Mack Reynolds - Code Duello

“Ha ha, is right,” Helen muttered, meandering off in the direction of the bar, Gertrude slung under her left arm.

Jerry took a pull at the glass he held in his hand. His voice was slightly hazy. He said, “Great opportunity. I was telling His Zellensidor…”

The nervous little man standing next to the First Signore looked pained.

“…about having my capital stashed away on Geneva, an’ he pointed out he had a lotta interests here on Firenze such as my mother sent me over to take a look at. ’Ranium mines, and all. So the Tenth Signore, here, just by coincidence, like, turned up. An’ he can handle the whole thing. So we’re gonna have a friendly game, an’ maybe Tony…”

The Tenth Signore looked pained again.

“… maybe Tony’ll get some of my negotiable capital, or maybe I’ll get some of his securities.”

Horsten said quickly, “But, Jerry, have you considered all this? Your mother and all. Axe you sure it’s fair? That is…”

Jerry waved the hand in which he held the glass, spilling only a few drops. “Oh, I warned ’em. Didn’t I, Tony? Told him I was lucky.”

The First Signore beamed over his shoulder at Horsten. He was supervising the final setting-up of the roulette layout. “I, too, am inordinately fortunate,” he told the scientist.

Horsten looked at the small confederate of the First Signore. He said, “If I understand it, you carry the Treasury portfolio in His Zelenza’s government.”

The other bobbed. “That is correct, Signore.”

“So I suppose that if your chief is the fortunate one, you can deposit his winnings to a numbered account on Geneva.”

Cesare Marconi said mockingly, “Why, Antonio, aren’t you ashamed?”

His cousin straightened and turned in anger. “Who let you in, Cesare? I warn you…”

Horsten said, giving up trying to convey unspoken messages to his young colleague, “I brought him along, Your Zelenza. Aside from you and your staff, Citizen Marconi is about the only Florentine we have met since setting down on the planet I was in hopes he could tell me something of the workings of this rather, if you’ll pardon me, unexampled world.”

The Florentine leader said coldly, “I am afraid his ramblings will avail you little in that regard, Doctor.” The roulette table was now operative. He snapped his fingers at the half dozen aides and guards present and they scrambled.

“Well, well.” The First Signore rubbed his palms together briskly. “Who shall take the bank?” jerry Rhodes finished his drink, but his expression was blank. “Remember, I’ve never played.”

Horsten said, “The percentage is with the bank, Jerry.” He was ignored.

The First Signore took the younger man’s glass from his hand and turned to the bar. He began to refresh the drink. Inadvertently, his eyes went to the bottle from which he himself, had been drinking. He frowned slightly in puzzlement, put Jerry’s glass down and took up the bottle of Golden Chartreuse. He held it to the light, checking its level. He shook his head in bewildered disbelief, but then gave up his trend of thought and went back to mixing another portion for his guest, from a different bottle.

“Doctor,” he said. “A beverage for you, as well?” And, grudgingly, “Cesare, since you are here, if I will it or not…”

“I’ll make my own,” the Great Marconi said, and then, twisting the knife in the wound, “I have a predilection for that Betelgeuse drink of yours. I mix it with ginger beer and sugar.”

The First Signore repressed a groan of pure soul agony but returned with the tall glass to Jerry.

He stood in the croupier’s place at the head of the table and explained the game. “We have, here, this wheel and little ball. I spin the wheel and toss the ball in. There are thirty-eight slots, in all, into which it may fall; thirty-six of them numbers, one a zero, and one a double zero. Now then, on the table we have places to bet. One for each slot. If you bet on number eighteen, let us say, and the little ball drops into that slot”—he oozed charm—“then you win thirty-six times your bet.”

“Wow,” Jerry said. “Now, that’s something. None of this one-to-one wager. Thirty-six times what you bet How can you lose? Fascinatin’.”

Antonio d’Arrezzo cleared his throat unctuously. “You can lose if the little ball drops into some other slot. Now, there are several other ways in which you can wager. For instance, you will note that half the numbers are red, and half black.”

Marconi and Horsten, both sighing, though through different motivation, drifted over to the bar. The Great Marconi took over the job of making them drinks, pouring them from the bottle of Golden Chartreuse. Its bouquet suffused the immediate vicinity.

“Do you really mix gingerbeer with this stuff?” Horsten said.

“No. I’m just trying to give Antonio ulcers thinking about it. See here, can that friend of yours afford to lose?”

“He could sign a draft on any bank on Geneva to the extent of a billion interplanetary credits, and it wouldn’t faze him.”

The Great Marconi whistled softly. “Why didn’t I see him first?”

Horsten said, “But he’s not going to lose. Can your cousin afford a financial jolting?”

“Theoretically, as First Signore, he has in his name the possession of all nationalized industry on Firenze. Theoretically he could sign over their ownership.”

“What do you mean, theoretically?”

“Under interplanetary law, his signature would stand up in the Department of Interplanetary Trade on Mother Earth.”

“But…” Horsten prompted.

Cesare Marconi looked at him. “Isn’t it obvious? If he signed away, in his position as chief of state, the public property, his neck would be in a noose before the day was out.”

“Then why take the chance?”

The Great Marconi pulled at his glass glumly. “He’s not going to lose.”

The two, carrying their drinks, made their way back to the roulette table. The First Signore had just finished explaining the workings of the ages-old game. Jerry Rhodes stood at the table side, a stack of chips before him. Evidently, through the Tenth Signore, the two contestants had made some sort of financial arrangement so that they could wager.

Jerry took a sip from his glass, set it down and took up a chip. “Well start off slow,” he said, his voice slurring only slightly. “Hundred thousand interplanetary credits on the very number you mentioned—eighteen.”

“A… hundred… thousand… interplanetary… credits,” Cesare Marconi said.

Dorn Horsten had given up.

Antonio d’Arrezzo spun the wheel. He tossed the plastic ball so that it rolled, counter to the direction of the spin, about the edge of the bowl in which the wheel sat. All eyes were fascinated.

The ball lost momentum, slipped from the rim, hit into the numbered slots, bounced out, bounced in again, seemed to have found its place in slot number thirty, but then gave one last feeble bounce.

“Eighteen!” Jerry blurted happily.

The First Signore stared disbelief.

“Thirty-six to one,” Jerry said, grinning around at the small circle of them. “Tha’s what I call odds.” He looked to the Firenze strong-arm, pinch-hitting as croupier. “Let her roll.”

It was the jittery Tenth Signore who said, “Let her roll?”

Jerry Rhodes looked at the Florentine chief of state accusingly. “You said no limit, didn’t you?”

“Eh?” Antonio d’Arrezzo was still staring at the plastic ball, nestled in slot eighteen. “Oh. No limit.

Why… yes, of course.” He had been in the process of shoving two stacks of chips, eighteen to the stack, in Jerry’s direction, with his croupier stick.

Jerry pushed them all over onto number eighteen.