Read Online Dead Man's Hand by Pati Nagle - Free Book Online Page A

practice. Clive cleared his throat, and the clerk ceased tapping the keyboard and looked up with tired, watery eyes.
    â€œCan I help you?”
    â€œYes, I want to travel to Atlantic City.”
    The clerk gazed at him. “Going to the casinos?”
    Clive blinked, unsure how to answer. The clerk went back to playing on the keyboard and looking at a box that emitted a glowing light. Clive was about to take him to task when he spoke.
    â€œYour best bet is to go up to the Port Authority and catch the casino bus. The casino gives you a bonus.”
    Lost, Clive swallowed. “How much?”
    â€œFive dollars to Port Authority. Then the casino bus will run you around thirty-five.”
    â€œThirty-five!”
    Clive had thought Mr. Dickerson had been overgenerous. Apparently he had not.
    â€œThe bonuses are good. Twenty, twenty-five on the slots or the tables, depending which casino.” The clerk eyed him. “You want the ticket?”
    Clive drew himself up haughtily. “Perhaps you could direct me to the nearest railway station.”
    â€œTrain’s gonna cost you more. ‘Bout sixty dollars.”
    â€œSixty!”
    Clive bit back a curse. It was a dream, only a dream. A very bad one. His fifty dollars was dream money, so why not spend it extravagantly? He could always dream up some more.
    He wished, most sincerely, that he might wake up now.
    He coughed. “Five dollars, you said?”
    The clerk nodded. Clive handed over one of the crisp bills Mr. Dickerson had given him, though it cost his heart a bitter pang. The clerk paused to play at his accordion a little more, then handed Clive a small ticket printed with blue ink.
    â€œThank you.”
    Clive stared at the ticket, trying to make sense of what it said. Newark, New York, and the times were understandable. A lot of other numbers weren’t, and the date, “October 16, 2012,” was preposterous.
    â€œThis isn’t the correct date,” Clive said.
    The clerk took the ticket, peered at it, and handed it back. “Yes, it is.”
    He gestured toward a calendar hanging on the wall behind him. Clive was momentarily distracted by the apparel—undergarments, and obscenely scant for those—of the woman pictured at the top of the page, then his gaze descended to the calendar heading: “October, 2012.”
    â€œOh,” he said.
    Suddenly his mouth was filled with liquid fear. He swallowed, feeling weak.
    â€œDon’t forget your change,” the clerk said helpfully.
    Clive numbly watched his hands move to pick up the bills, fold them, and slide them into his coat pocket. The feeling of the fabric on the back of his hand was very real. Nothing else seemed to be.
    Hanging beside the calendar was a clock face that read 9:26. That was perfectly normal, nothing wrong with that except that the face seemed to run without the benefit of any workings of a clock. He watched the second hand tick its way around. It frightened him. Everything frightened him.
    He put the little printed ticket into his other pocket and turned away from the counter. Walked slowly to the nearest row of chairs, touching one to make sure it was real. It felt solid enough, so he sat down in it, after which his limbs turned to water.
    This was a very, very bad dream. If it was a dream at all.
    That was what frightened him the most—the slowly dawning realization that all this strangeness was part of a waking truth he did not have the heart to face. That he might not be dreaming, but had somehow been transported over a hundred years into the future.
    Could Orson Jones have done that to him? No. Jones was an unremarkable river pilot. This madness was more like the concoction of a storyteller. Like Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, only in the wrong direction.
    Clive laughed under his breath. Thinking of that yarn made him feel unexpectedly better. The story was a complete fabrication, so much balderdash, yet it gave him a sense