The Odds - Jeff Strand Page 0,62

olive.”

“What about Lisa?” asked The Claw Man. “You don’t see her with a pink or a mauve key.”

“That’s because pink and mauve are considered individual colors,” said Christine. Ethan liked her more than he liked Rick. “The keys that were placed in the maze don’t follow the parameters of what we discussed in the meeting. This isn’t our fault.”

“Damn,” said The Claw Man. “Kenny’s got himself a top-notch attorney here. That said, your argument would not hold up in a court of law. When we discussed ways to make the maze more difficult, we came up with the idea of a wall of a thousand different keys that they had to search through. Somebody, I forget exactly who it was, proposed the idea that some of the keys would be close to the color that the players were supposed to find, as a way to trick them. Apparently it worked. Twice. The thing is, for a key to be almost the right color but not quite, there has to be some room for debate. If the key is far enough from green that everybody agrees that it’s not a legitimately green key, then it wouldn’t fool a player into taking it, and the whole idea would be pointless. Baked right there into the concept is the idea that there’d be a protest. So I reject your objections.”

“Then what happens next?” asked Rick.

“They get their asses back into the maze to get the right key.”

“No,” said Christine. “Kenny was badly hurt. Look at how swollen his eye is. He wouldn’t have put himself in the position to get injured that badly if he’d known the key was wrong. You announced through the megaphone that he’d found the key.”

“I said that he found a key,” said The Claw Man. “I didn’t say he found the right key. My words were chosen very carefully.”

“They were misleading.”

“I think they should have to continue the race,” said Rick.

“Well, of course you do,” said The Claw Man, grinning. To Christine, he said, “We had a little incident with Rick here that forced us to change the stakes a bit. If Ethan goes into the oil, Rick goes in right after him. So, yeah, he really wants Ethan to win.”

“Oh,” said Christine.

“Let’s send them back into the maze,” said Rick. “It’s the only fair way to do this.”

“You can say that because your player isn’t as badly injured,” said Christine.

“What are you talking about? He’s all slashed up.”

“So is Kenny. And Kenny has an eye injury. He has no chance of winning if they go back into the maze.”

“That’s not my problem,” said Rick.

“How about we call it a tie?” asked Christine. “Neither of them die, but neither of them get a point.”

Rick nodded. “I’m fine with that.”

“What about Lisa?” The Claw Man asked. “She ran through the maze thinking it was a matter of life or death. How is it fair to her if it turns out there was no real danger?”

“I’m totally okay with it being a tie between them,” said Lisa.

The Claw Man looked around at everybody. “Is there anybody who objects to the idea of making it a tie between Ethan and Kenny?”

Nobody objected.

“Done!” he said. “It’s officially a tie for second place.”

Ethan almost collapsed with relief. He’d been too terrified to even breathe. Kenny looked more angry than relieved.

“Which means,” The Claw Man continued, “that we have to do the tiebreaker.”

“Wait, what?” Rick asked.

“Don’t plead ignorance. We had a tiebreaker. We’re going to flip a coin and see who comes in second place and who comes in third.” He took a silver dollar out of his pocket.

Christine sighed. “I’m okay with the tiebreaker.”

“I’m not!” said Rick. “This isn’t what we agreed on!”

“Your objection has been noted,” said The Claw Man. “Now I’d advise you to quit bellyaching and start trying to visualize winning the coin toss. Heads, Ethan wins. Tails, Kenny wins.”

Ethan had no idea what to do. Should he continue to protest? Should he claim that he didn’t trust the coin toss to be impartial, and that they needed to replace it with another method, like they had with the wheel in Rick’s Vegas office? Should he just shut the hell up and hope that the 50/50 odds worked out in his favor?

He didn’t think he could protest his way out of this.

The Claw Man flipped the coin into the air. He caught it, then slapped it down on his wrist.

“Before I reveal, I just want to say what an honor