A Soft Barren Aftershock

  I’m getting annoyed now. “COPPE, Gary. COPPE!”

  “I can hear you, Mike. ParkerGen, ParkerGen. Are you all right?”

  At this moment I’m not so sure. Suddenly I’m chilled, and there’s this crawly feeling on the nape of my neck. I say one thing—The only word you need to know—and Gary hears another.

  “Mike? You still there?”

  “Yeah. Still here.”

  My mind’s racing. What the hell’s going on?

  “What do you want me to do? Sell the Thai and buy ParkerGen? Is that it?”

  I make a snap decision. Something weird’s going down and I want to check it out. And what the hell, it’s all found money.

  “Yeah. Put it all into ParkerGen.”

  “Okay. It’s running three and an eighth today. I’ll grab you three thousand.”

  “Great.”

  I get off the phone and start to pace my apartment. I’m wired. I’ve got this crazy idea cooking in my brain . . .

  . . . the only word you need to know: COPPE.

  What if . . .?

  Nah. It’s too crazy. But if it’s true, there’s got to be a way to check it out.

  And then I have it. The ponies. They’re running at the Meadowlands today. I’ll invest a few hours in research. If I hurry I can make the first race.

  I know it’s completely nuts, but I’ve got to know . . .

  I just make it. I rush to the ten-dollar window and say, “COPPE in the first.”

  The teller doesn’t even glance up; he takes my ten, punches a few buttons, and out pops my ticket. I grab it and look at it: I’ve bet on some nag named Yesterday’s Gone.

  I don’t bother going to the grandstand. I stand under one of the monitors. I see the odds on Yesterday’s Gone are three to one. The trotters are lined up, ready to go.

  “And they’re off!”

  I watch with a couple of other guys in polo shirts and polyester pants who’re standing around. I’m not too terribly surprised when Yesterday’s Gone crosses the finish line first. I’ve now got thirty bucks where I had ten a few minutes ago, but I’ve also got that crawly feeling at the back of my neck again.

  This has gone from crazy to creepy.

  With the help of the Daily Double and the Trifecta, by the time I leave the track I’ve parlayed my original ten bucks into sixty-two hundred. I could have made more but I’m getting nervous. I don’t want to attract too much attention.

  As I’m driving away I can barely keep from flooring the gas pedal. I’m wired—positively giddy. It’s like some sort of drug. I feel like king of the world. I’ve got to keep going. But how? Where?

  I pass a billboard telling me about “5 TIMES MORE DICE ACTION!” at Caesar’s in Atlantic City.

  My question has been answered.

  I pick Caesar’s because of the billboard. I’ve never been much for omens but I’m into them now. Big time.

  I’m also trying to figure out what else I’m into with this weird word. The only word you need to know . . .

  All you need to know to win. That has to be it: The word makes you a winner. If I say it whenever I’m about to take a chance—on a horse or a stock, at least—I’m a guaranteed winner.

  This has got to be why Dennis Nickleby’s such a success. He knows the word. That’s why he was so anxious to get it back—he doesn’t want anybody else to know it. Wants to keep it all to himself.

  Bastard.

  And then I think, no, not a bastard. I’ve got to ask myself if I’m about to share the word with anybody else. The answer is a very definite en-oh. I get the feeling I’ve just joined a very exclusive club. Only thing is, the other members don’t know I’ve joined.

  I also get the feeling there’s no such thing as a game of chance for me anymore.

  The escalator deposits me on the casino floor. All the way down the Parkway I’ve been trying to decide what to try first—blackjack, poker, roulette, craps—what? But soon as I come within sight of the casino, I know. Flashing lights dead ahead:

  PROGRESSIVE SLOTS! $802,672!!!

  The prize total keeps rising as players keep plunking their coins into the gangs of one-armed bandits.

  I wind through the crowds and the smoke and the noise toward the progressive slots section. Along the way I stop at a change cart and hand the mini-togaed blonde a five.

  “Dollars,” I say, “even though I’m going to need just one to win.”

