Black Glass Read Online Free PDF

2:
THE SMELL OF GOOD LUCK
    [Double Six Casino, Waterfront, South Interzone: Carol | patrons]
    It’s Ladies’ Night and Carol can already feel it: that kick to the heart when the roulette wheel spins, those black Pai Gow rectangles rattling under the dealer’s hands, a slot machine surrendering its coins. Even the glimmer of goldfish in the foyer tank seems to promise something but, as always, she turns away on reflex at the sight.
    Certainly there are fools in this place, and at first glance Carol could be one of them. But no: she understands probability theory, the fickleness of dice and the dangers of misplaced hope. Decades ago, before dropping out of school to cut strangers’ hair for a living, she got an A-minus in maths for three years running.
    Back then, she was still painting: watercolour dreamscapes, tropical fish vibrating against the walls of sunken wrecks. People admired them cautiously but never had room on their walls to make a purchase. Booked her for a haircut instead. Now she avoids aquariums — the bright shapes give her an almost homesick pang.
    But the maths is still useful. Every Friday night the women of Madison Springs tuck their free coupons into their purses, head for the bus stop just outside their gated suburb and board a coach bound for the Double Six, one of the smaller casinos down on the city’s waterfront. At a quarter to nine, when Carol hears the troupe of heels clacking down the footpath, she turns off the box, pulls on her coat and quickly does her face. Joins the shuffling queue, where drifts of perfume intersect with the soft, disjointed buzz of exactly one week’s news — missing nephews, rising rents, horoscopes and lucky numbers.
    She climbs the coach steps, almost catching the eye of her not-quite-handsome driver; feels that fleeting thrill as the coach jolts forward and good old Louise gives her half-drunk whoop from the back seat. As they shoot through the night air, the subzones gradually retreat, and the city’s glassy skyline gets closer and sharper. The seat next to Carol is empty. Half of her misses whoever might have sat there, but her other half is thankful for the silence that allows her eyes to track the glinting landscape through the dark glass.
    A sudden underground plunge, concrete rushing at the windows, and their vehicle surfaces into light. The skin of every building pulses with logos, messages, pictures. Down on the waterfront the casino blasts its furnaces into the black sky. The coach lurches over the speed traps and comes to a stop beside the giant LED koala that scans the casino car park with floodlit eyes.
    Out the bus window she sees a small figure crouched beneath the creature’s bulk: just another lost kid, plenty of them in the city. Don’t dwell on it, she tells herself. You’re here to enjoy yourself.
    As the bus ejects the women onto the warm tarmac, several shapes approach tentatively from the darkness — ragged kids, fleet-footed and dirty, palms held out in hesitant appeal. Amongst them is the short dark-haired figure from beneath the koala, boy or girl she can’t quite tell, holding out something in its hand, tilting it to show the stream of women as they pass: a bright rectangular glow, the screen of a camera. Carol glimpses the image, a blur of red and white, looks like a face; the kid insistent, imploring. The women ahead clutch their bags tight and keep walking, do not look at the children, and before Carol reaches them a security guard swoops. The small figures immediately scatter and disappear.
    An escalator lifts the women into the foyer, where a perma-tanned hostess hands them each a free cocktail voucher.
    Carol knows the truth: gambling is an unlikely friend, a long shot that guarantees nothing but that vain kick of hope to the heart. But there’s no denying the fact that someone has to win. If you keep filling your seat and playing the game, eventually your number will come up. But