Tim Powers - Last Call (66 page)

"Six hundred," said Crane.

Leon shrugged and nodded, and Crane looked to the other bidder to see if he would top that bid.

But the other bidder waved in defeat.

Leon flipped up his down cards and shoved all four across to Crane.

With a steady hand Crane slid them next to his own cards and separated out of his roll six hundred-dollar bills, tossing them onto the empty spot of green felt in front of Leon.

Crane was now holding the complete hand that Doctor Leaky had bought in the liquor store parking lot—a King-high Flush—and if the other players followed the courses he had prepared for them, he would win this hand at the showdown, and Leon could then exercise his Assumption option.

The Ace-King that had led off the premating betting was bought by one of the necktie-lads—to make, as Crane knew, an Ace-high Straight—and the next hand was reliably bought to make three Fours for one of the women.

But the next man, whose hand showed the Three of Cups and the Six of Coins, and who was supposed to sell his hand to the man showing the Nine and Five of Coins to make a Nine-high Flush, refused the expected bid.

Crane stared at the man with the Nine and Five. Offer him
more
, he thought, trying to project the order telepathically. You've got four of the Coins suit down, and he's showing one up; you'll have a Flush, you idiot!
Buy it!

The man, though, shook his head; no one else bid on the hand, and the next hand in turn came up for auction.

Crane's carefully constructed sequence was broken.

He sat back and pressed his side, absently wondering if the steady bleeding would soak through the bandage and stain his dress. He tried to remember all the cards in all the hands, and to guess how the hand might turn out, now that it was out of his control. His King-high Flush might still win; he had been careful to give everybody cards that
looked
good but wouldn't add up to any killer hands.

But when the ninth hand, showing a Six and a Four, came up for bid, the man who had refused to sell the Three and the Six bought it.

You're one lucky moron, thought Crane bitterly as the cards and money were exchanged across the table. You paid for a low Straight, but I happen to know you bought a Full Boat, Threes over Sixes. Which beats me. And I can't hope to bluff you out at the showdown—my board doesn't even show a pair; I clearly can have nothing better than a Flush.

When the sixth hand was mated and conceived, and the raised bet came around to him, Crane smiled tightly and turned his cards face down.

"I'm out," he said.

The cigarette smoke just hung in flat layers under the paneled ceiling. Neither Crane nor Leon was involved in the hand any longer.

All Crane could do now was play for money and, of course, never buy a hand from Leon.

And twice he looked on, helplessly, as Leon became a parent of a winning hand, matched the pot, and lost the Assumption. Each time, the big brown man smiled under his bandage as he ran his fingers down the stack of cards, and his smile didn't falter when he failed to feel the crimped Two—he must have thought some player had straightened the card—and he picked the low card even without that help.

"You're taking money for the hand," Leon said each time as the player was happily raking in the enormous pot. "And I've bought it. I've
assumed it
."

Both players seemed puzzled by the ritual statement, but agreed. Neither one seemed to notice Leon's intense satisfaction.

Dawn had paled the sky behind the jagged mountains when the houseboat chugged back to its slip, and the twelve guests shambled out onto the deck, blinking and breathing deeply in the fresh and still-cool air as the Amino Acids tied up the lines.

Now that they were all fellow veterans of the long night's play, several of them tried to make small-talk with Crane where he stood at the rail, but he was already thinking about how he would stack the deck in his purse for tonight's game, and they drifted away to find somebody less taciturn.

A couple of them decided to get beds at the Lakeview Lodge, and Crane was able to catch a ride back to town in Newt's Cadillac; one of the players fell asleep in the back seat, and nobody talked much during the drive.

When Crane unlocked his hotel-room door and stepped into the air-conditioned chilliness, the connecting door was open, and Diana was sitting on one of the beds. The faded yellow baby blanket was spread out over one of the pillows, as if she'd been napping with her head on it.

"Are you up," he asked, "or
still
up?"

"Up," she said. "Everybody crashed out after an early dinner, and four A.M. seemed like morning."

Crane took off his wig and tossed it onto a chair. "Where are the kids?"