  “Right on,” she says, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

  She will. I take my Susan B. Anthonys and say, “You’ll see.”

  I reach the progressive section and hunt up a machine. It isn’t easy. Everybody here is at least a hundred years old and they’d probably give up one of their grandkids before they let somebody use their damn machine. Finally I see a hunched old blue-hair run out of money and leave her machine. I dart in, drop a coin in the slot, then I notice the machine takes up to three. I gather if I’m going to win the full amount I’d better drop two more. I do. I grab the handle . . . and hesitate. This is going to get me a lot of attention. Do I want that? I mean, I’m a private kind of guy. Then I look up at the $800,000-and-growing jackpot and know I want that.

  Screw the publicity.

  I whisper, “COPPE,” and yank the handle.

  I close my eyes as the wheels spin; I hear them begin to stop: First window—choonk! Second window—choonk! Third window—choonk! A bell starts ringing! Coins start dropping into the tray! I did it!

  Abruptly the bell and the coins stop. I open my eyes. There’s no envious crowd around me, no flashing cameras. Nobody’s even looking my way. I glance down at the tray. Six dollars. I check out the windows. Two cherries and an orange. The red LED reads, “Pays 6.”

  I’m baffled. Where’s my $800,000 jackpot? The crawling feeling that used to be on my neck is now in the pit of my stomach. What happened? Did I blow it? Is the word wearing out?

  I grab three coins from the tray and shove them in. I say, “COPPE,” again, louder this time, and pull that handle.

  Choonk! Choonk! Choonk!

  Nothing this time. Nothing!

  I’m getting scared now. The power is fading fast. Three more coins, I damn near shout, “COPPE!” as I pull the goddamn handle. Choonk! Choonk! Choonk!

  Nothing! Zip! Bupkis!

  I slam my hand against the machine. “Damn, you! What’s wrong?”

  “Easy, fella,” says the old dude next to me. “That won’t help. Maybe you should take a break.”

  I walk away without looking at him. I’m devastated. What if I only had a few days with this word and now my time is up? I wasted it at the track when I could have been buying and shorting stocks on margin. The smoke, the crowds, the incessant chatter and mechanical noise of the casino is driving me to panic. I have to get out of here. I’m just about to break into a run when it hits me.

  The word . . . what if it only works on people? Slot machines can’t hear . . .

  I calm myself. Okay. Let’s be logical here. What’s the best way to test the word in a casino?

  Cards? Nah. Too many possible outcomes, too many other players to muddy the waters.

  Craps? Again, too many ways to win or lose.

  What’s a game with high odds and a very definite winner?

  I scan the floor, searching . . . and then I see it.

  Roulette.

  But how can I use the word at a roulette table?

  I hunt around for a table with an empty seat. I spot one between this middle-aged nerd who’s got to be an optometrist, and a mousy, thirtyish redhead who looks like one of his patients. Suddenly I know what I’m going to do.

  I pull a hundred-dollar bill from my Meadowlands roll and grip it between my thumb and index finger. Then I twist up both my hands into deformed knots.

  As I sit down I say to the redhead, “Could I trouble you to place my bets for me?”

  She glances at my face through her Coke-bottle lenses, then at my twisted hands. Her eyes dart back to my face.
She gives me a half-hearted smile.

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “I’ll split my winnings with you.” If I win.

  “That’s okay. Really.”

  I make a show of difficulty dropping the hundred-dollar bill from my fingers, then I push it across the table.

  “Tens, please.”

  A stack of ten chips is shoved in front of me.

  “All bets down,” the croupier says.

  “Put one on COPPE, please,” I tell the redhead, and hold my breath.

  I glance around but no one seems to hear anything strange. Red takes a chip off the top of my pile and drops it on 33.

  I’m sweating bullets now. My bladder wants to find a men’s room. This has got to work. I’ve got to know if the word still has power. I want to close my eyes but I don’t dare. I’ve got to see this.

  The ball circles counter to the wheel, loses speed, slips toward the middle, hits rough terrain, bounces chaotically about, then clatters into a numbered slot.

