Solstice

'Thinking about it,' the man said, big mouth opening wide to show his teeth. He looked about thirty-five but something told her this was deceptive. Probably a good ten years younger, she thought, but he wasted it with a geek crewcut, a cheap khaki shirt, a thin, ugly face, and bad dentistry.

'You hot in here?' she asked.

He was sweating heavily. 'Yeah. Lousy air-conditioning.'

'Normally it's pretty good. It's just we got a real spell of desert weather right now, I guess.'

He was sucking on a free gin and tonic and there was a decent bulge in his money belt. Must have been playing somewhere, she thought. This wasn't a night to lose anybody. She smiled again, a little more genuine this time. 'If you play we can talk some.'

'Yeah. I know.'

He looked disturbed, nervous. 'I could teach you things,' he said.

'Really?' Had that been a yawn? She wasn't sure. She didn't care.

'Useful things in your kind of work. For example, what do you think the odds are of you dealing out the fifty-two cards in that deck as a perfect hand to four different people here — ace to king in all the suits?'

'This is blackjack, sir. You get two cards only. We try to keep things simple.'

'I know that,' he said, a mite testily. 'But just guess.'

'Oh.' She tossed her blonde hair back so he looked at it a little harder. 'I don't know… maybe, say, two times ten to the power of twenty-seven to one. Something like that.'

He grinned, twitched a little, puzzled. 'Pretty good. They teach you that stuff?'

She stared at the next table. A red-faced couple in matching satin shirts were starting to play heavily, sucking on long drinks, swaying on the plush seating. It must be something in her face, she thought. It just attracted the failures. 'Vegas is kind of an educational sort of place. You'd be amazed what you pick up. So you want to play?'

'Five cards from a fresh shuffled deck. What are the odds on getting sweet nothing there, you think? As a percentage this time.'

'I'm not getting paid for this, sir.'

He put a twenty on the table. 'Make like you won it off me. It doesn't matter.'

She thought about it. Took her hand off the little security button under the table. Then pulled the twenty over to her pile. 'A little over fifty per cent, so one in two hands is a bummer.'

'Hey! You got a feel for these things.' There was another bill in his hand. She smiled. Maybe this would be a good evening. 'Okay. That was easy. Now it gets tougher. A single pair.'

'From what? Five cards? Somewhere over forty per cent.'

'Good.' He nodded. 'Forty-two-point-two-six or so, if you want to be strict, but that's close enough.' The bill sailed over the table. 'Now for something harder.'

'Sure,' she said, wearying of this a mite. 'But if it's tough, does the money stay the same? It doesn't seem quite fair.'

A couple of people had stopped by the table now, sensing something odd was happening. As long as she logged this as winnings no one would mind. They had this on the camera anyway. Linda, the hatchet-faced security woman with the physique of a squat wrestler, had joined the crowd. Linda nodded tentatively, as if to say: A little further, see what happens.

The man took out a bunch of bills. She couldn't see how many. 'A straight. Five cards in a run, suit doesn't matter. Again, fresh pack. Same rules.'

'About a third.'

'Excuse me? I didn't quite make that out.'

'About a third of one per cent, three times in a thousand,' she said, more loudly this time.

'Good.' He threw the bunch of money across the table. 'You all hear that? We've gone from almost every other deal to three times in a thousand in a couple of quick steps, and you people are still not getting it.'

Linda the security woman stared directly at her, and Geri Southern knew what this meant: So he's some anti-gambling weirdo here to make a point. What the hell? He's throwing money at us.

'Okay,' he said, and opened up the money belt, poured a pile of bills on the table, let them lie there for a moment so the crowd could take it in. Geri Southern tried not to gasp. Just a glance told her the denominations. There was probably a good twenty thousand dollars looking at her right then.

'Now we go for the big one. And when I ask, I want you to think about this. Not just the answer, but what it means. A royal flush. How about that? Just a plain royal flush.'

'A hundredth of a percentage point,' she said.

'Aw Jesus!' he yelled, and she wasn't sure if he might not burst into tears. 'Is that the best you can do? You didn't even try to think.'

'I got it wrong?'

'Yeah.'

'Do I get another try?'

'Nope,' he said, scooping up the money. 'What kind of a dumb fucking question is that?' His voice went high and squeaky.' "Do I get another try?" Jesus, you people are unbelievable. How many tries do you think we get on this planet? You think we should've given Hitler another try?'

Linda the security woman was on the radio now. Pretty soon the weirdo would be back out on the Strip. And, Geri thought bitterly, what was left of his money would be with him. He scooped up the bills and walked quickly around to her side. 'Let me tell you…' He peered at her name tag. 'Ge-RI!'

'Sir…'

'Let me tell you the odds on a royal flush. One five thousandth of a percent! One turn-up every half a million deals. And you know what's really rich? You people know, in your guts, that's the truth. It's all so distant you don't even care. But sometimes these things do come up, oh yes. There's one coming up right now and you morons do nothing except sit back and play the goddamn slots.'

Geri looked beyond the crowd. A couple of security men were on the way. Not rushing. The guy didn't look dangerous, and it was good policy not to scare off the ordinary Joes. Besides, in a way it was amusing.

Then the man scooped up some of the money, thrust it down the front of her costume, looked at the big-denomination bills sticking out of her pretty cleavage, and said, 'You listen to me, Geri! You take that money and you get yourself in a car and you go drive out of here as fast and as far as you can. Because the biggest royal flush you're ever going to see in your life's on its way here and it's going to scorch and burn you all. All! You hear me?'

They were laughing, she saw. All of them. Even the security guys ambling over, thinking this was one good tale for the bar after work. The man stared at them, not believing it. 'You all run from here. You just go. All that stuff you saw on TV, that isn't even the half of it. I can't tell you more than once. I can't.'

He stared at the pile of dollars on the table, then threw it into the crowd.

'Holy shit,' Geri Southern said, as the area around her erupted. In a matter of seconds it was bedlam, people kicking and screaming, yelling obscenities, fighting for the bills. A fist flew out from somewhere, caught a big blowsy tourist on the jaw. Linda the security woman had someone in a neck hold. People were rolling, scrabbling on the carpet for the money.

The man just looked at her, then shoved some more bills into her hand. 'You think I'm crazy. But I'm not. Believe me. You got to go. There's a hard rain gonna fall around here, fall everywhere. Someone just rolled the dice up there in the sky, Geri, and what they got at the end of it is real bad news.'

'Mister…' she started to say, then fell silent. He didn't look crazy at all. He was crying, the tears rolling down in two continuous streams that stood like melting icicles on his pale, pockmarked cheeks. He put a finger to her lips. 'Just go,' he said, half-sobbing.