Last Call (Last Call 1)

And twenty-five miles away to the northwest in Las Vegas, every pair of dice on every Craps table had come up snake-eyes in the instant of Snayheever's death, and every roulette ball rocked to a solid halt in the OO slot, and every car in town that had its key turned in the ignition at that moment started up instantly.

The sky over the west shore of the lake was still almost as dark as night, and though the moon should have been three days past its full phase, it hung overhead as perfectly round as the worn white disk Diana and Nardie had shared.

The two of them were alone on their section of beach; Nardie, empty-handed now, was still in a defensive crouch, and Diana was swaying on her feet and clutching her throat. A hundred yards away to their left, the children and parents were hesitantly but at least loose-jointedly wandering back up the beach toward their towels and umbrellas, clearly puzzled and ill at ease and wondering about imminent rain.

Shapes seemed to rush through the sky on the rising wind, fluttering and sighing, but Diana sensed no threat in whatever the things might be; and the waves were high, as if giants under the water were shifting uneasily in sleep, but she thought that any such giants would not harm her.

She spat on the sand. "I'm bleeding." The inside of her mouth was cut, but the half disk had apparently broken up before reaching her throat. She spat again. "Kind of a lot."

Nardie straightened up lithely and laughed, coughing in the midst of it. "Me too. But I guess we won't die of it after all."

Diana took a step toward the water, hitching and wincing and wondering how many of her ribs might be cracked. "Let's get in the water."

CHAPTER 50: Raising Blind

Crane allowed himself to hang on to the edge of the table for a moment. The sky was brightening again outside the ports, and the yellow light cast by the lamps on the paneled walls began to look sickly.

"Dizzy," he said as Newt finished counting the bills in the middle of the table.

The Amino Acid bartender had pulled the ports closed again shortly after the huge voice had begun to roll its syllables across the lake from the direction of the Black Mountains and the dam, and the air in the cabin was stifling with the smell of Doctor Leaky and cigarette smoke. Crane thought his dizziness now might be as much from nausea as from the illusion of spinning … spinning diesel, as Ozzie would have said.

"Seventy-nine hundred," croaked Newt finally.

Leon separated out of his billfold a thick bundle of thousands and hundreds, and his good eye burned into Crane's good eye as he tossed the bills onto the stack Newt had counted.

The socket of Crane's false eye throbbed, and he wasn't quite able to close the eyelid. Good joke, he thought, if I succeed here but die later of meningitis. Gingerly he touched the corner of his eye. It hurt, and his fingertip was smudged with mascara.

"Cut for high card," said Leon.

Crane looked across the room at Doctor Leaky. Once again alertness seemed to glitter in the old man's gaze, and Crane looked away in case his father's body might guess something, say something that would warn Leon.

But the senile old body couldn't have been alert and guessed Crane's purpose, for it didn't say anything at all.

Crane flexed his right hand, noticing for the first time that he had chewed the painted nails down to the quicks, and he lowered his fingers over the deck and lifted half of it off.

He showed the card to the other players, then looked at it himself.

The Page of Cups. His card, Ozzie had said; soon to be replaced by the King? He quickly lowered the cards back down onto the deck, fearing that Leon might notice the card's faintly stained corner.

Leon was smiling, and panting. "A tough one to beat!" he said.

Newt leaned forward, slid the deck to himself, and shuffled it again, then pushed it to a spot in front of the shivering Hanari body.

With a trembling hand Georges Leon lifted off the top half of the deck, and he hesitated even as he raised the cards.

Crane's heart seemed to have stopped. He missed the crimped card, Crane thought. He's going to come up with an Ace—

But the card Leon showed was the Ten of Swords. Crane's heart was beating again, and he laughed weakly and rapped the table with a fist. "Yes!" he said, letting his hot burst of triumph show, for everyone would assume he was just pleased at having won the doubled pot. "Gotcha!"

"Aw, bad beat," said one of the other players to Leon.

Leon grimaced and shrugged. "You win," he told Crane. "I don't know when I'm going to learn that that's not a smart bet."

"Thanks," said Crane hoarsely.

"You're taking the money," said Leon.

Crane thought of Ozzie, and stared coldly into the unswollen eye. "Looks like it."

"You're selling the hand. I've bought it, I'm assuming it."

"It's all yours, believe me."