  “Thirty-three,” drones the croupier.

  The redhead squeals and claps her hands. “You won! Your first bet and you won!”

  I’m drenched. I’m weak. My voice is hoarse when I say, “You must be my good luck charm. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Truth is, it could be luck. A cruel twist of fate. I tell Red to move it all over to “COPPE.”

  She looks shocked. “All of it? You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She pushes the stack over to the 17 box.

  Another spin. “Seventeen,” the croupier says.

  Now I close my eyes. I’ve got it. The word’s got the power and I’ve got the word. The only word you need to know. I want to pump a fist into the air and scream “YES!” but I restrain myself. I am disabled, after all.

  “Ohmigod!” Red is whispering. “That’s . . . that’s . . .!”

  “A lot of money,” I say. “And half of it’s yours.”

  Her blue eyes fairly bulge against the near sides of her lenses. “What? Oh, no! I couldn’t!”

  “And I couldn’t play without your help. I said I’d split with you and I meant it.”

  She has her hand over her mouth. Her words are muffled through her fingers. “Oh, thank you. You don’t know—”

  “All bets down,” says the croupier.

  No more letting it ride. My winnings far exceed the table limit. I notice that the pit boss has materialized and is standing next to the croupier. He’s watching me and eyeing the megalopolis skyline of chips stacked in front of me. Hitting the winning number two times in a row—it happens in roulette, but not too damn often.

  “Put five hundred on sixteen,” I tell Red.

  She does, and 22 comes up. Next I tell her five hundred on nine. Twelve comes up.

  The pit boss drifts away.

  “Don’t worry,” Red says with a reassuring pat on my arm. “You’re still way ahead.”

  “Do I look worried?”

  I tell her to put another five hundred on “COPPE.” She puts the chips on 19.

  A minute later the croupier calls, “Nineteen.” Red squeals again. I lean back as the croupier starts stacking my winnings.

  No need to go any further. I know how this works. I realize I am now the Ultimate Winner. If I want to I can break the bank at Caesar’s. I can play the table limit on one number after another, and collect a thirty-five-to-one payout every couple of minutes. A crowd will gather. The house will have to keep playing—corporate pride will force them to keep paying. I can own the place, damn it!

  But the Ultimate Winner chooses not to.

  Noblesse oblige.

  What does the Ultimate Winner want with a casino? Bigger winnings await.

  Winning . . . there’s nothing like it. It’s ecstasy, racing through my veins, tingling like bolts of electricity along my nerve endings. Sex is nothing next to this. I feel buoyant, like I could float off this chair and buzz around the room.

  I stand.

  “Where are you going?” Red says, looking up at me with those magnified blue eyes.

  “Home. Thanks for your help.” I turn and start looking for an exit sign.

  “But your chips . . .”

  I figure there’s close to thirty G’s on the table, but there’s lots more where that came from.

  “Keep them.”

  What does the Ultimate Winner want with casino chips?

  Next day, I’m home in my apartment, reading the morning paper. I see that ParkerGen has jumped two and one-eighth points to five and a half. Sixty-one percent profit overnight.

  After a sleepless night, I’ve decided the stock market is the best way to use the word. I can make millions upon millions there and no one will so much as raise an eyebrow. No one will care except the IRS, and I will pay my taxes, every penny of them, and gladly.

  Who cares about taxes when you’re looking at more money than you’ll ever spend in ten lifetimes? The feds will take half, leaving me to eke by on a mere five lifetimes’ worth of cash. I can hack that.

  A hard knock on the door. Who the hell—?

  I look through the peephole.

  Dennis Nickleby! I’m so surprised, I pull open the door without thinking.

  “Mr. Nickle—!”

  He sucker-punches me in the gut. As I double over, groaning, he shoves me to the floor and slams the door shut behind him.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he shouts. “You lied to me! You told me you didn’t listen to that tape! You bastard! If you’d been straight with me, I could have warned you. Now the shit’s about to hit the fan and we’re both standing downwind!”

