Odds On: A Novel

by Michael Crichton

  Bryan Stack finished dinner in the large dining room, which was furnished with high-backed chairs padded in red leather, with red draperies on the glass window-walls. The draperies had been drawn back to allow diners to watch the sun setting over the rocky coast; the view from the dining room, which was located on the fourth floor, was magnificent. But now the sun was gone and the sky was dark blue, seeping into black.

  He scribbled his signature on the dinner check, adding his room number, and left. He wanted to take a walk before going to the meeting, and he wondered how he could arrange to run into the receptionist. She seemed the most likely candidate.

  He took the elevator back to the lobby—a broad, square space with a floor of black and white marble and a large stairway that spiraled up and emerged near the desk. He looked over there quickly, but the girl had gone, probably to eat dinner. Disappointed, he walked outside to the swimming pool.

  The pool was rectangular and quite large; though he was no judge of distance, he guessed it was 25 meters long. It was deserted now, in the fading light. A tired Spaniard swept cigarette butts from the concrete deck and another cleaned the pool floor with an underwater suction vacuum cleaner. He circled the pool and went around the hotel, past the tennis courts, now being sprinkled with water. The sprinkler, an automatic spraying device, made rhythmic phitt-phitt noises as it slowly rotated. He came to the salt-water pool, located on the seaward side of the Reina. It was a pool as large as the first and just as deserted. To the left, a flight of concrete steps had been cut into the rock leading down to the pier, where the single motorboat which was used for water-skiing was tied. A sign in Spanish, English, French, and German warned bathers against swimming in this area.

  Walking further around the island, he came to another set of steps, which descended to a small rocky cove. A short distance out in the water a simple platform bobbed. Here was another sign, again in four languages, with the flag of each language next to each translation. It advised swimmers that the bottom fell sharply away, that children should not be unaccompanied, and that injuries should be reported immediately to the hotel physician. A small appended notice stated that aqualungs could be hired from the management.

  All very nicely arranged, Stack thought. From beginning to end, the Reina was a carefully run and meticulously planned establishment. He listened to the water gently lapping and sucking at the rocks below; it was a hypnotic, lulling sound.

  “How do you like it?”

  He looked up sharply, startled. It was the girl from the desk. In the growing dark, she seemed strikingly beautiful, with long chestnut hair, very little makeup, and a lightly freckled complexion. She was dressed in a white silk shirt, open at the throat, and a simple gray A-line skirt. She would have appeared unsophisticated were it not for the frank blue eyes and the high patent-leather black heels.

  “I like it fine,” he said. “But what brings you out here? I thought I had it all to myself.”

  “I always come around at this time, to make sure every thing is ready for the next day. You have to watch the staff here; if you slack off, so do they.”

  He smiled. “You sound like the manager.”

  “Assistant manager.”

  That explains a lot, he thought. The intelligent face, the direct manner were not the sort of things you’d expect from an empty-headed receptionist. She had a gentle accent and Bryan decided she must be Swiss. The Swiss were the best hotel people in the world. “I thought managers and assistant managers and vice presidents stayed in their offices and did paper work.”

  “We try to avoid that,” she said. “We like to know who’s here, who checks in and out. It’s better to keep in touch with reality, and the guests are our reality. If they don’t like something, we don’t like it either—we can’t afford to.”

  “You eat the same food as the troops, I suppose?”

  “I don’t think it’s a hardship.”

  “No,” he agreed, thinking back over dinner. There had been a vast selection of hors d’oeuvres, all excellent, and the menu had contained a good variety of regional specialities, something he approved of. Basic, continental, big-hotel cuisine, which drifted somewhere in the never-never land of semi-French, and pseudo-American cooking, with blandness as its only distinguishing characteristic, did not appeal to him. But neither, for that matter, did Spanish food, which called for liberal doses of olive oil. The Reina struck the perfect balance. He told her so.

  “The chefs are mostly French,” she explained, “and very good. We had trouble finding them. We have one Spaniard from Madrid, and he cooks with butter, not olive oil. He was hard to find, too. But we think food is important.”

