No Phule Like An Old Phule (25 page)

He sat down at a blackjack table and played a few hands. The cards weren’t running his way, and he ended up dropping three hundred dollars in fifteen minutes. It was hard to keep his hands from shaking; here he was, frittering away more than his entire daily budget before Victor Phule had tossed him a chip and told him to play the slots. A person with any brains at all would probably pocket the money and get the hell off Lorelei. But, of course, Ernie wasn’t going to do that. Lola was the brains, and she’d told him to come back here and play with it. She didn’t have to tell him twice.

He stood up and wandered over to a roulette table; he’d get worse odds, but the game was more in line with the high roller image he was trying to project. A perky redhead with a really spectacular figure was watching the action waiting for two or three blacks in a row, then sliding a large bet onto the red, figuring it was more likely to come up now. Ernie had heard somewhere that it didn’t make any difference how many times one color came up, the odds were still the same old fifty-fifty on the next turn of the wheel.

That didn’t make sense to Ernie. If you couldn’t trust the law of averages, there wasn’t any point to gambling at all.

Ernie bellied up to the table alongside the redhead. He slipped a fifty-pazootie chip out of his pocket and placed it on the red, right next to hers. Startled, she looked up at him. He grinned at her, not worrying for the moment about what Lola would have to say if she found out about it. Hey, I gotta play the role, he told himself.

The croupier announced the end of betting with the traditional incomprehensible phrase in some forgotten Old Earth language. Impulsively, Ernie pulled a second fiftybuck chip out of his pocket and put it atop the first just as the wheel began to spin. The redhead’s eyes widened, and she turned a very curious sidelong stare at him before returning her gaze to the wheel.

Ernie caught himself involuntarily holding his breath as the wheel spun. He made himself relax. If he was supposed to be a big spender, a hundred bucks shouldn’t be a big deal to him. Hell, a thousand shouldn’t be that big a deal.

In a little while, he was going to go throw that much into a slot machine in a couple of pulls, and unless he got really lucky, he wasn’t ever going to see it again.

The wheel slowed, and the redhead leaned forward, showing off a nice stretch of decolletage. Ernie wondered if it was for his benefit, and decided it probably was. He chuckled, and managed to keep from turning right around to stare at her. As interesting as she might be, he had to remember his real purpose here. More importantly, he had to remember what was likely to happen to him if Lola found out he’d been fooling around with some bimbo in the casino. Yes, those were the words she’d use. Then she’d use considerably harsher words directed at him. And unless he got very lucky, the harsh words might be followed by a stream of very hard objects flung in his direction.

It probably wasn’t worth it, Ernie thought, even as the roulette wheel came to a stop and showed the ball resting in a red slot. He-and the redhead-had won. She let out a whoop, and gave a little jump, brushing up against him on purpose, he was sure. He was going to have to be very disciplined. He was going to hate it, but that was the price a fella had to pay.

Even so he managed to smile as the redhead brushed up against him again and turned her big eyes his way as he scooped up his winnings.

Journal #714

The most common question asked of a legionnaire-at least, by civilians-is “Why’d you join the Legion?”

The most common answer, in my experience, is “To get a fresh start.” While that answer may not be strictly true in every case, it does possess a great deal of psychological validity. A genuine fresh start in life is a rare thing indeed; even the illusion of a fresh start can lead to a significant alteration in a person’s outlook. An a in fact, more than almost any other institution in society, the Legion does offer a fresh start to those who come to it in search of one.

The fact that so few of its members take any significant advantage of the opportunity is hardly to be held against the Legion.

Thumper bounded out of bed; it took him only a moment to reach the jangling wake-up alarm and turn the buzzer off. That was all it took to remind him that he was in a new place. It also reminded him, inevitably, of everything that had happened the night before. He shook his head, there was no changing what was past. He quickly washed up, threw on his black Legion jumpsuit, and went out to find some breakfast. Then he would report to Sergeant Brandy’s training squad, as she had instructed him the previous afternoon. It was good being allowed to eat before having to stand in formation-Thumper decided that this was another one of the ways Omega Company was a significant improvement over Legion basic camp.

