Somehow the radio was playing what Crane thought was the best rock song ever recorded, Big Brother and the Holding Company's "Combination of the Two." Today Crane felt as though he'd lost the right, the ability, to participate in it. He blinked and looked around at the complacent Spanish-style houses and the green lawns. "Hmm? Oh—no, it's not anything like it." His voice sounded oddly flat in his head. He was making an effort to talk normally, to talk as he would have if he had not just … killed a man. "This is the only place in Nevada where gambling's not legal," he went on doggedly. "In fact, hard liquor only became legal here in '69." "No gambling at all?" "Nope." He grinned stiffly and shook his head. " 'Cept for a—a certain Poker game on a houseboat once every twenty years or so." And that starts up tomorrow night, he thought. And when this latest series of games is done, come Holy Saturday, he'll assume this old body of mine, unless I've stopped him somehow. On the radio Janis Joplin was wailing, but not for him.
