The Devil's Game Read online

  “No, honestly, sir,” Ellis whispered, “you don’t understand—”

  Haverner ignored him. “I could go on, but no need. Either you do or you do not have a capacity for self-examination. Let me ring for Anselmo.”

  * * *

  When the business was concluded and Ellis had departed, Haverner sat awhile amidst his thoughts. A smile played across his lips. Presently, almost impulsively, he picked up the telephone.

  The dial tone hummed with Samael’s voice. “Ah, yes. I expected you to want a little conversation. Are you feeling better about this affair?”

  “It is becoming more interesting,” Haverner said.

  “We can look for steady improvement as the game progresses, as the players erode away each other’s defenses, and their own. You wanted them manipulable, to suit your convenience. Well, without compromising the scientific aspect too much, this should increasingly become the case. In fact, you will recall my remark, when first we were laying our plans, that among other things we would like to see how much human complexity the situation would strip from them, to what extent they would cease playing the game and the game would begin playing them.”

  Haverner nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

  “The process is under way, my friend, and not only in the obvious persons. Tomorrow morning you may find some lively matter on your tapes. Good evening, Sunderland Haverner.” Samael chuckled; the sound faded back into the electronic hum.

  The man decided he would observe directly, at least for a while, from his bedroom. He wouldn’t be able to sleep soon anyway.

  The click of latch as his door was opened, of fluffy blue mules on his floor, brought Larry awake. He sat up in bed. The book over which he had fallen asleep thudded off. The glow from his reading lamp limned Gayle against a darkened hallway. She wore a short, lacy nightgown whose filminess fluttered in the breeze, still warm and sweet-scented, which blew in the open windows.

  “Oh!” Her hand fluttered to the mouth. The large gray eyes grew larger. “I’m terribly sorry. I saw the light under your door and thought—”

  “ ’Sokay.” he brought his wrist across his shaggy breast and looked at the watch thereon. “I must’ve dozed off an hour or so back. How are you, Gayle?”

  “I’m fine now. Woke feeling fine but hungry, went down for a raid on the icebox, and coming back I saw—well, I’m sorry I disturbed you. I’ll go.” She half turned.

  “No, wait. Please.” With full wakefulness came a stammer. “I, I’m the one who has to, to beg your humble pardon. I tried to, after … right after … but you were like in a state of shock, and since then—” His fist punished the mattress.

  “What?” She closed the door and came near. “What’re you getting at, Larry?”

  “You know. It’s no thanks to me you aren’t dead.”

  “That!” She smiled very brightly, gave a rippling laugh, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why, you poor darling. You’ve been remorseful this whole day?”

  “What else should I be?”

  His head was bent. She rumpled the hair. “Larry, you told me yourself, I didn’t have to play. It was a straight game, and … and I met that guard type, what’s his name, Anselmo. He’d heard me in the kitchen and come to see; he scared me at first, but—well, he told me what you’d done, how you called everybody a winner. And besides, it was probably a false alarm, because nobody really did get attacked, did they? My silly fault. Here, look at me.”

  He did. She embraced him. The kiss grew long, with much play to tongues and hands. When they broke, both were breathing harder and blood beat in their faces.

  “That’s how mad I am at you, Larry,” she murmured. “Uh … I should offer you a chair and … but I don’t sleep in pajamas.”

  Gayle giggled. “Think that bothers me?”

  “—I guess not.” However, he made no move to come out from under his thin blanket, simply fluffed a pillow against the headboard and leaned back on it.

  “You could give me a cigarette.” Reaching, she helped herself from the cedarwood box that had been placed in the chamber, and snapped the silver lighter beside it. With a slantwise look at him: “You too?” He nodded. She lit a fresh one from the end of hers and put it between his lips.

  They smoked in wind-sough, surf-song, insect-creak. Finally, not quite steadily, glance averted, she stubbed out her cigarette and said, “If you, well, if you do feel you owe me some amends, Larry …”

  His features stiffened and a half a minute passed.

  “I was no player for you to worry about,” she said in that small voice. “I don’t know why I was tapped. What chance have I got? I saw I was doomed, the first day here. And you, Larry, you did wash me out. The next guy’s not going to be gallant about it.”

  “You’ve got the next turn.”