He loaded up his tray and turned to look for a seat at one of the tables. To his surprise, there were a couple of legionnaires beckoning to him from the nearest table. “Hey, new guy, come sit with us!” said one of them-a small human with a hairless head and a wide smile.

Encouraged, Thumper took one of the empty seats at the long table. “Thanks for the invitation,” he said.

“My Legion name’s Thumper. What about you guys?”

“I am Mahatma,” said the one who’d invited him. “And until you came, I was one of the new guys in Omega Company. So you have caused me and my friends to become veterans, for which we owe you many thanks.” The others introduced themselves: a small human named Super-Gnat, and her partner, a Volton named Tusk-anini; two Gambolts named Dukes and Rube; and two other humans named Roadkill and Street. As it turned out, several of them, including Mahatma, were also members of Sergeant Brandy’s training squad, to which Thumper had been ordered to report after breakfast.

“Is this going to be anything like Legion basic?” Thumper asked.

Mahatma smiled. “I went through basic training with Brandy, so I have nothing else to compare it to,” he said.

“Sergeant Brandy can sometimes be obstinate, but she is usually capable of adapting to circumstances.”

Tusk-anini snorted, and said, “Mahatma has not seen many other sergeants. I have. All of them were tough, and Brandy is tough, too. But better than most sergeants, she understands that not all sophonts are just humans with funny faces. That is a good thing to know, for a sergeant.”

“But she will make you work hard,” said Rube. “I hear you are a fast runner and a good jumper.”

“Well, I guess so,” said Thumper. “They told me I set a camp record for the obstacle course in Basic.”

“Ah, yes-the obstacle course,” said Dukes, brushing crumbs out of his whiskers with one paw. “Captain Jester has us run the obstacle course, too. I believe that we do it differently from other Legion companies. It will be interesting to hear what you say after you run it with us.”

“Uh-huh,” said Thumper, suddenly cautious. “I guess we’ll see what it’s like when it comes up.” He sensed some deeper meaning behind the Gambolt’s comment, some unspoken subject he’d best not commit himself on until he saw its complexities firsthand. He took a forkful of salad to chew on, hoping that someone else would pick up the thread of the conversation.

But the only one who spoke was Mahatma, who simply smiled, and said, “Oh yes, we will certainly see.” And with that, Thumper had to remain contented until one of the squad looked up at the wall clock, and said, “Uh-oh-time to get moving. Don’t want to make the new guy late on his first day here.”

“Ahh, why not?” said Roadkill, grinning. “Make the rest of us look bad if he bein‘ always on time. Oughta start out on the wrong foot like the rest of us.”

“Not correct,” said Tusk-anini, shaking his huge head. “If new guy starts out on wrong foot, he doing it on his own. That what Omega Mob be all about-from each according to his inability, to each according to his misdeeds.”

Super-Gnat looked up at her partner in awe. “Tusk, I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but I somehow don’t think it’s a manual of military procedure. You’re right about one thing, though-the new guy’s gotta make his own mistakes. Go ahead, Thumper-the others can be as late or early as they want, but you need to be on time today. And good luck!” The others at the table laughed, but they all stood up along with Thumper.

“OK, new guy, follow us,” said Street “Brandy be waitin‘.” And together they filed out of the mess hall toward the parade ground for Thumper’s first full day with Omega Mob.

The observer in the Fat Chance casino’s control center turned away from the monitor screen and called out to her superior. “Looks like Toni’s got a live one,” she said.

“Let’s see,” said the manager. She stepped up behind the observer’s chair and leaned forward, looking at the monitor. “That guy again,” she said. “Yeah, we’ve been watching this bozo for a good while now. Has all the marks of a grifter, but nobody’s seen him doing anything we can nail him for-yet”

The observer leaned back. “Maybe he’s running some kind of game outside the casino, then coming in to gamble with the take. I can’t believe he came by that kind of money honestly-to throw a hundred bucks on the table like it didn’t matter.”

“As if,” the manager-who was a stickler for grammar corrected her. “Well, we don’t know where his original stake came from, but we can blame the old man for giving him enough to play at the big tables.”

