God of Tarot Page 21

  In fact, the whole black-market mnem industry was professional—more so than many legitimate enterprises. Paul had gotten into it gradually, his philosophy of life bending in small increments to accommodate the needs of an expanding lifestyle. He had left college with a liberal arts degree, but had found no suitable employment. Clever with his hands, he had used them to do tricks with cards. That had led him into contact with legitimate gambling interests. One of the popular games, not really gambling but more of a warmup for those not ready to take the full plunge, was said to be a medieval revival, Tarocchi, using the seventy-eight-card Tarot deck instead of the fifty-three-card standard deck. The Joker of the regular deck had been expanded into twenty-two trumps for the Tarot, basically. He had adapted that deck to other games, partly luck and partly skill. A really sharp memory decreased the former factor and increased the latter, which had led him to mnem. A casino, irritated by his penchant for winning, had attempted to have him summarily bounced. That had been their mistake, for Paul was more nearly professional in his unarmed combat than in his gambling. The casino manager, no dummy, had quickly changed tactics and bought Paul off with a job. Now Paul was well set, so long as he rocked no jetboats.

  God bless you...

  The news was on the video outlet. Suddenly an item caught his attention: "A young woman committed suicide last night by flinging herself from a police craft," the announcer said. "She has been identified as Sister Beth, for the past year a resident at a station of a religious cult, the Holy Order of Vision. Apparently she was depressed over the prospect of drug-assisted deprogramming necessitated by her theft of jewelry..."

  "She didn't steal those jewels!" Paul exclaimed, then caught himself, feeling foolish. A picture flashed on the screen. It was the girl he had picked up, almost exactly as he had seen her last, her translucent nightgown resisting the wind. Even robocameras had a sharp eye for detail, especially when it was associated with something genuinely morbid, such as death.

  "She seemed so quiet," a uniformed police officer was saying apologetically. "I never thought she'd pull a stunt like that, or I'da cuffed her." He tapped the handcuffs hanging like genitalia at his crotch.

  Paul felt disbelief. It couldn't be her; he had seen her only yesterday. She had been a police hooker with a sharp cover. Then he felt anger. How could this have happened? Why hadn't the police taken proper care of her? But even if they had, she would be just as dead, with her complete memory erased.

  Could it be part of the set-up? No, that made no sense; no policewoman would blow her cover by such a newsflash, even a faked death. Her picture would alert her potential victims to the threat. She was too memorable, with that lush body, that innocent face. Man's dream of heaven! She had to be legitimate—> and therefore dead.

  Why hadn't he believed her, believed in her, when it had counted? He knew why; he was cynical about the legitimacy of any religious association. He had listened to the incredibly selfish appeals of religious messages: Support Us, Give Us Credit, so that You will go to Heaven and Live Forever in Bliss, Free from Sin. That sort of thing. How anyone could have simultaneous bliss and freedom from sin was a mystery to him.

  Yet Sister Beth had seemed different, as though she really believed in the particular salvation she sought. She had not invoked Heaven once. If only he had paid attention to her words as well as to her body!

  But if she had really been a Sister, why hadn't her God protected her? Surely He would have struck some bargain with the authorities. He would have arranged it somehow, fixing it so she would recover. It was only necessary to have faith...

  Paul had no faith. He was the cause of her demise. He had attacked her sexually and dumped her back on the roadside. They had been watching for her, and zeroed in rapidly.

  If he had only trusted her as she had trusted him. He could so easily have delivered her safely to her Station. There had been too little decency in his recent life. He had been given the opportunity to help a better human being than himself, and instead he had—

  "Sir, your account has been verified," the secretary informed him dulcetly.

  Paul looked at her, and for a moment saw the image of Sister Beth. Something horrible boiled up inside him, a depression verging on violence. But what could he do? This was only an ordinary secretary, a conformist shell covering a formless soul, not worth even his passing attention. Sister Beth was already dead.

