"Thank God for a dry field," the scalpel surgeon said, politely holding out his left hand to me. I shook it with my left. That's why I hadn't done the cutting, too. There aren't any one-handed surgeons. My right arm looks fine. It just hasn't any strength. Old Maragon had told me once that my TK powers were a pure case of compensation for a useless arm. The surgeon dropped my hand. "You're the best, Wally Bupp," he said. He's too good a friend of mine to call me "Lefty" and remind me that I'm a cripple. It was Maragon who did that. I hadn't noticed him, but somebody gave me the grip, and I looked around. He was back against the wall, short, gray and square. I gave his ear lobe a TK tug in return, harder, perhaps, than was necessary, and nodded for him to follow both of us to my office. "We'll have to talk about it, Lefty," he said, as he closed the door against the smell of iodoform. "No, we don't," I said. "I don't care who is losing how much money at Peno Rose's Sky Hi Club. Right here in this hospital people are dying. Ask old Thousand Cuts," I went on, nodding to the scalpel surgeon. "We just pulled one out of the fire. When does this come in second best to saving the skin of some tinhorn gambler?" "Your Lodge obligations come first," he said quietly. "We have a replacement for you here. Here's your ticket for Lake Tahoe," he added, holding out an envelope from a travel agency. "I'm staying here, Maragon," I said. "I'm a TK surgeon. I'm all through tipping dice." "You may not find it practical," he said, getting up to leave. Well, I hadn't. Three snakes inside my head had made me a sucker for the real one on my arm. Maragon had made his point. I might have reached the thirty-third degree, but I wasn't quite as big a shot as I thought I was. I could feel that rattler on my arm all the way to Lake Tahoe. * * * * * Like any gambling house, the Sky Hi Club was a trap. Peno had tried to kid the public with a classy _decor_. It was a darned good copy of a nineteenth century ranch house. At the gambling tables everything was free--the liquor, the _hors d'oeuvres_, the entertainment. Everything, that is, but the gambling and the women. The casino was taking its cut. And the women--or should I be so sure? You paid for your drinks if you stood up to the long mahogany bar. I turned my back to the rattle of cocktail shakers and chink of glasses, one heel hooked over the replica brass rail, and took a long careful look at the crap tables. There was a job for me at one of them. I began to shut out the distractions of sight and sound. I wanted nothing to dull my PSI powers. A blond bombshell slithered down the bar and ground herself against my leg. "Wanna buy me a drink, honey?" she gasped. I smuggled a lift and slipped all four of her garters off the tops of her hose. A funny, stricken look replaced the erotic face she had made at me. She headed for dry dock.