Chapter 4

"Whaddaya mean you don't have any cursed rings anymore?" Yuffie was feeling less patient even than usual, and it's hard to be patient while holding a coversation with a three story tall monster whose face looks like it has gotten the worst of an encounter with a (very large) brick and whose attitude could have been lifted straight out of Don Corleone's evil twin. Ultima Weapon was in a foul mood after getting kicked around by Cloud and Yuffie, who seemed to be trying to mug him.

"Just what I said. I lost my cursed ring."

"I've never known a monster to lose his treasure before. Never."

"Well, I did."

"What, did someone else beat you up and steal it first?"

"No."

"How did you lose it, then?"

"I just did, okay?"

"This here pointy-edged throwing star says otherwise."

Yuffie simultaneously drove her poitn and her shuriken home, injuring Ultima's ego and nose (such as it was) and convincing the beast to come clean.

"I lost it in a poker game."

This was about the only reply imaginable that could have let the air out of Yuffie's momentum.

"Poker?" Cloud finally contributed to the mugging.

"Yes, poker." Ultima's pride hit a new low point.

"I can see why he lost," said Yuffie. "He's got less a poker face and more a bitter beer face."

"Shut up. And leave me alone. I'll be off now, please?"

"First," said Yuffie, "tell us who has the ring."

xxx

"Gawd, this place is gross. Urk."

Yuffie took some time getting used to the atmosphere of Istanbul Grill and Poker Den, one of the seedier corners of the Gold Saucer. The smoke had her hacking like a Tampa Bay Devil Rays cleanup hitter, and the music had her head pounding like Muhammad Ali taking out frustrations on a defenseless bag after a hard day at the office.

Cloud ignored his companion's suffering. "We're looking for a man by the name of Big Bad Leroy Brown. Keep an eye out."

"Urk." Good reply.

Cloud scanned the room. He instantly recognized several of the more prominent lowlifes gathered around the game tables. "Wildcard" Bill Hiccup. Phil "Hello" Kittie. Chris Moneylender. Johnny "The Grim Reaper" Chun. Reno from The Turks. And in the corner, Big Bad Leroy Brown.

Leroy was big enough to intimidate even the most macho of macho men. Doctors sometimes give patients six months to live; Leroy would give those he disliked something more like five minutes. Ever the mobster, he had more connections in the underworld than your average sewer system, and he somehow managed to smell even worse. The guy could make a man sweat just by looking at him.

Naturally, the first words out of Yuffie's mouth after seeing Leroy were: "That man really stinks. Yuck."

Cloud cupped his hand over Yuffie's mouth before more damage could be done, but he still thought he saw a hint of a deadly snarl on Leroy's lips.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that man is?" Cloud's tone was serious enough to be used by a surgeon about to replace someone's heart, speaking to a resident who was known for dropping his keys in before sewing people up. "If he hears you make one more derogatory comment tonight, I'll probably be carrying you home."

"Oh?"
"In two separate bags."

"Oh."

"Be careful."

"I get it."

Cloud was somewhat accustomed to sleazy joints like this one, so he sauntered up to the table and attempted to make small talk before dropping a few Gil as an ante.

"Deal me in. What's the game?"
"Texas Hold 'Em."

Cloud took a quick glance at his cards and sighed when he saw a two and a three, different suits.

"I fold," he said.

"Just as well," said Reno. "I'm going to win this hand."

"You're about the worst bluffer I've ever seen," said Elena, whom Cloud hadn't even noticed earlier. Rude, too, was in the room, but he was too busy guzzling some sort of adult beverage at the bar and fiddling with his iPod to play any cards.

Reno ended up being right, taking a middle-sized pot and earning a look of disgust from Elena to go with some sarcastic applause from her detractors at the table. She consoled herself by assuming Reno would have to pay for the night's drinks if she went broke playing poker.

Yuffie saw Elena's apparent greenness as an opportunity to rob from a helpless amateur, so she wedged herself next to her and began some polite, distracting conversation.

"Didn't this place used to be called Constantinople House of Cards a while back?"

"Istanbul was Constantinople, but now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople," answered Elena.

"Been a long time gone, Constantinople? Why did it get the works?"

"Reno didn't like the décor, so he got Shinra to shut it down."

"What did he not like about it?"

"That's nobody's business but his."

"I see." By this, Yuffie meant that she understood Elena's point/threat, but she also, secretly, meant that she had stolen a peek at Elena's cards. Time to raise.

Elena swore when everyone's cards were revealed, using a phrase Yuffie had never heard before. Yuffie just giggled as she gathered an armful of chips to herself. The smell of money was more than enough to cover up everything else in the room, at least to a lovable kleptomaniac like herself. It was also a bit addicting, so she decided it was time to pull out all of the stops, i.e. time to cheat to get more money.

Cheating was one of Yuffie's favorite hobbies, right behind stealing and just ahead of lying and hunting squirrels. Naturally, she had a few decks hidden in her pockets, and it took only a short trip to the restroom to put the one with the appropriate back designs (chocobos and Moogles swordfighting) up the sleeve of her emergency gambling sweatshirt.

