"Alien Harvest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sheckley Robert)

7

Callahan's Sporting Club near Delancey Street was an illegal club. The authorities were always closing it down, but Callahan's always managed to open again in a day or two. Many city mayors and police commissioners had sworn to close the place once and for all, but somehow they never got around to it. Too much money changed hands. It was nice to know that some things, like the power of bribery, never changed.

A panel slid open in a reinforced door, and a face looked out. “Whaddyaa want?”

“I want to gamble,” Julie said.

“Who do you know?”

“Luigi.”

“Then come on in.”

After they were inside, Stan whispered to her, “Who's Luigi?”

“I have no idea,” Julie said. “In a place like this, looking like you know someone is worth almost as much as really knowing.”

Callahan's was filled with well-dressed, prosperous-looking people, most of them crowded three deep around the horseshoe-shaped bar. The general depression and malaise that seemed to grip so much of America didn't operate here. Here, things were booming.

Stan could see people sitting in the adjoining dining room, eating as though there were no food shortages. It looked like they were eating real steaks, too. From beyond the dining room he could hear the excited sounds of people betting. The gaming rooms would be right down there, and that was where Julie led him.

“What game are you going to play?” he asked.

“I'll try Whorgle,” she said.

She pushed her way into the circle, and they made way for her. There were a dozen men and three women betting on the action. They waited while she set out her cash. Then the game went on.

Stan found he couldn't figure out how Whorgle was played. There were cards, of course, and a small ivory marker, and something made it spin and jump between the numbers painted on the table. How long it resided in a square seemed to decide who won, but the cards had something to do with it, too. There were also disk-shaped markers with odd symbols on one side. The money, thrown down on the painted stake lines, passed back and forth too quickly for Stan to figure out what was happening. He knew he could work it all out if he just applied his mind, but right now he was feeling light-headed. It had been quite a while since his last shot of Xeno-Zip. The artificial fire that had enlivened his nerves and dulled his senses was fading out of his system. He was beginning to feel very bad. The pain was simply too hard to handle without something to help it like essence of royal jelly.

At last the pain became too much for him. He had to go into a nearby room and lie down on a couch.

After a while he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of grinning skulls dancing and bobbing in front of him.

After a while Julie came and woke him. She was smiling.

“How did you do?” Stan asked her.

“Nobody beats me at Whorgle,” she said, riffling through a stack of greenbacks. “Let's go home and get some sleep. Then I need to see Gibberman.”