“I’ll do it-you probably knew I would from the time you came in here. There are some terms of my own, though. I want to know who you are, and who they are you keep talking about. And where did the money come from-is it stolen?”
Kerk drained his own glass and pushed it away from him.
“Stolen money? No, quite the opposite. Two years’ work mining and refining ore to get it. It was mined on Pyrrus and sold here on Cassylia. You can check on that very easily. I sold it. I’m the Pyrric ambassador to this planet.” He smiled at the thought. “Not that that means much, I’m ambassador to at least six other planets as well. Comes in handy when you want to do business.”
Jason looked at the muscular man with his grey hair and worn, military-cut clothes, and decided not to laugh. You heard of strange things out in the frontier planets and every word could be true. He had never heard of Pyrrus either, though that didn’t mean anything. There were over thirty thousand known planets in the inhabited universe.
“I’ll check on what you have told me,” Jason said. “If it’s true we can do business. Call me tomorrow…
“No,” Kerk said. “The money has to be won tonight. I’ve already issued a check for this twenty-seven million; it will bounce as high as the Pleiades unless we deposit the money in the morning, so that’s our time limit.”
With each moment, the whole affair became more fantastic-and more intriguing for Jason. He looked at his watch. There was still enough time to find out if Kerk was lying or not.
“All right, we’ll do it tonight,” he said. “Only I’ll have to have one of those bills to verify.”
Kerk stood up to go. “Take them all, I won’t be seeing you again until after you’ve won. I’ll be at the Casino, of course, but don’t recognize me. It would be much better if they didn’t know where your money was coming from or how much you had.”
Then he was gone, after a bonecrushing handclasp that closed on Jason’s hand like vise jaws. Jason was alone with the money. Fanning the bills out like a hand of cards, he stared at their sepia-and-gold faces, trying to get the reality through his head. Twenty-seven million credits. What was to stop him from just walking out the door with them and vanishing. Nothing really, except his own sense of honor.
Kerk Pyrrus, the man with the same last name as the planet he came from, was the universe’s biggest fool. Or he knew just what he was doing. From the way the interview had gone, the latter seemed the best bet.
“He knows I would much rather gamble with the money than steal it,” he said wryly.
Slipping a small gun into his waistband holster and pocketing the money, he went out.
2
The robot teller at the bank just pinged with electronic shock when he presented one of the bills and flashed a panel that directed him to see Vice President Wain. Wain was a smooth customer who bugged his eyes and lost some of his tan when he saw the sheaf of bills.
“You-wish to deposit these with us?” he asked while his fingers unconsciously stroked them.
“Not today,” Jason said. “They were paid to me as a debt. Would you please check that they are authentic and change them. I’d like five hundred thousand credit notes.”
Both of his inner chest pockets were packed tight when he left the bank. The bills were good and he felt like a walking mint. This was the first time in his entire life that carrying a large sum of money made him uncomfortable. Waving to a passing helicab, he went directly to the Casino where he knew he would be safe. For awhile.
Cassylia Casino was the playspot of the nearby cluster of star systems. It was the first rime Jason had seen it, though he knew its type well. He had spent most of his adult life in casinos like this on other worlds. The decor differed but they were always the same. Gambling and socialities in public-and behind the scenes all the private vice you could afford. Theoretically no-limit games, but that was true only up to a certain point. When the house was really hurt, the honest games stopped being square and the big winner had to watch his step very carefully. These were the odds Jason clinAlt had played against countless times before. He was wary but not very concerned.