Читать книгу The Ninth Wave - Eugene Burdick - Страница 13

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The first quarter Hank did not go to three of his classes. He stayed in his room and read anatomy, physiology and biology. Two nights before an examination he would read over Mike’s notes on the course. Then Mike would ask him questions on the course. The night before examinations they did not sleep at all. They went over the notes endlessly.

In the morning they would leave Encina and walk out for breakfast. Dawn turned the hills across the Bay a soft suede texture. The big sandstone buildings around the Quad had a queer ugly unity and often there was the salt smell of fog in the air. They walked through the lonely world like men about to make a conquest. Their eyes glittered from too much coffee and too little sleep. When, finally, they picked up their bluebooks and sat down to answer the questions it seemed incredibly easy and simple.

At the end of the first quarter they received their grades. Mike put the cards on the table in their room and studied them.

“Not good enough, Hank,” he said. “My grades are good enough to get a scholarship next year. I’ve got three A’s and one B. You’ve got two A’s and two B’s. You’ll have to do a little better. Right now you’re on the borderline.”

“I’m happy,” Hank said. He was reading his Gray’s and had it open to a diagram of the delicate, intertwined, complex muscles of the ankle. “I’ll get three A’s next quarter and I’ll be qualified for a scholarship. Don’t worry about me.”

“The old cigar box is getting low,” Mike said. He walked to his bureau drawer and took out a battered White Owl box. He opened it and took out a stack of wrinkled bills and poured a mound of coins onto the table. He counted it rapidly. “Two hundred and sixty-seven bucks left. That’s all.” He scooped the money back into the box and threw the box in the drawer.

“We can get through the winter quarter, but we’ll be broke by spring quarter,” Mike said. “It’s the incidentals that run up. Laundry, haircuts, books.”

Hank looked up from his book.

“I eat too much,” Hank said apologetically. He kept his finger on a plate in the book. It was squarely over the long thick purple sweep of the aorta through a skeletonized neck and down into a yellow muscle-streaked chest. “I’ll cut down.”

“You can’t cut down,” Mike said. “You’re hungry so you’ve got to eat. You don’t get any fatter so it must be going into energy or some damned thing. But you can’t eat less.”

Hank was vaguely ashamed of his appetite. He would eat the huge starchy meals they served in Commons, take seconds, and then two hours later he would feel a sharp pain in his stomach and in a moment he was ravenous. A Hershey bar, a huge handful of peanuts, a few apples, almost anything, would blot out the appetite and in a moment he had forgotten it completely, could work absorbedly until the next attack of hunger. But if he did not have the food at once he became dizzy, his attention dissolved and he felt a sharp anxiety. Sometimes he even woke up at night and staggered around the room, half asleep, looking for a candy bar or a bag of peanuts or anything. If there was nothing in the room he would put on his clothes and half sick with embarrassment and anger would walk down to the all-night restaurant and eat a mass of fried potatoes and toast and then walk back to the campus.

Hank worried because the enormous amount of food never made him any fatter. His face was thin, his ribs stuck out. He longed for a layer of fat over his bones.

“I know, I know,” Hank said. “But maybe I could cut down on the food between meals.”

“You can’t,” Mike said flatly. “We’ve just got to get more money.”

Hank’s face went hard and tough and defensive.

“Look, Mike, I told you no crap about money. We made an agreement.”

“But we need money for the next quarter.”

“You said we had two hundred and sixty-seven bucks.”

“It’ll be gone next quarter when we pay tuition. What about the spring quarter?”

“We’ll worry about it when the money’s gone,” Hank said.

His bleached thin features relaxed. He murmured a word softly, looking down at the book. “Aorta, aorta, aorta,” said with the bemused repetition by which a child chants a word into meaninglessness or twists it into a special emphasis.

“Hank, why don’t you get into the poker game Hollis has in his room every night?” Mike said. “If you can play like you said you can you’d win plenty.”

Hank turned the page, read a few words and then looked up at Mike. Mike knew he had not heard him. He was repeating another word, worrying it to death.

“Poker, Hank,” Mike said. “Get in the poker game in Hollis’ room. A lot of those eastern prep school boys play there. They’ve got money. They play for big stakes.”

“Phagocyte, phagocyte, phagocyte,” Hank murmured. Then he heard what Mike was saying. His odd blue eyes snapped open, he swung his feet to the ground. “No. Don’t mention it again. I hate poker. No more crap about money. Understand? And especially not about poker money.”