  I’m still on the floor, gasping. He really caught me.

  I manage a weak, “What are you talking about?”

  His face reddens and he pulls back his foot. “Play dumb with me and I’ll kick your teeth down your throat!”

  I hold up a hand. “Okay. Okay.” I swallow back some bile. “I heard the word. I used it a few times. How’d you find out?”

  “I’ve got friends inside the Order.”

  “Order?”

  “Never mind. The point is, you’re not authorized to use it. And you’re going to get us both killed if you don’t stop.”

  He already grabbed my attention with the punch. Now he’s got it big time.

  “Killed?”

  “Yeah. Killed. And I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if it was just you. But they’ll send an actuator after me for letting you have it.”

  I struggle to a crouch and slide into a chair.

  “This is all bullshit, right?”

  “Don’t I wish. Look, let me give you a quick history lesson so you’ll appreciate what you’ve gotten yourself into. The Order goes way back—way back. They’ve got powers, and they’ve got an agenda. Throughout history they’ve loaned certain powers to certain carefully chosen individuals.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like I don’t know who. I’m not a member so they don’t let me in on their secrets. Just think of the most powerful people in history, the movers and shakers—Alexander the Great, Constantine, some of the popes, the Renaissance guys—they all probably had some help from the Order. I’ve got a feeling Hitler was another. It would explain how he could sway a whole nation the way he did.”

  “Oh.” I knew I had to be feeling a little better because I was also feeling sarcastic. “An order of evil monks, ruling the world. I’m shaking.”

  He stares at me a long moment, then gives his head a slow shake. “You really are an ass, Moulton. First off, I never said they were monks. Just because they’re an order doesn’t mean they skulk around in hooded robes. And they don’t rule the world; they merely support forces or movements or people they feel will further their agenda. And as for evil . . . I don’t know if good or evil applies to these folks because I don’t know their goals. Look at it this way: I’ll bet the Order helped out the robber barons. Not to make a bunch of greedy bastards rich, but because it was on the Order’s agenda
to speed up the industrialization of America. Are you catching the drift?”

  “And so they came to you and gave you this magic word. What’s that make you? The next Rocke feller?”

  He seems to withdraw into himself. His eyes become troubled. “I don’t know. I don’t have the foggiest idea why I was chosen or what they think I’ll accomplish with the Answer. They gave me the tape, told me to memorize the Answer, and then destroy the tape. They told me to use the Answer however I saw fit, and that was it. No strings. No goals. No instructions whatsoever other than destroying the tape.”

  “Which you didn’t do.”

  He sighs. “Which I didn’t do.”

  “And you call me an ass?” I say.

  His eyes harden. “Everything would have been fine if my soon-to-be-ex-wife hadn’t raided my safe deposit box and decided to play some games with its contents.”

  “You think she’s listened to the tape?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe. The tape is ashes now, so she won’t get a second chance. And if she did hear the Answer, she hasn’t used it, or figured out its power. You have to be pretty smart or pretty lucky to catch on.”

  Preferring to place myself in the former category, I say, “It wasn’t all that hard. But why do you call it the Answer?”

  “What do you call it?”

  “I’ve been calling it ‘the word.’ I guess I could be more specific and call it ‘the Win Word.’ ”

  He sneers. “You think this is just about winning? You idiot. That word is the Answer—the best answer to any question asked. The listener hears the most appropriate, most profitable, all-around best response. And that’s power, Michael Moulton. Power that’s too big for the likes of you.”

  “Just a minute now. I can see how that worked with my broker, but I wasn’t answering questions when I was betting the ponies or playing roulette. I was telling people.”

  The sneer deepens. “Horses . . . roulette . . .” He shakes his head in disgust. “Like driving a Maserati to the local 7-Eleven for a quart of milk. All right, I’ll say this slowly so you’ll get it: The Answer works with all sorts of questions, including implied questions. And what is the implied question when you walk up to a betting window or sit down at a gaming table? It’s ‘How much do you want to bet on what?’ When you say ten bucks on Phony Baloney, you’re answering that question.”