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them?" He pointed with his head in the general direction of the booker's present temporary HQ in a
defunct hotel half a mile south.
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"You slipped your clutch? That's murder "
"We won't cut corners on anybody. But tonight we're going to roll our own book."
Aroon's mouth hung open.
"I've worked out the major cycles, and enough minor ones to show a profit. It wasn't too hard. I
minored in statan, back in my kid days."
"Wise up, kid," Aroon growled. "What do I use for capital?"
"We'll start out small. We won't need much: just a little cash money to cover margins. I've got three
hundred to contribute. I'd estimate another seventeen hundred ought to do it."
Aroon's tongue touched his lips. "This is nuts. I'm a drop man, not a book "
"So now you're a book. You've already got the work list, your steady customers. We'll just direct a few
lays into our private bank, on these lines." Bailey passed a sheet of paper across; it was filled with
columns of figures.
"I can't take no chance like this," Gus breathed. "What if I can't cover? What if "
"What have you got to lose, Gus? This?" Bailey glanced around the room. "Youcould have a Class
Three flat, wear issue 'alls, eat at the commess if you went up there." He glanced ceilingward. "You
picked Preke country instead. Why? So you could lock into another system a worse one?"
"I got enough," Gus said hoarsely. "I get along."
"Just once," Bailey said. "Take a chance. Take it, or face the fact that you spend the rest of your life in a
one-way dead end."
Gus swallowed hard. "You really think . . . ?"
"I think it's a chance. A good chance."
For long seconds, Aroon stared into Bailey's face. Then he hit the table with his fist. He swore. He got
to his feet, a big, burly man with sweat on his face.
"I'm in, Bailey," he croaked. "Them guys ain't no better than me and you. And if a man can't ride a hunch
once in his life, what's he got anyway, right?"
"Right," Bailey said. "Now better get some cash ready. It's going to be a busy night."
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5
For the first three hours, it was touch and go. They paid off heavily on the twenty-one hours read-out,
showed a modest recoup on the twenty-two, cut deeply into their tiny reserve at twenty-three.
"We ain't hacking it, kid," Aroon muttered, wiping at his bald forehead with a yard-square handkerchief.
"At this rate we go under on the next read."
"Here's a revised line," Bailey said. "One of the intermediate composites is cresting. That's what threw
me off."
"If we pull out now, we can pay off and call it square."
"Play along one more hour, Gus."
"We'll be in too deep! We can't cover!"
"Ride it anyway. Maybe we can."
"I'm nuts," Gus said. "But OK, one more pass."
On the midnight reading, the pot showed a profit of three hundred and thirty-one Q's. Aroon proposed
getting out then, but half-heartedly. At one hundred, the stake more than doubled. At two, in spite of a
sharp wobble in the GNP curve, they held their own. At three, a spurt sent them over the two thousand
mark. By dawn, the firm of Aroon and Bailey had a net worth of forty-one hundred and sixty-one credit
units, all in hard tokens.
"I got to hand it to you, Bailey," Aroon said in wonderment, spreading the bright-colored plastic chips on
the table with a large, hairy hand. "A month's take in one night!"
This is a drop in the bucket, Gus," Bailey said. "I just wanted to be sure my formulas worked. Now we
really start operating."
Gus looked wary. "What's that mean, more trouble?"
"I've been keeping my eyes open since I've been here in Four Quarters. It's a pretty strange place, when
you stop to think about it: a whole sub-culture, living outside the law, a refuge for criminals and misfits.
Why do the Greenies tolerate it? Why don't they stage a raid, clean out the Prekes once and for all, put
an end to the lawbreakers and the rackets? They could do it any day they wanted to."
Gus looked uncomfortable. "Too much trouble, I guess. We keep to our own. We live off the up
graders' scraps "
"Uh-uh," Bailey said. "They live off ours some of them, even at the top."
"Crusters and Dooses live off Prekes?" Gus wagged his head. "Your drive is slipping, Bailey."
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"Who do you think backs the big books? There's money involved several million every night. Where
do you think it goes?"
"Into the bookers' pockets, I guess. What about it? I don't like this kind of talk. It makes me nervous."
"The big books want you to be nervous," Bailey said. "They don't want anyone asking questions, rocking
the boat. But let's ask some anyway. Where does the money go? It goes upstairs, Gus. That's why they
let us alone, let us spend our lives cutting each other's throats so they can bleed off the cream. It's good
business."
"You're skywriting, Bailey." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]