Card Trick Page 2

ourstatements. Lefty is a cheap grandstander, and I'll settle withhim myself. Nick, I won't embarrass you tonight. This isn't yourfault. But I'll be here tomorrow night, and you had better beglad to see me!"

  "Sure, Tex," he said uncomfortably, rising with me. "Take myseat, Shorty," he directed one of the kibitzers. He walked aroundto grab me by the elbow and steer me as far away from Lefty'struculent face as he could. At least the sharp-chinned little rathad quit the game, too. Both of us had left our chips on thetable.

  Nick wanted me to leave. "Pay me off," I insisted. He said yes alot quicker than I thought he would. The other gamblers couldhave squawked that my chips should go into the next pot, butapparently none of them did.

  Lefty sidled out as Nick was paying me off. "Wait outside forme," I said to him.

  "Why not?" he said, sticking his chin out at me and walking out.

  Nick grabbed me again. "Don't get hot, Tex," he warned me. "Idon't want a killing on my own sidewalk. Take it some place else,huh, kid?"

  "Sure," I said.

  There wasn't any danger Lefty would hang around. I was big enoughto break him in two, which is exactly what I planned if I caughtup with him.

  * * * * *

  It had been dark for some hours by the time I hit the street andwaved for a skim-copter. Nick's games start late.

  "You asked me to wait," somebody said. I spun around and sawLefty standing in the alleyway beside the building. I went forhim, charging hard. He scuttled back into the alley, out of whatlittle light there was that far downtown. Just as I reached forhim, somebody slugged me in the gut. I went down on a knee,gasping. I hadn't seen his sidekick--the alley was pretty dark.I heard Lefty's breath suck in sharply as I came up out of mycrouch, diving for him. After all, it was only pain, somethinginside my head. It wasn't as though I had been really crippled.My fingers clawed at his jacket, and would have held him. But theother guy grabbed at my ankle and threw me down on the slipperycobbles again.

  I came up slower that time. I'd bunged up my kneecap more than Iwanted to think about. Lefty was still out of reach. I called hima name that was always good for a fight in Texas, and startedafter him, but slower than before. I wasn't fast enough to avoidthe hard thing that rammed against my spine. Even down in Texas,a gun in the back freezes you up.

  Lefty was all guts now that I was hung up on the gun barrel. Itmight as well have been a meat hook.

  "I warned you not to use psi in the game!" he snapped. "Nowyou'll have to talk to Pete."

  "One of us isn't going to live through this," I promised him,starting to reach for his throat. The gun jabbed a reminder towatch my manners.

  "Do you come quietly?" Lefty asked shrilly. "Or do we--?"

  The sudden shrillness of his voice scared me more than anythingelse. He was worked up worse than I was. "Quietly," I conceded,trying to get some saliva to flow again. The pressure against myspine eased off.

  Lefty stepped out of the alley to the curb and flagged down acruising 'copter. He made me get in first, which gave me a chanceto turn, when I sat down, and see who had been holding the gun onme from behind. The gunman had sure drifted in one awful hurry.There wasn't a soul except Lefty around.

  He hopped in after me. The turbine howled as the driver gunned us up on theair cushion and sent us skimming away. The trip lasted only four or fiveminutes through the thinning traffic of late evening. We pulled up in frontof a brownstone house in the upper Eighties that reared up four storiesamong a string of three-story neighbors.

  I limped to the top of the steps after Lefty. He let us in with akey. We were in a dimly-lit hall that had a staircase against itsleft wall and an open door at its right, leading into a darkenedroom.

  A tall skinny girl was sitting about a third of the way up thecarpeted flight of steps. Her face was drawn out to a point by along, thin nose. "Here they are," she called up the stairway,showing braces on her teeth. She stood up and came down the hall.She was clad in a shortie wrapper that showed off her race-horselegs.

  "Billy Joe," she said to Lefty. "I _told_ them you were coming."

  "Hi, Pheola," he said. "Good for you." He sounded pleased.

