Wanting to come out with an even thousand, I adjusted the size of her last bet. When I won it, I pulled my chips off the table, which Sniffles didn't resist. She used the lull to grab a handful of sandwiches from another waiter's tray. A gambler at the far end of the table came out, calling loudly to the dice. The cubes made the length of the table, bounced off the rail and came to a stop dead center, between me and the three stick-men in the black aprons. That's the instant when every eye is on the dice, trying to read the spots. And that's when the dice jumped straight up off the baize, a good six-inch hop into the air, and came down Snake Eyes, the old signal. Wow! I'd had it! "TK!" somebody yelled. He might as well have screamed, "Fire!" the way that mob of gamblers scuttled away from the table. "No dice," one of the dealers said automatically. He raked the hopping cubes sadly to him with his hoe-shaped dice-stick. I made a break for it with the rest of the crowd, trying to keep my eye on Sniffles. But she had the sure-loser's touch of slipping away from any authority. She vanished into the milling mob. My last glimpse had been of a skinny arm reaching up to pluck some more free _hors d'oeuvres_ from a tray as she fled. I should have saved myself the trouble. They had a bouncer on each of my elbows before I had moved five feet. They carried more than dragged me into a private dining room behind the bar. It went along with the ersatz rustic _decor_ of the rest of the Sky Hi Club. There was sawdust on the genuine wood floor, big brass spittoons and a life-sized oil-color of a reclining nude, done with meaty attention to detail, behind a small mahogany topped bar. Stacks of clean glasses vied for space with labeled bottles on the back-bar. One of the stick-men followed us into the room, taking his apron off as he closed the door behind him, shutting out the roaring clatter of the casino. "Cross-roader!" he hissed at me. I should have known what was coming, but I missed it. He slapped me hard across the face, saving his knuckles, but not doing my jaw a whole lot of good. I would have fallen clean over, but the bouncers were still tight on my elbows. "Wait!" I tried to say, but he cuffed me with the other hand, harder, if that were possible. This is the moment when you have to stop and think. A Blackout is quite effective--it's hard to hit what you can't see. And there's something mighty unnerving about being stricken suddenly blind. Oh, face it, I suppose the real reason I felt for the arteries supplying blood to his retinas was that so few TK's can do it. I clamped down tight, and his lights went out. He cried out in fright, and both hands came groping up in front of him, his fingers trembling. "I'm blind!" he said, not able to believe it. He began to lose his balance.