  Stack caught a whiff of her perfume, a light scent of lily of the valley. Food seemed suddenly very unimportant. He caught himself—no sense in getting interested.

  He offered her a cigarette, and lit it for her. “Have you been here long?”

  “A year, since the hotel opened.”

  “Interesting work?” He hated himself. She was obviously a nice girl. That made it harder.

  “Usually. Sometimes it gets a bit frantic. We’ve had some strange guests, I can tell you.”

  “You’ll have to do that. Will you join me for a nightcap?” Not very smooth, he knew, but it had the ring of authenticity he wanted.

  She gave him a cool glance. “I’d like to,” she said, “but not tonight.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow?” He was pushing, and that was dangerous—she might become frightened.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He smiled. “I’d introduce myself,” he said, “but you already know my name.”

  She smiled back. “Annette Dumarche,” she replied. “Please call me Annette.”

  “Bryan.”

  “Tomorrow, Bryan,” she said. “But I’d better finish my rounds now. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She walked off. It was now quite dark. He watched her, and then finished his cigarette, looking up at the lights of the rooms above him. Hundreds of lights, hundreds of rooms.

  He checked his watch. Time for the meeting.

  NIGHT, JUNE SEVENTEENTH

  PRECISELY AT 8:45, THE waiter delivered a dry vermouth on the rocks to Mr. Jencks in room 205. He found Jencks at the writing table, scribbling a letter on the Reina’s engraved stationery. Jencks rose, took the drink, and tipped the waiter twenty pesetas. Thinking how foolish Americans were with their money, the waiter left.

  Steven Jencks did not touch his drink. He went directly to his briefcase, unlocked it, and took out three envelopes. The first contained aerial and ground-level photographs. The second was filled with scaled-down copies of blueprints. The third was the computer output. He placed the contents of each envelope on the bed, returned to the desk, and then drank his vermouth slowly. It was, he reflected, the perfect drink. “The drink of diplomats,” it was called, because it looked like vodka or something stronger and yet was sufficiently weak so that it could be drunk all night without loosening a tongue. At the same time, it had sufficient alcohol to produce sociability, or, in Jencks case, fluency of mind and speech. He did not believe in crutches, but the evening ahead would be difficult, and he wanted to be sure he explained the entire proceeding to the two men with complete accuracy and absolute simplicity. In particular, the computer output, so complex and formidable-looking, would present a problem; Bryan and Miguel would take one look and conclude prematurely that it was beyond their comprehension. Yet it was essential that everyone understand what the figures represented. It was essential that everyone be confident. Without solid assurance on the part of each man, a project of such delicacy as this could fall flat on its face.

  At five minutes to nine, Bryan entered without knocking. The two shook hands and sat in chairs at opposite ends of the room. Jencks knew that Bryan was studying him, though he appeared casual as he lit a cigarette. Bryan probed people, hunting for weakness. He did it constantly, automatically, with everyone he met. Jencks felt no resentment.


  “Still look good?” Bryan asked. His voice was calm, but Jencks knew what was behind it. It had been arranged that Bryan would arrive five minutes before Miguel, and to anyone in Bryan’s position, such an arrangement smelled either of failure or a possible double cross.

  “It looks fine,” Jencks said. “We’ll go over it all when Miguel arrives. But I wanted to talk to you alone first.”

  Bryan blew a stream of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling. His face was impassive, waiting. “Okay.”

  “Tell me something about Miguel. Not his background, you gave me all that, and it was perfectly satisfactory. Tell me about his personality.” Jencks glanced at his watch. “For three minutes.”

