Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane tamped the stacks of bills and slid them in between his spread elbows, leaving one hundred out on the table as his ante for the next hand.

He had done it.

He had sold Leon the hand that Doctor Leaky had conceived in the informal Assumption game by the Dumpster behind the liquor store on Wednesday.

Crane had no idea what might happen now. This scheme might not work, and he might lose his body tomorrow, but he had done all he could.

"That's two hundred to you."

Crane looked up from his gnawed fingernails. Leon had been speaking to him.

"Oh," said Crane. "Sorry." He lifted four hundreds from one of his stacks and tossed them into the pot. "I make it four," he said.

"You haven't looked at your down cards!" said Newt petulantly. "You're raising blind?"

"Raising blind," Crane agreed.

Station wagons with luggage belted onto the rooftop racks jammed the marina streets on this Friday afternoon, and tanned young men and women in scanty swimsuits thronged the sidewalks and drank beer from dewy cans or drove puttering scooters between the slow, smoky lanes of traffic.

Easter break, thought Crane as he walked slowly up the street, carrying his high-heeled shoes under his arm and feeling the hot pavement abrade the soles of his nylons. We could all do with an Easter break.

"Ahoy, Pogo!" came a shout from among the horns-and-laughter-and-chatter background noise.

Crane smiled tiredly as he looked back and shaded his eyes.

Arky Mavranos was striding toward him at his old gangly pace, and though he was pale, he seemed solemnly happy, too.

"You look like a real piece of the old shit today," said Mavranos quietly when he reached Crane. They began walking on toward the Lakeview Lodge, Mavranos ostentatiously walking a yard or two to the side of Crane and letting an occasional pedestrian pass between them.

"You did it," said Mavranos.

"Sold it to him," Crane agreed, "bought and paid for."

"Good."

"How did it go with you?" asked Crane, in a moment when they were alone in a sunny crosswalk.

"They're both dead," Mavranos said softly. "Snayheever and Pogue. Pogue didn't get to screw things up. I'll … tell you about it, tell all three of you … sometime later." He coughed and spat. "Maybe not today, all right?"

Crane could see that whatever had happened had cost Mavranos. "Okay, Arky." He reached out and squeezed Mavranos's elbow.

Mavranos stepped away from him. "None of your fag tricks."

"Seriously, Arky, thank you."

"Don't … thank me." Mavranos unknotted his bandanna and tossed it into a planter they were walking past. "Pogue's magic was a—a randomness thing, disorder, chaos—and when he … died, the dam snapped back into order. It was a phase-change like what would have set Winfree's mosquitoes all doing the chorale from Beethoven's Ninth, with Busby Berkeley dance steps."

Crane blinked at his friend and wondered if he was too tired to be understanding what Mavranos was saying. "You mean you think …?"

Mavranos touched the lump under his ear. "I swear it's smaller already, perceptibly smaller, than it was on the drive down here."

Crane was laughing and blinking rapidly and shaking Mavranos's hand. "That's terrific, man! Goddamn, I can't tell you—"

And then they were hugging in the middle of the sidewalk, and even Mavranos ignored the hoots and catcalls.

With their arms around each other's shoulders they stepped up to the lobby doors of the Lakeview Lodge and shoved through and hurried breathlessly into the dark bar.

Diana and Nardie pushed away from the table at which they'd been waiting, and though they winced and limped like people who have recently had too much exercise, they were laughing when they hobbled over and hugged Crane and Mavranos.

They all sat down, and Mavranos ordered a Coors—and then made that two, one for Nardie. Crane and Diana both ordered soda water.

"You sold it to him," Diana said to Crane when the cocktail waitress had walked off toward the bar.

"Yes, finally." Crane rubbed his hands down his face, not caring what his makeup looked like. His right eye socket stung. "And I think my arachnoid is infected."

"Spider," said Mavranos, translating the word. "Spiderlike. What, something about Spider Joe?"

"It's a part of the brain," said Crane through his hands. "It gets infected when you've got, uh, meningitis. The socket of my missing eye is just … on fire." He lowered his hands and leaned back in the booth. "I've got the saline solution and rubber bulb in my purse. As soon as we trade news, I'll go to the head and rinse out the socket."

Diana has seized his shoulder. "No," she said now, urgently, "you're going to a doctor, are you crazy? My God, meningitis? I'm going to drive out to Searchlight in a couple of minutes to finally get poor Oliver. I can drop you off at a hospital—"