  Paul stood with abrupt and terrible decision. "I am closing my account," he said. "All prior dealings shall be canceled without prejudice and forgotten."

  She never flinched. Why should she? She was flesh and blood, with the mind of a robot. "This will have to be approved by the front office," she said.

  "Fuck the front office." He whirled and walked out.

  Outside, the reality of what he had done struck him. In the language of this business, he had informed the drug magnates that he was quitting, that he expected no severance pay, and would not talk to the police. He was through with mnem.

  Unfortunately, he was now in trouble. He would no longer have the perquisites of his secondary employment—and that meant his lifestyle would suffer. His primary employment at the casino would rapidly suffer too, for he was out of mnem and would soon feel the effects of withdrawal.

  It was a good evening at the casino. The clients were present in force, and free with their credit. Paul took his stint at the blackjack table, dealing the cards with the dispatch of long experience. His responses to the clients' calls were automatic, while his thoughts were elsewhere. "Hit me." He dealt that man an extra card. Why did Sister Beth do it. "Hit me." He gave the lady one too. She had a peek-a-boo décolletage, but today he wasn't interested. If only I had known! He hit her again, noting the jellylike quiver of one breast as she reached for the card. With increasing age, such jelly either liquefied or solidified, and this was beginning to age. Sister Beth's breast would have quivered true. Sister Beth could have been the one. Not sensational and cheap and fading, like this gambling addict.

  The routine became interminable. He had suddenly lost all zest for it. Yet this was the way he earned his living, bringing in the house percentage. Where would he go from here?

  "I cry foul!" a gravelly voice said, cutting into Paul's reverie. "He's dealing seconds!"

  Dealing seconds: giving other players the second card in the pack, saving the top one for himself. One of the oldest and slickest devices in the arsenal of the mechanic, or slick dealer.

  Paul's hands froze in place. All eyes were on the deck he held. The charge of cheating was serious. "The casino computer stores a record of every shuffled deck put into play," Paul said without rancor. There were established procedures to handle such charges, just as there were for the play. "Do you want the printout?"

  "I don't care about the shuffle," the man snapped. He was tall, slender, and of indeterminate age. He did not look like the gambling type, but Paul had long since learned that there were no sure indicators. A person was the gambling type if he gambled; that was all. "It's the dealing that counts. You gave me an eight to put me over, saving the low card for yourself. I saw you! No wonder my luck's been bad."

  "Select someone to handle the verification deck," Paul told him coldly, "I think we can satisfy you that the game is honest."

  "No! You've got shills all over the place! I'll handle it!"

  Paul nodded equably. If the man was honest, he would soon realize he had been mistaken. If he tried to frame Paul by misdealing himself, the computer record of the cards would catch him and discredit him. "Take the deck from the hopper and deal it out slowly, face up. The cards will match those I have dealt."

  "Of course they will!" the man exclaimed angrily. "You dealt them, all right, but in what order? You got an advance printout, so you knew what cards were coming, and you—"

  "We want you to be satisfied, sir," Paul said. But he saw that a rational demonstration would not satisfy this man. Was he a troublemaker from a rival casino? Paul touched the alarm button with his foot.


  The casino's closed-circuit screen came on. "What's the problem?" the floor manager inquired, his gaze piercing even in the televised image.

  "Accusation of dealing seconds," Paul said, nodding at the accuser.

  The manager looked at the man. "We do not need to cheat, sir. The house percentage takes care of us. The verification deck will—"

  "No!" the man said.

  The manager grasped the situation. He was quick on the uptake; that was what he was paid for. His range of options was greater than Paul's, and he drew on them with cool nerve. "Play it again, Paul. Your way. Show him."

  Paul smiled. His reins had just been loosened. "Here is the way it would have gone, had I been cheating," he said, taking the verification deck. "None of these replay hands is eligible for betting; this is a demonstration only." And the NEGATION sign lit.