“The old man?” the observer looked up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

The manager grunted, then said, “This guy walked up to Victor Phule when he was pumping chips into the thousand-dollar slots. For whatever reason, Phule seems to have taken a shine to him. So he tossed him a chip and asked him to play it for him-to change his luck, I guess. The guy wouldn’t take it at first, but Phule told him they’d split anything he won. Damned if the guy doesn’t score an eight-for-one, and come out four thousand ahead. This morning he changed a thousand into smaller chips-those thousand-buck chips are all marked-and that’s what he’s playing with now.”

“Uh-huh,” said the observer. “Well, it looks as if he’s winning a little bit of his own. Red just came up twice more, and he was down on it both times.”

“Shit,” said the manager. “I hate it when these guys win. Let’s just hope Toni can persuade him to let it ride a little longer-we don’t want this guy getting too far ahead of the game. He’s too slimy for my taste-and I’d just as soon not give him enough money to try something really big.”

“Like what?” asked the observer. “I mean, he looks like a slimeball, but so far the worst I’ve seen him do is stare at Toni’s boobs-which she’s trying her best to get him to do, anyhow.”

“Well, we’ve got a little bit of history on him,” said the observer. “He and a woman were here a few months back, and we had a couple of flaky security incidents involving them-nothing we could make any kind of case on, but suspicious. And they left the station very suddenly, didn’t check out or anything. Everything was paid up, so we didn’t follow it up-but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have…”

“He won again,” said the observer. “That’s sixteen hundred he’s ahead, now.”

“Let him just keep playing,” said the other woman, leaning forward to stare at the monitor. “Better yet, let him bump the bets even more. C’mon, Toni, that’s what you’re here for. Get him to put his whole wad on the red.” She spoke as if the redheaded woman-whose job description fell somewhere between “shill” and “undercover security guard”—could actually hear her. Maybe she can hear, thought the observer. It wasn’t unknown for the floor agents to wear equipment both to send and to receive messages.

Whether Toni had heard the supervisor or simply grasped what the situation demanded, the observer never found out.

But she leaned over to the object of their scrutiny and said something in his ear. He grinned, stupidly.

Whoever this guy was, suave wasn’t in his repertory at all. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of chips. He looked at them, shrugged, and put them all out on the red section of the betting layout. Even from the observation cameras lodged in the ceiling lighting fixtures, it was obvious that there were three thousand-dollar chips in the stack.

“Yes!” hissed the supervisor. “He’s betting everything he has. C’mon, black!”

“Black, yeah, c’mon black,” echoed the observer. Rooting for or against one of the players wasn’t really professional, but there were times even the most hardened casino hands got involved in the play. And nobody could really object if they were rooting for the bettor to lose.

The wheel spun, and the spectators at the table leaned forward, holding their collective breath. So did the two unseen spectators high above the action. The wheel gradually slowed, and the ball’s motion brought it down into the slotted section until it came to rest in one division…

“‘All right, red again!” shouted Ernie. Suddenly there was a stunned silence around the table as the other bettors realized what had happened. The croupier turned a sour look toward the wheel as he watched Ernie scoop in his winnings-now totaling over ten thousand dollars. But it wasn’t the wheel’s fault, or the croupier’s, either. Ernie was on a hot streak. He knew the feeling, and it was hard to keep from grinning.

It went against all his instincts to pick up his chips when his luck was running. But out of the comer of his eye he’d seen Victor Phule walk by, and that reminded him what he’d come here to do. As tempting as it was to take another shot at doubling his money, he had work to do, and messing up this job was likely to get him in the kind of trouble he couldn’t sweet-talk his way out of. He’d almost be better off coming home with the redhead-her name was Toni——who’d been egging him on to bet the house on the roulette table. At least, if he did that, Lola would vaporize him on the spot, without stopping to ask questions.

Toni looked up at him now, a rather attractive pout on her lips. “Hey, what are you—chicken? Come on, let it ride one more time. I’ve got a really strong feeling, red’s coming up again!” She put her hand on his arm, tempting him to stay.

“Sorry, babe, gotta go,” said Ernie, reluctantly shrugging off her hand. “Important business.”