Fortnight of Fear (35 page)

“Solly,” said Jack; but the adolescent Mr Graf shot him a glance as hard as a carpet-tack, and he said nothing else.

Solly bet six months. He jiggled the dice in the palms of his hands, and breathed on them, and whispered something, and then he rolled. They had once called Solly the Arm of Atlantic City; and his arm didn't fail him now. The dice bounced, glowed, and tumbled, and came up Kuan-yin Pusa and Yo Huang.

Next, he bet a year, and threw another natural. He threw again, and won again. Roll after roll, he played like a genius; played like Jack had never seen him play before. With each win, he gradually began to look younger. His gray hairs wriggled out of sight, his wrinkles unfolded like a played-back film of crumpled wrapping-paper. He stood taller, straighter, and played with even more confidence; and all the other players bet along with him, hardways bets, right bets, they shed years and years in front of Jack's eyes. After twenty minutes, he was watching a game played by young, good-looking, vigorous people: attractive young women and smiling young men. Their shriveled skin was plumper and pinker; their hair was thick and shiny; their voices roared with vigor and health.

“How about some champagne?” called Mr Fortunato.

A twelve-year-old Mr Graf snapped his fingers stickily to one of the girls. “Bring these people champagne.”

Jack didn't bet. Not yet. He was tempted to. But he wanted to bide his time. He wanted to see the losing side of this game, as well as the winning side. He wanted to work out the odds. And although Solly was winning, and
consistently winning, it occurred to Jack that the younger he became, the less experienced he became, the more risks he was prepared to take, the wilder his arm.

“Ten years!” grinned a 24-year-old Solly, shaking the dice in his hands. “I'm betting ten years! Fourteen again, and screw the zits!”

He rolled. The dice glowered, shimmered, sparkled. They bounced off the cushion on the opposite side of the layout, but then they seemed almost to slow down, as if they were bouncing through transparent glue. The Ghosts glowed malevolently for all to see. Yama and Shui-Mu. Craps. An entire decade was silently sucked from Solly's body and soul; and he visibly shuddered.

After that – as far as Solly was concerned – the table turned as cold as a graveyard. Mr Graf was shooting, winning a little here and a little there; but Solly was stacking his counters on all the impossible bets, trying to win time, trying to win time, but losing it with every roll. When Mr Graf finally missed, Solly was white-haired; on the verge of respiratory collapse. He sat hunched over the opposite side of the table, his hands dry like desert thorns, his head bowed.

Jack approached him but didn't touch him. Bad karma to touch him; no matter what affection he felt.

“Solly,” he said thickly, “pull out now. You've lost, Solly. Call it quits.”

Solly raised his head and stared at Jack with filmy eyes. His neck hung in a brown-measled wattle.

“One more bet,” he whispered.

“Solly, for God's sake, you're falling apart. You look about a hundred years old.”

Solly wasn't amused. “I'm eighty-seven, two months, and three days exactly, you unctuous bastard, thanks very much. And if I win another thirty on the next roll, I'll be only fifty-seven. And if I bet another thirty after that … well, then, I'll be happy to quit. Life was good to
me when I was twenty-seven. Twenty-seven is a pretty good age.”

Jack said nothing. If Solly bet thirty years and won, then Jack would be happy for him. But if he bet thirty years and lost …

He looked at Mr Graf. Mr Graf had lost six or seven years betting on Solly's last roll, and was looking much older again, and more like the Mr Graf that Jack had seen hurrying in and out of the Golden Lode, hedged in by minders and shills and hard-faced accountants. Mr Graf's eyes turned like a lizard's toward Solly. What could he say? Solly had lost and those who had lost were always hooked. Those who had won were hooked, too. So what could he say?

“You're not playing, Mr Druce? It's your roll, if you're playing.”

“If it's all the same to you, I think I'll stay out of it,” said Jack, although perspiration was sliding from his armpits and his fingernails were clenched into the palms of his hands.

“Sure thing. It's all the same to me,” said Mr Graf, immediately offering the dice to Mr Fortunato. With the unashamed greed of the truly fearful, Mr Fortunato held out his hand.