  He dealt the cards as he had before, to the same people in the same order. Miss Peek-a-boo was fascinated; this was the closest she had come to excitement all evening. This time Paul's hands worked their hidden magic; his own display always came up high, making the house a one hundred-percent winner. Yet it looked exactly as though it were an honest deal.

  "We hire the best mechanics, so that they will not be used against us," the manager said from the screen. Perhaps he was remembering the circumstances surrounding Paul's own hiring. "But our games are honest. We take twenty percent, and our records are open to public inspection. We have no need to cheat anyone, and no desire to, but we cannot afford to let anyone cheat us, either. Are you satisfied, sir? Or do you wish to force us to lodge a charge of slander against you?"

  The manager was hitting hard! No charge of slander could stick, but with luck the client would not know that. The manager was showing how the professionals gambled, with nerve and flair.

  Grudgingly the challenger turned away. The manager's eyes flicked toward Paul. "Take a break; the flow has been interrupted here." Client flow was important; people had to feel at ease as they moved from game to game and entertainment to entertainment, spending their credit. Client flow meant cash flow.

  Paul closed down the table. Miss Peek-a-boo lingered, evidently toying with the notion of making a pass, but he ignored her rather pointedly. She shrugged and took her wares elsewhere.

  But the irate gambler was not finished. He was a poor loser, through and through. He followed Paul— not too obviously, because he didn't want to be booted out of the casino, but not too subtly either.

  Paul ambled past the ballroom area, where the decade of the seventies was in vogue at this hour; mildly dissonant groups of singers and instrumentalists performed on a raised stage, their emphasis on volume rather than finesse, while people danced singly and in pairs. A young woman in a tight-fitting costume sang into a microphone whose head and stem were compellingly phallic; she held it with both hands, close to her shaped bosom, and virtually mouthed it. Mikes, of course, had been superfluous in the seventies and since; the need being served was symbolic, not practical.

  Paul glanced at his pursuer as he circled the stage. The man seemed indifferent to the presentation. Paul found a table at the side and sat down, forcing the man to sit at another table within range of the show, where the decibels were deafening. Loud noise had erotic appeal, of course; that was the secret. Those old-time singing groups had been notorious for their seductions, and perhaps the "groupies" who had so eagerly sought those seductions had not understood the basis of that appeal. Those who disliked sex were similarly turned off by the volume, without understanding why; their protestations that it was only "poor music" to which they objected were pitiful from the point of view of succeeding generations.

  Naturally a waitress came immediately—a physical, human, female one, another period piece, rather than the efficient modern keyboard table terminal. "Vodka—straight," Paul told her, making a tiny motion with one hand to signal negation. She recognized him as an employee and nodded; in a moment she brought him pure water in a vodka glass. He proffered his credit card, and she touched it to her credit terminal, recording NO SALE. But none of this was evident to the client at the other table. The man had to buy a legitimate drink—and Paul suspected that he was a teetotaler. That kind tended to be. This was becoming fun.

  The banjo player stepped forward on the stage for his solo stint, squatting low so that the swollen bulk of the instrument hung between his spread legs, with the neck angling forward and up at a forty-five-degree angle. His fingers jerked on the taut strings at his crotch while the instrument thrust up and down orgasmically, blasting out the sound. Paul smiled; they might not have been much for quality music in those days, but they had really animated their symbols!

  At the other table, the client was averting his gaze, but the sound was striking at him mercilessly. Sure enough, he was a prude. The question was, why had he come to an establishment like this? Was he the agent of a rival casino? That seemed unlikely; he was too clumsy, and would not have bungled the blackjack challenge like that. Could he be an inspector from the feds, checking on possible cheating or other scalping of clients? Again, too clumsy. The days of readily identifiable government agents were long gone; the feds hired real professionals, like anyone else. Could he be someone from the mnem front, making sure Paul was not about to betray them?