"Across the street at Caesars, checking the sports book for a cancer cure." She stood up and stretched, and in spite of his exhaustion, Crane found himself noticing her legs in the tight jeans and the way her breasts pressed out against the fabric of her white shirt.

"You didn't sell it to him, did you?" she said.

"No." Crane kicked off the high heels and padded into the bathroom. "Some guy bought the wrong hand," he called, "and now I've got to cook up another thirteen hands for tonight and try to make sure
they'll
link up right." He soaped and rinsed his face but saw smudges of tan makeup on the towel after he dried himself. "How the hell do you get this stuff off?"

He heard Diana giggle, and then she was in the bathroom with him. "Cold cream," she told him. "Here." She unscrewed the cap from a plastic jar and then massaged his face with the cold, slick stuff. He closed his eyes, and after a moment put his hands on her waist as if to steady himself. She didn't flinch or say anything, and her fingers kept pressing smoothly across his face. "You'll want to shave," she said as she picked up the towel and rubbed it down his forehead and nose and chin. "You must have looked like what-was-her-name, Rosa Klebb in
From Russia with Love
—'the oldest and ugliest whore in the world.' "

"That's what I need to hear right now," he said, nodding.

His hands were still on her waist, and now he unhurriedly leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips opened, and in the moment before she stepped away from him he tasted the faint scent of recent minty mouth wash on her tongue.

"I'm sorry," he said, lowering his empty, trembling hands. "I shouldn't—"

She took his left hand in both of hers. "Shut up," she said quickly. "We were all in each other's minds yesterday, and I know you know how I feel about you. I … love you. But there's a bed in there, and a chain on the door, and we wouldn't stop after a good kiss, would we?"

He grinned at her ruefully. "
Su-ure
we would," he said. "
Trust
me."

"On Saturday," she said, "after this is all done, if we win—we'll get married. At one of these screwy chapels in town. You should hear Nardie's stories about the people she drives to them." Suddenly she gave him a stricken look. "My God! That is, if you
want
to marry me."

He squeezed her fingers. "You saw into my mind. You know I do." He was still leadenly tired, but excited, too, and embarrassed; he freed his hand and turned around. "Could you unzip me?"

He heard the buzz of the zipper being pulled down. "No funny business, now."

He turned back to face her again. "I'll be good. You know, it's a good thing we do want to get married. I don't think we would really have
won
, if we didn't do that."

"The King and Queen have got to be married," she agreed, "and have children." She touched his hair. "That's not Grecian Formula, is it?"

"No. I'm ungraying." He kissed her forehead. "And you've lost that scar. Blessings from the old killed King and Queen. I wonder how young we'll get."

She winked at him. "Not pre-puberty, I hope." Then she was out of the bathroom. "Shower and get some sleep," she called from the other room. "When do you want to be waked up?"

Waked up, he thought. Never. "Make it two, I guess."

"Okay."

He heard the connecting door close, and, his mind turbulent with joy and fear, he began to work on getting out of his dress.

Mavranos reached up in the dimness of the wide hall and patted Cleopatra's right breast.

The carved and painted female body he had touched was the figurehead of the big, mechanically rocking boat by the steps up to Cleopatra's Barge, one of the bars in Caesars Palace.

"Sure," he said with a weary smile to Diana and Dinh, "you girls go ahead and blow some chips. I've got to medicate my beer deficiency, and I'll be fine with Cleo here."

Diana took Nardie's elbow, and the two of them walked back down the carpeted hallway toward the playing floor. Diana's purse, bulky with the folded-up old baby blanket, swung between them.

"I gather," said Nardie, a little stiffly, "that he didn't sell the King the senile hand, and that you two are planning to get married on Saturday."

Diana glanced at her, concealing her surprise. "Right both ways. Okay with you, I hope."

"Failing with the King—no, that's not
okay with me
. I don't want to have hitched my cart to a horse that's a loser.
My
half-brother is a pretty good candidate, too, you know. I could have put my money on him. As to who you marry—that's none of my business."

