Fear showed in her eyes, then went away. “You don’t believe that I was doing that,” she said.
“May I have one of your cigarettes?”
I gave her one, lighted it. I said: “Well— the fellow didn’t get anything, anyway.”
She looked toward Highlands and said: “How’s Eric betting, do you know?”
I nodded. “California,” I said. “Quite a bit, too.”
She looked suddenly frightened. Her body was tense again. She said:
“Are you sure?”
I shrugged. “He just told a few of us that he was,” I said. “Why?”
She waited for several seconds, then smiled a little.
“He’s had bad luck lately, and it doesn’t seem like such a good hunch,” she said.
That was silly, and she knew that I knew it was silly.
I thought of the radiogram, and said in a casual voice:
“Eric generally knows what he’s doing— the Califor
