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The Sky's The Limit [MultiFormat]
eBook by Lawrence M. Schoen
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$0.85 |
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$0.72 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Preliminary Ballot Nominee
eBook Description: An homage to the great Damon Runyon. An unnamed narrator accompanies the fantastically lucky Joey Morlock onboard a privately owned airship for a floating poker game organized by Manhole McGovern, a murderous mobster who does not like to lose. But more than money is at stake when Joey Morlock falls in love with the mobster's doll and refuses to lose at cards.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2006
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [180 KB], eReader (PDB) [33 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [20 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [18 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [78 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [88 KB], hiebook (KML) [100 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [44 KB], iSilo (PDB) [16 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [21 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [48 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [29 KB]
Words: 7045
Reading time: 20-28 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Lawrence M. Schoen's 'The Sky's The Limit' is a splendid short story. Impressive characterization, fine tension and laissez-faire humour; one heck of a poker game. -Eugen Bacon, Fictionwise Recommender
"It is a floating poker game unlike any you've ever read. Guys, dolls, an airship, the perfect mixture of humor and suspense. Lawrence Schoen has got Damon Runyon's voice down so well I suspect in the future I'll be hunting through my Runyon collections looking for that zeppelin story."--Sherwood Smith, SF Site
I am sitting with two prominent citizens in a booth of a Philadelphia restaurant where they serve a piece of prime rib as big as your head and I tell you this is not a thing I normally do, not just because I am rarely of an inclination to visit this city of brotherly love, but also as the price of this dinner represents the better part of my rent back in New York. But this is not concerning me as one of my dining companions, Joey Morlock, is also my host and his potatoes will be paying for my beef. Most nobody knows the reason, but Joey Morlock is called this on account of his peculiar reading habits in which he is having no time at all for the hard news or the racing form or the society page. Joey does not peruse the newspaper at all, saving his eyes, which look big as peaches behind his thick-as-soda-bottle-bottoms eyeglasses, solely for the reading of scientific romances.
I do not judge a man by the stories he favors, though personally I can find no use for tall tales of time machines or trips to the moon and guys know that I lose my patience with Joey on more than one occasion as he wants not just to read these stories but to talk of them too. His eyes pop open wide and glaze over like some bum who is sleeping one off in an alley and snaps up wide awake from some nightmare born of bad hootch. When this happens to Joey Morlock there is no stopping him and whosoever has the misfortune of being nearby can either rush for the exit or groan and endure the latest synopsis. But most times Joey is aces, a sport and a generous friend to have around. He is also the luckiest man I know in all forms of wagering and propositions, and I know more than a few. I am knowing Joey Morlock to wander up to Belmont on a whim with just a few dibs and leave there at the end of the day holding fifty large, and this is not an unusual circumstance for the guy. He is in fact so lucky that he is barred from most establishments and he is usually at a loss to find a track or crap game or card house that will let him in more than twice.
So when I hear word from Beans McAllister of a special card game that is forming in Philly, one in which there is to be no limit on the wagering, I immediately think of Joey Morlock and make mention of this development to him. Joey is delighted at this news and he insists I join him in Philadelphia as his guest, but this is also to his advantage as I can then introduce him to Beans and gain his admission to this friendly game whereat he plans to leave with as many potatoes as he can carry out. Joey is also kind enough to stake me to a seat at the game, which is entertaining for me but no loss to him as he will take all those potatoes back too, hand by hand. So knowing this now you should find no surprise that the third guy chowing down on the prime rib with Joey Morlock and me is none other than Beans McAllister who is making the acquaintance of Joey Morlock and enjoying a pricey bit of beef on his nickel.
Beans clearly favors the grub, but he looks on edge, nervous like, and the way he hunches over reminds me of a dog who gets beat six out of seven days as a pup and now is always flinching when you make to pet him. Not that I want to pet Beans, not even close. He is a little guy in a suit that looks like he slept in it under a bridge. But that is not why I do not want to be sitting with him; I am not the kind of guy who looks down on a Joe because he does not know how to dress. No, I do not much want to be sitting with him because he is an accountant for a group of Philadelphia lawyers and I like bean counters only slightly less than I like shysters, and when I look over at Joey Morlock I can see he is of the same opinion. But Beans knows people in this town, and he knows where the game is, and I have explained this to Joey Morlock before we come to the restaurant so for the sake of the game he stakes Beans to the best meal of his bean counting life, confident that this will lead to many potatoes in the end. All through dinner Joey Morlock talks, but he does not talk of games or bets or propositions for fear of putting Beans more on edge and instead yammers like a doll at the cosmetics counter of Wannamaker's, on and on about giant bugs and invisible men. Finally, as Beans wipes his plate with the last bit of bread Joey switches over to the business at hand.
"Beans, our friend here tells me you can get me into a game," says Joey Morlock and he glances my way and I nod. "We are talking high stakes, right?"
"Highest you have ever been in," says Beans McAllister, and he laughs and gives me an elbow in the side, which I do not much appreciate on account I have just filled myself to bursting with some of the city's finest prime rib.
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