Last Call (Last Call 1)

He peered ahead, at the curve of the dam. It seemed too imposingly big to be so far away. He could see cars moving slowly along the highway that was its crest, and he could make out figures moving along the sidewalks and the bridges that led out to the intake towers on the water. From this distance, at least, he could see nothing to have caused all the panic.

But fear was in the wind like the smell of hot metal, like a vibration in the air, like a rat gnawing underground.

He wanted to get back in the truck and drive away on the Arizona side, keep driving until he ran out of gas and then walk further.

Instead he pushed away from the stanchion and walked on down the broad sidewalk, toward the cathedral arch of the dam.

Crane sold his first four-card hand to a middle-aged man in a necktie and sport coat and then watched as the bidding started up for the next hand. It didn't hold his attention; he was still a parent of the hand that would include the four cards he had sold, and thus he might still win a tenth of the pot, but he certainly wouldn't be matching the total and claiming the Assumption.

He glanced out one of the ports at the lake, dotted with scooting water-skiers, and he concentrated on breathing deeply. He had sat on Leon's left this time, and the next deal would be his.

The inaudible high and low vibration had receded away in both directions, and he couldn't sense it anymore, but he thought that some of the others still could. Leon shook his head sharply a couple of times, and Newt had fumbled his first hand and exposed one of his down cards, and the Amino Acid at the bar had broken a glass while getting one of the new players a third martini.

The loud crack of the glass had so enormously startled Doctor Leaky that the smell in the lounge shortly went from smelling faintly of urine to smelling a good deal worse.

A Straight Flush wound up beating a set of Trips. Neither Leon nor Crane was a parent of the winning hand, and after the winner had swept in the money with a nervous smile, Leon pushed the nearest folded hands to Crane.

"Your deal," growled the Hanari baritone. "Let's snap it up here."

"Uh," said the Amino Acid at the bar, "you want me to take the cap'n out on the deck, Mr. Hanari, and get his pants off him and hose him down?"

"He's not the captain," said Leon loudly. "I'm the captain. No, he's got an appointment with a surgeon on Sunday; this won't kill him before then." He waved irritably. "Open the ports, if you like—the breeze will be fresh, if not cool."

Crane thought that ordinarily most of the players would have objected to the smell and demanded that the bartender's suggestion be followed, but today even the toughest of them seemed cowed and uncertain.

The last of the cards were gingerly pushed across the green felt to Crane, who carefully stacked them and patted them square.

Everybody's looking at me, he thought, looking right at the cards. I can't switch in the cold deck right now.

He cut the deck that was in front of him and gave it a genuine riffle-shuffle. "Must be some nice-guy surgeon," he said, smiling at Leon, "to see a patient on a Sunday." With luck someone would agree, or disagree, and draw away the attention of the table.

"S'pose so," said Leon, staring at the cards. Nobody else spoke.

"Say, sonny," Crane called to the bartender as he gave the cards another shuffle, "what time you got?"

"Twelve-fifteen."

Nobody had looked away.

Crane shuffled the cards again. At the average rate of fifteen minutes per hand, the deal might not have time to come around to him again before the game was ended at three. He could wait, and hope, and try to hurry the game along, but at that rate he might well have to go meet his friends and tell them that he had not even got the stacked deck out of his purse.

And then, he thought helplessly, what? Kill myself, I suppose, to keep Leon from taking me?

"Let's go," said Newt.

Crane felt a drop of sweat run down from his armpit and soak into his bra.

Gotta just jump, he thought, and hope there's deep water.

He passed the shuffled deck to his father for the cut, and as soon as the Hanari body had taken off the top of the deck and laid the stack beside the bottom, Crane leaned back lazily and sang, " 'Whe-e-en there are gray skies …' "

" 'What don't you mind in the least?' " screamed Doctor Leaky in a grating falsetto.

Crane almost whipped his head around himself, along with everyone else at the table, so abrupt and loud was the interruption—but he kept his concentration and dumped the cut cards into his purse and flipped the stacked deck up onto the table.

"Damn," he said, not having to fake a nervous tone in his voice, "what's the matter with him?"

The Hanari head was twisted around to look hard at Crane through the unswollen eye. "Why did you start to sing that song?"