"Beijing Craps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'Beijing Craps,' the boy repeated. 'The legendary magical mystical Beijing Craps. Banned in China since the revolution; banned in Thailand where they don't ban nothing; punishable by flogging in Japan; punishable by death in Viet Nam. Illegal in every country in the world, with the exception of Pol Pot's Cambodia, and that's where these dice were smuggled in from.'

He tugged Solly's hand. 'Come on, Solly, come closer. Take a look.'

Solly stayed where he was, his head still lowered. The boy tugged his hand again, then smiled. 'You don't want to take a look? You don't have to play.'

'You know just what the fuck you're talking about,' said Solly, his false teeth clenched together. 'If I look, I'll have to play.'

The boy laughed. 'That's up to you, Solly. You're ready for it. You know that you're ready for it. That's why I asked you up here, you and your friend Jack Druce. I've been watching you two lately and you're the cream de la cream. But you're getting bored, too. You're too damned good for your own damned good. What's the fun, when you don't play the game to the limit - can't play the game to the limit, because the pit boss is going to suss you out and then you're finished at the Golden Lode; and then you're finished at Caesar's Palace and Glitter Gulch and even Sassy Sally's, and before you know it you're finished in Vegas altogether, then Reno, then Tahoe, then Atlantic City.

'That's when clever men like you start to play Russian Roulette, and hoping you'll lose. But Nevvar Graf here has an alternative for you, a different way out, a new life maybe, leave the old life behind, all or nothing. Beijing Craps.'

Jack said, dryly, 'You're Nevvar Graf, aren't you? You really are.'

The boy released Solly's hand and came back to Jack, and looked up at him, his eyes bright with mischief. 'I really am. And what you're looking at is proof. Look at me, I'm five years old! And that's the magic of Beijing Craps. You win, you can live your life all over again!'

Solly nodded toward the table, where the white-haired men and women were rasping their breath on to the dice. 'What if you lose?'

'You won't lose. You're too good. You know you're too good.'

Jack stepped up to the table, and inspected the layout. 'So what's in it for you?' he wanted to know. 'Why'd you want me to play?'

The boy smiled more gently now. 'Same as always, Jack. The odds favor the house; and I'm the house.'

'Explain it to me,' said Jack.

The boy came up and stood beside him. 'It's pretty much the same as a regular dice game. You pick up the dice, you make your bet, you shoot; and other players fade your bet. The only difference is that we use special dice, you want to take a look?'

Jack looked across the table at the withered yellow-faced old man who was holding the dice. He had never seen such an expression of dumb panic in anybody's eyes in his whole life; not even on the faces of trust-fund managers who had just gambled away their clients' investments, or husbands who had just lost their houses.

'Mr Fortunato, will you pass me the dice for just a moment?' asked the boy.

Old Mr Fortunato hesitated for one moment, the dice held protectively in the cage-like like claw of his hand.

'Come on, Mr Fortunato,' the boy coaxed him; and at last he dropped them into the boy's open palm. The boy passed them carefully to Jack.

They were greenish-black, these dice, and they tingled and glowed. Holding them in his hand, Jack felt as if the ground were sliding away beneath his feet, like jet-lag, or a minor earth tremor. Instead of numbers, they were engraved with tiny demonic figures - figures whose outlines crawled with static electricity.

'There are six Ghosts on each dice,' the boy explained. 'If you shoot Yo Huang - this one - and Kuan-yin Pusa - this one - that's roughly the same as throwing a seven in craps; and if you shoot Yo Huang and Chung Kuei - here - that's just about the same as throwing eleven. In either case, these are the Beijing equivalent of naturals, okay, and you win.

'Yo Huang was the Lord of the Skies; Kuan-yin Pusa was a good and great sorceress. Chung Kuei was known as the Protector Against Evil Spirits.'

Jack slowly rubbed the dice between finger and thumb. 'That's three Ghosts. What are the other three?'

'Well,' smiled the boy. 'They're the bad guys. This one with the hood is Shui-Mu, the Chinese water demon; and this little dwarf guy is Hsu Hao, who changes joy to misery; and this is Yama the judge of hell, who was the first mortal ever to die - and do you know why?'

'I have a feeling you're going to tell me,' said Jack.

The boy smiled. 'He was the first mortal ever to die because he traveled down the road from whence there is no return.'