The Hand is Quicker - Kevin O'Donnell, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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My series of somersaults was ending. With practiced ease I slapped my feet down and leaned
backwards just a bit so I wouldn't fall flat on my face. Then I did the same with the other me, and slipped
us both back to my body so I could see through eyes again. My hearing snapped back quickly, and I
could tell from the murmur of the other bettors that I'd made my point. My eyes focused just in time to
see a hand—large, suntanned, callused, and somehow competent looking—scoop the dice up.
"Harry, check these," I heard a graveled voice say. The hand with the dice swung a few inches
through the air and opened over another hand, this one pale and slender, with long and delicate fingers
that reminded me of a piano player I once knew. The dice dropped and I knew that I could be in a lot of
trouble very soon.
I let my eyesight wander up from the dark hand to the rumbling voice. I studied the curly black hair
on the back of the hand, the starched cuff of the astonishingly white shirt, the smooth silk of the black
tuxedo, and the bulge at the shoulder that suggested I had best be quiet and well-mannered to this
individual. Then I looked at the face. As bronzed as the hand that had taken my dice, it was flat,
wrinkle-free, and—if you allow me to ignore the polite smile that everyone knew was there only for
show—icily expressionless.
"Sir?" I asked inquiringly. "We would like to speak to you for a moment, Mr.—?" The voice was
quiet, and as polite as the smile, but a dual air of authority and menace hung behind its soft words.
"Mr. Jones," I offered helpfully. "Mr. Irving Tecumseh Jones." I paused for a moment and became
aware of the others pressed against the table. Many were curious, a few were concerned—but all were
relieved that I was being removed. I smiled sadly and agreed it would be convenient to speak to him.
We stepped away from the table and I heard the now empty dice clatter their unguided way across
the green felt. We said nothing to each other as we moved slowly through the crowded casino; there
really was nothing to be said.
His office was quiet after the dull roar of the gaming rooms; the air was fresher, though it still
 smacked of the machines that had processed it. My husky guide waved me into a soft leather chair, and
moved around the broad mahogany desk to his own seat. During the short silence that followed, I
glanced around the room. There were several nice paintings that I perhaps unjustly assumed to have safes
behind them, and quite a few long bookcases stuffed with fat works on statistics and probability theory.
The rest of the office was done in soft pastels and natural wood, a decoration scheme so carefully
planned that it was difficult to notice the room had no windows. Or it would have been difficult, were I
not feeling so ensnared.
The manager broke the silence at last. "Mr. Jones," he began in a confident voice, "our table man tells
us that he thinks there's something a bit unusual about your—ah—performance with the dice. I'd like to
ask you some questions."
"What is this?" I demanded, trying to throw him off balance. "I mean—"
"Please, Mr. Jones. First, how much have you won tonight?"
"Ten thousand dollars, but—"
"Ten thousand dollars. I see." He sounded like a jury foreman pronouncing the word "guilty."
"Now wait one minute," I protested. "That was pure luck. I won that money—"
"Mr. Jones, if our table man is correct—and he usually is—you have neither lost more than twenty
dollars nor won less than a hundred dollars on any single throw."
I felt sick. I'd been afraid that they'd notice me if I just kept winning, so I'd made sure to lose
frequently; however, I couldn't bring myself to throw away too much of that good green stuff. I'd tried to
disguise it by continually changing the intervals and amounts, but they'd found out after all. Shit. "So what
the hell does that have to do with anything except my luck?"
"Mr. Jones, it makes us very suspicious when something like that happens. The odds, you see, are
highly against it." He waved his hand at the shelves of math books and leaned back in his chair. "So, Mr.
Jones, we're trying to find out how you did it. Unless you'd care to tell us, and save us all that trouble?"
He raised his eyebrows in query. I shook my head. He shrugged, and pressed a button on the chrome
panel inserted into his desk. A muted chime sounded, and immediately a respectful voice answered:
"Yes, sir?"
"Harry, what was the matter with those dice?"
"Nothing, sir."
The big man's expression became considerably less serene as he leaned forward slightly in his chair.
"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"
"What I said, sir. There is nothing wrong with the dice. They are the casino's own issue, and they
have not been tampered with. We have been rolling them ever since you picked them up, and we are
getting only the standard, expected series."
