Judgement – The Granny Brigade part two
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Bridget Stapleton
Post Details
::ON::
Ahjess came over to Edward's table at the end of the night. "Okay, cashing up," he announced. "We always do it in pairs. You start by counting your chips, and note how many you have at your table. Then you count the cash, and compare both totals to the table data." he tapped a code into the side of the Dabo table, and a padd popped out.
~Nice~, Edward thought as he saw the padd, and silently nodded his head to acknowledge Ahjess' instructions. He was still embarrassed about having been scolded by the young man, and disappointed with himself for needing it. Well, that and his feet were tired, and he was more than a little concerned about Yolanthe. Her arrest just after opening was a startling blow to everyone.
He separated the chips by color and counted them, making a note of each color's total in a file on the padd. Then he counted the cash. Ahjess had stood mutely by, watching the process, until it was obvious that there was a discrepancy.
"Do it again, just to be sure," Ahjess was calm, mostly. Just a hint of worry, or possibly irritation. With the young trill it was hard to tell.
It came up short again.
~Crap and double crap~, Edward thought. "It wasn't me. You can search me," he said. He was wracking his brain, trying to think of how this could have happened. Maybe he'd given someone the wrong amount when they'd cashed out at his table? He couldn't be sure, and that was the worst part.
"In that get up, there's only one place you could hide it." Ahjess sniffed as he started scrolling through the table padd, "And I'm not looking up there."
Edward had to laugh, in spite of the seriousness of the subject. In some ways, he liked this kid's personality. He'd been expecting a bit of a tantrum over it, not this. Hmmm. Interesting.
The trill went over to Jessica, who was also counting in chips at her table, and picked up a padd there, reading it as he returned. "According to this, you had twenty strips in chips at the start of the night, and a float of another twenty." He put the new padd down, and brandished the table padd, "According to this, 246 strips worth of chips were played, and yet we only have 212 in the pot." The tone of his voice added the question Care to explain?
"I have no idea how that happened," Edward raised both hands in a shrugging gesture. "I didn't take it." Which meant the chips got up and walked away on their own. He thought back to that one woman who knocked her chips on the floor by mistake.
"It might have been a customer." Had she intentionally dropped those chips not to get a look at his backside, but to cover a theft?
"Really?" the trill asked in mock horror. "Could that be possible? Could it?"
Edward's face hardened, but he held his tongue. He deserved the tongue lashing. But that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Think back, what did I tell you never to do?"
"Never take your eye off the table," Edward growled.
"I trust this is a learning experience?" The young man raised an eyebrow.
Indeed it was. About customers, and also about Ahjess himself. He kept his voice neutral as he said, "I won't make the same mistake twice."
"And who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?" Ahjess replied with a smug little smile.
"Only those who underestimate the dog," Edward said, ominously. The young man was flopping his hairless big toe over the line. Being corrected was one thing; being discourteous, another.
The smile vanished in a puff of sourness, before being replaced with a more serious face. "Now we do have a problem. We're seriously short, and don't know who to watch out for." Again there was an unspoken question, but this time it was plaintive. Without Yolanthe to turn to, he wasn't sure what happened next. What do we do now?
"You're right," Edward agreed, easing up on his stiffened body language. He'd taken notice of Ahjess' response and inwardly nodded, as their verbal sparring receded. The boy wasn't stupid. "Is anyone else's table short? Because if they aren't, then I have an idea who the thief might be."
Edward turned and began packing his chips away, speaking as he worked. "There was this one customer who spent the entire evening at my table. She was the one to your right as you ran the wheel? She'd intentionally knocked those chips onto the floor, the ones you saw me bend over and pick up." Edward flicked Ahjess a glance, and then resumed putting the chips in their box. "At the time, I thought she was flirting. But now, I wonder if it might have been a ruse, because she won right afterward. I thought it was suspicious at the time, but I didn't have anything to back up my suspicion."
Ahjess sighed. "Blast the no cameras policy." He muttered. "We'd have mug shots in no time." He rubbed at the spots on the right of his face. "Give me a sec." He got off the stool he had been lounging on, and went into a quiet conference with Jessica. Edward saw her roll her eyes and glance at him. Then they called over Pelin, the bar man, and continued the huddle.
Two minutes later, Ahjess was back. "No one else is short. Its just us. But knowing it might be one of the granny brigade doesn't help the fact we're down by almost two bars of latinum."
Edward was silent a minute. He had an idea about how to catch the thief. "We need an undercover operative. Someone who can disguise themselves as an elderly woman, and pretend to play at my table while actually watching the patrons. I'm guessing that our thief thinks she got away with it - and there's nothing like success to make someone feel bold. Boldness makes people careless. Careless people get caught."
Ahjess's automatic reaction was to look skeptical, but he visibly swallowed the impulse to say something sarcastic, instead admitting: "That's going to need some disguise."
"Yeah." Edward caught the obvious effort Ahjess made to be civil, and silently approved; another point in the boy's favor. Maybe he wasn't just a pretty face, after all.
