only the 32 years of time that I have leaped through were influenced? But why are the changes only visible around me, and not globally?'
I think I will need to keep an eye on anything related to Asia as I go on.
Even if it's only things around me, with time, they could potentially influence everything.
Maybe I should avoid buying into Chinese stocks or at least observe if there will be any change in their behaviour.
Furthermore, change in their behaviour could cause a change in the trajectory of the market as whole.
How big of a change could that be...
Or maybe I'm just paranoid. But no... Something isn't qute right.
I took a deep breath, focusing on calming myself down.
When I reached the hotel, I quickly retrieved my chips from the room and made my way back down to the casino.
I headed straight for the bookmaker section.
At the counter, a burly man greeted me. He had long, unkempt brown hair that fell down past his shoulders and a thick beard. An American flag bandana was tied around his forehead.
"Hey there, what can I do for ya?" he asked.
"I want to place a bet on the Super Bowl in January," I said, pulling out my chips and placing them on the counter.
He glanced at the chips and shook his head with a knowing smile. "For bets on games that aren't happening within the next 48 hours, we only take cash, not chips. You'll need to exchange those for cash first."
And so I did just that. I went to the cashier desk and exchanged my 20 chips for $100,000 in cash.
I returned to the bookmaker counter. "I'm ready to place that bet now," I said, laying the stack of cash down.
"Alright, so what're we betting on?" he smiled.
"I want to bet that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play against the Oakland Raiders in the January Super Bowl, and that the Buccaneers will win."
He started typing into his system. After a moment, he looked up at me, "The odds for that bet are 41-to-1. The maximum bet we can take is $68,000."
"I'll take the maximum." I didn't hesitate.
He stared at me, his eyebrows melting together in surprise, but he quickly composed himself, flashing a grin. "Well, alright, alright. You must be real confident about this. Haven't seen a bet like this in a while."
"I have no doubt; this is going to happen." I told him matter-of-factly.
He shook his head, still chuckling, as he finalized the paperwork. "Best of luck to ya."
With that, he handed me the ticket for the bet.
I needed to unwind for a moment, so I decided to head back to my room and lay down for a bit.
Halfway up the stairs, I nearly bumped into a striking young woman coming down.
"Excuse me," she said with a soft voice. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but could I use your phone to call a friend?"
I studied her for a moment and got the impression she wasn't one of the hotel guests. She seemed a bit out of place.
"Sure. But I don't have my phone with me; it's in my room. You can use my phone in there."
She followed me into the room, and I showed her where the phone was.
She glanced at the phone but didn't pick it up. "Actually," she mumbled, her gaze shifting towards me. "I don't really need to call anyone."
That's when it dawned on me what was happening.
She was a prostitute on the prowl trying to get a hook-up, and she was very aggressive about it.
I took a closer look at the girl. She was maybe 24 or 25, around 5'6'', with a very nice body. She had reddish-brown hair down to the middle of her back and soft, emerald green eyes.
Her expression relaxed noticeably as she asked, "Are you interested in some companionship?"
"Companionship?" I asked quizzically.
"Yeah, you know ... companionship," she said with a sexy little smile and a playful glimmer in her eyes.
"Are you talking about sex?"
"Uh-huh, are you interested?" she asked, nervously wiggling around, trying to pull the hem of her mini-skirt down a little. She had long, slender legs wrapped in fishnet stockings and tall, high-heels that must have been killing her feet.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Rose," she said.
"Are you on some sort of minimum that you need to hit every day?" I asked.
Rose's eyes widened a bit, and she gave me a cute little pout. "If you're not interested, you can just say so."
"I'm not going to have sex with you, Rose. However, I could provide you with money—maybe more than what you'd make here tonight."
She tilted her head slightly.
I smiled gently, "What's your rate for one night?"
"$50 an hour."
"I will be playing poker and blackjack tonight. I can pay you $60 an hour for holding my chips. What do you think?"
Rose's emerald eyes immediately widened in surprise and gratitude. "Yes. I can do that. That sounds great!"
I reached into the stack of cash I had left, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill and handing it to her. "Here's an advance. Follow me."
She took the money with a bright smile and followed me back down to the casino.
No rest for the tired...
I withdrew an additional $20,000 in cash, walked to the cashier's desk and exchanged $50,000 for fifty $1,000 chips and twenty $500 chips. Everything was under my name, of course, I wasn't trusting Rose at all.
Then I made my way back to the VIP sector with Rose in tow.
"I'm going to grab a seat at the No Limit Hold'em table," I said, indicating the poker table with a proposed bankroll of $30,000 to $50,000. "Keep an eye on my chips."
There were three middle-aged men at the table. Two were dressed casually, while the third wore a sharp navy suit.
They glanced briefly at me and Rose as I sat down.
Alongside them were two women. One of them was obviously close to the man in a suit, likely his wife, and the other was a striking woman with long blonde hair. She had a cute pixie nose with a hint of an upturn, wore a stunning red dress and had a man's jacket draped over her shoulders.