I took stock before beginning to lose my stack of chips. There were more than twenty gamblers of both sexes pressed up against the green baize of the crap layout. Three stick-men in black aprons that marked them for dealers were working on the other side or the table. We had at least one dealer too many for the crowd. That screamed out loud the table was having trouble. Big gambling layouts know within minutes if a table is not making its vigorish. A Nevada crap layout, with moderately heavy play, should make six per cent of the amount gambled on every roll. That's its vigorish--its percentage. If the take falls below that, the suspicion is that the table is being taken to the cleaners by a crooked gambler, or "cross-roader." The table I had picked was the only one in the Sky Hi Club's casino with more than one stick-man working it. The girl sniffled, and her long skinny arm reached around behind me to snag a couple sandwiches the size of postage stamps from a waiter's tray. She wolfed them down, wiping at the end of her long nose with a wadded-up hunk of cambric. She'd done it before, and plenty, for her nose was red and sore. She made cow-eyes at me. "Don't say it," I told her. "I'm not your darlin' Billy." The dice were to my right--I'd get them after a couple more losers rolled. My unwanted hustler stood on that side of me, too. They never have any money of their own. I wasn't about to give her any of mine. I wanted to lose some dough in a hurry. I started playing field numbers, and TK'd the dice away from the field every time a gambler came out. Of course, I could have let the table's six per cent vigorish take it away from me, but that would have taken longer. Even with losing on every roll, the dice got around to me before I had lost the nine hundred I had set out to drop. I put four chips on the "Don't Pass" side of the line, shook left-handed because of my weak right arm, and got ready to come out. Sniffles seized me. "Don't Billy Joe!" she said suddenly. "You'll lose!" She pushed my chips across the line to the "Pass" side. That burned me up. "Get your hands off my chips," I said, annoyed by bad gambling manners. Her face was all resignation and sadness. Well, not quite all. A lot of it was thin, red nose and buck teeth. "You'll lose, darlin' Billy," she said. "Pull those chips back!" I said. Her eyebrows shrugged, but she did as I told her. I came out, and tipped the dice to eleven. I kept the dice, but lost my chips, which is what I wanted. Throwing six more down on the "Don't Pass" side, I rattled the ivories in my left hand. Tears began to roll down her unhealthy cheeks. "Lose!" she cried nasally, and sniffled. "Billy Joe! Listen to me, darlin' Billy! You'll lose!" Her eyes rolled up toward the top of her head as I ignored her and came out. Sniffles gasped, "Hit's a seven!"