  No, the only thing that made sense was that he was a poor loser, looking for a way to get even. The man had not even dropped a large sum of credit; his loss was one of status, because he had been outbluffed by Paul and the management, as he should have anticipated. No amateur had a chance against the professionals. The games were honest, and any that were not would be too subtly rigged for a person like him to expose that way. Paul himself could win at blackjack without manipulating the cards at all, simply by keeping track of the cards played and hedging his bets according to the prospects for the remaining cards. Sometimes he shilled for the management by doing just that, demonstrating tangibly that the house could be beaten, drawing in many more clients. Of course it was his mnem-boosted memory that made this possible; the regular clients, as a class, could not beat the odds. Lucky individuals sometimes did, of course, but they were more than balanced by the unlucky ones.

  That thought saddened him. He would not be able to do that anymore, beat the odds. He had given up a lot when he had quit mnem. Had it really been worth it?

  He visualized a young woman falling from a cop-copter. Maybe the mnem backlash would wipe out that memory!

  Paul finished his water and got up. The client followed. They walked past the wheel of fortune—and that reminded Paul of the Tarot. Key Ten was the Wheel of Fortune. Certainly these wheels uplifted the clients' fortunes—and dashed them down again! But the Tarot, in turn, reminded him again of Sister Beth of the Holy Order of Vision, the girl he had killed. Full circle, as the wheel of fortune turned. He could not escape himself. And that destroyed something in him.

  Paul turned around. The man was right behind him. "What do you want?"

  "I want my money back," the man said.

  Paul brought out his credit card. "What are your losses?"

  "Not that way. I want to win it back. I want to beat you."

  What an idiot! "You can't beat me. I deal for the house; the percentage is with me, in the long run."

  "I can beat you—playing man-to-man."

  "All right," Paul agreed, desiring only to be rid of this nuisance. "Man-to-man. Name your game."

  "Do you know Accordion?"

  "I know it. I never lose, if it is played my way."

  "Your way," the man agreed. His foolish, pointless pride was really driving him.

  "The Tarot deck. Trumps half-wild."

  "Half-wild?"

  "Each of the twenty-two Trumps takes any suit card — but no Trump has a number, so it can't jump to any suit card. Trumps are passively wild; all they do is disappear."

  "What if the last card's a Trump?"

  Not entirely naive! "That one card's full-wild until designated. Then it freezes."

>   The man shook his head in wonder. "Half-wild Tarot Accordion!"

  "Is the challenge still on?" Paul prodded him.

  The man scowled. "Still on. Identical deals, separate cubes, cheat-meters on."

  "Naturally," Paul agreed. "For the amount of your previous losses." This might be fun after all — and the mark had asked for it. "One game only," Paul said, to prevent rechallenges.

  They went to the Accordion table. They sat in facing cubicles. The mechanical dealer dealt them identical layouts, but they could not see each other's plays.

  Paul could almost always win an "open" Accordion game, because success depended largely on a player's memory of the cards he dealt. If he were allowed to see the order of the cards before play, on the printout screen, even for a single second, his mnem-enhanced memory made it seem as though the entire deck were laid out in a line. He could thus plan his strategy on a seventy-eight-card basis. But even in a "closed" game like this, where the fall of the cards was unknown, he could still do well, because as each card was played, his memory checked it off, and he had a better notion of what remained to be played. Thus, as with blackjack, his play got sharper in the later stages, while that of the average person did not.

  But now Paul found himself in trouble. The mnem was fading from his system, so that he no longer had reliable eidetic recall. He was still a good player, long familiar with the strategies for aligning suits and numbers in potential chains so as to extend his options without giving away his position to his opponent, but he had not realized how much he now depended on his perfect memory. He felt naked without it, uncertain, weak. He could lose—and that bothered him far more than it should have. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be a loser, and the prospect of returning to that status was not at all attractive. To lose on occasion during one's strength, as a result of the breaks, was one thing; to lose as the result of one's weakness was another. That was what had driven the other man.