“I’m on my way to New Mexico,” Pete said, and got into his car. “Possibly I’ll see you later on.” He closed the car door. “Take off,” he instructed the auto-auto.
As the car rose the two children waved. Mrs. McClain did not. Why such animosity? Pete wondered. Or had he only imagined it? Perhaps she resented the existence of the two separate groups, Band non-B; perhaps she felt it was unfair that so few people had a chance at the Game-board.
I wouldn’t blame her, Pete realized. But she doesn’t understand that any moment any one of us can suddenly become non-B. We have only to recall Joe Schilling . . . once the greatest Bindman in the Western World and now non-B, probably for the rest of his life. The division is not as fixed as all that.
After all, he himself had been non-B once. He had obtained title to real estate the only way legally possible: he had posted his name and then waited for a Bindman somewhere to die. He had followed the rules set up by the vugs, had guessed a particular day, month and year. And sure enough, his guess had been lucky; on May 4, 2143, a Bind-
man named William Rust Lawrence had died, killed in an auto accident in Arizona. And Pete had become his heir, inherited his holdings and entered his Game-playing group.
The vugs, gamblers to the core, liked such chancy systems for inheritance. And they abhorred cause and effect systems.
He wondered what Mrs. McClain’s first name was. Certainly she was pretty, he thought. He had liked her despite her peculiar bitter attitude, like the way she looked, carried herself. He wished he knew more about the McClain family; perhaps they had once” been Bindmen and had been wiped out. That would explain it.
I could ask around, he thought. After all, if they have three children they’re certainly quite well known. Joe Schilling hears everything. I can ask him.
IV
“SURE,” Joseph Schilling said, leading the way through the dusty utter disorder of his record shop to the living quarters behind. “I know Patricia McClain. How’d you happen to run into her?” He turned questioningly.
Pete said, “The McClains are living in my bind.” He managed to thread a passage among the piles of records, packing cartons, letters, catalogues and posters from the past. “How do you ever find anything in this place?” he asked Joe Schilling.
“I have a system,” Schilling said vaguely. “I’ll tell you why Pat McClain’s so bitter. She used to be a B, but she was barred from The Game.” “Why?”
“Pat’s a telepath.” Joe Schilling cleared a place at the table in the kitchen and set out two handle-less teacups. “Ooh long tea?” he asked.
“Ah so,” Pete said, nodding.
“I’ve got your Don Pasquale record,” Schilling said as he poured tea from a black ceramic pot. “The Schipa aria. Da-
dum da-da da. A beautiful piece.” Humming, he produced lemon and sugar from the cupboard over the dish-filled sink. Then, in a low voice, he said, “Look, I’ve got a customer out front.” He winked at Pete and pointed, peering past the dusty, stained curtain which separated the living quarters from the store. Pete saw a tall, skinny youth was examining a tattered, ancient record catalogue. “A nut,” Schilling said softly. “Eats yogurt and practices Yoga. And lots of vitamin E—for potency. I get all kinds.”
The youth called in a stammering voice, “Say, do you h-have any Claudia Muzio records, Mr. Sc-schilling?”
“Just the Letter Scene from Traviata,” Schilling said, making no move to rise from the table.
Pete said, “I found Mrs. McClain physically attractive.”
“Oh yes. Very vivacious. But not for you. She’s what Jung described as an introverted feeling type; they run deep. They’re inclined toward idealism and melancholy. You need a shallow, bright blonde type of woman, someone to cheer you up. Someone to get you out of your suicidal depressions that you’re always either falling into or out of.” Schilling sipped his tea, a few drops spattering his reddish, thick beard. “Well? Say something. Or are you in a depression right now?”
“No,” Pete said.
In the front of the store the tall, skinny youth called, “M-mr. Schilling, can I listen to this Gigli record of Una Furtiva Lagrima?”
“Sure,” Schilling said. He hummed that, absently, scratching his cheek. “Pete,” he said, “you know, rumors get to me. I hear you’ve lost Berkeley.”
“Yes,” Pete admitted. “And Matt Pendleton Associates—”
“That would be Lucky Jerome Luckman,” Schilling said. “Oy vey, he’s a hard man in The Game; I ought to know. Now he’ll be sitting in with your group and pretty soon he’ll own all of California.”
