Chaingang

He stared at seventeen, really starting to sweat. Maybe that stuff about the unknown capabilities of the human brain has some basis in scientific fact—he felt as if he'd known she was turning up an ace for herself the second she began to turn the card, giving herself a blackjack and him a death sentence all in one move. If she turned up an ace, she might as well break out a tarot deck and deal him a death card and be done with it.

It hit him like a lightning bolt as he visualized her raking chips. He'd say—what? Can I go shy? She would have to tell him no—sorry. Rules of the house.

He could feel Happy and Luis staring holes in his back. Wanted to whisper What are you doing, honey? You're gonna kill me in the loudest stage whisper in history. Watched her color a little as she snapped back into gear, vanishing the ace and taking another card as smooth and cold as ice—right under the other customer's nose.

Her little red five was like a 10:59 reprieve from the warden. The other guy stood pat. He stacked fifteen hundred dollars on his sorry seventeen. Watched her clobber her fifteen with two taps, the retrieved ace and a natural ten.

“That busts the house, gentlemen, nice going.” He breathed again, raking the chips over and filling his pockets.

He toked her, willing his hands not to shake, and strolled back to the table.

“I thought you was changing your mind. You didn't like my stuff and was gonna play cards for a while.” Happy was not happy.

“Shit no, bro. That was outray—! Hey! What chew talkin’ about?’ Royce was now happy enough for the pair of them. “You want some now—” he made the money sign with first finger and thumb—"or what?” he asked in an innocent tone.

“Whatever makes everybody happy,” Happy said, as Royce Hawthorne reached for the three thousand in Rockhouse money. All according to somebody's master plan, right? Right.

6

WATERTON

Mary Perkins, only half-awake, first wondered if it had all been a bad dream, hoping that it had and she'd be able to shake herself out of this darkly imagined history. But the knowledge that it was real, Sam being missing, came and enveloped her in its cold arms, and she shivered, reluctantly getting out of bed, and struggling into her housecoat.

It was not cold enough to turn the heat on yet, but the October night air had turned chilly, and she went to the bathroom, peed, looked at her badly tousled reflection, and drew the bedroom curtains open. She was still in their house at South Main and Park, and her husband was still gone.

Her reflection in the bathroom mirror had been no help. Normally Mary Perkins was an extremely attractive woman, but at that moment, in her eyes she closely resembled the Bride of Frankenstein. Her hair was standing straight up, as if shocked by a mad scientist, and sans makeup, she looked wan in the rude light. The rumpled sheet she'd clung to in the night had impressed deep sleep lines into her face, and they crisscrossed the right side of her cheek and forehead like ancient knife scars.

One morning—it would be a week tomorrow—Sam had taken a shower, dressed in his charcoal suit and red and black rep silk tie, eaten a nonbreakfast of half a glazed donut, a juice glass of OJ, four cups of coffee—black—and, suitably caffeine-wired, had kissed her and headed out the door. Presumably for work.

That was last Friday morning at roughly seven twenty-five A.M. He was invariably the first one there. Myrna Hyams, the elderly receptionist-secretary, was always on time at eight-thirty, when the office would officially open for business.

Sam was successful as only you can be when you're the “real estate man” for a small agri-community. His was, in fact, one of only two local agencies, and he'd just finished putting together an incredible deal for several of the local farmers. He was a great provider, well liked by all, and his health had been generally excellent.

But the preceding Friday morning he'd left the house, driving down Main, northbound, turning left on Maple Avenue and going around behind the block of buildings in which Perkins Realty was situated between Ed's Gulf Station and P.J. Thatcher's State Farm office, and parked their car. Somewhere between the time he'd locked the car door and started to unlock the back door of his office, Sam had disappeared.

She'd called the office, worried, when he hadn't returned home that evening, and got the standard recording. She went over and asked Owen Riley's wife, Alberta, would she mind running her down to see if Sam was working, late and had forgotten to call? She saw the office dark, assumed he'd become involved in a deal somewhere, and had Alberta run her back home. But when he hadn't shown up by ten-thirty, she was on the telephone calling the police and every hospital within fifty miles.

A guy out East she didn't know, someone named Lenny who'd gone to school with Sam, had phoned and left word for him to return the call. She didn't tell the caller anything.