The Game-Players of Titan - By Philip K. Dick Page 0,5
Carmel each night. And Carmel was almost as nice a town as Berkeley.
“Sid,” he called. “Come into my office.” Luckman sat back in his chair, puffed on his after-breakfast delicado Mexican cigarette.
His secretary, non-Bindman Sid Mosk, opened the office door and put his head in. “Yes, Mr. Luckman.”
“Bring me that pre-cog,” Luckman said. “I’ve finally got a use for him.” A use, he thought, which justifies the risk of disbarment from The Game. “What’s his name? Dave Mutreaux or something.” Luckman had a hazy memory of interviewing the pre-cog, but a man of his position saw so many people every day. And after all, New York City was well-populated; almost fifteen thousand souls. And many were children, hence new. “Make sure he comes up a back way,” Luckman said. “I don’t want anybody to see him.” He had his reputation to maintain. And this was a touchy situation.
It was illegal, of course, to bring a person with Psionic talents to The Game, because Psi, in terms of Game-playing, represented a form of cheating pure and simple. For years, EEGs, electroencephalograms, had been given customarily by many groups, but this practice had died out. At least, Luckman hoped so. Certainly, it was done no longer in the East, because all the Psi-people were known, and the East set the style for the whole country, did it not?
One of Luckman’s cats, a gray and white short-haired tom, hopped onto his desk; he absently scratched the cat’s chin, thinking to himself, If I can’t work that pre-cog into the Pretty Blue Fox group, I think I’ll go myself. True, he hadn’t played The Game in a year or more … but he had been the best player around. How else could he have become the Bindman for Greater New York City? And there had been strong competition in those days. Competition which Luckman had rendered non-B single-handedly.
There’s no one that can beat me at Bluff, Luckman said to himself. And everybody knows that. Still, with a pre-cog … it was a sure thing. And he liked the idea of a sure thing because although he was an expert Bluff player he did not like to gamble. He had not played because he enjoyed it; he had played to win.
He had, for instance, run the great Game-player Joe Schilling right out of existence. Now Joe operated a little old phonograph record shop in New Mexico; his Game-playing days were over.
“Remember how I beat Joe Schilling?” he said to Sid. “That last play, it’s still in my mind, every detail. Joe rolled a five with the dice and drew a card from the fifth deck. He looked at it a long time, much too long. I knew then that he was going to bluff. Finally he moved his piece eight squares ahead; that put him on a top-win square; you know, that one about inheriting one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a dead uncle. That piece of his sat on that square and I looked at it—” He had, perhaps, a little Psionic talent of his own, because it had seemed to him that actually he could read Joe Schilling’s mind. You drew a six, he had felt with absolute conviction. Your move eight squares ahead is a bluff.
Aloud, he said that, called Schilling’s bluff. At that time, Joe had been New York City Bindman and could beat anyone at The Game; it was rare for any player to call one of Joe’s moves.
Raising his great shaggy, bearded head, Joe Schilling had eyed him. There was silence. All the players waited.
“You really want to see the card I drew?” Joe Schilling asked.
“Yes.” He waited, unable to breathe; his lungs ached. If he were wrong, if the card really were an eight, then Joe Schilling had won again and his grip on New York City was even more secure.
Joe Schilling said quietly, “It was a six.” He flipped over the card. Luckman had been right; it had been a bluff.
And the title deed to Greater New York City was his.
The cat on Luckman’s desk yawped, now, hoping for breakfast; Luckman pushed it away and it hopped to the floor. “Parasite,” Luckman said to it, but he felt fond of the cat; he believed devoutly that cats were lucky. He had had two toms with him in the condominium apartment that night when he had beaten Joe Schilling; perhaps they had done it, rather than a latent Psionic talent.