He got up and found the bottle, picked up the glass to pour. Then he didn’t pour. He put the bottle away and took the glass to the kitchen sink. He opened the refrigerator and took out an instant meal of beef and macaroni, popped it in the oven. He gagged at the thought of another meal of beef and macaroni, but what was a man to do? Certainly, at a time like this, he could not be expected to whip up a gourmet evening meal.
He went to the front door and picked up the evening paper. Deep in his easy chair, he turned on the light and opened the paper. There was little news. Congress still was piddling around with a gun-control bill and the President had forecast (again) the dire consequences if Congress should fail to approve the large military budget he had called for. The PTA still was raising hell about violence on television shows. Three new substances had been found that could cause cancer. Mr. Dithers had fired Dagwood again — not that the little twerp didn’t have it coming to him. On the opinion page was a letter livid with righteous indignation because someone had messed up a crossword puzzle.
When the beef and macaroni was ready he ate it, barely tasting it, gagging it down because it was food. He unearthed a two-day-old cupcake for dessert, continued to sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee. As he drank his second cup he realized, finally, what he was doing. He was working hard at putting off something that he was going to do, no matter what, putting it off because he was not sure it was something that he should do, still responding to the nagging doubt that gnawed at him. But doubt or not, he was going to do it; he knew, without question, that finally he would do it. He’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t, all his days he would wonder what it was he had missed.
He rose from the kitchen table and went into the bedroom to get his car keys.
5
The building stood on a side street off an older business district that had lost its economic bloom some years before. A man was walking on the other side of the street a couple of blocks away, and in the mouth of an alley a dog was investigating three garbage cans, more than likely trying to make up its mind which one of the three would be the most profitable to tip over.
When Lansing tried the bigger key in the lock of the front door, it worked smoothly, and he stepped inside. A long hall, dimly lighted, ran down the length of the building. With no trouble he located 136. The smaller key worked as easily as the larger one had, and he stepped into the room. Across the room stood the dozen slot machines lined against the wall. The fifth from the left, the machine he’d met a few hours before had said. He counted from the left and strode across the room to confront number five. Fishing in his pocket, he brought out one of the silver dollars and fed it in the slot. The machine leaped into joyous life, clicking at him when he pulled the lever. The dials went spinning in that crazy fashion encountered nowhere else than in a slap-happy slot machine. One dial stopped and another jumped and then fell back and the third came to a stop with a sudden clunk. Lansing saw that the characters that had lined up on the dial were all the same. The machine made a coughing sound and a flood of golden coins, each of them the size of a dollar, came pouring from the pay-off chute. They filled the bucket and cascaded onto the floor as the golden flood still came gushing from the chute. Some of the coins struck on their rims and went rolling like glittering wheels all about the floor.
Again the dials were spinning (spinning without another dollar having been fed into the slot), and again they came thudding to a halt. This time also the symbols on the dials were all alike, and the machine, quite nonchalantly, released another gush of coins.
Lansing stood amazed and a little jittery, for this was a thing unheard of. There was no such thing, there could be no such thing as two jackpots in a row.
When the machine clicked off and stood dumb and stolid, he waited for a moment, half expecting it to go into its act again and produce yet another jackpot. With a machine such as this, he told himself, anything was possible; there was no end to the miracles of which it was capable.
It did not repeat itself, however, and when he was fairly sure it wouldn’t, he scooped the coins out of the bucket and dropped them into a jacket pocket, then got down on hands and knees to collect those that lay scattered on the floor. One of them he held so that the light struck it fully, and he examined it. There was little doubt that it was gold. For one thing it was heavier than a silver dollar. It was a well-made coin, bright and polished, hefty and satisfying to the hand, but no such coin as he had ever seen before. On one side was engraved a cube that stood upon a cross-hatched area that probably represented ground. The other side bore the representation of what seemed to be a spindly tower. That was all. There were no words, no value designation.
He rose to his feet and stared about the room. The machine that he had talked with had told him to put the second dollar in the seventh machine. He might as well, he thought. The transaction with the fifth machine had turned out not so badly, and his luck might continue with the seventh.
He moved down the line to number seven. After he put out his hand to insert the second dollar, he pulled it back.
Why take the chance? he asked himself. Maybe number five had only set him up. The Lord only knew what would happen if he played number seven. And yet, he thought, if now he should turn about and walk away with a pocketful of gold, he’d never know and he’d never quit questioning himself. He’d not have an easy moment, he would always wonder.
“The hell with it,” he said aloud and dropped the dollar. The machine gulped it down and made a clanking sound, and the lights came on the dials. He chugged the lever down, and the dials began their crazy spinning. Then the lights went out and the machine went away. So did the room as well.
He stood upon a path in a woodland glen. Tall, massive trees hemmed him in, and from a little distance off he heard the liquid chatter of a singing brook. Except for the brook there was no sound, and there was nothing stirring.
And now he knew, he told himself. He might have been better off if he’d walked away from number seven, although of that there was no certainty. For this transformation to a woodland glen might be as delightful a circumstance as winning all the gold, although even as he thought it he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
Don’t move, he told himself. Have a look around before you stir from where you’re standing. And don’t give in to panic — for already, in these first few seconds, he had caught the smell of panic.
He had a look around. In front of him the ground rose up, rather gently, and from the sound of it the brook could not be far away. The trees were oak and maple. Their leaves were turning color. Ahead of him a squirrel scurried across the path that angled up the hill. After the squirrel had disappeared Lansing could mark its progress by the rustling of the fallen leaves disturbed by the small tornado of its passage. Once the sound of the squirrel had faded out, the silence (except for the chatter of the brook) closed in again. Now, however, the silence did not seem so heavy. There were soft noises now — the noise of a falling leaf, the almost indiscernible scurryings as little creatures of the forest made their way about, other faint sounds that he could not identify.
He spoke to number seven and whatever (or whoever) else had operated to put him where he was.
“All right,” he said, “what is this all about? If you’ve had your fun, let’s put an end to it.”
There was, however, no end put to it. The woodland glen stayed on. There was not the slightest indication that he’d been heard by number seven or, in fact, by anything.
It was unbelievable, he thought, and yet all of it had been unbelievable from the very start. This was actually no more unbelievable than that a slot machine had talked. If he ever got back, he promised himself, he’d hunt up the student Jackson and, with his bare hands alone, dismember him piece by painful piece.
If he ever got back!
Up until this moment he had thought of the situation as only temporary, subconsciously believing that any minute now he’d pop back into the room with all the slot machines lined against the wall. But what if that didn’t happen? He sweated thinking of it, and the panic that had been lurking back there somewhere in the trees swooped suddenly on him and he ran. Ran unthinkingly, with reason gone to pot — running blindly, with terror riding him and no room for thinking of anything but terror.
Finally he stubbed his toe against a small obstruction in the path and went blundering into a tree, falling to the ground. He did not try to get up. He huddled where he had fallen, out of breath, gasping to pump air into his
