“No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. But what stops me is what can we do about it? If the Mob is forted up in that hotel across the street or somewhere beside or behind us . . . there isn’t a damn thing we can do. They’d have more gunnies than we could send in, even if we knew exactly where they were, and we can’t send a young army barging around without anything but a flimsy suspicion to go on—the lawmen would throw us in the clink in nothing flat. . . . Besides, this Mob idea isn’t exactly solid, either. How’d they get their cut from all these people? Especially the Vegian?”
“The Vegian, probably not; the rest, probably so. They could have passed the word around that this is the big day. Anybody’d split fifty-fifty on a cold sure thing.”
“Uh-uh. I won’t buy that, either. I’d’ve known about it—somebody would have leaked. No matter how you figure it, it doesn’t add up.”
“Well, then?”
“Only one thing we can do. Close down. While you’re doing that I’ll go shoot in a Class A Double Prime Urgent to top brass.”
Hence Vesta’s croupier soon announced to his clientele that all betting was off, at least until the following day. All guests would please leave the building as soon as possible.
For a couple of minutes Vesta simply could not take in the import of the announcement. She was stunned. Then:
“Whee . . . yow . . . ow . . . erow!” she yowled, at the top of her not inconsiderable voice. “I’ve won . . . I’ve won . . . I’VE WON!” She quieted down a little, still shell-shocked, then looked around and ran toward the nearest familiar face, which was that of the assistant manager. “Oh, senor Althagar, do you actually want me to quit while I’m ahead? Why, I never heard of such a thing—it certainly never happened to me before! And I’m going to stop gambling entirely—I’ll never get such a thrill as this again if I live a million years!”
“You’re so right, Miss Vesta—you never will.” Althagar smiled—as though he had just eaten three lemons without sugar, to be sure, but it was still a smile. “It’s not that we want you to quit, but simply that we can’t pay any more losses. Right now I am most powerfully psychic, so take my advice, my dear, and stop.”
“I’m going to—honestly, I am.” Vesta straightened out the thick sheaf of bills she held in her right hand, noticing that they were all ten-thousands. She dug around in her bulging pouch; had to dig half-way to the bottom before she could find anything smaller. With a startled gasp she crammed the handful of bills in on top of the others and managed, just barely, to close and lock the pouch. “Oh, I’ve got to fly—I must find my boss and tell him all about this!”