Mike left the room and walked down to Hollis’ room. Hollis had money. Everyone in Encina knew it. Hollis never mentioned it, but they could tell. They could tell from the framed photograph on his wall which showed him with his arm around the shroud of a very large yawl and wearing shabby sneakers. They could tell also from the blazer he wore which had an intricate little device over the heart and a Latin motto stitched in white. They knew also from the thick white envelopes on his desk which contained invitations to debuts in San Francisco and Boston and New York. It wasn’t until years later that Mike knew that the soiled white buckskin shoes and the slip-over Brooks Brothers shirts and the use of the phrase “Nanny used to say ...” were also signs. Mike thought that Nanny was a nickname for his grandmother.

Hollis looked up when Mike came in the door. He had a thin, very tan face. He seldom smiled.

“Hello, Freesmith,” Hollis said. “No openings, but there might be later. Make yourself at home.” Hollis looked at the six men sitting around the table and his voice became harsh. “Osborne, you can take your shirt off if you want, but you can’t stay in this room if you do.”

Osborne, a big muscular boy from Ohio, stopped with one hand still in a shirt sleeve.

“Hell, Hollis, it’s hot in here,” Osborne said. “All this smoke and stuff.”

“No one sits around in my room in an undershirt or naked to the waist,” Hollis said. “Take your shirt off if you want, but get out if you do. Go ahead, Holloway, deal the cards.”

The cards spatted on the table. Osborne hesitated, his face anguished. Hollis looked at the first card. Osborne slowly put his arm back into the sleeve. He left his shirttail out as if to defy Hollis, but Hollis did not even notice.

“How much are the chips worth?” Mike asked.

Hollis looked up from the table and found Mike’s face in the dim light ringing the table. He smiled.

“Not much,” Hollis said. “White chips are a half dollar, red chips a dollar and blue chips two dollars. Of course we could always sweeten it up a bit if anyone wanted to. But we just try to keep it friendly.”

The other boys at the table smiled, but they did not look up from their cards. Mike guessed that they found it expensive to play. Most of the pots wound up with around fifty or sixty dollars on the table. No money changed hands, for Hollis acted as bank and merely made a notation on a slip of paper when players bought chips. At the end of the night he calculated what everyone had won and lost.

Hollis won the hand and while the cards were being shuffled he looked up at Mike again.

“I understand that you Los Angeles people do things in a big way though,” he said. “You probably wouldn’t want to play for little old stakes like these.”

The men around the table laughed. Some of them pushed back from the table, gave Hollis soft encouragement.

Mike smiled at Hollis, but he had made a decision. He waited until the laughter died away.

“Those stakes are rich enough for my blood,” Mike said. “But I’m not the poker player in our room anyway. I’ll tell you, though, you won’t get Hank to play for those stakes.”

“A pity,” Hollis said. “All these run-down Easterners could stand a transfusion of real red Southern California blood.”

He did not look up from his cards. Mike knew he did not want to go on with it. Mike slipped it in softly.

“Not Hank,” Mike said. “He won’t play for chicken-shit stakes like this. That Hank is a real poker player. He plays poker for really big money.”

Hollis looked up from his cards. The other boys stopped talking. The dealer paused with a one-eyed jack about to drop from his fingers. Mike went on reflectively.

“No, these stakes wouldn’t interest Hank. Not him.”

“I think we could make it interesting for Mr. Moore,” Hollis said. “Why don’t you just step down the hall and invite him to play? He can ...”

“He won’t,” Mike said. “Not for stakes like these. He’s heard of these stakes. I don’t think he’ll play with you.”

“Tell him he can name the stakes,” Hollis cut in sharply. “Whatever he wants.”

“No, no,” Mike said as if Hollis were being very dense. “You don’t understand. Once you play for really big stakes kid stuff like this is out. You’re bored. I wouldn’t want to ask him.”

Mike walked to the door and opened it. As he closed it behind him he had a diminishing, angular, smoke-obscured view of the room ... the overflowing ash trays, the blank faces of the boys, the white shirt fronts, the hands holding the fans of cards. Then he heard a collective exhalation of breath and Hollis said, “I’ll be damned.” Then the door closed.

Hollis stuck his head in their room the next night.