“Can’t anybody play against Luckman and beat him?”
“Sure.” Joe Schilling nodded. “I can.”
Pete stared at him. “You’re serious? But he wiped you out; you’re a classic case!”
“Just bad luck,” Schilling said. “If I had had more title deeds to put up, if I had been able to stay in a little longer—” He smiled a bleak, crooked smile. “Bluff’s a fascinating game. Like poker, it combines chance and skill equally; you can win by either, or lose by either. I lost by the former, on a single bad run—actually, on a single lucky guess by Luckman.”
“Not skill on his part.”
“Hell no! Luckman is to luck as I am to skill; we ought to be called Luckman and Skillman. If I ever get a stake and can start again . . .” Joe Schilling abruptly belched. “Sorry.”
“I’ll stake you,” Pete said, suddenly, on impulse.
“You can’t afford to. I’m expensive, because I don’t start winning right away. It takes time for my skill-factor to overcome any chance runs . . . such as the celebrated one by which Luckman wiped me out.”
From the front of the store came the sounds of the superb tenor Gigli singing; Schilling paused a moment to listen. Across from the table his huge dingy parrot Eeore shifted about in its cage, annoyed by the sharp, pure voice. Schilling gave the parrot a reproving glance.
“Thy Tiny Hand Is Frozen,” Schilling said. “The first of the two recordings Gigli made of that, and by far the better. Ever heard the latter of the two? From the complete opera and so bad as to be unbelievable. Wait.” He silenced himself, listening. “A superb record,” he said to Pete. “You should have it in your collection.”
“I don’t care for Gigli,” Pete said. “He sobs.”
“A convention,” Schilling said irritably. “He was an Italian; it’s traditional.”
“Schipa didn’t.”
“Schipa was self-taught,” Schilling said.
The tall, skinny youth had approached, carrying the Gigli record. “I’d l-like to buy this, Mr. Schilling. H-how much?”
“One hundred and twenty-five dollars,” Schilling said.
“Wow,” the youth said, dismally. But nevertheless he got out his wallet.
“Very few of these survived the war with the vugs,”
Schilling explained, as he took the record and began wrapping it in heavy cardboard.
Two more customers entered the shop, then, a man and woman, both of them short, squat. Schilling greeted them. “Good morning, Les. Es.” To Pete he said, “This is Mr. and Mrs. Sibley; like yourself vocal addicts. From Portland, Oregon.” He indicated Pete. “Bindman Peter Garden.”
Pete rose and shook hands with Les Sibley.
“Hi, Mr. Garden,” Les Sibley said, in the deferential tone used by a non-B with a B. “Where do you bind, sir?”
“Berkeley,” Pete said, and then remembered. Formerly Berkeley, now Marin County, California.”
“How do you doo,” Es Sibley said, in an ultra-fawning manner which Pete found—and always had found—objectionable. She held out her hand and when he shook it he found it soft and damp. “I’ll bet you have a really fine collection; I mean, ours isn’t anything. Just a few Supervia records.
“Supervia!” Pete said, interested, “What do you have?”
Joe Schilling said, “You can’t eliminate me, Pete. It’s an unwritten agreement that my customers do not trade among themselves. If they do, I stop selling to them. Anyhow, you have all the Supervia records that Les and Es have, and a couple more besides.” He rang up the hundred and twenty-five dollars from the Gigli sale, and the tall, skinny youth departed.
“What do you consider the finest vocal recording ever made?” Es Sibley asked Pete.
“Aksel Schlitz singing Every Valley,” Pete said.
“Amen to that,” Les said, nodding in agreement.
After the Sibleys had left, Pete paid for his Schipa record, had Joe Schilling wrap it extra-carefully, and then he took a deep breath and plunged into the issue at hand. “Joe, can you win Berkeley back for me?” If Joe Schilling said yes it was good enough for him. I
After a pause, Joe Schilling said, “Possibly. If anybody can, I can. There is a ruling—little applied—that two persons of the same sex can play as Bluff-partners. We could
see if Luckman would accept that; we might have to put it to the vug Commissioner in your area for a ruling.”