by Nick Macfie
Four black. Nothing.
I cleared the table. They brought on a second chipper to help deal with the load. The general started placing his bets, the same segment around zero as before. I gave a nudge to the wheel to make it go faster and upset the rhythm.
“Place your bets, please.”
The tubby, flabby general sat back while the other punters placed their bets. He turned to the girl, put his hand on her shoulder and smiled.
As he did so, his sleeve fell back enough for me to see a tattoo of a single, purple bauhinia flower on his wrist. He took off his sunglasses, leant on the table and turned to me, resting his chin in his right hand. He let his fingers move up over his nose until his fore and middle fingers were pointing into his eyes. He turned his hand around and pointed the fingers at me.
“Percy?” This was the chef. “Percy?”
“No more bets, please!” I shouted it out like “No more orders, please!”
I was agog. It couldn’t be true. The hand movement had wiped off some embalming foundation, revealing a patch of Terry’s tumescent nose. The ball was clattering over the metal studs, jumping back on to the woodwork and then skipping over the number stalls. I was watching, I was watching, I was watching…
“Poppycock.”
Who said that? It was someone opposite me near the wheel. It wasn’t the general, it was someone behind him. I didn’t know who. I was confused.
I turned to the wheel and the ball had already dropped. I only realised then it had been stationary for too long. Seconds, anyway. Long enough for all to see.
The oldest trick in the book.
“Thirty-five red,” I called weakly.
Thirty-five red. A near neighbour of zero on the wheel, furthest away from the wheel on the baize, which the general had covered heavily as before. A full stack of twenty at $10 a chip. A quick $7,000. That was at first glance.
I started to clear the table around thirty-five red - and only then saw a $1,000 cash chip underneath the stack. Another $35,000 straight away.
I couldn’t swear to it, but that cash chip hadn’t been there when I had called no more bets. Someone had pulled a stroke. Some deft fucker at the bottom of the table could have placed a chip on top of the general’s column without being noticed, but to place it underneath the column unnoticed was miraculous.
Miraculous, but not impossible.
I turned sheepishly to the chef and pit boss in turn. I had seen nothing, they had seen nothing and I paid out the bets. Terry was smiling as he nodded to the girl.
“It’s been a pleasure,” he said to the chef as he stood up, clumsily picking up his chips like pebbles with the palms of his hands and dropping them into the girl’s bag. “I’m just a lucky guy.”
His flabby stomach was pressed against the table, pushing up whatever cushions or padding he was wearing under the purple shirt to make him look like he was wearing a flak jacket, which was pushing against his fake jowly neck. He was going to fucking need a flak jacket, the bastard. The shape of his body was all wrong. He looked like a child’s image of a fat man drawn on the back seat of a car moving fast on a bumpy road. I was staring at the face now, swollen and flabby and unreal. What a show. How did he do that? Why had he done that? Why so much trouble?
IT WAS MIDNIGHT when Terry left with his winnings and I saw Genghis Khan talking urgently into a phone. Everything was calm, but I wondered briefly about Terry’s safety. This was a man with a plan and I didn’t worry for very long.
I ended my shift at five in the morning, slept for a few hours and went to a dim sum restaurant in the main street for lunch, picking up a two-day-old copy of the South China Morning Post on the way.
It was cold and crisp and the front-page picture was of students gathering on the top of Taai Mo Saan to see the frost amid predictions of winter snow for the first time in recorded history! I scoffed. Deep and crisp and bet on even. Would they be able to make it back down through the drifts?
I heard a slow clip-clop of high heels and Scout was standing at my table. She put her arms around my shoulders slowly. (He’s just a lucky guy!)
“Remember that red chip you gave me in Camden Town,” she said. “It’s worked.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said it would bring me luck. Well it has.”
“What luck?”
“I got my money.”
“What?”
“I got my money. Every last penny and then some. All done up in a parcel and left in a giant stocking above my bed.”
“You’ve got all your money?”
“It’s in my flat!”
“Shhh. Not so loud.”
“It’s got to be that rich guy in the casino,” she said in a whisper.
“Which rich guy?”
“The Chinese guy with the gorgeous girl.”
“He certainly won big last night. I was dealing to him. Is it in bundles of notes? You should really deposit it in an established High Street bank which offers exciting opportunities to grow your hard-earned savings.”
“Oh don’t go loopy on me now, Hadley?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that.
“It took me about an hour to count. It came with a card.” She scrambled through her bag. “Addressed to me and Eve. Take a look for yourself.”
Scout handed me a Christmas card. She was wearing the short pink sweater saying “Made in Heaven”. The card was a run-of-the-mill picture of a sprig of holly next to a candle. “Merry Christmas,” it read inside. “Something for when the chips are down.”
“There was something else. For you. Sorry, I looked inside. I know what it is.”
Scouted handed over the little box Terry had given me in the New Territories.
“It’s a snow globe of Hong Kong.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know? I tell you what. Let’s go and see him.”
“You know where he is?”
