Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [65]
“Indeed, and there was always the chance that I had guessed wrong,” Surplus admitted. “You may be sure I thought about this long and seriously. Knowing not only your strength but your passionate nature as well, I was only too painfully aware that were I wrong, my life would be forfeit.”
“Then why take the chance?”
“I decided, finally, that the prize was worth the risk.”
Briefly, Zoësophia was silent. Then, wrapping her scarf about her lower face to preserve her modesty, she cranked down the window so she could lean out and call up to the coachman, “How much longer until we reach Chortenko’s house?”
“Fifteen minutes, Gospozha,” the driver replied.
“Then there is just enough time.” She closed the window again and began to unbutton Surplus’s shirt.
“My dear lady!” Surplus cried with more than a touch of alarm. “Whatever are you doing?”
“I have belonged to the Byzantine Secret Service literally since my genes were mingled in vitro,” Zoësophia said. “There is nothing—absolutely nothing—that I find irresistible.” Her hand caressed his cheek.“But a man who is willing to risk death in order to possess my body comes close.”
Kyril and his bandits had stacked two empty crates atop each other and thrown a white cloth over them for a table, and were playing three-card Monte, exactly as they had been taught. Kyril slammed down three cards: two black deuces and the queen of hearts, creased lengthwise, so that when he flipped them face down, they were like shallow tents. One could almost—but not quite—see the markings under them. “Find the lady, find the queen,” he chanted. “Five will get you ten, ten will get you twenty. Watch carefully—the hand is quicker than the eye.” There was a scattering of banknotes on the cloth to catch the eye and avarice of the bystanders.
“I switch the cards once…twice…three times and where’s the queen? To the right?” He flipped over the rightmost card. A deuce. “No. To the left?” Another deuce. “No.” He flipped both back and turned over the center card. “She’s right in the middle, right where I put her. The hand can do what the eye cannot see.” His hands spun the cards about the cloth. “Who’ll play? Who’ll play? Five will get you ten, ten will get you twenty. You, sir. Will you play? Or you? You can’t win if you don’t play.”
A crowd of idlers had gathered to watch, but so far there were no players. Which was Dmitri’s cue to come forward. He squirmed through the spectators and slapped down a copper ruble. “Betcha I can spot it.”
“Only a ruble? Only one? One’ll get you two, but ten’ll get you twenty.” Kyril flicked the cards about, turned them over—one, two, three—and turned them back again. “Twenty gets you forty and fifty a hundred. Only one? All right, then. Here’s the queen.” He held the card up and turned from side to side so that all could see. Then he slammed it down onto the cloth, switched the cards rapidly about, and finally took a half-step back from the table. “Choose.”
Dmitri’s finger jabbed. “That one.”
Kyril turned the card over. It was a deuce. He flipped over a second card. Also a deuce. The red queen he turned over last.
“Here! Lemme see that!” Dmitri snatched up the red queen and examined it suspiciously. But as it was only a pasteboard card, there was nothing to be discovered, and so Dmitri returned it to the table.
But as he did, he bent up one corner of the card.
Kyril swept the ruble coin to the side, along with the bills, and began manipulating the cards again. He did not appear to notice that the queen had been altered.
Dmitri turned away to give the crowd a broad smirk and a wink. Then he dug deep into his pockets and came up with a grimy five-ruble note. “Here! This is all I got. Gimme one more chance.”
“Everyone’s money is good. We have a player. Five’ll get you ten, ten rubles for five. Watch the cards. The hand moves faster than the eye. Here’s the queen and over she goes. She dances with one, she dances with his brother. Everybody dances, everybody wins. Annnnd—make your pick!”
Dmitri pointed