Last Call (Last Call 1)

"You're still yourself now," Ozzie went on, "looking out of your eyes, but after the next game on the lake it'll be him, and he'll have everybody else, too, that took money for the assumed hands in that game in 'sixty-nine, that series of games. Leroy'll have you all like a collection of remote, mobile, closed-circuit TV sets. Don't start reading no real long books, son." The old man's eyes were wet as he shook his head. "And don't think it gives me any pleasure to tell you all this."

Crane clenched his fists, feeling the muscles in his palms with his tingling fingertips. "There's—isn't there anything I can do? Is it just over? Can't I go … I don't know, kill this guy?"

Ozzie shook his head sadly. "Let's go walk back to where your friend is. No, you can't kill him. You could kill one of the bodies he's in, or a couple even, but he'll have at least one stashed somewhere that you couldn't even hear of, much less get to. And besides, he's already started killing you, loosening your soul for the eviction. Dionysus has got his hand on your throat in the form of drink, and any family or pets you may have are going to start dying of the randomness illnesses: cancers, heart irregularities—"

Heart irregularities, Crane thought.

Heart irregularities.

He kept walking. "That would be … caused by me?" he said as evenly as he could.

Ozzie gave him a piercing look. "Shit, I'm sorry, that was damn thoughtless of me. Of course, it already has happened, hasn't it? Who?"

"My wife. She—" He was sitting on the curb suddenly. "Heart attack." His body felt hollowed out, and his hands moved vaguely in front of him as though he were groping in darkness for something he didn't know the shape of.

One of the randomness illnesses, he heard Ozzie's voice say in his memory. And then he heard his own voice: Caused by me?

"Get up, Scott." Ozzie reached down with his free hand and shook Crane's shoulder, and Crane got slowly to his feet, not even wincing when his bad leg took his weight. "It's—really, it's no more your fault than if you'd been driving and got in a crash, and she died. But your hippie friend might be smart to … continue his friendship with you over the phone," Ozzie said.

Crane was blinking around. Nothing had changed—the people who had been walking past the shops further up the street were still walking—but there seemed to be a ringing in the air and a quiver in the pavement, as if some thing had just happened.

Caused by me …

He and the old man resumed their labored progress down the sidewalk.

"My hippie friend," Crane said absently. He yawned. "It's, what, it's too late for my hippie friend, he's already got cancer. Had it before he ever found me." Crane felt very tired—he hadn't got any sleep last night—but his heart was pounding, and his forehead was cold with nausea.

"I'd hate to see him eat through that mustache." Ozzie was staring ahead; Crane followed his gaze and saw Mavranos sitting on a brick planter.

"Yeah, it is a sight," said Crane automatically. He waved, and Mavranos hiked himself off it and slouched forward.

"You say he found you," said Ozzie. "Why was he looking for you?"

It was an effort to speak. "He thinks I'll lead him to the place where randomness lives—" He paused to try and take a deep breath, "—and he'll be able to trick randomness into undoing his cancer."

Still frowning, Ozzie laughed softly. "That's not bad. Like raising to the limit and then throwing away all five cards for new ones. Stupid and hopeless, but I like the style." The old man's hand was still in the pocket of the windbreaker. "Why don't you go explain to him about my gun, hmm?"

CHAPTER 12: To the Chapel Perilous

All three of them sat on the coping of the brick planter. Ozzie was on the end, a couple of feet away from Crane, and he looked at his watch.

"I can give you boys ten minutes," the old man said, "and then I won't ever see either of you again in this world."

Looking away, the old man reached over and squeezed Crane's hand for a moment.

"After Diana called me last night," Ozzie said, "I got in touch with some friends, and they've been watching the cars that park, and the ferry, and they had you two down for doubtful as soon as you'd got out of your truck. If I don't walk away from you within half an hour of when I first spoke to you, Scott, a couple of them'll walk down here and escort me away. And if I go any farther than this here spot with you, they'll kill both of you. And of course, if anyone else should authoritatively join us—and even a helicopter would have a time getting in or out of here easy—we're probably all three dead instantly."

Mavranos stared past Crane at Ozzie for a moment, then laughed. "I like this old fart, Scott," he drawled.

Crane forced himself to think. "How did that game on the water, the game on Lake Mead, give Ricky Leroy a lien on my body?" he asked quickly.