“I can pretty much guarantee where he is. Right now. Not a million miles from where we are sitting.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“We set off down to the main street and turned right towards the pier. A guy with a long grey beard, a pile of books and a dog was sitting cross-legged on the concrete, huddled in a duffel coat. He looked up at us and gave a big smile.
“Happy Christmas,” he said.
“Happy Christmas,” I replied, surprised at the lack of my usual urge to say something snide. It was the first time I had ever talked to him.
We walked down the street, past the bars and the restaurants and the little hotel on the corner and headed past the rusting bicycles on to the pier.
I looked towards the bench where Terry had taken up residence, near where I had met Scout that first time when she had jumped down from the fence.
The bench was empty.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A RADIO ON THE FERRY was playing an English-language station as I took the journey into Hong Kong on Boxing Day. It had done a survey of listeners and come up with the number one most popular Christmas song.
I eased back into my seat, angry at first at this intrusion of noise. Then I got into the Christmas spirit. A few songs came to mind. Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, looking out the window of her house in “Meet me in St Louis” with that of rush of violently red hair. Dean Martin singing “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow” on his fifth large dry Martini before shagging some voluptuous Hollywood babe on a rug in front of a log fire, still wearing a jumper with a reindeer on the front. And you couldn’t rule out Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” at the same time as filling a pipe (in a different way to Dean Martin). At a pinch, John Lennon’s “So this is Christmas”.
“And the winner is…” the DJ gushed. They’ll go for George Michael. Or that Band Aid “Feed the wo-orld” nonsense with Bob Geldof brushing his hair back off his eyes. Surely it couldn’t be Paul McCartney’s abysmal “
Having a wonderful Christmas time”.
“The winner is… a well loved classic… blah, blah… deserving of its place as an icon in history… blah, blah… the best of modern artistry and execution…”
“Get to the point, you tosser.” I mumbled this under my breath. Truth be told, there weren’t many people going to work on a Hong Kong Boxing Day other than journalists. The ferry was almost empty.
“It’s a crowd favourite, a festive speciality. Have any of you listeners got there ahead of us?”
“Get to the point!”
“Probably you have, you probably have. In your snow shoes and pony and traps and jingle bells and mistle…”
“Get to the fucking point!”
“It’s an easy one really. Spilling over with sparkling credentials to place it firmly at the top of the snow pile. Up there with the angel at the top of the Christmas tree. It is, of course…”
“What?”
“Your very own…”
“What?”
“‘Dirty, Dirty Dancer. Dirty, Dirty Dancer’.”
“No, that is not possible.”
“Oh yes,” the man on the radio said.
“But it’s not a Christmas song. It’s not even a song! I can’t think of anything more crass, more unfit…
“Yessss,” the man on the radio shouted.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and the someone squirted something frothy and smelling of chemicals in my face. I dragged enough of it out of my eyes to see the schoolgirl who lost her phone to a pickpocket months earlier.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, shaking a can of fake snow.
“Why did you do that?”
“Are you still talking to yourself, you pervert?”
“That could make me go blind. I am not a pervert. I saw the man who stole your phone.” The girl ran off giggling.
Back in the office, Baxter was in the usual position, with his back to the desk, staring out over the harbour.
“Tragic business, Hadley.”
If he was talking about me being squirted in the eye with fake snow, then no argument. But he was talking about Zeb.
“Indeed,” I said. I wasn’t lying. It was tragic what Zeb had tried to do to Scout. What Zeb had done to Scout.
“Such a good man in spite of everything.” Baxter looked back at me, waiting for a response.
“It’s certainly a tragic affair.”
“Did you know he was up to his ears in debt at your casino?”
“He had suggested as much.”
“And yet he was from such a rich family. There were also girls involved.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Girls,” I said. It was a mystery.
“I ought to tell you, Hadley - and this is the reason I called you in - that this affair has prompted the police to act.”
“Excellent.”
“I suspect they will close the casino down and make arrests. They will have many questions for you.”
“Of course.”
“Your undercover operation is over, I’m afraid.”
“There’s lots I can write. I’ve got the whole inside story. For once, it’s a really great story. There’s still more to be pinned down on the subliminal stuff but…”
“Yes, that would be wonderful.”
“The brainwashing stuff is just magic. Tories, Trappists, Chelsea supporters.”
“That would be wonderful,” Baxter said again. “But not really possible without mentioning Zeb.” He turned his chair back to face me.
“He’s not the story,” I said. “He is an interesting detail, that’s all. There is also a very good story about a Chinese man who won a lot of money after pissing under the table.”
“How could you write it without blowing your cover? I presume you’d want a by-line?”
“We could disguise the source somehow. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
“We feel it’s time to get back to basics. Good, solid spot news.”
“This is spot news. It’s also interesting for once.”
“I think we should drop it and move on.”
“Drop it?”
“Yes. And move on.”
“But this is a great story. It’s got everything. What does Harriet say?”
“It’s a bit close to home. She agrees. The opposition would have a field day.”
