A. Fair: Spill the Jackpot

“You got the dough all right?” I asked.

“Did I!” she said with her eyes glittering.

The waitress brought my tomato juice. I drank it, then while I was waiting, fished a couple of nickels out of my pocket and started over for the slot machine.

The woman who ran the place came rushing over to me. “Get away, get away,” she said. “It’s out of order.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“I don’t know, but a man and a girl came in here and played it about an hour ago, and won three gold awards inside of five minutes. Think of it. Three gold awards, to say nothing of the shower of nickels they dragged out of the machine. Something’s wrong with it.”

“Why,” I said, “what makes you think there’s anything wrong with the machine? You’ve always told me about the people who came in and won—”

“Well,” she snapped, “this is different. I’ve telephoned for the service man to come over. You keep away from it.”

I went back to my seat at the table.

“What is it?” Bertha asked.

“Nothing,” I said, “except that someone will probably deliver my car to me today.”

“Oh, it’s already delivered,” she said. “I forgot to tell you. The attendant at the parking-station said a girl had left a car there for you. It’s an awful-looking jalopy, lover.”

I didn’t say anything.

The waitress brought food and placed it on the table. Somehow I didn’t feel hungry. I kept thinking about the breakfasts on the desert and in Reno.

Bertha scraped the last yellow drop of egg yolk from her plate, looked up at me, and said, “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel hungry.”

“Bah. You should always eat a good breakfast. You can’t keep up your strength if you don’t have food in your stomach.” She snapped her fingers at the waitress. “Bring me a Milky Way,” she ordered, and then turned to me to say, “I’ll keep it in my purse in case I have that all-gone feeling around ten o’clock. Bertha’s been awfully sick, lover. Awfully sick.”

“I know it,” I told her, “but you’re completely cured now, aren’t you?”

Bertha opened her purse, took out the blue-tinted check, and regarded it fondly.

“I’ll tell the world,” she said, “Bertha’s all cured.”