iffles. She had called the turn before the galloping
dominoes had bounced from the backrail.

The box cars cost me the dice. The next gambler blew on them, cursed,
and rolled. I didn't bet, and spent the next couple rolls looking at
her.

* * * * *

The girl was a mess. Some women have no style because they don't even
know what it means. Courturiers have taught them all to be lean and
hungry-looking. This chicken was underfed in a way that wasn't stylish.
They call it malnutrition. Her strapless gown didn't fit her, nor
anybody within twenty pounds of her weight. She was all shoulder blades
and collarbones. I suppose that a decent walk would have given her
_some_ charm--most of these hustlers have a regular Swiss Movement. But
this thing had a gait that tied in with the slack way her skirt hung
across her pelvic bones and hollered "White Trash!" at you.

I wasn't much flattered that she had tried to pick me up. People have a
pretty accurate way of measuring their social station. And she thought
she was what I'd go for. Well, I guess I don't look like so much,
either. I'd missed my share of meals when they might have put some
height on me. My long, freckled face ends in a chin as sharp and pointed
as her nose. And there's always something about a cripple, even if my
powerless right arm doesn't exactly show.

My days on the Crap Patrol came back to me. That's where the Lodge had
found me, down on my knees in an alley, making the spots come up my way
without even knowing I could do it. And when they'd convinced me I was
really a TK, and started me on the training that finally led to the
Thirty-third degree, they'd put me right back in those alleys, and cheap
hotel rooms, watching for some other unknowing TK tipping the dice his
way.

Did Sniffles have it? She wasn't tipping dice, exactly, but she sure was
calling the turn. She was tall, as well as skinny, and our eyes weren't
far apart. "Billy Joe," she whispered above the racket of the gambler in
the casino, putting her mouth close to my ear. "I told you, sugar. And
now you lost. You lost!" Her perfume was cheap, but generous, and pretty
well covered up her need for a bath.

"There's some left," I told her. "Show me how." She hugged my arm to her
skinniness. That's all any of the hustlers ever want--to get their hands
on your chips. They figure some of them will stick to their fingers.

The gambler next to me had won a dollar bet wi