"Dexter, Colin - Inspector Morse 11 - Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dexter Colin)

So forget it!" Which all makes good logical sense, as I know.

But they still worry me a little all those warm-hearted, clean-living folk, because well, simply because they're so gullible. And if you don't relish reading about such pleasant folk who plop like juicy pears into the pockets of sharp fingered charlatans well, you're not going to like this story.

You're not going to like it one little bit.

Most of them were in their sixties or early seventies (no children on the Luxi-Coach Package Tours), and as they filed past the old driving cushion they slipped me a few bucks each and thanked me for a real nice way to start a vaycaytion.

After that it took a couple of hours to hump all that baggage around the rooms, and it was half-past eight before I got down to some of Lucy's chicken curry. Lucy? She's a honey of a girl the sort of big-breasted blonde that most of my fellow sinners would willingly seek to seduce and, to be honest with you .. . But let me return to the theme.

The cocktail bar is a flashily furnished, poly chrome affair, with deep, full-patterned carpet, orange imitation-leather seats and soft wall-lighting in a low, pink glow; and by about half-past nine the place was beginning to fill up nicely. Quite a few of them I recognized from the coach: but there were others. Oh yes, there were a few others ...

He wasn't a big fellow five-six, five-seven and he wore a loud check suit just like they used to do on the movies.

When I walked in he was standing by the bar, a deck of cards shuttling magically from hand to hand.

"Fancy a game, folks?

Lukey's the name." He was pleasant enough, I suppose, in an ugly sort of way; and with his white teeth glinting in a broad mouthed smile, you could almost stop disliking him.

Sometimes.

It was just before ten when he got his first bite a stocky, middle-aged fellow who looked as if he could take pretty good care of himself, thank you. So. So, I watched them idly as they sat opposite each other at one of the smooth-topped central tables, and it wasn't long before a few others began watching, too. It was a bit of interest a bit of an incident.

And it wasn't their money at stake.

Now Lukey loved one game above all others, and I'll have to bare its bones a bit if you're going to follow the story. (Be patient, please: we're running along quite nicely now.) First, it's a dollar stake in the kitty, all right? Then two cards are dealt to each of the players, the court cards counting ten, the ace eleven, and all the other cards living up to their marked face-value. Thus it follows, as day follows night and as luck follows Luke, that the gods are grinning at you if you pick up a ten and an ace for that is vingt-et-un, my friends, whether you reckon by Fahrenheit or Centigrade, and twenty-one's the best they come. And so long as you remember not to break that twenty-one mile speed-limit, you can buy as many more cards as you like and .. . but I don't think you're going to have much trouble in following things.

It was the speed with which hand followed hand that surprised all the on-lookers, since our challenger ("Call me Bart') was clearly no stranger to the Lukesberry rules and five or six hands were through every minute. Slap! A dollar bill in the kitty. Slap! A dollar bill on top. Flick, flick; flick, flick; buy; stick; bust. Dollar, dollar; flick, flick; quicker, ever quicker. Soon I'm standing behind Barty and I can see his cards. He picks up a ten, and a four; and without mulling it over for a micro-second he says, "Stick." Then Lukey turns over a seven, and an eight and then he flicks over another card for himself: a Jack. Over the top! And Barty pockets yet another kitty; and it's back to that dollar-dollar, flick-flicking again. And when Bart wins again, Luke asks him nicely if he'd like to deal. But Bart declines the kind offer.

"No," he says.

"I'm on a nice li'l winnin' streak here, pal, so just you keep on dealing them pretty li'l beauties same as before that's all I ask."

So Lukey goes on doing just that; and by all that's supersonic what a sharp our Lukey is! I reckon you'd need more than a slow-motion replay to appreciate that prestissimo prestidigitation of his. You could watch those fingers with the eagle eye of old Cortes and yet whether he was flicking the cards from the top or the middle or the bottom, I swear no one could ever tell. In spite of all this, though, Barty-boy is still advancing his winnings. Now he picks up a seven, and a four; and he decides to buy another card for ten dollars. So Lukey covers the ten dollars from his own fat roll, deals Barty a nine and things are looking mighty good.

Then Luke turns over his own pair (why he bothers, I can't really say, for he knows them all along): a six, and a nine, they are and things look pretty bad. He turns over another card from the deck an eight.

And once more he's out of his dug-out and over the top.

"My luck'll change soon," says Luke.

"Not with me, it won't," says Bart, picking up the twenty two dollars from the kitty.

"You quitting, you mean?"

"I'm quitting," says Bart.

"You've played before, I reckon."