“Moore, would you like to play some poker tonight?” he asked. “Nice bunch tonight. They can probably play for any stakes you want.”

Hank looked up, startled.

“No. I don’t want to play poker,” he said.

When Hollis had left Hank turned to Mike.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Hollis. He is the guy I told you about. He has a poker game every night in his room.”

Hank had already lost interest and was turning over the pages of Gray’s.

The next day at lunch in Encina Commons, Osborne and Hollis sat at the same table with Mike and Hank. There were eight men at each table. The food was brought in big white porcelain bowls and each man helped himself.

Hank ate quickly, neatly and fiercely. He seldom talked at the table and he seldom listened to what was said. He was on his second helping of creamed chicken over biscuits before he knew something was wrong. He noticed everyone except Osborne and Hollis was silent. Hank looked at the boy across from him and at once the boy glanced away. Hank turned and looked down the table at Hollis.

“It’s simple, Osborne,” Hollis was saying. “I’ll repeat it. Only a crude anti-Semite would believe that the Jews have all the money because they are greedy. The fact is that the Jews have all the money because they never take a chance on losing it. They just hold on. If you hold on long enough to all the little bits you can collect pretty soon you’ve got a big wad. It’s just that simple. The Jews just freeze the money when they get ahold of it.”

Hank felt his fork break through the crisp crust of a biscuit. Without looking down he scooped the food into his mouth. He looked at Hollis’ tweed coat, the striped tie and the coarse, expensive-looking Oxford cloth shirt. A pinpoint of hunger started up somewhere in Hank’s stomach. He reached out and quickly spooned more chicken onto his plate.

“Go on, Hollis,” Hank said. “Tell us more.”

“That’s all there is to it, Moore,” Hollis said. “You heard it. It was plain enough.”

Hank nodded. His mouth was full and a bit of biscuit hung from his chin. He added some lima beans to his plate, spread butter on a biscuit. His teeth bit into the lima beans; reduced the soft pulpy substance to liquid and felt it go down his throat. He felt a necessity to cram more food down his throat.

He looked at the red embarrassed faces of the other people around the table and the hunger grew until he knew that he could never ease it. He took two more gigantic bites of biscuit, scooped up some chicken on his last biscuit and pushed it into his mouth. He chewed slowly. When his mouth was empty he looked down the table at Hollis.

“Hollis, I know you’re trying to be tough,” Hank said gently. “But you don’t understand. I don’t care one way or another about being a Jew. I just don’t react to it. I’m a Jew, but I’m not a patriotic Jew. But I don’t like you. Not because of what you said about the Jews. Just because you’re a pretty crude guy. I guess you were trying to be tough so that you could shame me into playing poker with you. O.K., I’ll give you your choice. I’ll play poker with you or I’ll take you out behind Encina and pound the shit out of you. Which will it be?”

Hank turned back to the table and began to eat the bread pudding dessert. Hollis’ face turned a slow red that gleamed through the tan.

He looked at Osborne, but there was no help there. Everyone at the table sensed how neatly Hank had trapped him. If he picked the poker it looked as if he were afraid to fight Hank. If he picked the fight Hank wouldn’t have to play poker and the whole conversation between Osborne and Hollis was a silly stunt.

“I’ll do both of them,” Hollis blurted out. “I’m not afraid of you, Moore.”

Hank looked up and laughed.

“One or the other,” he said. “I haven’t got time for both of them.”

Hollis looked around the table once more.

“We’ll play poker tonight,” he said slowly.

Mike counted all the money in the cigar box. It came to two hundred and fifty-two dollars. Hank reached across the table and picked it up. Mike put the coins back in the box and closed the drawer. A thin tinkle of pennies and nickels echoed in the room. Hank smiled.

“Let’s go,” Hank said.

They walked out of their room, down the corridor, and into Hollis’ room.

There were six of them waiting around the table. They were all eastern boys. Three of them were wearing seersucker suits and all of them wore ties. They looked up curiously at Hank, smiled at his sweat shirt and blue jeans. Hollis did not introduce Mike or Hank to the men at the table.

“We pay up at the end of the evening,” Hollis said crisply. “By check or cash. It doesn’t matter.”