"Harry, there's gotta be
something
wrong with 'em." I smiled discreetly at the note of frustration in
his voice.
"Sir, we just reached the 360th roll. Everything seems normal. The dice are fine." The flunky's voice
was cool, tinged with a noticeable streak of triumph.
"All right. Thanks anyway." He lifted his finger from the button it had been depressing, and raised his
face to me. His expression was still polite, but the cold glitter deep within his eyes warned me to press
my advantage no further.
"Mr. Jones," he said at length, "our technical department says you were using honest dice. Their
implicit conclusion was that you won honestly. Mr. Jones, I do not—I cannot—agree with that
conclusion. I've been shooting craps, and running crap games, since I started grade school, and I can
recognize a cheater when I see one in action." He put both hands flat on the desktop and bent forward
some more, as if daring me to deny his accusation. I thought I might as well give it a try.
"But if the dice—"
"Damn it!" he exploded. "I don't give a damn about the dice. So
they're
honest—then you have some
kind of illegal throw or something. But you shouldn't have been able to win that much money the way you
won it. I don't like it, Jones, I don't like it at all!" He paused to rein in his temper, and then stood up. "Mr.
Jones, I'm going to have to ask you to leave this casino. I don't know how you're cheating, but you are,
 and we can't afford to have your kind around here. So—pick up what you've won at the cashier's
window, then get out."
I had slipped out of the easy chair and turned for the door when he spoke again. "Mr. Jones."
I looked over my shoulder at him. "Yes?"
"I'm calling the other casino managers to warn them about you—you'll never be allowed in any casino
here in Vegas again, not if I have anything to say about it."
"Thanks loads," I grunted, and made my way to the money office.
I cursed myself thoroughly as I walked through the crowded casino. Here I'd had the perfect life
within reach—all play for pay and no work at all—and because I'd wanted to get it a little quicker than I
knew was safe I'd gotten caught. And now the good life was being taken away from me. Idiot! All that
talent and no place to use it. Fool!
As I recall, my talent—my telekinetic ability—started to show itself shortly after I hit puberty. What a
mess
that
made of me. It's bad enough to go through the normal miseries of acne and voice change and
unfulfillable sex drive, but to have something like this that I had to keep hidden from everyone—it's lucky
I didn't suicide out around age sixteen. I guess I was a little luckier than I could have been, though—I'd
been a sci-fi reader since I was ten, and I knew that I had to keep quiet about what I could do. I shudder
every time I think what it would have been like if the Defense Department—or worse yet, some crazy
university professor—had learned about my power and had requisitioned me.
No, I'd been cagey. I'd stayed shut up in my room, trying to develop my talent as best I could. I'd
found out a lot about it too, for a kid who was teaching himself. I could use it in either of two ways: as if I
had another body that I could remote control, or as if I were within the object I was TKing. The only
limitations that I discovered were that I had to be in sight of what I was working on, and that I couldn't
do with TK what I couldn't do with my real body—I mean, I could make an ashtray seem to fly across
the room, all right, but I was only "picking it up" with my invisible body and carrying it. If I got inside that
ashtray, about all I could do would be to rock it, to tilt "my" weight first this way, then that. That's what
I'd been doing with the dice—I'd gotten inside them and shifted my weight so that I landed right side
up—or, rather, so that the dice landed right side up.
That was a trick I learned in the Army. You see, I'd never been terribly intelligent—at least by the
usual academic standards—and when I started into adolescence, my grades went to hell. Next thing I
knew, I was being drafted. I went. After all, I'd figured at the time, what the hell? I mean, I had nothing
else to do. So I spent two years fighting for Uncle Sam in the jungles of South Vietnam. That changed my
life—and I don't mean war and killing and all that; that's pretty much part of everyone's life, in some way
or another. What I mean is that in the barracks, when you're just sitting around with nothing much to do
except not think about the next patrol, you shoot craps. So I shot craps. I played regularly for eight
months before my stupidity hit me; I suddenly realized that I could use my talent on the dice and clean up.