  There were steps above, and two others joined us. First came ashort square man with gray hair and bushy gray eyebrows. He waswrapped up in a flannel robe that had once been maroon and wasnow rusty with age and wear. It only served to confirm that hehad just been yanked out of bed. He hadn't bothered to putanything on his bare feet or to comb his hair. A pretty wildlooking old man.

  Behind him stumped a chunky woman, crowding fifty. She was in aworse state of dishabille. She hadn't quite made it to bed andwas still in her slip. Her stockings had been unhitched from hergarters and hung in slack transparency around her fat calves,like the sloughed-off skin of a snake.

  "I _told_ you," Pheola said to the gray-haired man.

  "It's nice that you're right once in a while," he said in ascratchy, sleepy voice, walking past her to switch on the ceilingof the room on the right side of the hall.

  She didn't like that. Lefty stopped her reply. "Will it be PC?"he asked her.

  "No," she said.

  "You missed that one," Lefty said.

  "Didn't neither!"

  "Well, sit in with us and see," he suggested.

  "What for?" she asked. "I know what's going to happen in there.You'll be along to bed right soon, darlin' Billy!"

  He looked over at me. "Go on in, Tex," he said.

  "Darlin' Billy!" I sneered.

  "Don't pay any attention to her," he said. "She's in anotherspace-time continuum." I pointedly ogled the girl's pretty legsgoing up the stairs and whistled softly. "My wife," he said,blushing. "A powerful PC, or one day will be."

  "You're kidding," I said. His arm on my elbow pushed me into thelighted room.

  * * * * *

  It had been the front parlor of the old brownstone in its prime,and was now fixed up as an office. The place held an executivedesk with several buttons and enough other controls to put it inorbit. There were a number of cushioned straight-backed chairsand a comfortable leather couch under the window. Only the factthat it was getting on toward midnight made me willing to believethat the couple who had walked down the stairs expected to betaken seriously.

  "This is George Robertson, the poker whiz," Lefty said briefly tothe two sleepy heads. "They call him Tex. Tex, this is PeterMaragon, Grand Master of the Lodge."

  The gray-haired man gave me a tired nod. "I imagine you're apretty angry young man, Mr. Robertson," he said in his scratchyvoice. I started to tell him quite a little about how I felt, buthe held up his hand. "I've had a hard day," he complained. "And Igot out of bed solely to adjudicate your case. Now, this will goa lot more quickly if you listen." He smacked his lips a coupletimes as if he wondered where he had left his partial plate. Ihoped he had swallowed it. "Sit down, sit down," he saidirritably, pointing at the chair across the desk from him.

  I debated it, but took the chair, grinding my teeth.

  "You aren't stupid, or you wouldn't be a scientist," he said,revealing that he knew a lot more about me than I did about him."Let's start out with a couple facts."

  He pointed a gnarled finger at Lefty. "Wally Bupp stacked a deckof cards on you tonight," he said gruffly. "What you don't knowis that he stacked them with telekinesis. He's a TK."

  "A snake!" I gasped.

  "Watch your lip!" Maragon croaked. "Everybody in this room is apsi. 'Snake' is a dirty word around here, Mr. Robertson. Mr. Bupphas a special aversion to it."

  "What's the purpose...?" I began hotly.

  "Hah!" Maragon barked. "A good word!" He cackled a laugh at me."Purpose. Exactly, Mr. Robertson. Well, the Lodge has a purpose,and you'll act a lot more sensibly if you know it."

  "You," he said to me. "Are a TK."

  "You," I yelled right back. "Are a liar!"

  He ignored me completely. "We can't afford to have you gambling andcheating Normals," he went on. "One of the Lodge's f
undamental rules isthat no psi may use his powers to the detriment of Normals. Lefty's bigscene at Nick's fixed it so you won't be welcome in a big-time poker gameanywhere in town. We did that deliberately. And we're telling you to quitgambling, as of this minute."

  "You say you are a TK," I interrupted.

  "Somewhat," he said. "I have psi powers, but I'm not mainly aTK."

  "Whatever