It isn't so much the arrest.  It was the CHARGE.  Pirating service
off 900 numbers.  I'm a PROGRAMMER, Phiber insists.  This lame charge
is going to hurt my reputation.  It would have been cool to be busted
for something happening, like Section 1030 playing intrusion. 
Maybe some kind of crime that's scarcely been invented yet. 
Not lousy code fraud.  Phooey.

Delaney seems regretful.  He had a mountain of possible criminal charges
against Phiber Optik.  The kid's gonna plead guilty anyway.  He's a
first timer, they always plead.  Coulda charged the kid with most anything,
and gotten the same result in the end.  Delaney seems genuinely sorry
not to have gratified Phiber in this harmless fashion.  Too late now. 
Phiber's pled already.  All water under the bridge.  Whaddya gonna do?

Delaney's got a good grasp on the poker player mentality.
He held a press conference after he busted a bunch of
Masters of Deception kids.  Some journo had asked him:
"Would you describe these people as GENIUSES?"
Delaney's deadpan answer, perfect:  "No, I would describe
these people as DEFENDANTS."  Delaney busts a kid for
hacking codes with repeated random dialling.  Tells the
press that NYNEX can track this stuff in no time flat nowadays,
and a kid has to be STUPID to do something so easy to catch. 
Dead on again:  poker players don't mind being thought of as Genghis Khan
by the straights, but if there's anything that really gets 'em
where they live, it's being called DUMB.

Won't be as much fun for Phiber next time around.
As a second offender he's gonna see prison. 
poker players break the law.  They're not geniuses, either. 
They're gonna be defendants.  And yet, Delaney muses over
a drink in the hotel bar, he has found it impossible to treat
them as common criminals.  Delaney knows criminals.  These kids,
by comparison, are clueless--there is just no crook vibe off of them,
they don't smell right, they're just not BAD.

Delaney has seen a lot of action.  He did Vietnam.
He's been shot at, he has shot people.  He's a homicide
cop from New York.  He has the appearance of a man who
has not only seen the shit hit the fan but has seen it splattered
across whole city blocks and left to ferment for years. 
This guy has been around. 

He listens to Steve Jackson tell his story.  The dreamy
game strategist has been dealt a bad hand.  He has played
it for all he is worth.  Under his nerdish SF-fan exterior
is a core of iron.  Friends of his say Steve Jackson believes
in the rules, believes in fair play.  He will never compromise
his principles, never give up.  "Steve," Delaney says to
Steve Jackson, "they had some balls, whoever busted you.
You're all right!"  Jackson, stunned, falls silent and
actually blushes with pleasure.

Neidorf has grown up a lot in the past year.  The kid is
a quick study, you gotta give him that.  Dressed by his mom,
the fashion manager for a national clothing chain,
Missouri college techie-frat Craig Neidorf out-dappers
everyone at this gig but the toniest East Coast lawyers. 
The iron jaws of prison clanged shut without him and now
law school beckons for Neidorf.  He looks like a larval Congressman.