So I did. Took me about six months, too, to learn how to handle the damn things not only well enough,
but also inconspicuously enough, to be able to win and then collect my winnings. That's why I signed up
for another tour in Nam—combat infantrymen gamble higher than anybody, except maybe Marines. I left
Nam and the Army on the same day, fifteen thousand dollars richer than when I went in. Then I went to
Vegas and got caught my first night in town. Shit!
I collected my winnings and went out into the night.
It was dark outside, even with all the neon lights glowing, and I stood by the casino entrance for a
minute or two, trying to let my eyes adjust and also trying to decide what to do now. A
twenty-five-thousand-dollar bank roll was nice, but it would hardly support me, not in the style to which I
desperately wanted to become accustomed nor for the length of time I had planned. If the other casinos
wouldn't accept me, then there was no point in staying in town; on the other hand, if they would, it was
pointless to leave. I finally decided I might as well try them all, one by one, and was about to walk to the
one a block away when a strong hand grasped me, a lot less firmly than it might have, on the right arm
above the elbow.
"Jones?" I heard. "Let's us have a little talk."
I was about to slap the hand away when I got a good look at its owner. The guy was very big and
 very black—two attributes which, separately, put me at a disadvantage; together, they're a badge of
irresistible power and authority.
I mumbled something. The hand tugged meaningfully at my arm; I nodded and followed. We went
around a corner, then around another; after going through an alley or three I was completely lost. We
stopped, finally, in a studio apartment on the third floor of a building which looked older than it could
possibly be. I slumped into a rusty lawn chair facing a new Sony portable TV and caught my breath.
The black man stood in front of me, scrutinizing me carefully. At last he smiled slightly. "You'll do jus'
fine," he said, and disappeared around the corner of a tall bookcase. I heard a refrigerator snicker and
glass clink. A moment later he was back with a bottle of beer in each hand. He set mine on the rickety
table to my right, and dropped easily onto a torn couch on the other side of it. I hitched my chair around
to face him.
"O.K., Jones," he began, "I'm gonna start by showing all my cards right off. I know 'zactly what you
can do—I know jus' how you won that money tonight."
Tension ran tiny prickles down my back. "I'm afraid I really don't understand you, Mr.—?"
"Coy," he grunted, "jus' plain ole Coy." He paused. "Now, look—I don't wanna play no run-around
games with you, Jones, so listen to me first,
then
argue, O.K.?"
I shrugged, but said nothing.
"Good. Now, I am what you call a `sen-sitive'. That is, when someone's using some kind of power
that most people don't have and don't know about, a sen-sitive can feel it being used. Like dawgs, you
know? The way those little mothers can hear a really high whistle? Well, I can do the same thing when
one par-ticular power's being used. The same par-ticular power that you were using on them dice earlier
this evening." He took a swig from his beer and smiled.
"Listen, Coy, I—"
"You not trying to kid me, now, are you, Jones?" Blue-green light, pumped from a nearby neon sign,
flowed across his rich brown face, imbuing his smile with an air of malice that I didn't like.
"Coy, really, I—"
His voice went very, very cold. "Jones, I was standing next to that crap table all night long, just
watching you pick up your money in little bits and pieces. I felt your mind moving, Jones—I felt you
crawl inside them dice and make 'em jump the way you wanted. Don't tell me no different, 'cause if you
do, why, I'll know you lying to me, boy, and I get mad when people lie to me."
I was cowed. "All right, Coy, all right." I lit a cigarette, sipped at my beer, and fought the crawlies
inside me. "Yeah," I said, letting the smoke out in one big rush, "that's how I won. So?"
Coy relaxed and smiled again. "Good man. Nice to hear you fess up. Now we can start talking." He
hunched forward across the table and spun the ashtray idly with his strong, arrogant fingers. "Now, the
way I figure, Jones, you still need money. Right?" He glanced up, sympathetic amusement lighting his
eyes.
"Yeah."
"Good. Man at the casino tell you you ain't gonna be allowed in no Vegas casinos at all anymore?"
"Yeah."
"Truth. You are barred—or, will be, once he gets off that phone."
"Yeah, yeah, I know!" I said impatiently. "But what the—"
He held up a large hand and lazily waved me into silence. "No sweat, Jones. Coy's got a way for you
to use your power and make some coin at the same time."
"How?"
