I reached for my wallet and started to take a buck out of it, then changed my mind and found a twenty, laid it on the green felt.
“What part of that?” she asked.
“All of it. I feel lucky.”
“I like to tell the nice fellows they can’t win in the long run.”
“Thanks,” I said. I looked at her, at the way the dice table fit just over her thighs as she sat on the low stool, light pouring down over her shoulders and silvering the top of her breasts, highlighting their thrusting tips and leaving pools of shadow beneath them, and I added, “But they can’t lose.”
She looked at me for long seconds, her brown eyes half-lidded, then she said, “Shoot it all.”
She shoved one of the leather shakers over to me and I rattled the dice then rolled them up against the board. She looked at them, called my points and picked up the other shaker, held it in front of her and shook the dice vigorously.
She rolled the dice. “See?” she said. “You lose.”
I grinned. “That breaks me. What am I going to do for dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know,” she smiled. “Will you really go hungry?”
“Maybe I can bum a meal.”
“Maybe. Are you really broke?”
“Huh-uh. Just fishing. Carefully.”
“You don’t look like the careful type.”
“Depends.”
I had noticed something block out the dim light coming in through the entrance. I’d been so interested in conversation that I hadn’t looked around, but now the cowboy stepped up on my left.
“Hey, Pally,” he said.
I very clearly heard him say “Pally.” I looked at him.
There was a tight grin on his square face. “Remember, a friend of mine was innerested in Lois?”
“So he’s innerested. So am I. So what?”
“So here’s my good friend, Pally.” He jerked a thumb.
I looked around at where I figured the guy’s face would be and I was looking, so help me, at his tie clasp. I looked up. And up. And there it was. He wasn’t a man, but a monstrosity. When I found his face I didn’t recognize the features right away because I’d been too busy wondering when I’d get to it, but a few seconds after I saw the long thin head with the bony cheekbones and long sharp nose, the wide-spaced dark eyes and high forehead dwindling into wispy brown hair, I made him. Once you’ve seen a guy that big, you don’t have much trouble remembering him.
Back in ’45 you couldn’t pick up a sports page without seeing his name and face. He’d been in college then, the basketball star of the States, center on the Indians, national high-scorer. Too big for any of the services, he’d made a name for himself on the courts. Maybe you remember his name: Tommy Matson, and they called him Cannonball Matson. Since then the nickname had been shortened to Cannon. In ’46 he’d turned pro, finally been kicked out of the game because of excessive roughness, near brutality — and because he’d been questioned by the San Francisco D.A. about some fixed games; questioned and let go. After that he’d drifted. His name didn’t hit the sports pages any more, but I remembered he’d been picked up for battery, released, then did a bit for second-degree burglary, a daylight job on which he hadn’t carried a gun. The last I heard he’d been arrested in San Francisco, this time for first-degree burglary, a night job, but again he’d been without a gun. Cannon had been sent to San Quentin for that one. I’d brushed against him a few times on cases of mine, but I’d never been on his tail. He knew me, though, and didn’t like me; I’d helped put a couple of his friends away.
I could feel my throat tighten up. The guy wasn’t ten feet tall, he was a long six-feet-nine and a lumpy three hundred pounds, but Joe’s story wasn’t so crazy any more. This was the boy Joe had seen in here yesterday. I turned around with my back to the dice table and said, “Hello, Cannon. I heard you fell from ’Frisco. Didn’t know you were down this way.”
“Now you know.” He looked past me to Lois. “This chump bothering you, honey?”
“He’s not bothering me, Cannon.”
“I figure he is.”
I butted in. “I think the lady knows more about it than you do, Cannon. And you know my name. It’s not chump.”
The cowboy said, “It’s Pally. Ain’t that right, Pally?”
I looked at him. “You got a short memory, friend. Next time I’ll put a hinge in your elbow.” Actually, right at that moment, I didn’t feel too happy about all this. Another guy had come inside with Cannon and was standing by him. He was a little short guy about six feet tall, slim, bald, about forty-five. There was a scar, probably a knife scar, on his forehead just where his hairline should have been. That made four guys lined up against me, counting Cannon as two.
“Move along, Scott,” Cannon said.
“I’m busy.” I turned my back on him and said to Lois, “Guess we were interrupted. And I was just about to ask you something.”
She was frowning, biting her lower lip. “I know,” she said.
From behind me Cannon said softly, “I want you should blow, Scott, and keep going, and don’t come back.”
I felt a hand yank on my arm. As it spun me around I saw that it was the cowboy pulling at me and I made a mistake and concentrated on him. He got hold of my coat sleeves with both hands just as I started to chop at his face with the edge of my palm and maybe cave his face in for him, but I was concentrating on the wrong guy.
I heard Cannon grunt on my left, and I saw the big fist swooping down at my head, and I rolled with the punch just a fraction of a second too late. I was rolling when he hit me, and I damn near rolled over the dice table into Lois’ lap, and a gray film dropped down over my eyes. My muscles were suddenly like jelly and when I felt Cannon’s big hand bunch up my coat and pull me toward him I was having a hard enough time keeping my legs straight under me, much less getting a fist up to his chin. I fought to clear my head as I heard Cannon say huskily, “I said blow, and stay the hell gone,” and then I saw the dim blur of his fist looming up in front of me again, and just as I rolled my head to the side my head finally cleared. Everything got very clear and very black.
I was in a booth. It seemed pretty sure that I was in a booth, but I didn’t yet know where the booth was. I had just got my face up off the table and slowly I remembered what had happened. I wiggled my jaw, and pain cleared fog from my brain. I looked around. Lois was walking from the bar toward me, and because my eyes hadn’t yet focused properly it was as though there were two of Lois walking at me, and the way just one of her navigated this was almost more than man could bear. But when she reached the table she was back to one, and it was one shot glass she put in front of me.
“Brandy,” she said.
“Thanks.” I drank it, waited half a minute, then started to stand up. “Where is that... that... that...”
I was coming out of the booth when she put a hand on my chest and said, “Sit down. I admire your stupidity, but they’ve left. Hadn’t you better relax for a while?”
“I’ve been relaxed for a long while.” I sat down and as she slid into the seat opposite me I said, “What’s going on out there now?”
“Nothing. All the customers left too.”