“Well how about I write a story about Zeb? Then there couldn’t be any field day.”
“Let’s draw a veil over it, shall we?”
“We can, if you like. But what a waste of time.” I sat back in my chair. What an extraordinary business this was, I thought. A story that wrote itself with illegal gambling, Conservative Party corruption, blokes with penis tattoos, threats about talking to the punters, an old Chinese gangster embalming himself, shooting people with a bow and arrow, handing over his winnings to a long-lost daughter who just happens to be working in the casino, not to mention people getting aroused in front of Chairman Mao. And I was being told I couldn’t write it.
Baxter’s phone rang.
“Excuse me,” he said, picking it up, turning to face the harbour and talking in hushed tones.
I turned in my swivel chair to face the office and caught a door to another office, known as the tomb because it had no windows, opening in the far corner. Three men came out. The first was the security consultant prick Dr Lim, the second was a Shrubs business executive who had nothing to do with editorial, and the third was a man in a cream blazer with cropped platinum hair.
“Sorry about that, Hadley.” Baxter said. “Where were we?”
“I don’t understand the world we live in,” I said. “I feel cold.”
“What are you saying?” Baxter leant forward across the desk.
“This is no time to go off at a tangent and make no sense. What do you mean you feel cold?”
“The air-conditioning. It’s on high. It makes me feel cold.”
“Is that all you mean? Really?”
“Really. There’s a man who comes round with a machine to check. It makes a buzzing noise.”
“Life’s all one big joke to you, isn’t it, Hadley?”
“No it isn’t. I feel aggrieved actually. I just saw that nice Dr Lim come out of the tomb with the gangster who runs the casino and has dealers bumped off for pulling strokes.”
Baxter looked at me, his milky eyes telling me that he was weak and that he knew it and that there was nothing he could do about it.
“We don’t know he’s a gangster,” he said.
“Yes we do.”
“He’s a banker and raises a lot of money for charity. No one has proved anything against him.”
“He kills dealers. I know this for a fact. I can see clearly now the rain has gone.”
“Now you’re going off at a tangent again. I plead with you to stop.”
“You expect me to drop the casino story because this man says so and go back to subbing stories about rice futures and soybean shipments and fiscal fucking hawks?”
“Fiscal fucking…?”
“After all I’ve been through? After all that drama on the high seas?”
“It was hardly the Battle of Trafalgar.”
“Kiss me, Hardly.”
“You see, you’re doing it again.”
“Is it all right if I take two weeks off?”
“What for?”
“To thank the lord that we live in a society with a vigorous and free press.”
“Oh, don’t be so naive, Hadley.”
“And to fly to England to learn how to sit down on a compost toilet carved out of a bat box without getting splinters.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh fuck off, Rodney. Go wipe your arse with conkers. Try to sleep well tonight.”
I WALKED DRAMATICALLY out of the office, realising the story was mine to do with as I wanted. Fuck Shrubs. I would walk away from them. That would be part of the story. I would sooner lose my job than my integrity. The English p
ress would love it. I would become famous. The power of the press! And the power of bad people! I was keen to track down Terry, but didn’t really expect to see him again. He had already made his dramatic exit. I walked up the hill on Lamma and asked around, but a geezer with the spiky grey hair didn’t ring any bells. Lamma isn’t a big island, and the hill is not very steep or long, but I couldn’t find out where he lived.
I saw Bob-a-Job heading towards me, wearing the same white linen jacket and red shorts but without the bottle of wine in his hand.
“Hadley,” he said as he passed. “Prick.”
“Bob.”
Oh what a colourful character. He would go down in the annals of Lamma folklore as one of the island’s most bizarre residents. I watched him head away from me towards the pier. Actually, he was neither colourful nor bizarre. He was a complete fucking dickhead. Almost too late I remembered what Terry had told me. About the mushroom farm. I called after Bob to stop and he came to a slow halt, as the command gradually gained access to his pickled brain, and turned.
“Sorry, Bob, don’t mean to interrupt.” His complexion was just dreadful. Splodgy and purple and dry with bit of skin falling off him. He looked like he would explode if you struck a match within a yard.
“What do you want, Hadley? Make it snappy, I’m in a hurry.”
“Of course. Sorry. Must be so many things to do on this island which need your urgent attention.”
“Are you taking the piss?”
All those mushrooms to look after. “No really, I can see you’re in a hurry. I was just wondering if you’d seen that skinny Chinese man who sits on the bench on the pier. The one with the spiky grey hair.”
“The old man with the tattoos?”
“That’s the one.”
“He used to sit on the bench on the ferry pier.”
“That’s the one.” So there were at least two cells chasing each other around in a circle in Bob’s severely compromised brain. Bob took up a relaxed pose as though he may want to spin this conversation out. I had to avoid that at all costs.
“Have you seen him recently, Bob?” Yes or no, please.
“He struck me as a little bit ambivalent.” Ambivalent. Oh boy, here we go. “I couldn’t make out whether he was an agent provocateur or…”
“An agent provocateur? Or what?”