"It is your business," said Diana, "if you're with us. I know you tried to seduce Scott yourself a week ago."

Nardie grimaced and seemed about to spit. "
Seduce
him? I ran from him. I told him he should go kill himself." She yanked her arm free from Diana's grasp. "I don't
need
you people, you know; I'm still a contender. Just because you—"

"Are you very tempted to go back to him? To your brother?"

Nardie's lips pulled back from her teeth, and she inhaled—and then her narrow shoulders slumped, and she just sighed. "Hell, yes. If I was with him, I wouldn't have to think all the time, be alert. Every time I'm near a pay phone that rings, I think it might be him, and I want to pick it up. Wouldn't you?"

They were among the banks of chugging and clanging slot machines; young men in the armor and helmets and skirts of Roman soldiers stood as still as statues on raised stone altars behind the slot machines, and a man dressed as Julius Caesar and a woman dressed as Cleopatra moved through the crowd, graciously welcoming everyone to Caesars Palace and urging people to have a good time. Doric pillars, and marble, and heavy purple curtains framed all the electrically flashing action, and Diana wondered what a genuine classical Roman, time-traveled to now and dropped here, would think of the place.

"Arky should have come with us," whispered Nardie, nudging Diana and tangling her hand in her purse strap. "I think we're about to get an audience with Cleopatra."

Sure enough, the woman in the gold-belted white skirt and Nefertiti hat was striding across the figured carpet toward them.

"She's going to ask us how come we're not playing," said Diana.

They both were touching the baby blanket that was stuffed into the purse, and it was warm, even hot.

Then Diana felt something shift, in the space around her and in the depths of her mind.

All at once most of the lights were snuffed out, and the laughter and ringing bells stopped, and the floor was tilted. Diana gasped and took a balance-catching step backward, and she could feel that she had stepped onto springy grass.

The cool breeze smelled of trees and the sea instead of paper money and new shoes, and the woman walking toward them was taller, incalculably tall, and wore a crown with a silver crescent moon over her high, pale forehead. Her eyes glowed in the shifting white light.

Nardie was still standing beside Diana and had tightly grasped her hand; but when the goddess stepped closer, she let go and hurried back, into the shadows under the tossing moonlit trees.

Diana strained her eyes, trying to keep the approaching woman in focus. The cold and inhumanly beautiful face was above Diana now, and seemed to be a feature of the night sky. Dogs or perhaps wolves were howling somewhere, and surf crashed on rocks. Fine salt spray dewed Diana's parted lips.

Her knees were suddenly cold, and she realized she had knelt on the wet grass.

When the goddess spoke, her voice was literally musical—like notes stroked from inorganic strings and ringing silver.
This is my daughter,
spoke the voice,
who pleases me.

But Diana heard suddenly the rapid-fire
clank-clank-clank
of coins spat into the payout well of a slot machine, and for a moment it was the sound of spent shells, ejected from the hot, fast-jacking slide of a semi-automatic pistol, hitting the sidewalk pavement as a woman fell away with three holes punched through her head, and Diana turned and began frantically crawling across the dewy grass toward the trees in whose shadows Dinh was already hiding.

This is my death, Diana thought. I'm being invited to die.

Sometimes one risks death,
spoke the goddess behind her,
to save one's children.

Still facing the trees, Diana stopped; and she thought about the night when her mother had been killed, and she herself had survived and been found by Ozzie and Scott.

And she thought once again about Oliver and Scat.

She forced herself to breathe deeply and stop panting. "Did you do that?" she asked quietly. "Could you have … got away from that death, if you hadn't paused to put me somewhere safe, where I'd be found by strangers?"

There was no answer, and finally Diana turned around, still kneeling, and looked up.

She was shaking but didn't look away from the goddess's gaze.

Stand up, daughter,
said the voice,
and take my blessing.

Diana got to her feet, leaning a little against the strengthening offshore wind. Owls swept past overhead.

"My … friend," Diana ventured to say. "Can she be blessed too, Mother?"

I see no friend.

Diana pulled her attention from the face that was bending down over her in the sky and blinked into the waving shadows under the trees behind her.