Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories Read online

  “Milton,” I say softly, “why do you let Morris take all the glory? You could have vanished that werewolf just as easily.”

  “That is true,” agrees Milton, “but we know that the hex is in, and I want to see if one of the other mages rids us of the wolf, because if he does that means Lamont Lupo was never going to vote for Clubfoot Clarence.”

  “Come to think of it,” I say, “Morris is standing very near the drapes, is he not?”

  Milton nods his head. “Let me ask you one question, Harry,” he says. “Do you pay off if there is a dead heat?”

  “At half the odds,” I confirm.

  “So if one judge votes for Clarence, you are out a quarter of a million dollars, and if they both do, you are down half a million,” he says. “Either way you lose, right?”

  “Right,” I say. “And I find this line of conversation extremely depressing.”

  “Well, cheer up, Harry,” says Milton, “because you have told me what I wanted to know.”

  “You wanted to know how much I am going to lose?” I ask.

  Milton shakes his head. “I wanted to make sure that no matter how the judging goes, you can’t win.”

  “You are all heart, Milton,” I say.

  “You do not understand,” replies Milton. “If you did not pay off on ties, then I would have to assume Morris is working for both the remaining judges, but since you do pay off, then he only has to be working for one, and I know which one.”

  “You do?” I say with a feeling of relief.

  “Yes, I do,” says Milton. “Morris the Mage is nowhere as good a magician as I am, public opinion to the contrary, but he is every bit as expensive, and Ming Toy Epstein still owes me twenty bucks from the World Series.”

  “You bet with her and not me?” I say, trying to control my temper. “Again you bet with someone else?”

  “It’s immoral to bet with the bookie I work for,” answers Milton. “Besides, she gives me 4-to-1 and takes the St. Louis Browns.”

  “There haven’t been any St. Louis Browns in more than half a century,” I say.

  Milton smiles. “That is another reason I bet with her. Anyway, if she cannot pay me twenty dollars, which I ask for a minimum of seventeen times a week, she cannot afford Morris, so the culprit is Mrs. Saint.”

  “You’re sure?” I say.

  “As sure as my name is Large-Hearted Milton,” he replies.

  “Your name is Big-Hearted Milton,” I say.

  “In my exuberance at unearthing this dastardly scheme I momentarily forget,” he says. “Anyway, the culprit is Mildred the Saint.” He smiles confidently. “Trust me on this.”

  “I was all set to believe you before those last four words,” I say.

  “We are ready for the final dance number,” announces Vinnie. “This will be an old-fashioned down-home square dance, and I myself will do the call.”

  “Accuse her now, before she has a chance to vote,” advises Milton.

  “Yes, please accuse her now,” adds Benny plaintively, “or we’ll have to listen to Vinnie’s version of do-si-do.”

  “All right, all right,” I say, walking over to the bandstand. “Stop the music.”

  They start playing hoe-down music.

  “Dugan!” I call. “Come over here!”

  Dead End Dugan lumbers over and stands beside me.

  “Dugan,” I say, “I want you to eat the first guy who plays so much as a single note.”

  “I haven’t eaten in more than two years,” says Dugan.

  Before he can tell me he doesn’t like food anymore, I say “You must be good and hungry then. Eat the first guy to play a note, and then eat the guys on each side of him.”

  A violinist gives me a defiant glare, tucks his instrument under his chin, and prepares to run his bow across it. The trumpet player on his left and the saxophonist on his right immediately start beating him senseless.

  I have everyone’s attention now, and I walk over to the judge’s table, point a finger at Mildred the Saint, and say in stentorian tones: “J’accuse!”

  “No, it’s Mildred,” she replies.

  “Come on, Mrs. Saint,” I say. “We know Morris the Mage is working for you, and that he’s the one who pulled the drapes so the moon would shine on Lamont Lupo. What were you going to do to Ming Toy Epstein?”

  “That’s none of your business!” she snaps.

