Blundering recklessly around the corner into the tunnel-like blackness of the passage, which was no more than an armspread wide, Hendley was saved only by a last-second instinctive hesitation. A blow grazed his cheek, striking his shoulder with glancing impact. The force was enough to slam him into a cement wall.
The Freeman he had followed faced him squarely, grinning with drunken malice. "Caught you!" he said gleefully. "Thought I didn't know you was after me, huh?"
He struck again before Hendley could recover. Hendley's chest seemed to explode. Reeling, he thought fleetingly that no fist could hit with such weight or force. The drunk must have found a rock or club. If he landed another blow, the fight would be over. Hendley crouched and dodged, sick with the knowledge of his foolish blunder.
"Think you're so smart!" the drunken voice rasped in the darkness. "I carry this just for smart ones like you!"
But the man's drunken aim was erratic. Something heavy and metallic clanged against the cement wall of the passage. The solid, heavy sound quickened fear in Hendley for the first time. The blow had been close enough to fan the air against his neck. In desperation he came out of his crouch in a sudden, furious rush. One of his fists landed with a meaty thump. The drunk's breath wheezed. He swung wildly, missing Hendley's head by a foot. For a moment he was off-balance, staggering as his momentum carried him forward. Hendley saw the squat, black shadow stumbling past him. He lashed out at the exposed head and neck. The drunk went down with a soft gasp. He did not move.
Legs trembling, Hendley stood over the fallen man, drawing breath in great gulps. His chest ached and his shoulder felt strangely numb. His first impulse was to run. Instead he dropped to his knees. When the Freeman had hit the ground, there had been a faint, familiar clink. Hendley slapped at the man's pockets squeamishly, choking back a threatening sickness. He had to roll the inert figure over onto his back to reach the breast pocket. The same clinking sound answered his tentative probing. Feverishly now his fingers dug into the pocket and closed around a small nest of chips. He drew them out. Their white gleam was visible in the darkness of the passageway.
A hasty search of the drunken man's remaining pockets turned up no other casino chips. Hendley stumbled to his feet. The man was alive, he assured himself defensively. He hadn't been seriously hurt. He'd collapsed as much from drunkenness as from Hendley's blows. And the white chips were fair payment for Hendley's own bruised chest and shoulder. A small length of heavy metal pipe lay on the pavement near the fallen man's hand, mute evidence of how close Hendley had come to having his skull crushed.
He peered nervously along the side street from which he'd entered the passageway. The street was empty. No curious spectators had been attracted by the fight. But now, conscious of the white chips he carried, Hendley felt apprehensive. No telling what he might run into on a dimly lighted side road. The bright channel of the main street was a full hundred yards away. He started toward it. Before he'd taken a half-dozen steps he was running, panic riding his heels.
Not until he was safely in the brightness of the main thoroughfare did Hendley slow his headlong pace. Even then he quickly boarded the moving walk that would carry him to the more crowded pleasure center. It took a long while for the labored heaving of his chest and the furious hammering of his heart to subside. By the time he had calmed enough to think rationally about what he had done, he was in sight of the main Rec Hall on the hill. Its rounding yellow shoulders pushing against the night sky were like a woman's invitation, promising warmth, closeness, pleasure. He stared up at it, hearing in his mind the seductive whisper of the casino's action. The weight of the small cluster of chips lay heavy against his thigh. For this he had done violence. For this, like some pre-Organization animal, he had stalked another man in the darkness....
Revulsion seized him like a giant fist. Half-falling, he stumbled off the moving walk. The grip of anguished self-contempt tightened painfully, crushing every defensive protest, destroying the barriers he'd erected so easily to contain an image of himself he could not face—the picture of a greedy pleasure-seeker scrabbling on the ground, pawing through the pockets of a helpless drunk. His eyes squeezed shut, as if their closing curtains could form a merciful new shield against the harsh vision of what his freedom had come to mean. He opened them to stare bitterly at the great wheel of sky which had meant so much to him in the beginning.