“Wait, Jack!” wheezed Solly, and took hold of Jack's sleeve, and twisted it. He bent his head close, so that Jack could smell his unexpected age, chalk and cloves and geriatric staleness. “Jack, you're the best arm there ever was. If anybody can win back those years for me, you can. Jack, I'm begging you, Jack. We never did nothing for each other, did we? Never expected nothing, never asked for nothing. You know that. But I'm asking you now, Jack, I'm down on my knees. If you let Fortunato shoot next, I'm dead meat, Jack. I'm gone. You know that.”

Jack sniffed, the way that a heroin addict sniffs. He feared this game of Beijing Craps more than any game
he had ever come across. It had all the glamor of punto banco and all the fascinating horror of standing in front of a speeding express train. He knew that if he rolled those dice just once, he would be caught for good.

Mr Graf sensed his hesitation, however, and held the glowing dice suspended in the air, just two inches above Mr Fortunato's open hand. Jack could almost see the nerves that crawled with anticipation in Mr Fortunato's palm.

Solly tugged his sleeve even tighter. “Jack, for old time's sake, I'm pleading with you now. I never pled before. I never pled to nobody. But please.”

Jack hesitated for one more second. He didn't need to look at his watch. He never did. He knew what time it was. He loosened his necktie and said, “Give me a minute to change, all right?”

He undressed behind the screen. The black dragon-robe was cold and silky on his skin. He tightened the sash, and then he reemerged, and Mr Graf was still waiting, still smiling.

Jack approached Nevvar Graf and slowly held out his hand. Mr Graf smiled secretively, and dropped the dice into Jack's palm. They tumbled and turned as slowly as if they didn't particularly care for gravity. When they touched Jack's palm, they felt like fire and ice and naked voltage.

The players gathered around the table again. The lamp was so dim that all Jack could see of their faces was smudges of paleness in the shadows. He shook the dice and tiny grave-worms of bluish fluorescence wriggled out from between his fingers. He bet six months, and stood back waiting while the side-bets were placed.

He threw the dice across the table. They jumped and sparkled with even more brilliance than they had before.

“You see that?” said Mr Graf, slyly. “Even the
dice
know when an expert is throwing.”

Jack had come out with Chung Kuei and Yo Huang. Solly clenched his fists and breathed. “All
right
! You goddamned brilliant son-of-a-bitch!”

Jack threw again, Kuan-yin Pusa and Chung Kuei. He threw them again the next throw, and picked up a whole year. He didn't
feel
any different, but it was stimulating to think that he was a whole year younger.

He continued to win, again and again and again; living-a-little and living-a-little more, throwing naturals and points as swiftly and confidently as if the dice were loaded – which, in a strange way, they were. The years fell away from him with every win, until he was betting two and three years at a time, and his black silk robe began to hang loosely around his slim twenty-two-year-old frame.

Solly placed numbers to win with almost every throw, and gradually won back the years he had lost before. He played cautiously, however, and didn't risk more than a year a time, until he reached forty-five.

Then – just as Jack was about to throw again – he placed a hard-ways bet of twenty years.

Jack looked at him sharply, but Solly grinned and winked. “One last throw, my friend, and then I'm going to walk away, and never come back.”

But Jack felt something in the dice; as if they had shrunk and tightened in the palm of his hand; as if they had suddenly gone cold. The dice were not going to let Solly go.

Jack said, “Twenty years on one throw, Solly? That's a hell of a bet.”

“That's the last bet ever,” said Solly. “You just do your bit, and let me take care of myself.”

Jack threw the dice. They dropped leadenly onto the layout, scarcely bouncing at all. They came up Shui-Mu and Hsua Hao, a win for Jack; but Solly had bet Shui-Mu and Shui-Mu, and he was immediately aged by twenty years.

Jack was only a little over twenty years old now. He stood straighter and taller, and his hair was thick and wavy and brown. He took off his toupee and crammed it into the pocket of his robe. Mr Graf smiled at him. “Hair today, gone tomorrow, huh, Mr Druce?”

Jack scooped up the dice and prepared to throw them again. As he did so, Solly put down the gleaming tokens that showed he was staking another twenty years.

“Solly!” called Jack.

Solly looked up. “Don't do it, Solly,” Jack warned him, in a clear and youthful voice; although he found that he didn't really care too much whether Solly lost another twenty years or not. Look at the guy, he was practically dead already.