  “You gave Short Odds McDougal ten large to bet on Clubfoot Clarence,” I say. “That makes it my business.”

  “I told him to keep his mouth shut!” cries Mildred, and suddenly realizes what she has said. “Oops,” she adds. “I didn’t mean that. I was just kidding.”

  “Dugan,” I said. “Give Short Odds McDougal ten seconds to admit his culpability, and if he doesn’t, then eat him.”

  “All right, I admit it!” shouts Short Odds, just before Dugan can say “What’s culpability?”

  “Why did you do it?” I ask Mildred.

  “It’s that damned husband of mine!” she says bitterly. “He keeps me cooped up at the North Pole all year. You know what it’s like up there? 363 days of winter and two days of bad skiing! If you hadn’t ruined everything, I was going to take my winnings and buy a timeshare on the beach in Barbados.” She glares at Short Odds. “You just had to make the bet with a bookie who’s got his own mage. You couldn’t lay it off with Morgan the Gorgon.”

  “Morgan was only offering 35-to-1 against,” explains Short Odds reasonably.

  “Well, it has been a fascinating evening,” says Morris, heading for a door, “but I have urgent business elsewhere.”

  “No you don’t,” I say. “It is Christmas Eve.”

  “Then I’ll find some,” he says and leaves.

  “So what’s to become of our charity pageant now?” asks the chairman.

  “All bets are canceled,” I say. “And since all bets are canceled, I’m not going to press charges.” I walked over to Mildred the Saint, pulled out the ten large, peel off nine big ones for her, and hold the tenth up. “For expenses,” I say, and put it in my pocket. For a moment she looks like she is going to object, but then she sighs and nods her head.

  “And since we know the hex was in, you are disqualified from judging,” says the chairman.

  She gets up and walks out.

  “That means Ming Toy Epstein is the only remaining judge,” said the chairman. “Vinnie, let’s have that square dance.”

  But the evening is not over yet, because Milton and Spellsinger Solly have been deep in conference in a corner of the room, and I see them light their pocket lighters in lieu of candles, and while I can’t hear them I know they are chanting a little spell, and suddenly Vinnie has lost his voice, and the square dance is a bit of a shambles since with no one to call it the dancers don’t know what to do next, but they run their way through it, and Swivelhips McGee in particular looks delighted as he dodges dancers right and left and acts like he is back on the football field again. Finally the dance is over, and the judges confer, and it is a very short conference since there is only one judge left, and then we all settle back and prepare to hear her announce that Twinkle Toes Tony and Fatima Fatale are the winners.

  But then Ming Toy Epstein pulls one out of left field, and says that in the considered opinion of the judging panel all the women were equally good so there will be no female winner, but there is one male dancer who stands out from the competition, and just as Twinkle Toes Tony is getting ready to take his bows and pick up his trophy, she announces that the winner is Lefty Louie.

  There is a stunned silence, and then Tony stalks out furiously, followed by all the other dancers, and then the audience starts filing out, and pretty soon there is no one left but Joey Chicago, who is packing up what’s left of his goods, and Big-Hearted Milton and Gently Gently Dawkins and Benny Fifth Street and Dead End Dugan, and the judge and the winner and me.

  “That was a most interesting decision,” I say to Ming Toy Epstein. “I am almost sorry I canceled all t
he bets, because not a single person placed a wager on Lefty Louie.”

  “No one at all?” she asks, surprised.

  “He has two left feet, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And that does not bother you?” I ask.

  She slips off her shoes, and I see that she has two right feet. “Not at all,” she says, and she and Lefty walk out hand-in-hand.

  “Isn’t that romantic?” says Benny with a sentimental smile on his face.

  “Their firstborn will inherit two feet from each of them,” says Gently Gently. “In fact, he will probably qualify to run in the Kentucky Derby a few years from now.” He pulls out a ten-spot and hands it to me. “Harry,” he says, “will you book my bet before I forget?”