The shirt itself was a thing of beauty—a triumph of functionality over aesthetics. Installed underneath the right arm was a tiny yet expensive piece of Warp materia, which she could use at any point to replace a card in her hand with a card on her wrist. After the hand was over, she would warp the two back to their original places so the house deck wouldn't mysteriously shift from being normal to comprising entirely aces. Yuffie had no intention of getting caught.

Avoiding detection also required using a little restraint. If she cheated every hand, someone would catch on and have her either beaten up or thrown out of the building. That wouldn't be good for their quest to obtain the cursed ring any more than it would be good for her wallet were this a regular gambling trip. The trick, she had discovered, was to watch for a while to see how often the best player at the table won and then win just slightly more often. The added benefit of this is that it frustrates the other guy.

Things were going quite smoothly when Cloud pulled Yuffie aside.

"Notice anything strange?"

"Yeah, I do. This drink tastes like vomit."

"No, have you noticed that Leroy isn't winning tonight?"

"I have, actually. I'm kicking his butt left and right."

"Isn't that a little strange? I'm certain the guy cheats like crazy, and yet you're winning easily."

"Well, uh…" Yuffie considered letting Cloud in on the secret and decided against it. "I'm just really lucky tonight."

"And he's not."

"That's what I don't quite get. I'm sure he's cheating. I can see where he's hiding his extra cards."

"How would you know about a thing like that?"

"No reason." Yuffie's eyes darted from side to side.

"Look, he's the best poker player on the planet by just about any measure, and he's getting clobbered by amateurs tonight. It's like… like…"

"Like he's cursed."

"Bingo. That silverish ring on his left hand must be our target."

"Oooooh. I see. Its curse is hurting his poker game."

"Think you can get it if I cause a little commotion?"
"You underestimate me. I think I can win it from him at the table."

"But you're…"
"Winning big tonight. And I feel lucky."

"Right." Cloud resigned himself to doing things Yuffie's way. "Barkeep, I'd like another Cheeseburgerita."

Yuffie was about due to find a new mark, anyway; Elena was all tapped out, and she was getting up to join Rude at the bar just as Yuffie found her way back to her seat.

"Quitting already?"

"Stuff it, bimbo."

"Grouchy, aren't you?"

Elena elected not to reply to this.

Yuffie forced herself to think about Leroy and let Elena go. Unfortunately, this shifted her focus from the Gil she was winning to the smell that was emanating from Leroy's seat. That and her drink told her it was time to make a mad dash for the restroom again.

"Urk!" She didn't make it. Casualties included a small portion of the floor and the entire front of her lucky sweatshirt.

"Darn it!" Time to go to Plan B.

xxx

"Hey, big boy." Yuffie adopted her smarmiest of expressions as she slid up next to Leroy. It was, at least, the smarmiest she could manage with plugs stuck in her nose to protect her from the odor.

"Hey, pretty lady," said Big Bad Leroy Brown. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Sure thing, hot stuff."

Cloud was now the one who had to try to keep from hurling. He'd seen better acting in movies about giant rubbery monsters eating major cities.

"You've been pretty good tonight," Leroy crooned as he came back with a drink, of which Yuffie pretended to take a sip.

"When you're hot, you're hot."

Find a word other than 'hot,' please, thought Cloud as loudly as he could manage. Darn her. She sat down on the wrong side.

Yuffie took hold of Leroy's right hand and was about to massage it a bit when she noticed that it hadn't been washed since, well, since a time a paleontologist could probably determine by examining the layers of dirt. Yuffie's contingency plan was to drape her arm around the guy's shoulders. It turned out not to be any more sanitary.

"I'm off to get a napkin," she announced. And some disinfectant, she added to herself. When she got back, she thought to squeeze down to his left. She also thought to put on some sleek-looking gloves.

"Cigarette, darling?" Yuffie was laying it on pretty thick now.

"Sure." Leroy took the bait.

"Light?" Yuffie held her lighter up to Leroy's face, moving her other hand to the ready position.

What happened next seemed to Yuffie to be in slow motion and to everyone else to be a big blur. The cigar (not cigarette) Yuffie had offered Leroy exploded in his mouth, releasing a cloud of purple smoke and making a sound like a barrel of gunpowder being flattened by a falling piano, assuming the piano was on fire. Leroy's cheat cards dropped out of his sleeves like leaves falling from a tree being cut down, and arms went about as stiff as Aeris a few minutes after her Sephiroth accident. Most of the poker players jumped from the table, and the nearby Turks drew their weapons. Cloud was nowhere to be seen.

Within a few seconds, Yuffie added herself to the list of people gone AWOL, with Ultima's ring in her pocket. Leroy, not seeing the girl he'd been having so much fun flirting with, assumed some loser had tried to steal her and shoot him and something something whatever, he was drunk, and he just felt like punching someone. The smoke and alcohol prevented him from seeing his victim.

Amazingly, the getaway was completely clean, and the poker game started up again a couple of minutes after the air cleared. Cloud gave Yuffie a short congratulatory hug during which Yuffie, on a roll, picked his pocket. Leroy, without his curse, started winning at the table again until the manager noticed the extra cards he kept in his sleeves. Elena managed to get Reno to buy her a few more drinks.

Rude was too busy trying to learn the words to the macarena to notice any of the commotion.