re he was sitting in one of the leather divans. "Sit down
and shut up, Sime," he suggested coolly.

Simonetti sagged with defeat. "Look, Rose," he gasped. "I want out. Bad
enough that our losses can't be stopped by this creep Smythe. Now you
drag in another TK. Buy me out!"

"What's a business worth that's losing its shirt?" Rose sneered. "We
were in clover, you fool, till this cross-roader got to us. This is our
only chance to get even."

That finished Simonetti. He went back to his desk and slumped against
it, scowling at the points of his handtooled boots.

* * * * *

Rose looked over at me. "Let's make sense," he said quietly. "We watched
you on the TV monitor from the time you came in."

"Sure," I said.

"What about it?" he demanded.

I shrugged. "I had my way with the dice, Peno. I dropped nine yards as
fast as I could, then won it back. The spots came up for me every single
roll but two, when I had my eye on something else."

He snickered. "We saw her," he said.

"How about it, Fowler?" I asked my Lodge Brother. "Was a worker tipping
the dice tonight?"

"I never felt it," he said. "But the table had dropped nearly forty
grand during the shift, which was about over when you started to play.
He's too good for me, Wally."

"But you felt _my_ lifts," I protested. "You called 'TK' on the table."

Smythe shrugged and took off his glasses. "I thought I felt you tipping
when you first came to the layout," he said, waving them around. I
nodded confirmation. "But it was smooth work, and I could hardly be
sure. Most of these maverick TK's strong-arm the dice, and they skid
across the layout with their spots up. You're way ahead of that--you
don't touch them till the final few tumbles. And then, you were losing,
and I couldn't see that the table was being hit."

"I thought it was the smart move." I explained. "I was still
controlling the dice, and if there'd been a cross-roader working, I
should have felt him skidding them."

Smythe nodded. "Of course," he added. "I could feel you more clearly
after you got the dice, and later, while that scarecrow with you was
handling your chips. You were building a stack. So I fingered you."

"Careful," I said sourly. "You're talking about the woman I love."

There was a strained moment of silence, and then they all laughed. She'd
been a sight, all right.

Simonetti came back alive with that one. His husky voice cut in on the
laughter.