wheel. He stepped up to the table, bought a
hundred dollars worth of chips, and put fifty on Number Thirteen.

"No more bets," said the croupier. He spun the wheel and dropped the
ball.

"Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," he chanted after a minute. With a
practiced hand, he raked in the losers and pushed out Howley's winnings.
There was sixteen hundred dollars sitting on thirteen now. Howley didn't
touch it.

The wheel went around and the little ball clattered around the rim and
finally fell into a slot.

"Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," said the croupier. This time, he didn't
look as nonchalant. He peered curiously at Howley as he pushed out the
chips to make a grand total of fifty-one thousand two hundred dollars.
The same number doesn't come up twice in succession very often, and it
is very rare indeed that the same person is covering it both times with
a riding bet.

"Two thousand limit, sir," the croupier said, when it looked as though
Howley was going to let the fifty-one grand just sit there.

Howley nodded apologetically and pulled off everything but two thousand
dollars worth of chips.

The third time around, the croupier had his eyes directly on Howley as
he repeated the chant: "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low." Everybody else
at the table was watching Howley, too. The odds against Howley--or
anyone else, for that matter--hitting the same number three times in a
row are just under forty thousand to one.

Howley didn't want to overdo it. He left two thousand on thirteen, raked
in the rest, and twisted the dial on his gadget over a notch.

Everyone at the table gasped as the little ball dropped.

"That was a near miss," whispered a woman standing nearby.

The croupier said: "Fourteen, Red, Even, and Low." And he raked in
Howley's two thousand dollars with a satisfied smile. He had seen runs
of luck before.

Howley deliberately lost two more spins the same way. Nobody who was
actually cheating would call too much attention to himself, and Howley
wanted it to look as though he were trying to cover up the fact that he
had a sure thing.

He took the gadget out of his pocket and deliberately set it to the
green square marked 00. Then he put it back in his pocket and put two
thousand dollars on the Double Zero.

* * * * *

There was more than suspicion in the croupier's eyes when he raked in
all the bets on the table except Howley's. It definitely didn't look
good to him