by Mick Farren
'No way. It's not your style.'
'Why don't you let me be the judge of that.'
'Well
'Come on, Rat. Spit it out.'
'Okay, but like I said, I don't think it's for you.'
'Just tell me, Rat.'
'I got this deal going on this bar. It's just a few streets away from here. I've worked out a thing with the owner whereby I get the rights to a nine gets twenty game. He's got a table and everything. He takes a third, I take a third and the dealer takes a third.'
'And you don't have a dealer?'
'Well, I deal some of the time, but . . .'
'But you ain't too good.'
The Rat lost it for a moment.
'It's only a small joint, I can do okay for . . .'
Phaid just smiled while Rat tried to reconstruct his image.
'My only problem is that I need a relief dealer for the evening shift.'
The heat had frayed Phaid's temper.
'You're only problem is ..."
Phaid realised that abusing the Rat probably wasn't his best move right at that moment. The Rat twitched.
'What?'
'Nothing.'
The Rat was now thoroughly paranoid.
'What's my problem? Huh? What's my problem?'
'Forget it, Rat. What's the scam?'
'If you wanted to do it, you could relief deal for me in the evenings and take a third of the profits. How does that sound?'
Phaid thought about it for a moment.
'I deal and I get a third?'
'Right.'
'And you provide the stake money?'
The Rat avoided Phaid's eyes.
'Actually . . . no.'
'You don't put up the stake for the house?'
'No.'
'The bar owner does?'
'Well . . . no.'
Phaid's eyes narrowed.
'So who puts up the float?'
The Rat's expression became even more shifty.
'We just have to play it by ear.'
Phaid bit his lip and nodded.
'Play it by ear? So what happens if we get a big winner early on? How do we play that by ear, Ratty?'
The Rat squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.
'If I was you I wouldn't call me that. I don't like that name.'
'Answer the question. What happens if we get a big winner at the beginning of the game? How the hell am I supposed to cover that playing it by ear.'
The Rat hesitated.
'Well . . . you'd have to make sure that . . . that there isn't a big winner.'
'So the game's going to be fixed?'
'It's the only way. You must have fixed a game before now.'
Phaid sighed.
'Why don't we cut out the bullshit.'
The Rat did a poor imitation of not understanding.
'Huh?'
. 'Let's cut out the bullshit. You're asking me to fix a game . . .'
'You could do it.'
'Will you let me finish?'
'Sorry.'
'You're broke, I'm broke. You want me to run a crooked game without any stake and I'm supposed to settle for a lousy third of the take? You've got to be crazy, Rat.'
The Rat looked aggrieved.
'I fixed up the deal with the owner.'
'So you take a cut out of his third?'
'He wouldn't go for that. I'd get left with nothing.'
Phaid smiled sadly.
'Isn't that just too bad.'
'Listen
'No, you listen. If I got to deal the game, manipulate the deck and take all the risks I'm going to want at least two-thirds of the take.'
'Damn it, Phaid, I could deal the thing myself and cut you out of the picture altogether.'
Phaid nodded good naturedly.
'You could do that. You probably wouldn't stay in business for more than an hour without getting caught out, but you could do that.'
The Rat began to bluster.
'Come on, if you think that I can't run a simple nine gets twenty game . . .'
'You're bullshitting again, Rat. You know damn well that if you tried to steer a deck everyone from blocks around would spot you doing it. You need me, and you're going to have to take me on my own terms.'
'That's hardly fair.'
'It's true, though.'
Rat looked desolated.
'I should never have talked to you.'
Phaid grinned.
'I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll let you shill for me until we've built up a bankroll. I'll give you ten per cent off my end.'
Phaid thought for a moment that the Rat was going to explode on the spot.
'You're asking me to shill in my own game?'
'I'm sure you'll be real good at it.'
'No way.'
'Someone's got to do it. There's got to be some sort of winner at the table, otherwise we can forget it.'
The Rat started to deflate.
'Ten per cent, you say.'
Phaid nodded.
'With what you get back from the owner and a bit of larceny on the side, you should do real well.'
The Rat gave in.
'Okay, I'll go along with it, but I don't like it.'
'You're a treasure, Rat, When do we start?'
The Rat brightened.
'We could start tonight. The owner's got a room you can stay in.'
'What's the name of this joint?'
'The Rising Sun.'
Phaid looked at the Rat in total disbelief.
'You mean I'm actually dealing nine gets you twenty in a place called The Rising Sun? Shit, Rat. What are you doing to me?'
Chapter 4
Phaid stood in the main bar of the The Rising Sun attempting, somewhat vainly, to enjoy his break from the gaming table. He wasn't being helped by the weasel-faced tech standing next to him. The man was actually trying to pump him for tips on how to make a killing at nine gets twenty. Phaid could scarcely believe his ears. The tech seemed unable to grasp that the whole principle of the game was that the bank, Phaid in this instance, would try to take the other player's money away from them while they, in their turn, would attempt to prevent that and take the banker's money.
