Chance Elson

by Ballard, Todhunter, 1903-1980

  prisoner, having finally realized that she was gaining nothing and hurting no one but herself.

  It was this behavior that had earned her a chance to join two dozen others in an annual trip to the square to view the huge Christmas tree, and she had managed to slip away, hiding in a tenement-building basement for hours before venturing upstairs.

  She knew that she had to find clothing to replace her prison costume, and she found it in a dirty flat whose owner had gone visiting, carelessly leaving her door unlatched.

  Judy did not regret the clothes Joe had burned. She had hated them, for instinctively she liked nice things, but at the moment she would have taken any kind of garments that would allow her to venture onto the street.

  She froze suddenly, tempted to pull the covers over her head as there was a knock at the door. Then it opened and Joe stuck his head in. "Awake, kid? Want some chow?"

  She stared at him, thinking that he was probably the ughest person she had ever seen. His nose had been broken so often that the shape of the bone structure was gone, and it canted a Httle to the left. Layers of scar tissue hung like hoods over his eyes and one ear was so thickened it seemed to be turned inside out.

  He smiled and she saw three gold teeth in the center of the upper jaw. She had been so beat the night before that she had barely looked at him. But instead of frightening her, Joe's appearance was almost reassmring. She had been lying there imagining all kinds of things. Reahty in any form could be no worse. And Joe's voice and eyes and smile were gentle.

  "Hungry?" He repeated the question.

  Suddenly she was. She felt hollow inside. The food at the school was consistently bad. She had never managed to eat very much of it.

  She said, "Yeah," and sat up.

  "Put Doc's robe on, and come out to the kitchen. But don't make no noise. They're stiU sleeping." He was gone and she sat there wondering who "they" were. She had only seen Chance. She knew nothing about him, just that he was

  young. Did he have a wife? If there were a woman at the apartment it would change things, but somehow she dreaded the thought of a woman.

  A man she might appeal to, to his sympathy and understanding. From the few women she had known, she had gotten little sympathy and no understanding. Actually she had hated Pryor's wife more than she had hated the superintendent.

  She got up and put the robe on slowly. It was of blue silk with a yellow dragon worked in embroidery on the back. She touched her cheek to the sleeve, then rolled it up so that her small hand was exposed, and belted the robe tight around her middle.

  She stepped out into the hall and along it to the kitchen, her bare feet making no sound. The kitchen was warm and steamy, a smell of spice mingHng with the fragrance of roasting turkey. Joe had laid himself out on the dinner. It was going to be the best meal they had ever had.

  He grinned as he motioned her to the kitchen table and then set a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs before her. 'Tfou look right diflFerent this morning.''

  She started to eat slowly, then with increasing rapidity. Joe said, "Take it easy. You got all day, and then maybe at five well have the bird."

  He walked over and opened the oven. He pulled out the twenty-five-pound turkey and basted it lovingly. "Some bird, huhr

  Judy didn't answer.

  He came back to the table. ''Your folks ain't going to be worried about you, are they?"

  She hesitated, weighing her answer. "Ain't got no folks.**

  "Rxui away, huh?"

  She ate a bite of toast in silence.

  "From an orphanage?"

  "What if I did?"

  "Hell," he said, "get the chip oflF your shoulder. Chance run away himself."

  "Who's Chance?"

  "You saw him. He brought you here last night."

  "Is he married?"

  Joe stared at her in surprise. "Who, Chance? Hell no. None of us is married. Chance, he don't look at most women. Doc couldn't marry them all, Dutch's got time for the bottle only, and me, who in hell would marry me?"

  "I think you're swell."

  "You do?" Joe was pleased as a child. "You'll like Chance, too. He's the greatest."

  Judy shivered a httle. "What's he going to do with me?"

  Joe shook his head and his smile was gone. "Don't know. It's up to Chance. Doc and Dutch are worried. It's a bad rap, having a girl minor around."

  "Yeah, I know." An idea was beginning to form in Judy's mind.

  "But it's up to Chance, he's the boss." He went back to the stove to attend to the cranberries and then turned to making his piecrust.

  Judy sat and watched him, warm and relaxed, more comfortable than she ever remembered being. There was a dish-pan on the far end of the table. She half stood up to look into it and was surprised to see three goldfish swimming around its enameled edge.

  "What are those for?"

  Joe looked around. "Oh, those are yours. Dutch got them for you for Christmas. When he found you were here, he had to buy something and the stores was closed so he bought them from an all-night beanery."

  She stared at the fish, wondering why someone named Dutch whom she had never seen should buy her a present of any kind.

  There was noise behind her and she tinned. Chance was standing in the hall doorway, holding the morning paper.

  He came in. He nodded to her and sat down, not bothering to speak to Joe. He dropped his eyes to the paper. He was wondering how he was going to teU her that she had to get out. He was wondering a lot about her. He'd never seen such big eyes, or such long lashes. Goddamn, if she hadn't been so thin she'd have been pretty. It was the thinness that bothered him. It raised a softness in him which he instinc-

  tively mistrusted, and his voice when he spoke was grimmer than he meant it to be.

  "Sleep good, kid?"

