One-Shot Read online

nothing but a faint trail to Abner Longmans Braun,most of which was fifteen years cold.

  There'd been a time when I'd known Braun, briefly and to no profit toeither of us. As an undergraduate majoring in social sciences, I'd takenon a term paper on the old International Longshoreman's Association, aracket-ridden union now formally extinct--although anyone who knew thesigns could still pick up some traces on the docks. In those days, Braunhad been the business manager of an insurance firm, the sole visiblefunction of which had been to write policies for the ILA and itsindividual dock-wallopers. For some reason, he had been amused by thebrash youngster who'd barged in on him and demanded the lowdown, and hadshown me considerable lengths of ropes not normally in view of thepublic--nothing incriminating, but enough to give me a better insightinto how the union operated than I had had any right to expect--or evensuspect.

  Hence I was surprised to hear somebody on the docks remark that Braunwas in the city over the week end. It would never have occurred to methat he still interested himself in the waterfront, for he'd gonerespectable with a vengeance. He was still a professional gambler, andaccording to what he had told the Congressional Investigating Committeelast year, took in thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year at it, buthis gambles were no longer concentrated on horses, the numbers, or shadyinsurance deals. Nowadays what he did was called investment--mostly inreal estate; realtors knew him well as the man who had _almost_ boughtthe Empire State Building. (The _almost_ in the equation stands for themoment when the shoestring broke.)

  Joan had been following his career, too, not because she had ever methim, but because for her he was a type study in the evolution of whatshe called "the extra-legal ego." "With personalities like that,respectability is a disease," she told me. "There's always analmost-open conflict between the desire to be powerful and the desire tobe accepted; your ordinary criminal is a moral imbecile, but people likeBraun are damned with a conscience, and sooner or later they cracktrying to appease it."

  "I'd sooner try to crack a Timkin bearing," I said. "Braun's ten-pointsteel all the way through."

  "Don't you believe it. The symptoms are showing all over him. Now he'sbacking Broadway plays, sponsoring beginning actresses, joiningplaywrights' groups--he's the only member of Buskin and Brush who'snever written a play, acted in one, or so much as pulled the rope toraise the curtain."

  "That's investment," I said. "That's his business."

  "Peter, you're only looking at the surface. His real investments almostnever fail. But the plays he backs _always_ do. They have to; he'ssinking money in them to appease his conscience, and if they were tosucceed it would double his guilt instead of salving it. It's the sameway with the young actresses. He's not sexually interested in them--histype never is, because living a rigidly orthodox family life is part ofthe effort towards respectability. He's backing them to 'pay his debt tosociety'--in other words, they're talismans to keep him out of jail."

  "It doesn't seem like a very satisfactory substitute."

  "Of course it isn't," Joan had said. "The next thing he'll do is go infor direct public service--giving money to hospitals or something likethat. You watch."

  She had been right; within the year, Braun had announced the founding ofan association for clearing the Detroit slum area where he had beenborn--the plainest kind of symbolic suicide: _Let's not have any moreAbner Longmans Brauns born down here_. It depressed me to see it happen,for next on Joan's agenda for Braun was an entry into politics as afighting liberal--a New Dealer twenty years too late. Since I'm mildlyliberal myself when I'm off duty, I hated to think what Braun's careermight tell me about my own motives, if I'd let it.

  * * * * *

  All of which had nothing to do with why I was prowling around the_Ludmilla_--or did it? I kept remembering Anderton's challenge: "Youcan't take such a gamble. There are eight and a half million livesriding on it--" That put it up into Braun's normal operating area, allright. The connection was still hazy, but on the grounds that any linkmight be useful, I phoned him.

  He remembered me instantly; like most uneducated, power-driven men, hehad a memory as good as any machine's.

  "You never did send me that paper you was going to write," he said. Hisvoice seemed absolutely unchanged, although he was in his seventies now."You promised you would."

  "Kids don't keep their promises as well as they should," I said. "ButI've still got copies and I'll see to it that you get one, this time.Right now I need another favor--something right up your alley."

  "CIA business?"

  "Yes. I didn't know you knew I was with CIA."

  Braun chuckled. "I still know a thing or two," he said. "What's theangle?"

  "That I can't tell you over the phone. But it's the biggest gamble thereever was, and I think we need an expert. Can you come down to CIA'scentral headquarters right away?"

  "Yeah, if it's that big. If it ain't, I got lots of business here, Andy.And I ain't going to be in town long. You're sure it's top stuff?"

  "My word on it."

  He was silent a moment. Then he said, "Andy, send me your paper."

  "The paper? Sure, but--" Then I got it. I'd given him my word. "You'llget it," I said. "Thanks, Mr. Braun."

  I called headquarters and sent a messenger to my apartment to look forone of those long-dusty blue folders with the legal-length sheets insidethem, with orders to scorch it over to Braun without stopping to breathemore than once. Then I went back myself.

  The atmosphere had changed. Anderton was sitting by the big desk,clenching his fists and sweating; his whole posture telegraphed hiscontrolled helplessness. Cheyney was bent over a seismograph,echo-sounding for the egg through the river bottom. If that even had aprayer of working, I knew, he'd have had the trains of the Hudson &Manhattan stopped; their rumbling course through their tubes would haveblanked out any possible echo-pip from the egg.

  "Wild goose chase?" Joan said, scanning my face.

  "Not quite. I've got something, if I can just figure out what it is.Remember One-Shot Braun?"

  "Yes. What's he got to do with it?"

  "Nothing," I said. "But I want to bring him in. I don't think we'll lickthis project before deadline without him."

  "What good is a professional gambler on a job like this? He'll just getin the way."

  I looked toward the television screen, which now showed an amorphousblack mass, jutting up from a foundation of even deeper black. "Is thatoperation getting you anywhere?"

  "Nothing's gotten us anywhere," Anderton interjected harshly. "We don'teven know if that's the egg--the whole area is littered with crates.Harris, you've got to let me get that alert out!"

  "Clark, how's the time going?"

  Cheyney consulted the stopwatch. "Deadline in twenty-nine minutes," hesaid.

  "All right, let's use those minutes. I'm beginning to see this thing alittle clearer. Joan, what we've got here is a one-shot gamble; right?"

  "In effect," she said cautiously.

  "And it's my guess that we're never going to get the answer by divingfor it--not in time, anyhow. Remember when the Navy lost a barge-load ofshells in the harbor, back in '52? They scrabbled for them for a yearand never pulled up a one; they finally had to warn the public that ifit found anything funny-looking along the shore it shouldn't bang saidobject, or shake it either. We're better equipped than the Navy wasthen--but we're working against a deadline."

  "If you'd admitted that earlier," Anderton said hoarsely, "we'd havehalf a million people out of the city by now. Maybe even a million."

  "We haven't given up yet, colonel. The point is this, Joan: what we needis an inspired guess. Get anything from the prob series, Clark? Ithought not. On a one-shot gamble of this kind, the 'laws' of chance areno good at all. For that matter, the so-called ESP experiments showed uslong ago that even the way we construct random tables is full ofholes--and that a man with a feeling for the essence of a gamble canmake a monkey out of chance almost at will.

  "And if there ever was
such a man, Braun is it. That's why I asked himto come down here. I want him to look at that lump on the screenand--play a hunch."

  "You're out of your mind," Anderton said.

  * * * * *

  A decorous knock spared me the trouble of having to deny, affirm orignore the judgment. It was Braun; the