It was all so straightforward and simple that Phaid was starting to become thoroughly irritated by the tech's almost mystic belief in fate, systems and runs of luck. Phaid had his own very strong beliefs in luck, but they had nothing in common with those of the tech. The man had already dropped a small stack of twenty tabs to some elementary sleight of hand on Phaid's part, and although Phaid was sorely tempted to tell the tech to take a hike, his apparent willingness to lose even more caused Phaid to moderate his replies to noncommital grunts.
Phaid didn't like techs at the best of times. They were, as a rule, arrogant, self important individuals, puffed up with the idea that they were the keepers of the divine flame of mechanised civilisation. At least in the cities they were maybe capable of stopping a walkway from crushing its passengers, repairing a skimmer or refitting a maverick android. Here in the provinces, however, they had the same conceit, but none of the even limited expertise of their city brothers. The bumpkin tech coasted on superstition and ignorance, and were one of the main reasons that most of the surviving technology was fully automatic and completely self sustaining.
The tech wasn't the only thing that was irritating Phaid. He was bored rotten with Freeport and was counting the days, or more accurately, counting the money he still needed, until he could get the hell out of the close knit, back biting little river town.
Phaid had almost forgotten about small towns. Remembering was no pleasure. The travellers came and went, but the citizens lived their lives with their hands in their neighbours' pockets and their bodies in and out of their neighbours' beds. Small minded hustlers, whose inability to head for richer pickings made them think of themselves as local entrepreneurs, jealously guarded minor league rackets. Gossip was rife, and Phaid found himself pushed around by the set of rules that had be
en laid down so long ago that an outsider had no chance of learning them.
When Henk the Rat had first told him about The Rising Sun, he had pictured it as something of a dump. In reality, it had turned out to be actually worse than even his most dismal imaginings. It was the pits. A run down, just off the waterfront dive that had sunk to bum level and was currently undergoing an unsuccessful upgrading by a loser owner who had delusions,of what he thought was class.
Hence the gambling had been installed, hence the pair of unattractive adolescents with little sense of rhythm danced naked at regular intervals and hence the elderly cybermat music system known as Doc wheezed out tunes that had been forgotten in the big cities for half a decade, even before Phaid had been forced to leave.
The music in itself was indicative of the state of The Rising Sun. Since it took a long time for new songs to filter out to places like Freeport, and since it was the larger, more expensive joints up on the hills that paid the top prices for all the new material that came in on the caravans, the owner, if he'd had any smarts, would have instructed Doc to play tunes that were old enough to have some kind of nostalgia value. Instead, he had the system play the most recent stuff it knew; which was threadbare, even by the standards of Freeport.
Financially, despite all the limitations of The Rising Sun, Phaid wasn't doing all that badly. Of course, if he'd made it to one of the exclusive establishments at the top of the town, the ones where high priced sessions of calay or imperial hazard were conducted in elegant salons, he might have been strolling languidly on the main promenade in brand-new tailor-made clothes, and with the makings of a small fortune in his bag.
Beggars couldn't be choosers, however, and instead he was forced to con pigs who were too stupid to understand the game, let alone how to win at it. Phaid had found himself being totally unmerciful. He robbed everyone, the customers, the owner, and even Henk the Rat was shaved on his percentage. Phaid considered it all justifiable. If the positions were reversed, they'd do exactly the same to him, provided they had the knowledge and the skill, which they so obviously hadn't.
Phaid had already squirrelled away the price of a third-class passage on a caravan route land crawler. All he had to do now was stay for a few more days and he'd have a small stake over and above the fare, just to make the journey a little less wretched.
He calculated that this could probably be achieved in another four days. In fact, Phaid had another reason for not staying any longer than that. No matter how good the pickings might become, he really couldn't see the set-up at The Rising Sun lasting very long, and, when the end came, he feared it might be less than pleasant.
His experience told him that Freeport, like any other small provincial town, would have its gambling sewn up by an entrenched, jealously guarded syndicate that would do their damnedest to shut out any newcomer. Between them, the money men who acted as bankers, the owners of the prosperous gaming houses, the gentlemen players and the watch officers who took their discreet handouts and averted their eyes from any irregularities would see that The Rising Sun did not stay in business for too long.
Not that the drop in a bucket profits at The Rising Sun were anything like enough to actually hurt any of the bigtimers. It was more a matter of principle. Just to demonstrate that there was no place for freelance interlopers in the set-up, sooner or later. The Rising Sun would be closed down. Phaid feared that it would be more likely sooner than later.
In the meantime, he had work to do, if he was going to make that extra stake. It was almost time to get back to the table. Through the smoky gloom of the rundown bar, he checked out the waitress that he'd left running the table while he took a break. She could just about deal out the cards without dropping them. His big fear was that a winner would sit down while she was in charge of business and take an unthinkably large bite out of the bank before he could get back and do some swift manipulation.
As it happened, the girl only had two halfway drunk boatmen at the table. They were losing money tab by tab, and Phaid felt that it was safe to have himself one more drink. Phaid gave the bartender a curt nod and had his glass topped from the special reserve bottle. The bartender charged it to Phaid's growing bill that, when the day of departure came, Phaid had absolutely no intention of paying.
