Card Trick

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog, January 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  _The Psi Lodge had their ways and means of applying pressure, when pressure was needed. But the peculiar talent this fellow showed was one that even they'd never heard of...!_

 

  CARD ... TRICK

  By

  WALTER

  BUPP

  Illustrated by Douglas

  * * * * *

  The game was stud. There were seven at the table, which makes forgood poker. Outside of Nick, who banked the game, nobody lookedfamiliar. They all had the beat look of compulsive gamblers,fogged over by their individual attempts at a poker face. Theywere a cagey-looking lot. Only one of them was within ten yearsof my age.

  "Just in case, gamblers," the young one said. I looked up fromstacking the chips I had just bought from Nick. The speaker was askinny little guy with a sharp chin and more freckles than I'dlike to have.

  "If any one of you guys has any psi powers," the sharp-chinnedgambler said sourly, "you better beat it. All gamblers here willrecoup double their losses from any snake we catch using psipowers to beat the odds."

  He shot a hard eyed look around a room not yet dimmed by cigarsmoke. I got the most baleful glare, I thought. He didn't need toworry. I'd been certified Normal by an expert that very evening.

  The expert was Dr. Shari King, whom I had taken to dinner beforejoining the game at Nick's. It had gotten to be a sort of weeklydate--although this night had given signs of being the last one.For a while that spring, desoxyribonucleic acid had begun to takesecond place in my heart. This is a pitiful admission for abiochemist to make--DNA should be the cornerstone of his life.But Shari was something rare--a gorgeous woman, if somewhatdistant, who was thoroughly intelligent. She had already earnedher doctorate, while I was still struggling with the tag ends ofmy thesis.

  "Poker, Tex?" Shari had asked, when the waitress was bringingdessert. "Is this becoming a problem? You've played every nightthis week."

  "No problem, Shari," I said. "I'm winning, and I see no point innot pocketing all that found money."

  "Compulsive gambling is a sickness," she said, looking at methoughtfully. She was wearing a shirtwaist and skirt that had thebright colors and fullness you associate with peasant dress.

  "The only sick thing about me is my bank account," I grinned,relishing her dark, romantic quality. "I need the dough, Shari.I've got a thesis to finish if I ever want to get a jobteaching."

  Her thick eyebrows fluttered upward, a danger signal I hadlearned to look for. "That's a childish rationalization, Tex,"she said with a lot more sharpness than I had expected. "Thereare certainly other ways to get money!"

  "So I'm not as smart as you," I told her.

  "Smart?" She didn't think I was tracking.

  "I wasn't as shrewd as you were in picking my parents," I said."Mine never had much, and left me less than that when they died."

  She threw her spoon to the table. "I'll remind you of how sillythese remarks sound, after you've hit a losing streak," she toldme.

  I laughed at that one. "I don't lose, Shari," I said. "And Idon't intend to."

  Her lashes veiled her violet eyes as she smiled and said morequietly, "Then you are in even worse trouble than I thought. Ihear a lot about what happens to these strange people who neverlose at cards or at dice or at roulette. Aren't you afraid ofwinding up in the gutter with your throat slit? Isn't that whathappens to people with psi powers who gamble?" she insisted."What's your trick, Tex? Do you stack the deck with telekinesis,or does precognition tell you what's about to be dealt?"

  "That crack isn't considered very funny in Texas," I growled.

  "Is it any more silly for me to think you might be a psipersonality than for you to think you never lose at cards?" shenailed me.

  I could feel my face getting red. "Damn it!" I started. "Nobodytalks to a friend like that!"

  "Pretty convincing proof!" Shari said tartly.

  "Of what?"

  "Of the fact that you aren't making any sense about this gamblingkick you're on, Tex. You should have laughed my teasing off. Whowould seriously suggest that _you_ were a psi personality?" shedemanded. "And most of all, with my background in psi, do youthink I could be misled about it?"

  I shrugged, trying to cool down. Shari's doctorate had beenearned with a startling thesis on psi phenomena and psipersonalities, and she had stayed on at Columbia as a researchfellow in the field. In egghead circles, she rated as a psiexpert, all right.

  "Guess not," I said, trying to kill the subject.

  She wasn't going to let it die. "I don't think you're a psi, Tex.You're a Normal!" The way she said it, it didn't sound like acompliment. "Worse than that," she insisted. "You're beginning toact like a compulsive gambler." She took a deep breath, and letme have the clincher: "I could never marry a gambler, Tex!"

  "You've never been asked," I reminded her.

  She had the last word. "Let's go!" she snapped.

  * * * * *

  Angry as I was about her acting as though I were a snake, Iwished I could have thrown her certification that I was a Normalin the freckled face of the sharp-chinned gambler at Nick's laterthat night. After Shari's needling, I didn't take very kindly tohis popping off with the Law of the Pack. It's understoodwherever people gamble that psis aren't welcome.

  Nick didn't like it any better than I did. "All right, Lefty," hesaid to the sharp-chinned gambler. "Calm down, huh, kid? Whatkinda game you think I run, huh?"

  I didn't let the sour start spoil my game. I was lucky right fromthe start and hit big in several hands.

  Lefty, the gambler who had yelped about psi powers at the game,dealt the tenth hand. He gave me the eight of spades in the hole.By the fourth card I had three other spades showing, which gaveme four-fifths of a rare flush in stud poker. But by the fourthcard Lefty had given himself a pair of jacks. That drove all theother gamblers to cover.

  Lefty raised, of course, and it cost me five hundred bucks to seemy fifth card. It was a classic kind of stand-off in stud, andthe waiter stopped with his tray of drinks to press in among theother kibitzers and watch the pay-off.

  Lefty shucked out the last two cards carelessly, as if theydidn't really matter. His own fifth card made no difference--hisjacks already had a busted flush beaten. His smile was just alittle too sharp as he tossed me my last card face up and reachedfor the pot with the same left-handed gesture.

  I took the poker panetella out of my teeth. "All blue," I said,turning up my hole card with the other hand.

  Lefty threw the unused part of the deck to the center of thetable. "That does it, you snake!" he swore at me.

  It took a second for his accusation to sink in. I started acrossthe table after him. If they hadn't stopped me, I would have tornhis lying throat out. Funny, but there were kibitzers on myshoulders before I could rise an inch out of my chair.

  "Down in Texas you could get shot for a crack like that, Lefty!"I said. I guess I really yelled it.

  "And in New York you can, and probably will, get your rottenthroat slit for a trick like the one _you_ just pulled," hereplied. He turned to the other gamblers, most of whom had theirhands on the edge of the table, ready to jump to their feet if itgot any rougher.

  "I stacked the deck this last deal
," he said coolly. He held apalm up at their surprised mutter. "Tex's fifth card was stackedto be a heart, gamblers. You saw him get a spade and take thepot. I won't sit at the same table with a guy that can do that.Telekinesis has no place in poker."

  "Pretty near as bad as stacked decks," one of the gamblersrasped. But the others weren't with him. I only had to take onelook at Nick's face.

  I stood up slowly, and the hands on my shoulders didn't hold medown any longer. "Lefty says he stacked the deck," I told them."I say he lies. You know there's nothing to choose between