  “You needn’t remind me. I’m going out of my gourd. What can I do? How can I beat any of them at anything? I’m not strong or clever or—or ruthless, Larry. I guess I’m not even as highly motivated as some. Like, sure, I want my independence in the worst way. I’ve had it with dragging around from man to man or those nasty little jobs between times. But I don’t want a whole million the way guys like Orestes and Ellis Nordberg do.”

  She stopped until, abruptly cool, she added, “You don’t either. You proved that.”

  “I could use a goodly part of it.”

  “Understood. I don’t need an awful lot myself. I figured out—a hundred thousand, ten lousy percent of a million, put in safe tax-free bonds, and I can live well enough to suit me till I die.”

  Larry sat forward. His voice roughened. “Are you proposing we go in cahoots?”

  “Yes. I am.” she took the cigarette stub from between his fingers, laid it in the ashtray, and then put both hands on his shoulders. Her mouth drew close to his. Her lips began swelling. “You’d pay off whatever moral debt you feel—”

  “Do I feel any, after what you’ve just said? You waited for this chance to catch me here, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, drooping her lashes. “Uh-huh. I would’ve regardless. You’re a mighty big piece of man, and a sweetheart on top of it. But Larry, don’t you see, I can help you also? Two heads are better than one. I may see something, learn something you never would. And if—well, when—when I wash out, in spite of what help you can sneak to me … I’ll be officially out of the game, but that means nobody’ll pay much attention to me, and maybe I can—”

  “Hm.” he pondered; but his pulse was visibly quickening. “The rules … Still, these’re stakes for a lifetime, and Haverner never said we could not use somebody who’s been scrubbed, and it looks like it’s becoming a mean game anyway…. Hm.”

  “What should I call for, day after tomorrow?” She took his hand to see his watch. “No, tomorrow, by now. I’ll tell you what I thought of. I’ve got a nice big stash along. I’ll make us blow grass. You and me, we’re used to it; the rest’ll pass out before we do.”

  “I dunno. I’m not a steady user myself. And besides, pot has a kind of reverse tolerance, didn’t you know? Heavy smokers get high quicker than most, uh, neophytes, they say.… Wait. How could you prove your rivals were inhaling? And Orestes, at least, is probably … Well. No. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Briefly crestfallen, she rallied as fast, locked fingers behind his neck so that the hair fell over them, and exclaimed, “There! You see how you’ve helped me? Now I’ll help you. Between us, we’ll plan a game for me that’ll beat some of those pigs. Larry, it’s like you got a whole extra turn!”

  “Maybe …” He ran a hand over her back. She arched it and made purring noises.

  “Other alliances may form,” he said. “In self-defense, we—”

  “Right on, darling! We can trust each other!”

  The second kiss was longer than the first, but then it had its interruptions, such as getting her nightgown off and her into the bed.

  “Love,” she crooned, thrusting a nipple against his palm. “Love and trust eac
h other.” Her right hand slid downward. “Oh, my, oh, my. You are a big piece of man. I really have lucked out.”

  He entered the dining room yawning hugely. Dawn was orange and blue in its glass; jays racketed. Byron happened to trail him. They found Julia already there, eating, and Ellis, though the latter had obviously finished his meal some time before.

  “Hi,” Julia greeted. “Is this the whole North Port party?”

  “Presumably,” Byron replied. “Can you see dear Matt Flagler rising at daybreak to broaden his culture? And Orestes, being a mainlander, might well fear hostility. … No, wait, he’s gotten thick as thieves with the help around here. He can doubtless ride in on the supply truck, any off-game day he wants, at a more convenient hour. Gayle?”

  “Definitely not.” Larry could not strain all the smugness out of his response.

  “You surprise me, frankly,” Byron said to Ellis.

  “Of course I do,” was the answer. “In liberal mythology, no businessman has interests beyond the next quarter’s profit. Not that I’ll attend divine service just so I can feel amused and superior.”

  “Aw, let’s not fight.” Larry went to the sideboard. A waitress entered and raised eyebrows politely for his breakfast order. “Ham, two eggs, sunny side up, please. Lots of fries, too.”

  “Same for me,” Byron put in.

  “Wait,” Ellis said, “Have your eggs scrambled. Tremendous.”

  “With the appetite I’ve got?” Larry replied. “No, thanks. I want something heavier-feeling.”