  ***

  Royal Bloodlines

  Author’s Note: Dog Shows

  Carol and I bred and exhibited collies from 1969 through 1982, producing 23 champions, most of which were named after science fiction stories and characters. So it was only natural that sooner or later my favorite of my own characters, Lucifer Jones (star of Adventures, Exploits, Encounters, and Hazards, who has thus far survived fifty-three pulp and B-movie parodies and counting), should eventually come across a most unusual show dog.

  Back in 1936 I found myself in Hungary, which ain’t never gonna provide the Riviera with any serious competition for tourists. Each town I passed through was duller than the last, until I got to Budapest, which was considerably less exciting than Boise, Idaho on a Tuesday afternoon.

  I passed by an old, run down arena that did double duty, hosting hockey games on weeknights and dog shows on Saturdays, then walked by the only nightclub in town, which was featuring one of the more popular lady tuba soloists in the country, and finally I came to the Magyar Hotel and rented me a room. After I’d left my gear there I set out to scout out the city and see if there were enough depraved sinners to warrant building my tabernacle there and setting up shop in the salvation business. My unerring instincts led me right to a batch of them, who were holed up in the men’s room of the bus station, playing a game with which I was not entirely unfamiliar, as it consisted of fifty two pasteboards with numbers or pictures on ’em and enough money in the pot to make it interesting.

  “Mind if I join you gents?” I asked, walking over to them.

  “Either you put your shirt on backward, or else you’re a preacher,” said one of ’em in an English accent.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked.

  “We’d feel guilty taking your money,” he said.

  “You ain’t got a thing to worry about,” I said, sitting down with them.

  “Well,” he said with a shrug, “you’ve been warned.”

  “I appreciate that, neighbor,” I said, “and just to show my good will, I absolve everyone here of any sins they committed between nine o’clock this morning and noon. Now, who deals?”

  The game got going hot and heavy, and I had just about broken even, when the British feller dealt a hand of draw, and I picked up my cards and fanned ’em out and suddenly I was looking at four aces and a king, and two of my opponents had great big grins on their faces, the kind of grin you get when you pick up a flush or a full house, and one of ’em opened, and the other raised, and I raised again, and it was like I’d insulted their manhood, because they raised right back, and pretty soon everyone else had dropped out and the three of us were tossing money into the pot like there wasn’t no tomorrow, and just about the time we all ran out of money and energy and were about to show our cards, a little Hungarian kid ran into the room and shouted something in a foreign language—probably Hungarian, now as I come to think on it—and suddenly everyone grabbed their money and got up and started making for the exit.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” I demanded. “Where do you guys think you’re going?”

  “Away!” said the British feller.

  “But we’re in the middle of a hand,” I protested.

  “Lupo is coming!” said the Brit. “The game’s over!”

  “Who the hell is Lupo?” I demanded.

  “He’s more of a what. You’ll leave too, if you know what’s good for you!”

  And suddenly, just like that, I was all alone in the men’s room of a Hungarian bus station, holding four totally useless aces and a king, and thinking that maybe Hungarians were more in need of a shrink than a preacher. Then the door opened, and in walked this thin guy with grayish skin and hair everywhere—on his head, his lip, his chin, even the backs of his hands.

  “Howdy, Brother,” I said, and he nodded at me. “You better not plan on lingering too long,” I added. “Someone or something called Lupo is on its way here.”

  He turned to face me and stared at me intently.

  “I am Lupo,” he said.

  “You are?”

  “Count Basil de Chenza Lupo,” he continued. “Who are you?”

  “The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I said.

  “Do you see any reason why you should run at the sight of me?” he continued.

  “Except for the fact that you got a predatory look about you and probably ain’t on speaking terms with your barber, nary a one,” I answered.

  “They are fools,” he said. “Fools and peasants, nothing more.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but you could have timed your call of Nature just a mite better, considering I was holding four bullets and the pot had reached a couple of thousand dollars.”

