Dark Matter by Brett Adams Page A

glanced at the shoe often. It wriggled in his vision, a
small, frightened creature until, all at once, it pushed upward against his
gaze, curiously buoyed. The shoe was light. He was sure of it.
    That does it.
    He stood, turned, and called to the
bartender for a drink, he didn’t care what. The bartended poured him a pear
martini. A woman’s drink, his brain informed him. Fine. No fat tip for you,
sideburns.
    He took the drink, winked, said, “Dutch
Courage,” and sculled it. The alcohol already coursing in his veins would soon
have reinforcements.
    His eyes watered as he made his way to the
cashier, feeling like a stork wading through lily-pad game tables. He converted
most of his credit into chips, leaving enough for another dose of courage, and
headed back to the blackjack table. His path took him by a roulette wheel,
where he was struck by a sudden impulse to bet the chips heavy in his hand.
    He paused. He would need a bankroll to stay
alive at the blackjack table. And , a voice whispered within, if you
blow the lot now, you can slink back to the hotel and forget the whole idea.
    He took a third of what he had, $120, and
threw it on Red.
    The croupier called the drop and the ball
bolted round the rim, skipped a few times on the hot coals, and sat on Black
26. It was over so quickly he had no time to react.
    He dropped his remaining chips onto Black.
The ball sped round the wheel’s rim again, tapped at the slots, and settled on
Black 2. The croupier slid a stack of chips at him, his winnings. He had
doubled the bet.
    The pear martini was evidently not sexist.
It began to trickle into the byways of his brain. With a lurch of excitement he
pushed the entire stack back onto Black. The ball took forever to settle, and
when it did, sat snug in Black 10. His bet returned, multiplied, and after a
brief battle of wills, he retrieved it and returned, bankroll in hand, to the
table by the bar.
    He took his old stool, and sat observing
the game, now conscious of trying to look uninterested. The shoe in play
finished and was reshuffled, and the dealer chewed through another without it
moving far from balance. But on the third it dove fast and soon sat on the
table like an immovable little Buddha, offering its cards with the promise of
plenty.
    Rasputin opted in.
    He wore a nervous smile, but the croupier
had apparently forgotten his earlier gaffe and returned the smile.
    His first hand was Jack/8. The dealer dealt
himself 6/9, hit again, and was busted by the Queen of Spades. In under a
minute, Rasputin had won his first hand, a whole $5.
    The only other player still at the table
was the man with capacious nasal passages. He slouched so low he might have
been eyeing a putting green. Rasputin needed no mental magic to weigh his
fortunes.
    The win became a run and Rasputin was
beginning to feel untouchable when reality bit into his winnings, and then
began gnawing on his bankroll. Three hours later, having jumped in and out of
the game as much as he thought he could without drawing suspicion, he was back
on par.
    He excused himself in disgust and emptied
his remaining credit into another shot glass.
    I’d make more flipping burgers.
    His gaze roamed the floor while he sipped
the liquor. When the glass was drained he squinted through its bottom at a
kaleidoscope of colour like a sailor with a protuberant monocle. The liquor
held the room at bay, but his stomach had begun to churn with rumour. Had he
been sober, he would have recognised the signs of impending mutiny.
    He wandered unsteadily past the roulette
wheel, conscious of having passed it earlier with about the same amount of
chips. He kept walking.
    On reaching a row of one-armed bandits, he
paused to watch their electronic tumblers spin, but had to look away when a
wave of nausea swept over him. He waded on into the calmer atmosphere of the
poker room, slumped onto a stool and rested.
    Nearby a game of Texas Hold’em was in high
dudgeon. Another table hosted a game of