  The waitress, about to go, stopped when Ellis crooked a finger. “I do wish you’d try the scrambled eggs,” he said. “Make it a double order if you want. I… Give me a chance to prove I care about a few of the same things as you, even if only—”

  “Huh?” Larry blinked. “Oh, okay. Four scrambled eggs. It’s a great world except for morning coming too goddamn early, and I’ll take your advice about what’s extra good in it.” His new yawn threatened to dislocate his jaw. “U-u-u-uh-u-u-u-uh! What I will insist on is coffee.”

  “I’ll go along,” Byron said. “Scrambled, since I notice that’s what you’ve been having, Julia.”

  “They are superb,” she agreed. “I asked, and it’s a matter of turmeric, chives, cream, and beating the bejesus out of them.”

  The newcomers sat down, flanking her. “Byron,” she said, “before I forget, could you later today go over that contract with me? I can’t quite unravel the legalese. Is it really ironclad?”

  “I’m no lawyer, but yes, I can try,” he nodded. “Should’ve done it before for myself.” His eyes lingered on the glory waxing in the French doors. “I wish this room faced due east.”

  Ellis seemed hurt. “Don’t you trust me? I told you it’s okay.”

  “Well, we do need to know the details in any event,” Julia said.

  Ellis leaned over his cup of long-cold coffee. “Look, I want to be civilized, same as you do. Things were getting out hand last night. Suppose I take you both, and you, Larry, or whoever’s interested, suppose I take you through the material, point by point. You can check words in the dictionary as we go if you suspect my definitions. Otherwise, really, law really is just logic. Contracts like this one get complicated simply because they have to cover a lot of contingencies.” Larry, falling asleep over his orange juice, jerked awake. “I can start in a general way at once, and we’ll study the document later.” Ellis rose. “Excuse me if I prowl around meanwhile. I’m a pacer-talker.”

  Nobody cared to say him nay, and he ignored the fact that their concentration on him was less than complete. Soon the two breakfast entrees came in.

  “There!” Ellis interrupted himself when the first mouthfuls were taken. “Wasn’t I right about the eggs? Wasn’t Julia?” He came around the table, stood behind, bent over and gesticulated above the plates.

  “We-ell, yes. Yes, you were,” Byron said.

  Ellis’s companionable hands, straddling the woman to squeeze each man’s shoulder, tightened. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “What’s that?”

  “Huh?” She and Byron squinted outward, Larry blinked. “That way—don’t you see—no, God help us, can’t be!” They stared as hard as they were able. “What?” Julia wondered. “I see dew on the lawn, and long sun rays and shadows mixed together, and—”

  “A shape. Go. To the doors. Please.” Ellis urged them from their chairs. He stayed. “Don’t let me prejudice you. Look for yourselves.”

  They did. “Maybe I’m too drowsy yet,” Larry said.

  Ellis sighed. “All right. I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken. I could have sworn I saw a … something like an … an odd-looking animal running toward the house. … Do they have tapirs on this island? Do on the mainland…. Please excuse me. It was a trick of light, I guess, and maybe those damned specks in my vision that bother me worse and worse as I get older.” He took off his glasses, held them aloft, blew on them and polished them with his handkerchief. “I am sorry.”

  Julia gave him a long and careful regard before she sat down again. He resumed his precis of their contract.

  The excursion was delayed soon after it started, when Larry Rance grew quite ill and had to be taken back to the house. He lay in his room, behind drawn blinds, in a rank sweat, sneezing and struggling for air, throughout most of the day. After he had vomited his stomach empty, he broke into a rash. His pulse was frantic and thready.

  Haverner, who could have specialists flown quickly in from the mainland for himself, kept no physician on his staff, though he was believed to subsidize the only one on the Island, in the North Port. That person could not be located by the tenuous telephone connections available. Larry rallied enough to wheeze a request for antihistamine. What pills were on hand gave some relief.

  Gayle Thayer tended his needs. Toward evening the symptoms faded and he fell into a normal sleep.

  Matt Flagler woke late. In the afternoon he ambled around to the servants’ quarters. The children were back from chapel. He fell into simple conversation with Captain York’s thirteen-year-old nephew Billy. His Spanish, while serviceable after his years in Ciudad Vizcaya, was of no great use here, and his English fell strangely on the boy’s ears, used to the antique local version. But he had gotten to the point of proposing a long walk in the woods when Orestes Cruz came upon them, drew him aside and muttered in Spanish:

  “Stop this, they’ll kill you if anything happens. Not that that is undesirable, but the child is worth more. Go.”