  Bryan nodded, then frowned as if confused or unsure of how to begin. “Well, as nearly as I can tell, he’s a good man. He is unimaginative, as you wanted—he still doesn’t understand even the basic outline of what is planned, though any fool would have guessed by now. He’s solid, direct, uninspired, and very capable in his chosen field. Not chicken, but nobody’s hero. The funny thing is that because he lacks imagination, he has extraordinary guts. I remember once hearing him describe how he outwitted Egyptian customs in ’59, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. He was carrying forty thousand U.S. dollars to change on the market, and it made a sizable bundle. He suspected a squeal, so he knew that they would search him, but he walked right in with it anyway. In a Rolleiflex camera case—he simply removed the camera, after weighting the case with strips of lead. He flew into Cairo, and at the airport they took him aside and searched him, all right. But he was careful to bring in a certain amount of traveler’s checks, all neatly recorded on his currency control form, as was his loose change in drachma. When they searched him, he put up just the right amount of fuss. Indignant at first, then slightly interested, and finally benignly amused, since he was just a tourist and obviously not smuggling anything. He acted as if it would make a good story for his friends back home, and a bad story for the Egyptian reputation. You know, searching innocent tourists.

  “Anyway, they took him into one of those bare little rooms with no furniture except a large table, and they began checking him, setting everything out on the table. They checked the lining of his jacket, his suitcase, opened some of the rolls of Rollei-size 120 film, and let him through. They never bothered to open the camera case. He’s that way.”

  “It sounds foolish,” Jencks said. “He could have stuffed the money inside the camera itself.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not the way he works. I told you, no imagination. He assumes that even a close check won’t be thorough, that they’ll just search exotic places, not something out in the open. To him, the purloined letter is the most effective approach, and he’s right if you have the stomach for a sustained bluff. Miguel can sit in a room staring at his camera while cops slash up his jacket lining; I couldn’t.”

  Jencks nodded, pleased. Miguel was sounding more and more like the perfect man for the job.

  “He’s a pro,” Bryan said, “and he has a definite philosophy about his work. He thinks smuggling is a state of mind—that’s his way of putting it—and he acts accordingly. He also knows that the smuggler is at an advantage in any search situation. No matter how accurate or reliable the tip they’ve received, the officials are still reluctant to follow it up, still basically on the defensive. Particularly with tourists, and Miguel is a consummate tourist.

  “He told me, in reference to this Cairo business, that he was worried for about half the session. But midway through, when he was standing stark naked in the room, they decided to give him the finger, and—” He broke off, seeing Jencks’ puzzled look. “Something wrong?”

  Suddenly Jencks laughed. “You mean a rectal examination,” he said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Sorry. It means something else in American slang—‘giving someone the finger,’ I mean.” Jencks showed him.

  Bryan nodded. “Two fingers in England,” he said.

  They both laughed. “Anyway,” Bryan continued, “they gave him the examination, and checked his mouth as well. At that point, Miguel realized he was safe, because he realized the customs people had no idea what they were looking for. They were working blind, and he knew that he’d make it. And he did.”

  Jencks nodded and finished his drink.

  “The strange thing about Miguel is that personally, he’s precisely what you wouldn’t expect. He’s obnoxious, limited, given to cheap sarcasm, and easily hurt. He was bloody annoyed that I wouldn’t tell him anything last night and seemed to take it as an insult. He drinks too much, never talks too much, and as nearly as I can determine, will go to bed with anything in skirts. I’ve never seen a willing woman that he’s turned down, except for those rare occasions when he can’t scrape up enough energy or enough money. He’s already moved in on a woman here; I saw him with her at the pool this morning. She’s rather a looker, and I don’t know what she sees in him, but I’m no judge of these things.”

  “You gave him the scenario?” Jencks asked.

  “Yes, this afternoon. He had dinner in his room and presumably read it then.”

  Jencks looked up sharply.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Bryan said. “He read it, all right. Business is business to him, and money is all.”

  Bryan sat back and stubbed out his cigarette. Jencks, who never smoked, felt his eyes begin to burn and went to open the glass door leading onto the balcony. The cool breeze felt better; he took a breath and exhaled slowly.

  Bryan observed him carefully. He respected Jencks deeply, as he respected any fine mind. Jencks’ photographic memory, of course, was a good part of his quickness. Bryan knew the way Jencks read—with lightning speed, as if he were merely glancing at a page. Strictly speaking, that was true; Jencks didn’t read, he memorized instantly, and seemed to bypass the process of assimilation.

