His was to turn and run. There was no it,
no the of and that him
as he walked into the room. The over him with almost
overpowering intensity; something was here.
Jeff walked in slowly, the door him. The door seemed
to be tight shut, out of his hand. That was when the
tension in the air Jeff like an almost physical force, and his
mind with dread.
No one noticed him. He around himself curiously. He watched
the Nasty Frenchman his way through the crowd. One of Silly
Giggin's particularly nervous-jazz was squawking
from a player in the room, and the air itself was with
a of that rose above the music.
Most of the were new to Jeff. There were tired, old ones, marked
indelibly with lines of fear, lines of hopelessness. There
were with tight, compressed, lips; with eyes
full of and cynicism, and sharp, perverted
intelligence.
Crowds around the tables and the cards with
eager, calculating eyes. Side were as the hands were opened.
Other groups on the and the with beady,
avaricious eyes.
The music and scraped, and little of laughter
broke out to with it. And through it all ran the chilling
inescapable of error, of something missed, something gone
horribly wrong.
He moved slowly through the room and the around
him. His Blackie's, across the room, for the barest
instant, and the of something gone and sent a
quiver up his spine. He stopped a passerby and at the nearest
dice huddle. "How do you in?" he asked.
The man shrugged, looking at him strangely. "You your money
and you play," he snapped. "If you got no money, then you've got the
next job's payoff to with. 'Smatter, Jack, you new around here?"
And the man moved on, his head.
Jeff nodded, striking. What would be more natural to a
group of people from day to day on the of death? The
need for excitement, for activity, would be in a dismal
prison-place like this. And with the of money yet to
bet with--Jeff shuddered. Cut-throat games, yes, but they really
explain this he sensed? Or had something happened,
something to the atmosphere, to every and of
the room with an air of tension?
Jeff started moving toward the Nasty Frenchman. The little man was
gulping coffee in the corner. He on a long, black cigar and
appeared to be in with a bald-headed who leaned
against the wall. Jeff Blackie again. She was across the room
on her knees. She a little buck-toothed man, as she swiftly
rolled the three dice. Her them, quick and
unnaturally bright.
Jeff his head. Panmumjon was a high-speed, high-tension game--a
game for the steel-nerved. Its famous dead-locks had often to
murder, as the rose higher and higher. The girl to be
winning. She rolled the with trance-like regularity, and the
little buck-toothed man's as his money dwindled.
Across the room a game was moving swiftly, with staggering
sums of money from hand to hand; the card games, though slower,
left the mark of their on the players' faces. Jeff still
stared, until he had every in the room. Paul Conroe's face
was not one of them.
No, he had not that. But what had happened? It was maddening
to there, to the in the room, that it was
growing until it to at his temples. No one else to
notice it. Was he the only one aware of the in the air, in the
sounds, in the color of the light against the walls? Something was
impelling him, him to run, to away, to the room now
while he could. Yet when he to the creeping, poisonous
fear, to pin it down, it away into the of his
mind, and him.
Finally, he the of the room. His ear the Nasty
Frenchman's voice, and he as he at the little man.
"I tell you, Harpo, I it with my own ears. You saw Schiml
so excited. And then Shaggy Parsons was saying that the whole unit was
being up--that's the A unit. I saw him when I was going through
this afternoon. He was all excited, too."
"But why it up?" The bald-headed man called Harpo growled,
his in disgust. "I don't trust Shaggy Parsons for
nothin', and I think you what you want to hear. What's the point
to it? Schiml's along in the work he's using us in--"
The Nasty Frenchman red. "That's just it: we've been in and
we're going to be out, right out in the cold. Can't you that
straight? Something's going to break. They're onto something--Schiml
and his boys--something big. And they've got a new man, somebody
they're about, somebody that's been just by
looking at them, or something--"
Harpo a noise. "You mean, the old ESP again. So
maybe they go off on another hunt. They'll over it, same as
they did the last time or the time before."
The Nasty Frenchman's voice was tense. "But they're _changing things_.
And trouble." He at Jeff and his went
up. "Look, they on a line of work, they men to different
parts of a job, they work up months in advance. Then all of
a something new comes along. They about something
and they out a dozen workers, add on a dozen new
ones, the fees, the work. And they end up the
best pay to somebody who's just come in. I don't like it. I've been in
this place too long. I've had too many tough, jobs here to just
get pushed they don't to be any more
in what they were doing to me before. And they tell us! We never
know for sure. We just have to wait and and hope."
The little man's blazed. "But we can up some things, a little
here, a little there--you learn how, after a while. And I can tell you,
something's wrong, something's going to happen. You can it in
here."
Jeff's skin crawled. That was it, of course. There was something wrong.
But it hadn't yet. It was going to happen. He at a
huddled group around a panmumjon game, the bright-colored dice
cubes roll across and back, across and back. A newcomer, the Nasty
Frenchman had said, someone who had come in and the smooth
work of the Center, someone who had the doctors suddenly
excited. Someone they were to use--on a hunt.
What of a hunt? Why that choice of words? Could Conroe
conceivably be the they had been talking about? It didn't seem
possible that it have so if Conroe were the
one--but who? And what did this have to do with the ever-growing sense
of that the room, right now?
Jeff's to the game, and the in his mind
suddenly to a torrent. _Go away, Jeff. Don't watch,
don't look--_He scowled, angry. Why not look? What was there
so in a game? He moved over to the and
watched the moving in fascination. _No, Jeff, no, don't do it,
Jeff--_With a curse, he to his and out for the
dice.
