by Nick Macfie
“Very good to see you again, madam. I am sure you understand there’s a limit to how much I can chat.”
“Of course, Percy. I hear the man call out Percy. I will call out Percy.”
Oh lord, she was coming on strong. For what reason? The general just sat there, staring at his chips. If he could see them through those totally unnecessary black shades. The Chinese girl was looking at me with a big smile, but at the same time she now had her arm around the general and was tickling his ear. She remembered me with grace. What did that mean? I wanted to say grace.
“Zero-three,” she said.
Neither she nor the general placed the bet, even though he was at the front of the table and could easily have reached across. He merely placed five chips on the baize in front of him, next to the first eighteen, and waited for me to place them for him.
I surveyed the table. Lots of silly bets on the even chances - black/red, even/odd, first eighteen/last eighteen - and on the two-to-one columns. I spun the wheel and kept my eye out for anyone trying it on.
“No more bets please.”
I waited until the final clatter and turned to see the ball hop, skip and jump and then slide, skip again and finally come to rest.
“Twenty-two black.”
“Twenty-two black,” the girl said. “A quarter of the wheel away. Do you know who struck gold with twenty-two black?”
“Madam?” I cleared the table, paid out a couple of small two-to-one bets.
“The Bulgarian couple in Rick’s Cafe, of course. She needed money to get visa out of Casablanca, or else sleep with Captain Renault.”
“Place your bets, please.”
“Captain Renault one big slippery customer. So Rick tells the guy, this nice guy, to put all money on twenty-two black and he signals to the dealer and twenty-two black wins. Then Rick tells him to leave the bet alone on the table, and he wins again.”
I reached over to keep the wheel spinning. It was not allowed to stop while the gin joint was open.
“So the Bulgarians get their money and beautiful girl is spared sleeping with big slimy policeman. She goes up to Rick to say thank you, knowing he has fixed it, and he takes her arms from around his neck and says: ‘He’s just a lucky guy.’”
“He’s just a lucky guy. Place your bets please.”
“Which is beautiful, because it means the guy is lucky in winning money, and he is lucky having beautiful girl like the young Bulgarian who is sexy and loves her husband. Also she lucky Rick was around to fix table. And he is sexy because he is bad man. A good man, but bad.”
Boy, this woman could talk. “Place your bets please.”
“I am not ashamed to say it is a scene in movie which makes me weep. Zero-three.”
I spun the ball.
“I hope you are not inferring anything dishonest about our operation, madam.” This was the pit boss, friendly and unthreatening and with an eye on this woman’s slim waist.
“Of course not. Not unless you can hit twenty-two black again right now. I just kidding. Big joke. Anyway, in the movie, it was magic and nice.”
The ball hopped, skipped, didn’t jump, and landed.
“Five red.”
“Oh dear.”
The pit boss signalled for a change of dealer. I clapped my hands and left the table and did not find out if the girl and the general had ended the evening down or ahead.
The two of them appeared regularly after that, sometimes sitting at my table, sometimes not. But when I clapped my hands and went for my break, they would more often than not be at my table when I returned. If they placed bets all over the table, instead of concentrating on one number, they lost.
About two weeks later, I clapped my hands and left the table for what was called the green room, the place we could eat and drink with a door to the outside deck where we could smoke. On the way I met the Chinese girl coming out of the ladies’ room, the same big smile on her face. She put out a hand which I automatically shook against all the rules. She was passing a note. Surreptitiously. She returned to the table.
Inside the green room, I unfolded it.
“Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself,” it said.
My phone beeped an SMS. “Would you like to come over to my wood to help me make ash and willow stakes and stick them somewhere?” Oh, not now, Sparky.
The Chinese girl’s note was certainly cryptic. Give whom enough rope? The old man? Give him enough rope and he will hang himself and then she and I could get it on together and afterwards I would say grace? Or was she talking about me? Was she warning me off something, telling me to get off the boat? What did the expression mean anyway? Allow someone freedom to do what they want and it will end in their downfall. Is that what it meant? Is that what she meant? Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? It was also possible that she had given me the wrong note, or chosen the wrong person to give it to. Perhaps this had huge significance for someone else in this nether region of greed and crime. Perhaps she meant for me to pass it on. There was also a chance she was a complete nutter and that she handed this note to everyone she met.
The next night, on the same walk to the green room, I saw a familiar face from the Wanchai bars and instinctively put my hand out to shake. Big mistake. I was bounced into the green room and into the lav by two Finns who had been giving me the evil eye ever since I started work.
“What is the game, Percy?”
“Nothing. It was an old friend. We just shook hands. Are you finished?” (Are you Finnish, ha ha)
“Such a good old friend that you pull strokes together? How much did you give him from the palm of your hand?”
“Nothing!” There was that expression again. It was so tacky and suggestive. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did you give chips?”
“No.”
They tightened their grip. “Did you give chips? Did you give the Chinese woman chips?”
“What?”
“The Chinese woman. Last night. You give her something. She gives you something. Which is it?”
“She gave me a note.”
“What did it say, this note?”
“It said…”
“Yes?”
