"Winners and losers," Della said to fill the void. "I suppose that's true."
"The basis of life," Cal Tinky said. "Have you folks ever stopped to think that our whole lives are spent trying to figure out bigger and better ways to amuse ourselves, bigger and better challenges? From the time we are infants we want to play the 'grown-up' games."
Bill didn't say anything. It was something about which he had never thought much.
"And business!" Cal Tinky laughed his booming laugh. "Why, business is nothing but a game!"
Now Bill laughed. "You appear to be a winner at that game." He motioned with his hand to take in the surroundings.
Emma joined in the laughter. She had a high, piercing laugh, long and lilting with a touch of. . . Of what? "Yes," she said then in a suddenly solemn voice, though a smile still played about her lips. "Material possessions are some of the prizes."
"Enough talk of games." Cal Tinky said. "I'm hungry."
Emma put the twisted pieces of shining metal into her vest pocket. "We can eat any time," she said, "unless you'd like another drink."
"No," Bill said, "not unless the food's so bad you don't want me to taste it."
Again came her high, lilting laugh, backgrounded by her husband's booming laughter.
At least she has a sense of humor
,
Bill thought, as they all rose and went into the large and well-furnished dining room.
The meal was simple but delicious; a well-done roast served with potatoes and carrots, a gelatin dessert with coffee, topped by an excellent brandy.
Throughout the meal they had kept up a running conversation, usually led by Cal Tinky, on the importance and celestial nature of games in general. Emma would join in now and then with a shrewd comment, a high and piercing laugh, and once, over the lime gelatin, Bill had seen her staring at Della with a strange intensity. Then she had looked away, spooning the quivering dessert into her mouth, and Bill heard again the soft, metallic, clicking sound.
After the brandy Cal Tinky suggested they go back into the recreation room for some drinks and relaxation. For a short time the Tinkys stayed in the dining room as Cal helped Emma put away some perishables, and Bill and Della were alone.
Della nudged Bill playfully in the ribs and moved close to him. "These people are weird," she whispered.
Bill grinned down at her. "Just a little eccentric, darling. Maybe we'd be, too, if we had their money."
"I hope we find out someday," Della said with a giggle. She quickly hushed as the Tinkys came into the room.
Cal Tinky was carrying a fresh bottle of Scotch. "The first order is more drinks," he proclaimed in his loud voice.
He mixed the drinks at the bar and served them, then he looked around at the many games and entertainment devices. "Anything for your amusement," he said with his wide grin.
Bill smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You're the game expert, Cal."
Cal Tinky looked thoughtful and rubbed his square jaw. "Make it something simple, if you will," Della said. "I don't feel very clever tonight."
"How about Bank Vault?" Cal asked. "It's a simple game, but it's fun for four people."
He walked to a shelf and took down the game. Bill and Della followed him to a round shaggy rug, where he opened the box and spread out the game board. Emma spread four cushions for them to sit on.
When they were seated with fresh drinks, Cal Tinky proceeded to explain the rules.
It was an easy game to learn, uncomplicated, based like so many games on the advance of your marker according to the number you rolled on a pair of dice. The board was marked in a concentric series of squares, divided into boxes, some of which had lettering inside them: "Advance six squares,"
"Go back two,"
"Return to home area." Occasionally there were shortcuts marked on the board where you had your choice of direction while advancing. Each player had a small wooden marker of a different color, and if the number he rolled happened to land his block on the same square as an opponent, the opponent had to return to the home area and start over. Whoever reached the bank vault first was the winner.
They rolled the dice to determine in what order they'd play, then settled down on the soft cushions to enjoy themselves.
Cal and Emma Tinky played seriously and with complete absorption. Cal would roll his number and move his red block solemnly while his eyes measured the distance his opponents were behind him. Emma would move her yellow block in short firm steps, counting the number of squares as she moved it.
The game lasted through two drinks. Bill had rolled consecutive high numbers, and his green block was ahead until near the end of the game. Then he had landed on a "Go back ten" square and Cal had overtaken him to win. Emma was second, only three squares ahead of Bill, and Della's blue block brought up the rear after an unfortunate "Return to home area" roll.
"Say, I have another game similar to this only a little more interesting," Cal said, picking up the board. "Let's try it."
Bill reached to help him put the game away and found that his fingers missed the block he'd tried to pick up by half an inch. He decided to go easier on the Scotch.
Cal returned with the new game and spread it out on the soft rug to explain it to them. It was almost exactly like the first game. This time the board was laid out in a circle divided into compartments. The compartments were marked as rooms and the idea was to get back first to the room in which you started. This time the obstacles and detours were a little more numerous.
"Does your company manufacture this game?" Bill asked.
"Not yet," Cal Tinky said with his expansive grin, "but we're thinking about it. It's not the sort of game with mass appeal."
They rolled the dice in the same order. Bill rolled a twelve and moved well out ahead, but on his second roll he came up with a seven, landing him in the dining room, where the lettered message instructed him to skip his next turn for a snack. Della moved out ahead of him then, landing in the den. Emma rolled a three but landed in the utility room, where she was instructed to advance ten squares. This brought her yellow block only two squares behind Della's and she emitted her high, strange laughter. Cal rolled snake eyes, allowing him a free roll, and he came up with a twelve. His red block landed on the den, and he placed it directly atop Della's blue block.
"Does that mean I go back to the entrance hall?" Della asked, smiling like a sport but feeling disappointed.
"In a manner of speaking," Cal Tinky said. He drew from beneath his sport jacket a large revolver and shot Della.
