Arlen got some dollars out, and Paul started to reach in his own pocket but Arlen waved him off. He wasn’t sure how much money Paul had on him, but it couldn’t be much; the juniors in the CCC were required to send twenty-five of the thirty dollars they made each month directly home to help their parents. Pearl wouldn’t even accept Arlen’s money, though.
“Friend of Walt’s,” she said.
“Lady, we just met him ten minutes ago. Nobody owes us anything.”
“Friend of Walt’s,” she repeated.
Paul was gawking around the bar. It was a rough-looking crowd. One man wore a long knife in a sheath at his belt, and another had a raw red gash down the length of one finger, the sort of thing that could be left behind by a tooth. It wasn’t an old injury. At a table just inside the door, a man with a cigar pinched in the corner of his mouth was talking to a woman in a green dress that was cut so low the tops of her large white breasts were exposed completely. She had red hair and bored eyes.
Pearl led them up a set of stairs so narrow that she had to turn sideways to wedge her way along. She jerked open the first door they came to, then lit an oil lamp and waved her fat hand out over the two cots.
“Privy’s outdoors,” she said. “Wasn’t the Astor family that built this, you might have noticed.”
“It’ll do fine,” Arlen said.
She clomped back out the door and down the hall, and they could hear her let out a grunt as she started down the stairs. Paul caught Arlen’s eye and grinned.
“Don’t be getting any ideas,” Arlen said. “She’s too old for you.”
“Oh, go on.”
“I’m going downstairs to buy that fellow a drink. Thank him for the ride. You get some shut-eye.”
Paul nodded at the wall and said, “Hear that? It’s raining.”
Yes, it was. Coming down soft but steady, would’ve soaked them to the bone if they’d still been out walking on the dark highway.
“Good thing we caught that ride,” Paul said.
“Sure.” Arlen pulled his bag up onto his bed and sorted through it until he found his canteen, unscrewed the cap, and shook the contents down, tugged a few bills out. He had $367 in it, savings accrued over the past twenty months. No fortune, but in this driven-to-its-knees economy, where men bartered heirlooms for bread, it felt close.
Outside, the rain gathered intensity.
Yes, Arlen thought, it was a good thing we caught that ride.
The bar was dim and dusty, with a crowd of men Arlen could smell easier than he could see bunched at one end, keeping conversation with Pearl. The guitar player had given up for the night, but the redheaded woman in the green dress was still at the table with her cigar-smoking companion, and Walt Sorenson sat alone at the far end of the bar, counting out small white balls with black numbers and placing them into a burlap bag. Arlen dropped onto a stool beside him and said, “Mind telling me what you’re doing?”
Sorenson smiled. “You ever heard of bolita?”
“I have not,” Arlen said. The woman in the green dress stood up and walked to the bar, her breasts wriggling like something come alive. Her hips matched the act, but the eyes stayed empty. She disappeared up the stairs, never casting a look back at the man with the cigar who followed her.
“Bolita,” Sorenson said, “is a game of wagering. You should put in a dime, Mr… what’s your name? Wagner, was it?”
“Arlen Wagner, yes.”
“Well, Arlen Wagner, I’ve developed what some might call an unusual ability-I can feel luck in the air. I mean, just taste it, like when you walk into a room where something good’s been on the stove. And I’m telling you, sir, that luck rides with you tonight. There’s no question about it. Luck rides with you.”
Arlen thought of the station platform again, all those men with bone faces and bone hands climbing back onto the train. His mouth was dry.
“All right,” he said. “Sure. I’ll put in a dime.”
“There you go. Now, pick yourself a number. One through one hundred.”
He waited with a wolf’s grin.
“One,” Arlen said. “As in, how many times I’ll try this game.”
“Very nice, very nice.” Sorenson chuckled and sorted through the balls until he found the number one. He held it up so Arlen could inspect it, then leaned it against his whiskey glass, which was now mostly ice. “I’ll rest it right there so you can keep an eye on it.”
“I’m going to expect such a game is illegal in this state,” Arlen said.
“A good many of the best things are.” Sorenson spent some time studying his betting sheet, cleared his throat, and called, “All right, boys, gather round, the losing is about to begin for most, and the winning for but a single soul.”
He scooped the balls off the bar and into the bag. By now the crowd had gathered around Sorenson, and he wrapped the top of the bag until the balls were hidden from view, then gave it a ferocious shake.
“Here,” he said. “Someone else take a try.”
A man with skeptical eyes stepped forward and took the bag. He shook it for a long time. Sorenson took the bag back, opened the neck, and slid his right hand inside. He closed his eyes and let out a strange humming sound. This persisted for a moment as he felt around the inside, and then he snapped open one eye and told the crowd, “I’ve got to tune into the winner, you know. It’s not so simple as just pulling one out. There’s one man here who deserves to win tonight, one whose destiny is victory, and I must be sure that I hear his selection calling my name.”
“You’re so full of shit,” one onlooker said, “I’m surprised it don’t come out your ears.”
Sorenson smiled, then snapped his hand out of the bag, his fist closed. “Gentlemen, I give you our winner.”
He unfolded his hand and twisted the ball so the number was visible: 1.
“And who had number one?”
Arlen lifted his hand, and a few of the men grumbled.
“He come in here with you,” the one who’d shaken the bag said. “It’s a damn swindle you’re running.”
“Ah, but you’re wrong,” Sorenson said, unbothered. “I’ve not met this man till this evening, and he’ll tell you the same. But if that’s how you feel, then I suggest another round, only this time our current winner must sit out.”
There was no interest in further wagering.
“Hard to believe it here,” Sorenson told Arlen, “but there are places where this little game is treated with respect. I’ve known men who became millionaires off this little game.”
“Running it,” Arlen said, “not playing it. And thanks for cheating me into the profit.”
“Cheating?”
Arlen nodded at the glass of melting ice near Sorenson’s hand. “You left the ball up there long enough to hold the cold. Then you could pick it out of the rest. It’s a neat trick, but it may get your arm broken with the wrong crowd.”
Sorenson gave a low chuckle. “You’ve got a sharp eye, Mr. Wagner.”
Arlen lifted his hand and got Pearl’s attention, asked for two whiskeys. When she’d shuffled off again, he said, “So is this your business, Sorenson? A traveling entertainment, that’s what you are?”
“Oh, no. This little game is nothing more than a pastime.”
“So what is it that you do?”
Sorenson smiled as Pearl set their drinks on the bar. “You’re an inquisitive man. What I do has evolved a bit, but these days I’m an accounts manager.”
“Accounts manager?”
“That’s right, sir. I check in on clients all over the hellish backwoods of this forsaken Florida countryside. And once in a while, I get to the coast to do the same. I’ll assure you, the ladies are of a finer breed on the coast.” He nodded at Pearl’s enormous rear end. “Ample evidence, you might say.”
“Quick with a pun, Sorenson. Mighty quick.”
“Quick with so many things.”