one time, and he'd wonder what hit him. We'll do it just like always ... one of us at a time, and only a little at a time. Get him when he rakes in the loot. They never miss it when they feel like that."

"He's right," Fred said. "Take it easy, Ray." He went over to the sideboard and began mixing drinks.

Joe looked down at me with his black end-of-eggplant eyes.

"Now to fix things," he said.

... I blinked and shook my head. "You owe me fifteen bucks!" I said.

"Lord," Joe wailed, "did this gonif just take me!"

Ray groaned sympathetically from the chair across the table, where he'd been watching the slaughter. "And how!"

Joe pushed fifteen blue chips at me. I began stacking them. "Well, that's life," I grinned. Then I shook my head again. "It's the damnedest thing...."

"What?" Fred asked. He'd been over at the sideboard mixing drinks for the gang while I'd taken Joe over the bumps. Now he brought the tray over and shoved a tall one into Joe's hand. "Don't cry, Joe. What's the damnedest thing, Jerry?"

"You know ... that funny feeling that you've been some place before—the same place, the same people, saying the same things—but you can't remember where the hell or when, for the life of you. Had it just a moment ago, when I told Joe he owed me fifteen bucks. What do they call it again?"

"Déjà vu," said Allen, who's sort of the scholarly type. "Means 'seen before' in French, I think. Or something like that."

"That's right," I said. "Déjà vu ... it's the damnedest funniest feeling. I guess people have it all the time, don't they?"

"Yes," Allen said.

Then he paused. "People do."

"Wonder what causes it?"

Joe's blue eyes were twinkling. "Dunno. The psychologists have an explanation for it, but it's probably wrong."

"Wrong why?" Knowing Joe, I expected a gag. I got it.

"Well," Joe said. "Let me make up a theory. H'm ... hoo, hah ... well, it's like this: there are monsters all around us, see, but we don't know they're monsters except that every once in a while one of them slips up in his disguise and shows himself for what he really is. But this doesn't bother our monsters. They simply reach into our minds and twiddle around and—zoop!—you're right back where you were before the slip was—"

"Very funny," Fred said boredly. "Maybe losing fifteen bucks made you lose a little sense, Joe. You wouldn't want to lose more than fifteen bucks, would you? You need some caution in the games we play, no? So cut the nonsense and let's run 'em."

Ray licked his lips. "Yeah. Let's play, huh, fellows?"

Ray's always eager to get started.

e played until 3 A. M. I won forty-six dollars. (I usually do win ... I guess over a period of six months or so I'm about five-hundred bucks ahead of the game. Which is why I like to play over at Joe's, even though I am always so damned tired when I leave. Guess I'm not as young as I was.)

Sometimes I wonder why the odds go my way, right down the line. I almost never lose. But, hell, it must be an honest game ... and if they're willing to go on losing to "Lucky" Bixby, I'm perfectly willing to go on winning.

After all, can you think of any reason that makes any sense for someone to rig a game week after week to let you win?

Oct. 20

Frederik Boles, Author's Agent

2200 Fifth Avenue

New York, N. Y.

Dear Fred,