‘Now,’ the negro said, speaking in a deep, well-modulated voice, ‘tell us about this jackpot.’
Self-consciously Scarne began slowly to repeat the account he had given to Jerry Soma. They stopped him before he got beyond the third sentence.
His new listeners were of different mettle from the club manager. Merely verbal descriptions did not satisfy them at all. They wanted mathematics, the language of pure thought. The inquisition became arcane, almost bizarre, as they forced Scarne to sharpen and re-define every item of his experiences, probing and testing every concept he put forward as he plunged, in memory, back into what had happened while he held the handles of the mugger, and later, while he was under the identity machine.
When the account was finally finished they put him to yet another examination. They fired prodigious equations at him from all directions, giving him but scant seconds to solve them in his head. They were testing out the limits of his ability.
After an hour of the hardest work Scarne had ever known, it was over. He was asked to wait in an adjoining room.
He left, and found himself in a long, narrow, musty-smelling annexe lined with shelves. It was given a vault-like appearance by the deep alcoves which punctuated the walls at intervals, and which also contained nothing but shelves, all loaded with files and papers. He was, apparently, in some sort of ill-ordered data library.
Bending his ear to the door he had just closed, he heard the murmur of voices. He crossed to one of the shelves, pulled out a file, opened it and scanned its contents with frantic speed. It contained a dissertation on some particularly abstruse point in randomatics.
Replacing it, he looked at another and then another. This was a storeroom of papers in randomatics, a kind of cellar, probably, of past and discarded work emanating from the cadre which now was discussing him in the next room.
His heart beat rapidly. He dashed up and down the annexe, looking wildly at the shelves. But there was no ordering system, evidently, nothing to tell him where he might look to find a clue to the rumoured luck equations.
He calmed down. It was highly unlikely that any reference to the equations – presuming they existed at all – would be found here, he reasoned. Glancing through the files, he finally settled on one whose meaning, at a cursory inspection, baffled even him. It was a prime example of rarefied speculative thought, containing no explanatory text at all. It might, he decided, keep an average mathematician guessing for a while. Taking a pen from his breast pocket he photographed several pages with its hidden vid recorder.
He was still handling the file when the door opened and the tall negro walked in. Calmly Scarne replaced it on the shelf and turned to meet him.
The cadre randomatician gave no sign that he saw anything improper in Scarne’s behaviour. ‘We’ve discussed your story, Mr Scarne,’ he said. ‘We found it quite interesting.’
‘But what does it mean?’
‘Your experience can only have been subjective, of course. We think you have a type of mind which has a particularly intuitive grasp of mathematical relations. The jackpot shot must have impinged on the faculty in some way, inducing an hallucination. It’s possible. The incident with the identity machine would be a hangover from that. In many ways you have a fortunate combination of qualities. You will make a good gamesman.’
The negro hesitated, became reflective. ‘You have what we pure theoreticians lack, in fact.’
‘Really? I’ve always considered myself too much of a mathematician, not enough of a player,’ Scarne said dubiously.
A faint smile came to the other’s lips. ‘Jerry Soma’s assessment shows you to be quite talented. You may be just the type of person we are looking for – but that’s by the way, for now.’ He straightened, self-consciously formal again. ‘The Chairman would be pleased if you would join him at breakfast, which he is about to take.’
The invitation was so sudden that it sent a shock of anticipation through Scarne. ‘Yes, of course. I would be honoured,’ he murmured.
The sound of a string quartet, weaving a melancholy pattern of melody, was the first impression Scarne received as his guide opened the door to Marguerite Dom’s breakfast-room. The cadre member did not follow him in; Scarne heard the door close softly behind him. He was alone with one of the most powerful men – in some eyes the most powerful man – in human-held space.
The Wheel leader rose from a wrought-iron chair, one of two facing one another across a low table, to greet him. He wore a long soft jacket of green velvet; a foot-long cigarette holder dangled from one hand. ‘So pleased to meet you, Mr Scarne. Did you have a good journey? I do hope my couriers were courteous…’ He waved his hand, causing the music to stop, and pointed negligently to the table. ‘Shall we be seated?’
Obediently Scarne took the chair opposite the grand master.
Dom’s frame was spare, his height medium. His sparse black hair, slicked and combed back, failed to cover a balding pate. He had been born at a time when there had been a brief fashion for naming one’s children after members of the opposite sex – though usually with ancient-sounding names. Consequently Sol was replete with middle-aged male Marguerites, Pamelas and Elkas, and with female Arthurs, Yuris and Dwights. It so happened that Dom suited his first name perfectly. He was that ripe combination, the thoroughly masculine, camp, decadent male. His movements were almost feminine. When he spoke, an ingratiating and deceptively defensive smile was apt to come to his features, and the modulations of his voice were more exaggerated than those of the average man, giving the impression of a neurotic factor in his make-up.
Although he seemed a far cry from the tough, solid types who had built up the Wheel centuries ago, Scarne needed to contemplate his face for scant moments to realize that there was only one vital difference between him and those legendary creators of the syndicate. As a rule, those men had not been addicted to the practices which brought them their wealth. But Dom’s face, with its creases and strain lines, its deep intensive eyes, told Scarne that he belonged to a highly specific human type: the compulsive gambler. It was a strong face: his was not a weakness, or a compulsion to lose, as it was with many. It was a need to win.
A butler appeared and began serving coffee, steak and eggs. ‘I hear you have some unusual tendencies,’ Dom said lightly. ‘Glimpses into ultimate reality and so forth.’ His mouth creased into a tight smile, as though with nervousness or sarcasm.
‘Your cadre people assure me it was hallucinatory,’ Scarne said.
‘Oh, they always put everything down to delusion. But we know it’s not that simple, don’t we? After all, everything you saw is known scientifically. We know that matter is constructed of waves, and that these waves are waves of probability. We also know that below this quantum level there is another level, a level of pure randomness where no physical laws obtain. The material world floats on that, so to speak. But then it’s all in the Tarot, isn’t it?’ Dom flicked his hand; a card appeared in it, and he passed it to Scarne.
Scarne bent his head to study the card. It was number Ten, the Wheel of Fortune. The card was of traditional design; an upright wheel mounted in a frame which was supported by boats, or pontoons, floating on water.
‘Somewhat cursory symbolism, but apt,’ Dom was saying. ‘In substance, that represents the content of your first vision, does it not?’
Scarne felt slightly dizzy. Dom was right. The picture on the card seemed bland and ordinary – until one put one’s mind to work on it. The wheel stood for chance as it was manifested in the physical universe – in human life, for instance. But it floated on the waters of a greater randomness, the one he had perceived in his ‘black-out’ in the gaming-house.