I read once about some psychologists who taught rats to solve mazes. Then the psychologists put the rodents in mazes with no exit. The animals scurried around and did their best. Then they sat down and chewed off their own feet.
I can understand why.
In Dayton, I wound up in a five-a-week furnished room on Webster off Payne. I hadn’t heard from Murray in a long time, but I knew he was close. I could sense it.
I left the room one day and, when I returned, there were two men waiting, a big one and a small one. I opened the door and saw them and knew what they were there for. I tried to duck out but the big man blocked my path. I struck out ahead and the little one swung a leather-covered sap at my head, and all the lights blacked out.
I came to in a fast-moving car, the little man at the wheel. I hadn’t expected to wake up. I started to say something but the big man spoke first. “Somebody wants to see you,” he said. “We better keep you nice and quiet in the meantime.”
A needle pricked my skin, a shot of something potent. Everything faded to black again and I slept. It was a long ride. I woke up five or six times, and each time I got another taste of the needle and slept some more. When we reached our destination I was semiconscious. They parked the car and carried me from the car to the house, the big man lifting me effortlessly, like a sack of dirty laundry. I felt like a sack of dirty laundry, as far as that goes. Dirty and damp and a little mildewed around the edges.
I blacked out again. I came to in a chair, an easy chair. I opened my eyes and blinked. I was in the basement of Murray’s house. The big man and the small man stood over to one side. Joyce, her eyes terrible, was sitting on a couch along the far wall. There was a table, two chairs. There was a score pad and a deck of cards and a gun that looked as big as a cannon.
Murray Rogers was sitting in one of those chairs.
“Well,” he said. “Hello, Maynard. It’s been a long time.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
Murray’s smile grew.
“Go ahead and get it over with,” I told him. “You’ve got a gun this time. Pick it up and shoot me.”
“Just like that?”
“You might as well,” I said. “I can’t run any more. I couldn’t hide well enough. Every damned time I thought I was clear you turned up on my tail again. I’ve had the course. Get it over with.”
The room stayed silent for a long time. I remembered my first visit to that basement game room, that first poker game, that first look at Joyce. It seemed so long ago.
“These past few months have been quite an experience for me,” Murray said. For me, too, I thought. “The role of the hunter is an interesting one,” he resumed. “It’s not without its moments. There’s a story called The Most Dangerous Game, about a crack hunter who grows bored with the sport and hunts men instead. You probably haven’t read it—”
I’d read the story. Just because a man is a crook people tend to assume he’s illiterate as well. “—but I can understand that story now,” Murray continued. “You know, at first I planned to chase you and let you run and chase you some more and then kill you.”
“And?”
“There’s not enough sport there,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea. We played some cards together, Maynard. Gin, poker. You won when you wanted to win. You’re quite a good card cheat, aren’t you?”
“Good enough.”
“Very good indeed. You know, after I found out about you there was one question that kept nagging at me. I suppose it always comes up in connection with a card cheat. I wondered how good a game you might play if you had to play it honest.”
I’d wondered the same thing myself, naturally. I’d never been forced to find out. If I were under pressure to win, I cheated. If I were just playing for the hell of it, I could afford to play a sloppy game.
“Get to the point,” I said.
“The point ought to be clear enough.” He stood up, stepped toward me. “I could have you killed right now. These men—” he indicated the tall one and the short one, my Mutt and Jeff friends “—these men would kill you if I told them to. Kill you quickly and easily and toss you in a lime pit somewhere on the lake shore. All I have to do is give them the word. But I’m offering you a chance. We’re going to sit down at that table, you and I. We’re going to play gin rummy. We’ll play ten sets of Hollywood, the usual rules. And you won’t cheat.”
“How would you know if I did?”
“I could tell.”
“You never knew the difference before.”
His eyes flashed—he hated to be a sucker, and I was reaching him. “I never looked for it before,” he said. “I trusted you, you bastard. This time I’ll be looking. So will the boys. If you cheat, you die on the spot. And badly.”
“Go on.”
“If you win, if you beat me fair and square, you pick up all of the marbles, Maynard. All of them.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means fifty thousand dollars in cash. It means Joyce. She can go with you, if you want her. I won’t be in your way.”
I glanced at Joyce. She was more beautiful than ever, but there was something wrong with her, something in her eyes. Before she had been vital and alive. Now, somewhere in the course of things, Murray had taken the spirit out of her. It showed.
I said, “And if I lose?”
“Then you die.”
I nodded slowly. It was as corny as some of his other slants, as corny as sending me funeral home advertisements through the mail. He had a real feeling for melodrama. But there was plenty underneath that layer of corn.
He couldn’t stand being a loser. And he couldn’t stand the idea I might be able to beat him in a straight game just as I’d beaten him cheating. Gin was his game. He was good at it, just as he was good at so many other things, and he was sure he could take me. When he did, it would cost me my life.
I’ve never been much of a gambler on the square. Cheating isn’t gambling. It’s a sure thing. I never liked to bet big money on horses or dice. And I never thought I’d wind up betting my life on a gin game.
“Well? Is it a deal?” he said.
A hell of a deal, I thought. What happened if I said no? Then I just died anyway.
“The way things sit,” I said, “you’ve got the cards stacked in your favor.”
“How?”
“I’m half-dead and half-drugged,” I said. “My mind’s not working straight and my body’s crapping out on me. I’ll play your game, but I’ve got to be in shape for it.”
That made sense to him. If I weren’t at the top of my form, it therefore would be no victory for him. He asked me what I wanted.
“First a shower,” I said. “Then about four hours in the sack. Then a lot of scrambled eggs and a pot of black coffee, and a thermos of coffee on the table throughout the game. And a few packs of my brand of cigarettes.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
“Good enough,” he said.
I took the shower and hit the sack. I woke up by myself about fifteen minutes before my four hours were up. There was a change of clothing laid out for me. My size. I dressed, ate half a dozen eggs with bacon and drank four cups of inky black coffee. I went downstairs, and Murray was at the table waiting for me. The gold-dust twins were down there, too. They were going to help watch me to make sure I didn’t cheat. Between them, they had maybe three fifths of a brain.
“Our regular rules,” Murray said. “Hollywood, spades doubled, ten for underknock, twenty for gin, thirty for gin-off. We’ll play ten sets with no break until we’re finished.”