A Plague of Demons

"Not to me, they ain't known. Listen, Bailey, don't start talking chisel to me-"

Bailey shook his head. "Nothing like that. But we do all the work. Why pass all the profits along to them?" He pointed with his head in the general direction of the booker's present temporary HQ in a defunct hotel half a mile south.

"You slipped your clutch? That's murder-"

"We won't cut corners on anybody. But tonight we're going to roll our own book."

Aroon's mouth hung open.

"I've worked out the major cycles, and enough minor ones to show a profit. It wasn't too hard. I minored in statan, back in my kid days."

"Wise up, kid," Aroon growled. "What do I use for capital?"

"We'll start out small. We won't need much: just a little cash money to cover margins. I've got three hundred to contribute. I'd estimate another seventeen hundred ought to do it."

Aroon's tongue touched his lips. "This is nuts. I'm a drop man, not a book-"

"So now you're a book. You've already got the work list, your steady customers. We'll just direct a few lays into our private bank, on these lines." Bailey passed a sheet of paper across; it was filled with columns of figures.

"I can't take no chance like this," Gus breathed. "What if I can't cover? What if-"

"What have you got to lose, Gus? This?" Bailey glanced around the room. "You could have a Class Three flat, wear issue 'alls, eat at the commess-if you went up there." He glanced ceilingward. "You picked Preke country instead. Why? So you could lock into another system-a worse one?"

"I got enough," Gus said hoarsely. "I get along."

"Just once," Bailey said. "Take a chance. Take it, or face the fact that you spend the rest of your life in a one-way dead end."

Gus swallowed hard. "You really think…?"

"I think it's a chance. A good chance."

For long seconds, Aroon stared into Bailey's face. Then he hit the table with his fist. He swore. He got to his feet, a big, burly man with sweat on his face.

"I'm in, Bailey," he croaked. "Them guys ain't no better than me and you. And if a man can't ride a hunch once in his life, what's he got anyway, right?"

"Right," Bailey said. "Now better get some cash ready. It's going to be a busy night."

5

For the first three hours, it was touch and go. They paid off heavily on the twenty-one hours read-out, showed a modest recoup on the twenty-two, cut deeply into their tiny reserve at twenty-three.

"We ain't hacking it, kid," Aroon muttered, wiping at his bald forehead with a yard-square handkerchief. "At this rate we go under on the next read."

"Here's a revised line," Bailey said. "One of the intermediate composites is cresting. That's what threw me off."

"If we pull out now, we can pay off and call it square."

"Play along one more hour, Gus."

"We'll be in too deep! We can't cover!"

"Ride it anyway. Maybe we can."

"I'm nuts," Gus said. "But OK, one more pass."

On the midnight reading, the pot showed a profit of three hundred and thirty-one Q's. Aroon proposed getting out then, but half-heartedly. At one hundred, the stake more than doubled. At two, in spite of a sharp wobble in the GNP curve, they held their own. At three, a spurt sent them over the two thousand mark. By dawn, the firm of Aroon and Bailey had a net worth of forty-one hundred and sixty-one credit units, all in hard tokens.

"I got to hand it to you, Bailey," Aroon said in wonderment, spreading the bright-colored plastic chips on the table with a large, hairy hand. "A month's take-in one night!"

This is a drop in the bucket, Gus," Bailey said. "I just wanted to be sure my formulas worked. Now we really start operating."

Gus looked wary. "What's that mean, more trouble?"

"I've been keeping my eyes open since I've been here in Four Quarters. It's a pretty strange place, when you stop to think about it: a whole sub-culture, living outside the law, a refuge for criminals and misfits. Why do the Greenies tolerate it? Why don't they stage a raid, clean out the Prekes once and for all, put an end to the lawbreakers and the rackets? They could do it any day they wanted to."

Gus looked uncomfortable. "Too much trouble, I guess. We keep to our own. We live off the up graders' scraps-"

"Uh-uh," Bailey said. "They live off ours-some of them, even at the top."

"Crusters and Dooses-live off Prekes?" Gus wagged his head. "Your drive is slipping, Bailey."

"Who do you think backs the big books? There's money involved-several million every night. Where do you think it goes?"

"Into the bookers' pockets, I guess. What about it? I don't like this kind of talk. It makes me nervous."

"The big books want you to be nervous," Bailey said. "They don't want anyone asking questions, rocking the boat. But let's ask some anyway. Where does the money go? It goes upstairs, Gus. That's why they let us alone, let us spend our lives cutting each other's throats-so they can bleed off the cream. It's good business."

"You're skywriting, Bailey."

"Sure, I admit it's guesswork. But I'm betting I'm right. And if I am, we can cut ourselves as big a slice as we've got the stomach for."

"Look, we're doing OK, we play small enough maybe they don't pay no attention-"

"They'll pay attention. Don't think we're the first to ever get ideas. Staying small is the one thing we can't do. It will be a sure tip-off that we're just a pair of mice in the woodwork. We have to work big, Gus. It's the only bluff we've got."

"Big-on four M." Gus stared scornfully at the chips he had been fondling.

"That's just seed," Bailey said. "Tonight we move into the big time."

"How?"

"We borrow."

Gus stared. "You nuts, Bailey? Who-"

"That's what I want you to tell me, Gus. Here." He slid a sheet of paper across the table. "Write down the names of every man in the Quarters that might be good for a few hundred. I'll take it from there."

6

The dark-eyed man sat with his face in shadow, his long-fingered hands resting on the table before which Bailey stood, waiting.

"Why," he asked in a soft, sardonic drawl, "would I put chips in a sucker play like that?"

"Maybe I made a mistake," Bailey said loudly. "I thought you might want a crack at some important money. If you'd rather play it small and safe, I'll be on my way."

"You talk big, for a nothing from noplace."

"It's not where I'm from-it's where I'm going," Bailey said offhandedly.

"You think you're at the bottom now," the man snarled. "You can drop another six feet-into dirt."

"What would that prove?" Bailey inquired. "That you're too big a man to listen to an idea that could make you rich-if you've got the spine for a little risk?"

"I take chances when the odds are right-"

"Then take one now. Buy in an M's worth-or half an M. You get it back tomorrow-with interest. If you don't-I guess you'll know what to do about it."

The man leaned back; the light glinted from his deep-set eyes. He rubbed the side of his thin beaked nose. "Yeah. I guess I'd think of something at that. Let me get this straight: Aroon is selling slices of a book that will pay twenty-five percent for twenty-four hours' action…"

"That's tonight. Investors only. Tomorrow's too late."

"How do I know you don't hit the lifts with the bundle?"

"You think I could make it-with all the eyes that will be watching me?"

"Who else is in?"

"You're the first. I've got a lot of ground to cover before sunset, Mr. Farb. Are you in or out?"

The hawk-nosed man touched his fingertips together, scratched his chin with a thumb.

"I'll go four M," he said. "Better have five ready by sunset tomorrow."