“Just throw, will you?” Solly growled at him.

Jack threw; and won; but Solly lost yet again, and so did two or three of the others at the table. Jack heard from Solly a sharp harsh intake of breath, and then Solly staggered, and gripped the edge of the table to stop himself from falling.

“Solly? You okay?”

Solly's eyes bulged and his face was blue from lack of oxygen. “What do you care?” he gasped. “Will you shoot, for God's sake? Just shoot!”

Mr Graf was very young again, a small boy peering over the dimly-lit center of the table. He said to Solly with utmost calmness, “Do you want an ambulance, sir? Or maybe I should call the house physician?”

“Shoot, that's all,” Solly insisted, and placed another twenty years on the table.

Jack slowly juggled the dice. Fire and honey in his hand. “Solly … you understand what could happen if you lose?”

“Shoot,” hissed Solly, through false teeth that were too large for his shrunken gums.

“Go on,” urged Mr Fortunato; although he too was
ancient, with sunken ink-stained eyes and wispy white hair.

Jack shrugged, shook the dice, and threw.

Suddenly, the dice crackled with new vitality. They bounced on the opposite cushion, and tumbled across the table in a cascade of glowing Chinese images. They came to rest right in front of Solly.

Yama and Hsua Hao. Solly had lost.

“I –” he gargled. But traceries of light had already crept out of the dice, trembling and flickering like static electricity. They forked across the baize to the tips of Solly's fingers. Silently, enticingly – right in front of Jack's eyes – the light crept up Solly's arms, and entwined themselves around him in a brilliant cage.

“
Solly!
” Jack shouted.

But Solly began to shudder uncontrollably. His hair was lifted up on end, and white sparks began to shower out of his nose and eyes. He looked as if fierce fireworks had been ignited inside his head.

Jack heard a noise that was something like a sob and something like a scream, and then Solly collapsed onto his knees, although his fingers still clung to the edge of the table.

Twitching electricity streamed out of his body, shrinking down his arms and pouring out of his fingertips, back across the craps table and into the dice. They vanished into the Ghosts on the dice like disappearing rats' tails. Solly dropped backward onto the floor, his skull hitting the polished wood with a hollow knock.

The dice remained on the table, softly glowing, as if Solly's life had given them renewed energy.

“Well, Mr Druce?” asked Nevvar Graf. “We're waiting.”

Jack looked down at Solly's crumpled, dried-up body; and then at Nevvar Graf; and then back at the dice. The haunted circle of faces watched him expectantly.

Then – “No,” said Jack. “That's it. I'm out.”

“You still have five years on the table, Mr Druce. You'll lose your five years. Rules of the game.”

“I'm only twenty-two now. What do five years matter?”

Mr Graf smiled. “Ask Mr Fortunato what five years matter. It's an education, Beijing Craps. It teaches you that the time you throw away when you're young, you'll bitterly regret when you're old. Beijing Craps teaches you the value of life, Mr Druce. What does a month matter, to a bored teenage kid? Nothing: he hopes that month will pass as soon as possible. But tell me what a month matters to a man with only one month left to live.”

Jack took a deep, steadying breath. “Whatever, I'm out.”

“You'll be back.”

“Well, we'll just have to see about that.”

“All right,” shrugged Mr Graf. “Carlos – will you escort Mr Druce out of the casino? And make sure you pay him his winnings. Thank you, Mr Druce. You have a rare skill with the ivories.”

Jack changed back into his loose seersucker suit. Before he left, he nodded to the circle of players. One or two of them nodded back; but most of them seemed to have forgotten him already. Carlos took his arm, the first time that anybody in the casino had touched him, and he was led back out into the bright glittering world of the Golden Lode.

When he had cashed his winnings, he went across to the
punto banco
table. He watched the game for a while, considering a couple of bets. A bleached-blonde girl standing next to him was screaming with excitement as she won her first hand. But after Beijing Craps, the idea of playing for money seemed absurdly petty. He glanced back toward the staircase that led up to Mr Graf's private craps game. Carlos was still standing at
the top of the stairs, and he smiled back at Jack with a smile like curdled milk.