Joe nodded. "You were late, and I was hungry, so I thought I'd go ahead and take my share. I gave him a big kick, and he really poured it out ... radiated like all hell. I took it in so fast that I fluhped and lost my plasmic control."
"We might as well eat now, then," Ray said, "before we get down to playing cards." He sat down across the table, his eyes—now suddenly enormous and black—eagerly on me. "I hate like hell waiting until you deal him a big pot—"
"No," Joe said sharply. "Too much at one time, and he'd wonder what hit him. We'll do it just like always ... one of us at a time, and only a little at a time. Get him when he rakes in the loot. They never miss it when they feel like that."
"He's right," Fred said. "Take it easy, Ray." He went over to the sideboard and began mixing drinks.
Joe looked down at me with his black end-of-eggplant eyes.
"Now to fix things," he said.
... I blinked and shook my head. "You owe me fifteen bucks!" I said.
"Lord," Joe wailed, "did this gonif just take me!"
Ray groaned sympathetically from the chair across the table, where he'd been watching the slaughter. "And how!"
Joe pushed fifteen blue chips at me. I began stacking them. "Well, that's life," I grinned. Then I shook my head again. "It's the damnedest thing...."