  Jencks was an impressive man. Bryan wondered about his vices and weaknesses. He never smoked and only occasionally drank. Women? Bryan didn’t know of any, though the man was certainly virile and energetic. Jencks didn’t talk about his women, or his past—he spoke only of business, and Bryan could recall just one exception. That had been in London, when they were first considering the idea, or rather, when Bryan was considering Jencks’ idea.

  It was after a long evening of hammering out the problems and possibilities, and Jencks had apparently felt the need to speak of something else. They had gone around the corner to The Helping Hand, a large and boisterous pub off Russell Square; the clientele was mixed, ranging from beefy laborers to long-haired, mournful students to prim executives from the City, who looked unaccountably lost. Over whiskey macs, Jencks had told Bryan of his early life on a farm in Massachusetts, of dropping out of high school, and his eventual decision not to go to college. One incident stuck in Bryan’s mind.

  When Jencks returned from Korea with a brilliant record and an unscathed body (“I just played the odds, it was easy”), he had knocked around New York and Boston, doing various odd jobs. Then with a little money saved up, he had gone to Reno with a system of odds he had devised. Knowing that a spectacular win would cause attention, he had kept his earnings modest and kept his tables in his head. He never carried a slip of paper to check against, and for several years he managed to milk the gaming rooms at a fairly steady profit of 2.4%. By now he was a comfortably rich man, visiting the casinos and gambling spas of the world twice yearly. Bryan thought Jencks was probably worth close to a million dollars.

  There was a knock at the door, and both men looked up.

  “Come in,” Jencks said.

  Miguel entered the room and shut the door behind him.

  “Face the door,” Jencks snapped. Surprised, Miguel turned and stared at the pine door.

  “Now describe the room.”

  “Twin beds, one of them with three piles of papers arranged in a row. Closet door open, with three suits inside—brown to the left, blue in the middle, gray to the right. Pair of brown pants
on a hanger next to the gray suit. Desk bare, except for a fountain pen with the point exposed and two sheets of paper. Bathroom door closed, door to balcony ajar about a foot. Suitcase open on the stand next to the door with the clothes unpacked except for two pairs of socks; briefcase of black leather, closed, near the desk. Will that do?”

  “Okay.” Jencks stood as Miguel turned around, and they shook hands. “Sorry,” Jencks said, “but I had to make sure.”

  “I do my homework,” Miguel replied, thinking of the days he had spent thumbing through the flash cards of room interiors, looking at the pictures for thirty seconds and then testing himself to see how well he had remembered the details. “Is there anything to drink?”

  “No,” Jencks said. “Have a seat. Smoke if you want.” He returned to his chair and sat facing the other two men and the bed with the three piles of papers. He was interested in Miguel, whom he had never seen before. Medium height, and pudgy in an almost cute, boyish way. A devilish face, perhaps, but not sinister and apparently incapable of really serious crime. He was very different in appearance from both Bryan and himself, but that was all to the good.

  “Let’s get right down to business,” Jencks said. “A meeting of this sort is highly irregular in a luxury hotel, and I don’t think we should prolong it any more than necessary. Besides, it will be long as it is.” He turned to Miguel. “Did you bring the scenario?”

  Miguel threw it down on the bed. It was a mimeographed little booklet with a red cover, on which was written: A Harvey B. Manley Production. Inside, Jencks knew, was a title page which read “The Missing Marquesa—a half-hour television film.” Following the title page would be a page listing characters, then a page of scenes and props. Then the script itself began, with explanations of action, dialogue, and notations of short, medium, and long shots in capital letters in the left-hand margin. To the casual reader, it would look just like a real television script; to the more interested reader, who actually began to read, it would be a script of such exhausting banality that he would not progress beyond the first few pages. But one third of the way through, the script ended abruptly replaced by a detailed outline of the entire procedure, following the process step by step from beginning to end.