Hank slumped into the empty chair. His long white fingers hung on the edge of the table. Mike stood behind him and for the first time he was aware that in the dim light around the edge of the room there was a ring of freshmen. They were pressed against the wall, sat on the two beds, crouched on the dresser. They sat quietly, but their eyes gleamed in the reflected light. Mike could not recognize any of them; all he could see was the pairs of eyes and the occasional shift of hands as someone lit a cigarette.

“What stakes do you want to play, Moore?” Hollis asked.

“Are there any house rules?” Hank asked.

“Do you want some?” Hollis asked.

“Yes,” Hank said quietly. His face was back out of the light, only his long limp fingers showed. “Dealer’s choice, but games limited to five- and seven-card stud and five-card draw. No jokers. No wild cards. No misdeals ... every card is played even if it is misdealt. Three bumps. Declare a time limit at ten o’clock with the big loser setting the time.”

Mike heard the men around the room take a collective breath. Hollis looked slowly around the table.

“That seems all right,” he said. “What kind of stakes do you want?”

“Anything you say.”

“How would one dollar for whites, three for reds and five for blues be?” Hollis asked.

Hank did not say anything. The white fingers reached for a cigarette, struck a match and suddenly Hank’s face was illuminated by the small light from the match. He blew out the match and threw it in an ashtray.

“Well, how about two dollars, five and ten?” Hollis asked. “That all right?” His voice was a little tense.

“Anything you say,” Hank replied.

“That’s it then.” Hollis said. “How much do you want to start, Moore?”

“Five hundred dollars,” Hank said.

The eastern boys stirred in their chairs. Hollis hesitated and then counted out five hundred dollars in chips. He stacked up thirty-five blue chips, twenty reds and fifty whites and pushed them over to Hank. Hank did not touch them; he just let them rest between his hands.

Hollis counted out five hundred dollars in chips for the rest of the players without asking them what they wanted.

You better be good, Mike thought. You’ve got twice in chips what you’ve got in cash. You better be good.

“We won’t cut,” Hollis said. “You can deal first, Moore.”

He broke open a deck of Bicycle cards and threw them over to Hank. Hank peeled off the two jokers and dropped them on the floor. Hank shuffled the cards slowly. He did not do it skillfully. He held the two halves of the deck together and riffled them and then pushed them awkwardly together. Mike felt a slight pang of doubt.

“Five-card stud,” Hank said. “Everyone ante two bucks.”

Hank pushed two white chips out onto the table. His fingers tightened, he held the deck flat above the table and the cards started to fall. He dealt three down cards and stopped with his hands in front of Hollis, a card held in his fingers.

“Go ahead, deal,” Hollis said.

“You haven’t anted,” Hank said.

Hollis looked down. There were seven white chips on the table. Hollis flushed and pushed a white chip onto the table. Hank dropped him a down card and went on with the deal.

When everyone had their second card Hank put the cards down and looked at his hole card. He raised the tip of the card so that Mike could see it. Hank had a king down and a queen up.

A man with an ace showing bet a red chip. Four of the players went along. Hank folded. Osborne won the hand with two jacks.

The next dealer played five-card draw. Hank drew four low spades and the ace of hearts. He discarded the ace and drew a jack of diamonds. On the first bet after the draw he folded.

Hank lost also on the next two hands which were five-card stud. Then Hollis was dealer.

Mike watched Hollis shuffle. He did it expertly with a gambler’s riffle; the cards hissing through the air and then a long stream of them falling quietly into his hand.

“It’s draw,” Hollis said.

He dealt the cards rapidly. Hank had a pair of treys and an ace of spades and two other low cards. Hank held the treys and went along with the opening bet of five dollars. He drew three face cards and did not improve his hand. However, when the betting started he raised the first ten-dollar bet by fifteen dollars.

Easy, boy, Mike thought. Only four hands and you’ve already lost about a hundred dollars. Two treys are not much in this game.

Hollis raised Hank twenty dollars and two other boys went along. Hank raised twenty dollars and everyone folded except Hank and Hollis. There was almost two hundred and fifty dollars in the pot.

Hollis won with a straight. He raked in the chips and his tanned face was creased with a smile.

Mike bent over and whispered in Hank’s ear, “Take it easy, Hank. They don’t bluff very easy. You’re down a hundred bucks already.”

Hank did not move his hands from the table, but he turned his head and looked up at Mike. He answered in a normal voice that everyone in the room could hear.

“You’ve got it wrong, Mike,” he said. “I have to find out who is willing to buy a pot and who is going to really win one. Now I know.”

