Last Call (Last Call 1)

I never should have gone to the game on the lake, he thought as he impatiently blinked back tears—and Ozzie never should have left me.

He opened the door and got out. Clear your mind for the cards, he told himself.

CHAPTER 8: Just Back from the Dead

Two hundred and seventy-two miles to the northeast, Vaughan Trumbill and Ricky Leroy sat panting on a couch in the houseboat lounge. The two men stared at the scrawny, wet, naked body of Doctor Leaky, which they'd just dragged out of the bathroom.

Trumbill, whose bulk took up more than a third of the couch, wiped his huge bald head with a silk handkerchief. He had taken off his shirt, and his gross, pear-shaped torso was a coiled rainbow of tattoos. "The bathroom light and the fan and the water pump," he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the roar of the generator. "I think he died about the same time the battery did."

"Be glad he didn't drown," said Leroy. "You'd have to empty his lungs again, like out at Temple Basin two years ago." He stood up and stretched. "He'll probably be up at around the same time the battery is. I'm already in a cab from the airport. Half hour, say."

The body on the carpet twitched.

"See?" said Leroy, getting to his feet. "He senses me already." He fetched a towel from the bathroom and tossed it over the old man's scarred, featureless pelvis; then he crouched and prodded Doctor Leaky's cheek and brow. "I hope he didn't fall on the same side of his face as last time. They rebuilt his skull with coral."

Trumbill's eyebrows were raised. "Coral? Like—like seashells, coral reefs, sort of coral?"

"Right. I hear they've got some kind of porous ceramic they use now. Nah, the old jug doesn't seem to have any chips floating loose." He stood up.

"I wish you'd stay away long enough sometime for him to die for good."

"It'd take a while; there're some good protections on that body. And—"

"I know, cryogenics and cloning."

"They're getting closer every day … and this … jug of my own personal DNA is still unbroken."

The naked old body yawned, rubbed its eyes, and sat up. The towel fell away.

"Looking like shit, though," observed Trumbill.

"Welcome back, Doctor," said Leroy wearily.

"They get in all right?" asked Doctor Leaky.

"Everybody's fine, Doctor."

"Good kid," said the naked old man. He peered at the two men on the couch and scratched the white hair on his sunken chest. "One time on the lake—this must have been, oh, 'forty-seven, I hadn't got the Buick yet—or—no, right, 'forty-seven—he got a hook in his finger, and—" He gave each of them a piercing stare. "Do you think he cried?" He waved off any replies they might have had. "Not a bit! Even when I had to push the—the part that, the barb, the barb, not even when I pushed it through so I could clip it off. Clip it off." He squeezed imaginary clippers in the air, and then he stared from Trumbill to Leroy. "Didn't … even … cry."

Leroy was frowning in embarrassment. "Go to your room, you old fool. And put your towel back on. I don't need to be reminded."

Crane got out of the car and carried his plastic 7-Eleven bag across the sidewalk and up the stepping-stones to Chick Hurzer's front door. The lawn and shrubbery looked cared for. That was good; Chick's car dealership must at least be making enough money for him to hire gardeners.

There was garrulous shouting from inside when he rang the doorbell, and then Chick opened the door.

"I'll be goddamned," Chick said, "Scarecrow Smith! Good to have you back; this game needs a good loser."

Crane grinned. He had always avoided being any evening's conspicuous winner. "Got room in your fridge for some beer?" "Sure, come on in."

In the bright hallway he could see that Chick had had a prosperous decade. He was heavier, his face puffy and threaded with broken veins, and his trademark gold jewelry was bigger and chunkier.

In the living room five men sat around a card table on which a game of Seven-Stud was already in progress.

"Got us a live one here, Chick?" one of them asked. "Deal me in next hand," Crane said cheerfully. He leaned against the wall and watched as they finished out the hand. They were playing with cash now—Crane had always insisted on chips, which tended to make the betting more liberal—and they were apparently playing straight Seven-Stud, no High-Low or twists or wild cards, and the betting seemed to be limited and three raises only.

Crane wondered if he'd be able to do anything about all this tonight. He had set up this game a quarter of a century ago, out of the remains of a Tuesday night game that had begun to draw too many genuinely good players to be profitable, and he had fine-tuned it to seem loose and sociable to the good losers while actually producing a steady income for himself.

The hand ended, and one of the men gathered in the pot.

"Sit down, Scott," said Chick. "Guys, this is Scott Smith, known as Scarecrow. This next hand is … Five-Draw."