"You in?" somebody asked. Jeff nodded, his like a rock. The voice
had stopped in his ear, and now something else in his
mind: a wild that his and through his
brain like a whirl-wind. His and he money from his
pocket. He the on the and his hands closed on the dice.
He a little, pimple-faced man with black and he raised
the three dice, into the familiar pattern.
The in four throws. He out seven more with new
dice. Then Jeff saw a in the odds, the on his next
throw and his as the man him matched it.
The rolled, into again, and the around them
gasped, moved in closer around them. The third set of was brought
out, for the at dead-lock-breaking. Then a fourth set
followed, as the of the game up like a house
of cards. Then Jeff's at last rolled the number, and the
structure to apart--throw after and
faster into his hands.
Four or five people moved in at his with and to
collect along with him, as he moved into another game, it up.
This one he cold, but still he played on, his growing.
And then, suddenly, in the room. Eyes glanced
up, startled, at the two men, across the room, who facing
each other, blazing.
"Throw them down! Go on! Throw them, see how they land!"
Somebody shouted, "What happened, Archie?"
"He's got in here, somehow." Archie pointed an accusing
finger at the other man. "They don't right. There's something
wrong with them--"
The other man snarled. "So you aren't any more--so what? You
brought the in yourself."
"But the aren't right. There's something going on."
Jeff to the dice, his mind still screaming, that
disaster in the air like a sword. His own game moved on,
faster and faster. Somewhere across the room another out,
and another. Several men out of and up against
the walls. Their were wide with anger as they the other
players. And then Jeff rolled three sixes, fourteen times in a row. He
tossed the in of his with a and
walked to the corner. The whole room around his head.
_Suddenly, in this room, had gone mad._ He the
shifting of the atmosphere, as and to him
as if it were solid and he were attempting to through it. This was
what had been him, him. Quite and without
explanation, something had to happen. Cards had begun
to in sequences, themselves with idiotic
regularity; had the laws of as they on the
tables and floor.
A the room as the players stopped and at each
other, unable to the that was before
their eyes. And then Blackie was Jeff, her flushed, a
curious light of in her eyes.
An passed through Jeff's mind. He out an arm, stopped
the girl. "Game," he said sharply.
Her at him. "What game?"
"Anything." He up his her and her the
gold watch. "We can play for this."
Something in her for a moment she control.
Then she was on her knees, pushing her up, a tight look of
fear and her as she looked up at Jeff. "Something's
happening," she said softly. "The dice--they're not right."
"I know it. Why not?" His voice was hoarse, his hard on her face.
She him a look. "There isn't any reason. Nothing is
different, but the don't right. That's all, they just don't."
Jeff tightly. "Go on, them."
She the dice, saw them on the floor, her number.
Jeff rolled them, her on it, up the money. He rolled again,
then again. The around the girl's eyes; little tense
lines near her mouth. Nervously, she a cigarette into
her mouth, it, as the rolled.
She lost. She again. Side up around them, the people
as they the that was up.
"What's happening?"
"The dice--my God! They've gone crazy!"
"Blackie's losing. What do you think--"
"--losing? She on dice. Who's the guy?"
"Never saw him before. Look, he took another one! Those are hexed."
"My cards were too: king high full every time, a dozen hands in a
row. How can you on something like that, I ask you."
The Silly Giggins record louder, then gave a as the
record in a thousand pieces. Somebody and
threw a pack of cards on the floor, and a out across the
room. One group came to blows; tightened
down to individuals. A man into tears,
suddenly, and sat on his haunches, his stricken. "They can't
act this way," he wailed. "They just _can't_--"
Jeff's the dice, and again something was
screaming in his ear. He as though his were going to burst,
but he to roll and he saw the girl's with each
throw. He saw the out from her eyes. Suddenly she let
out a curse, the from Jeff's hand and them sharply
across the room. She at Jeff venomously, then at the
people around her as if she were a animal.
"It's all of you," she snarled. "You're them against me. You're
making them wrong." She on the and started for the
door. Jeff moved after her but a hand on his arm.
"Leave her alone," said the Nasty Frenchman. "You'll have trouble on
your hands if you don't. You see what I meant about something being
wrong? The whole here is on edge, as if somebody were picking
them up and them down. Who saw that way, or
cards that way"--the little man's slyly--"_unless
somebody was them_."
Jeff's was as he at the Nasty Frenchman, and his
voice was hoarse. "What are you talking about?"
The little man's angrily. "You saw what in here,
didn't you?"
Jeff away in anger. He through the crowd, his tight as
he moved toward the door. The Nasty Frenchman only the
truth, but someone else saw more, much more. Somehow, Jeff that
this past hour the key to the whole problem, if he only see
it. Here was the answer to the whole puzzle of the girl and
Paul Conroe, of Dr. Schiml and the Mercy Men.
And he that when he the room, the girl would be waiting.
She would be waiting with cold fire in her eyes, as she sat at the
table, a small pair of her in the light.
Jeff the corridor, in his brain.
She would be there and he why she would be when he
walked into the room. He had her eyes, her as they
had the dice. He any of who had been
controlling the dice.
The girl was waiting, just as he had she would. He into
the room and closed the door him, her desperate
eyes as she rolled the and in of her.
"Game," she challenged, her voice and metallic.
The room was with as he opposite her at the
table.