  She watched him, a fear which she did not quite imder-stand tugging at her. He was the boss. Joe had said so, and he looked it and acted it, and there was no softness in him.

  She wanted to cry. Sitting there in that warm kitchen had been like sitting in heaven. She wanted to stay. She never wanted to leave. She felt safe here with Joe for the first time since she could remember and her heart was like a swelling balloon, crowding up into her throat, threatening to choke her.

  "Look," he said, "I didn't ask you questions last night because you were pooped. I should have. I shouldn't have brought you here. I should have turned you over to the cops."

  She closed her eyes. The hope which she had nourished for the moment was fading.

  "What about your folks? They're probably worried. They probably turned in a missing persons on you."

  "She ain't got no folks." It was Joe, tinning from the dough which he was rolling, the floury pin in his hand. "She's like you, she run away from an orphanage."

  "That right?"

  She wanted to lie, but she did not dare. He would find out. Those cold blue eyes, they seemed to look through her, reading every thought. "No."

  "What is the truth then?"

  "Well, it was a reform school. I ran away. They took us to see the Christmas tree and—"

  "Why'd they send you to reform school?"

  He was worse than a judge, only he didn't have the whole court standing behind him like a judge did, cops and all. For a moment she sat quiet, then she got up, slipped out of Doc's robe, turned and pulled the pajama coat up over her head, exposing her back with its pattern of old welts.

  "Jeese." It was Joe. "Who the hell did that?"

  She let the coat fall back into place. She did not bother to put on the robe, which had sHpped to the floor. She

  turned around to face Chance and her white face was old and hard.

  "The superintendent at the home made me undress for him. His wife caught uSi She beat me and then shipped me away."

  "Son of a bitch." It was Joe.

  Chance had not changed expression.

  "So what do you want to do now? You know you haven't got a chance to get away. The cops will pick you up sooner or
later. You'll be better off to go back yoinrself. It will look better on your record."

  "I want to stay here." It came out of her like a cry. "Let me stay. I'm strong. I can help Joe. I don't eat much. I can sleep anywhere."

  Joe muttered something from the stove. Doc said from the hall doorway, "Don't be stupid, kid." He did not sound imfriendly. "We wouldn't dare keep you here if we wanted to."

  Judy half turned to look at him. **Why not?" She was begging. "I won't be any trouble."

  Doc came over and sat down beside Chance at the table. "Listen, you don't realize what you're asking. We're gamblers. Do you know what that means? It means that we have to be twice as careful as the average guy. We simply can't afford to get into trouble. If we do the cards are stacked against us. So you stay here. So some nosy neighbor woman sees you around, and starts thinking things, and sends the juvenile authorities. You go back to the school and we take a fall for maybe one to twenty years."

  She was desperate. She knew that she had lost. She did not want to go back to the school. She would kiU herself first. She thought of threatening to and guessed that these men would not beheve her. And then she thought of what Joe had said and the half-formed plan that had come to her mind.

  "All right," she said, and her young voice was suddenly bitter. "You're making me do it. I'm going to stay here whether you like it or not. If you kick me out I'll go to the

  cops. I'll swear you picked me up. I'll say you were all drunk and that you tried to rape me."

  Doc stared at her. Joe's mouth was open with surprise. It was Chance who laughed, a fuU, heartfelt sound. "You're good, kid."

  She turned to him in amazement, all her resolution flowing away. "What?"

  "I said you were good. I like people to fight, and to use the cards they have, even if it's nothing but a busted flush. Joe?"

  Joe closed his mouth slowly. "Yeah?"

  "Where was that farm you used to train at, the one you're always talking about?"

  "Out beyond Painesville."

  "Suppose they would take her for a boarder?"

  "Don't know. I could write them a card."

  "Do that, and if any of the old biddies in the neighborhood start asking questions about the kid, say she's your niece, visiting you for a spell."

  "She don't look much like me."

  Chance laughed again. "No one could and be alive." He finished his coffee and went down the hall to the front room. The girl looked after him uncertainly.

  "He didn't eat much."

  "Never takes nothing but coffee in the morning."

  "He mean what he said, that I can stay?"

  Doc nodded. "Chance always means what he says. Youre in as long as you behave yourself. You'll like it at the farm.**

  Judy made a private resolution that she would put oflF going to the farm as long as possible; she Hked it where she was. She sat quiet after Doc finished and moved in to see Chance.

  In the front room Doc poured himself a drink and sat down, glowering at the Ughted tree. He always felt terrible the next day after he'd been drinking. Dutch came in. Dutch looked okay except for his bloodshot eyes. It made Doc a httle mad to watch Dutch. If anyone ever earned a hangover Dutch did.

  "Merry Christmas.**

  Doc grunted. Chance did not even look up from his paper.

  "Where's our boarder?**

  "In the kitchen. She just pulled a fast one. Threatened to turn us all in for attempted rape unless we let her stay/'

  "For Christ sake. What kind of a Httle bitch is she?"

  Chance looked up. "She's scared," he said. "But she's got guts. I like her. Most kids would have moaned and groaned and cried their eyes out. She fought, even if she didn't have much to fight with. And she's had it rough. You should see her back where some damned bag whipped her."

