April Evil by John D. MacDonald Page A

it all. Stauch had taken a one-card draw, also. Dil knew that his personal balance was down below three hundred dollars. He kept his thumb over the total on the stub when he wrote out the check. Up until writing the check he had believed that his hand was the best hand. But now the worms of doubt touched the edge of his mind. Stauch seemed to be betting more heavily than a full house would warrant, had he drawn to two pair. And much more heavily than a flush. It was incredible that he could have filled a straight flush. It began to look more and more like fours. But how big? A seven was almost in the middle.
    Stauch said, “Whee, this Parks is just as proud as can be. He’s really got himself something. Well, I think this has gone on long enough. I think I’ll just call that eight hundred and maybe give it one more little bump. About another fifteen hundred, and that makes another piece of paper for the pile. Man could run right through his checkbook in this kind of game.”
    Dil had felt jubilant when Stauch had indicated his desire to call, but when he added the raise to it, his heart sank. It had to be fours. Maybe good fours.
    “I’ll call,” he said huskily. He wrote out a check for fifteen hundred and put it on the table.
    Stauch said, “Well that sort of leaves it up to me to show the power and break your heart, Dil. I got me two pair here. Here’s one of them.” He turned over the pair of tens. “And here’s the other pair.” He turned over the second pair of tens. “Got ’em dealt to me cold and took a chance on passing them, seeing as how I was right under the gun, and figured I’d better draw a card I couldn’t use than stand pat on the four tens. What’s that over there, Dil? Four sevens? Now if that isn’t a stick with a dirty end, I never did see one. What was it you folded there, Marty?”
    “Full house,” Marty said miserably. “Queens full of threes.”
    This was no longer a dream. This was nightmare. As Stauch started to pull the pot in, Dil reached over quickly and took his two checks.
    “What’s up?” Stauch asked, his voice much sharper.
    “I just thought I’d consolidate these into one,” Dil said. The room which had grown very still became noisy again as Marty started to deal a new hand.
    “Sure. You do that,” Stauch said.
    Dil made out the check for thirty-five hundred. He made it out all except the date. As casually as he could, he said, “Jim, I’ll have to transfer more cash into this account. You mind if I date this a week ahead?”
    Again the room was still. After a few moments Stauch said, “That’ll be okay, Dil.”
    Dil wrote another check for two hundred worth of chips. He played automatically. He won about a hundred and fifty dollars. At the end of the evening he cashed up and got his check for two hundred back and found that he was out three hundred and fifty of the five hundred he had started with, plus the thirty-five hundred check. Thirty-eight hundred and fifty dollars loser. In the history of the game others had lost more in one evening, but not a great deal more. Dil had never lost more than four hundred before. When the game broke up the others told him, a little too jovially, that he’d had one ofthose nights.
    That heavy loss had changed his whole idea of himself. He had always been an optimistic man. Nothing had ever worked out very well for him, but he had never ceased to feel that sooner or later he would hit something that would pay off very well. The optimism was seriously shaken. He could not think beyond the thirty-five hundred dollar check. He knew he could not meet it. He knew he had no way of meeting it. He told himself that good old Jim Stauch would understand, and give him a break. Stauch would tear the check up and say, “You pay me when you get the chance, Dil.”
    But it wasn’t going to be that way. He had the uneasy feeling that Jim Stauch knew the exact state of his finances, and had known even as the checks were being written