The Odds, page 19
“What’s your counter-offer?”
“You kill me. My family and the other players go free.”
“Can’t do it,” said Enigmaticus. “Not for 50/50 odds. If you want a game where your family survives, no matter what, the odds have to change.”
“How about one in three?” asked The Duke. “Same prize if you win. If you lose, you’re the only one to die.”
“This offer expires in one minute,” said The Duke.
“I accept,” said Ethan.
He wished he had some brilliant plan. Some way to twist everything in his favor. But he didn’t. All Ethan had was his willingness to give himself a two-in-three chance of getting shot in order to guarantee the safety of his wife and children.
“Oh, good,” said The Duke. “This’ll be fun.”
“I’m not spinning the wheel,” said Ethan. “It could be rigged. I’ll write a number on a piece of paper. You guess if it’s one, two, or three.”
Enigmaticus shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’ll write the number. Then I’ll slide the paper away from me so you can see that it’s undisturbed. You guess the number. If you’re right, you win. If you’re wrong, you lose. Fair?”
“Fair.”
“I’ve got a pen and paper right here,” said Enigmaticus. He slid them off the table and onto his lap, and then began to write.
Ethan tensed up, waiting for him to have a gun in his hand when he showed it again.
He didn’t. He had a folded piece of paper. He slid it toward Ethan. The desk was far too long for Ethan to reach it, but he could at least see that there was no funny business going on with the slip of paper.
“I didn’t write numbers,” said Enigmaticus. “I either drew a pumpkin, a house, or a bunny. Which is it?”
Ethan stared at the paper, as if he might suddenly develop X-ray vision and be able to read it.
This was a terrible idea. He should just shoot The Claw Man and try to shoot the others.
No. If he did that, they’d go after Jenny and the kids. He had to play the game. One in three odds weren’t bad.
Was Enigmaticus more likely to draw a pumpkin, a house, or a bunny?
He’d expect him to guess bunny for sure. Or maybe pumpkin. Those were funny sounding words. He wouldn’t expect him to guess house.
Or would he expect Ethan to follow this exact line of reasoning and go with the most generic choice?
Pumpkin, house, or bunny?
“You drew a house,” Ethan said.
“I’m going to need you to put down the gun before the reveal,” said Enigmaticus. “We can’t have you going on a shooting spree if you lose.”
“You’ll be unharmed if you win,” The Duke assured him. “We don’t cheat.”
Ethan had no choice but to trust them. He dropped the gun onto the floor.
“Do you want to open the paper or do you want me to?” asked Enigmaticus.
“I’ll do it.”
Ethan walked over and picked up the paper. Please let it be a house. He took a deep breath.
He unfolded the paper.
24
“Fuckin’ bunny,” Ethan muttered.
He dropped the paper onto the desk.
“Best two out of three?” he asked.
Epilogue
“Everything is going to be okay,” Jenny promised Patrick and Tim, even though she knew no such thing. She had no destination. No plan. Just drive until she heard from Ethan again.
If she ever did. Nobody was answering the phone he’d called from.
She’d give him until nightfall before she started to make plans to get out of the country without him.
Her phone rang. The call was from Rick Oddsmaker, as it had been the last time Ethan called. She almost swerved off the road in her haste to answer.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh, thank God. Where are you?”
“I’m in Las Vegas,” said Ethan.
“Did you...did you hijack a plane?”
“Kind of. Depends on your definition of hijack. I’m calling to say that everything is okay. We’re out of danger now. You can go back home.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I won the game. I mean, I won the revised version of the game, and I only won because they were nice enough to play two out of three. I guessed that he drew a duckie, and then I guessed that he drew a banjo.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Jenny said.
“I know. I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m feeling kind of scatterbrained right now and I’m probably not making sense. I’m going to be completely honest with you about everything from now on, so I’ll tell you that for them to give me a second chance, I had to give up the opportunity for a million-dollar prize. But we’ve still got the fifty thousand, so that’s good.”
“You promise we’re safe?”
“I promise. They don’t cheat. I won fair and square. We did have to renegotiate the terms, though. I worked it out so you and the kids were always going to be safe no matter how it turned out, so that was nice, and I forfeited the chance at a million dollars, so that was less nice, but I get a salary now.”
“A salary?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you get a salary, Ethan?”
“They like my work ethic. This was basically just the practice round, and since Rick is dead now, part of the conditions of my game were that I’d take his job if I won. Way better than getting shot in the head, right? I start training in a couple of weeks. Would be sooner, but they’re giving me time for the wounds to heal.”
“I’m really confused.”
“That’s okay. Come on home. We’ll talk about it tonight. Maybe we’ll pop open that champagne.”
— The End —
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my usual amazing team of Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Paul Goblirsch, Lynne Hansen, Michael McBride, Jim Morey, Rhonda Rettig, and Paul Synuria II for their help with this novel.
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For information on all of these books, visit Jeff Strand’s more-or-less official website at http://www.jeffstrand.com
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Readers who leave reviews deserve great big hugs!
Jeff Strand, The Odds