The players looked up angrily, tried to find Hank’s face in the gloom. They looked at his hands and one of the players swore.

“We don’t need any kibitzers, Freesmith,” Hollis said. “Let Moore play his own cards. After all, he’s the big gambler from L.A., isn’t he?”

The ring of men sitting in the gloom back of the table laughed. The players looked up and grinned.

“Up yours, Hollis,” Mike said.

“Don’t be vulgar,” Hollis said. “Just let the big-time gambler play his own cards.”

Mike looked down at the back of Hank’s head, then down the dark reach of his arms where the light suddenly caught the elbows and hands in intense white detail. Hank had not moved during the conversation.

By ten o’clock Hank had lost three hundred and forty dollars and had won only one small pot. The other players had relaxed and between deals they began to tell short stories about summer vacations and rumours about the fraternities. At exactly ten o’clock Hollis held out his hand.

“It’s ten, Moore, and you are the big loser,” he said. “How much longer do you want to play?”

“Twelve,” Hank said. “I’d like to knock off for ten minutes right now and have a cup of coffee.”

As they walked down to the coffee shop in the cellar of Encina Mike talked earnestly to Hank.

“Look, Hank, you’re in over your head,” Mike said. “Play close to your vest and if you get back even just ride along. Remember we don’t have enough money right now to pay off what you’ve lost.”

“Don’t worry, Mike,” Hank said. “The big winner in a poker game is the man who wins in the last hour. All you need is a couple of big pots.”

“Sure, but you haven’t even won one big pot yet,” Mike said.

“That isn’t important. You have to spend a little time finding out how the rest of the people play. That costs a little money, but it’s worth it in the long run.”

“Have you found out anything?” Mike asked. “Hell no.”

“I have,” Hank said. “For example, the three boys in the seersucker suits are cheating. When one of them has a good hand he signals to the other two ... pulls his ear, yawns, scratches his armpit, stuff like that. Then the other two keep raising the bets to build up the pot. It’s the only simple way to cheat in poker there is. It gives you just the slight mathematical edge that you need.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake let’s call them on it,” Mike said. “Let’s sock one of the bastards and call the game off.”

“Don’t get excited, Mike. Now I know when one of them has a good hand. I’m better off than they are.”

Mike started to talk again, but they walked into the coffee shop and the other players were there. Mike and Hank sat in a booth by themselves and drank their coffee and then walked back up to Hollis’ room.

The first game was five-card stud. Hank got a king down and then his first up card was a king. Hollis had an ace up. The rest of the up cards were low. Hollis bent forward to look at the other cards and his face came down into the light. He tugged at his ear lobe.

Mike looked at Hollis carefully. Hollis was now wearing one of the seersucker coats. Mike realized that he must have changed with one of the other boys during the coffee break. Slowly it washed over Mike that the seersucker coats were part of the plan; they were a sort of signal. The three players in the seersucker coats supported one another in the betting, but all of them must be in on it. Mike had a quick, grinding impulse to reach across the table and slap Hollis in the face and tell him that he knew they were all cheating.

Hollis checked. The next player in a seersucker coat bet ten dollars. Someone else raised that five dollars. Hank went along.

Mike wanted to bend down and tell Hank what was happening, to warn him that they were sandbagging the betting, but he was sure that he could not control his voice. He gripped the back of Hank’s chair.

Use your eyes, Hank, he thought. Don’t you see that Hollis has aces back to back. He just gave the signal.

On the next card Hank drew another king. No one else improved their hand. Again Hollis checked and one of the other players bet ten dollars. Someone else raised. Hank went along. So did everyone else.

On the fourth card no one visibly improved his hand. Hank bet twenty-five dollars on his two kings showing. Hollis raised twenty dollars. Four of the players folded.

Mike rapidly counted the chips. There was almost five hundred dollars in the pot. When the last cards were dealt Hank had not improved his hand and, apparently, no one else had. Mike’s stomach was knotted hard.

“It’s up to you, Moore,” Hollis said. “You’ve got the two kings showing.”

“Thirty dollars,” Hank said.

“Raise you thirty,” Hollis said.

“Thirty more,” Hank said. “If it doesn’t drive you out.”

Hollis saw Hank’s raise, but the other player folded. Mike realized that Hank had Hollis beaten; that there was no possible way that Hollis could win. Mike looked down and saw that Hank’s hands were still on the table, the way they had been all evening.

