Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [28]
He had started in Las Vegas. If he had confined his activities to Nevada, and perhaps New Jersey, his singular activities might have gone unremarked upon. But he made the mistake of spreading himself around, in a sensible effort not to draw attention to himself by winning too much in any one place. His travels soon led him to the many casinos that were located on individual Indian reservations throughout North America. He was observed, and then followed. For some time, security personnel sharing information were at a loss to figure out how he was managing his remarkable success.
Then, running through tape after security tape of the extraordinarily lucky Native American gambler, one particularly attentive agent with an open mind and no preconceptions happened to notice the subject of all the attention leaning forward to sniff a machine he was playing just before it paid off. Subsequent reviews of other tapes invariably captured similar moments on video. Incredible as it seemed, and without understanding how or why it was happening, casino security personnel could agree only on the incredibly obvious.
The subject, a certain Bull John Threerivers of Los Angeles, California, could somehow smell a slot machine that was about to pay off.
Tribal owners and administrators engaged in soft-voiced but quietly frantic caucus via telephone and fax and e-mail. It was not the money they were losing that set them on the knife-edge of panic. It was something much worse and of potentially far greater import.
And so the pact was made and the decision taken that as quietly as possible this one seemingly innocuous if fortunate gambler had to be stopped. A delegation from several tribes had been appointed to confront him at his discreetly lavish condominium in Los Angeles. Inviting them in, Threerivers had listened politely, even intently, to their expressions of concern. When they left, it was with his assurances that he understood the gravity of the conundrum and would take appropriate steps to see that their concerns were fully addressed.
When they came back to check on him in person, after discovering that his phone had been disconnected, it was to learn that he had moved out the day after their visit. That was when it was decided that, given what was at stake, stronger measures would have to be implemented.
Threerivers had barely escaped the first attempt on his life, which took place in the parking lot of a riverboat casino docked outside Memphis. Only the timely arrival on the scene of a bunch of semi-delirious college students on spring break had forced the three men who had pinned him against the side of a truck to let him go. Threerivers had never been so glad to see a bunch of drunken white men in his life. After that he moved quickly, erratically, staying in no one place for more than a few days. He thought he had shaken his pursuers when he shifted his activities to Europe, but soon found them on his trail once more. Fortunately the presence of several large Amerindian males in a casino in, for example, Copenhagen, was obligingly conspicuous. On such occasions he was always able to flee prior to any actual confrontation.
A distinctively sharp stench caught his attention as he patrolled the rows of gaudy, garish, insistent slots. The seat in front of the progressive poker machine was empty. His nostrils quivered. It reeked of readiness. No one else in the room, no one else in the city, and in all likelihood no one else on the planet could detect the distinctive fragrance that reminded him of sweet onions sizzling in a pan that was presently emanating from the machine. It was a scent he had come to recognize without trying: the scent of a slot machine about to pay off.
Taking the seat in front of it, he took his time arranging a handful of tokens by the side of the machine. Then it was feeding time. It ate two, four, six of the shiny base metal medallions. By the time he dropped in the eleventh coin, the perfume was so overpowering that his eyes began to water. Following the application of the twelfth,