"Simple, my good man," he said expansively, "simple. Near to this very room is a big-time drug
pusher—nope, that's the wrong word for him. He used to be a stand-on-the-corner,
sell-you-a-nickel-bag man, back when we two was on speaking terms; but a thorough application of the
traditional American virtues of industry and competitiveness, plus three business courses at night school,
plus a gang of goons, so ugly that strong men are unable to look at 'em, who ran off the other
pushers—all combined to make this dude the kingpin of the drug business in downtown Vegas. That man
is now so high up, though, he ain't seen any junk in years; he's so rich that just thumbing through them
 thousand-dollar bills gets his fingers black as mine."
I was intrigued. Hooked, in fact. But I tried not to let my interest show as I stubbed out my cigarette
and said, "So get to the point."
"Well, the point about this dude
is,
he got a problem. A big problem. Too much cash money. If he
goes putting it in the bank, why, the man from the Tax Department, he gonna come 'round and ask, `Son,
where all that money come from?' And then our boy, he's in real trouble. So—he keeps it in a shoe box,
under his bed. When he gets the shoe box filled up,
he takes a little trip to someplace—say,
Switzerland?—where he can deposit that money without getting his ass harassed."
"O.K., O.K.—so?"
"So, Jones, that box's just about full to the top now with crinkly little thousand-dollar bills."
"Are you saying you want me to help you
rob
him, Coy?"
"Why, sure enough, brother."
We sat tensely still for a very long moment, staring at each other, measuring each other. Coy
breathed deeply, evenly, the four-inch points on his collar rising up and down as his great brown chest
filled and emptied. I don't believe I breathed at all. I was thinking too hard.
How much money could a shoe box hold, if it held only thousand-dollar bills? I tried to visualize that
many green, oval portraits of one man and failed. A lot.
Half of it could certainly keep me going for a
long, long time—say, spend twenty of them a year, and twenty bills'd make a stack just about
that
high,
and half a shoe box looks like it'd be about this high, and . . . damn!
Dangerous, though . . . I didn't like the sound of `goons'—sounded mean and vicious and almost
efficient . . . bastards wouldn't hesitate, they'd shoot me right off, no second thoughts about pain or
anything, like dogs, that's all ... wouldn't want to get in their way. I hoped Coy had some kind of good
plan that would keep me as far away from them as possible.
Coy—could I trust him? Shit, I didn't know about doing something like this with a ni—a black man,
even if some of the best guys back in Nam were black . . . yeah, that was it, do it just like they did there,
a job. Work with him, I could trust him to do his end of this, he wouldn't let me down, but he wouldn't
socialize with me. Double-cross? Maybe, but then again, if he tried it, he'd slip up and point a gun at me
or something, and if he did that, I'd get him from behind just like I did to that scrawny little slopehead
who caught me outside that village and wanted me as a Christmas present for Ho . . . hunh, he might try
to double-cross me, but
I breathed. "O.K., Coy. The proposition sounds interesting. Two questions: How do you plan to do
it? And why do you need me?"
Coy chuckled, and there was something in that rolling, rumbling sound that made me uneasy. "Simple,
Jones—dig this. Every night, old Moneybox goes into his bedroom, locks the door, pulls the curtains
down, opens his safe—"
"I thought you said he keeps the money under his bed, in a shoe box?" I interjected.
Coy slapped his thigh and laughed. "That's where the safe
is,
man! That dude has got to be the only
miser in the whole world with a wall safe under his bed!"
"Oh—O.K., go on."
"He opens the safe, takes out this shoe box, and then sits on the bed cross-legged—you know, like a
tailor?—and counts the damn money. Then he puts it away again and goes to sleep."
I chewed my lower lip for a moment. "So how are you planning to get at it? You said there're some
ugly goons working for him, and—"
"Don't you worry none, Jones," he smiled.
"What do you mean?"
"O.K., listen good, now. First, Moneybox got the penthouse of a big apartment building. He figures
that makes him safe, right? Goons on the stairs, private elevator, roof secured, windows barred, the
whole works. He figures ain't nobody gonna get into that penthouse, but—" Coy's eyes sparkled and his
finger began to jab the air, as though he were poking at my invisible chest "—but what he don't worry
about is the apartment building across the street."
I shook my head in confusion. "I don't follow you."
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