Lazy and Stacy studied the faces on the screen carefully. They were humoring Randall but were getting something out of it. They never doubted his methods because his results were always lucrative but he did take things a bit too far. This was a war-room and most of the faces were familar to them. They knew who they wanted to fleece and who they needed to fleece."
"This is Tom 'Lead Foot' Givens, from Huntsville, former nightclub owner and sleaze peddler, now a poker player that plays the big club games in Atlanta and Birmingham, including some legit ones where the dealer isn't on his take, and plays them well," Randall flicked through slides keeping an eye on Lazy as he was keeping an eye on Stacy. "He'll be here. He'll have a lot of money. He's a principle target."
"This feels an awful lot like school," Lazy drawled.
Stacy laughed.
Randall didn't mind the comment but did the reaction. She was bordering on flirting with Lazy. Randall knew why. He chose to ignore it for the moment. He waited.
They comported themselves and Stacey broke the silence, "Lead Foot?"
"He gives out multiple reasons for the nickname," Randall answered. "Sometimes he lies and says he used to drive stock cars. He'd probably tell you that. He didn't. Though his Granddaddy did, like most of the moonshiners. Lead Foot also plays fast, lives fast, and acts fast. Just about the opposite of the one and only Lazy."
"No call for that..." Lazy feigned hurt.
"What are the other lies?" Stacy asked.
"One. His foot's a prosthetic and made out lead. War injury. He might tell that one to you, Lazy. It's not. He never served. He does have a club foot and once wore a protective boot. Never was lead though. Two, and this one has many variations but essentially boils down to giving people the lead foot when they cross him made famous by any number of incidents he'll make up. Anyway, he's a steady cautious player that usually only puts his money on the line when he has the nuts or an edge. He's not afraid to make sure he has the nuts or an edge either. Course when he's in a hand he's pushing on you hard. Giving you the lead foot."
Randall went through some of the other targets but didn't invest too much time covering the material. The meeting was lacking the key player and that was the real object of this meeting deciding who that would be. After picking him they'd review their targets more carefully. He would be the player who would scoop the biggest pot, the player nobody would see coming and nobody would know was leaving. Randall needed an unknown. He almost wished Lazy wasn't his sleeper and his player, but reminded himself only Lazy could pull off his job.
"Let's get to the candidates," he said. He toggled up another slide on the laptop projector, it was a Vietnamese kid who looked all of 15.
"This is Tran Hung Dao. He's from New Orleans. He's gifted. He doesn't realize how gifted he is. Him finding a backer to get him into a game is plausible."
"Can we trust him?" Stacy asked.
"Can you gain his trust is the more important question," Randall left it there and waited. Stacy didn't show her ire, but he knew she didn't like recruiting and as she got older and her recruits stayed the same age it bothered her on a couple of different levels. He suspected her son's ascension into young adulthood was one of them. She was a pro though, she'd get it done.
"Tran Hung Dao..." Lazy repeated. "I've dealt that kid. Tran Hung Dao. Interesting name. That's the name of a famous Vietnamese general who stopped Khubla Khan's armies."
"How do you know these things?" Randall asked.
"What is most interesting," continued Lazy, "besides probably creating hit and run military tactics, this guys' most successful victory involved what I guess you could call a con. In the battle of Bach Dan River General Tran's men in small boats baited and lured the larger Mongol vessels to follow them in successive skirmishes until they got to a shallow part of the river. As the Mongols prepared to overwhelm them, the tide went out and their boats were crippled as they sank and ran aground because of the spears Tran's army had placed in the riverbed. So the kid is named after a con-man. Oh, he was also a poet and unoriginal as the same ploy was used against the Chinese two centuries previous. Still, a con's a con."
"Again, how do you know these thing?" Randall asked.
"I read A... lot. Who's the other candidate?"
"Will we get another lecture with him too?" Stacy teased Lazy. He smiled in return. Stacy accepted it with one of her own barely glancing at Randall through the side of her eye.
"Depends on the name. Patton... yes... Rommel... certainly..."
"How about Beau Broussard?" Randall interrupted as Tran's slide came off the screen.
"Beausoleil? Because yes, I got quite a bit on a Beausoleil Brouss..."
"It's just Beau," Randall clicked the slide to show a rail-thin LSU student, "He's better known as BB2Cartman on Fulltilt, as BBCuNRaZU on Stars and BBustnDOnkeys on absolute account. I didn't think he was real, and maybe an online scammer because he can mulit-table 25 hands at the same time but he is real. He's lethal. Only problem is he's never played live."
"Do I get to woo this kid too?" Stacy arched an eyebrow, angrily but seductively. She was channeling a black and white film star.
"No. That's another problem. I think he's gay. He's been rumored to have a relationship with an Italian pro, the flamboyant one."
"Aren't all the Italian pros flamboyant?" Lazy asked. "It's in their DNA. Like Alberta Tomba."
"Silly," Stacy whispered, "Tomba wasn't gay. But... how may Italian pros are there, I can think of two the pirate looking dude and that scarf wearing kid, though I'd have to call them both flamboyant. Is one of them..."
"His boyfriend is irrelevant because he no longer has one... which makes things easier... however, his sexuality is relavant because that presents a bit of a problem. We'd need a different tactic with him then just Stacy's considerable charms."
"What's wrong with the Asian, again?" Lazy asked.
"He's got a leak."
"What a coke habit? Everybody's got a leak," Lazy rolled his eyes.
"He's got a conscience."
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