"But can you think of any other way to deal with this? Unless you've got a gutsy maiden aunt stashed away somewhere, it's going to have to be one of us." A thought occurred to Edward and he immediately dismissed it. But then on second thought...
He shrugged. "This might be crazy, but my wife might do it. The only problem is that she's got a pretty easily recognizable face - her nose is distinctive and the thief might have seen her in here. So maybe I ask her as a last resort, but it may come down to that."
The trill considered it. "What about dressing up that new girl, Min? She's only done one shift. No one would recognize her?"
"Hmmmm. That's a better idea. Yeah it would work - some makeup, a wig, maybe a voice synthesizer. You think she'd do it?"
"We can but ask, if she comes back tomorrow."
"If?" Edward wondered why it would even be a question.
Ahjess shrugged. "You can never tell. It looks easy, but six to eight hours on your feet? I've seen my share of quitters."
"Good point." Edward finished cleaning up his Dabo table, and looked around the room. Some of the kids were sitting down at the bar and having a drink, instead of getting their tables cleared of glasses and debris. "Hey, we should probably finish closing procedures," he suggested to Ahjess.
"Good idea." Ahjess turned to his colleagues. "This isn't a social club you lot, and if the books aren't in order, the boss will have our hides. So chop chop, lets get cashed up, then we can lay about getting drunk!"
Edward snorted and shook his head, but he had a half-amused expression on his face. He had a pretty good idea what they were thinking: since their boss was arrested, they'd be out of jobs and the Box would close. He didn't want to see that happen - not just for his own sake, but for Yolanthe's. And theirs too, in spite of how they treated him. This wasn't going to be easy, working the casino while Yolanthe was in the brig. Did any of these kids know how to run a business?
"So do you have keys to lock up? And what's the plan for tomorrow? Business as usual?" He looked from Ahjess to Pelin, and back.
"I've got the keys." Pelin held up a remote control fob. "Normal opening is supposed to be six, but the Boss has been opening early recently, mid-day ish."
"Well, then I suggest we just keep on doing what she would have us do, if she were here. It won't be long and she'll be back." He was almost sure of that. But not completely sure.
"So you'll be here at for opening at noon?" Pelin asked anxiously.
"Yeah. 'Course. I don't see any reason not to," said Edward.
The two young men looked visibly relieved. "Then lets get going," Ahjess muttered, "Or we'll still be closing down when its time to open up."
::OFF::
Edward Stapleton
Dabo Boy
(NPC by Charlene)
&
The Boys and Girls of the Box of Delights
(NPC by Notty)
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Bridget Stapleton
Post Details
| Title | The Granny Brigade part two | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Bridget Stapleton | |
| Posted | Mon Feb 28, 2011 @ 1:54pm | |
| Location | The Box Of Delights | |
| Timeline | SD 37 0230 |
Ahjess came over to Edward's table at the end of the night. "Okay, cashing up," he announced. "We always do it in pairs. You start by counting your chips, and note how many you have at your table. Then you count the cash, and compare both totals to the table data." he tapped a code into the side of the Dabo table, and a padd popped out.
~Nice~, Edward thought as he saw the padd, and silently nodded his head to acknowledge Ahjess' instructions. He was still embarrassed about having been scolded by the young man, and disappointed with himself for needing it. Well, that and his feet were tired, and he was more than a little concerned about Yolanthe. Her arrest just after opening was a startling blow to everyone.
He separated the chips by color and counted them, making a note of each color's total in a file on the padd. Then he counted the cash. Ahjess had stood mutely by, watching the process, until it was obvious that there was a discrepancy.
"Do it again, just to be sure," Ahjess was calm, mostly. Just a hint of worry, or possibly irritation. With the young trill it was hard to tell.
It came up short again.
~Crap and double crap~, Edward thought. "It wasn't me. You can search me," he said. He was wracking his brain, trying to think of how this could have happened. Maybe he'd given someone the wrong amount when they'd cashed out at his table? He couldn't be sure, and that was the worst part.
"In that get up, there's only one place you could hide it." Ahjess sniffed as he started scrolling through the table padd, "And I'm not looking up there."
Edward had to laugh, in spite of the seriousness of the subject. In some ways, he liked this kid's personality. He'd been expecting a bit of a tantrum over it, not this. Hmmm. Interesting.
The trill went over to Jessica, who was also counting in chips at her table, and picked up a padd there, reading it as he returned. "According to this, you had twenty strips in chips at the start of the night, and a float of another twenty." He put the new padd down, and brandished the table padd, "According to this, 246 strips worth of chips were played, and yet we only have 212 in the pot." The tone of his voice added the question Care to explain?
"I have no idea how that happened," Edward raised both hands in a shrugging gesture. "I didn't take it." Which meant the chips got up and walked away on their own. He thought back to that one woman who knocked her chips on the floor by mistake.
"It might have been a customer." Had she intentionally dropped those chips not to get a look at his backside, but to cover a theft?
"Really?" the trill asked in mock horror. "Could that be possible? Could it?"
Edward's face hardened, but he held his tongue. He deserved the tongue lashing. But that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Think back, what did I tell you never to do?"
"Never take your eye off the table," Edward growled.