Phaid sipped his drink and looked morosely around the room. From the low ceiling of smoke blackened beams to the uneven flags that made up the floor. The Rising Sun did nothing except make him depressed. The clientele were little short of derelicts and wharf-rats. The bartenders were surly and hostile and the waitresses were either too plain, too fat or too stupid to work anywhere better. If you added a sprinkling of cut-price whores and a few petty grifters, the constant smell of stale ale, the hum of conversation punctuated by bouts of raucous shouting and Doc's truly dreadful music, you had the whole dreary picture.
Phaid drained the glass with a sigh and set it down on the bar. The bartender scowled at him.
'Wanna 'nother?'
Phaid shook his head.
'I've got a living to earn.'
'Some livin'.'
Phaid raised an enquiring eyebrow.
'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'You know wha' I'm talkin' about. You gotta be doin' better than any other bastard in this joint.'
'You reckon?'
'I reckon.'
Phaid shrugged.
'I never heard of anyone watering a deck of cards.'
Before the bartender could think of a comeback, Phaid walked away in the direction of the gaming table. Halfway there, his attention was caught by a minor disturbance over on the far side of the bar. An unsavoury trio in lube-stained coveralls, obviously roustabouts from a caravan crawler, were harassing a boohoom.
Normally Phaid would have ignored the commotion. His duties at The Rising Sun certainly didn't include acting as unpaid bouncer. He did, however, have a soft spot for the sub-human boohooms, and disliked seeing them harassed.
This particular boohoom who, as far as Phaid could tell, rejoiced in the name of Ucko, was no stranger to the waterfront bars and taverns. He loped from one place to the next hawking the broadside news-sheet that provided Freeport with most of its information from the outside world. He was always followed by his constant companion, a skinny, dirty yellow mongrel dog. Boohoom and dog had an almost supernatural rapport.
Nobody could quite agree about the boohooms. One school claimed that they were retrograde human mutations, another theory was that they were a kind of advanced monkey. A third faction argued that they were a totally separate species. Certainly they looked like some intermediate stage between man and ape, with their stooped gait, long arms, low foreheads and coarse, reddish brown body hair. They were stupid, there was no denying that, but it was a placid, amiable stupidity. Despite this, there was still a particular type of individual who took an unpleasant delight in tormenting the boohooms. It would have been easy to assume that the boohooms were victimised because they were stupid. Unfortunately the same ones who picked on them were also the ones who terrorised the elaihim, the tall, pale hyper-intelligent race that now shunned the habitations of men because they had been so persecuted over the centuries.
As Phaid approached the three roustabouts, he casually let his hand drop to where the fuse tube was hidden under his coat. He was starting to have certain trepidations about his gallant gesture. The three roustabouts were ugly characters. Between them they had two broken noses and at least half a dozen facial scars. They were holding up the dog by one ear and mockingly asking the boohoom what was the best way to cook it.
Phaid wandered up to them and grinned.
'You guys must have been eating the cooking in this place.'
They may have been big and ugly but they were far from quick on the uptake.
'Huh?'
Phaid continued to grin pleasantly.
'If you gotta desire to eat that mangy dog, then you must have tasted the cooking. Compared with what comes out of that kitchen, e
ven a dog would taste good.'
The roustabouts glared at him. Their faces managed to get even more brutish and hostile. Phaid grimaced.
'I guess it wasn't that good a joke, now I come to think about it.'
The biggest 'of the three clenched his fists and belligerently thrust his florid face into Phaid's. His breath smelled of beer and rotting teeth.
'You want somethin'?'
The boohoom was slowly edging behind Phaid. Phaid took a step back, moving the short creature with him.
'I was just wondering what a dog-eater looked like.'
The face jutted even closer.
'You callin' me a dog-eater?'
Phaid looked down at his boots. To his relief, out of the corner of his eye, he saw The Rising Sun's three house-minders moving up behind him. Each of them carried a long flexible plastic sap. Now he had a bit of support. He slowly raised his head.
'If you ain't dog-eaters, maybe you ought to get your buddy there to put down the dog. It tends to give the wrong impression.'
It was possible to watch the roustabouts' minds working. They would have dearly liked to tear Phaid limb from limb, but they were calculating how they'd fare against the resident muscle. They almost had to count on their fingers before they finally decided that damaging Phaid wasn't quite worth the beating that they'd get at the hands of the minders. Reluctantly, the one holding the dog let it drop. It yelped and dashed between the boohoom's legs. Phaid noticed that there was sweat under his armpits. He felt as though he had just won a very difficult hand. The chief-minder put away his club and hardfaced the roustabouts.
'You guys sit down and drink your drink. We don't want no trouble here.'
'We don't want no trouble neither.'
'So let's keep it all nice.'
'Yeah sure, whatever you say.'
With ill grace, the roustabouts returned to their drinks. The chief-minder looked at Phaid with narrowed eyes.
'We backed you up because you was one of us.'
His voice was quiet, but very angry.
'You pull a stunt like that again and I swear to the Lords I'll let them rip your head off. I got nothing against boohooms but they ain't worth fighting for.'
Phaid nodded.
'Sure, sure, I hear you.'
'Just remember it.'