  Dutch whistled softly to himself. "I never saw you get so worked up over anything."

  Chance shrugged. "You bought the goldfish. All I did was let her stay a few days vmtil we can ship her to the training farm. How's your ass?"

  Dutch said, "Cut to hell and back. I'm going down after a while and see if a doctor can find any more splinters. I should slug Joe."

  "He'll knock you clear through a window next time. Lay off Joe. We don't want trouble on Christmas."

  Doc was staring at his drink. "I'm afraid we've aLready got trouble." He sounded embarrassed.

  "What now?" Chance folded the paper.

  "Cellini. After you left the Club last night, he cornered me in the office. He wants the same cut of the whole club that we're getting from his book."

  Chance snorted. "I want the moon, too, but my arms aren't long enough."

  Doc was still unhappy. "It's not that simple. He's got a lot of local connections, more, than I realized when he first came in. He can make plenty of trouble if he takes it into his head."

  Chance's eyes were icy. Doc had seen that look before and he knew what it meant. Usually Chance would listen to him, because he had education and experience, but when Chance got that look he knew better than to try to argue.

  "A deal's a deal," Chance said. "Cellini knew what his piece was when he came in. He's going to sit still for it."

  "I don't like having to tell him."

  "You don't need to. I'll do the telling. That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be. If he doesn't like it, he can move out and he doesn't get his ten G's back either."

  Chance repeated the same words to Cellini late the following afternoon. He came into the Club to find every seat before the long string of wall blackboards filled.

  The golfers who had made the building their headquarters would not have recognized it. Chance had spent thirty thousand dollars remodeling. The lounge and card rooms had been thrown together with the small restaurant to make a supper room that would seat six hundred people.

  On the face of it, the whole operation was a very elegant supper club, and people could dine and watch the floor show without being conscious that there was gambling be-lowstairs.

  Iron fire doors blocked the passage at the bottom of the steps. The doors were not to keep out the law but, as Doc expressed it, to give the customers a sense of danger, the thrill of being admitted to a place where others were barred.

  The former locker rooms had been joined to furnish the gambhng salon. The once bare brick walls were plastered and the floor was masked with heavy carpeting.

  Actually the room was divided into two sections. At the far end the wall was covered with blackboards resembling the boards found in the customers' room at a brokerage office. The resemblance was heightened by rows of comfortable armchairs which faced these boards. But the figures and names being written in the lined columns were not the prices of stocks. They were odds on horses running at the winter tracks in the south, in Mexico, California and Cuba.

  There was a squawk box high in the left wall, quoting odds changes, weather conditions, the running of each race as the news came in over the telegraph wires.

  It was a thoroughly complete bookmaking setup, and Chance had to admit that Cellini had organized it well.

  Behind the chairs ran the gambling casino proper. Here three crap tables, a roulette wheel and two blackjack tables were arranged around a hollow rectangle. This was the pit, the center of the room from where trained floormen watched

  every action of both dealers and customers. A high desk and stool occupied the exact center. Doc sat on this stool when the games were running, his dark, watchful eyes missing no action in the sin-ging crowd which circled the ring of tables.

  But this part of the room was empty as Chance came in, the bright overhead lights dinmied, the tables hidden by dust covers; the games did not open in the afternoon.

  The play on the races, however, seemed heavy. There were two cashiers at the counter to the left, and three girl nmners collected shps as the bettors made their selections. The squawk box on the wall buzzed as Chance paused behind the last row of seats. No one paid any attention to him. The bettors were much
too intent on what they were doing, the employees far too busy.

  Chance walked to the long bar at the east side of the room, went around it and through a door marked Private.

  This had once been the steam room of the golf club. Now it held a long table at which ten men sat, answering constantly ringing phones. Cellini's business was not Hmited to the wagers placed in the outer room. More than half of his play came from the cigar stands, the candy stores and the poolrooms of the city, where his agents took bets ranging from fifty cents to anything a customer chose to risk.

  Behind this steam room was Cellini's private office. Here he sat at a big flat-top desk where two hurrying clerks brought him sheets of constantly revised figures.

  To his left, at a smaller table, were two assistants. These were the layoff men, the men who would phone bets to be laid off in a dozen cities.

  Chance stopped just inside the door, admiring the efficiency of the operation. He knew that, contrary to what the general public believed, the big bookmakers never actually bet against their customers. They acted rather as a clearinghouse, balancing the bets they received on any one race so that their book would be dutched; no matter which horse won they would retain their percentage of the money handled.

  This was possible because they paid track odds, and because at any track, money is deducted from the wager pool

  to cover both the track percentage and the percentage which goes to the state.

  It was a highly comphcated operation and one which demanded skill and timing. If a book became so out of balance that by laying oflF to bookmakers in other cities it could still be hurt by one horse winning, then the surplus money was wired to a layoff man at the track who bet it through the machines.

  This had two advantages. If the horse won, then the bookmaker would collect on the amount bet at the track, which would help cover his losses. Also, a large amount thrown through the machines would cut the odds on the winning horse at the track and therefore reduce the amount the bookmaker had to pay his winning customers.