“It said… it said: ‘Christmas comes but once a year.’ Don’t ask me why. I have no idea what it means. I know not this woman.”
The two men looked at each other. ‘I know not this woman’ was a new and confusing way of speaking. “You pull strokes with her too?”
“No. I promise.”
“And the man?”
“Go and ask him.”
“We can do better than that.”
There was a knock at the door and two other security guys came in.
“Anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“Yes. Still nothing.”
The men let my arm go. “Well, let that be lesson. The next time we even suspect you of pulling strokes, you will disappear. Do you hear?”
“Sure. I won’t shake hands with anyone again.”
“Pull a stroke and you won’t be seeing your friends again.”
Right, I know. Masturbation makes you blind. They hurt the guy I shook hands with? I didn’t even know his name, just that he had some sort of unspecified media job and worked from a tiny office near the bars. Or used to anyway. Who did they think they were? I had a story on my hands right then and there. He probably thought he did too.
That night, back in the safety of my flat on Lamma, I had a vivid dream about Princess Diana, who agreed to give me an interview about the inner workings of casinos in Soho as long as I didn’t mention the Pet Shop Boys in the first ten paragraphs.
BAXTER CALLED me into his office the next morning.
“Hadley, we’ve had a breakthrough on the missing dealers.”
“Terrific. Have they all become monks? Travel agents? What happened to them?”
“This is from London. An impeccable source.”
“
Great. What happened to them?”
“Let me get to this my way, if you don’t mind. It’s all a bit bizarre.”
“I’m all ears, Rodney.”
Baxter was shuffling in his seat as it the breakthrough wasn’t going to be quite as dramatic as first suggested. And then he was looking up at someone coming in behind me. It was the London news editor, Harriet Stone.
“I told you my source was impeccable,” Baxter said, rising from his seat.
I stood up and Stone and I swapped polite greetings. It was the first time I had seen her in a skirt, rather than jeans. An old gardening skirt, it had to be said, but a skirt nevertheless. She was wearing her mischievous smile.
“We have developments,” she said, sitting down at the side of Baxter’s desk.
“Big enough to bring Harriet all the way out to Hong Kong,” Baxter said.
“No,” she said. “I was coming out here anyway.”
“What’s happened?” I asked a third time.
“It involves six dealers from the ship,” she said sternly. “I have it on good authority they’ve gone back to London and… it’s difficult for me to say this. Within days of arriving, they had moved into single rooms, all in different parts of London, and they’d applied to join the Conservative Party.”
“I…”
“Let me finish, Hadley. It doesn’t end there. Three of the dealers.” She paused, glanced at Baxter and then caught my eye. “Three of them want to become bankers.”
“I.”
“Wait. You’re wondering where I got the information. I realise that. I don’t mind telling you, within these four walls. I know the chairman of the Conservative Party.”
“Sir Hugh Peckham-Heath.” Baxter said solemnly.
“Sir Hugh Peckham-Heath. Yes. Packing Heat for short. We were having dinner the other night and I was telling him about our casino story and he came straight out with it.”
“What did he say?” Baxter asked.
“He said they had security protocols and ran checks on all people wanting to join the Tory Party. Some smart lawyer saw a trend of vague work assignments out East and made some checks. Bingo.”
“Bingo,” Baxter said. “That’s funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be funny. Pursuant to these checks, Sir Hugh was apprised of the situation in which three of the Conservative candidates were making inquiries in respect of working for banks. Behind the till at first, wearing elastic-metal armbands, with their aspirations aimed at more opportune and highly rewarded positions. Currency swaps, derivatives, exploitation on a large scale.”
“Harriet, are you feeling all right?” I asked.
“I feel a tad flushed, to tell you the truth.”
“It’s the jet lag,” I said. “Does it every time coming out this way.”
“Unless it’s a royal flush,” Baxter said. “Does Sir Hugh have any palatial blood?”
“Palatial blood?” Stone asked. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll get you some water.”
“No need, Hadley. Thank you.”
“Harriet,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you, we’ve got a great story on our hands. It’s simply amazing. I heard one of the dealers say he loved the Conservative Party.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, that’s just it. I’m not sure what I mean. We were talking about something completely different, and it just popped out. ‘I love the Conservative Party,’ he said. Like he had been brainwashed.”
“Good God.”
“I asked him why he had said it and he denied saying it at all. It was like it was so subliminal. And that’s not the end of it. The girl from London. Scout. I told her I wanted to be a banker.”
“Oh lord.”
“I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Forgive me for being a bit slow off the mark on this,” Baxter said. “But what is the significance of these dealers wanting to become Conservatives?”
“It’s mind over matter,” Stone said. “There’s some sort of hypnosis hocus-pocus going on. How are they doing it, Hadley?” She turned to Baxter. “Rodney, you don’t find this strange?”
“Of course it’s strange. Anyone wanting to join the Conservative Party is strange. Hadley’s always been strange. But I am struggling to find a peg for the story. From the information you have given us, I mean.”
