Read "Knock Three-One-Two" by Fredric Brown online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A clock somewhere was striking nine as Ray Fleck got out of the taxi in front of Dolly Mason's apartment, and he knew that he was on time. He'd had trouble finding a cab and had thought he was going to be late -- not that a few minutes late would have mattered but if he was very late Dolly would be annoyed; Dolly got annoyed easily if you were late for a date with her. Then just at the right moment a cab had pulled in to the curb right near him to discharge passengers, and he'd caught it.
A turn in his luck? God, he hoped so. _Everything_ had been going wrong today and tonight, up till then. What had got into him to pop off about Connolly's thirty-dollar bet when it had been Sam's that Amico had been talking about! A lousy six bucks, and he _had_ forgotten about it by then. Connolly's thirty had been the one on his mind. Hell, he thought disgustedly, he really couldn't blame Amico for not believing that he'd not been covering bets and dragging down right along, when he'd come up with a boner like that.