"I trust this is a learning experience?" The young man raised an eyebrow.
Indeed it was. About customers, and also about Ahjess himself. He kept his voice neutral as he said, "I won't make the same mistake twice."
"And who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?" Ahjess replied with a smug little smile.
"Only those who underestimate the dog," Edward said, ominously. The young man was flopping his hairless big toe over the line. Being corrected was one thing; being discourteous, another.
The smile vanished in a puff of sourness, before being replaced with a more serious face. "Now we do have a problem. We're seriously short, and don't know who to watch out for." Again there was an unspoken question, but this time it was plaintive. Without Yolanthe to turn to, he wasn't sure what happened next. What do we do now?
"You're right," Edward agreed, easing up on his stiffened body language. He'd taken notice of Ahjess' response and inwardly nodded, as their verbal sparring receded. The boy wasn't stupid. "Is anyone else's table short? Because if they aren't, then I have an idea who the thief might be."
Edward turned and began packing his chips away, speaking as he worked. "There was this one customer who spent the entire evening at my table. She was the one to your right as you ran the wheel? She'd intentionally knocked those chips onto the floor, the ones you saw me bend over and pick up." Edward flicked Ahjess a glance, and then resumed putting the chips in their box. "At the time, I thought she was flirting. But now, I wonder if it might have been a ruse, because she won right afterward. I thought it was suspicious at the time, but I didn't have anything to back up my suspicion."
Ahjess sighed. "Blast the no cameras policy." He muttered. "We'd have mug shots in no time." He rubbed at the spots on the right of his face. "Give me a sec." He got off the stool he had been lounging on, and went into a quiet conference with Jessica. Edward saw her roll her eyes and glance at him. Then they called over Pelin, the bar man, and continued the huddle.
Two minutes later, Ahjess was back. "No one else is short. Its just us. But knowing it might be one of the granny brigade doesn't help the fact we're down by almost two bars of latinum."
Edward was silent a minute. He had an idea about how to catch the thief. "We need an undercover operative. Someone who can disguise themselves as an elderly woman, and pretend to play at my table while actually watching the patrons. I'm guessing that our thief thinks she got away with it - and there's nothing like success to make someone feel bold. Boldness makes people careless. Careless people get caught."
Ahjess's automatic reaction was to look skeptical, but he visibly swallowed the impulse to say something sarcastic, instead admitting: "That's going to need some disguise."
"Yeah." Edward caught the obvious effort Ahjess made to be civil, and silently approved; another point in the boy's favor. Maybe he wasn't just a pretty face, after all.
"But can you think of any other way to deal with this? Unless you've got a gutsy maiden aunt stashed away somewhere, it's going to have to be one of us." A thought occurred to Edward and he immediately dismissed it. But then on second thought...
He shrugged. "This might be crazy, but my wife might do it. The only problem is that she's got a pretty easily recognizable face - her nose is distinctive and the thief might have seen her in here. So maybe I ask her as a last resort, but it may come down to that."
The trill considered it. "What about dressing up that new girl, Min? She's only done one shift. No one would recognize her?"
"Hmmmm. That's a better idea. Yeah it would work - some makeup, a wig, maybe a voice synthesizer. You think she'd do it?"
"We can but ask, if she comes back tomorrow."
"If?" Edward wondered why it would even be a question.
Ahjess shrugged. "You can never tell. It looks easy, but six to eight hours on your feet? I've seen my share of quitters."
"Good point." Edward finished cleaning up his Dabo table, and looked around the room. Some of the kids were sitting down at the bar and having a drink, instead of getting their tables cleared of glasses and debris. "Hey, we should probably finish closing procedures," he suggested to Ahjess.
"Good idea." Ahjess turned to his colleagues. "This isn't a social club you lot, and if the books aren't in order, the boss will have our hides. So chop chop, lets get cashed up, then we can lay about getting drunk!"
Edward snorted and shook his head, but he had a half-amused expression on his face. He had a pretty good idea what they were thinking: since their boss was arrested, they'd be out of jobs and the Box would close. He didn't want to see that happen - not just for his own sake, but for Yolanthe's. And theirs too, in spite of how they treated him. This wasn't going to be easy, working the casino while Yolanthe was in the brig. Did any of these kids know how to run a business?
"So do you have keys to lock up? And what's the plan for tomorrow? Business as usual?" He looked from Ahjess to Pelin, and back.
"I've got the keys." Pelin held up a remote control fob. "Normal opening is supposed to be six, but the Boss has been opening early recently, mid-day ish."
"Well, then I suggest we just keep on doing what she would have us do, if she were here. It won't be long and she'll be back." He was almost sure of that. But not completely sure.
"So you'll be here at for opening at noon?" Pelin asked anxiously.
"Yeah. 'Course. I don't see any reason not to," said Edward.
The two young men looked visibly relieved. "Then lets get going," Ahjess muttered, "Or we'll still be closing down when its time to open up."
::OFF::
Edward Stapleton
Dabo Boy
(NPC by Charlene)
&
The Boys and Girls of the Box of Delights
(NPC by Notty)