“In which case I have not explained myself properly,” Stone said. “Six British casino workers, illegal casino workers, at the same casino in Hong Kong, make quick exits from their jobs, turn up in six different constituencies in London and make six separate applications to join the Conservative Party.”
“Again, it’s strange, but.”
“How many Tory croupiers do you know?”
“I don’t know many croupiers at all. I don’t think I know any Tories. Not out here anyway. I know a German.”
“These six are not particularly well-educated. They come from working-class backgrounds. Three of them, all in their twenties, want to go back to school to take whatever exams you have to take to become a fucking banker. One of them has applied to join an amateur dramatics society, for heaven’s sake. And now, Hadley here says he has heard one of them say he loves the Tories. Even Hadley has been saying weird shit.”
“So what do you think is going on?” Baxter asked.
“That’s what I want Hadley to find out. Sniff around the ship. Talk to the dealers. Do a bit of reporting.”
“It’s absurd,” I said.
“Yes,” Stone said. “That is what makes it irresistible. The Conservatives find themselves slipping a bit in the polls, so they hold a meeting in some gentlemen’s club in Mayfair and brainstorm a few ideas. Let’s do some more advertising, one says. Fuck off, another says. Let’s get some sleazebag movie actor on board, one says. We’ve got all the sleazebag actors on board, another says. I know, says a third. Let’s do something really weird and subliminal on a rusting tanker parked off a former leper colony on the other side of the world and recruit deviant croupiers to the cause. Yea, they all shout before rushing off to the bog to give each other blowjobs with whisky chasers.”
I should point out that Harriet Stone wasn’t a Conservative and had little time for toffs. I gave any fling she might be having with Sir Hugh Peckham-Heath a month tops.
“Maybe they’re after the gamblers,” I added. “There’s more of them, after all. Many of them are already bankers.”
“That would make sense. All bankers are gamblers. And they wouldn’t show up so easily on the records for the Tories to spot any trend.”
“Either way, it’s a great story,” I said.
“We will need to get London involved,” Stone said. “We’ll have to talk to these Conservative moles in Dalston and poncy Putney. But let’s not trip over ourselves. It’s our story to take at our own speed. Everyone will have to play catch-up.” Stone clapped her hands once. “We will set the news agenda for the whole world on this. It’s totally fucking bizarre. It’s a great story.”
“What if Peckham-Heath spills the beans? Baxter asked.
“Leave him to me.”
THE NEXT NIGHT I clapped my hands at the table to end my shift, changed, had a shot from the hip flask and stepped out to wait for the sampan to take me home. The ship was rocking gently and I watched a torch light in the trees on the slopes of the neighbouring island of Lantau. There was some giggling from the deck below as three customers left one of the “palaces of pleasure”.
I had still not had a good look around the ship. The women who greeted the guests would smile at the dealers, but never talk. Muriel would look straight past me. Right then, there was no one around. There were no sampans pulling up, so no security guards or Stepford Wives at the top of the steps. I hopped over a chain saying “private” and climbed three decks down some white metal stairs, hidden from view for the most part by lifeboats. In a shadow I pulled off my coat and jumper to reveal a jacket and tie. I pulled out a ridiculous fedora and sunglasses from
a bag and replaced them with my jumper and coat. I was hopefully well enough disguised as a prat to stop anyone taking too close a look. I just wanted to get a lay of the land, something I should have done that first day instead of learning the house rules of deck quoits. I heard footsteps and pressed myself back against the wall, sticky with sea spray. I was off the main B2 deck and in darkness. A large, bearded European-looking man passed with an Asian girl on his arm. I heard just a snippet of conversation.
Man: Will it make a buzzing noise when the liquid ejects?
Girl: Just remember to pull it to the left and down in a circular motion.
Concentrate, Hadley. The roulette tables were two decks up. One deck up were the massage parlours and lap dancing and sea games room. B3 was in darkness. This deck, B2, was a mystery. This is where I imagined things going on that weren’t pleasant and barely legal. My imagination hadn’t stretched to machines that buzzed when they started ejecting liquid. I was going to make this a quick reconnaissance and then got off the boat. Too risky to hang around. Don’t fuck around anywhere other than B3, the thugs had said. There were three metal doors, painted a thick blue and with little steering wheels around the edges to lock someone in really securely. Or lock someone out. I tried the first. I was in a dully lit room full of brooms, mops and aluminium vacuum flasks. There were hooks on the wall, cardboard boxes on the floor. I tried an inside door which opened on to another small room. The light was low and blue and the wall opposite was glass. On the other side of the glass were tiered benches, like the choir stalls in a church. Or like the goldfish bowl massage parlours where you pick out your girl by number. The benches were full of people - twenty or more.
The difference from a church, and it was a huge difference, was that instead of choristers, they were grown-ups wearing round-collared Star Trek uniforms from the waist up, the women with tightly coiffed hair and the men with lots of Brylcreem. Another huge difference was that none of the Trekkies was wearing anything below the waist. They were all stark-bollock naked. Including the women. Beam me up, Scotty. I started to back out slowly and pulled the door shut.
“The draught is turning my bottom blue, blue, blue,” I heard a woman say before the door closed. Phew.