“What do you mean, drive me out?” Hollis said. Slowly his face puckered with cunning. “You don’t think you’re bluffing me, Moore? You’re trying to buy it, aren’t you? Just like you said I was earlier.”

Hank did not reply.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Moore. Just for this one hand and just to show you that we know how to give a big L.A. gambler some fun I’ll raise you one hundred dollars and give you the right to bump if you want.”

Hollis leaned forward, suddenly triumphant. His face came into the light, lean and tanned, and he grinned at Hank. His smile faded as Hank counted out ten blue chips. Then Hank counted out another ten blue chips and threw them on the table.

“I raise you a hundred dollars, Hollis,” Hank said.

Hollis put in ten more blue chips. The pot was almost a thousand dollars now. The room was very quiet. Down the hall a door slammed, bare feet sounded on the corridor floor; disembodied, wet, lonely. A shower hissed somewhere.

“Show your cards, Moore,” Hollis said.

Hank was opening a fresh pack of cigarettes. He went on with it. He neatly tore the cellophane back, ripped the paper and pulled out a cigarette. He lit the cigarette. Then he reached down and turned over his hole card.

The three kings burned on the table.

Hollis whimpered.

The rest was easy. Hollis bet frantically, desperate to win back the money he had lost. He no longer looked for signals or gave them. He snatched up his cards, glanced at them and if they were bad his face collapsed. He bet too heavily, too soon, when they were good. The other players played aimlessly, staring at Hollis and not knowing quite what to do.

Hank only went along with three hands in the last hour of play. But he won all of them and they were the three biggest pots.

Hank won eleven hundred dollars that night. Hollis wrote him a check, his hand trembling as he wrote. The whole room held its breath as Hank took the check, turned and left the room without saying a word to anyone.

When Hank and Mike were in their room Hank handed the check to Mike.

“Put it in the kitty,” he said.

He walked over and picked up his physiology book. He put his feet on the desk and opened the book. Before he started to read he looked up.

“Mike, I know you rigged that game with Hollis,” he said. “Don’t do it again. I won’t play next time. I don’t like Hollis, but I won’t play him again. Him or anyone.”

“You’re right. I rigged it. Maybe I’ll do it again if I think I can get away with it,” Mike said. “You scared the hell out of me for a few hours, but it was worth it.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“Don’t try and scare me,” Mike said. “You didn’t have to play if you didn’t want to. You won’t have to play the next time. Don’t try to load your problems off on me. I rigged it but it was a pretty damned obvious job of rigging and it didn’t fool you a bit. You played because you wanted to.”

Hank looked steadily at Mike for a moment. Then he grinned.

“That’s why I like you, Mike,” he said. “You are so lacking in morals yourself that you can always spot immorality in someone else. You’re right. I didn’t have to play. It’s just that I couldn’t resist playing Hollis. But I won’t play next time. Even if you rig it very smoothly.”

Mike knew that Hank meant it. At once Mike gave up any thought of ever trying it.

“O.K. How about calling a cab and riding down to Paly and spending a few bucks on some ham and eggs,” Mike said.

They went to the all-night diner and each had four eggs, ham, pancakes, hashed-brown potatoes and toast. Hank ate a second order and then they walked slowly back to the campus.

Mike remembered the poker game long after the money was spent. He remembered it because Hollis tried to become friendly with Hank. He invited Hank to go East with him for the Christmas holidays. Hank refused. Hollis sent Hank a set of cuff links and six shirts with French cuffs for Christmas. Hank hocked them for ten dollars. When Hollis’ family came to Stanford in the spring he proudly introduced them to Hank and for two days Hank rode around the Peninsula in a rented Cadillac showing the family the sights. Hollis tried to get Hank pledged to his own fraternity and was outraged when he discovered that they did not pledge Jews and Hank would not join anyway.

Finally Hank got bored with it and told Hollis to stop coming around. Hank said it in front of Mike and Hollis was embarrassed. Hollis smiled wistfully at Hank and then he turned and with his confident, easygoing walk he left the room.

Mike took a piece of paper off his desk and slowly wrote a single sentence on it: “Freesmith’s Unnumbered Principle: People appear to love the man who humbles them.” He looked at it for a moment and then shoved it into the desk drawer; along with the other abandoned pieces of paper that contained similar sentences.