  “Bullet?” he said, kind of growling deep in his throat. “What kind?”

  “Well, when you got four of ’em, there ain’t a lot left except clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades,” I said.

  “But not silver?” he said.

  “Not as I recollect.”

  “Good,” he said, suddenly looking much relieved. “I am sorry I have caused you such distress, Doctor Jones.”

  “Well, I suppose when push comes to shove, it ain’t really your fault, Brother Basil,” I said.

  “Nevertheless, I insist that you allow me to take you to dinner to make amends.”

  “That’s right cordial of you,” I said. “I’m a stranger in town. You got any particular place in mind?”

  “We will dine at The Strangled Elk,” he said. “It belongs to some Gypsy friends of mine.”

  “Whatever suits you,” I said agreeably.

  We walked out of the station, hit the main drag, and turned left.

  “By the way, Brother Basil,” I said, “why were all them men running away from a nice, friendly gent like you?”

  He shrugged. “They are superstitious peasants,” he said. “Let us speak no more of them.”

  “Suits me,” I said. “People what entice a man of the cloth into a sinful game like poker and then run off when he’s got the high hand ain’t headed to no good end anyway.”

  I noticed as we walked down the street that everyone was giving us a pretty wide berth, and finally we turned down a little alleyway where all the men were dark and swarthy and wearing shirts that could have been took in some at the arms, and the women were sultry and good looking and wearing colorful skirts and blouses, and Basil told me we were now among his Gypsy friends and no one would bother us, not that anyone had been bothering us before, and after a little while we came to a sign that said we’d reached The Strangled Elk, and we went inside.

  It wasn’t the cleanest place I’d ever seen, but I’d been a couple of weeks between baths myself, so I can’t say that I minded it all that much. There was nobody there except one skinny old waiter, and Basil called him over and said something in Gypsy, and the waiter went away and came back a minute later with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  Well, we filled the glasses and chatted about this and that, and then we drank some more and talked some more, and finally the waiter brought out a couple of steaks.

  “Brother Basil,” I said, looking down at my plate, “I like my meat as rare as the next man, but I don’t believe this has been c
ooked at all.”

  “I am sorry, my friend,” he said. “That is the way I always eat it, and the cook simply assumed you shared my taste.” He signaled to the waiter, said something else in Gypsy, and the waiter took my plate away. “It will be back in a few moments, properly cooked.”

  “You always eat your steak like that?” I asked, pointing to the slab of raw meat in front of him.

  “It is the only way,” he replied, picking it up with his hands and biting off a goodly chunk of it. He growled and snarled as he chewed it.

  “You got a bit of a throat condition?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” he said. “I apologize if my table manners offend you.”

  “I’ve et with worse,” I said. In fact, if push came to shove, I couldn’t remember having dined with a lot that were much more refined.

  Well, my steak came back just then, and after covering it with a pint of ketchup just to bring out the subtle nuances of its flavor, I dug in, and just so Basil wouldn’t feel too conspicuous I growled and snarled too, and we spent the next five or ten minutes enjoying the noisiest meal of my experience, after which we polished off a couple of more bottles of wine.

  “I have truly enjoyed this evening, my friend,” said Basil after we were all done. “So few people will even speak to me, let alone join me in a repast.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I said. “You’d have to search far and wide to find a more hospitable feller.”

  “Nonetheless,” he said, “it is time for you to leave.”

  “It’s only about nine o’clock,” I said. “I think I’ll just sit here and digest the repast and maybe smoke a cigar or two, that is if you got any to spare, and then I’ll mosey on back to my humble dwelling.”

  “You really must leave now,” he said.

  “You got a lady friend due any minute, right?” I said with a sly smile. “Well, never let it be said that Lucifer Jones ain’t the soul of understanding and discretion. Why, I recall one time back in Cairo, or maybe it was Merrakech, that I …”