“I’m with her,” Grace said. “Three hundred dollars she’s right.”
“It’s a bet,” the man in the tropical suit said, and he handed Grace three one-hundred-dollar bills.
Iris whispered, “Come on, you mothers,” and immediately rolled an eleven.
“How we doing?” Hank asked at Buddwing’s elbow.
“So far, so good.”
Hank was looking around the circle of bettors and trying to determine where the big money was. To take five hundred and twenty-five grand out of this game, it was first necessary to know who were the real gamblers and who were the Sunday drivers. There was no bookie in the game, and all bets were being made between the individual players, which meant that the odds were true odds, without a house percentage working against the players. It was entirely possible for his companions to win very big money here, provided they bet against the people who had it, and provided luck was with them. Hank nodded in approval when he saw that Grace was betting against the man in the gray tropical suit, since he was very big wood, a pusher who worked a lot of high schools in the Bronx. In addition to him, there were two other big gamblers in the game, both of whom were clutching fist-spiked handfuls of bristling bills, and one of whom had bound bills lying in front of him on the blanket in ten- and twenty-thousand-dollar packets. Hank nudged Buddwing gently and, with successive nods of his head, pointed out the heavy spenders in the game. Iris, meanwhile, had rolled a seven and another eleven, and Grace’s bankroll had mushroomed to twenty-four hundred dollars, which was still several hundred thousand short of their goal. On the next roll, Grace switched to betting the girl wrong, wagering the full twenty-four hundred dollars. The girl rolled a five, a six, and a seven in rapid succession, and Grace picked up her forty-eight hundred dollars, and grinned up at Buddwing.
The dice passed to a thickset man with an Irish-looking face. He put a five-dollar bill on the blanket, and Grace bet him wrong for two hundred dollars. He sevened out almost immediately, and she picked up the four hundred and now had an even five thousand dollars as the dice were passed to her.
“You roll,” she said to Buddwing and handed him the dice. “Five grand he’s right,” she said, and extended the five thousand dollars.
One of the big guns in the game looked at Grace appraisingly, shifted his eyes to Buddwing, moved his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, and then softly said, “Bet,” and held out his five thousand dollars.
Buddwing picked up the dice.
“How do you feel, man?” Hank whispered into his ear.
“Lucky,” Buddwing said.
“Roll ’em,” the man in the tropical suit said.
“We want a seven,” Grace said.
“Here’s your seven, honey,” Buddwing said, and hurled the dice against the wall. They bounced back onto the blanket. One of them stopped dead almost immediately with a six-spot showing on its face. The other die rolled and then went into a long spin and finally fell flat on the blanket, showing a one-spot.
“Seven!” Hank said, and Buddwing picked up the dice again.
“Bet the ten thousand,” Grace said.
“It’s a bet,” the man with the cigar answered.
“You don’t leave no room for error, honey,” Iris said to Grace.
“We can’t lose,” Grace answered, and watched as Buddwing shook the dice in his fist.
“Seven now!” he shouted, and threw them against the wall.
One die hit the wall and bounced straight up into the air like a rocket going into orbit. The players watched it reach its apogee and then fall swiftly to the blanket, where it struck the other die, changing the number on its face. Both dice rolled an instant longer and came to a stop.
“It’s a seven!” Grace yelled.
“We’ve got a hot shooter in the game at last,” the Irishman said.
“Roll the mothers,” Iris said.
“What do you want me to bet?” Grace asked him.
“All of it,” Buddwing said.
“Put part of it on eleven,” Hank said.
“Why?”
“I got a feeling.”
“Grace?”
“Okay with me,” Grace said.
She put five thousand dollars on the blanket and was immediately faded by the man with the cigar. She held up the rest of the money and said, “I’ve got fifteen thousand says he elevens.”
“I’ll give you fifteen to one on that,” the man in the tropical suit said.
“The right odds are seventeen to one,” Hank said gently. “You know that.”
“Oh, boy, we got an accountant in the house,” the man answered. “Okay, seventeen to one. Is it a bet?”
“It’s a bet,” Grace said.
They were laying bets all around the blanket as Buddwing picked up the dice again. In his mind he was trying to multiply fifteen thousand dollars by seventeen, which was what the payoff would be if he rolled an eleven. He clenched his fist around the dice and began shaking them.
“That eleven’s a one-shot bet, you know that, don’t you, lady?” the man in the tropical suit asked.
“She knows it,” Hank said.
“Fifty dollars, he elevens,” the Irishman said.
“Bet,” someone across the blanket answered.
The tall thin man wearing rimless spectacles held out a thousand-dollar bill and said, “Would anyone else care to give me seventeen to one on that?”
“You’re covered,” the man with the cigar said.
“Come on, these dice are cooling off,” Buddwing said.
“Oh, don’t let ’em cool, honey,” Iris said.
“Any more of that eleven action open?” a young man needing a shave asked.
“Right or wrong?”
“Right.”
“How much?”
“Ten bucks.”
“Come on, sonny, Mickey Mouse is across the street.”
“Who’ll give me seventeen to one?” the unshaven young man persisted.
“All right, all right, it’s a bet,” a redheaded woman said.
“Can I roll these damn things now?” Buddwing said.
“Go ahead, roll.”
Buddwing shook the dice again.
“Talk to ’em first, baby,” Grace said.
“We want an eleven,” Buddwing said.
“Come on, you mothers,” Iris said, “give the man his eleven.”
He raised his fist over his head, shook the dice once more and, as he threw them against the wall, shouted, “Ee-lev-en!” The same shout went up from half the players around the blanket at the same moment, so that the word “Ee-lev-en!” struck the air at the same moment the dice struck the wall. They hit savagely and rolled back savagely and savagely came to an abrupt stop. There were only two ways of making an eleven as against thirty-four ways of making any other possible number, and there was a whole hell of a lot of money riding on those two cubes as they stopped dead on the blanket like a pair of fists connecting. For a moment, the players were startled by the sudden halt of the dice. A six-spot and a five-spot stared up from the blanket, but nothing seemed to register on the players’ faces. It was as though a rain dance had provided rain immediately and unexpectedly, drenching everyone before he’d had a chance to work up even a fairly good jig.
“He made it,” someone whispered, and the right bettors began laughing and slapping each other on the back and picking up their winnings while the wrong bettors stared sourly at the dice still lying on the blanket.