  “I wasn’t …” Matt protested in English. “I didn’t … Holy mother, what’re you talking about, I was only trying to be nice.”

  “Go.” Orestes chopped the blade of his right hand across his left wrist. Matt went, speaking bad words to himself, to drink and watch television. Orestes turned to Billy and a couple of small sisters who had stood half-comprehendingly nearby. “Hey!” he beamed. “Who knows that funny Belize Creole song, ‘Captain Foot’s Money Gone’?”

  The excursionists came back, inquired about Larry’s health, were assured that he was recovering rapidly and must simply have encountered something that disagreed with him. Perhaps on yesterday’s ramble through the hills? “We talked awhile before he corked off,” Gayle told them at dinner. “He says he’ll be in shape to play tomorrow. I’m sure he will, myself. In fact, this may give him a better chance in my game than anybody else.”

  “What is it?” Matt asked through the sudden quiet.

  She tittered. “Be in the living room at eight sharp tomorrow morning and I’ll tell you.”

  GAYLE THAYER

  It’s going to be a real scorcher today, I guess. Already the brightness outside hurts me to look at. (I asked Captain York and he told me, “Veadder like dis come before de rain. And ven de rain come from de nart’, raise de fever.” He’s sweet. I don’t see how he can work for that awful Haverner. That Anselmo now, that goon, he could be a San Francisco pig, wouldn’t he just love it clubbing students? No, wait, Anselmo’s pretty much Indian, isn’t he, his peopl
e’ve been oppressed….) Lucky this is my day to be leader. Nobody can drag me outside. “Put down the blinds,” I say. “Draw the curtains. Turn up the air conditioner.”

  Oh, shit, I forgot to say “please” to that little dark man. Bad vibes getting to me.

  I feel the tension; they stare and stare, waiting for my orders in this long dim room. Well, Larry’s hanging loose, of course. (After all we did together, he should be plenty loose!) He knows what to expect; he ate an extra big breakfast and didn’t take much liquid and went to the can right before now. He’s looking good. I wish we could have fucked, once anyway, last night or early this morning, but I guess he needed the sleep more, and anyway remember how the guru last year always said sex restraint helps meditation, and Christ but I’d better be able to meditate today!

  I smile at Larry. He frowns and shakes his head, the tiniest bit. Oh, yes, what a dope I am. We can’t let on we’re partners. No smiles, then, no holding hands, no hugs or kisses where somebody else might see. But a stolen look once in a while, and we can know what we mean when we say, “Good morning, Larry/Gayle, how are you this fine day?” There’s a bed waiting for us, and Christ but secrecy makes it exciting!

  “Well, Miss Thayer, eight o’clock,” Ellis Nordberg says. He would. The clockwork man. Wind him up and he ruins the environment.

  I try to, what’s the word, take their measure. Eyes, eyes. Nordberg shivers underneath the machinery; I can feel that; I do have some ESP, I know I do. Matt Flagler’s in a bad way; I can’t help feeling sorry for him; maybe I should offer him a few joints later on; he’s killing himself with booze. Byron’s excited; he’s really into this game. And the son of a bitch doesn’t need the money! Though he’s kind of nice; and restless, the way he seems to be, maybe he’ll be one I overcome. Julia hangs on to this arm. Do I see a film of sweat on her forehead? Her eyes (green today and pretty, but mine’re prettier, dear) are like a cat’s. That poor little kid of hers. Think of having to spend your life hooking into a machine. I wonder, supposing Larry and I win—I mean, he’s the technical winner, though with my help right down the line—could he spare the bread she needs? I couldn’t. Sorry, Julia, sorrier, Kilby, but those hundred thousand skins are my life. I’ll have to talk with Larry about it…. Orestes, he’s cool. I’d like to know him better. I heard him sing to the children; he’s lovely, no Belafonte but he’s real. Wonder how he’d be as a lover. Strictly between me and myself, I admit the three (**niggers**) black men I’ve laid weren’t all that great; Rog was downright disappointing, and if he hadn’t been black I wouldn’t ever have given him another night— Well, I’ve got my Larry, and what a romp we had!