The slam of the large-caliber bullet smashing into her chest sounded almost before the shot. Della flopped backward, still smiling, her legs still crossed. A soft sigh escaped her body and her eyes rolled back.
"Della. . . "
Bill whispered her name once, staring at her, wanting to help her, knowing she was dead, finally and forever. A joke, a mistake, a horrible, unbelievable mistake! He turned toward the Tinkys.
Cal Tinky was smiling. They were both smiling.
Words welled up in Bill's throat that would not escape â anger that paralyzed him. He stood unsteadily, the room whirling at first, and began to move toward Cal Tinky. The long revolver raised and the hammer clicked back into place. Bill stood trembling, grief-stricken, enraged and afraid. Cal Tinky held the revolver and his smile steady as the fear grew, cold and pulsating, deep in the pit of Bill's stomach. The floor seemed to tilt and Bill screamed, a hoarse sobbing scream. He turned awkwardly and ran in panic from the room, from death.
He stumbled through the dining room, struggling to keep his balance. At the edge of his mind he was aware that Cal had put something in the drinks, something that had destroyed his perception, sapped his strength, and he tried to fight it off as he ran to a window. The window was small and high, and as he flung aside the curtains he saw that it was covered with a steel grill. With a moan, he ran awkwardly into the next room, to the next window. It, too, was barred. All the rooms that had windows were inescapable, and all the outside doors were locked. He ran, pounding against thick barred windows that wouldn't break or open, flinging himself against doors that wouldn't give, until finally, exhausted and broken, he found himself in the kitchen and dragged his heaving body into a small alcove lined with shelves of canned goods, where he tried to hide, to think, to think .
In the recreation room Cal Tinky looked at his wife over the game board. "I think he's had enough time," he said. "It never takes them more than a few minutes to run to cover."
Emma Tinky nodded and picked up the dice. With a quick expert motion of her hand she rolled a nine.
Cal rolled a six. "Your shot," he said.
Emma rolled the dice again, a seven. She leaned over the board and, counting under her breath, moved her yellow block forward in short tapping jerks.
"The kitchen," she said. "Damn! They never hide in the kitchen."
"No need to get upset," Cal Tinky said. "You'll probably get another roll."
Emma drew a long revolver exactly like her husband's from beneath her corduroy vest and stood. Stepping over Della, she walked from the recreation room toward the kitchen. Her husband picked up the game and followed, careful to hold the board absolutely level so that the dice and the colored blocks wouldn't be disturbed.
The sound of the shot that came from the kitchen a few minutes later wasn't very loud, like the hard slap of an open hand on a solid tabletop â but Emma Tinky's high, long laugh might have been heard throughout the house.
S
ay this about Bernice â she believed in getting things done, and so she did them.
Her husband Eldon, on the other hand, was more than something of a procrastinator. It was his philosophy that problems, like clouds, if simply ignored long enough would often drift away. And while Bernice wasn't exactly careless with money, she wouldn't hesitate to spend what had to be spent. Eldon, to the contrary, was notoriously tight-fisted.
Another of Bernice's traits was curiosity, or nosiness, as Eldon thought of it. Not that she was overly interested in other people's concerns. She would enter the affairs of acquaintances slowly but inevitably, gradually permeating their situations as water wends its way into too-porous cement. There was no defense against her. Eldon, however, was aloof, self-contained, even secretive at times in the jealous protection of his privacy. Eldon was tall, sharp-featured and almost completely bald; Bernice was a short, round-featured woman, attractive for her forty-five years, and with a huge mop of naturally curly chestnut hair.
After fifteen years of marriage, Eldon and Bernice Koins were living examples of the adage that opposites attract, but only initially.
"Eldon," she said to him one morning before breakfast, "it's already so hot in here I could fry your eggs right on your plate.
When
are you going to have the air conditioner repaired?"
The air conditioner unit for the house had stopped work
ing in mid-July, and week after week Eldon had debated whether or not they could afford to have it repaired at that time. They had sweltered through many an argument about the air conditioner, and now here it was August.
"It'll be fixed soon," Eldon told her, thinking that September and cooler weather was right around the corner. "The Jantzens down the street don't even have an air conditioner."
"The Jantzens are also in Canada," Bernice said, setting his plate of bacon and eggs before him.
"Maybe my raise will be on my next pay check," Eldon said, nibbling a piece of bacon and ignoring Canada. "I'm bound to get a raise. The company gives everyone a raise after five years."
Eldon was a representative of Loomis Tranquilizer Company, and he traveled almost continuously, which was fortunate for the preservation of his marriage. He was due to leave that very day on a flight to New York and would be gone six days.
"I'm getting tired of being cooped up in this steam bath while you're in some air-conditioned hotel room," Bernice said, flouncing across the kitchen and seating herself opposite Eldon. "I'm liable to just draw some money from the savings account and call an air conditioner repairman while you're gone."
Eldon didn't change expression. He knew she wouldn't dare do that.
"That money's in the savings account for a particular reason," he said firmly, adding cream to his coffee. "I told you we might get the air conditioner fixed next week."
"Always next week or next this or next that," Bernice complained, spooning sugar into her black coffee. "The only way I can get anything fixed around this house is save
up enough money myself from my household allowance to pay for it."
"So save enough to buy a new compressor for the air conditioner," Eldon said derisively. He dabbed at his lips
with his folded napkin and stood from his unfinished breakfast, irritated and completely without appetite. "I have to go now if I'm going to catch my plane. I'll be at the
Langton
if you want to call me."