Then the Wheel rebounded, its force spent, and came to rest.
For a moment there was no sound from the crowd. No sound at all.
Then one of the teenagers, soft and awed: ‘Hey, man, you just won five hundred and forty dollars.’
Steve Bernhardt: ‘I never seen a run like that. Never.’ Then the crowd cheered. Johnny was slapped on the back, pummeled. People brushed by Sarah to get at him, to touch him, and for the moment they were separated she felt miserable, raw panic. Strengthless, she was butted this way and that, her stomach rolling crazily. A dozen afterimages of the Wheel whirled blackly before her eyes.
A moment later Johnny was with her and she saw with weak gladness that it really was Johnny and not the composed, mannequinlike figure that had watched the Wheel on its last spin. He looked confused and concerned about her.
‘Baby, I’m sorry,’ he said, and she loved him for that.
‘I’m okay,’ she answered, not knowing if she was or not. The pitchman cleared his throat.
‘The Wheel’s shut down,’ he said. ‘The Wheel’s shut down.’
An accepting, ill-tempered rumble from the crowd.
The pitchman looked at Johnny. ‘I’ll have to give you a check, young gentleman. I don’t keep that much cash in the booth.’
‘Sure, anything,’ Johnny said. ‘Just make it quick. The lady here really is sick.’
‘Sure, a check,’ Steve Bernhardt said with infinite contempt. ‘He’ll give you a check that’ll bounce as high as the WGAN Tall Tower and he’ll be down in Florida for the winter.’
‘My dear sir,’ the pitchman began, ‘I assure you…
‘Oh, go assure your mother, maybe she’ll believe you, Bernhardt said. He suddenly reached over the playing board and groped beneath the counter.
‘Hey!’ The pitchman yelped. ‘This is robbery!’
The crowd did not appear impressed with his claim.
‘Please,’ Sarah muttered. Her head was whirling.
‘I don’t care about the money,’ Johnny said suddenly. ‘Let us by, please. The lady’s sick.’
‘Oh, man,’ the teenager with the Jimi Hendrix button said, but he and his buddy drew reluctantly aside.
‘No, Johnny,’ Sarah said, although she was only holding back from vomiting by an act of will now. ‘Get your money.’ Five hundred dollars was Johnny’s salary for three weeks.
‘Pay off, you cheap tinhorn!’ Bernhardt roared. He brought up the Roi-Tan cigar box from under the counter, pushed it aside without even looking inside it, groped again, and this
time came up with a steel lockbox painted industrial green. He slammed it down on the play-board. ‘If there ain’t five hundred and forty bucks in there, I’ll eat my own shirt in front of all these people.’ He dropped a hard, heavy hand on Johnny’s shoulder. ‘You just wait a minute, sonny. You’re gonna have your payday or my name’s not Steve Bernhardt.’
‘Really, sir, I don’t have that much…’
‘You pay,’ Steve Bernhardt said, leaning over him, ‘or I’ll see you shut down. I mean that.
I’m sincere about it.’
The pitchman sighed and fished inside his shirt. He produced a key on a fine-link chain.
The crowd sighed. Sarah could stay no longer. Her stomach felt bloated and suddenly as still as death. Everything was going to come up, everything, and at express-train speed.
She stumbled away from Johnny’s side and battered through the crowd.
‘Honey, you all right?’ a woman’s voice asked her, and Sarah shook her head blindly.
‘Sarah!’ Johnny called.
You just can’t hide … from Jekyll and Hyde, she thought incoherently. The fluorescent mask seemed to hang sickly before her eyes in the midway dark as she hurried past the merry-go-round. She struck a light pole with her shoulder, staggered, grabbed it, and threw up. It seemed to come all the way from her heels, convulsing her stomach like a sick, slick fist. She let herself go with it as much as she could.
Smells like cotton candy, she thought, and with a groan she did it again, then again. Spots danced in front of her eyes. The last heave had brought up little more than mucus and air.
‘Oh, my,’ she said weakly, and clung to the light pole to keep from falling over.